Several weeks ago, I wanted to write a post about news sites. And at that time I wanted to give the lowest rating to Techcrunch. That was because Techcrunch had the worst design when competing against GigaOM, VentureBeat and even Mashable.
Let’s analyze the new design and see what is good and what is not so good.

Features:
First thing that all the user will notice is that the look of the site is more solid. The site has now visual effects that look good together. The style is not far from the previous, just that the visual side had a much important priority.
At the top side of the layout, the toolbar with links and search form is no longer available. That is good because in this situations, the lack of that element is good for consistency. Instead the toolbar was replaced by a similar section regarding the content placed above the logo and below the main banner.

The new structure is more magazine like, and it shows multiple news in smaller space. I see it as an advantage but also as a drawback. For example it is good that the user can see a lot of information, but this information is now 2 clicks away. Instead of having the entire news available, now the user has to click in order to read it. I really liked the old style where the click was only need if you wanted to add or read comments.

Another great improvement was that the content was separated from the advertising. Now there is a dedicated column separated from the news. Also, in this new design, the latest article is displayed in a bigger space. Regarding the article, now the user can navigate easier through a previous-next system and read it clear. The new font size was increased to 13px from 11px for a good readability.

Conclusion:
Overall, the new design is far more appropriate than the previous. It has many typography and user interface features. The clean approach is also for the user benefit. Also the new design will be applied to all other properties in order for the user to have the same perception over the websites. Congratulations and good work. Kudos for the designers.

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DearAdobe.com is one of the best sites related to Adobe products. It has nothing to do with tutorials or screen casts,  instead this site is focusing on the issues inside Adobe’s applications. If you are angry with the open dialog in Photoshop (like i am), if you feel like the interface should look the same over the entire suite, if you don’t like something regarding Adobe … this is the place.

I personally agree with most of the ideas from DearAdobe.com. Here are my favourites:

- Please create an installer that puts your software on my computer in less time than it takes to install an operating system.

- Please stop raising your upgrade prices. I’m sick of paying for your merger.

- Enable auto-recover for Photoshop, so when it inevitably crashes for the 9th time today I can get back to the corporate schlock I was working on.

- Your installer is the worst piece of software on the planet… well, actually, your updater is worse. For the love of all things good, fix it.

- Please, please, please make all the shortcuts in all your applications the same. is it really that hard?

- Why do you install six “helper” applications in the background when all I want is Photoshop? Keep your Bridge to nowhere the fuck off my system.

- Dreamweaver CS3 had no major updates over DW8 and calling the CSS advice beta web-site a feature was insulting.

- Why can’t I copy/paste formatted text from one of your expensive applications into another one of your expensive applications.

Please visit the site, It is so hilarious and true at the same time.

Microsoft and pictures … this is not a clear image for daily web surfers. But it happened. Microsoft Labs along with University of Washington created a powerful software application related to the visual world. And guess what? … It is FREE.

True innovation
It looked promising from the first preview in 2006. But now, when it is officially launched, this application rocks. The application is called Photosynth and it is a software that creates 3d spaces from 2d images. For example, the application can create a virtual space from photos that have the same subject. It is necessary to have multiple photos from different perspectives in order to recreate an accurate environment. In order to view the environment, you have to install a small plugin for your browser… and after that it works flawless.

The experience is great and the applications is innovative and unique. Sorry, not so unique. It seems like Google made a similar version of Photosynth a couple of months ago. Anyway, back to Microsoft Photosynth.
From my point of view this application is awesome. It is the next thing for pictures, after Flickr. The developers from Microsoft Labs can easily set-up a visual encyclopedia with descriptions for each environment. Also Photosynth can be used in schools as an interactive study way for geography.

Conclusion
I have no complains but only kudos for the developers behind this awesome application. Truly inspiring and visionary application. Keep up the good work.

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When I practice a sport, and by that I mean running my fingers over the keyboard, I find strange things that at a certain level should not exist. And by that I mean issues, bloopers, errors, etc.

The first issue is related to Corel. Corel is the second player in the visual software zone after Adobe, covering the photo, desktop publishing and video area. Now comes the issue.
When you are leader in image software, you can’t mess with your image, … unless you’re Corel. The image above is a resized version of the header from Corel.com. Notice the 256 GIF image with no smoothness and low quality. The good part is that the other secondary pages have a good version of the header. Also, in the same section and on the same first page, the right rounded corner is not transparent and there are some white pixels in that area.Please fix these issues!

The second issue is driving me crazy. That happens when I open Twitter with an older browser. The issue, same as Corel, is placed on the first page. To be more precise - the image with the bird.
So, why in the name of Zeus’s ….., is that image scaled? It is quite simple to scale it in Photoshop or even Paint.net, and get rid of that horrible looking image in old browsers like Firefox 2 or IE 6. Please fix this issue!

Anyway, I will let you know about the status of these issues.
Cheers!

It was some kind of hype today around the web, about the new look of Mint. To refresh your memory, Mint is a web application that according to its motto is the best free way to manage your money. Or also on the home page you can find the following description: Mint downloads, categorizes, and graphs all of your finances automatically every day— so you don’t have to. Know where you’re spending, without spending any effort.

