Integrating instant messengers into a website

Websites are an asynchronous media. You visit you view and maybe write a mail either via your e-mail client or via a web form. But there are times, when you want to be contacted synchronously. Some people just like being available to the world, others (e.g. sales representatives) want to have a way to directly be in contact with their customers. Whatever reason you might have to provide a synchronous contact to yourself. Here are various ways to do it.ICQ (download)I don't know if this is still the best or even a good IM but I started out with...

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Under review

I have entered this site into some forums and boards now, so that people start to criticise my site. In case you are one of those people, feel free to leave a comment here as well (even if it's just a reference to your board entry). This way I hope to remember more properly what I still need to do. Currently I have review entries in the following boards: DHTML Central - Cool SitesSitePoint - Website ReviewsAnticubicle - Site Che...

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Upcoming articles on this blog

I just wanted to inform you what to expect on this blog in the next days/weeks. I have been experimenting with three main subjects over the last weeks, which I now want starting to present to the world ;-)JavaScript classes and code distributionAs a preparation for the following two subjects I have implemented JavaScript classes, meaning I have been looking around the web and aggregating method how to create JavaScript structures which behave like classical object oriented classes providing features such as inheritance, polimorphism and the likes....

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This site is done... at least the contents exist

Hi all, finally this site is completed. I have provided content for all the existing sections. This includes media such as the drawings and mp3 streaming via JavaScript and Macromedia Flash. Hope you like all of this! Even if not, don't hesitate to comment the contents of this site and the blogs contained. Hope you find some of the stuff on this page either useful and/or entertaining. Domi...

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Fantasy Interactive (FI)

Fantasy Interactive (FI) - Interactive Design & Development is a great crew of web designers who obviously understand how to take internet to the next level. Specialized in very high quality flash applications, which even outperform most of what I have seen at 2advanced. They are responsible for the roadrunner network site, which a completely new cool flash experience, the ford vehicles site. They quality put in their work is tremendous.On their site I particularly like the way they show case their major projects. Having a nice HQ-project site...

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The ABAP Developer´s Guide to Java

This is the first book that I have officially been named as an author. The ABAP Developer´s Guide to Java is a book which aims at SAP ABAP Developers, who want/need to get into Java and J2EE development - as the new SAP technology platform SAP NetWeaver heavily relies on J2EE technology. The quote from the sales catalog reads as follows: "You already know the ropes in the world of ABAP programming. Now, how can you utilize those finely tuned...

Categories: Personal

Diploma Thesis - Web Application Design

A Component Framework Based On Web Services Web Services are an XML-based set of technologies to enable remote function calls over about any web-related transport protocol like HTTP, SMTP or FTP. As it is a specification based on the maxim of extensibility and customizability this technology is also suitable for communication across platforms and programming languages. The key feature that both IT analysts and the businesses put their hopes on is the possibility of supporting the automation of business processes even across company borders and...

Categories: Article, Personal

LAUNCH: Music on Yahoo!

I don't know if many people know this, but I am afraid they don't. LAUNCH is a music video/entertainem portal on the Yahoo platform. You can get access to the latest music-vids there, have a lot of cool radio stations to tune in and stuff. I really like it although I must admit that I got registered there about 3 years ago long before Yahoo had a part in the portal. Since then performance and reach have decreased a little in my opinion but maybe that is only due to the public exposure.Anyhow if you were looking for a place to stream your favorite...

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Macromedia "On Demand"

Anyone who has been to Macromedia's website in the past year or so must have stumbled over the omipresent Breeze Presentations. Those nice pieces of multimedia, Macromedia uses to provide/broadcast product information in the sense of infotainment. Although I know it's basically advertising I frequently catch myself watching those nice presentations over and over again. Ok, I am a huge fan of Macromedia in general but in my opinion Breeze Presentations are a great alternative to just reading text, especially since audio and video a frequently embedded...

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Macromedia Breeze

So I am a huge fan of Macromedia in general. But I particularly like Macromedia Breeze. For about a year now I am fascinated about the various infotainment breeze presentations that are spread around Macromedia.com for almost all subject. I think it's a real benefit to enable you visitors to view presentations and have a truely multimedia experience instead of just having them read text. Now I have requested a trial account for Macromedia Breeze and I must say that I a quite impressed. It's not that you could not accomplish all of you web conferencing...

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First day of my vacation

Ok, this is the first day of my vacation and I am already pissed. I am up since 6 am this morning and had the phone on my ear ever since. Seems natural that the mother calls on the first day of my vacation, it's even nice that my girl is calling me from work to see what I am doing. But then I got 2 calls from work... wait here is the 3rd one. Then I got a call from some call-center in Tokyo. WTF!!! I don't exactely know what they were even try to sell me. Their English was just so bad. And where the hell did they get my German phone number from....

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The Addison-Wesley Signature Series

The Addison-Wesley Signature Series Series is a great series of books for anyone interested in enterprise application architectures and whose daily work is designing and maintaining those systems.I personally own three books of the series and each one is both a great reference and a well entertaining piece of literature as well. So let me introduce the three to you.Patterns of Enterprise Application Architectureby Martin FowlerAs the title states the book focusses on enterprise application architecture patterns. It's one of the eariler books of...

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Study Paper - Web Application Development

Concepts and TechnologiesIn a client-server scenario like browser based application development, the Three Tier Model is of extreme importance and is therefore base of the technological discussion within this document.With the first tier - the presentation layer - accessibility issues and the need to serve client-specific content is discussed. It is explained how template technology helps with the maintenance process of a web-based application and how it is incorporated efficiently into the concurrent development model.On behalf of the second –...

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X-Desktop

Just to have another system of the open-source community opposing the closed source solution just presented I have to mention X-Desktop. X-Desktop aims to bring the a skinnable windowing metaphor to the web. And they do that pretty well. The project might not have evolved much since it has been orginially released (about 2 years ago). It's comprised of a few JavaScript files which provide an API to open, close and arrage skinned inline windows on any website. You probably find some bugs that are worth fixing but basically it's a very stable...

Categories: Framework, Frontend

Söhne Mannheims

Usually I don't like German music too much. Especially German folk music (Schlager) gives me the creeps. But there are some exceptions to this general rule. One of them is the new album Zion by Söhne Mannheims (sons of mannem ;-). For all true fans of those guys please forgive me for not having done my homework on them. They pretty much live up as they have Xavier Naidoo amongst them, who is a true star on the sky of German music business. The music they do is always a little orchestral, which I always like. But it's not only the music but also...

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Need to finish the previous article

And there it is: sloppyness again. I was going to finish the article on "Threading in a Windows environment" this week but work got me pretty busy. Currently have two projects at the same customer and those keep me busy as hell. Especially since I am the only consultant on the team of my employer SNP at the customers site. The naggy thing is that I am not so much busy coding but more coordinating going-lives of software and stuff.I really hate all the formal processes you need to go through in big companies. In my opinion processes should be defined...

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Bindows.net

Bindows.net is a client sided rich client application framework, that uses petty much CrossBrowser JavaScript to do really impressive things. It aims to enable developers to code OS-style applications using just XML and deliver them via the browser. You can use XML to layout your application, and use JavaScript to implement dynamic behaviour for components in their own component model. Components can be embedded pretty easily into existing web site. It's a truely exiting technology, and since x-browser support is available for Internet Explorer...

Categories: Framework, Frontend

2Advanced Studios

2Advanced Studios is some site you need to love. Everything they do is like a little masterpiece of the web of it's own. They understand to give sites personality by applying new navigation concepts and still you'll never feel lost.Although I am not too much a fan of the new prophecy design in particular (liked the old one better) I still have to say "hats off" to the great crew behind 2advanced, a name they truely deser...

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Threading in an Windows environment

MotivationEvery now and then someone drops off a question and zend.com and the likes, asking is multi-threading in a Windows environment would ever be possible. Usually the answer that poor person is getting sounds something like:"PHP is good for the web and multi-threading is not for the web, since the web is usually about synchronous user dialogs"In my opinion this is first of all not true: The Web is not just about synchronous user dialogs. It's about asynchronous user dialogs as well, although addmittedly they are not handeled very well by...

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