Monthly Archives: October 2008

AJAX, Disambiguation

“AJAX,” which stands for “Asynchronous Javascript and XML” has sadly been being used as a buzzword lately, referring to Javascript/DHTML tricks rather than it’s “real” meaning.

AJAX is the use of the XMLHttpRequest object in JavaScript to load new content from a server into a page, without reloading the page. A good example of this is Twitter. Type your new message into the box, press the button, and your message is sent to the server (and a response is sent back) without the page being reloaded. This is AJAX.

What AJAX isn’t, but people keep referring to as AJAX, is dynamic Javascript tricks such as Script.aculo.us effects.

Please use the term “AJAX” to refer to asynchronous HTTP requests, and not any old bit of JavaScript. We already have a term for that, it’s “DHTML,” or “Dynamic HTML.”

Duplicate Content

We always hear about how Google doesn’t like duplicate content, and will penalize a page that has the same content as another. There are plenty of articles on optimizing sites to avoid having duplicate content internally, and articles ranting about scrapers. What I want…

BlogBuzz October 11, 2008

Sikbox – Live Search Made Easy

“Live Search” is a term that people started using somewhere along the line to refer to AJAX-y search forms that display results as you type, rather than taking you to a results page. Kind of like Apple’s Spotlight search in OSX, which I have…

Interview With Daniel Scocco of Daily Blog Tips

Daniel Scocco is the blogger behind Daily Blog Tips, the 28th most popular blog in the Technorati 100. He has been blogging since 2005, and has since become an authority in the area. I managed to score a quick 10-question interview with Mr. Scocco…

Learning MySQL [Book Review]

Almost anyone who’s played around with PHP before has run into the subject of databases. MySQL databases are the most common method of storing massive amounts of data to later be sorted through and retrieved for display via script. WordPress stores all of it’s…

WordPress Theme of the Month: Agregado

Agregado is October 2008’s featured free WordPress theme.

StumbleUpon 2.0: Where is this Going?

Apparently, StumbleUpon will be throwing the switch on some major changes soon, and changing how users interact with the service. The software toolbar will no longer be necessary (they had better keep it though!), some new options for publishers will be introduced, etc. On…

Elgg – Build Your Own Social Network

Social networking sites like Facebook are being used by a huge amount of people (by huge, I mean huge). A problem they seem to be plagued by is that anyone and everyone can use them. They’re full of people with completely different interests, they’re…

BlogBuzz October 4, 2008