Re: [backstage] Web API down?
The API is back up :-) The routing problem has been isolated and will hopefully not affect us again. Thanks for your patience, Andrew On Mon, Jul 17, 2006 at 05:45:46PM +0100, Andrew McParland wrote: > The only news I have is that the issue is still being looked into. It seems > that some people have access and some don't. > > Sorry for the inconvenience. We'll let you know what's happening as soon as > we have something definite to report. > > Andrew > > On Mon, Jul 17, 2006 at 02:56:08PM +0100, Andrew McParland wrote: > > On Mon, Jul 17, 2006 at 02:43:16PM +0100, Josh at GoUK.com wrote: > > > I can reach it > > > > Can anyone else see http://www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk/services/index.html ? > > > > Looks fine from the inside, but we're still looking... > > > > Andrew > > > > Andrew McParland > > Lead Technologist, Technology Group > > > > BBC New Media & Technology > > Kingswood Warren, Tadworth, KT20 6NP, UK > > > > > -Original Message- > > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Kim Plowright > > > Sent: Monday, July 17, 2006 2:08 PM > > > To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk > > > Subject: RE: [backstage] Web API down? > > > > > > I'm seeing it internally - can anyone confirm it's dead outside the > > > firewall? > > > > > > _ > > > > > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mario Menti > > > Sent: 17 July 2006 14:00 > > > To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk > > > Subject: [backstage] Web API down? > > > The server hosting the BBC Web API ( > > > http://www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk/services/api/index.html) seems to be > > > unreachable.. at least from where I am. Anyone else can get to it, or is > > > it > > > currently down? > > > > > > Cheers, > > > Mario. > > - > > Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please > > visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. > > Unofficial list archive: > > http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ > - > Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please > visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. > Unofficial list archive: > http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
RE: [backstage] Web2.0 - tennets, rules, development philosophy...I'd love you to give us some feedback
Title: Re: [backstage] Web2.0 - tennets, rules, development philosophy...I'd love you to give us some feedback Crikey! Hello Phil, and nice to see you decloak (as it is to hear from all of these new names, by the way) Those are lovely explainations, thankyou. (incidentally, i'm glad people like the news description of RSS - i helped 'de jargon' it a while ago!) I'm interested in your final points though: Rich Media and Content will become the display mechanism of choice. Content (Text) will still be one of the most important aspects of “the web”, but it will be integrated very closely with audio and video. Interlinking of content between sites will become more important. “Search” is not the future ;-) S. More A/V, more tightly integrated. Can you point to any sites that are beginning to work in this new way - are you referring to the youtube type stuff, or something more CDRom1996ish, where you have a more involved interface? Also... why is search not the future? that's an interesting statement that must have some thinking behind it... k
[backstage] BBC Senior Client Side Developer role
Hello There's a Senior Client Side Developer Role going at BBC Radio and Music Interactive to back fill maternity leave if anyone is interested in finding out more please look at the job specification: https://jobs.bbc.co.uk/JobPortal/Search/vacancy.aspx?id=9288 Cheers Helen Helen Pickford Senior Client Side Developer BBC Radio & Music Interactive Room 718 | 7th Floor | Henry Wood House ( 020 776 (51937) | 07870 949554 * [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [backstage] Web2.0 - tennets, rules, development philosophy... I'd love you to give us some feedback
On Mon, 17 Jul 2006, Matthew Somerville wrote: [...] Amazon launched their web services in 2002, and I remember "mash-ups" being created back then - e.g. Amazon Light. I was "mashing up" Gopher interfaces mining into our text based BLS OPAC at the University back in 92/93. Is that too old skool? :-) Jim'll - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Native to a Web of Accessible Data?
Sort of yes, and sort of no. So: accessibility is in part a front-end issue. Tom's talking about the layer of abstraction beyond that - the general architectural level - and, by and large, he *is* promoting accessibility - accessibility to data. Accessibility is about more than blind people. It's about every form of access to your web app. Accessibility is making it work in a text only browser; it's about making it work on a slow line; it's about making your service work for people who only use shared computers. By making your normalised data available in more than just an HTML page, you're increasing accessibility - developers no longer have to screenscrape; sharing with other services becomes a doddle; Amazon have increased the access to "buying products from them" by letting anyone use their API. From a *client-side* perspective, no, he doesn't, but that wasn't the focus of his talk. Regarding accessibility: it's the same as ever. Make it work for everyone, make it comply with the law, and only *then* tart it up. This is why I stress not designing for AJAX, but designing plain-old-html, and then adding AJAX later. Otherwise you waste effort making alternate or text-only versions of things. Decent APIs make it easier to supply data in alternative formats, which may make providing alternate accessible content (where you absolutely have to) even easier. You should never restrict functionality to certain user-agents. Everything should be possible in all browsers and to all clients, with very few exceptions. So that means transcripts for podcasts; transcripts for video; sites they don't rely on AJAX; etc, etc, etc. Accessibility for Web 2.0 is exactly the same as it's always been - it's just all the new-fangled toys, especially AJAX, act as red herrings to making accessibility work. t. Quoting Jonathan Chetwynd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: Native to a Web of Data thanks for that Peter, and Kim for pointing it up! what fun, with some clarity, but... Does Tom fail to mention accessibility? or was it just me. cheers ~:" Jonathan Chetwynd with 254 validation errors on the homepage, yahoo.com may have a way to go. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
[backstage] Native to an Accessible Web of Data?
