AgileGallery - Free AJAX Photo gallery for Picasa

AgileGallery does something that really sets it apart from a lot of the Ajax code we review and discuss. Instead of running code on a third party server you actually install the code on your own site. The only downside is you can not install the gallery on a site where you do not have access, such as a blog on BlogSpot.

For our test we used some drawings from my desktop and followed the instructions. The entire process only took a few minutes and we had a photo gallery up and running.

To see the results, click here.

Visit AgileGallery to get your copy.

24Eyes RSS Dashboard

24Eyes is a RSS Dashboard aggregator. Unlike Bloglines and most other aggregators it allows users to place RSS feeds from specific sites together in a very user friendly format.

Is it a better format? That would depend on how you want your information formatted.

The downside is the user is limited to pre determined feeds, or OPML feeds and to read a article reguires a new window to open.

Overall very nice looking site, it is just up to your personal taste as to the usability of this aggregator.

Link : 24eyes - The Premium RSS Dashboard on the Internet

ajaxXLS

ajaxXLS was just released. There could be some real benefits to an Ajax app like this. Excel is a rather expensive solution and it would be nice to load up a spreadsheet from anywhere. So that is exactly what I tried to do.

I went to the site and followed the simple instructions. For this test I used a very small spreadsheet I have to balance a checkbook. It is one page, 5 columns x 27 rows. The first image is the original XLS file.


Now, here is the file as it loaded into ajaxXLS.


As you can see the formatting is not right. Overall the math is right, cells are summed correctly. The cell colors and borders are not formatted properly, and at the bottom where there are cells of text there are strange characters and overlapping data as seen in the next snapshot.


I am confident the guys at AjaxLaunch will resolve these issues and deliver a working application.

From ajaxXLS :

On this first release of the ajaxXLS viewer, you can expect to open spreadsheet files with all your common cell formatting categories such as text style, decimals, currencies, date, and time. ajaxXLS will preserve your formulas, backgrounds and borders from the files created in Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice. ajaxXLS is platform independent and can be used with any operating system.