Fellow readers of liquidicity, we are surprised. Genuinely surprised.

People print our posts.

We never realised that many of our readers actually like to have a real, physical copy of some of our posts to (I guess) stick on their wall, put in their scrapbook, hand out in the street, or do anything else with.

In all honesty, we never designed liquidicity for printing, and only rarely print posts off ourselves. So today, we decided to see just how bad liquidicity looked on paper - horrendous! The navigation bar showed up as an unordered, un-styled, empty list. The sidebar showed below the content, running over several pages. The default font was, gasp, Times New Roman, and the rest was just bad.

Worst of all, for even short posts at least 3 sheets of A4 paper needed to be printed due to the unordered layout spiralling off down the page. What a waste of ink and paper.

We immediately got to work on a new printable style sheet. Now whenever you print a post on liquidicity, your discerning eyes will be met with a centred, red, bold title, a well sized font, a focus on content, organised comments, and nothing else. No sidebar, no category links, no "digg this" - nothing that isn't needed on a piece of paper. All in a lovely paper friendly font: Helvetica.

So, all we can say is... find your favourite post and hit "Print"! But not too many times, because we really do like trees.

Many thanks to Stass for pointing out that people actually print stuff off once in a while.

Only a small post, but I just signed in to Google Mail and received a loading bar progress indicator.

No need to stop the press, but it's a whole lot more useful than the old "Loading..." message.

I hope they do the same with file attachment uploads as well. Progress indicators are a much more user friendly display of loading times than just a spinning icon, or as previously on Google Mail, writing "Loading...".

Hint: Always aim to explain to your users the progress of whatever operation they are waiting for. Progress bars are a simple and efficient way of doing so.

Check the GoSquared Support Wiki for a run down on official and not-so-official web banner sizes.

You can use the example images as you wish. Give your readers an example of what ad sizes you offer if you want.

Hope this helps if you ever need a reference!

Gary Jones from BlueFur contacted me today about a new project they're working on call BlueFur Jobs.

The aim is simple- to turn Wordpress into an easy to manage job board that anyone can host. It's not quite ready, but you can try it out here. The best thing about it is when it is 100% ready for prime time they're going to release the code for free so we can all enjoy the benefits of their blood, sweat and cheers.

I wrote about the project over at GoSquared Discuss earlier today, but I thought I would promote it to liquidicity so everyone can see what a great piece of work this is.

I tested it out briefly and first impressions are great:

The Great Stuff

* Posting of new jobs is really simple
* Useful RSS Feeds for each job category
* Instant preview of job post
* Clear division of job categories at both top and bottom of page
* "next" and "previous" job categories at bottom of page
* No sign-in necessary
* Overall really simple to use

Improvements That Could be Made

* First and foremost - a search function would make it much easier to find jobs. Especially if the number of jobs reaches into the hundreds.
* People may not be over keen on their email address being posted out in the open. Perhaps hiding this with a coded image or a hashed code would be better.
* Greater focus on "job description" to ensure enough detail on what the job is about is given. Perhaps allow basic html formatting (bold, italics, bullets etc.)
* On posting a new job, clicking "preview" would ideally scroll the page up to where the preview text shows.
* Indication of new jobs to returning visitors with an icon or formatting.

To Make it Kick-ass

* Link "location" field to a mapping site like Google Maps.
* Allow people to sign in to post jobs without having to fill everything in again.
* Ability to share a job with friends by email.

All in all, BlueFur Jobs looks to be an awesome job board, and we are really looking forward to seeing it develop.

Drop a comment to help them out - they are looking for as much help as possible while they develop it.

Inquisitor, the brilliant little search plugin for Safari has been purchased by web giant Yahoo!

In a move that has surprised many, Yahoo! has seemingly made a smart decision here. The Inquisitor plugin is used by a large number of Apple users to get instant search results from the built in search field that Safari comes with. The search field defaults to Google when Safari is first downloaded, enabling both Google and Apple to earn through search advertising from a high number of searches. So Yahoo! will ensure Inquisitor's default search is through them to increase their slice of the multi-billion dollar search advertising market. Thankfully, the default search engine is still changeable via the newly designed preference pane.

