Stories about: OpenSearch

What good is a browser unless you can tweak it, hack it and bend it to your will? No good at all. The more you can hack it, the better it is. And that means that Firefox must be a great browser. It's infinitely customizable, via editing a text file called userChrome.css, making changes via a command called about:config, and using free add-ons to extend the features of the browser.

When last surveying open source Web CMSes (content management systems) I provided some common-sense advice. For example, it's important to look for not just functionality but also frequent updates, a healthy user community, and the availability of professional support. Some points are still true today, but new offerings may get you rethinking the role of these products in your enterprise.

One of the great outgrowths of the Web 2.0 phenomenon has been an increased availability of Web APIs -- Internet-based services with an HTTP-based programming interface. Gone are the days when developers would furtively "scrape" HTML pages for data or useful information. Now major Web services make easier, stabler, and more open ways to read and modify data on their servers.