ChicagoSportsBlogs : Non Compete

Warning: I am geeking it out on this post. If you want some average, not very detailed, but classy coverage of the Chicago Sports landscape, find it in this feed, or this one.

I wanted to mention a few sites that I have been visiting a lot lately. The first is, the new maps site by Google. There has been a lot of discussion (it was even in the WSJ yesterday) about async web requests. The handful of Google developers out there, NOT working on the search engine, seem to be working on DOM objects, Javascript, and XMLHTTP(thanks to Microsoft). It is kind of disturbing. I swore off writing for the client, or front end, for web-stuff years ago. Javascript sucked. I wasn't a big fan. Then again, not many people were. We used to have 2 browsers to support when we did crazy Javascript tricks, nevermind the CSS zealots who wanted to design without tables. Talk about forward thinking, right? The front end revolution is here. I can't lie, some of these Google apps that use XMLHTTP and Javascript are clever. The interfaces are beautiful and the usability is amazing(thanks to async transfers -- no more whole page redraws). Clearly, they are onto something. I will pretend to ignore the fact that none of this stuff will ever work on my PDA, CellPhone or in my car. Yes, my car. I want Google to be my nav system. Where is that Honda deal when you need it...

The second site I've been frequenting is Flickr. It's another site that uses the asyn HTTPXML transfer methods. I haven't really noticed where they actually use them, but the site is pretty cool. I know there is a media war (not that kind) taking place online. The next versions of our favorite OS's are going to be fighting over how to manage all my movies, torrents, RSS content, pictures, MP3 files, whatever. Flickr and the rest of these image management apps are cool as hell and easy to use. I have family all over the place and this site helps bring us together. I have heard rumblings that Google's recent acquisition of Picasa (hello.com) is pretty powerful as well. I need to test this one out too...but for the time being Flickr is my goto guy.

Finally, I found this in my RSS feeds earlier last week. Start. I have no idea what its purpose in life is. All I know is that its interface is clean, lean and easy to use. It aggregates all my favorite RSS feeds. It's just a fun little expirement brought to you by the folks in Redmond. Its potential is immense since I think Google is pretty aweful at searching and indexing blogs....perhaps MSN will take the ball on this one....

that is all from the geek front. Anything I missed?