Yahoo! purchasing this plugin is not just a sign of good business sense. It is a very clear example of the importance of interface design. Interface = Brand. The interface of Inquisitor is beautiful, and has developed throughout its life. Being a user of Inquisitor from the beginning, it has been great to see it develop into a thoroughly useful, efficient, and beautiful tool.

Let's hope the buyout from Yahoo! will keep Inquisitor at its prime for years to come.

On a side note, David Watanabe has not joined the ranks of Yahoo!, he's still focused on creating his own awesome software.

Just over 2 days ago, we launched the all new GoSquared, introducing the GoSquared Network, the completely rewritten Control Panel, Squares on other Sites, and more.

In just 2 days, we already have 14 Sites on the GoSquared Network, with more joining every day. We are really pleased that after a large influx of new users, the Control Panel is now available to thousands of Members.

The launch went smoothly, but there were a large number of bugs that simply couldn't be sorted out until we were online. We have been working without much sleep for the last few days to fix as many bugs as possible, and improve the most important areas of the site. Here's some of the fixes we have been working on:

New My Info Area

We have completely redesigned the My Info area, giving a polished finish to your GoSquared Account details. Editing your Account details will now lead to a more familiar CP edit pane.

Top Sites

The Top Sites list on the Squares Homepage is now fully functional, and displays the most popular Sites at any given point in time based on their GoSquared Reputation.

Recently Joined Sites

At the base of the Squares Homepage is a quick preview of the most recently joined Sites on the GoSquared Network. All Sites are given a large thumbnail preview image that is updated regularly. You can see more Sites by clicking the left and right arrows. New Sites are automatically added to the queue for this preview area, regardless of Reputation, giving all new Sites publicity before they have spent a penny.

Support Wiki

The GoSquared Support Wiki is growing, with more and more information being added every day to help you out with viewing and using GoSquared. If you need help with anything, or think anything is missing from the Support Wiki, just Contact Us.

Other bugs that aren't so interesting

• Fixed a bug where GoSquared Reputation displayed error codes before Site had installed GSTC. Now shows "GSTC not yet installed" message.
• Sign in fields for drop down on Sign In and Join pages no longer take default "edit pane: appearance. Now take browser default appearance, and smaller size.
• Added "New" icon to Squares title in navigation bar for non-secure pages. Members signed in to the Control Panel don't see this, because they already know the Squares system is new.
• Added online status to Squares Overview in Control Panel, so you can see at a glance which Squares are currently public and which are awaiting approval.
• Added a "Contact Us" and "Support" link to GoSquared Footer.
• Removed unexpected errors from Money section of Control Panel. Improved "edit pane" styles for "Add Details" screen.
• Fixed JavaScript "accordion" animation of Sidebar. Sidebar was expanded by default for most Members.
• Removed typographical errors everywhere we have noticed. Please Contact Us if you spot any.
• Removed links to currently unannounced areas of GoSquared.

Thanks for sticking with us, we're working to make GoSquared better everyday. We hope you enjoy the Site.

Don't forget, you haven't experienced GoSquared until you've signed in...

Welcome to the all new GoSquared.

We have been working on building this for a long time now, and are proud to finally present the long awaited Squares system.

We are introducing 3 major new products with this release today:

All New Control Panel

Sign in, or join GoSquared to experience where most of our time has been spent. We think you'll like it.

The all new Control Panel lets you do what you want to do, fast. From here you can monitor all of your Squares from one page, view dynamic graphs of your traffic data, update your Site details in real time, and a whole lot more.

Instead of reading more about what the Control Panel is like, why not try it out for yourself, by joining GoSquared for free today.

The GoSquared Network

Squares are no longer confined to just GoSquared. Add your Site to the GoSquared Network now, and earn money with pure and simple Squares on your Site.

By adding your Site to GoSquared, you not only gain the ability to sell Squares on your own Site, but can also monitor traffic from within the Control Panel.

Squares on other Sites

GoSquared is perhaps the easiest way to purchase advertising on any Site. Simply submit your Square, a 140x140 pixel image, and choose some keywords. GoSquared matches these keywords with similar Sites on the GoSquared Network, and suggests the most potentially effective ones. You can then choose to purchase your Square on as many of these Sites as you like, for as long as you like. Click purchase, and you're done.

Your Square will show up in the Control Panel instantly, and you can start monitoring from there.

