10 hot Web redesigns of 2008

It may be a little too early to do a roundup of the best redesigns of 2008 like we did last year, but with Thursday's one-two punch of new looks for social sites Twitter and FriendFeed, it's a good chance to take a look back at some of this year's redesigns and talk about what was changed or fixed.

I've picked 10 of my favorites below, listed in no particular order. See also the honorable mentions section at the bottom of the post, which includes content sites or other places that didn't quite make the cut.

1. Twitter

Twitter's redesign was a twofold change: One part to simplify the interface, and another to reduce the resources needed to host the site. Now when users hop between various functions it doesn't reload the entire page, meaning a faster experience and less data to serve.

The most interesting part of the redesign is actually something we don't know about. The tabbed interface on the right was apparently set in place to make room for additional features as they become available. It could be the new things from Twitter itself, or the foundation for special developer-created applications users will be able to use without leaving the service.

2. Facebook

The "new" Facebook was one of the most drastic changes of any site this year. Like Twitter, tabs took center stage, as did the chat which shares screen real estate with what's essentially the "start" button on Windows. This new menu let users launch networked applications from any page they're on. The change also embraced widescreen displays, making use of the extra room to let users build out the experience horizontally instead of having to scroll up and down.

Continue reading the rest of this article after the jump.
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Shuttle D10 has touchscreen built-in

Renown for making small-form-factor PC chassis, the Shuttle's latest creation, the D10, comes with an integrated 7-inch touchscreen display.



Billed as a standalone media center, the Shuttle D10 is meant to be placed in the living room as a home entertainment machine. Used as a secondary display, the touchscreen allows the user to control multimedia functions and even perform an entirely different task like Internet surfing, while a connected monitor continues to play a movie. A full-size remote control is also available for remote viewing.
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A limited vista on Windows 7

Some purported screenshots from a new build of Windows 7 have Microsoft watchers ruminating on the forthcoming version of the operating system and the company's take that the less said, the better.

The blog ThinkNext.net has posted a large set of screenshots that it says represent Windows 7 M3 Build 6780, from the start menu and the control panel to the media player and (how could they skip this one?) the error page. Wording on the post is terse, to say the least--the screen images are there for you to behold and for you to make of them what you will.

ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley, who has seen Build 6780, reports that the leaked screenshots are "something about which neither Microsoft nor some of its testers seem very happy". And from there she goes on to contemplate whether Redmond's zipped-lip policy on the features and functions of Windows 7 is a wise one for the company and its beta testers.
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Browser history analyzer guesses your gender

Mike Nolet of blog Mike on Ads has put together a fun little diversion that gives your browser history a quick once over and cross-references it with sites on the Quancast top 1000. Using the gender ratio on each site (according to Quancast) it will cobble together an overall percentage of what gender it thinks you are based on those results.

Not surprisingly most of us in the office, including my colleague Erica Ogg, have come up as male, with many tech sites having higher ratios of male users. The tool will give you a complete rundown of all the sites that popped up, along with their respective ratios. It's pretty fun to go through them and see the estimated makeup of each place--you might be surprised.

In case you're worried about your browsing history being used for evil, Nolet insists he's not doing anything with the data. Many users have left their true genders and the tool's guess in the comments below Nolet's post. The general consensus is that if you visit many popular tech sites you'll be pinned under the male persuasion. Visiting some sites with higher female-to-male ratios like TMZ and Livejournal will swing your overall percentage the other direction.

Note: The tool runs a little slow in Internet Explorer, so if you're having problems switch over to Firefox or Opera.

Via Webware

Ion Audio delivers nonaudio product, Slides 2 PC film scanner

At this point, it's safe to assume that most of your photo collection is digital and stored on your computer and (hopefully) a backup disk or two. But what about those boxes of slides sitting at the bottom of your closet (or in your parents' basement) that are slowly but surely fading and yellowing as the years progress? Now, you could go out and easily drop a US$1,000 on a film scanner from Nikon, or you could go out and grab Ion Audio's Slides 2 PC scanner for US$100.

Its 5-megapixel (1800dpi) scanner will leave you with 2,592 x 1,680-pixel files. Ion Audio (you know, the PC turntable and miscellaneous audio peripheral maker) touts the scanner's four-glass optical element along with automatic exposure and color balance to deliver accurate scans. It throws in a photo editing app from ArcSoft in case you still want to make tweaks. Included in the kit are two slide trays, each of which holds three slides at a time, and a negative tray. With a single USB connection and one-touch scanning, you might be able to set your folks up with this thing with the expectation of fielding only a minimal amount of tech support calls.

Via Crave CNET | Source: Everything USB

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