This Beijing Olympic Village replica was created by the Hong Kong LEGO Users Group in under 100 hours. These photos are a few days old but I only just came across them. Seems like an appropriate time to display an amazing model of such a breathtaking Olympic Village.
Anyone who saw the opening ceremony to Beijing 08 will be aware of how much attention China is putting into the beautiful details of these Games. The Birds Nest Stadium is one of my favourite stadium designs ever, and at night it becomes even more stunning with the most powerful and colourful lighting to transform it into a glowing ball of intertwining steel frames.
Being in London, this year we haven't been lucky enough to attend the Apple World Wide Developer Conference at Moscone West in San Francisco. We'll be following Twitter along with the rest of the world's Apple fans, but just in case Twitter goes down (not that that's ever happened before... oh wait) we'll be keeping you posted on developments throughout the day.
Good work Gernot Poetsch on snapping the first shots of the Moscone West building in San Francisco where the WWDC keynote will take place on Monday.
Every year, these banners leave a few hints as to what will be revealed on the big day, and this year is no exception.
As mentioned in our earlier article "Thoughts on WWDC", the focus on OS X as much as iPhone here seems to suggest we will be seeing something about the next version of Apple's desktop operating system.
Interestingly, this is the first time we have seen Apple marketing their operating system without the term "Mac". Some people have noted this down as possibly meaning OS X could become available on PCs, but I sincerely doubt that. Instead, I see it as Apple strengthening the definition of each of their brands, so that they fall into the following categories:
Mac: The computer hardware (Desktop and Notebook)
iPhone: The mobile hardware (Perhaps a range of iPhones, gradually replacing the iPod)
OS X: The firmware (One operating system that developers can build for using the same tools and services, while making it even easier for consumers to move from iPod > iPhone > Mac)
It is also interesting to see Apple reviving the idea of OS X on the iPhone, as until now it had seemed Apple had been making the firmware update seem more like the "iPhone OS" as opposed to a mobile version of the desktop operating system.
I'll be honest, I hadn't heard of this guy until today, but I thought it would be important to share just how (for want of a better word) STUPID he appears in this video.
When asked on what Apple needs to do to really improve its chances in the corporate sector, Mr Krakow suggested that Apple should "Bite the bullet, and either get Blackberry or Windows Mobile on the iPhone"
His reasons for Apple doing so were very vague, and mainly focused on people "being happy" with what they currently have. How can an industry ever evolve if they're always happy with what they have?
Gary's comments on "moving to the Apple system" made him sound as if he really didn't have a clue about what he was talking about. Also, on a side note, you don't tend to hear people in the industry calling anything a system these days - it's more "platforms" and "devices". His comments were as if Apple hadn't got ANY plans to bring out a whole host of enterprise features in the coming weeks.
All I can say is, it's hard to believe this isn't a joke.
Relating back to our posts on the DreamBrowser, we found a great demo of a much improved technique for scrolling windows at Thorwil's Blog.
The concept of scrolling using scroll bars in a GUI has not altered for over a decade, and an improvement like this makes a lot of sense. It may not aesthetically be the most attractive solution right now, but as time goes by it's highly likely this could end up in desktop software and operating systems.
It's going to be interesting seeing how this concept develops and whether it will make it into the wider world of mainstream software.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Want to advertise on liquidicity? Get your square up in as little as five minutes flat. With thousands of views daily at your disposal get seen the GoSquared way and best of all, only:
$4 for 1 Day $20 for 1 Week $40 for 1 Month $119 for 1 Year
