Publications
We are fortunate to be offered the opportunity of contributing to some major developer-oriented outlets from time to time. Here is a snapshot of our latest work:
Adobe AIR Xdrive Picture Syncing: Part 5
February 15, 2008
by Brice Mason
On Tuesday I demonstrated the use of a proxy to upload pictures from AIR to Xdrive via drag and drop. Today we wrap up this series by showing you how to download files from Xdrive to AIR using this same technique, but this time using a context menu control.
Adobe AIR Xdrive Picture Syncing: Part 4
February 13, 2008
by Brice Mason
We left off last time with our user interface filled out nicely with pictures from both the local filesystem and the "My Photos" folder on Xdrive. Today, we'll add some drag/drop interaction using Ext to facilitate the uploading of local pictures to Xdrive.
Creating Accessible Web 2.0 Applications Using AXS
February 11, 2008
by Brice Mason
Web developers are the ultimate communicators. We often are tasked with realizing the vision of an entire team whose job is to market, promote, and service their stakeholders. But what happens when your users are limited, or even excluded from, the experience you worked so hard to offer them? Whether it be a case of reduced vision, dexterity, or hearing, a growing percentage of users experience some form of barrier to accessibility. Although helping users overcome these barriers is itself enough reason to start designing for accessibility now, a variety of other factors, including government regulation, profitability, and user perception all are important motivations to design to support accessibility. In this article, I will describe and demonstrate some of the most common accessibility features you can incorporate into your Web 2.0 applications by using the AOL AXS JavaScript library.
Adobe AIR Xdrive Picture Syncing: Part 3
February 10, 2008
by Brice Mason
Although we've made great strides the last couple of posts developing the Xdrive picture syncing utility with Ext JS and Adobe AIR, today we get going with the really good stuff. In this third part of a five part series, I'll show you how to retrieve and display pictures from both your local file system and Xdrive.
An Xdrive Primer
February 6, 2008
by Brice Mason
AOL's Xdrive Data Service Platform (XDSP) is a complete virtual storage system you can use to enhance the services you offer to your users. Not only does it provide you with 5 gigabytes (GB) of user-allocated storage to start (and more, if you want), Xdrive also includes a set of services you can use to create, manage, and support a unique experience for your user base. This article will walk you through the development of an Xdrive client utility developed using Yahoo! User Interface Toolkit (YUI), a popular JavaScript library used to enable rapid application development.
Adobe AIR Xdrive Picture Syncing: Part 2
February 6, 2008
by Brice Mason
Last time we covered the important points of developing AJAX style Adobe AIR projects and its impact on our Xdrive application. Having nailed down the architecture, today we move on to defining the user interface in Ext JS.
Adobe AIR Xdrive Picture Syncing: Part 1
February 4, 2008
by Brice Mason
Back in November, I presented a series dedicated to the development of Adobe AIR AJAX applications which concluded with the development of a Truveo video search application. Today we kick off a five part series which builds from this foundation to create an application which makes it easy to migrate pictures from the local filesystem to Xdrive and back again.
OpenMail - New Mail List Service: Part 2
January 25, 2008
by Brice Mason
On Tuesday we completed the heavy lifting required to query the OpenMail API for new mail listings, perform some minor data transformations, and create a minimized data feed. Today we'll write just a few lines of code to create a rich interface using Ext JS.
OpenMail - New Mail List Service
January 22, 2008
by Brice Mason
Last time I showed you how to interact with the OpenMail API's mail count service using a ColdFusion proxy and Ext JS front end. Today we'll take a look at the new mail list service, a method used to obtain more detailed information about new mail that pops into your AOL mail.
Classic AJAX and the OpenMail API
January 18, 2008
by Brice Mason
The last couple of posts, we've starting exploring classic AJAX development using Ext JS. Having already completed our OpenBlog reader application, we'll apply more AJAX techniques to interact with the OpenMail API.
A few days back I wrote about using the OpenMail API in a simple server-side implementation using ColdFusion. Today, we'll use a mix of server and client side development to update an HTML/CSS based control with the new mail count for an AOL account.
