Are you used to typing in keywords and hitting the enter key? You’re probably
used to it because of Google Search–but have you ever wondered how you could
increase your productivity and user-experience in searching?

Let’s look at iTunes as an example for a really well-done search function.

“Search as you type” is great because it eliminates the need to sort-through the result set. If I wanted to find “Linkin Park”, I would type “Lin”–and the search application will automatically find the matches.

Advantages of “Search As You Type”

• Eliminates the need to sort
• Smaller result sets
• Cleaner user interface

Disadvantages of “Search As You Type”

• Performance in the back-end, using a lot of LIKE %keyword% in SQL
• User acceptance (for those who are used to archaic styles of searching)

While testing out XWNED Dashboard on Windows Safari, I realized that using
onDrag events and insertBefore() javascript function performs horribly.

It’s not just my implementation either–I tested out iGoogle, Pageflakes,
as well as, Netvibes. Same behaviour. Very interesting.

Sorry for not updating for so long–I got sick and I blew a ligament in my knee while playing badminton! But, now that I’m back, here’s what’s going on:

XWNED Dashboard

* Updated recently
- Added an animation/fade when you destroy modules.
- Added collapsible module functionality. If the content is too large, and you’re not feeling it–minimize it!
- Fixed some modules and their way of fetching RSS feeds.
- Added the blog link at the bottom of the dashboard.

* Future plans for XWNED Dashboard
- All out developer API, which will allow users to submit their own XWNED modules.
- Feed Viewer / Feed Portal.

XWNED Calendar
- Drag drop functionality complete.
- Allows you to create multiple calendars.
- Allows you to share out calendars to your friends
- BETA release will be in about a month or so. I need to keep bug testing.

XWNED Project Manager (Project Management -> GANTT Charts, everything.)
- This is going to be awesome and it’s going to blow away activeCollab / BaseCamp.

You’re probably wondering how many developers are working for XWNED, Inc.–The answer is one. Guess who it is.

My AJAX dashboard (XWNED Dashboard) was nominated as Editor’s Pick on Yahoo!’s Application Gallery!!

This has totally motivated me to gather more ideas for XWNED, as well as, other projects–such as, AJAX Project Management (Gantt charts, statistics), as well as, AJAX Card Games!!

Stay tuned!

Why do the general public confuse web apps and web sites? Web sites are developed to market specific entities and establish a brand. A web application has complex business logic, that allows users to interact with the application. I guess everyone’s still in the web 1.0 phase, where anything on the web is static–no sharing, no interaction, no real-time data.

Or the worst one is when people call a web site a web application. C’mon, what kind of complex logic is a PHP script calling a database for a few paragraphs? JEEZ.

Examples of web sites:
- Starcraft 2
- Apple, Inc.
- Microsoft Corporation

Examples of web applications:
- iGoogle
- My Yahoo!
- Digg
- Wikipedia

There is a clear line between web sites and web apps.