mashups

Want a donut? Want to know if you'll need an umbrella today? Trying to avoid traffic? Want to know if it's safe for your kids to play in the front yard?

We'll look a dozen-ish mashups that provide useful, helpful, interesting and fun information about the local area that you you live in.

Linux.com: "Five of the top 10 most downloaded distributions on Distrowatch use the Debian package system. It has developed a rich infrastructure of utilities -- not just the core commands apt-get and dpkg, but also such less well-known commands as apt-cache, apt-spy, and apt-listbugs.

In addition, an array of other scripts, some mashups of existing utilities, and some original, are regularly available on sites like openDesktop.org."

On the NETTUTS website today there's a new tutorial about mashups - specifically showing how to create a sample one by combining three services: Google Maps, the IPloc service and the Beer Mapping Project.

IBM Developerworks: "Mashups are a new, highly interactive Web development methodology. Essentially a mix of related content put together from disparate sources, mashups provide rich dynamic content for a superb user experience.

Getting Asynchronous JavaScript + XML (Ajax) and mashup chops into your development toolbox will benefit you with high demand in the evolving Web 2.0 workspace."

Among the hundreds of companies and social platforms debuting at Web 2.0 Expo NY was Xignite, a new financial web service.

David Goodwin has posted a new book review of a PHP book offered by Packt Publishing (released Sept 22, 2007) - "PHP Web 2.0 Mashup Projects" by Shu-Wai Chow.

IBM Developerworks: "The GAE is a platform for creating Web applications. The biggest prerequisite for it is knowledge of Python, as this is the programming language used on it (currently, Python V2.5.2).

For this series, it would be helpful to have some typical Web development skills (e.g., knowledge of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS)."

We were just complaining about the fact that governments should be exposing APIs on certain government data so that people can create more useful services out of them -- and it appears that someone in the UK was having similar thoughts.

The government is now opening up a bunch of data to whoever wants to play with it.

Google's 3D data has escaped the client and is now a welcome addition to the browser! Today at Google I/O a Google Earth Browser plugin is going to be released.

With the plugin installed anybody with a Windows machine will be able to view Google Earth mashups in the comfort of their own browser instead of having to pull up a separate client.

While I've had my own minor run in with Dilbert-creator Scott Adams, I remain a fan of the strip.

Adams has always received many of his ideas for the strip from readers, incorporating them into the storylines and jokes.

Now, it looks like he's taking that idea even further: letting his fans write the comics themselves.