Microsoft ipod packaging parody

Google turns on PayPal killer

"It's official: Google has started offering a rival to eBay's PayPal payment service. Google Account, a service that previously just let users purchase videos, will now be available to sellers on Google Base, Google's classifieds website."

Advertising Podcasts You Should Pay Attention To

"Eight podcasts to help you keep up with the advertising industry."

This is a useful round-up.

Logitech Releases NuLOOQ Design Controller & Tooldial companion app

"NuLOOQ navigator and NuLOOQ tooldial are exciting new products, designed specifically to help Mac-based Creative Professionals work smarter. NuLOOQ navigator is an elegant control device that compliments your mouse and keyboard; while tooldial is a customizable interface that simplifies your day-to-day workflow... Navigator and tooldial currently work with Adobe Creative Suite 2 versions of Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, for Mac OS X only."

It looks like an attempt to morph the iPod clickwheel with the Griffin PowerMate specifically tailored for Adobe apps. Certainly interesting, but the price is a bit steep for 'nice-to-have'. They should sell the "tooldial" software for a fraction of the current price as a hook to get you to eventually pick up the device. Oh, and they should make it skinnable too.

Google Launches New Page Creator

"Create your own web pages, quickly and easily. Google Page Creator is a free online tool that makes it easy for anyone to create and publish useful, attractive web pages in just minutes."

I'll update this later with a summary after I've played around with it.

Carson Workshops Offers Free Podcasts from "The Future of Web Apps"

"The Future of Web Apps One-day conference focusing on the development technology you'll be using tomorrow - The summit was a smash success. Thank you to everyone who came along. We thought it'd be fun to give away all the podcasts of the talks, for those who couldn't make it..."

Nice, some great topics including Rails with 37 signals, and UI topic from Yahoo!

Project Fast is VW's "Free Prize"

So Seth Godin wrote this great little marketing book called "Free Prize Inside" (link to amazon). And VW appears to have taken his advice in both a literal and brilliant way. VW is marketing its new GTI Mk5 with what it refers to as their interpretation of the entity 'Fast' - which turns out to be a futuristic demonic looking bunny toy (included with the car of course). On a side note, the toy design actually reminds me a lot of the bunny character in the movie "Donnie Darko".

Anyway, they've come out with a great integrated campaign called Project Fast. So it appears that VW took Godin's advice and put the cracker jack box on wheels, and included one very cool toy.

Bye-bye, FrontPage in New Office, Says Microsoft

"Microsoft will close the book on its FrontPage Web-design program with the release of Office 2007, formerly known as Office 12, late this year...

FrontPage does serve as the foundation for two different Web-design programs: SharePoint Designer 2007, which is intended for organizations using the SharePoint server-based Web-development platform; and Expression Web Designer, which appears to be outside of the Office application family..."

I've been migrating clients from FrontPage to Dreamweaver / Contribute and other solutions for years. Now I'll finally have an self-evident rationale!

Celebrate the 2006 Olympic Games with Icons

IconFactory wins gold by offering up a great set of icons
"Torino 2006 icon set by Talos Tsui"

UPDATE: In case it wasn't clear from this site or iconfactory's, this set of desktop icons is based on the great design work of Iconologic.

Google Acquires Measure Map

Official Google Blog: Here comes Measure Map: "Our goal has been to use the power of web analytics to help bloggers feel that same sense of connection with their audience. Today, as the Measure Map team joins Google, our mission remains the same: to build the best possible user experience so people can understand and appreciate the effect their blogs - their words and ideas - can have."

Looks like more good stuff to support Google Analytics & congrats to Adaptive Path.

IE7 Vs. Everyone Else

"Four tech experts battle over which is the best browser -- Internet Explorer 7, Firefox, Opera, or Maxthon. We take you on a visual tour of each, then let you make the call..."

