The classic web application model works like this: Most user actions in the interface trigger an HTTP request back to a web server. The server does some processing—retrieving data, crunching numbers, talking to various legacy systems—and then returns an HTML page to the client. It’s a model adapted from the Web’s original use as a hypertext medium, but as fans of The Elements of User Experience know, what makes the Web good for hypertext doesn’t necessarily make it good for software applications.

Web as hypertext 

vs

Web as app

http://www.adaptivepath.com/ideas/ajax-new-approach-web-applications

Scrolling Effects as a Rhetorical Device: Argument via Immersion. 

A nice example of technology supporting content rather than out-doing it. Their figures are nicely done. Interesting how they layer on more information when you scroll. Not sure how I feel about that as it appears a little buggy since on my 13” laptop I have to scroll past it to get the detailed data to show up.

[gallery]

good use of gifs

Cardboard Plotter

Handmade manual drawing machine by Niklas Roy made with simple materials - video embedded below:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfAFWzh2VEM]

This plotter is made entirely out of cardboard, welding rod, rubber bands, adhesive tape and super glue. The digital memory is a little book with plenty of different drawing codes, which are written down as coordinates. In this video I’m entering the first code, which makes the plotter draw “hello world”.

You can find out more about the project at Niklas’ blog here

portfolio site with alternate views

Switch between list view (infinite scroll, perhaps in reverse chronological order) and tile view with the icons in the top left corner. 

I like the flexibility between the two, that one can choose to imbibe or select carefully from a more finite feeling group. 

Different audiences with different purposes would prefer one over the other. New visitors perhaps want more of an overview; good friends want only the latest. 

(via http://cargocollective.com/favorites)

portfolio site with alternate views

Philip Greenspun and Web Dev of the 90's

In October 1995, the MIT Media Lab threw itself a tenth anniversary party. I skipped it so that I could take snapshots of colored trees in Vermont, but my friends said that the physical event was fabulous: little gifts for everyone, cleverly packaged; a Photomosaic poster by Rob Silvers; women in plastic pants. As an adjunct to the physical event, the Media Lab was going to create the best Web site ever. They got NYNEX to bring in a 45-Mbps T3 network connection; you wouldn’t want millions of users to get slowed down working their way through MIT’s 100-Mbps backbone. They got Hewlett-Packard to donate a huge pile of multiprocessor machines with disk arrays. They hired expert consultants to plug all the computers in and hook them up to the network. They hired professionals to do graphic design and site layout.

After getting back from foliage country, I visited http://www.1010.org with high hopes. There wasn’t any magnet content. Nobody had bothered to write stories or take pictures. Every day a Media Lab editor posed a question and then sat back to watch a USENET-style discussion evolve. There were only a handful of postings in each area. One user had contributed a smiley face. Colon dash right-paren. That was his entire message. This didn’t really shock me until I noticed that on a scale from 1 to 7, this post had been rated 4.3 by other users. Yes, several other users had taken the trouble to rate this three-character posting. When the 10-day Web event was over, the massive disk arrays held almost enough user-contributed data to fill two 3.5 inch floppies.