Month: September 2005

Now this is useful…

Via Lifehacker:

Yahoo!’s launched Site Explorer, a beta search application that displays all the pages from a given web site that exist in Yahoo’s index, as well as all the recorded inbound links to that site.

Aimed at webmasters, Site Explorer offers the page results in a text tab-delimited file for analysis, so that web publishers can determine which pages on their site are missing from the index. Interesting tidbit: Yahoo! Site Explorer lists 10,881 inbound links to Lifehacker whereas Technorati has recorded 2,127. Go ahead and type your favorite site into Site Explorer to give it a whirl.

Give it up for the guys over at TextDrive: They’ve declared war on Google and Urchin.

In case you haven’t heard, TextDrive’s been having problems renewing a license they had for using Urchin’s stat software. It seems Urchin just doesn’t want their money. Well, this slight of hand has prompted TextDrive to take action: they’re going to build a better stats package.

I’ve been following a thread over here at the TextDrive forum about Urchin refusing to let TextDrive pay them money to renew/upgrade their datacenter license. There are currently around 5000 domains hosted on TextDrive.

Since about mid-August or so, the fine staff have called, e-mailed, and otherwise tried to hunt down someone at Urchin that could help them pay the company money.

Since the Google acquisition, it seems that Urchin has moved datacenters and is “re-evaluating” their pricing model. Looks like they’re pushing hard for a subscription-based, Hosted model.

Read More @ Simplicio.com

Some have called it a case of David vs. Goliath, I’m calling it plain common sense. If a company can’t deliver what you need, make something better! I can’t wait to see what TextDrive comes up with. Kick some butt, guys.

UPDATE 9/29: Anchorman 1.0 is now included in the Widget Gallery! WooHoo! Download it here.

With the help of Scott Villemain, I’ve put together a Ron Burgundy widget for use with Konfabulator. It doesn’t do much other than play over a dozen sound clips from the movie, but then – who cares? (You’re so wise… you’re like a little Buddha, covered in hair.)

I just submitted the widget to Konfabulator’s Widget Gallery, but I have no idea when/if it will be accepted for inclusion into the gallery… so, without further adieu…

Download Anchorman 1.0 (Unzip and put the Widget in your My Widgets folder…)

Messing with some stylesheet settings. Well aware of the IE rendering issues… stupid Box Model… bah!

I just had to say that… They really do.

Purchased a stock icon set today, for use in a design project I am working on. Got a call from Talos Tsui, one of the Principals over at The IconFactory to confirm my order within a few moments of placing it. That’s great customer service. That puts the human touch on something that could otherwise been completely devoid of human interaction.

If you thought the Adobe/Macromedia merger was huge, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Microsoft’s getting into the design biz.

On the surface, this doesn’t seem like a big deal. But it is. Microsoft is trying to position itself to take Adobe/Macromedia head-on with its new Microsoft Expression product offerings.

Microsoft Expression is going to come in three flavors: Graphic Designer, Interactive Designer and Web Designer. I see these product offerings as a direct assault against Adobe’s Photoshop and Illustrator (and GoLive) applications, and Macromedia’s Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash applications.

While I don’t really see these tools being adopted by most of today’s designers, I do see them being adopted by “average joes” who dabble in Web Design because they have FrontPage installed on their computer, or dabble in graphics because Paint Shop Pro is on their computers. I’m not trying to knock those sorts of people, because you’ve got to start somewhere. Heck, for the longest time I used Notepad to code HTML because it was all that I had available to me. I didn’t start using Dreamweaver until I started working at PowerServe. But what it does is distort people’s perception of what it takes to get this sort of work. Just because someone makes a tool that allows you todo the work, doesn’t mean you’re good at it.

I hope that Microsoft’s entrance into the field will light a fire under Adobe/Macromedia’s rear and will inspire continued innovation on their part (and for others as well!) because today’s tools can always be made better. But in the end, we all need to remember one thing:
Tools are nothing without great ideas.