It is no secret that the browsers battle is one of the hottest competitions on the web. That is because after the operating system, the browser is maybe the most important application. I say that, because it represents the interface between the virtual data and users.

As you all know, there are several players out there, but only 4 have the features, support and acceptance. One of those players is Opera. Opera is a mature browser and today we welcome the 9.5 version of this application.

My first impression
Wow. No, I’m not referring at Microsoft Vista. This application now looks very good. Although I’m not a fan of the glossy look&feel, the default theme now looks clean and intuitive. But it seems that the interface is not the only changed thing. One particular option that I love is the Small screen rendering mode. This feature renders your website in a minimal way, similar to mobile devices.

The main feature from my point of view is that this application is stable. Sorry … the most stable browser. Unlike other browsing software, the foundation of Opera is solid and you will encounter less crashes or “not responding” messages. Also Opera has many new features like Quick Find - for searching through visited content, Opera Link - sync your bookmarks with your mobile device, Opera Dragonfly - embedded debug application for Opera and many more.

Hopefully with this new release Opera will gain market share and many users will switch from crashing applications to this stable one.
You can click here in order to proceed to the Opera download page

These are the good parts. The bad part is that a new design of mine is not rendered properly.

Cheers!

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You must admit that design is not the first thing that a search engine start-up will consider first. It is OK, because frankly this is not the most important thing regarding a search engine. But - there is always a but, the latest trend in web development and related fields is rich user interface. Another item that Powerset added to the list was Wikipedia + Freebase (free information). Did I said Powerset? Well then Powerset it is.

First we heard about this new search engine a couple of years ago. Everyone was excited and called it the next big thing … or something like that. Then it came with some delays but in the end the final product was very nice. I’ve made some tests in the beta version, which was very different, and I must admit that the live version is one UI/UX masterpiece.

Ready. Powerset. Go!
The starting page is quite unique, easy to remember and with good branding embedded. The graphics are well placed on the page and combined they make a good user interface. Regarding the user experience, I must say Kudos for the developers. This is a search engine where Javascript is used with moderation and in the user’s interest.

The fact that it searches only on Freebase and Wikipedia is not a bad thing. Because these two sites are the best open knowledge sources available. Maybe not so accurate but still they provide us with good information. It is clear that the search engine is still young and needs improvements but it is also clear that it has a solid foundation and approach.

Microsoft also saw the value in this product. A couple of months ago they offered $100 mil for the company but they are still free. And honestly we need them free. Competition drives innovation and innovation drives funds and revenue.

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Many graphic related professionals, with different backgrounds or activity domains have a relative new way of becoming popular. This thing is getting more and more adopted by everyone. I’m talking about designing and offering free icons packages.

Not so long ago, the market was full of Wordpress themes (and still is) or other web templates. But it looks that this approach is no longer productive. A lot more productive are the icons. Why? Well maybe because of the upcoming and existing web products and services or rich user interface applications. The demand for UI designers is also increasing on the job sites.

So it looks like from this trend everyone has some gain. The internet gains more free resources, the companies have more people to choose from and the some traffic and income is also available in some situations. I will give you some links in order to give credit for the work involved in the icons design process.

Here are the links:

1. Bright Icon Set
2. Web Application Icons Set
3. Bagg and Boxes
4. Feed Icons
5. Pi Diagona Pack
6. Simplistica
7. Vista Icons
8. Vista Pack

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by Brenda Anderson

I know that Copy+Paste combination is a quite useful feature in every operating system. I mean, you can easily resolve couple of task with this combination. But this is not the topic that I want to cover in this post.

I was stumbling the other day and I’ve came across one web design studio. Immediately I had a deja-vu feeling. It was just in the next second when I realized that the site was a replica. So far nothing unusual some would say. But when you are a web design studio and you promote creativity the Copy/Paste technique should be erased and left as a high-school thought. In not more than 5 seconds, I’ve found the source. It wasn’t hard because the source is from my point of view one of the best designs out there along with an exceptional implementation.

I don’t know whether or not to reveal the “artists”, but I will tell you the source. The site that I’m telling you about is the presentation web place for CODA, a web development platform for Mac. Our subject tried to copy the overall feeling, importing the sliding images and big clean header. You will see that when you enter on the “creative” web design site a header slogan is expecting you: We create beautiful and elegant websites. Yeah… right. They can change it into We copy from beautiful and elegant websites.

In the end I will let you decide for yourself and I will give you the address for this inspiring website: http://www.dm2interactive.com/

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I was stumbling the other day and I was stunned by two commercials. The one that I will showcase here is a good CG and post-production clip with nice idea behind - The future of tennis.

Kudos for the CG and enjoy.

I don’t want to know whether this is true of fake. Because I had a good time watching it … or I was really hungry. Well, this person was hungry too, hungry enough to fry an egg on a GeForce 9800 GX2. Check this out

It is not something new the fact that Wordpress is the most used blogging engine on the Internet. I may upset Wordpress’ competitors but I think this is the truth.

