I had looked at some on-line applications awhile ago, like Writely a word processor that works via the web browser, but there were very few at the time. The boom with Ajax enabled Javascript toolkits and widgets has opened up a world I have been anticipating for awhile, web based gui applications.

Writely was bought by Google who also added a spreedsheet application giving you partial functionality of an office suite without the need of a software install. If you're like me, installing a large Office product is a waste of space as at home I use these applications very rarely. Another great feature these tools offer is the collaboration with other users without the need for everyone to buy or install a compatible product.

I also looked at NumSum, which at the time was the first and only spreedsheet application offered on the net at that time. They are still alive and well and offers an alternative to Google's spreedsheet. There is also an alternative to Writely, or Google's, on-line word processor called Zoho Writer.

Now people have been embedding rich text editors in web-pages for awhile and spreedsheets are pretty much tables with some cool Javascript effects, but how about images?

If you do diagramming or flow charting you now can work on-line as well using Gliffy. Pretty impressive!

Now if you're like me you're thinking, "these are business like applications and are really boring". Well, if you want cool Phixr is way cool. Phixr is an on-line photo editor. Being a graphics guy this one really got me thinking how nice it would be to have a photo editor anywhere at anytime on any computer.

If time management is you thing check out HiTask . HiTask will let you manage your time and track time with your colleagues.

If you need a easy web form with collection, but do not know much about programming or don't have access to a server that allows you to do form related collections then JotForm is for you. You can create a web form online and have it collect the entries for you. Links directly on your site. Really nice stuff! 

Web based applications are nothing new, I remember the first "live" chat rooms in the early nineties, some even had voice chat built in, but these modern web apps are really starting to take on a GUI presence similar to desktop applications. I really thought Flash would fuel web based applications and I am glad to see it being powered by a more open backend. The fact is, web based applications make sense in some cases, e-mail for instance and collaborative software like office suites, group calenders, and most in house applications. We will see if big business catches on or if they continue to install and support applications on all their employee's workstations for the next X amount of years.

Here are some more really cool on-line applications that may interest you.

Create Fonts on-line with BitfontMaker 

Cool text effects and Logo creation using CoolText 

Create a gragh or chart with CreateAGraph

Create very large prints from a small image via the internet using Raterbator

Do some calculations at Math.com , even has a scientific calculator. 

If you are looking for full feature on-line calender , mail , and chat Google in my opinion has some of the coolest on-line applications.  Google's on-line applications are fully integrated with each other and work very well. They just cannot be beat.