We hope you enjoy the all new GoSquared,

Thanks,

The GoSquared Team

For 2 years we have been working on building an advertising platform that makes sense. We have been striving to build the most simple, efficient, and beautiful online advertising solution possible.

Please visit GoSquared tonight at midnight if you're in London, or 16:00 if you're in San Francisco.

Some things are good enough to stay up for.

See you soon,

The GoSquared Team.

Two years ago, building a portable computer game in 14 days that responded to touch screen actions, and physical movement via accelerometers was something only the most revolutionary people would even dream of.

Today, Apple announced the iPhone SDK, and have made it possible to build apps for the most talked about device of the last year. The SDK (Software Development Kit) has been a long time coming, but was worth the wait - developers are only really limited by their imaginations, meaning we will be seeing some truly astonishing apps over the next year.

So far, applications on the iPhone have all been made by Apple. Some make more use of the iPhones abilities than others, but none show how truly capable this device is. An app shown in the keynote really made me think of just how natural to use this device can be - they showed an image editing tool, where you pinch the image to literally apply a pinch effect. Sure this is cool, but then to undo the change, you simply shake the phone (just like in the old Etch-a-Sketch days).

I am really looking forward to seeing how far people's imaginations can push the most advanced mobile computing platform ever made.

We are overwhelmed with the response from our first post on the Dream Browser project.

To follow up, we have a couple of small mockups of 1) A better way to look at Bookmarks, and 2) How you might go about viewing videos.

A Better Way of Looking at Bookmarks

We have CoverFlow in iTunes, we have it in the Finder, where next? Yep, the Browser.

CoverFlow is a controversial concept - people either love it or hate it. One could argue that CoverFlow makes sense in iTunes as you can view all of your music just like the ol' days by flipping through your virtual CD covers. One could also argue that it makes sense in the Finder because you can view all of your documents with a scaled down instant preview without even having to open them.

 However, there are others who may argue that CoverFlow is an over-engineered,  graphics hungry, time wasting piece of eye candy.

 I must admit I don't use CoverFlow terribly often in the Finder - it is useful for pictures, PSDs, and videos, but when I get to my Applications folder, CoverFlow serves very little purpose.

Hang on a minute, though - when was the last time you browsed through your internet history? How long did it take to find what you were looking for? It's true - currently, internet browser history sucks. To make a start, things need to be more visual.

Introducing CoverFlow into the Browser makes perfect sense - whenever you navigate to a web page, the Browser could capture a screen shot of that page at a smaller resolution of, say, 640x480. These images would then be stored in a directory that was easily accessible by the user. When browsing history, any item deleted would also remove the thumbnail from the directory.

Add to this an advanced method of search. When you currently search your history or bookmarks, the browser compares your search term to the URL and title of each page. A far superior way of finding what you want would be to index every site you have navigated to, so when you search, your query will be compared to more than just the title and URL, but also the very contents of every page, just like Spotlight does with your documents.

How to View Videos

In Sebastiaan's original post, he mentioned the archaic way of viewing video that is still the norm on the web.

 Breaking content apart has been something of a challenge for years on the web - separating content from design with HTML and CSS, but not much has been done on the user side to aid separation of content such as text, video, and pictures.

If we were able to identify different media (which we are), we could organise, for instance, all of the videos you have viewed in the last day into a list, and the same for photos, and maybe even maps*.

 The image above shows a simple, iTunes style list of videos. These videos could be QuickTime, YouTube, or any other video content provider theoretically. Perhaps it would be more beneficial to restrict the classification of content as"Video" within the Browser to avoid Flash sites being organised into the same category. Restricting the classification of video could be done by filtering files from certain domains that are between a range of media sizes.

So, for example, if the domain of the video file is one of the following "media-site-1.com; media-site-2.com; media-site-3.com;" AND the filetype is one of the following ".flv; .mov; .avi; .swf" AND the filesize is  between "X mb" and "Y mb" THEN class content as "Video"

 *Maps - that one literally just came to me - perhaps with a plug in we could gain better ways of keeping track of maps within the browser, and relating those maps to other information, such as contacts, web addresses, and more. 

 Just a few more thoughts, please keep the feedback coming!

 I might upload the Illustrator file I made for the screens I have been producing so you guys can visualise some of your ideas if you want.

Thanks, oh and see the previous post if you're not sure what this is all about.