Saying goodbye to zembly

I was involved with the leading-edge web site, zembly, beginning in fall 2007, writing example widgets, applications, and data services for the companion book ‘Assemble the Social Web with zembly.’ zembly, the brain child of Todd Fast, began at Sun Microsystems as a web-based social development environment, enabling users to write widgets and other software. The site automatically keeps track of versions and publishes code, deploying the services and widgets for you. You can share the widgets, embedding them in web pages or posting them on sites such as Facebook. The site also lets you build and deploy Facebook applications. The book was published early this year and we presented a sold-out Hands-On Lab at JavaOne in June. Sadly, the site announced its closure this week. Besides thoroughly enjoying the time I spent coding applications on zembly, I really appreciated the interaction with the zembly folks, including Todd, Chris Webster, and especially Jirka Kopsa.

I have two favorite examples I built for the book. One is a Facebook application, Capital Punishment, which helps you learn the world’s capitals using a 20-question multiple choice quiz. You see each answer mapped using Google maps. It includes all the usual social features of Facebook applications—challenging friends and letting you compare your scores with your friends.

Probably my favorite is a widget that shows you how to navigate the London Tube. It maps the station sequence (with Google maps), drawing a color-coded line (matching the tube station colors) to each station. The data comes from tubeplanner.com, via Dapper. With Google maps, you can follow the route. Markers locate the stations and information windows tell you the station name, line, and where you need to change lines.It's tough saying goodbye to zembly. It will be missed by many!!

JavaOne: A Tale of Two Technologies

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . .” and so begins Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities as well as this Tale of Two Technologies. For at JavaOne, indeed it seemed like the best of times with mostly exciting Keynotes (please, not Microsoft!), technical talks, and, my favorite, well-attended Hands-On Labs. The less-than-normal attendance made lunch-time so much more pleasant, although tearing off the requisite lunch tickets continued to challenge the most nimble of fingers. I was never herded into an overflow room nor ever denied entrance to even the most popular presentations.

But the worst-of-times feeling loomed large for many attendees, despite the ease with which we negotiated the underground maze of Moscone. Book sales at the Digital Guru book store were down by more than 50% from previous events (not just JavaOne—other technical shows as well). And the recent announcement of the Oracle takeover of Sun Microsystems, although perhaps a less troubling result than a Big Blue ownership, created a heavy cloud of dark unknown. What will happen at Sun Microsystems? What path will Java take? Is this the last JavaOne as we know it?

Following the long escalator down into the show, bean bag chairs dot the floor space in front of the nostalgic Night Hacks Diner mural, where James Gosling sporting a half-smile shares a cup of Java with Duke behind the counter. The Linux Penguin and the Dolphin (is this the Dolphin Express-MySQL bundle?) sit nearby. Is this meant to be some last-time gathering of close friends as they each make their separate ways into the world? And Scott McNealy’s reminiscent-laden Keynote sounded eulogy-like. Take heed, rumor has it that Sun Microsystems has a paid contract with Moscone for 2010. But, that’s no guarantee, mates.

But back to my tale of two technologies. The biggest buzz of the conference was JavaFX. There were multiple hands-on labs, technical talks (I went to them all), and demonstrations at Keynotes featuring JavaFX applications. On the Pavilion Floor, there were the JavaFX-based App Store and early-stages-under-development slick JavaFX App Builder. Two JavaFX books make their debut at JavaOne (Essential JavaFX, ours, was one) with several more books in the works. JavaFX was the technology darling at JavaOne 2009. As both an attendee and book author, it was exciting.

The second technology I tuned into was zembly. As one of the co-authors of Assemble the Social Web with zembly, I have been involved with this Sun Microsystems-based technology since the fall of 2007. I have built widgets, data services, and Facebook applications. I have seen zembly grow and improve and I love it. We presented a zembly Hands-on-Lab at JavaOne this year. It was completely full and all participants received a detailed introduction to this amazing site. They all saw how easy it is to build (and zembly hosts!) Facebook applications. People want to know how to hook into the social-based application market. It’s new and young and the under-30 crowd seemed especially interested. zembly’s presence at JavaOne included one book debut (ours), one hands-on-lab, one technical talk (Todd Fast and Jirka Kopsa whipped up a Facebook application with amazing speed), and one station in the cavernous Sun Microsystems exhibit space. True, the product is officially in Beta, but it is a very mature Beta.

