Javascript Compressor

I stumbled across this site today which may be very useful for the new web site.

http://www.dev411.com/dojo/javascript_compressor/

It will help keep a fast load time on the new site even with the increased javascript usage.

Something else to take a look at:

http://rakaz.nl/item/make_your_pages_load_faster_by_combining_and_compressing_javascript_and_css_files

Thing #16 - Wikis

Wikis are a great tool to use for developing a collaborative knowledge base. A large scale example like Wikipedia is a great use of the wiki because a knowledge base of that size would take even a team of 100 people years to write. The problem with smaller scale wikis is that it makes it very easy for one user to accidentally delete something or post something incorrectly. In a large scale example you have tons of people constantly checking, verifying, and updating information, and small mistakes are quickly corrected.

An example that might work well in a library, is having a knowledge base of customer questions and answers. As long as there are a few people to oversee the wiki and can monitor the different wiki articles, I think this would be a great tool to allow staff to quickly and accurately help customers.

Thing #15 - Web 2.0 and Library 2.0

I definitely believe that Web 2.0 will continue to grow and be incorporated into more and more aspects of our web experience. There are certainly some sites that are fads, such as, sites like twitter and even myspace, but the overall concept of social networking is a good one. As new and improved technology comes along Web 2.0 sites will only improve and find new ways to allow their users to interact. People are not satisfied anymore with just being presented with information, they want to interact with it, give their own opinion, and read the thoughts and feelings of other "real people".

Thing #14 - Technorati

Technorati was something I have heard of referred to several times, but I never took the time to check it out. I really found the Technorati list of popular searches, blogs, and videos to be very interesting. It was neat to see that some of the top searches were directly related to most recent news events.

Most importantly it is a great way for me to stay up-to-date on the latest funny YouTube video.

Tags: [Technorati] [23 Things]

Thing #13 - Del.icio.us

I do think that del.icio.us is a good tool for people that use bookmarks a lot and a great way to share them. However, I found this 'thing' to be a bit boring and not as fun as some of the other 'things'. I rarely use bookmarks and normally if I am looking to find a site that I already know about, I just Google the name of the site. If I don't know what site I am looking for I just google the topic and find sites that I am looking for.

In fact, it is annoying that my Google results are getting cluttered by all these del.icio.us results when someone tags a site with a similar subject that I googled for, and it is normally a site that was already returned in my Google results!

Form Tools

I found a neat little form utility today while I was looking for some way to make it easier for me to create forms.

Form Tools

The only thing this was missing that I would have liked for the form I am currently working on is to be able to use relational tables

Thing #12 - Rollyo

As someone who does frequent google searches for help with php, mysql, and javascript programming I think Rollyo will be very helpful. I just finished setting up my own rollyo search for PHP Scripts, you can see it over on the right side of the screen.

I have only done a few searches so far, so I can not say how accurate the results are, but it is certainly something I will try the next time I am seeking programming advice.