11.06.2006 - AIM API Launched!
Only a few days overdue, the WIM API has at last made beta.
My demonstration client can be found here, showcasing five different themes and linking to all of the resources and documentation you'll need to get started with the API.
All feedback is greatly appreciated. Leave it here, or on the official message boards.
As well, today is slayeroffice's 4th birthday :).
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10.23.2006 - AIM Javascript API
I've finally been given the okay to talk about it since Stephen announced it at Web Guild last week. I would have mentioned it sooner but I was in Las Vegas, losing money and celebrating my sister's wedding :)
So - AOL, as part of the Open AIM initiative, is releasing its AIM service to the web via a series of JSON/XML APIs. I've been working on a set of Javascript APIs to make it easier to interface with this since the beginning of the summer, which is primarily why it has been so quiet around here lately.
I'm still not allowed to show anything off (probably in a week or so...keep an eye out), but I can tell you that I've written a complete AIM client in javascript that you can embed wherever you like (no popup and not hosted in an br). And, since its just HTML, you can style it however you want (we have some really kick ass, off the wall themes for it), or add functionality to it, or mash it up with other public APIs, or whatever you can dream up. All you have to do is get an API key (link forthcoming...) include a pointer to the javascript and include an element for it to hook into. After that, you can define your own params and callbacks if you want to extend it.
I stress that the AIM client I've written is just an example of what the API is capable of. Maybe you're just interested in the IM portion of the technology - thats fine, you can just use that part and never expose a buddy list.
Or, maybe you'd just like to compile a list of your friend's away messages. That's cool too - you can just subscribe to presence updates and grab their away message, never rendering a buddy list at all or worrying about incoming messages.
Or, maybe your wiki can have its own screen name and listen for incoming updates from you and your friends via IM while you attend different panels at SXSW, adding and editing entries appropriately based on your extension to the API. It's cool stuff, and absolutely possible and easy to implement.
What's better is this is just the beginning of what we intend to do. We've got loads of stuff we want to add, like "capability" support so you can do things like send non-chat data between clients. This is exciting for me primarily because its going to make multiplayer javascript games really, really easy. I don't have to stand up a database of user names (or ask you to come up with one and remember yet another password), or a protocol for data transport, or any of the other things you'd have to do for something like this. Its already there with what exists with AIM.
I'm really stoked to have worked on this - its gotta be one of the coolest projects, if not the coolest, that I've been part of in my time with AOL. The first time an IM went from my Safari window and the Adium icon in my dock starting jumping up and down, I squealed like a little girl. It was just that bad ass.
So thats my cool news - keep an eye on the RSS feed for updates about documentation, FAQs and demos - I'm still finishing up docs for the CSS hooks the API uses as well as the API proper with how-to's, and hope to have them available here within the week. Leave a comment or hit me up via the contact form if you have any questions.
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09.18.2006 - Refresh DC Tomorrow Evening
If you're in the DC/VA/MD area and looking for something to do tomorrow night, swing by the Motley Fool in beautiful downtown Alexandria, VA for Refresh DC at 7pm. I'll be there, and so will KSmith, Kevin Lawver (presenting on Dojo and DOM stuff), and Cindy Li among many other fun and interesting people that dig this whole web development thing.
See you there!
Update (09.19.2006): Mr. Lawver is under the weather, so yours truly will be speaking in his stead.
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08.10.2006 - An Intro to the DOM
The slides from my presentation yesterday on the W3C Document Object Model and how it relates to javascript and XHTML are now available.
I hope to have the audio edited and online this weekend, and a transcription of that audio out in a week or so.
Enjoy!
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07.28.2006 - SXSW MP3 Is Out
The audio of our SXSW panel is now out. Kevin and I also sprung to have it transcribed, and you can check that out over here.
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06.28.2006 - ModuleT Presentation
As mentioned earlier this month, I gave a talk today on the ModuleT microformat that we use in AIMPages and have made the presentation available here.
Unfortunately, the presentation wasn't recorded, but I'll be posting my notes at some point once I've had a chance to clean them up. In the meantime, if the slides raise any questions feel free to hit me with them.
On a side note, Jon Miller - the CEO of AOL - gave the keynote this morning and a bullet on one of his slides said "Standards are where its at. If its not based on a standard, its out.". We won.
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06.03.2006 - Summer 'O Presentations
Should you find yourself in London or New York at the end of June or beginning of July, the folks at Carson Workshops have set up a couple of interesting sessions you might want to stop in and check out. They aren't free, but considering the caliber of speaker, not too terribly pricey either.
In London on June 29th, Dylan Schiemann of the Dojo Toolkit (which we are using on AIMPages, by the way) will be giving a talk on "Building Web Apps with AJAX".
On July 6th in NYC, my good pal Jeremy Keith will be presenting "Make the Jump to Ajax and DOM Scripting".
One of the important things to note for these workshops is that directly after the workshop proper is "Social: 6:30 till late". One assumes that this implies beer and geek talk, and no better combination in the world than that will you find. This is, of course, why SXSW is so successful.
On the same day as Mr. Schiemann's talk, yours truly will be giving a presentation at an AOL Developers conference (not open to the public, I'm afraid) on the Module-T microformat that AIMPages uses. I'll be making that presentation available here afterwards for those interested. I'm also doing an "Introduction to the DOM" presentation in August, so keep an eye out for that one too. I hope to present it with sound in the same manner as the Unobtrusive Behavior Layer talk. Finally, the audio for our SXSW panel is due out on July 25th, so there will be plenty of oportunities this summer to hear me prattle on about web stuff.
Any other interesting workshops/presentations coming up this summer?
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05.26.2006 - Chipman v2.0
For those wondering why their emails have gone unanswered this week:
Clara Melek Chipman was born Sunday, May 21st at 8:38pm, weighing 7lb 12oz and measuring 20 inches.
Kate and Clara are both doing very well, and came home from the hospital on the 23rd.
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