Yahoo new user interface of the main page

yahoo recently decided to let some of its lucky visitors to have the chance of testing the new user interface which dramatically changed comparing to the current interface.

they new interface is far better in terms of user-experience, simplicity and user-friendliness. They omitted color of the box headers form the previous UI and convert it to a light grey, stylish boxes which add more consistency to the deign and easier to read. It also reduce the weight of the page for the reader's eye.
another big change is moving all the tools and services to the right side in a vertical menu. Although this kind of design might be considered as a traditional design style but in Yahoo's case it seams to be very effective and helpful by letting you easily and freely take a look at all of their services in fraction of second (something which was, if not impossible, very hard and time consuming in the past. I'm sure with this new user interface you will find a lot of new and useful services from yahoo which are not actually new!

Ajax Sketch, the first step toward Online Vector Graphics Softwares

After releasing AjaxWrite, the AjaxLaunch team, as they promised before, launched their new Ajax-based software called ajaxSketch. According to their website, it is supposed to be a paired down version of Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape which is completely free and perfect for creating quick charts and diagrams from scratch. It includes autoshapes, pencil mode, and text for creating the basics. You can also edit by resizing, rotating, changing background or pen color, and altering opacity.
the software is still very rudimentary but it can clearly show the new capabilities that ajax brought to web developers. Now, web, considering its capabilities and drawbacks, could be a potential threat for all kinds of desktop application. ajaxWrite and ajaxSketch are proving this fact.

Web 2.0 Validator, or "is your website a real web 2.0?"

Web 2.0 Validator is a really cool idea! Grading your website and identifying the level of your "web-two-ness". But unfortunately, some of the criteria are ridiculous somehow, like referring to firefox or using prototype.js! There are a lot of improvement opportunity and you know, like all the other web 2.0 services they are "still in beta."

Screenshots of CL2 the new Ajax -based Google Calendar

Visited Countries

Visited Countries is a cool service demonstrating the power of manipulating the palette of a gif image on the fly. It starts with a map of the world with each country in a different color. The script asks which country you have been to and sets the colors of those countries to red, the rest to gray. It's the easiest and sexiest way to show where you have been and which countries have you visited in the past.

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

SixApart Confirms Funding and Acquisition

As previously widely speculated, Six Apart, the makers of the TypePad blogging platform and MovableType blogging tool today announced that they have closed a Series C round of financing of $12 Million. The round was raised from Focus Ventures, Intel Capital and August Capital and brings total amount Six Apart has raised to $23 Million.

Six Apart seem to be doing well with a large subscriber base at TypePad and their recent announcement of TypePad business class and a new plan to bring more businesses into blogging easier. SixApart have a lot more growing to do and this latest round of funding should see them through the next phases of growth.

Also SixApart today announced that they have acquired SplashBlog for an undisclosed sum. SplashBlog is a blogging solution for mobile phones and PDA’s and we should shortly see this service integrated with Six Apart’s existing services.

Web 2.0 Time Tracker: 14Dayz

14Dayz is a Netherlands based company that is still in private beta, although I’ve had a chance to test it out. It does one thing, and well: time tracking. It allows multiple project, categories and subcategories, and multiple users. Reports can be viewed in the browser, or exported in excel or pdf format.

Pricing isn’t cheap. There is a free unlimited version that is restricted to a single project, which isn’t much help for people with multiple clients they are tracking. Pricing for the premium plans ranges up to $99 per month.

The site is still in beta and needs some work before they launch. Saul Weiner, another beta tester, has posted a couple of helpful suggestions and I agree with him - navigation is poor, and I don’t like having to leave the main screen for things like new category creation. The back end seems solid, though.

One other feature that is really needed is billing. The report has total time, but there is no way to associate a project or hourly fee to that time, nor is there an invoicing function. Building something like Blinksale into this would make it significantly more useful.