Todos is fun.

OpenSoft Development: Todos "Sometimes you just don't want to take time going to your Applications folder or searching around your hard drive. Just click a quick hotkey (Command-Option-Control-T) and Todos will simply appear..."

I know this isn't a brand new app, but I just had to say that it's fun and satisfying to see all those app icons!


(note: screen cap courtesy of todos website)

Google Notifier for Mac lets you check your email and events without opening your browser

"The Google Notifier is an application that shows you alerts in your menu bar, so you can see when you have new Gmail messages or upcoming Google Calendar events without having to open a web browser."

This is handier than the dashboard widgets IMHO.

TubeSock - Internet Utilities

Cool utility related to my last post: "TubeSock Grabs YouTube videos from the web and copies them to your video iPod, Mac, or PlayStation Portable. TubeSock knows how to convert the video using the codecs and bitrates best for each device. It can even add the video to iTunes for you. TubeSock can also grab just the audio portion of a video and add it to iTunes, too. Find your favorite tracks, outtakes, and live recordings on YouTube, then click "Save" to copy them to your iPod. The conversion is quick and there's no loss of audio fidelity."

YouTube Unveils New Advertising Concepts

"YouTube, a consumer media company for people to watch and share original videos through a Web experience, today announced new advertising concepts -- Participatory Video Ads (PVA) and Brand Channels -- the first step toward defining a new advertising model for video entertainment on the Internet. These new strategies complement YouTube's current offerings which include banner ads, promotions and sponsorships. With this, the community and marketer can now participate in the advertising experience in a mutually beneficial way..."

SpiralFrog and Universal Music Group Partner in Advertising-Supported Legal Music Download Service

"SpiralFrog, the new music download destination, has signed an agreement with Universal Music Group (UMG), the world's leading music company, to make UMG's extensive catalog available for legal downloading in the US and Canada via SpiralFrog's advertising-supported service."

According to the site they'll be offering ad-supported legal downloads of audio and video content licensed from the catalogs of major and independent record labels. I can't seem to locate info on what kind of DRM or platform limitations there will be. I'm curious to see how this shakes out.

Google offers hosted communications applications

"Google plans to announce on Monday a beta version of Google Apps for Your Domain, which includes Gmail with 2 gigabytes of storage, Google Calendar, Google Talk and Page Creator... The Google Apps for Your Domain service will allow organizations to outsource their communications applications to Google and to customize the user interface with their own branding and color scheme."

Microsoft rolls up Office ribbon

CNET News.com: "Microsoft has modified its new interface for Office 2007 after complaints from beta testers that the 'ribbon' system took up too much screen space... Office 2007 had ditched the traditional drop-down menu approach of most Windows applications in favor of the ribbon, which displays functions in new categories such as Home, Insert and Mailing in a strip across the top of the screen...

However, in the next technical refresh of the Office 2007 beta, people can set the ribbon to automatically minimize whenever it is not being used, effectively making the ribbon headings look like traditional menus... Despite the change, Microsoft remains committed to using the ribbon interface, though it isn't included in all Office components."

I can't help but wonder if Microsoft is wimping out prematurely by testing new features on old customers. I'm wondering who is in this BETA circle and how entrenched they are in routines attached to existing (ie from 2+ yrs ago) processes. This is a big assumption on my part, made without any data. However, this ribbon concept has been a primary new feature oft touted in the upcoming Office release. If it can be made to go away easily, then they might as well just chuck it now - remember the animated help characters in Office Mac? That would be too bad, as it seemed like the ribbon has some legs, and that it would reduce the hassle of way too many modal dialogues.

Comping your next design in Flash

adobe.com: "Using the Adobe Flash authoring tool for comping purposes makes a lot of sense. It all depends on the type of project you are working on and the amount of time you have to do it. In many cases, Flash is well suited for comping any project that includes a high level of interactivity, or any project where you create the final product using Flash - for example, websites, rich media applications, banner ads, forms, demos, character animations, and the like..."

I've certainly leveraged Flash for this purpose in the past, so it's nice to see an article highlighting this approach. Flash isdefinitelyy good for application interface prototypes - if you want to string together a mixture of comps and other presentation material.

Greenpeace: guide to green electronics

Greenpeace International: "Our scorecard highlights which of the major electronics companies is doing the most to remove the worst toxic chemicals from their products and which companies have good recycling programs for their products..."



I guess my little white laptop ain't green.

Details on CSS changes for IE7

Microsoft posts Internet Explorer 7 (also see official site) CSS support details on its IEBlog:

"We are currently locking down IE7 for shipping and I wanted to give an update on the CSS work that went into IE7. Chris originally outlined our plans for IE7, and we listened to a lot of feedback (blog, connect database, conferences, our WASP partnership etc.) to help us address the most grievous bugs and prioritize which features to put in for IE7. I like to thank especially the contributors on this blog for their participation. Your feedback made a difference in deciding what issues to address...

In all, we made over 200 behavior changes (bug fixes or new features) under strict mode to improve CSS2.1 compliance. All this work (with the exception of transparent PNGs) has been done under the switch only, since all changes required behavioral updates to be more in line what the CSS spec specifies. To preserve application compatibility we will not make any behavioral changes to 'quirks mode' as it has been established since IE6...."

How to measure the success of your web app

Another fine article by Vitamin...

thinkvitamin.com: "If you're not keeping record of who's doing what with your web app, then you're missing out a key part of building a successful product. Understanding what to measure and how is what we'll look at in this article."

Microsoft Live Labs: Photosynth Connects 2D Images with Space and Context

"Photosynth is a collaboration between Microsoft and the University of Washington... Photosynth takes a large collection of photos of a place or object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed 3-Dimensional space."

This is an interesting concept, it looks very much like QuickTime VR, but without a concern for stitching things together seamlessly, rather it presents 'flat' images (apparently in their original rectangular aspect) and projects them in 3D space relative to their relationship to actual locations on the earth.

I look forward to seeing how Google Earth responds to this, as Photosynth is kind of like Google Earth's '3D buildings' feature, but it throws up photos instead of 3D models.

Iconfactory Reeboots

"Iconfactory.com v.6.0! ...we celebrate our 10th anniversary with the launch of all-new versions of Iconfactory.com and Stockicons.com."

In addition to a compliant design, there are a number of new features related to icon freeware and software.