I don’t know why I love vectors oh so very much, but I do. “Vecteezy is an index of Free Vectors available for download by some of the best designers around the world.” Have at it.
Posted by richz at 9:15 AMYeh, I know there are about 500 Ajax autosuggest implementations out there, but this one over at Brand Spanking New is nicely packaged, documented and it looks darn cool.
Posted by richz at 9:16 AMThe kids at Netvibes can't rest up for a minute. They've extended Netvibes to allow you to customize it in all sorts of ways. A bunch of pre-packaged themes are also available.
Posted by richz at 8:55 AMThis is kinda, sorta, kinda neat: Ajaxtrans is a real-time translator that will port your text to a bunch of languages as you type.
Posted by richz at 9:12 AM2020ok.com is a directory of free online books and eBooks. Groovy.
Posted by richz at 9:39 AMIf you've locked into the CS3 madness, you'll probably enjoy the pretty large collection of videos that walk through the new features across the products. Pretty nice interface too.
Posted by richz at 3:37 AMGoogle Desktop is now available for Mac. I'm not sure about its value with Spotlight already in place, but nonetheless, it's here. TUAW has a nice review.
Posted by richz at 2:21 AMI don't usually point to stuff like this on basement.org but...wow. (Via the relentlessly great Waxy's Links.)
Posted by richz at 9:30 AMFlash Magazine has a nice preview (with some racy screenshots) of Flash CS3. It's looking like a pretty significant, highly-integrated (think Photoshop and Illustrator integrated) release.
Posted by richz at 7:43 PMHere's a wacky little feature I never knew existed on NYTimes.com. If you're in any article (like this one), and double-click on any term, it'll bring up a dictionary or encylopedia view of that word. Pretty cool. It works in both web view and printer-friendly view.
Original Signal, that neat little pre-canned portal that aggregates a bunch of sites like Digg, Techcrunch, and such, has put out Frontpage - a summary of the hottest articles out there on any given day. It feels a lot like Techmeme.
Posted by richz at 9:38 AMThe Yahoo! Widget Blog reports that Yahoo! Widgets Goes To Version 4. A major new feature is the Widget Dock. Widges everywhere!
Posted by richz at 10:44 AMSomebody send whoevers behind Bittbox a cheese basket. There's a great set of vector assets that are pretty high quality that he's sharing. I'm liking the Free Vector Web Page Elements parts one, two and three.
Posted by richz at 9:58 AMIn the spirit of sIFR, swfIR is a flash/javascript concoction that replaces images with Flash-driven equivalents. This allows you to do some fancy tricks like dynamic resizing and image effects. Pretty cool...though the initial flipping to the Flash version of the image is a bit annoying.
Posted by richz at 11:47 AMYour favorite portal and mine, Netvibes, has churned out a handful of features and enhancements. Netvibes continues to impress.
Posted by richz at 9:33 AMOk, this guy is damn cool. Opensearchfox is a Firefox extension that allows you to easily add new search engines to that handy little search box in Firefox. Simply right-click on any search box in any website and you're done.
Posted by richz at 12:54 PMI'm convinced the guy behind Smashing Magazine has no job. Yet another massive list: 83 quality Wordpress themes.
Add Opensearch (that in-line search box in Firefox and Explorer that lets you easily search Google, Amazon, etc.) for your site in five minutes.
Posted by richz at 9:42 AMImified is a new service that allows you to manage various web accounts like Backpack, and Google Calendar through your instant messaging client (MSN, Yahoo, Google Chat & AOL are supported).
Posted by richz at 2:24 PMAll kinds of cool Photoshop, Illustrator and 3D tutorials at Tutorials 2.0. Go ahead - make some shiny, glossy icons. You know you want to.
Posted by richz at 2:25 PMI know what I ain't good at: creating Photoshop brushes. That don't mean I don't love'em though. Brusheezy is a repository of free brushes that real artists contribute to (mostly).
Posted by richz at 2:46 PMI may be late to the party on this one, but iConcertCal is damn sweet. It probes your iTunes library, pulls out the artists and sends them off to Pollstar to see who's on tour. Then it plots them on a calendar. You heard me right.
Posted by richz at 10:08 AMGroovy/cool illustration art from Baz Pringle (an equally groovy/cool name!).
Posted by richz at 2:40 PMNo, I'm not plugging Design-feed.net because basement.org is one of the contributing sites. I'm plugging it because it's a nice collection of design sites all rolled into one. I swear.
Posted by richz at 5:48 PMPutting aside an oddly confusing name, Yahoo!'s new mobile service nicely unifies your typical mobile web services into a nice streamlined interface. Looks neat if your phone supports it (my Treo 650 doesn't).
