Joern's Blog

Since we had our last class tonight, I thought I will write my last blog post that has the proud number 111 ;-)

However, looking back the last four month, this class was by far the most interesting and most challenging class I had this term.

There were three major topics that made the class for me:

• Our MapYourBuddies Team Project (Access Project)
• My Formula One Tracks & News Mini-Project (Access Project)
• And of course my Blog Posts

Moreover I enjoyed reading the Head Rush Ajax Book and learning, applying and experiencing all the AJAX technologies.

I really liked this course and can recommend it to everybody!

So far my final blog post ;-)
-Joern

PS: for the case that the links to the projects won't work in the future,
this was our MapYourBuddies Team Project:

and this was my Formula One Tracks & News Mini-Project:

After we nearly completed our MapYourBuddies project a couple of days ago, we found a tiny bug (mentioned here). Now Andre fixed this bug and I finally created our Final Version of MapYourBuddies.

And since D'Germanz graduate in a about week, - YES ;-) - D'Germanz emich accounts will go off line. Therefore we made our MapYourBuddies Project available here until Bud can provide the "archive server".

The whole true story about MapYourBuddies can be found here ;-)
And here you can explore how MapYourBuddies works behind the Scenes.

But now enjoy MapYourBuddies,
D'Germanz | André | Thomas | Joern

@Bud, quick question, here you mentioned "blog system now fixed, you can track back again", the "manual" trackback is working, but not very convenient. I remember that you turned off my trackback autodiscovery. May we "Getting trackback autodiscovery to work" again?

Thanks,
-Joern

Here is our part 2 summary of your comments and suggestions from the 8 new/additional and correct tagged reviews here as of Wednesday (04/11/07) 05:00pm.

Part 1 of the our review of the reviews can be found here (MapYourBuddies Iteration2Review - Summary as of Wednesday (03/28/07) 03:00pm).

Comments, that are already fixed in our Iteration 3

• "1. When clicking on map markers and list of local buddies shows up, it would be nice to be able to click on the buddy right there to see info." (Jeff)
• "When clicking on the markers on the map, the info window pops up with out a profile picture, but when selecting someone from the sidebar, the picture does pop up in the info window." (Dave)

Very good comments & ideas that could be realized in an iteration four ;)

• "2. Sort the buddy list by name to make easier to find buddies." (Jeff)
• "When I first load the map, all of the markers look like a jumbled mess. There are a ton of them in the Michigan area. I would like to see fewer makers, with more appearing as I zoom in. This might be able to help combat the initial look of a ton of markers everywhere." (Matthew)

Thank you for your constructive feedback and we are looking forward for your Iteration 3 reviews.
-Joern

Concerning Milot's question:

"I know that the requirement for mini project 3 is to incorporate DOM methods. My question is, not why and how; but what do I need to use the DOM for?"

Maybe my "Formula One Tracks & News Mini-Project" could help you to understand the usage of DOM as I have incorporated a couple of DOM methods.

For example my main page Source Code contains a "Loading ..." image in the RSS News Box (see source code)

<div id="trackslist" class="trackslist">
<p id="FLloading" style="text-align: center"><br />
<img src="images/waiting.gif" alt="Please Wait" border=0>
<br /><br />Loading... Please Wait</p>
</div>

What I am doing, after the RSS news XML file is available in the request/response object, I replace this <div> tag with a new "constructed" one (that then contains the RSS News).
More details also here.

I "construct" the new div tag (then with the RSS News) in this createrssfeed.js file and finally replace the old with the new div tag.

I hope this gives you an idea, what you can do with the DOM methods. Honestly, I love them ;)

If you still have questions, just trackback ;)
-Joern

After I added last week the nice "Loading..." feature to our MapYourBuddies project, I thought, this would also be a neat feature in my "Formula One Tracks & News Mini-Project". So here we go:

Since I really finished my Mini-Project, here are the 3 major new features in my iteration 3 (in comparison to iteration 2):

• "Connected" Tracks list and Google Map
• Highlighted and focused the next racetrack + focused GMap InfoWindow
• Added "zoom in to racetrack level" function to race track InfoWindow

OK, so far the last update for my Formula One Tracks & News Mini-Project
-Joern

After I finished my Formula One Tracks & News Mini-Project, I was trying to upload it to the www.emuonline.edu-Drop Box. Unfortunately there is no "Part 3" Drop box yet.

@Bud, could you please create this "Part 3" Drop Box?

Thank you,
-Joern

Yesterday I recognized while final testing, that the IE6 has a little Bug with the bubble width.

This was the the problem in IE version 6: (In IE 7 and FF 2.0.0.3 the bubble was perfect)

Finally I fixed this with a little CSS update (I just removed the "width: 100%;" attribute from the outer div box).

And based on Andre's very good tip about the "Multiple IE's" software (Amazing!!!), I tested my Formula One Tracks & News Mini Project now in FF 2.0.0.3, IE 7, IE 6 and IE 5.5.

So, now, feel free to access my Individual Mini-Project "Formula One Tracks & News" here and test it. Your feedback is always welcome!

@Bud: I didn't post a link yet, because the project was in a "release development folder" (different versions) and I first had to move it to it's current location ... but here we go ;)

So far the update and probably the last post concerning my Mini-Project "Formula One Tracks & News"
-Joern

According to my TODO list for my Formula One Tracks & News Mini-Project, I have now completed all open tasks. Yesterday evening I implemented the "connection" between the Track List and the Google Map markers.

Basically now you can click one track in the list and than the Google Map will move and focus the according marker on the map and open the Info Window with the details of this track.

Now I will optimize the CSS a little bit (one little bug in IE 6) and then my mini-project is completed :-)

So far the update,
-Joern

Hi all,

today I went to http://maps.google.com/ to figure out, where Menlo Innovations LLC (for the site visit next Friday) is located.

After the page was loaded, I recognized that there is something new ... a "tab" called "My Maps New!" ... I started to play around with that and wow, NOW IT IS POSSIBLE TO SAVE YOUR FAVORITE PLACES STRAIGHT IN GOOGLE MAPS (when you are signed in with your Google account).

Here is what you can do (to enlarge the image, just click the image):

Additionally I found these interesting Blog Posts:

"New Google Maps feature: "My Maps" (Build your own maps mashup)"

"Google has just released a new Google Maps feature called "My Maps" which will allows users to easily create a Google Maps mashup with a few clicks, right from Google Maps! You can reach My Maps by visiting http://maps.google.com then look for the new "My Maps" tab on the left side. My Maps is being launched for Google Maps in the US, UK, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Japan and Australia."

"My Maps has an easy to use interface that will allow you to:

• Annotate points on a Google Map with text, photos, or YouTube/Google Videos (even HTML for further customization)
  
• Draw lines and shapes to show routes and regions
  
• View maps created in My Maps on Google Earth
• Search for businesses on Google Maps and add them to My Maps"
  

and some more detailed information here "Google My Maps Mania!".

Just try it, it's amazing: http://maps.google.com/

It seems like that the “MyFavoritePlaces” team had the same idea ;)

-Joern