I will start with the main feature of this blogging engine: EASY TO USE
This application is not dedicated to programmers or people with strong knowledge in programming languages, but to everyone with basic web and HTML knowledge. The requirements for user to understand the application were cut to the minimum, through the big and comprehensive knowledge base that exists on Wordpress.org. Here you can find all the information you need.

The second feature which helps the user to build a suitable site is: EXTENSIBILITY
We have to agree that Wordpress has a solid base and very important worldwide community. Why? Because of its main feature and also for all the plugins available over the Internet. If you want a certain functionality on your site, you can search from over 2000 plugins on their website or you can search the Internet for more.

The third feature is one that all users want to see it more often used: FREE
Free applications are nice, but good free applications are HOT. This is another characteristic of this application that made Wordpress one of the most used applications over the Internet. Also, an important aspect was that Wordpress is build on Open Source software - PHP & MySql.

The fourth but at the same time very important feature: DESIGNERS
I think that this blogging application wouldn’t come this far without the help of the designers. Basically, the best and most beautiful designs out there are based on Wordpress. You can search the CSS galleries or other related websites, and you will find that more than 80% are based on this blogging engine.

With this characteristics along with its good architecture, Wordpress will dominate the internet. Also with the latest version, Wordpress came as close as possible to the mainstream user. Graphic Rating is also a Wordpress based website, and through this article I want to say THANKS WORDPRESS.

Kudos for the development team and their leader Matt Mullenweg for its vision.

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For those of you that are not familiar with Meebo, this site is an online version of a multi-instant messenger. Founded in 2005 by Sandy Jen, Seth Sternberg and Elaine Wherry, Meebo.com is one of the most used websites these days. And I’m not referring just at communication based sites, I’m referring at all type of sites. At this moment, by Compete.com standards and measurements, Meebo has a very good 912 rank (lower is better) and around 1,750,000 visitors monthly.

Anyway, my comments are not regarding their traffic stats but regarding their user interface and accessibility features implemented. From the graphic point of view, don’t expect to be more enhanced than Yahoo Messenger Vista. It has simple rounded corners with simple gradients applied to the headers and a pleasant overall look. Also you can choose from different color themes and you can change the background of the website - a good reason for a Gorillaz background.

Meebo has basic features like emoticons, video audio chat and even a well implemented file transfer which helps you in sending files from one type of account to another. The developers also made possible a more interactive feature - games. All these features and other are well embedded in the design and overall this service works like magic.
I have to tell you that this online multi messenger covers networks like Yahoo, ICQ, AIM, MSN, Jabber and Gtalk. So you will have all your friends together to chat and have fun. In the end I think it is unnecessary to tell you that this service is free. Kudos for their talent (developers) and this well done service.

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I don’t see this as a breakthrough idea but it finally came to the end user: the possibility to customize the look of your notebook. Not just any notebook, a quite good one actually, with powerful hardware specifications powered by VIA.

What can I tell you about VIA?
Several years ago, the mainboard market had a few players. The most powerful were SIS, Intel and VIA. These 3 companies were the major developers of mainboard chipsets and other services and products. During that time VIA was on top. Another information regarding VIA is that along the years they’ve made important acquisitions from Cyrix CPU to S3 graphic cards line.

Being in a very competitive market - pc components, VIA started to embrace the small, light, low-power components. This move was also because it was clear that against nVidia, AMD or Intel they couldn’t win. So in the small form factor area, they’ve developed several products towards the mobile industry. A year ago, in 2007, they announced the availability of VIA Nano Book which was a small notebook with a quite strange design. Well regarding this product, the good reviews were not so good. So learning from their mistakes, and from the trends imposed by the market, a new concept was brought to the table - OPEN.

So what does OPEN in terms of hardware mean?
From VIA’s perspective, OPEN is related to the visual aspect of the notebook - VIA OpenBook. Their main idea is that anyone can customize the look of this mini-laptop. For this to happen, they’ve made available all the CAD filer for the OpenBook design. In this way you can design your own notebook but I don’t know what will happen with the design.

The main idea is that the design is open for new suggestions beside the standard design. The other big plus is that the specifications are quite good, and the hardware will enable the user to use different kind of operating systems - even Vista.

You can check the video on Techcrunch or you can look for more details on their new website http://www.viaopenbook.com/.

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No Prizes, maybe some fame

Hey, you can place your artwork in the top section of this site by simply submitting your best artwork.
After reviews you can have your own image linking to your blog, website or account. The only rule is to be the owner of that artwork.

The header can link to your Flickr account, Photobucket, Smugmug and any other service that you use. It can have various topics, and style but it must have creativity or perspective.

More surprises to come soon….

Good luck!