Creating an AOL OpenBlog Reader: Part 2
January 16, 2008
by Brice Mason
Last Friday we created the shell of the user interface we'll be using for our AOL OpenBlog reader application using the Ext JS JavaScript libraries. Today we'll create a web service in ColdFusion to act as the data store.
If you've been following this blog for the past few weeks, you're more than familiar with the ongoing development of the AOL.Journals CFC, a ColdFusion implementation of the AOL OpenBlog API. We'll be using this as the core data source for the two main user interface components we've already developed using Ext JS, the Select a blog... combo box control and the grid control used to display blog entry information. Since method calls to the AOL.Journals CFC generally return ColdFusion native data structures, we need to write a web service to transform the data to a flexible, friendly data format, JSON.
Creating an AOL OpenBlog Reader: Part 1
January 11, 2008
by Brice Mason
Following the path of working with the AOL OpenBlog API, today kicks off a two part series on creating a blog reader application using Ext JS, a powerful JavaScript library which simplifies AJAX development through the use of reusable objects and widgets.
Ext JS started as a group of extensions to the Yahoo! User Interface library (YUI) by Jack Slocum. With it's most recent release of version 2.0, it's one of the simplest and most powerful JavaScript libraries on the market.
Exploring the OpenMail API
January 7, 2008
by Brice Mason
The recent introduction of the OpenMail API is the latest addition to AOL's set of messaging and communication APIs. This post will walk through the process of accessing this API using ColdFusion 8.
Controlling Access to Private AOL Blogs
December 31, 2007
by Brice Mason
Continuing our work interacting with the AOL Journals API, this post will demonstrate how to control access to your private blogs using the AOL.Journals CFC.
Handling AOL Journal Comments
December 26, 2007
by Brice Mason
Having demonstrated many key features of the AOL Journals API in my last post, this week I'll demonstrate a new capability of the AOL.Journals CFC project, handling comments.
AOL circaVie and Thickbox using PHP
December 18, 2007
by Tim Thate
AOL's circaVie is a utility which is used to create interactive timelines containing photos and text. This post will walk through the process of using PHP and the Thickbox javascript framework to display and view the timeline search results such that the browser does not need to reload the window.
AOL Journals CFC Sneak Peek
December 14, 2007
by Brice Mason
Last week I demonstrated some of the advanced capabilities of the AOL Journals API by integrating the features of AOL Open Authentication. Today we'll take it a step further by creating a fully capable CFC to add to the AOL API CFC project.
AOL Video Upload with ColdFusion
December 11, 2007
by Brice Mason
For the past few months, I've been working with and providing examples of using the AOL Truveo video search API in a number of configurations. Having created samples which interact with Truveo using Adobe ColdFusion, Flex, and AIR, it's clear that the functionality provided by this API enables rapid development of interesting applications. This is good, but we want more; We want to contribute! This post will demonstrate the process used to upload video to AOL using the new AOL Video Upload API.
Advanced AOL Journals with OpenAuth and ColdFusion
December 7, 2007
by Brice Mason
Last week I demonstrated some techniques you can use to parse blog feeds produced by the AOL Open Blog API. While you can take advantage of the public capabilities of this API very easily, it's not all that hard to unlock its complete set of features either. This post will demonstrate how to work with the advanced features of AOL Journals through the authentication capability of the AOL OpenAuth API.
Translation of Ficlets RSS Feeds Using Yahoo! Pipes and Google Translate
December 4, 2007
by Tim Thate
The purpose of this post is to show how to use Yahoo! Pipes in combination with Google Translate to not only translate a Ficlets RSS feed but also to modify the underlying URLs so that if these links are followed, the web pages viewed are translated as well.
Google Translate is a language translation utility that can translate either user-entered text or a web page. For the purposes of this post, we will focus on the web page translation functionality. As an example, here is http://dev.aol.com translated into German. You will see by inspecting the URL (http://www.google.com/translate) that there are four parameters:
Parsing AOL Blog Feeds with ColdFusion
December 3, 2007
by Brice Mason
AOL has an impressive offering of technologies not only for developers but everyday users as well. Their technology provides us with the capability to extend our reach to stay in touch as well as establish new connections with others. A key piece to the AOL technology set is the Open Blog API, an interface used to expose blogs created by AOL users. This post will demonstrate how to parse a blog listing for a given AOL user using ColdFusion.
