Voici une petite application créée en moins d'une heure afin de démontrer l'immense potentiel des applications gratuites que l'on peut trouver dans l'univers du web 2.0. Pour cette démonstration, j'ai créé une application du style Twitter (ou également du thème Wordpress Prologue dont je vous avais parlé ici).

Pour ceux qui ne connaissent pas encore Twitter ou qui ne savent pas trop à quoi cela sert, je vous recommande le billet suivant. Pour les gens pressés, Twitter sert principalement à diffuser à son entourage une indication sur ce à quoi on pense ou que l'on est en train de faire. L'avantage avec Prologue ou avec l'application dont je vais vous présenter est que l'on peut facilement faire tout cela dans un groupe fermé.

L'application de démonstration se nomme pour l'instant TwiZZer. Pour la créer, j'ai utilisé les outils suivants:

• Zoho Creator : comme coeur de la base de données.
• Netvibes : pour présenter l'interface usager.
• Feedburner : pour le suivi des fils RSS.

J'aurais également pu utiliser les outils suivants:

• xFruits : pour donner une plus grande variété au niveau de la diffusion des statuts. Je vous avais parlé de xFruits dans ce billet.
• LetterMeLater : pour spécifier quand mettre à jour le statuts via courriel.

Mais bon... commençons avec quelque chose de simple. Vous pouvez accéder à l'application TwiZZer en cliquant ici.

Commençons avec la première colonne. Tout en haut, vous retrouvez en défilement les dernières mises à jour. Ensuite, une fenêtre pour créer un nouvel usager. Finalement, une liste des usagers actuellement dans le groupe.

Dans la deuxième colonne vous trouverez l'endroit pour faire les mises à jour de statuts (ou TwiZ). Juste en dessous il y a les statuts les plus récents.

N'hésitez pas à entrer des données et/ou à me laisser des commentaires. Cette application n'est pas parfaite mais je voulais simplement vous démontrer la puissance des outils gratuits.

]]> http://sisterhouse.wordpress.com/?p=16 Mon, 07 Apr 2008 06:04:08 +0000 wcmac http://sisterhouse.wordpress.com/?p=16 I'm sure you already know that www.Zoho.com is a place where you can find very good online applications, including an online word processor, a spreadsheet app, a presentation app, and a growing number of business oriented apps like CRM, Project Management, and HR apps. Well, the application that I've come to appreciate is Zoho Creator. It's an online database application development tool, and it's very impressive.

Zoho Creator is still in it's early stages, and I hope to see many improvements, but it's already a well designed and useful tool.

I've been working with Creator for a few weeks (a bit of time here and there) developing an event registration application for a non-profit group where I volunteer some time. Building a real application has given me some insight into this tool that I'm planning to share here via a series of posts. I thought I would start off with some general information.

Costs:
Fist, let's talk money. At this time, Creator is free, but the Zoho team is planning a professional version with pricing TBD. More on that as info becomes available.

Overview:
Creator is a database application development tool. I think the easiest way to understand Creator is to think of it as very much like an online version of Microsoft Access. The key features include:

• Form Creation
• Data Table Creation (via the form creation process)
• Views of your Data Tables in various formats (List, Spreadsheet, Summary, Calendar, and Chart)
• Scripting
• Sharing

 The Scripting is powerful enough to really set Creator apart from the competition, and Creator offers several options for Sharing your application or part of you application.

Uses:
As I mentioned, I'm using Creator to build an application for a non-profit group where I volunteer. The group has a website with an older version of the event registration application built using Cold Fusion, but the old version suffers from various problems. 1) The developer who build the app for a bargain price has moved away. 2) The developer used his own copy of Cold Fusion, so my non-profit would need to buy an expensive license (or hire an expensive developer) just to have a chance at updating the app. 3) The old Application/Data/Tool/Source Code are all in different places and require different different skills, not to mention different accounts, etc.

So, Creator is a great solution to these problems. With a Creator application, the Data, the Source Code, the Development Tools, and the Application Environment are all in the same place, accessible with nothing more than your Zoho user account.

Also, Zoho Creator is a good choice if you're looking for an application development tool that's pretty easy to use. Creator takes care of most of the painful development tasks like linking forms to tables, building add, edit, and delete functions for everything, and even the messy hosting work. Even if I build a fairly robust app, I feel like I could hand it over to someone with modest tech skills for additional development.

Features:
Creator has so many features that the only way to understand them all is to sign up for a free account and dig in. Here is a partial list:
- Drag and Drop form creation
- Automatic creation of views for your data
- Scripting via a script builder or free form scripting
- Scripting attached to events such as form load or selection from a drop down list
- Built-in and user created functions
- Send email features that can be used in forms and scripts
- Ability to share applications and/or embed in other websites

Screen Shots:
Here are just a few screen shots to give a quick feel for the tool:

The Form Builder:

A Script:

A Data View:

Dialog box to get link for Embedded Form:

Competition:
I needed a real tool to solve a real problem, so I hunted around the web and found many, many choices before settling in on Creator. Many of these solutions would be ideal for circumstances that were a little different than mine, but none fit my needs as well as Creator.
- Coghead: Nice option. Free account available. Work flow designer. Ability to build some rules via dialog boxes. I didn't see robust scripting.
- LongJump: This looks like a very good solution. I wish they offered a free version instead of just a 30 day trial. Also, they claim to have something they call JumpScript for scripting, but I could find much information about it.
- WuFoo: Excellent choice if you need forms online. I don't see how you could build an entire application, but there are so many times when you don't really need an application. If you just need to capture some info via a form, this would be a good place to start.
- Dabble DB: Interesting option. This tool is mostly focused on the back end and has limited UI options. But the database options are serious.
- QuickBase by Intuit: Very nice solution, but at $249/mo, it's also very expensive. Built by the people who brought us Quicken, this might be the right choice for business users.
- myWebDB: Has potential, but looks like a pretty early Beta.
- Caspio Bridge Database: Only offers a 14 day free trial.
- Iceberg: Could be a great one. At the time I was researching solutions, they were several weeks away from the 4.14.08 launch.
- Rollbase: Offers a 60 day free trial, but no free account.

So, that's the overview of Zoho Creator. I'm planning to post some insights I've found on how to use the tool as well as issues. If you're interested in the product in the meantime, I suggest you sign-up for a free account.

Live well.

Internet and transferring money through it aren't designed to apply the general open policy of the Web. In order to open an Internet store you must have your own server with additional technologies installed on it. Even then you are technologically free to access information about your buyers and this way break the law (i.e. credit card information). Buyers knew that and try to recognize secure stores in the Internet by trusting on friends and media advises.
Selling and buying something on the Internet doesn't seem very secure at all.

First, the seller have to provide a secure connection. He have to explain well what are the product offers and how the price differs.
The buyer should be sure that the seller will not take more money that the offer says. The buyer have to be secure that the numbers of the credit cards wouldn't be saved and after the transaction used again.
Both the buyer and the seller have to establish a secure web connection disabling any hacker intervention which can steal a password by sniffing or by using technology holes on the server (e.x: XSS). It is a lot of technology work to be done in order to establish a service which works with credit cards on your web page.

Why don't you use Zoho Creator like application which will not allow the seller to say one price and then transfer different, which will not allow the both sides to know each other's private information. But to know only the information that they was agreed to transfer and what the law says.

The reason Zoho Creator will beat the rest application in the field of Internet money transactions is that Zoho Creator enables to its users (the sellers) to fully explain (implement) their offers by presenting them into form based applications, easily built with non-developer skills.
Zoho Creator enables a more natural and dynamic conversation between the buyer and the seller, the seller is not forced to have its own server in order to implement there its offers strategy (business strategy) which is based on the buyer's accounts (promotions to big clients and so on) and many different circumstances.

Future suggestions
Implementing SOA (WSDL- Web services description language) to every service and controlling them through SOA, too, will enable to create and wire a complicated application just on the web. If Zoho provides this ability of executing WSDL requests, it can turn Zoho Creator into a powerful coordinator of on-line business.

More major opportunities
There is one major difference between real life juridical rights and real life ones. In the virtual world the speed of browsing different content (surfing) is higher in such a way that the user is not able to read/ understand the contracts between him and all of the web apps/ sites he visits. Going this way it is not right to judge someone about something that he is not aware of, something which is not on his control (i.e. authors right and MP3 music sharing, Spywares programs (products)- software that steals your personal information while you use it).

Using forms and animations (created with Zoho Creator) the owners of the web sites and applications will explain in deep what is the contract between the user and the application.
The user can be presented with options of choosing contract (anonymity in example) and other with explained benefits of them.

Earlier this month, I wrote about another blog that focuses on all things related to Zoho Creator. It's appropriately called Land of ZC, and is managed by enthusiast Pete Thomas.

This morning I received an email from Pete wondering if I would like to be a contributing author for his blog. Naturally I accepted the invitation. So I wanted to let y'all know that you may see some of my writing over in the Land of ZC. When I do write over there, I'll announce it here and provide linkage.

I've never been a "contributing author," so I'm excited to try it out. If I stumble on an interesting use for Creator related to school or life or whatever, Pete has encouraged me to write about it.

Here goes nothing...

Cue the lights, because I'm comin' atcha like a fat kid on a jelly donut. The case study I participated in for Zoho Creator has been posted to their website.

You can find it on the Creator homepage, or click here to open it. I'm warning you: it's really exciting. (Okay, so I'm exaggerating. But if you're into this sort of thing, then I would recommend purchasing an extra pair of underwear before reading it.) (There I go again exaggerating. Sorry.)

My only gripe is that they didn't link my name to this blog, rather to my company's website.* Since I'm quitting soon to go back to school full-time, I had asked them to link it to here. (You know - so I can manage the bags of fan mail from one central location, even after I quit.) Hopefully they'll switch it soon.

*Just got word that the fine folks at Zoho will be writing up a post about this case study on their blog and will link to here when they do. I was informed that it's company policy to link to company/corporate websites from the Creator main page, and not to personal sites. I'm cool with that. As we say in the movie business - NBD. (no big deal.) (And to clarify - I am not actually in the movie business.)