After working out a partnership with Newsbreak and months of working under the covers, ABS-CBNnews.com has finally unveiled their new and improved website, which features a boatload of new features such as:

• Better and cleaner user interface (less ads too)!
• Dynamic, AJAX-driven content panels
• Kyte powered streaming video feeds
• RSS feeds
• Content search
• Search engine friendly URLs

While some of these features already existed in the old site, it is definitely a huge improvement. Below are screenshots of the old site vs the new one:

Old design:

New design:

With this, it looks like ABS-CBN is finally geared up to go head to head with GMANews.TV and Inquirer.Net, its top competitors.

Inquirer.Net (currently #1):

GMANews.tv (currently #2):

The status quo remains unchanged according to Alexa.com. Only time will tell though, as the new site was just recently launched.

Note that these results may slightly be inaccurate, as there exists two URLs http://news.abs-cbn.com/ and http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/

Can this be considered a successful re-launch? Other bloggers appear iffy. What do you think?

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On September 1, 2008 Google released its very own open source web browser. Called the Google Chrome, it combines elements from the top 3 web browsers. Here’s a quick list:

• A powerful address bar (Firefox)
• Tabbed browsing
• Starred items (Firefox)
• Saved passwords
• Maximized browsing interface (IE)
• Auto-dial with preview thumbnails (Opera)
• In-line resizable input fields (Safari)

In a stroke of creativity, Google even came up with a comic strip to explain why they created Chrome.

While Chrome’s feature set may be nothing short of revolutionary, what did catch my attention is its speed and memory utilization. Everything feels very snappy and responsive. One thing that caught my attention, though, is the memory utilization. Windows Task Manager reports five chrome.exe processes, and I only have three tabs open. The total memory utilization for all five processes amount to at least 108 Megabytes. I loaded these game tabs into Firefox 3 and it only consumed 60 Megabytes without any add-ons.

I guess I have yet to experience more of Google Chrome before I can come up with a fair verdict, but I can honestly say that I am enjoying the experience so far. I am already looking forward to future enhancements and developments of this browser.

At the end of the day, this browser does indeed pack a heavyweight punch while keeping everything slim and sexy.

Kudos to the Google Chrome team!

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Got this message when I logged into BaseCamp today. It appears that more and more businesses are now dropping support for antiquated browsers like IE6, which to me is a good sign and would pave the way to better internet standards.

Important Reminder: IE 6 Phase Out

In July we announced that we would be phasing out support for Internet Explorer 6 on August 15, 2008. To make the transition easier, we’ve extended that deadline to October 1, 2008. From now until October 1st, anyone using IE 6 to access Basecamp (or our other products) will receive a notice every 3 days letting them know they’ll need to upgrade their browser before October 1, 2008 in order to continue to use Basecamp. The notice will be displayed in the web browser and will include links to download a modern browser (IE 7, Firefox, or Safari). This notice will also be shown to your clients who use Basecamp. You may want to re-read the announcement so you are prepared for any questions they may have. If you have any questions please contact support. Thanks for your patience during the transition.

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It’s official. Expression Engine is the easiest CMS ever. For me, at least. I have just implemented Expression Engine to be the backend that will drive the CODESIGN Studios website in under a day. The power and simplicity of EE trumps all other CMS that I have dealt with in the past, and which includes the following:

• Drupal
• Wordpress
• Joomla
• Mambo
• DotNetNuke
• Microsoft Sharepoint

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I have a Google Apps account, and I received this in my mailbox today:

Google has just released a new product called Google Sites, and you can start using it today!

What is Google Sites?
It’s an online application that makes creating a team web site as easy as editing a document. You can quickly gather a variety of information in one place — including videos, calendars, presentations, attachments, and gadgets — and easily share it for viewing or editing with a small group, their entire organization, or the world.

• Anyone can do it — Building a site is as simple as editing a document, and you don’t need anyone’s help to get started.
• Share from one place — Create a single place to bring together all the information your team needs to share, including docs, videos, photos, calendars and attachments.
• Work together — Invite co-workers, classmates, or your entire organization to edit your site with you to keep it fresh and up-to-date. And let as many or few people view your site as you want.

Take a look at some example sites to see how you might use Google Sites:

• Company intranet — http://sites.google.com/a/organic-city.com/intranet/Home
• Team project — http://sites.google.com/a/altostrat.com/project-eggplant/Home
• Employee profile — http://sites.google.com/a/altostrat.com/jkraus/Home
• Classroom — http://sites.google.com/a/googleclassrooms.org/mrs-richau/Home
• Student club — http://sites.google.com/a/googleuniversity.org/ski-club/Home

To start using Google Sites, go to http://sites.google.com/a/codesignstudios.com

If you have questions, visit the Google Sites Help Center at http://www.google.com/support/sites.
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Having studied UI design for my Masters degree, I never realized how important design principles were until I started applying them into my work. Principles such as guiding the eye, whitespace, usability, and typography all have a very important role to play in every design project. So, I am happy that I ran into this article over at PSDTuts.com that outlines and provides illustrations for 9 principles of good web design. These are general principles which, back in the day, we were taught to apply in print design:
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After four years of silence Readiohead has finally released their 7th album, In Rainbows, as a name-your-price download on their website.

In terms of digital income, we’ve made more money out of this record than out of all the other Radiohead albums put together, forever — in terms of anything on the Net. And that’s nuts. It’s partly due to the fact that EMI wasn’t giving us any money for digital sales. All the contracts signed in a certain era have none of that stuff.

– Thom Yorke, Radiohead frontman
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ModalBox is a JavaScript technique for creating modern (Web 2.0-style) modal dialogs or even wizards (sequences of dialogs) without using conventional popups and page reloads. Anyone who has used a Mac OS X should be familiar with the style of animation used here.
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While I do not quite agree with the title and with this article, I think it is still worth linking to this article especially since I get my daily dose of Web2.0 wannabes approving and disapproving site submissions at CSS Vault. Like it or not, design trends are here to stay. Just like drop shadows, glows, 3-D, solar flares, or bevels there are many who try to imitate the Web2.0 look, but they can only be successfully executed by those with talent and skill.

Reposting my comment below:

Good taste. I run a design gallery and more than half of those sites on your list were submitted which I immediately approved. Those designs are definitely top notch but come on, you can probably come up with something better than just a gallery of grunge and vintage-inspired websites?

Notice that none of the websites in the gallery are corporate sites. There is a reason why the “Web2.0″ look became popular and I believe this has more to do with usability, accessibility, and achieving a clean and professional look rather than aesthetics, an area in which we both agree in..

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Version 2.0 of the Ext library, which went into alpha late September, has finally been released.
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