Simple Ficlets XML API
November 28, 2007
by Brice Mason
Writing about technology can be challenging but I've always respected the craft of writing a good short story. Naturally, I like the idea of Ficlets, a user-generated collection of short stories with the ability for writers to add prequels and sequels. My curiousity as to why there isn't an API exposing this data coupled with Kevin Farnham's post on Scraping Well-Constructed Web Domains (Like Ficlets) has led me to develop a simple XML API which exposes the daily posting of Ficlets.
Adobe AIR Series - Truveo Sample App
November 25, 2007
by Brice Mason
The last few posts, we've been exploring the basics of developing AJAX based Adobe AIR applications. Today, we put it all together to create simple search functionality against the XML API of the Truveo video search service.
Using the GD Library in PHP to Plot Data in MapQuest
November 20, 2007
by Tim Thate
In this post, we will walk through the process of how to use the GD library in PHP to plot data on a MapQuest map.
By data, I am not referring to plotting just a location on a map, but plotting location specific data as well. Location gives you the "where", data will give you the "what" about that location. By using one of the icons from the MapQuest icon repository, you could plot a location with an icon indicating a restaurant or a gas station. By looking at a map such as this, we could quickly process where the gas stations and restaurants are and any patterns relating to the location of these businesses. For example, a high density of gas stations and restaurants along a line may indicate a major business route.
Adobe AIR Series - Advanced Features
November 16, 2007
by Brice Mason
Having covered many of the basics of developing AIR applications, we've discovered it's not all that different from our traditional HTML/JavaScript development workflows. Sure there are some additional considerations regarding the compilation and distribution of our resulting application, but generally our learning curve has been kept in check. This post will introduce some of the more advanced and interesting features of the AIR API.
Adobe AIR Series - Layouts, Styles, and Logic
November 13, 2007
by Brice Mason
Continuing on with the next installment of our series covering Adobe AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) development, this post will demonstrate how to hook in the styles and scripts we use for web development in our AIR desktop applications.
Adobe AIR Series - Introduction
November 9, 2007
by Brice Mason
We're lucky to be web developers. The past few years have provided us with incredible advancements in the tools and technologies we work with. Enhanced user interfaces, asynchronous communication capabilities, data interchange formats, and the explosion of service-based web applications have contributed to not only an added interest in our work, but a rich, clean experience for our audience. These are all great things, but we can have so much more. This post kicks off a series on building applications using the Adobe AIR runtime, a technology that allows you to use your existing web development skills to produce desktop applications.
OpenAuth Added to AOL CFC Project
November 6, 2007
by Brice Mason
Having demonstrated the integration of the AOL OpenAuth API into a ColdFusion application, the next natural move was to add this important functionality to our AOL API project on RIAForge. This week, I'll revisit the original post to demonstrate an even lighter code footprint that still provides the same powerful functionality of the OpenAuth scheme.
Accessible AJAX: AXS Library and the YUI Toolkit
November 2, 2007
by Brice Mason
Web development is hard work. Often times we are tasked with and held to nearly impossible requirements. Whether the goal is sex appeal, business impact, or accounting for browser platform combinations, the applications we build and the experiences we create must include our entire audience. To make things a little easier, AOL has released the AXS Library, a JavaScript library which allows you to continue the development of advanced applications with the added benefit of accessible features.
Integrating OpenAuth into ColdFusion Applications
October 26, 2007
by Brice Mason
A common requirement we're faced with when developing a new application is authentication. Although it might not be the most exciting thing in the world to build, the necessity is clear. Thankfully the AOL Open Authentication (OpenAuth) API is an easy to use, flexible way to handle much of the plumbing required by this critical task (not to mention expose your application to millions of AOL users). This post will run through a quick tutorial on introducing the OpenAuth API to a ColdFusion application.
XDrive and the AOL API ColdFusion Project
October 19, 2007
by Brice Mason
The last two weeks, I've been showing you how to interact with the XDrive API using ColdFusion. While the implementation has been fairly straightforward, it can be better. This week, I'll demonstrate the addition of the XDrive API to the AOL API CFC project available on RIAForge.
