Varoomit.com

This project uses everything Earthgrid has to offer to produce the final result:

a)  Cloud Architecture It uses Earthgrid.com's cloud architecture for the website, listings database and search functions

b)  MySQL Database Server - It uses Earthgrid.net's mobile messaging and community platform to manage members and deliver a personal page to everyone who signs up.

c)  Ajax/Javascript HTML Snippets that produce real-time searching and dynamic data display of Database Contents.

This project started first as a 'regular' earthgrid.com web site and uses all of the 'forms' and database tools available.  However the founders quickly realized that they wanted to use the dynamic 'social' networking aspects of Earthgrid.net to bring their members into a private networking community.  Therefore a custom User Interface was developed and a 'bridge' between the cloud and the database server was deployed.

The Database API at earthgrid.com was added at the very end of the project to enable users to 'search' for properties by State, City, or a natural key-phrase.  In addition, each member has their own personal web page they can edit themselves.

Valentina Osinski.com

First of all, we realize that the contents of this web site is not 'Enterprise' however the deployment of this particular web site embodies many of the principles and techniques we offer to our enterprise customers.

Valentina Osinski is an opera singer. She wanted a powerful presentation for her image in this highly competitive industry.  We approached the project in stages:

a)  First we acquired a professionally-designed artist template to serve as a foundation for her opening page. This template is entirely in Flash.
b)  Next her documents, resume, testimonials and bio needed to be converted from Word into PDF (Acrobat) format so that it is easy to deliver.
c)  She wanted professional video clips to be embedded inside of her presentation, so the Video needed custom compression and buffering.
d)  Finally, she wanted a side show of her 'On Stage' and 'Back Stage' imagery, and she wanted music clips to play in the background.  This presented the greatest challenge since images, audio and video are all 'heavy' objects.

During the first phase of the project, the design phase, everything remained locally on a HTTP web server.

During the transformation to the cloud, we moved the 'heavy' assets over to Earthgrid.com into her personal account into a 'File' area.  Inside the 'File' area under 'Access' we obtained the 'Permanent URL' for each of these assets.  Each file is assigned a unique reference # that identifies that asset in the 'cloud'


Principle #2:  set-up slideshows and utilities on 'Splash' page in your Earthgrid.com site.

So that she can update the images in her slideshow, we moved the slideshow off the web site and into the cloud using the 'Image Gallery' object. Also this enabled thumbnails on the bottom of the page.  Yet, when the slideshow is embedded into her final web page, it fits together correctly.

Princple #3:  use the cloud for music and video - this is a correlary to Principle #1, however it does require some 'tinkering'. The preferred way to deploy video and audio to the cloud is to first copy the assets over and then change the meta-data in the XML file that points to the assets.

Principle #4: set-up auto-responders. Auto-responders can be setup as part of a 'splash' page or reside on the local server.  Where it is located depends on the application. In her case, we left the auto-responder on the web server, since its sole purpose is to capture name and email address for her personal email list and she uses an external mailing program to send out newsletters (Outlook).  However, if she chose to, this could be replaced with a mailing list object inside of the cloud network and the results captured in a Form object.



As you can see from the above example, moving your site into the cloud requires some advanced thinking.  First of all, every 'object' in the cloud has a unique reference number and there is no differentiation as to its data type. Similarly, the cloud architecture assembles pages quickly from within the dynamic web editor.  In some cases, it is easier to keep part of your site in HTML on your local web server, and use the cloud for the heavy lifting.  If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.