Founder and Lead Developer
The sparkling new Google Code University is a really cool concept still in its nascent stages. Basically, its about Google trying to simplify the process of learning about emerging technologies and the ones like AJAX which are all the rage these days. With Google at the helm, I’m sure this website is going to become a must-see for CS students and even professionals all over the world.
Current Courses
This is one of the best tools out that that not many web developers know about. The Google Charts API is a great way to visualize data on the fly. While it doesn’t have too many complex features, it has most of the features most of us would ever need. For example, the Pie Chart below is being dynamically generated with the following URL:
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&chd=t:90,49&chs=400×150&chl=Ideative%20Flux|Dumb%20Fluxes
The following types of charts are available:
I’ve already put it on one test, it powers the stats visualization for player performances on my Indian Premier League application for Facebook.
ImageFlow is a JavaScript based tool that gives you the same effect Apple CoverFlow in iTunes, only this time on your websites.
The author describes it as:
ImageFlow is a picture gallery, which allows an intuitive image handling. The basic idea is to digitally animate the thumbing through a physical image stack. That intuitive handling is automatically caused by the metaphorical use of the well known process of thumbing through.
Download ImageFlow 0.8
ImageFlow Demo
ImageFlow Documentation
I, for one am betting on it, when I released my Indian Premier League application, I did so on Facebook, not on Orkut, India’s leading social network which has its application platform coming out soon, and the reasons were manifold:
Firstly, while Orkut remains the social networking of choice for India, people are gradually moving towards Facebook. A year ago, Orkut was in the news for some controversies (which I shall not be talking about here), and people jumped on to see what it was all about. Wannabe networks like iBiBo jumped in with active TV and Radio advertising, with “enchanced” features that were basically “inspired” by Facebook. Now that people are finding out what the world uses, they’re jumping ship to Facebook.
Perhaps most importantly, Facebook was easier to develop for, plain and simple. Facebook provides a host of features, and by far the simplest integration with their system and interface. Moreover, Orkut’s platform is to go public in April, but its having trouble. Considering that the IPL kicks off on April 18, I ran the risk of working hard and creating an app that might never see the light in time.
People already know about Facebook apps, it’ll take some time for people to realize the potential of the Orkut platform when it finally happens, that said, those first to the platform can make huge gains, but the risk was not worth it for me, considering my app has a two month peak window.
Continuing with the Indian Premier League application I built for Facebook, some people were giving me feedback that it was a little too large and complicated, so I got to work and built an extraction, well, eight extractions to be exact - an app for each IPL team!
Looks cool? That’s what you get to flaunt on your profile, plus there’s the usual features that were extracted from the mail IPL application.
As of now, only two are active - Kolkata Knight Riders and Deccan Chargers, because those were the only teams for which I could get the anthems for now. Here’s a preview of some of the features:
I just finished working on the first public release for the Indian Premier League Facebook application, been a lot of work, but it definitely worked out quicker than the April 6 deadline I set myself, and with a lot more features too. Continue to expect some tweaks and feature upgrades, and here’s a picture, click on it to go to the application info page from where you can install the application:
So here I am, hard at work developing the first real Ideative Flux application for Facebook, called “Indian Premier League.” Its designed for Cricket fans on Facebook who wish to follow the Indian Premier League, and it has lots of features already. Here’s a little preview of what’s in store:
Some basic information on the features:
News: The news is collected from over 4500 different sources using Google’s algorithms, so if there’s anything about the IPL on the internet, you’ll get it here!
Videos: Videos are stored on YouTube, MetaCafe, etc. but they’re all linked to our own internal database, so you’ll get the latest IPL content with no nonsense.
League Table: This is a no-nonsense league table updated with the latest in the IPL.
Leaderboard: This is the leaderboard for the fantasy IPL Selector game.
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