Native to an Accessible Web of Data? does this subject capture the issue better? I can spend days wondering about the minutiae of intended meanings, so usually post and think later ~:" thanks for that Peter, and Kim for pointing it up! what fun, with some clarity, but... Does Tom fail to mention accessibility? or was it just me. cheers ~:" Jonathan Chetwynd with 254 validation errors on the homepage, yahoo.com may have a way to go. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Web2.0 - tennets, rules, development philosophy...I'd love you to give us some feedback
Title: Re: [backstage] Web2.0 - tennets, rules, development philosophy...I'd love you to give us some feedback Hi all, This is my first post to the list but I have enjoyed this thread so wanted to contribute. I’m an ASP.NET developer and I’m heavily involved with the Microsoft Development community (and I’m writing this on a Mac just to prove I’m not some heathen ;)) I think before going any clearer it’s important to break down the jargon and define what each chunk of terminology means when I talk about it: - What is AJAX? This is a browser only technology, in that it’s only available in browsers. AJAX as a term encompasses hundreds of different AJAX frameworks that are all designed to communicate with remote servers “behind the scenes” using _javascript_ (hell or even _vbscript_ if you’re a bit weird) and the Xml Http Request components which ship with most modern browsers. The technology which enables this is nothing new, however the mass market usage of it is – Google popularized it however it’s been around for some time, the Microsoft Outlook Web Access application is a prime example of a complete AJAX implementation of Outlook. Third parties are starting to produce their own AJAX toolkits which can be used with their web site or services – such as the Google Maps API. AJAX overcomes the following issues and problems: - Users can have real time feedback on what they’re doing – they don’t have to manually post data back to the server to check if it’s “right”. Users don’t have to manually “save” items, the client side can do this for them (in a similar way to most desktop applications with a background save. Rich “interactivity” with access to back end data stores can be easily achieved (think Google Maps) AJAX cases some more issues and problems: - It’s browser dependant – there are vague standards but each browser is different. AJAX functionality 99% of the time will only work when a user is online and has a high(er) speed connection It’s new and scary, users are used to the “white flicker” as the page posts back, and they’re used to waiting – when things happen quickly some users don’t believe it’s “finished”. AJAX functionality is incredibly difficult to harness on external sites without full programmatic API’s and sets of web services being exposed. Not all browsers support the functionality and those that do support it to varying levels. What are Web Services (With SOAP) A Web Service is a standard way of interfacing with something else, think about a three pin plug that we use here in the UK – we know it’s a three pin plug not one of the scary Continental jobbys, we know we can use it to connect to our shiny Macs and PC’s to the power supply. The “power socket” Web Service advertises what kind of interface it has by the holes on the socket and the configuration of those holes, we know if we want to plug something into it we need to find a corresponding plug. In the Web world, these services are used to expose information in a standard and repeatable format, for example, I can query the Amazon web services and (if they’re working which is a minor miracle in it’s self) pass it an ISBN and it will return me all the information about the book in a standard format. A BBC web service might take a program name in such as “Walking with Dinosaurs” and return to me a list of times and on which channels the program airs. The thing that makes web services really cool is that “on demand” I can lookup information about something from my own applications and then combine that information with my own. Web Services overcomes the following problems and issues: - Data is advertised in a format that can be reused by other applications – meaning the data has much more reach than it ever had. Developers can combine their own data with the remote information stored in someone else's system to bring a much more meaningful set of information to users. Web Services can be continually updated added more and more “methods” to them so that more information can be retrieved. They bridge the gap between programming languages – a Microsoft Server can talk to an IBM server quite easily. Web Services cause the following problems and issues: - You have to be a developer to use them because they’re programmatic access into remote systems. Web Services only work when the systems are online. There are different “standards” and implementations of portions of Web Services which can cause issues between developers at both ends. What is RSS The BBC does a great job of describing RSS already: - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3223484.stm RSS Feeds are similar to web services in the problems and issues they raise, however they’re becoming more and more integrated into browsers and e-mail applications so much so that I’d say the technical gap that used to exist for RSS is being bridged very quickly. RSS can be used by both Developers to consume remote data and by user
[backstage] Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 08:54:59 +0100
Hi Kim,I have been quietly watching this list for some time, but your excellent request has made me switch to 'output mode'I am sure others will be able to express this better, but it seems to me that there is an opportunity to put some structure in place to enable and encourage evolution of the BBC's use of the internet. To me, web 2, is just the next step on the road for interactive solutions. Perhaps we should consider what will happen as the distinction between board-cast and narrowcast (the internet) fades over the middle term. Also, should the rules of the road include technologies like UDP?I think at an abstract level we are talking about how users (viewers, listeners) intact with BBC content. That content can be delivered over a range of different technologies which will vary partially based on the context of the user at the time of the request. I would like to see an architecture (sorry) for user interaction and content delivery. Then we slot in technologies over time that deliver the functionality.For example: The architecture might support the concept of a user requesting a localised weather forecast (based on post code or location based services) for three days from now. This request could come from interacting with broadcast media, over the web, via email, or even by spoken word. The response could be delivered over any of those channels.So, I would suggest, that we need to be able to design content delivery for multiple channels (board-cast, internet, voice, etc); support for location aware and time aware requests.I think the net of this is that we end up with logical, function building blocks that plug together with both defined interfaces and metadata.I hope that makes some sense regards, Jonathan Jonathan T Waddilove email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP public key: http://homepage.mac.com/jwaddilove/jtw.gpgkeyPGP finger print: F351 F755 E7B3 095C AE60 CEB8 9EDC 9899 A858 3D66Email only authentic if electronically signed.
[backstage] Native to a Web of Accessible Data?
Native to a Web of Data thanks for that Peter, and Kim for pointing it up! what fun, with some clarity, but... Does Tom fail to mention accessibility? or was it just me. cheers ~:" Jonathan Chetwynd with 254 validation errors on the homepage, yahoo.com may have a way to go. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