Building XDrive Batch Uploads
October 12, 2007
by Brice Mason
Last week I showed you how to craft a simple file browser utility using the XDrive API. This week we focus on getting data into our XDrive account through the building of a batch upload utility in ColdFusion.
XDrive File Browser
October 5, 2007
by Brice Mason
With all the buzz surrounding the new features about to hit the XDrive API, I thought it was time we explore this technology using ColdFusion. As an introduction to XDrive, I'll show you how to create a simple file browser using ColdFusion 8.
AOL Media Mashup
September 28, 2007
by Brice Mason
I'm still hooked on AOL's picture and video APIs and with good reason. Having created a formal ColdFusion project on the RIAForge site which supports the Truveo and AOL Pictures APIs, we are now capable of creating interesting search capabilities that span across many different media types. This post introduces the idea of using the results of a video search to find pictures of similar content.
Truveo CFC - Simple Search and Ratings Submission
September 21, 2007
by Brice Mason
The last few weeks we've been progressing through the AOL Pictures API and the beginnings of the Truveo video search API. Last week in particular we introduced how easy it is to access the Truveo search engine using just a few lines of ColdFusion code. Building from the framework we produced in the AOL Pictures CFC, this week we introduce the Truveo CFC, a complete solution for accessing the Truveo video search engine in ColdFusion.
ColdFusion and Truveo
September 14, 2007
by Brice Mason
During the last couple of weeks, we've explored the capability of the AOL Pictures API from the perspective of a ColdFusion developer. We started out creating a simple script, moved on to developing a complete CFC which manages all aspects of quering the pictures service, and we even fed picture data to an Adobe Flex application. So what could be better? Moving pictures! This post kicks off a similar series which exposes and simplifies the interaction of the Truveo API to the ColdFusion developer.
AOL Pictures and Flex
September 7, 2007
by Brice Mason
The AOL Pictures CFC I demonstrated last week hopefully opened up your curiosity to explore its possibilities. While we could certainly be happy with a standard DHTML application using any number of toolkits, this week we'll take it one step further and feed our pictures to an Adobe Flex application. Sure I love JavaScript, but Flex is pretty cool too.
AOL Pictures CFC
August 31, 2007
by Brice Mason
Last week I showed you how simple is it to work up some plain vanilla code to interact with the AOL Pictures API using ColdFusion 8. This week, I'll demonstrate the coldfusion component (CFC) I wrote which manages the entire life cycle of using the AOL Pictures API and then some. If you just want to get the code and explore, you can download it here. The download includes complete documentation on the CFC.
Since ColdFusion 8 is still very new, I decided to incorporate an additional component which supports the encoding/decoding of JSON data for pre-CF8 MX installations, json.cfc, currently maintained by Thomas Messier. This allows the ColdFusion developer to not even have to worry about the translation between JSON formatted data and native ColdFusion structures. It's all taken care of in the AOL Pictures CFC, no matter what version of ColdFusion MX you're running. Let's run through an example of using the CFC.
AOL Pictures and ColdFusion 8
August 24, 2007
by Brice Mason
The AOL developer blogs have been cooking pretty good here for the last week or so with some very good examples of interacting with the various APIs. There's been quite a bit of C# and Perl represented so I thought I would take a moment to show how easy it is to incorporate some of the new features of ColdFusion 8 which recently shipped. One of the great things about the AOL APIs is the accessibility to every level of developer talent. Whether you're a hardcore JavaScript person that likes to hang more on the client side or a server side guru, there's plenty of space for everyone to get a chance to create some interesting mashups.
Your Greatest Ally
August 17, 2007
by Brice Mason
I have to be blunt. JavaScript is the best programming language. Whether or not you agree, its implementation in our world as developers should be properly acknowledged. I can't think of another technology that offers the flexibility of JavaScript. It can be object-oriented or procedural, server-side or client-side, desktop or webtop, and even a means for data interchange. It's responsible for validating data before hitting our treasured servers, animating objects to stimulate users, managing events and behaviors, extending desktop software applications, and even styling and creating the entire look and feel of web applications.
ColdFusion and WMI
August 17, 2007
by Brice Mason
Tutorial on accessing the Microsoft Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) using ColdFusion. This article also includes a download of wmi.cfc, a ColdFusion component which simplifies the reading of properties from the WMI providers.