• Google’s Content Distribution Network has libraries on their various servers across the world and if you use their CDN link, when a user’s browser resolves the URL, their browser will automatically download the file from the closest available server, which will be a much faster download than if you force a user to download the file from your host server in whichever country your website is hosted.
• Google’s Content Distribution Network will save you a great deal of bandwidth if you have large traffic on your website and a limited bandwidth with your host.
• There is a good chance that the Google hosted version of that library is already cached on the user’s browser cache, as lot of big websites and portals use Google’s CDN links including Google itself and Google’s servers instruct browsers to cache the file for one year if there are quite a few requests for the same hosted file.

How to use Google CDN

Google’s CDN provides most of the popular, open source JavaScript Libraries with two ways of using each of them via the direct path in the script tags and via The Google AJAX Libraries API.

To use the Google AJAX Libraries API we need to include the Google “jsapi” script:

<script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi"></script>

The Google AJAX Libraries API provides a simple and powerful google.load() method which accepts two arguments, the first argument to google.load is the name of a library. The second argument is the version of the library:

<script>
google.load("jquery", "1.3.2");
google.load("jqueryui", "1.7.1");
    google.setOnLoadCallback(function(){
        // use this instead of:
        /*
            $(document).ready(function(){  });
        */
    });
</script>

But to use this API, there is a different approach for the ready functions of all the libraries. For example, in the above code, we use google.setOnLoadCallback(function(){ }); instead of jQuery’s ready function. In-fact we use google.setOnLoadCallback(function(){ }); instead of all different library’s ready functions. This can be seen as a drawback or a good feature; I see it as a good feature as it gives me a single ready function for all libraries.

The second method to use Google’s CDN links is by the direct paths of the libraries in the script tags

Below is a list of all the JavaScript Libraries Google CDN provides with the direct paths and google.load implementation:

jQuery

name: jquery
versions: 1.2.3, 1.2.6, 1.3.0, 1.3.1, 1.3.2
load request: google.load("jquery", "1.3.2");
extras: uncompressed:true, e.g., google.load("jquery", "1.3.2", {uncompressed:true});
path: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js
path(u): http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.js

jQuery UI

name: jqueryui
versions: 1.5.2, 1.5.3, 1.6, 1.7.0, 1.7.1
load request: google.load("jqueryui", "1.7.1");
extras: uncompressed:true, e.g., google.load("jqueryui", "1.7.1", {uncompressed:true});
path: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.7.1/jquery-ui.min.js
path(u): http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.7.1/jquery-ui.js
note: This library depends on jquery. Before loading this module, you must load jquery. e.g.:
        google.load("jquery", "1.3.2");
        google.load("jqueryui", "1.7.1");

Prototype

name: prototype
versions: 1.6.0.2, 1.6.0.3
load request: google.load("prototype", "1.6.0.3");
path: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/prototype/1.6.0.3/prototype.js

script.aculo.us

name: scriptaculous
versions: 1.8.1, 1.8.2
load request: google.load("scriptaculous", "1.8.2");
path: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/scriptaculous/1.8.2/scriptaculous.js
note: This library depends on Prototype. Before loading this module, you must load Prototype. e.g.:
        google.load("prototype", "1.6");
        google.load("scriptaculous", "1.8.2");

SWFObject

name: swfobject
versions: 2.1
load request: google.load("swfobject", "2.1");
extras: uncompressed:true, e.g., google.load("swfobject", "2.1", {uncompressed:true});
path: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/swfobject/2.1/swfobject.js
path(u): http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/swfobject/2.1/swfobject_src.js

Yahoo! User Interface Library (YUI)

name: yui
versions: 2.6.0, 2.7.0
load request: load request: google.load("yui", "2.7.0");
extras: uncompressed:true, e.g., google.load("yui", "2.7.0", {uncompressed:true});
path: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/yui/2.7.0/build/yuiloader/yuiloader-min.js
path(u): http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/yui/2.7.0/build/yuiloader/yuiloader.js

But despite these wins, and numerous loyal fans, Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects. The central parts of the code, as well as the protocols that have driven many of Wave’s innovations, like drag-and-drop and character-by-character live typing, are already available as open source, so customers and partners can continue the innovation we began. In addition, we will work on tools so that users can easily “liberate” their content from Wave.

From the official Google blog.

I for one am a huge Google Wave fan and hate to see this go. Why Google? Why!?

Read more about Google’s Chrome Frame

Thanks Google!

When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you’re really sure you want to send that late night Friday email. And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you’re in the right state of mind?

Google Blog

Download the latest via SVN or visit the project page: Winn Guestbook Project

1. Put Them to Use
Just because a server is old doesn’t mean it isn’t useful. A server that was too old to be used on their main infrastructure could be used for various other tasks, such as testing projects under development or running various applications needed for the use of employees and internal resources. I think this is a very plausible situation because servers are so expensive and costly to move. Not all applications require powerful servers and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that by the time Google was done with a server, it was still fairly new.

2. Grave Scenario
Considering there is a Google search engine for almost every country in the world and in every time zone, someone is always searching on Google. My guess is their servers never, ever get a break. With the amount of servers Google needs, they must have their servers setup so that each one is always working at full capacity and server power is never wasted. For example, if a server wasn’t handling massive United States search traffic during the day, it could be processing data for search engine rankings, updating databases, or maybe even handling searches from people in other countries at night.

With this kind of abuse, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone told me Google’s servers had a short life span. In most environments, servers almost always get a break. For instance, a server in a corporate environment would be busy all day but after everyone left for the day, quiet all night. Without this kind of break, a server’s life span is more than likely decreased greatly.

3. Give Back to the Tech World
Who is to say Google is mean and greedy with its processing power? From this blog written in 2004 we can find out that Google is donating some of its old servers to Wikipedia. This page at Wikimedia, however, suggests the opposite, when it talks about Google hosting Wikimedia and says:

“Google is eager to help us, and Wikimedia are eager to accept their help, but the Board wants to be good stewards of donor money, and this requires them to move carefully.”

Clearly, this means there is money involved here, not free servers! So, who really knows what Google does with their old servers? Maybe it’s just one of life’s little secrets we’ll never know…