Yahoo is a great player in AJAX environment and the WEB2.0 fashion. Yahoo! purchased companies like del.icio.us and Flickr. Built AJAX Maps and video streaming pages. And recently acquiring Pixoria Inc. (small company that creates web-applications with no need of a web-browser.. WIDGETS...)


Back to the maps, the new version - Yahoo! Maps beta (using ajax) is very easy to use and connect to.


How to add a map to your site? Yahoo! put up a great developers site for simple step-by-step instructions on how to add maps to your site, search for sites, add private landmarks on maps and much MUCH more!


Check out THIS SIMPLE YAHOO MAPS DEMO we put up (including simple source code).

Rico is an opensource javascript/php project based on the prototype api code. Rico enables us to build WEB2.0 interfaces quite easily. With rico we can quickly add drag-n-drop functionality to our site, use smooth effects to open/close text boxes, and most importantly, do Ajax in a pretty simple way. To get started it's best to download the sample code or check out rico's demo we put up, and then going to the forum/blog as documentation is hard to find. Overall it's a pretty nice library which I found easy to understand (not for beginners though).

Browser-wise: works on my IE6, Opera 9 and Firefox.
Ofcourse - like all these WEB2.0 libraries, it's not hard to find some bugs that make it a little crazy on the screen - but this is WEB2.0. Maybe WEB3.0 will finally look and feel like a smooth app..

Google is bringing out new web applications as if the started reproducing by themselves. We are starting to see real world uses for ajax and web apps web2.0 style. Besides the cool calendar, ofcourse the home page and more, three more cool apps came out recently.

First - the coolest if you ask me (Ajax wise) - the SpreadSheets.
It is beta, but unlike other beta's it's really in beta, but still very cool. You can use Excel like functions, copy and paste cells, work with different sheets, resize and much much more. On my computer, which I know is sometimes crazy, it worked only on FireFox:





And on a sad note - when I tried Internet Explorer (6) I got:





and with Opera (9) got this ( :-( )






Another nice web-app is the Google NoteBooks. The ajax is sweet, you can actually work on the notebook without even 1 refresh! i did the whole page below without a refresh (add note, label bar, edit, delete note and more...





And finally, Google albums. Is this a wink to Yahoo's Flikr? I think so, and combining it with the new Picasa-Web beta, you can easily manage your photo album on your PC with Picasa (or the web ofcourse...) and view/share/search photos on the web. It's still new, and lacks features, but if you ask me - this is going to fly!





I'll add a small note that i have also seen the Yahoo and Microsoft are also in the race and have fantastic ajax apps online that I'll mention in the future.

It's not news that some sites on the internet may pose a threat to the user. So how can we search the web without fearing the intentions of the website owner? We Scandoo the search!


Scandoo (beta ofcourse) is an ajax-search-engine-wrapper (which means that it actually brings content from another site, inserts some javascript code into the page and adds new features and options availabe to the user) which can automatically scan search results from Google and Msn (according to the site - Yahoo and Ask will be available soon). Scandoo's features include protecting you from visiting web sites that spread malicious viruses or spyware, and protecting you from viewing offensive content.

Here is an screenshot of a scandoo search for "screensavers":


(FYI - "screensavers" is actually known to be a search-term that returns many malicious sites)

No problems with Firefox, Opera and IE. Good work.

".. Scandoo is a ScanSafe(C) company online application. ScanSafe provides a comprehensive suite of web security services through a scalable web processing center that guarantees high performance, best-of-breed protection. "

Are you a web developer? On the road and need an HTML button?
I bet it happens to you a lot...
But seriously, check it this simple tool that allows you to build a proffesional button online. No graphic programs to install. No editing - viewing - editing buttons.
Simply build it online using different templates, download it and your done.

like this:


... Works great with IE, little buggy using Opera and Firefox but not too bad.

Need a new watch? Want to see a new Ajax Search site?
Watch browser scans through Amazon.com and finds watches using user defined filters, and bringing the results to the screen ajax style:

"... 

    Hello,    http://watch-browser.com is a new interactive way

    to search for wrist watches.

    It combines AJAX and the amazon.com watch database to provide

    an easy and quick way to find the watch you are looking for.

    Main features are:    

       - See results as to type search keywords  

       - Auto complete brand filter  

       - Minimum/Maximum price slider  

       - Category filter and sorting options    

    IO and event management is implemented using

    http://dojotoolkit.org/ and the price slider is from 

    the http://www.zapatec.com/ AJAX suite.  ..."

Lets talk a little scripting! script.aculo.us is a functional protoype javascript library framework ready to be used in WEB2.0 applications. Scriptaculous is licensed under a MIT-style license

What? Easily develop rich user interface such as drag-n-drop objects, drop-down menus and clean, smooth visual effects. For more interfaces check out the Demo Page

Using the object-oriented Prototype JavaScript library, script.aculo.us allows you to develop using any framework from simple HTML to server-side PHP. For easy Ajax development WEB2.0 style try Ruby on Rails (these scripts come included).

So, what do we get from this? You can add nice textarea drop down:




Cool letters dropdown (fall out of the page):




Check out Our Demo Page or download now!

Lets put this Ajax stuff and WEB2.0 together into something productive.

When i say productive i mean getting ready for the Football World Cup 2006. The fist thing to do is get the World Cup dates! When is England playing? When is Ronaldinho giving the show? How do we do that? Well, many ways, but lets see the ajax way!

First, if you haven't yet seen the Google Calendar, then do it. It's what ajax is all about, with googles simple, clean and user friendly interface. Noticed it shows a message about browsers something with Opera and IE7(beta), but worked fine so go ahead.

Ok, now that we know google calendar, we can search for the World Cup 2006 calendar in "Search public calendars".


Or, to go a step further, add it to a WebTop - in this example, Netvibes:
Simply go to Netvibes click on the "+ Add content" and add a new "Ical Viewer". For the ICal url copy the link (Right click on ICal image)

This is a sample of my screen - Now i'm ready for World Cup 2006: