Recently in Web Category

Happy Cog has been working with Wordpress to develop a new interface. Screenshots or downloads of the 2.5 sneak peak are available on the Wordpress site.

"The WordPress navigation has confounded even sophisticated users. With the new design, we’ve cut the number of navigation options in half, separating the primary functions (writing, managing posts and pages, editing the blog’s design, and managing comments) from secondary functions. This presents information at a more comfortable pace, revealing only the information that’s necessary."

From what I can see Jeffrey Zeldman and crew have done a fantastic job at cleaning up the clunky interface; one of my major beefs with it. Keep in mind that it is only release candidate one.

I stumbled upon Humanized.com which seems to be a exploration project into creating a blog-like aggregator. The about page describes it as "Why couldn't reading an aggregator be as simple as reading a blog?".

What makes this project interesting to me is the lack of a paginator. Instead, when you reach the bottom of the page with the scroll bar, a message is displayed that alerts you; "More pages are being loaded..." and instantly more data is appended to the page.

Now this is thinking outside of the box. You get more to read when you need it, without thinking. Should this be the future of pagination or a lack there of? Maybe. I'm still contemplating that myself but I'm intrigued by the idea.

There are a couple of reports hitting the wire that Flickr Video will debut next month (April). One at CNet - Flickr Video beta due in April | Outside the Lines and one at Tech Crunch - Video Coming To Flickr Soon. Really..

I think some of the greatest sites are the ones who can focus on a single offering and make it great, be it wine, video or photography. If Yahoo were to debut a video site, that would be one thing, but integrating it into Flickr I think might be a mistake.

I have seen cased where video can be a nice compliment to photography in instances when a photographer wants to show how he achieved a particular end result, give a short documentary on his work or document a entire shoot. Even the Strobist Flickr Meetups are great fun to watch. There are a lot of discussions in Flickr groups that link to YouTube or Vimeo for that particular purpose. However, having a place to store and showcase any video like the two aforementioned sites will only dilute the creativity that has become Flickr.

Flickr has proven itself to be a viable tool for photographers; some great ones at that. Will these photographers still find value in Flickr once Video is introduced? I guess only time will tell. I suppose it's really going to depend on how it's integrated and how good their content filters are. What I would hate to see is a repository of tween video, like those my kid is addicted to watching on YouTube. On the other hand, if integrated in such a way as to compliment the photography that's hosted, like the examples I've listed earlier, it might be a good transition.

Photography and cinematography are art-forms in their own respect and they share common principles. Let's hope Flickr (Yahoo) doesn't forget that and gives the respect and attention that each field deserves. I'd really hate it if Flickr became a quest for 15 minutes of fame.

Mike Rohde of Rohdesign has posted an excellent set of SXSW sketchnotes he made in his Moleskine. Thirty four pages of them to be exact. It's nice to see SXSW through Mikes eyes, or brain. Mike also did the same for the SEED Conference

A fantastic prototype script for Mac dictionary lookups.

var selection;
if(window.getSelection)
  selection = window.getSelection();
else if(document.selection)
  selection = document.selection.createRange();

document.observe('dblclick', function() {
  if(navigator.userAgent.include('Macintosh')) {
      location.href = 'dict://' + selection;
    }
});

A quick (and probably dirty) Prototype-based hack allowing Mac users to get the definition of any word by double clicking it.

[Via AlternateIdea - Home.]

Phineas X. Jones at 37signals has an excellent post sharing his Cehalopod watercolor paintings. A very talented artist indeed.

It is no secret that I have a long-standing interest in cephalopods and watercolors. So of late I’ve been combining the two in a series of of postcards based on actual species documented in Cephalopods: A World Guide. For the purposes of this post I documented some of the stages of painting the maori octopus displayed at left. I’ll try not to get all Joy of Painting about it.It’s important to keep in mind that the style of watercolor I do would be described by anyone actually trained in classical watercolor techniques as ‘completely wrong.’ I never studied anything or took a class on technique. I just wing it. Anyway…

Read the full article

(Via Signal vs. Noise.)

When registering a domain name, it's a really good idea to read it a few times. Hang it on a wall and over-analyze it. Maybe get someone else to read it and I mean good!

The list of domains here were sent to me and have probably been circulating around the internet, but it's a good case in point. The funny thing, I've been on the second one a few times over many years, more by fault of Google, but it never even dawned on me.

1. "Who Represents" is where you can find the name of the agent that represents any celebrity. Their Web site is:

www.whorepresents.com

2. "Experts Exchange" is a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at:

www.expertsexchange.com

3. Looking for a great pen? Look no further than "Pen Island". It can be found at:

www.penisland.net

4. Need a therapist? Try "Therapist Finder" at:

www.therapistfinder.com

5. Then there's the "Italian Power Generator" company. Check it out at:

www.powergenitalia.com

6."IP computer" software, there's always:

www.ip_anywhere.com

7. "The First Cumming Methodist Church" Web site is:

www.cummingfirst.com

8. And the designers at "Speed of Art" await you at their wacky Web site:

www.speedofart.com

Tumblr developer Marco Arment opened up Instapaper, his latest side project. Think of it as a inbox for pages you want to pass up and read later. Instapaper gives you a bookmarklet to save the pages for retrieval when you have time to catch up.

Marco describes it as:
* You come across substantial news or blog articles that you want to read, but don’t have time at the moment.
* You need something to read while sitting on a bus, waiting in a line, or bored in front of a computer.

I think the thing I like most is the signup process. Put in your email address and you're done. If you want a password, add one and you're protected. Otherwise, there's nothing else to do but fill it up with pages to read later.

Foamee does! And it interfaces with Twitter. Very cool idea and site from none other than Dan Cederholm.

As I mentioned last week Merlin Mann is now a member of the Stikkit advisory board. Merlin is posting some great how-to's on this great web app and it sounds like it may be a regular subject on 43 Folders. I've been using Stikkit for a while now and found some really useful tips in his first post. He's also posted a small cheatsheet to help you get the most of your Stikkits.