Ubiquity
Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.
Very neat concept. I've installed the alpha version and it is interesting. I love the concept, and the video makes it seem a snap, but as he says, there are a few interface glitches to work out. I found it hard to actually use it, but perhaps it's because of the typical learning curve. I'd love a "blog" command which posts directly to blogger...
In any case, I love this type of thinking and these types of solutions. I really look up to the User Experience department at Mozilla.
Labels: web
A Map of Olympic Medals
The New York Times has a fascinating info visualization on the distribution of Olympic Medals thus far:Circles are sized by the number of medals that countries won in summer Olympic Games. Use the slider to view past Olympics, or click on a country to display a list of its medal winners.Amazing. again, via yewknee
Labels: web
perspectv
perspectv is a neat little site that aggregates current nationwide political sentiment by monitoring mainstream media, alongside blog and twitter posts. It graphs this data in really interesting ways - even alongside more traditional state and CNN polls. As one might expect, the vast majority of tweets and blogosphere mentions are for Obama, and I wouldnt doubt most of the McCain posts are negative. Curiously the race via electoral vote stays close. Makes me wonder about who is voting which way and why.
I remain the ever-coveted swing voter this season. I have major problems with each candidate and truly can't see myself pushing the button for either in November. Regardless, this is a neat site. Interesting way to gather info, interesting ways to present it, and executed in a very functional (and fun) way.
via yewknee via daniel
Labels: web
Live Maps "Bird's Eye" View
The new "Bird's Eye" view in MS live maps is pretty neat. The perspective is kind of skewed so you can see the roads plus the buildings in a way that's more meaningful than a strictly overhead view.
via Daniel and Kelly over at Cloudbrain
Labels: web
Box office visualization
Totally great information visualization for how movies have performed over time. The strength in graphing info in this way (especially this one) is being able to present lots of info to be digested easily and at once. In that sense, Xach was very successful.The only way I'd improve on this would be on rollover to show what the current weekend was out of the total amount to date (i.e. iron man 98.6m of 315.6m) to get a sense of how important an opening weekend (or any weekend) was for the total.
Love it.
via digg
Labels: web
Trend of micro services
While I can't say nowdothis.com is the most useful website I've ever used, it's another super-simple and potentially useful site in the vein of icantdeci.de and muxtape.I'm seeing a trend here, and i like it. Do one thing, very simply, and do it right.
UPDATE 7/28/08 I'll continue to add new ones as they come along like:
Labels: web
Muppets invade youtube
Totally Awesome. Here are a few highlights but there are lots of good ones...Labels: web
Background Patterns!
BGPatterns is a nice, simple to use pattern creator. I'm loving all these simple online tools!Labels: web
icantdeci.de
Simple. Brilliant.Make your own or just start answering.
Here is another good one.
Labels: web
Gas prices heatmap
Driving this weekend was a rude reminder of the high gas prices right now. Luckily i was in NC, which wasn't too bad and I even got it under $4 a few times. I've been hearing that Alaska has by far the highest gas prices, but in the lower 48, gasbuddy has a heatmap by county. Interesting.I'm sure glad i'm not in CA right now...
Labels: web
Songza
There are a ton of great internet jukeboxes these days. It's hard to keep up with which are legal and which are not, but today I ran across songza, which might be one of the best of the bunch. The interface is amazing. Super simple, but works well, and allows me to listen to one while I search for another, create playlists, embed on my page, etc. Color me impressed.Labels: web
Nerdery
Some design/technology/nerd links i've found interesting lately:- Pattern Cooler - create and modify tile-able patterns. works really well for a free online app
- "On the Fly" web design resources - a pretty good list of web designer tools. I particularly like CSS Text Wrap
- Accessibility Color Wheel - shows what color combinations are considered accessible, with examples of how people with different visual disabilities can see them
- 960 grid system - a comprehensive web design grid system (via aaron)
- Summize - neat, up to the minute twitter search
- Wipe your ass with Windows Vista Ultimate
Labels: web
The dark horse candidate this election season...
You can make your own here. Thanks, indecision 2008.
Labels: web
I love twitter
I love it. I didnt get it for the longest time, but like most social media, it's value is in the people on it. Sometimes you just hear about what people are up to, sometimes you get poignant thoughts, and other times it spirals into full-blown conversation.
The limited space (140 characters) forces you to be concise, and ensures you're never overwhelmed.
I follow friends, of course, but there are some others that are worth checking out - particularly rawkhawk, which does excellent record reviews in (140 characters!), CNN, which is judiciously updated, and, of course, THE ACTUAL cobra commander.
The real reason for this post is tweetwheel. It's a cool visualization of how those you follow on twitter are connected. You can check out my tweetwheel, or see your own.
Labels: web
Piclens
Normally this stuff doesnt catch my eye, but Piclens is really neat. When you're on a enabled site (such as flickr, youtube, facebook, google images, etc), it shows all the photos or videos on the page in a 3d space, very quickly. I'm impressed with how super-quick it loads, and navigating is seamless and intuitive. Actually has added value for me a few times - I can quickly fly through a swath of photos and zero in on the ones I want to see. The only problem is it overlays a "play" icon over applicable photos on a website, and sometimes it gets in the way. But overall if you're interested in this sort of thing, it's definitely worth checking out.Labels: web
Apple totally rules. It's a fact. But what's the deal here?
You've probably heard that Apple launched a new GPS enabled, 3G phone today at the dirt cheap price of 199 (8gb). I'm drooling and will probably torture myself for another year waiting out my (hated) sprint contract...But you may also have heard about their rebranded .mac product called "mobileme". It looks really cool - instant syncing across all devices, online storage, etc, but I won't be shelling out the $99/year for things other apps can do for free (dropbox, for example is a great solution for sharing files).
The real reason for this post is the branding for mobile me. Did this look immediately familiar to anyone else?
Why in the world would Apple brand this so closely to an (albeit older) flagship Microsoft product? Am I the only one that sees this?
Labels: web
Processing
Weird Fishes: Arpeggi from flight404 on Vimeo.
And tons more videos here.
Related: learn how to program.
(link via Andrew at OkayYellow)
Labels: web
You're being marketed to. Now that that's out of the way...
Regardless of motive, these two sites are thoroughly enjoyable:
http://www.nolaf.org/
The campaign against fun.
via Armstrong Family Circus
http://www.whitegoldiswhitegold.com/
The spinal tap-ish stylings of "White Gold"
via Yewknee
Labels: web
Twistori
Twistori is an interesting twitter visualizaion. Cool to keep the pulse on the internet in this way.
link via Jstn
Labels: web
clocks
Christiaan Postma has created an art installation of a clock, made up of many individual spinning clock arms that over time converge to spell out the correct hour. So at Twelve, the word twelve appears by the convergence of all the clock arms. Again at one, the word one appears, and so on.Like much art, quite hard to explain, but the flash animation on his site sums it up...and is really amazing.
Labels: web
About Me
Blog of peter centofante: father, husband, brother, UX designer, freelance graphic designer, believer, realist and thinker (at least i'd like to think so.) This blog is a collection of my thoughts and things i find interesting.
I believe that ideas can change things. I think that when people are inspired by something, they rarely attempt to copy it, rather they use that spark towards their own goals, projects, and worldviews. In light of this, my goal is to share many ideas, in the hopes of making everything better.
Enjoy.
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