embed data in URLs

i read about this a little while ago and didn't realize how useful it was. you can actually embed binary data into a URL by encoding it in base-64, which makes total sense when you think about it. here's an example: . The image that you see is the base-64 encoded version of the last.fm social bookmarking/music site that i visit frequently. Mozilla Firefox and IE7, i believe, both use this icon in their search engine definition lists which are created from XML configuration files. the OpenSearch standard defines the schema for the XML, which encapsulates the image file for a search engine in a base-64 encoded field. if you get properties on the last.fm logo shown above, you'll see that it's just a character string. if you want to mess around with this some more, you should check out this tool to build base-64 encoded URIs.