Bottom line, I’m waiting for the rest of the world to notice zembly. It’s something worth looking into. And, we all wish for the continuance of the Good Times for JavaOne.

Olympic Pick ‘Em Facebook App

During the Olympics, Facebook users could participate in predicting gold, silver, and bronze medal winners for every event. To play, you picked a country to represent and then you made selections. The game gave you an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface for selecting the medal picks for each event (there were a lot of events). You were awarded 8 points for correct gold medal predictions, 4 points for silver, and 1 for bronze. In the end, there was an individual winner (the most points earned) and a country winner (the most points earned representing the same country).Well, I joined the fray a bit late (sort of like starting a marathon when the leaders were already at mile 8 or 9) and I fumbled about a bit before I figured out a good strategy. (For example, I quickly realized that, just like horse racing, predicting the actual gold-silver-bronze winners in the correct order was a lot harder than just identifying favorites. You get 0 points if you pick the top three in the wrong order.)

A game is meant to be competitive, so I wanted to give it a go. However, I couldn’t afford to spend hours researching the top 20, 10, or even 5 candidates. Well, after a few missteps (my pick rate was a dismal 20%), I developed a system that worked pretty well. I finished 22 overall and my pick rate improved to 31%. My country, Gabon, finished in 26th place. (I was the only player representing Gabon. Why I picked Gabon is a topic for another post.)

First of all, the quickest way to determine the top competitors is to use the online betting sites. Here you can see the odds. Of course, not all events have odds and I used 5 or 6 different sites. Now, here’s my system. If the top candidate was a clear favorite, I put the top pick for gold and the second pick for both silver and bronze. If the top candidate’s odds were only slightly better than the second-best odds, I put the top candidate in all three slots. There’s nothing worse in picking the top 2, but switching their order. So, I easily sacrificed the possibility of getting 12 points (all correct), by assuring I would probably just get 8, maybe only get 4, and possibly just get 1. And, sometimes, I still got 0 points.

For the tournament medals, such as soccer or basketball, you could change your final picks up to an hour before the medal matches. So, for basketball, for example, you already knew the gold medal match was between the U.S. and Argentina, and the bronze was also down to just two teams. In that case, I went ahead a made predictions for each medal. (Even a 50% choice wasn’t always good enough and some of them I chose the same team for both gold and silver.)

All and all, the system worked well and now I’m ready for myPicks London in 2012. The application was build using zembly. Here’s more about the application on zembly. Let the games conclude!

zembly

For the last eight months (eight? has it really been that long?) I have been working on a book that shows how to use a new site: zembly.com. I am really excited about the project and have had great fun (fun? yes, creating is very fun) building widgets and social applications. The book will be available first on Safari Rough Cuts and then in traditional print form. If you sign up on zembly, you can read the tutorial chapter right now (zembly Basics). (zembly is still in private beta, which means you need an invitation to check it out. You can get an invitation below.)

What is zembly? zembly is a social programming site that lets you build (and host!) applications for Facebook, Meebo, OpenSocial (such as Orkut and MySpace). zembly also makes it easy to build services, widgets, and web applications for the iPhone. I have embedded 2 example widgets on my blog (look on the right side bar). The flickr slide show widget randomly displays my flickr photos with titles and the mlb scores widget gives you today’s baseball scores. Both were built and are hosted on zembly (and are featured examples in the book).

One of my favorite widgets lets you plan a journey on the London Tube. The widget is built with data from tubeplanner.com extracted with dapper, then finally a mashup on zembly brings in Google maps. Try it out.

You can view the widget and see how it's built on zembly here (after you sign up).

Do you have an iPhone? Here is an iPhone-friendly version of the London Tube widget.

How difficult is it to create and build with zembly? If you have even a little bit of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript knowledge, you’re set to go! Since zembly is collaborative, you don’t have to start from scratch. Go to the samples section, see what others are doing, and if you like something, clone it. You can then modify it to suit your own requirements. And, it’s fun. Here's the sign up: