For web developers that need some context when working with the Adwords API to build custom applications, Google has a library of examples to work from.  The client libraries code examples for Google Adwords API has undergone numerous revisions recently. This library is useful for web developers that need help troubleshooting or just to understand the context around a particular issue….oh ya, and also they are great for learning from scratch as well.

Recent changes to the Adwords API include:

• Code examples are now oriented around typical use cases
• Number of input parameters was reduced — forget those specific specific object IDs
• For each example the code is wrapped into a function which can be called with parameters.
• Best practices are now included in the examples + comments!

Oracle acquired the open source MySQL database in 2010 with the purchase of Sub Microsystems. Many in the open-source web development community were concerned that there would be a conflict of interest between the company’s licensed product and the open-source version. Purhaps MySQL is in good hands?

Oracle claims to have made the most recent installment of MySQL, the new MySQL Cluster 7.2 database, 70 times faster than previous versions. The new MySQL version will be able to do now 1.05 billion reads per minute.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that the web development community is without fear. Some are growing concerned that Oracle will fork the project–making a paid version that will have greater care and attention than the open-source version.

Google is planning a user-experience study of Drupal this February in talk called “Usability Studies for you and Drupal too!” The talk will be part of an event Drupal Camp San Diego (SANDCamp).

Ultimately the talk focuses on why UX is so important to Drupal. The Drupal UX team has been focusing on making usability a more important task for the open source content management system, and this event will present their findings. Live streaming of the event will be possible.

Topics of importance:

• determining some of the Key UX issues users of Drupal encounter

Amazon Web Services just introduced DynamoDB, a new cloud computing service: a distributed database. The new service will help web services deal with sudden or frequent spikes in demand. Such spikes can tax traditional databases or databases housed within clusters. Quite possibly this service may be geared for smaller companies with successful websites and web products that may find themselves dealing with the “high class” problem of a spike in demand.

This on-demand web-scale distrubted database is a “a fully managed NoSQL database” that relies on solid-state drives, which increase the speed of data transfer–reducing bottlenecks. The service can be scaled up or down according to demand. Amazon deals with all the provisioning and management of the database, which will be very useful for web development companies.

Google has had their custom search team working hard to launch a number of improvements in 2011. Documentation was a big concern for users and developers who wrote in. As a result:

• JavaScript reference documentation has been completed for the Custom Search Element. They overhauled their documentation for JavaScript methods available with custom search API.

• Parli L’Italiano? Google has added an array of new languages to the help center, including Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish.
• Design overhaul. Google updated the design of the Help Center to make it easier to find what you are looking for. Specifically navigation has been improved.