Posted by richz at 3:12 PMPhotographer Daniel Edburg breathes new life (or, um...death) into famous scenes with this series of photos. It's hard to really explain. Just click thru.
Posted by richz at 10:52 AMIf you're any sort of web developer - CSS, Ajax, Javascript, XHTML - you need Firebug. The new version renders itself indisposable.
Posted by richz at 1:36 PMWant to send a nose hair-plucking e-Card? It's hard to really explain. Just click on the link.
Posted by richz at 9:40 AMWant another example of why Ajax doesn't creatively scale? Check out Youki. It's a service that allows you to display your galleries of photos in a booklet-style interface. It's Flash-based and it's pretty darn awesome.
Posted by richz at 9:47 AMThis is kinda weird and sorta cool. ArtPod has little video shorts for the iPod. They're these neat little ambient movies for your iPod.
Posted by richz at 4:49 PMYeh. You read it right. "Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture." Yeh. I'd watch it. So what?
Posted by richz at 9:04 AMThe latest version of Google Desktop is now see-thru. Kinky.
Posted by richz at 9:25 AMLab Pixies : cute little gadgets that can be added to your personal Google or Windows Live page (some work with Netvibes as ewll).
Posted by richz at 1:30 PMWondering why Web 2.0 startups keep dropping vowels from their names? Forbes says it's because all properly spelled URL's are sold out or really expensive. Interesting.
Posted by richz at 10:24 AMA nice bit of Photoshop love. A groovy series of Photoshop-manipulated images of dissections. Very realistic looking stuff. Also, a tutorial to make your photos look like Roy Lichtenstein's pop art with Photoshop. Both links are swiped off the mighty BoingBoing.net.
Posted by richz at 10:24 AMWe'll put aside that Icebrrg continues Web 2.0's all out assault on proper spelling and boycott of vowels and simply enjoy it for what it's worth: a form builder, simple data storage thingy (a la Wufoo).
Posted by richz at 9:56 AMPaint.net is a free, semi-worthy Photoshop-like graphics editing tool for Windows. Looks pretty ok.
Posted by richz at 12:34 PMI'm digging dzone. Fresh links for developers with Digg-style voting.
Posted by richz at 9:21 AMIndex : Design To Improve Life. Awesome.
Posted by richz at 9:20 AMI've thought about this and wanted to build this (no really) but couldn't find the frickin' time. Anway, somebody else did it nice. Upload a picture and it spits out a color palette. This is good. Real good.
Jack Slocum (yes, his coding skills are as badass as his name) has put out a really impressive commenting system for Wordpress. Built atop the Yahoo UI library, it's a different take on comments. Rather than just dumping them all on the bottom of a blog post, he meshes them into the reading experience. Nice.
Posted by richz at 9:54 AMDesigncharts is sort of like a Billboard Top 10 of (mostly Flash-driven) web sites. I'm not sure how the rankings are gathered, but the top 10 seems credible.
Posted by richz at 8:41 AMSay it with me..."Sizeasy" (yeh, I have no idea how to pronounce it either). Sizeasy is a neat little tool that compares the size of...umm...anything to common objects like a deck of cards or a piece of paper. Kind of cool (kind of).
Posted by richz at 8:51 AMWanna avoid those gosh-darned laser-guided missiles? The friendly folks at the EFF provide six excellent tips for searching privacy.
Posted by richz at 11:10 AMPaul Neave, a Flash wizard by any measure, has completely outdone himself with Neave.tv. A truly immersive video viewing experience. It's amazing what you can pull off with Flash if you're willing to look beyond the paradigm of web pages and hyperlinks. The transitions are just awesome. (Found via Waxy's Links).
Posted by richz at 11:10 AMMan, I love free stuff so very much. And in this case, "stuff" means software - a lesser known list of some useful freeware apps. Have at it.
Posted by richz at 8:25 AMAdobe (yes - Adobe - the entire company) has a delicious acocunt and they've decided to share it with us all. All sorts of great links on PDF, Flex, Photoshop (tons of Photoshop) and others. Very nice. Other corporate behemoths should take notice. This is smart.
Posted by richz at 11:49 AMHow To Create Groovy Vector Art. 'Nuff said.
Posted by richz at 5:32 PMI must've somehow missed this one. Google's put out an AJAX search widget for their search. Pretty cool. Not sure I like the different category listing though.
Posted by richz at 2:09 PMTake a geeky trip down memory lane with this cool collection of splash screens from various popular software packages. Kind of fun.
Posted by richz at 8:29 AMVia Meebo integration, now you can hit all the major instant messaging clients in one of your Netvibes tabs. Very sweet.
