Super Ginormous

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  • myGoogle

    Straight from the Google Labs comes the new Personalized Google Homepage, which I’ve dubbed myGoogle for short.

    Google is launching a personalized home page tonight, which you can view now by going to the URL below. It’s basically a custom portal of your own Google services, like a Gmail preview and Google News highlihgts, as well as Word of the Day, Weather, and Wired News updates (they must be pretty happy about that).

    Oh, and a search box. I forgot about that.

    Google Personal Page [Google]

    (From Gizmodo)

    I’m not overly impressed by it.

    I’ve been wondering when Google would get into the portal game to compete against the likes of Yahoo!, AOL and MSN… but this seems like a sub-par effort.

    The personalizations that are available represent a good cross-section of info I actually would want displayed on myGoogle. The design is, well, boring, at best. Pretty much everything Google has done, with the exception of Google Maps, has been pretty bland when it comes to design. (Obviously, Picasa and Hello are exceptions to this.)

    A few things to note:

    Easy Sorting:
    Drag and drop the modules you choose where you want them positioned on the page. This was pretty cool. Nicely implemented. Worked in Firefox. Did not test in IE.

    Easy Personalization:
    Select only what you want displayed and how you want it displayed. Choose how many articles, quotes, emails, etc. are displayed on the page at any given time. Easily edit the settings on the page to make it more to your liking. Worked in FireFox. Did not test in IE.

    Overall Impression:
    Not bad, not great. I’d like to see where they take this. But right now, I’m not overly impressed. I know it’s fresh from the labs, but I’ve come to expect a lot more from the folks over at Google. They need to really innovate if they hope to stay ahead of all of the competitors nipping at their heels right now. I do use Google.com as my primary search engine, and I use Gmail exclusively for my private email account, so I will use this new page as my main Google entry… I hope to see it evolve more, and soon.

  • Netscape 8 Released Today

    Netscape logoI’ve been using the Netscape 8.0 Beta off and on for a couple of months now. I wasn’t especially thrilled with it, since I’ve been using Firefox as my browser of choice. Having said that, Netscape may be the right browser for you. I’ll explain why below:

    Page Rendering

    The most important feature of 8.0 is that you can toggle rendering engines on the fly. If a page doesn’t display properly (or at all) using the Firefox engine, you can switch it to the IE rendering engine. In some cases, the browser will do this for you automatically (i.e. while browsing https:// pages for instance).

    Most people aren’t going to worry about this feature. Designers however may be able to use Netscape as a development tool to preview their work using the two primary rendering engines without the need for two different applications open.

    I realize that this does little to convince you to download it, but you might find it useful if you’re tired of switching back and forth between applications.

    MultiBar

    The new Netscape sports a new interface design with tabbed browsing and something they’re calling the “MultiBar“. The Multibar has multiple “trays” of information that you can have displayed in the MultiBar where stuff like the weather, email status, news, and more can be configured to be displayed in this area. Clicking on items in the MultiBar can generate Live Content. Not groundbreaking… but not a terrible idea for some users.

    Sidebar

    Like 7.0, this also features the Sidebar where you’ve got built-integration of AOL Instant Messenger, Weather, etc. I hide these by default when using the app. I use the standalone version of AIM for instant messaging and don’t like having to rely on keeping a browser window open in order for my buddy list to persist. Nor do I like IMing within Netscape. The interface just doesn’t work for it.

    Other Stuff

    8.0 also has built-in Search, skins, a “Security Center”, and more…

    Overall Impression

    All in all, it’s not a bad browser. It’s a nice upgrade from Netscape 7.0, but probably won’t win many IE or Firefox converts. The downside? It’s PC only. (Sorry, Mac people.) It’s bloatware (it has lots of extra features that some might enjoy, but aren’t really necessary in a web browser.)

  • Google Desktop

    I finally broke down yesterday and decided that I would give Google Desktop Search a chance.

    This morning, I tested it out for the first time.

    First impressions: It’s quick! And it returned results I was quite impressed with. I also enjoy its’ integration with Google.com. That was a nice touch. I’m still concerned about having Google so close to my desktop, but I’m willing to give them a chance.

    I’m still convinced that Google is the new “Big Brother”, though.

    Think about it… think about the info they “control”: countless Blogs (via Blogger), the world’s largest search index, addresses, personal info, email (via Gmail), etc… and they’re growing. I’m not the only one who thinks this way…

  • Problems with the Iomega 250Gb Network Hard Drive

    PowerServe just bought an Iomega 250Gb Network Hard Drive to store our creative projects on. The way this drive is supposed to work is you 1) plug in all the cords; 2) plug the NetHDD into a switch/router; 3) the blue light comes on and the drive is ready for use; and finally 4) run the Iomega Discovery software or find the drive through your Network Places to map a share to the drive.

    Here’s the problem though, once i completed Step 4, I couldn’t copy files to the drive. I kept getting Access Denied errors when I tried to move files over to the new drive.

    >>> Insert Frustration Here

    So, to resolve this problem I start digging around. I check out the Disk Properties via Windows. The drive is a part of WORKGROUP. Hmm… possible problem? (I’m part of a Domain) User permissions… Admin has full access. Everyone has no access. Root has no access. I can’t figure it out. I then run Iomega Discovery to modify the device settings. Can’t change the workgroup. I can change the IP and the device name … but none of that resolves my problem. Still can’t add files to the drive.

    I try contacting Iomega live support (which sucks hardcore btw) through their website, and I got no help.

    So, I finally just reformatted the drive (via the Device Setting control panel).

    Guess what, the drive works now.

    I don’t know why. Maybe the drive was just misconfigured out of the box. Who knows. It’s working now, though. Hopefully it will turn out to be a pretty nice storage solution for us. Right now, I’m beyond the point of aggravation and just glad that it’s finally working…

  • Yahoo Complies – Sorta

    Kudos to Yahoo for revamping their homepage (http://www.yahoo.com). The new look is a little bit easier on the eyes, with better organization, aliasing on the icons… and the code behind the scenes is more standards compliant. One problem I noticed, though, is that they use an embedded stylesheet along with a mess of javascript that bloats the homepage significantly. Not a huge deal… Definitely a step in the right direction, though.

  • More Links of Interest

    Two great slideshows that discuss CSS… Great use of technology!

  • Links of Interest

  • If Architects had to work like web designers…

    You have to check this piece out. I do feel this way sometimes… Read More…

  • Wow.

    I’m not a big proponent of flash-based design, unless it’s something that I think is really, really well done or the flash serves a purpose. The guys over at Funnel Design Group really surprised me with their Flash-based website. Their theme and execution is very impressive. The attention to detail is awesome. Scope em out at http://www.funneldesigngroup.com.

  • Free Yahoo Search Engine Submission Link

    Ran across this on Yahoo! today. It’s the link for free search engine listings. I resubmitted my blog, because I don’t know if it has propogated on Yahoo yet. If you’re interested, check out: http://submit.search.yahoo.com/ (Note: This may require an account with Yahoo! to use.)