» Smart Phones, Web Design, Google or whatever
Archive for September, 2008
GoDaddy Gets New Site Design
Sep 27th
GoDaddy has improved their visible image in one fell swoop with the launch of a new site design. Although the Domain Manager section of the site was redesigned in look and function sometime last year, the rest of the site lagged behind. Now its seems that has changed, and like the Domain Manager’s update last year, the new design is more than skin deep. While its true that GoDaddy’s new look is less cluttered, and has a more progressive look, the site also has improved functionality in the form of flyout menu and tooltips.
Beyond the fact that the new menus are more visually appealing, when you log in you’ll notice that they also provide improved visual feedback. As you roll over the buttons, they change – a welcome upgrade from the old. Speaking of login, the login and log out has been better implemented and, at least in my opinion, sits exactly where I’d expect to find it. I must say the new look is also just, well COOLER. Yep, its waaay cooler.
If you’re looking for a web host, give GoDaddy a try!
Yahoo not feeling pretty, getting makeover
Sep 24th
Yahoo isn’t “feeling pretty” so they are getting a makeover. According to Yahoo begins radical home page overhaul, Yahoo is feeling pressure to make good on year old promises to make changes.
“We are going to put what matters to you most at your fingertips,” said Tapan Bhat, the senior vice president in charge of “front doors”–the main destinations at Yahoo, including Yahoo.com, MyYahoo and the Yahoo toolbar.
If you want to take a peek at what the new design could look like head on over to Yahoo begins radical home page overhaul on Reuters.com and there’s an image at the top of the article. Also from the reuters.com article:
The real test of the success or failure of the Yahoo home page redesign will only come when the company opens up Yahoo.com to let independent developers create their own applications to work on Yahoo.com, Dangson said. [That's] where Google, Facebook and MySpace all are further along, she said.
So, after Yahoo gets its makeover, we’ll see if indedpendent developers become interested enough to “join the party” and make cool new Yahoo apps to see if they can catch up with some of the others in terms of custom 3d party apps.
Google gets Greener
Sep 23rd
It was just this past July I was in North Myrtle Beach telling my Dad I thought someone should have come up with a smart solar attic fan by now. As it turned out there are solar attic fans, but they’re not that smart and they also aren’t very powerful so far as I could see.
Recently I wrote about Google and your Electrical Bill in my other blog and just today I read the Building a future that’s clean and green on the Google Blog. All of this Google/Green has got me ying for this stuff to become a reality and I think with companies like Google stepping up to the plate we consumers might start seeing some changes. Google’s “Building a future that’s clean and green” said:
In ten years, we envision a cleaner, greener world — running on wind, solar, and steam – with clean cars plugged into a clean grid. But for that vision to become real, the technologies to power it will have to be economically competitive — otherwise they won’t scale. So we are focusing much of our effort on technology innovation to drive down the costs of key renewable technologies.
Intro to Enhanced Geothermal Systems
Gmail Chat and Labels Get New Home
Sep 20th
I like that Google continues to innovate and try to improve things, and today I read New in Labs: Right-side Labels and Chat where Emily Chang, a Gmail Engineer, unveils a cool new Gmail feature in Gmail Labs – Right-side Labels and Chat which lets you set your labels and/or your chat window to the right hand side of Gmail.
Gmail Right-side Settings
The other day I’d read New in Labs: 3 experiments with labels and enabled Navbar drag and drop which lets you arrange your NavBar. I was a bit disappointed at its lack of flexibility, but today I’ve happily turned it off and enabled both Right-side chat and Right-side labels. Give it a shot… Login to Gmail, click Settings, then the Labs tab, then scroll down and click enable by both or either of these features you want to turn on, then click Save changes at the bottom.
Anyway, now my Gmail looks like this:
Gmail with Labels and Chat on Right side
Oh, and if you want a quick read on Gmail Redesigned above, check out Lifehacker’s Google Redesigned Facelifts Gmail and GCal, just keep in mind if you visit during the the Globex Designs site during day and can’t get the site, try visiting the site again at night.
Run Windows Update in Firefox!
Sep 17th
I only use Internet Explorer when I must, and that may change since I’ve read How to run Microsoft Update using Firefox on PCTips Box. After finding out I didn’t have to use Internet Explorer (IE) to run Windows Update (and possibly other sites that refuse to work in anything besides IE) I immediately went to Firefox Add-ons’ IE Tab page . As of this post they have downloadable versions of IE Tab for Firefox 1.5 through 3.
I installed it and restarted Firefox, went to google and searched Windows Update then right-clicked the link and selected the “Open Link in IE Tab” and tried it out right away. Windows Update ran flawlessly – well not really, but it only did the normal silly stuff it does in IE like warnign me to install the Critical Updates for Windows XP when none are available.
Get IE Tab!
Xbox 360: Is HD really better than TV?
Sep 17th
In one word, considerably!
For months now I’ve been using a 19 inch Sanyo DS19204 for my Xbox 360. I considered my 19 inch HD computer monitor several times and figured that a 19 inch wide screen monitor would mean the loss of more vertical screen real estate than I was willing to bear. Wrong, wrong, wrong!
Even though the 19″ TV screen does have more vertical height than a 19″ HD wide screen monitor the text is much easier to read. I’ve been playing Silicon Knights’ long awaited Too Human, and squinting at much of the test trying to read words and numbers – especially numbers. It was often difficult to tell a 4 from a 6, or a 3 from and 8 and got really annoying. Then I remembered a post I’d made somewhere about having difficulty reading text while playing Halo 3 and one of the responses was that the picture was much clearer on HDTV’s.
In my comparing a 19 inch SDTV with a 19 inch HD wide screen computer monitor I must say that the HD is much clearer, the text is easily readable and obviously the graphics are much more crisp and detailed. On that note you will undoubtedly need an Xbox 360 VGA HD AV Cable which I feel was worth every penny! Oh, and don’t forget to change your video settings on the System blade of your Xbox 360 once you’ve connected your HD computer monitor!
Don’t forget that attachment!
Sep 17th
When attaching certain documents to emails I usually start out the email by saying “Attached is the report about….” or whatever and sometimes I dig around to get the file size and exact filename and include that, too. I think its good netiquette to tell people what I’ve sent them, along with the filename and the file size so they can see at-a-glance if they can open the file (e.g. do they have MS Excel?) or if the download of the file will be too long (maybe the recipient is in a rush and using dial-up?).
Just that little distraction means I sometimes forget to attach the document I was so thoughtfully describing. Now Gmail has thought of that. New in Labs: Forgotten attachment detector says:
Many of us have experienced the embarrassment of having sent a message without attaching the file we said we were going to attach. Turn on the Forgotten Attachment Detector in Labs, and you’ll get an alert if you mention attaching a file but forget to do so.
So why are you still reading this? Go ahead and turn your Gmail Forgotten attachment detector on and give it a text drive!