Posted by richz at 8:59 AMFile this bad boy under "inspiration" (or something). Logopond displays...logos (submitted ones that is). Neat-o.
Posted by richz at 10:02 AMThe Yahoo Interface Blog struts its stuff by showing the many ways Yahoo! is taking advantage of its freely available user interface libraries. As they say on Sportscenter: "useful."
Posted by richz at 9:04 AMThe constantly thoughtful and inspiring Creating Passionate Users considers whether the U.S. sucks at design.
Posted by richz at 9:50 AMCSS Mania : CSS World 2006 Winners
Posted by richz at 1:40 PMA nice, simple (really simple) implementation of tabs via Javascript and CSS.
Posted by richz at 1:52 PMI just wrote up some reasons we're loving Adobe's Flex technology here at Arc90. A worthwhile read for anyone interested in AJAX or rich internet apps.
Posted by richz at 11:55 AMThe excellent UI/UX blog, Functioning Form has a great entry on the behind-the-scenes thinking and motivations behind the development of OSX and Longhorn (Vista). Well worth reading.
Posted by richz at 9:05 AMSweetie is a free and very nice icon set. Go get it.
Posted by richz at 9:31 AMDigg For Designers : PixelGroovy.
Based on the 25 comments, I guess I'm a bit late to this. Nevertheless, Design Observer talks about The Power of Context.
Posted by richz at 9:16 AMLevitated.net has an oh-so-sweet collection of Flash physics demos (via Passionate Users).
Posted by richz at 9:59 AMI'm not sure if this old news or not, but it's new to me. Free, nicely designed CSS/XHTML layouts under Creative Commons.
Posted by richz at 12:28 PMA good summary of the major Javascript frameworks : The JavaScript Library World Cup.
Posted by richz at 2:26 PMI've always considered myself a "designer." But what kind? At blog.arc90, I give some thoughts on what we mean by "design."
Posted by richz at 9:49 PMHere's a nice implementation of a CSS/XHTML renderer. Ideal for trying out an idea before applying it to your own code.
Posted by richz at 1:36 PMGoogle has released a Firefox extension that maintains your Firefox settings across computers. Pretty useful. Just keep in mind it requires a Google account and syncs your saved passwords as well.
Posted by richz at 9:13 AMPlugins. Filters. Brushes. Actions. You name it. Here's a massive list of Photoshop add-ons.
Posted by richz at 10:19 AMArc90's Chris LoSacco discusses on the real, tangible returns of investing in interface design. Few things frustrate me more than key decision-makers not getting the value of good, thoughtful interface design. The post highlights some excellent points on the often-overlooked value of interaction design.
Posted by richz at 10:17 AMA nicely designed, social Web 2.0 thingamajig: The Best Stuff In The World let's you find and vote on...umm...stuff. It's sort of like a Digg for everything else.
Posted by richz at 4:29 PMYour favorite portal page and mine, Netvibes, has added Digg and eBay support. The Netvibes blog has all the details here and here.
Posted by richz at 3:18 PMSlashdot just announced their winner for the CSS redesign contest. It looks nice. Mmmm...gradients.
16 Bugs is a dead simple, web-based, AJAXified bug tracking tool. You can have one project for free, then tiered pricing after that.
Posted by richz at 9:52 AMIBM DeveloperWorks : Devise Web 2.0 Apps With PHP & DHTML. Looks like the first of a series. IBM's articles are usually pretty thorough.
Posted by richz at 1:53 PMGetty Images has put out a seriously impressive collection of interactive Flash and Shockwave applications called 10 Ways. The demos are designed to provoke us to think about the different aspects of photography: light, information, memory, space, response, emotion, color, truth, time, and transformation. Pretty inspiring. It really shows how powerful Flash is in the right hands.
Posted by richz at 2:13 PMDealmyday.com is a sort of Digg for online deals. I'm liking it. It looks fairly new based on the activity.
Not sure if this has already made the rounds, but the Dynamic Drive CSS Library is a nicely put together set of CSS tweaks.
Cool Text is a web-based image generator. Many text styles and each with many options. Just ignore all the annoying ads.
Posted by richz at 10:36 AMA nicely categorized, fairly comprehensive listing of Ajax and Javascript resources can be found at Solutoire.com. In other news, Google has released an Ajax framework based on Java (Slashdot has more).
Posted by richz at 10:05 AMHere's a neat little mashup. Sync up Yahoo! Local directions with your ipod so you can take your directions to go. I don't own an iPod (but by God I may cave in soon) but it looks pretty neat.
The lunatics at Adobe have put out a nice little Ajax framework called Spry. Yeh I know, there are many frameworks out there (just ask Max Kiesler), but this one's leveraging pure XML and Xpath. It looks pretty elegant.