My First Ajax

As an analyst, I often see things which aren't "joined up", systems that don't talk to each other properly, tasks that people complete which are frustratingly manual (data entry sucks!) but the worst of all...

Things that people could do, but don't, because they're too tedious/complicated/etc..

With that in mind, I've been developing with an API published by a third party I work with. Don't get me wrong, they have a good system, but it tends to be a bit on the slooooowww side (they could do with some ajax upside their faces..) Not to mention the hastle of remembering your username and password, logging in, navigating menus... So I'm on a mission to create an easily usable interface to their API which we can use locally.

I'm relatively new to the techniques I'm using - but that was the main motivation in the first place! So, I've been learning all the HTML, XML, PHP, JavaScript needed to put together my own little ajax powered web app.

I'll be posting a few little stories about this as it develops, as well as hopefully providing some insight into what is needed for anyone that perhaps wants to try themselves!

Many companies (Google, Amazon, spring to mind) have open APIs which you can play with - so why not have a look?