Review of Google I/O. The New York Web Standards Meetup Group. 24 July 2008

Review of Google I/O The New York Web Standards Meetup Group 24 July 2008 Jeffrey Barke . Senior Developer / Information Architect

Slideshow

Slideshow Review of Google I/O • The New York Web Standards Meetup Group / 24 July 2008

Slideshow Review of Google I/O • The New York Web Standards Meetup Group / 24 July 2008 Photo by Nancy-. http://flickr.com/photos/zonagirl/2531741509/

Slideshow Review of Google I/O • The New York Web Standards Meetup Group / 24 July 2008 Photo by funcrunch. http://flickr.com/photos/funcrunch/2533475074/

Google App Engine

What is the Google App Engine?

http://code.google.com/appengine/

The Google App Engine is a system for exposing Google’s scalable architecture to your Web applications. Basically, you run your app on Google’s cloud.

Review of Google I/O • The New York Web Standards Meetup Group / 24 July 2008

Features:

Fully-integrated application environment

Python runtime

Free quota of 5 million pageviews per month

Discussion group: http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine

Why is Google doing this?

To make the cloud more accessible

Competition with Amazon?

Actively courting developers, because Google views the Web as the next platform (mainframe, PC, Web) and recognize that the strength of Microsoft was its relationship to developers

Google uses the app engine itself. Ability to create fast apps.

Why should you use the Google App Engine?

Difficult to create a Web application:

Write app code

Set up Apache Web server, set up MySQL database, config files

Find way to push new version of code when make changes

Find place to run app--ie, get machines. From shared hosting to dv == $$$

Maintain Web site as grows

Design goals

Three design goals:

Easy as possible to create a web app

Easy to scale

Free to get started

How it works

Develop locally

Deploy to Google

Launch app

Consoles to check how app is doing

App can scale to millions of users with no further work by you!

Google App Engine updates

As of Google I/O:

Two new APIs:

Memcache

Image manipulation

Pricing should be done before end of year.

App engine will always be free to get started. 500 MB and 5 million page views.

After that, pay 10-12c per core-hour, 15-18c per GB

Open registration

Getting started with Google App Engine

Sign up for an App Engine account.

Painless if you already have a Google account (and of course you do)

When you attempt to create a project, you will need to verify your account, you will need

to provide your cell number and know who your carrier is.

Download SDK

Software development kit and buttons

http://code.google.com/appengine/downloads.html

The SDK is available for:

Windows

Mac OS X

Linux/other platforms

Requires Python 2.5 to be installed

It includes a web server application that simulates the App Engine environment, including a local version of the datastore, Google Accounts and the ability to fetch URLs and send email directly from your computer using the App Engine APIs.

Google App Engine APIs

The Python Runtime, about the Python environment in which your app runs; CGI, sandbox features, application caching, logging

Datastore API, all about the scalable datastore and how to use it effectively

Uses SQL-like query language called GQL

Images API, the image data manipulation service

Avatar creation

Mail API, sending email from your app

Memcache API, the distributed memory cache

URL Fetch API, accessing other Internet hosts from your app

Users API, integrating your app with Google Accounts

Users do not need to create new account

Your app does not need to manage its own login system

Example apps

PhotoMunchers by Pamela Fox: http://photomunchers.appspot.com/

TweetWheel by Augusto Becciu: http://tweetwheel.appspot.com/

LaterLoop by Greg Hochmuth: http://laterloop.appspot.com/

Gears

What is Gears?

http://code.google.com/apis/gears/

An attempt to make the client better. The open web stack (HTML, DOM, CSS, XHR, canvas) is still far inferior to native applications. Gears is an open source plugin that extends the functionality of existing Web browsers by utilizing more of the client’s resources. It exposes a set of JavaScript APIs to developers.

Discussion group: http://groups.google.com/group/gears-users/

What is Gears? cont’d Review of Google I/O • The New York Web Standards Meetup Group / 24 July 2008

Current modules include:

LocalServer:

Cache and serve application resources (HTML, JavaScript, images, etc.) locally

Database:

Store data locally in a fully-searchable relational database

WorkerPool:

Make your web applications more responsive by performing resource-intensive operations asynchronously

Desktop:

Create shortcuts

Browser support

Browsers

Internet Explorer 6.0+

Firefox 1.5+

Internet Explorer Mobile 4.01+

Platforms

Windows XP/Vista

Windows Mobile 5+

Mac OS X 10.4+ and Linux

Gears updates

As of Google I/O:

Debranding Google Gears to just Gears

Working on support for Opera (including mobile version) and Safari

New APIs

Desktop shortcut creation (live)

Desktop notifications (not yet)

File system (not yet)

Blob (pass binary data--not yet)

Geolocation (not yet)

Why should you use Gears?

Can be used to augment apps

Latest version of WordPress: Turbo

MySpace: Search and sort messages

Can be required in custom, corporate content management systems

Demo

Demo: http://themechanism.com/barkode/demos-tutorials/gears/

Google AJAX APIs

What are the Google AJAX APIs?

http://code.google.com/apis/ajax/

Google's AJAX APIs let you implement rich, dynamic web sites entirely in JavaScript and HTML. You can add a map to your site, a dynamic search box or download feeds with just a few lines of JavaScript.

Google Maps API

Google AJAX Search API

Google AJAX Feed API

Google Visualization API

Google AJAX Language API

AJAX Libraries API

AJAX Language API

Translate and detect the language of blocks of text within a webpage using only Javascript.

http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxlanguage/documentation/#Examples

AJAX Libraries API

Content distribution network and loading architecture for the most popular open source JavaScript libraries. By using the Google AJAX API Loader's google.load() method, your application has high speed, globally available access to a growing list of the most popular JavaScript open source libraries including: