It wasn’t long ago that the Internet Archive was mentioned. This amazing, non-profit resource has been storing snapshots of the Web since 1996. It is now revealed that the entire system is Linux-powered. It can hold over a petabyte (1000,000 gigabytes) in volume and yet remain affordable.

here is a great deal of talk about AJAX recently. It is the new branch of development which makes real-time interaction possible. To take examples from Google, GMaps allow movement around the map without the reloading of a page; Google Suggest fetches possible completions from the server in real-time; GMail is another AJAX-rich Web application. The main advantage of this technology is that it one does not need to refresh entire pages, but just modify little bits whenever required.

There are simple ways of indicating change and increasing usability. The lastest release of the Horde project, for example, has plenty of subtle feedback for interaction. A few instances: the pointer changes to a finger when unfolding menus, “+” changes to a “-” and vice versa; Hovering will result in different background colours to indicate severity.

There are some very nice demos in the Open Source library named Rico. I was impressed at first, but I soon spotted a major drawback. The pages devour signals so mouse gestures, for instance, begin to misbehave. Also, browser compatibility is limited, which makes pages like that a bad choice for practical purposes. Another example of flexible designs shows the great powers of modern browsers.

There has recently been some gossip about Google’s project which involves 3D maps of San Francisco, as well as other cities. More details have been disclosed today (Kudos to Slashdot) including some pictures and related research papers (PDF).

An example of output maps, which can be generated by trucks with laser tracers

Polaroid-o-nizer applies a sequence of transformations and adds effects which create fancy images on-line. There is a simple yet flexible Web interface which enables you to customiseoutput images.

Let us put the famous Lenna to the test, as was done some months ago with the image-to-text transformer. Below is the result.

ome immensely powerful features will be included in OpenOffice.org version 2. I recently attended a live demonstration; therein it was shown that regular expressions are included in the package, along with other features that make OO.org more attractive than its commercial equivalent — Microsoft Office.

Open Office is composed almost purely of C/C++, which makes it fast. According to one source, Open Office performs better than a recent Office release.

The CPU load when closing and opening Writer (OO.org) and Word (Office)

lpha trial of one excellent Web-based aggregator is on its way. Yet another Web-based feed syndication service? Definitely not. Feedlounge features AJAX, tags, keyboard navigation and an excellent overall integration. The user experience equates to that of a native program.

I have recently come across a German site which cloned my theme. Looking at the similarity in terms of layout is somewhat surreal. Sadly, that site appears to have become dormant last year.