Marc had some family problems this weekend and I've been sick with the flu so we're a little behind. I mostly setup the look for the page along with the user interface so that we can begin testing. We still need to setup the backend of the the website, so until that's setup, we can only directly take input from Google's AJAX API to show up on the site's front page. At the moment, it's just a Google search map that's stylized to fit the needs of our page. The user interface also uses Javascript to detect the current time and adjusts the user's current time/date to auto set to the current time/date.
Chris has also created icons for the map locations, we're still deliberating on whether the background store opening indicator will be grayscale or colored. Since Marc has also come down with the flu (geez, I hope I didn't give it to him), we're still not too sure yet because this needs to be a group decision. However, I do think that the colors for it need to be a bit more bold than what it is currently, so that it stands out from the Google pastel color scheme. I still also think the search result bar is a little small, but since we're making the map the main focus of the page, I'm not actually sure how to make it larger since the side bar's limit is only 250-300px. I suppose we might need to get some outside input on how much of the map needs to be the focus of the page. But I do now that we would like to avoid using a scroll for most of the page's contents, since it seems more contained if it can all fit in one page.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
Restructuring the Project
Initially our group had a great project structure layout. It was very clean Client to PHP to Google Databases sort of map. Unfortunately, at some point, we found out that Google stopped giving out SOAP keys last year, this meant, that we were stuck using the Google Search AJAX API, which is a little odd because this meant, we had to sort of pull the information in a roundabout way, with the Client side getting the information, sending it to our code that would process it, look it up or store it in our databases and then return the output back the Client side.
It will work, it's just that, it's a kind of odd way of delivering information. We seem to be running into quite a number of unmovable brick walls as we further research the things we need for this project. Initially, we didn't actually want to create a database since using Google could have worked, but now since there is no SOAP key, we definitely have to make a database. In addition. We're coming across the problem where Google barely has any of the times for most stores and it's almost impossible to extract that time and we can't screen scrape because Google will definitely notice that kind of activity and then shut us down. I really hope this is the end of the major bumps...
It will work, it's just that, it's a kind of odd way of delivering information. We seem to be running into quite a number of unmovable brick walls as we further research the things we need for this project. Initially, we didn't actually want to create a database since using Google could have worked, but now since there is no SOAP key, we definitely have to make a database. In addition. We're coming across the problem where Google barely has any of the times for most stores and it's almost impossible to extract that time and we can't screen scrape because Google will definitely notice that kind of activity and then shut us down. I really hope this is the end of the major bumps...
Sunday, February 3, 2008
week4
Midterms are coming up and the pressure is on. I've recently found a beta heatmap app that is associated with google maps which will help my group in making the heat map for the late night restaurants search site. We're probably going to change our name since the midnightmunchies domain has already been taken.
As for the assignment, I'm thinking about making an art commission form, since I really would like to focus more on helping the group make the team webpage really superb. I think that it is okay for now create forms as long as you are only looking at the page locally, but if you were ever to put a page up on the internet with forms, most people should regex the form submissions to look out for things like: people putting in code like DROP TABLES, script tags calling other side (because they can hijack your page and inject code to break your page), and most html pages don't deal with characters like '<', '>', and '&' very well. As an extra precaution, if the user ever puts in important information like credit card numbers, the page should encrypt the information before sending it into the clear. Either using methods like a DES encryption box or XOR chaining. Because Javascript gives you so much power to access information, security is a big problem when it comes to handing sensitive information using Javascript (an AJAX). This is the reason why some pages include SSL support.
As for the assignment, I'm thinking about making an art commission form, since I really would like to focus more on helping the group make the team webpage really superb. I think that it is okay for now create forms as long as you are only looking at the page locally, but if you were ever to put a page up on the internet with forms, most people should regex the form submissions to look out for things like: people putting in code like DROP TABLES, script tags calling other side (because they can hijack your page and inject code to break your page), and most html pages don't deal with characters like '<', '>', and '&' very well. As an extra precaution, if the user ever puts in important information like credit card numbers, the page should encrypt the information before sending it into the clear. Either using methods like a DES encryption box or XOR chaining. Because Javascript gives you so much power to access information, security is a big problem when it comes to handing sensitive information using Javascript (an AJAX). This is the reason why some pages include SSL support.
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