sharaf's online journal on web design, standards, industry news, accessibility, usability...and stuff
Microsoft launched a new search engine Bing.com. It is a revamped version of Live.com search engine, which has not been successful in the past few years. But I do like Bing’s features and new preview tools it offers on the search results page. It offers a clean design and many customization options to the user.
Test drive the Bing.com!
Here is a short video about Bing:
I have been using Evernote on my iPhone for the last 6 months and it is simply the best note taking application out there. Evernote can synch with your desktop and your web account. It works on these platforms: iPhone, iPod Touch, Windows Mobile, MAC, and Windows based desktops.
So, let’s say you record a voice note or take a picture on your iPhone while sitting at a cafe, then later you can download that note on the web or through your desktop. Evernote also makes a great desktop version of of its software and you can take notes on your computer which can later show up on your iPhone. This app truly shows that line between mobile, web and desktop are blurring, which is the future of computing.
Kudos to the designers and developers of Evernote, it is simply the best note taking iPhone app out there. Happy birthday Evernote!
One of my favorite new programs on my desktop is Miro 2.0. Miro is a free HD player, and can be installed in Windows, MAC and even Ubuntu.
It can play any video file format, including Quicktime, WMV, MPEG, AVI, XVID, and more. The Miro’s interface is very clean and easy to use. You can subscribe to video casts or download HD videos directly from the web. And the best part, it is free.
See Miro 2.0 in action below.
This online app helps to create printer friendly pages based on what you want to print on the screen. Brilliant!
It is great that Google is constantly innovating and coming out with tools and web applications that are used by millions of people around the world. However, the recent launch of Google’s own web browser Google Chrome makes me a bit worried about restarting of the Browser Wars of 1990s.
The release of this new browser could help to improve the web browsers, or it could potentially start a competition among web browsers to start creating “custom tags” or “smart tags” that render web sites in their own way. This will create even more work for web designers and developers, because Google Chrome will be another web browser that we have to test all our work on to make sure that our sites render correctly. Is Google really rocking the boat? We don’t know yet, it might take another few years to see the adoption rate of this browser by the public.
For now, dive in and try the new browser for yourself.
AgencyTool Dashboard has all the tools, tips, articles and howtos that you will ever need as a web designer or developer. This is an excellent site that must be on your bookmarks if you are doing anything web related.
This week is full of iPhone news and coverage of its new 3G debut on Friday. In the same spirit I thought I would share one of my favorite web applications on the iPhone, it is iSepta.org. This is a type of site that I use everyday. It has all timetables and schedules of trains in Philly.
Even if you have another type of mobile phone (Blackberry, Treo etc..) with a web browser you can still use this site.
Three geniuses put together this little web app, and kudos for designing such a useful and easy to use iPhone app. Thanks!
Check it out: www.isepta.org
Check out the Webmare 2008 – 100 best Web 2.0 applications of the year.
My favorite 5 webapps from Webmare are:
Is this too good to be true? Saving the environment and saving money. Not really, GreenPrint can help you to save money by eliminating unwanted pages when printing which saves paper, ink, millions of trees and much more. It also comes with a free PDF converter tool, which usually costs about $450 if you buy it from Adobe.com. I have used it on my computer and it really works well. You can actually see how much paper and money you have saved right on your desktop, it is just genius.
Great place to see list of alpha, beta and “still not finished version” of online applications.
If you have an iPhone checkout these sites below that list iPhony tools, widgets and applications that you can use on-the-go:
I recently attended the Adobe AIR Bus Tour in Philadelphia and was quite impressed with the updated version of Apollo, which is now called AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime).
As many technology junkies predicted, line between web and desktop applications are beginning to blur. One of these technologies that bridges the gap between the web and the desktop is AIR. AIR allows you to easily develop and run web applications on the desktop in any platform or operating system as long as you have Flash Player installed. There are many AIR based applications already developed that you can download and install on your computer. For example, the Kuler Desktop, the online application for creating online color themes is pretty cool.
There are number of ways to develop AIR based applications, using Coldfusion, CSS+HTML, Ajax, Javascript and others, just make sure you have Flex Builder or the AIR SDK on your computer to test them out. Also, check out the tutorials if you are new to AIR.
Apple released its Safari browser for Windows today and already there are some security issues with the beta version. We hope this does not start browser wars all over again.
Business 2.0 magazine’s list of top 25 Web 2.0 start-ups to watch is worth checking out. My favorite start-ups that made the list are: Joost and Logoworks.
Congrats!
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