Planning and building a mashup: Toolbox Activity 9

Written by: Jonathan Briggs

December 1, 2009 [2959 views]

This activity is about Mashups; web based software systems that build on data and services from other software systems.

This activity counts in exactly the same way as the others; 5% for each part. The deadline is Monday 7th December at midnight.

During this activity you will

Explore existing mashups to see the range of applications that are being produced
Select 2 that you think are particularly clever or useful
Find data sources from which a mashup can be created
Devise a mashup of your own that could be constructed using this data
Explore and evaluate some of the tools for creating mashups
Construct a mashup of your own (part 2)

Part 1

Using the links below explore some the mashups that have been published so far. Make sure that you look at a range of different types including news, mapping, music, sport, shopping, mobile etc.
Try and work out how much effort has been involved in manipulating and presenting the data
Think of a mashup of your own. This is hard but if you think about things that you might use (in your local area perhaps) or about topics in which you are particularly interested then I think you may find this possible. Perhaps consider a very specialized news service or plotting some cool information onto a map very local to where you live.
Now have a look at some of the tools (at least 2) for creating mashups and see which might be suitable for your particular idea. Try and find some new ones. Make notes about them as you examine them so that you can select one if you do part 2.

Here are the questions you have to answer to pass part 1 of this activity

How would you describe mashups to someone who has never heard of them?
Provide the correct URL links to two mashups that impressed you
Describe why each of them was interesting
Which tools did you try (at least 2)?
Describe what each of these tools does
Describe the mashup you would like to try and create

Here is the survey link for feeding back your answers to Part 1

Part 2

Ok, go ahead and try and make your mashup! To complete this activity you don’t have to get it completely working but you need to be able to explain how far you got.

Describe the user experience you are trying to create?
Describe the data sources that you will use?
List the URLs for these data sources
List the tools that you use to experiment with manipulating these data sources
How far did you get?
If you succeeded in producing something then take a snapshot of your screen and upload it to the feedback survey
What problems did you face and how did you solve them?
Why do you think mashups will be important to your future IT career?

Here is the survey link for feeding back your answers to Part 2

Deadline for feedback and inclusion in results: Monday 7th December Midnight

Recent comments:

On December 3, 2009 at 12:32 AM, Yusuf Abdi wrote:

hi
i noticed the feed on the right hand side of the page from Twitter; is that a mash-up too?
if it is, how did u create it?

thank you

http://yusufcom.com/blog

Jonathan replies: It's a plug-in (mashup) from the Twitter site.

On December 5, 2009 at 7:43 AM, James wrote:

This is not really relevant to what we are doing right now on IT Toolbox, but I hope you can make some suggestions that would guide me in the right directon.

A couple of years ago i set up a website, and used various Joomla modules, the problem with this was that it really slowed down my website.

About a month ago I decided to build a complete new website from scratch, where the chatroom and all other features would be built from scratch using Java.

The problem i am currently facing is that the siteground hosting account I have that I created for this module dosen't offer jdk and jse support.

I have already explored many avenues, such as getting my own server, with a company that offers managed or unmanged servers, and then connect to it using winSCP.

I have also looked at vps, from a company called clicehost, however i would have to know Linux, as well as getting the vps from slicehost then installing a basic lamp with email service.

Do you have any suggestions? All i need is JDK and JSE support, siteground would offer such a service, for $100.00 a month, i am just looking for cheaper options.

Thank you

Jonathan replies: We have used slicehost with good results. You need a host that supports Tomcat or another Java server environment. If I were doing the project I'd separate out the different modules into different tools but thats just me.

On December 6, 2009 at 1:10 PM, kahlown Haad wrote:

Hello , I am haad.I am trying to create a loop .But once I create it there is no location builder thing that appears and when I want to create the rest then it shows an error.

Second thing i did part one and i completed all the part one and two of other activities but this for this one as i am unable to create the loop , and will need more time , do you think i will still pass if i do it after the deadline

Jonathan replies: You have until 7th January so don't panic. I found the loop code and the location builder by searching Google. good luck

On December 6, 2009 at 3:52 PM, Leah wrote:

I think this activity is a bit harder than the last ones. I already got one mashup (twitter plug-in) on my website. Does it count?

Jonathan replies: I don't think Twitter plug-in is really a mashup as you have not had to do anything.

On December 7, 2009 at 9:13 PM, Jaymin wrote:

Im confused, I thought that all part 1s needed to be on time and the part 2s for each activity needed to be done by the deadline date in January, but on this page it says that it needs to be done by 7th Dec midnight, Ive done part 1 but when does part 2 need to be in?

Thanks

Jonathan replies: After a discussion with the rest of the course team and because a number of students had started late I agreed to accept ALL WORK until the 7th of January. Most people have done Part 1s on time and I am grateful for that. Many people are now getting additional marks by doing part 2s. That is fine.

On December 10, 2009 at 4:08 PM, Kahlown Haad wrote:

Hello this is Haad.I am experincing problems in finding the code for the location builder , will you please help me by putting a link on your site to where I could find the code as i looked every possible site and is unable to find the code .Thank you very much .Haad

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=WqQBeONS3BGmcqMz8jxBKg

Jonathan replies: Use Google to solve this sort of problem. I searched for "location builder pipes" and found the link above.

or this doc: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/docs?doc=location