Subject Matters

QuirksBlog has a detailed discussion.

Google Experiments with Video Blogging PunkOfLinux writes “TechWeb has an article about Google’s plans to start a video service that sounds similar to Picasa. Excerpt: ‘While there’s no formal announcement yet, Google co-founder Larry Page said Monday that the well-known search engine concern would soon let the general public upload self-produced videos to Google’s servers, partly in an effort to learn more about how to more efficiently search and display information about video-based data.’”

Google Prefetching for Mozilla Browsers kv9 writes “A post on GoogleBlog reveals that Google has enabled results prefetching for Mozilla based browsers, which means that the top results of queries are being loaded in the background and pages will load faster. More info on the Mozilla Prefetching FAQ and the Google Webmaster FAQ”

Yahoo Fights Back in Battle With Google ChipGuy writes “Om Malik has a great analysis of how Yahoo is fighting back the Google assault. ‘A handful of blog-evangelists, a couple of key buys - (Odd Post and Flickr) have turned Yahoo from a dot.has.been to the new darling of the chattering classes.’ Yahoo’s new initiatives like Yahoo 360 are even apprently making Yahoo Web 2.0 compliant.”

Google’s Library Up and Running An anonymous reader writes “It seems that Google Print results are beginning to appear on searches. For those who don’t know, Google has been scanning from libraries from some of the world’s greatest universities in order to compile a freely accessible online library. An easy way to turn up these results is to simply type “book”, and then whatever you want to search for. For instance, book origin of species will turn up the full text of Charles Darwin’s controversial treatise. 20,000 leagues, Oliver Twist and Pride and Prejudice and m o r e are all there in full. It’ll be interestin to see how publishers deal with this if demand for these books declines. In the meantime, would anyone like to point out any good books?” Hopefully, Google can also start to index some books that are being released in the Creative Commons/alternative open licenses.

Software Development Practices At Google prostoalex writes “It’s widely known that Google allows its engineers to spend 20% of paid work time on personal projects (that are nevertheless considered property of the company). But how does the practice actually work? Joe Beda provides a helpful insight in his blog, pointing out other interesting software development practices at Google. The code database is open for everyone, the snippets and pieces are documented and one is encouraged to re-use existing code. The intranet is transparent to the max and the company accepts the fact that there’s more than way to accomplish something, so a better method is always welcomed. Interesting to note that just like Hawaiian shirt days in Office Space, the 20% per projects are “actively encouraged” - Joe suspects his review ratings might slip if he doesn’t have one soon.”

News.com writes about the old technology that’s suddently become the hottest new thing:

Start-ups and industry giants such as Microsoft continue to devise newfangled systems for delivering desktop-like applications over the Web. But search giant Google has taken a different path, using older technology to build its newest applications such as Google Maps and Gmail.

That’s prompted developers to take a second look at old-hat technologies that have been kicking around on the Web since the 1990s, such as JavaScript and Dynamic HTML.

Those older technologies–such as the JavaScript scripting language, the Cascading Style Sheets recommendation by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for applying styles to multiple Web pages, and other coding bells and whistles–are sometimes grouped under the marketing term Dynamic HTML, or DHTML.

The basic message of AJaX is that modern browsers, through a combination of JavaScript and XmlHttpRequest, provide an advanced client that allows you to write rich client interfaces without the need to deploy a plugin.

So far so good, but when you look at the mechanisms that are currently available to take advantage of AJaX, a boatload of JavaScript embedded in an HTML file, you will probably experience a sickening feeling of deja vu all over again.

AJaX totally blows the idea of seperating presentation markup and code snippets. The result brings back memories of pre-custom tag JSP pages… a little puddle of HTML markup embedded in an ocean of Java code (only this time it’s JavaScript).

The promise of AJaX is exciting, but until tools and frameworks automate the generating of “AJaX” we’re back to some pretty ugly and potentially buggy UI code.

Molly Wood alarms that “Google’s going to build a Web-based thin client-type hosted environment-slash-operating system replacement.”

Think about Gmail, which, in a broadband situation, is probably more responsive than Outlook; and Google Maps, which doesn’t show any signs of redrawing as you drag the image all over your screen. That’s the power of Ajax, which removes most of the server communication, almost making you forget you’re using the Web. Now think about what would happen if you had a word processor, a spreadsheet app, a photo editor, an instant messenger, a browser, a music jukebox, and any other “software application” running inside a Web framework that’s as fast and responsive as any desktop you’ve ever used. Now imagine being able to access that environment from any Web-enabled computer (or device), anywhere. Remember Bill Gates saying, 10 years ago, that traditional software was dead and that all software would eventually be delivered over the Internet? Well, I think Google was listening.

from Slashdot:

tod_miller writes “Google has changed its definitions link from dictionary.com to answers.com. A google search for juxtaposition shows the effect. What is interesting is that answers.com pulls information from wikipedia.org, which was provided bandwidth by google.com [and now Google is providing a service that will be used worldwide to pull information off Wikipedia]. Aside from having both a dictionary.com and a wikipedia.org search box in FireFox (as well as Google) the definition link on Google is still useful and I regularly check it for obscure uses or exact definitions of words. Now it uses answers.com we do not get all the different forms of the word, but we do get any medical or wikipedic information. Interestingly, answers.com does not use Google AdSense, but commission junction that looks like it. There is no announcement yet from Google of their change.” This change took place several weeks ago, as players of e-scrabble and other compulsive word-checkers might have noticed. Update: 03/13 23:20 GMT by T: (Also mentioned in passing last month.)