Flash CMS Content Maintenance Solution Aims To Be 'Contribute for your Flash Content'

flashloaded.com: "The fCMS is a Flash CMS component (Flash Content Management System) that allows you to update text, images and SWFs directly on a live Flash website without ever leaving your browser window. The website developer or their client has no need for a separate administration panel for managing the content of the website and all of the changes can be applied at runtime."

There's a demo to play around with. This looks like an interesting way to allow for the editing of simple text, link, and image content within Flash projects.

Introducing the Troll cap

Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals): "We've all seen the dunce cap. Now it's time for some people to put on the Troll cap. Comments posted on SvN that are off-topic, blatantly inflammatory, or otherwise inappropriate or vapid may either be removed or be slapped with the Troll cap... This icon is free for anyone to use on their own blog. Spread it far and wide..." Large and small versions found directly below:

The winners of the 2005 Engadget Awards!

aa419 Valentine's Day Flash Mob

"The aa419 Flash Mob is back! - February 13th, 12:00:01 AM GMT, the Artists Against 419 (aa419) invite you, your partner, and all your friends to our 48-hour love fest: the Valentine's Day Flash Mob

As a special treat, the Flash Mob will feature a web broadcast. You'll be able to hear a livestream of music, funny lad calls, and commentary by ace bank killers throughout the event. Fake banks will feel the power of ordinary Web users once again."

New Yahoo! Look

"Lucky visitors to Yahoo! were treated to a sneak-preview of the portal's redesign this morning. The re-worked homepage promises to deliver an improved search experience while simplifying access to a world of content and user favorites."

Opera preview puts widgets on stage

"Opera Software on Tuesday plans to release a second preview version of Opera 9, the next version of its namesake Web browser... Additionally, Opera's latest preview will include support for BitTorrent downloads..."

Saft Safari Plugin Is Now A Universal Binary App

I've also updated my Safari Resources page to reflect this update.

WebSideStory Announces Visual Sciences Merger

"WebSideStory (Nasdaq: WSSI) is today announcing the merger of Visual Sciences, LLC, an innovative provider of streaming data analysis and visualization software and on-demand services headquartered in McLean, Virginia."

I suspect that this is evidence of a web analysis market shakeout that probably has a lot to do with Google entering the analytics space with its free service.

Solo Acoustic Concert from Colin Meloy...

"Frontman for The Decemberists Colin Meloy and Seattle art-pop singer-songwriter Laura Veirs perform a night of solo, acoustic music, recorded live at The Birchmere in Alexandria, Va. Both performances originally webcast live on NPR.org Jan. 28 with All Songs Considered"

Sweet - free MP3 Download of both performances half way down page on left hand article navigation.

Cactus Skateboards "One Page Website"

I've helped my buddies at Cactus launch what is effectively a one page website. They are a brick and mortar (quite literally - check out the concrete entombed indoor skatepark they've got). They did not want a full on e-store at the moment, and they've actually got a lot of traction by posting news and such on thier myspace page. So the current goal was to setup a page at their own domain that would give critical info, express their personality, and drive users seeking further information to their profile on myspace. It will continue to evolve, and this kind of stuff is always fun!

Macromedia Flash Player Version Penetration Recently Updated

"Worldwide Ubiquity of Macromedia Flash Player by Version - December 2005
(NPD Online - Worldwide Survey):

Version 5: 97.7%
Version 6: 97.1%
Version 7: 93.5%
Version 8: 45.2%"

Not bad since Flash Player 8 only came out in September of 2005. Versions 6 and up support Macromedia Flash Video (FLV), so I think it's fair to say that Flash video can be safely used where appropriate.

Adobe CS not going Universal until '07?

tuaw.com: "A PDF doc that recently appeared on Adobe's website claims that the software maker won't make Universal the current version of Creative Suit. Instead, they're opting to wait until they release the next major revision -- which, looking at Adobe's typical upgrade cycle (18-24 months per major upgrade), could mean that 2007 is the earliest we'll see a Universal version of Photoshop (or any other Adobe pro app, for that matter)."

More for the rumor mill. Depending on your current hardware investment, this is either good or bad news.