Hot Potatoes is designed for instructors and students to use. Teachers know the needs of their students, and they need to be able to design teaching and review materials which serve those needs, without having to learn programming skills. Students can also use the programs to create review material for themselves and their peers.
Hot Potatoes focuses on teaching, not testing. The exercises are constructed so that students are helped towards correct answers by feedback, hints and clues.
Hot Potatoes exercises are simple XHTML, JavaScript and CSS. They will function on any modern Web browser without plugins or server-side code. They’ll run from a network drive or a CD, and can even be distributed by email if necessary.
Anything that can appear on a Web page can appear in a Hot Potatoes exercise — audio, video, Flash or simple HTML tags can be inserted.
The exercises are created using a template system, so users who do have technical skills can easily modify and enhance the templates to introduce new features.

RELATED WEBSITE LINKS
http://hotpot.uvic.ca/
(Hot Potatoes home page at the university of Victoria)
http://www.halfbakedsoftware.com/
(Half-Baked company site)

PRODUCTS SHOWN
Hot Potatoes version 6.2: Normal price $120 USD / single user. Multi-user licences have a steadily decreasing per-seat price.

Hard drive makers are cramming more capacity onto hard drives using a new technology called perpendicular storage. As usual, Andy Walker uses food (this time pizza ingredients) to show us how it works. Show notes on how perpendicular storage works are available in an article on Cyberwalker.com called Perpendicular Storage Demystified
http://www.cyberwalker.com/article/623

1.What’s XML?
XML is a file format which transfers JUST data notated by tag names and attributes, and takes the shape of a tree when it encloses and categorizes data. This XML format can be processed differently by many different web platforms or software. ( I will show a sample screen of an XML file, how it is structured in a tree with tag names to identify data type)
2.How does XML make life easier for us?
With XML data feeds, we can get data from a website without having to go to the site, and we can display the data on other websites as we wish as well as on our own computer software. This extends the usability of data. Think about RSS feeds. You can have blog posts or news items fed directly to an RSS reader so that you don’t have to visit the website to get the data. It is possible because XML segregates the data from the presentation so it can be put into any other platform and displayed differently!
(I will show you an RSS aggregator and compare it to the actual blog, to show the data is the same)

Also, XML is being used more and more by 3rd party equipment such as cell phones, factory equipment etc. XML is already being used as a standard for inventory management and handling product data in factories and what not. It is the most extensible data carriage format there is so far. XML is fast becoming the standard data sharing format for businesses this way. You can exchange data about human resources, equipment, products, finances – just about anything can be defined in the XML tree structure!

3.Does XML have benefits to commerce?
Yes it does. You can feed items for sale through XML. You can feed whatever data you want – name, price, store, etc. With this XML feed, 3rd party users are able to generate their custom ad platforms such as this. (I show the new XML API banner system I’m creating) Note how this banner is NOT static – it is generated by XML feeds from its mother-ship, shopping.com. And the data can be displayed in any shape or form dynamically because it runs off an external data feed. It does not require maintenance from the web-master’s end at all. The merchants can provide real-time ads of their products, while customers also enjoy the benefit of quick price comparisons and easy access to many online merchants.

RELATED WEBSITE LINKS
http://blog.jeffkee.com – Example of a blog, and the XML feed. (Show 1)
http://ttzmedia.com/affiliate/ - Example of my XML api coding and the ads generated within it. Also shown again to show the AJAX site. (show 1, and 2)
http://www.facebook.com/ - Example of large community website that keeps it lean and mean with intelligent AJAX solutions.