Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Information Design Definitions - 1 & 2

AJAX- (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), is used for development of web based applications by using various web development techniques; incliding XHTML, CSS, XML and XSLT just to name a few.

Google Maps – is an application (web/API) developed by google which can be used for navigation/general map exploration purposes.

Web application – is usually a software or application developed to be used in a browser.

Javascript – is a scripting language used for client-side web based development and allows the creation of dynamic content.

Database management – it basically defines itself, it’s used to control/manage a database. It’s also used to store and retrieve information both on the back and front-end.

BitTorrent – is a peer-to peer open source application used for file sharing e.g. software and general media files.

API – (Application Programming Interface), it can be defined as part of the foundation/support used for building applications (mostly used for web based apps). It’s function is determined by the routines used to carry out its process.

RSS – (Really Simple Syndication), can be defined as a feed used for updated information e.g. for a newspaper the headlines of each updated article would be published in the feed, making it somewhat a table of content.

Blog – based from a web log, is a web site used by most for news or as an online diary/journal and contain various types of media. Most blogs have a CMS so it’s easily manageable for most.

Ruby (Ruby Rails) - is a programming language used for dynamic content, it’s inspired/based by Perl and Smalltalk Eiffe, Ada and Lisp.


Method of collecting information:

With “Google Maps”, I used 4 sources for information. Wikipedia, Google Maps itself in the about section and two web developer websites. I also used my personal knowledge being a regular user of the application.
I took all the sources of information and cross referenced things that were similar to each other before coming up with a final definition for the web based application. This is how I would usually collect information in general, though Wikipedia is a useful source on a rare occasion the information may or may not be accurate.

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