Google releases OpenID demo store and mod_pagespeed
Google just released two interesting projects into the wild. One is an OpenID demo store with accompanying documentation, the other an open-source module for the Apache web server.
Google's OpenID demo store
Although OpenID has seemingly been adopted by all major players on the web (aside from Facebook, maybe), I wonder how often their users log in with their OpenID. Most smaller sites are afraid of the overhead of an OpenID implentation, or simply don't know how to do it. Now, Google set up a sample store that makes heavy use of OpenID. Equally important, it's supplemented by an extraordinary documentation. As Carsten correctly states, such a documentation was needed for quite some time. It will be interesting to see if any larger online shops jump on the bandwagon an implement OpenID for their businesses.
mod_pagespeed
According to Google, page loading times become increasingly important, not only for the customer experience, but also for the ranking in Google's search index. Performance hints and tools are abundant on the web, but Google goes even beyond those recommendations and released an extension for the popular Apache web server: mod_pagespeed. I installed it on my local box, but there are lots of options, and I haven't found the time yet to fiddle with them all. It seems that you can achieve most of the optimizations by optimizing your default Apache installation. However, mod_pagespeed might make configuration a lot easier. I guess, we'll have to wait and see.