From Techcrunch we find out that this redesign can boost the productivity up to 20%. Really ??? Don’t get me wrong but in the following comparison I only see drawbacks and not advantages. Let’s compare the footer from the old design with the new one:

New Footer:

Old Footer:

In the new design we can see how the usability of this section is very low. The contrast between the footer links and the background is not enough to ensure decent readability. For sure there is no boost in productivity for this section.

Rafe Needleman from Cnet’s Webware was also charmed with Mint’s new design. From him we found out that the redesign session was led by a former Apple guy. Don’t get me wrong, but that doesn’t mean that the new design is good.

The new site has no contrast. It has also unnecessary shadows and a pretty numb overall look. I’ve noticed also a handwritten element. This was placed there in order to go with the design trends. The thing is that it does not fit at all. But that is just my point. As a conclusion I think that the old design was way much better and the new one has many issues.

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Screen saver… do you remember what that is? Something useless some would say, but for Simon Heys it was a challenge. A challenge to transform something outdated into something cool and useful.

Word Clock is the name of Simon’s project - a free screen saver showing the time and date in a pleasant way. Basically this screen saver displays all numbers, months, week days and it highlights live, the date and time. For now, Word Clock has 2 ways of displaying the time: linear and circular. Hopefully in the near future we will see many new ways of displaying the time.

Word Clock was developed using Flash Action Script 3 for the screen saver and Flex for the control panel. Using these technologies was a very good idea because of the portability on different operating systems like MacOS and Windows. Another great idea was the adoption of different languages. At this moment, Word Clock is available in over 30 languages. This is a good start for this free product and a good portfolio sample for Simon Heys.

Kudos Simon and keep up the good work!

Maybe you know this site or maybe you don’t. But from my point of view TED.com should be on your priority list of things to watch. Forget about Iron Man or Hancock, TED.com will give you something movies can’t provide: wisdom and knowledge.

What is so great about this site is that it makes you think and wonder. It makes you see different sides of one particular problem. And it has many problems covered. From Global Issues to Design this site pops many interesting questions.

Features:
With its motto: Ideas worth spreading, TED spreads information through a nice website. This site is the first site that from my point of view doesn’t need redesign. The visual style from TED.com is great. The subtle red color combined with a light gray and black make a nice color scheme.

The logo is simple and powerful with no additional graphic elements. This is the best approach in order for the brand to be well recognized. But we are not talking about a brand here, we are talking about shaping goals and solving important problems.
The graphics are few and the simple approach can guarantee the freshness of this design. The visitor will not be enchanted with rounded corners, but with a simple interface with a main goal of presenting information.
Content: Incredible. Engaging. Flawless.

Regarding the user experience, this site has all the basic features implemented. Simple navigation, good time response from the server, intuitive video player and a pleasant look. It offers a great user experience by combining great content with great look.

Conclusion:
I really recommend it, and it is on the first place in my list followed by Wikipedia. I like it from the content to the nice Flash based movies display. It is not a very commercial destination and it isn’t suitable for all users. You just have to figure it out whether this site is for you or not. Anyway Kudos for the designers, developers, and people behind TED.com

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I’m sure that an important slice of the internet users are familiar with Digg. Many of them are quite active and they submit stories to Digg.com. But this article is not about Digg, it’s about Mixx. Mixx is a similar site for gathering the most important news around the web and making them available through a popularity system.

The site is very useful and it has a well structured and intuitive navigation system. It covers news from many domains like: entertainment, sports, tech, science and more. It has good placements of the key features, which is a very hard thing to do when you deal with big amount of information. The main sections are “Popular News”, “Popular Photos” and “Popular Videos”. With these 3 sections, Mixx covers all the hot topics.

Pros
All these features are great for a content site. And we know that content is king. But this site has also another great feature: the look. Mixx.com looks very good. Has a really good user interface with great spacing and visible content. The typography is proper for this kind of site and the user can easily identify any type of content.

Regarding the design, the site has a nice neutral color scheme. Even if red and blue are from the old days of the internet, Mixx has a pleasant fresh look. The colors and icons go well together and also it is a nice thing that the amount of visual elements is low.

Conclusion
Overall this site is great and it has a powerful community. With this good design and content the traffic will keep climbing. Congratulations and keep up the good work.

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This is quite interesting. I was surprised and totally blown away by the next video.
Check it out.

The question for the last two weeks in the movie industry was only one: will “The Dark Knight” pass the $600 mil barrier? That record is held by Titanic, which also holds the record for the best gross worldwide.

As you all know, the movies industry is dynamic and that debate is still hot but there is another one hotter. The new rumor is that Batman 3 is imminent and several names can take the stage in the next installment. First name involved in this rumor is Johnny Depp. He will be playing the evil “the Riddler”. A source, cited by many publications says that Johnny Depp and Philip Seymour Hoffman are the next villains for the bat guy: Johnny’s a pro. He’ll be able to take direction from director Christopher Nolan and still make the character his own. And what better Penguin is there than Philip Seymour Hoffman.”

Another name that seems to be related to this sequel is Angelina Jolie. Her name is attached to the leather dressed Catwoman. That should be interesting but only if Angelina will gain some weight.
These rumors are quite OK and hopefully we will see those names in the upcoming installments from this awesome franchise under Christopher Nolan guiding.