Sometime around 2005 and the release of Google Maps, Ajax became the next great thing in programming and was nearly synomous with O’Reilly’s now overused term Web 2.0. Ajax, which stands for asynchronous JavaScript and XML, allowed developers to improve a user’s experience with Internet applications by making it possible to request data from a server and load that new data onto the page without ever needing to refresh the actual page. Using the Google Maps reference again, this allows you to zoom in on countries and cities, new images are displayed, and not once does the page new to be reloaded or refreshed.

Six Revisions, a weblog for the standards-compliant web designer and developer released an article with 25 Excellent Ajax Techniques and Examples. You can create calendars and rating systems, learn how to develop an upload script or a login form – all using Ajax. The examples/demos are probably at an Intermediate level, and take advantage of some popular frameworks like Prototype JS and mootools, and are a great way to spice up your website or web application.