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How the Default Windows 7 Wallpaper and Login Screen Design Became So Iconic

Ryan Whitwam — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:47:25 -0600

Artist Chuck Anderson has found immense success at the ripe old age of 24. If you’ve installed the Windows 7 RC or final version, you’ve seen his artwork. Chuck designed the login screen and default wallpaper for Redmond’s new OS.

Microsoft contacted him in December 2008. They started off showing him the crazy background themes they were bundling with Windows 7. This may have put the young independent artist at ease knowing he had a lot of leeway in his designs.

The designs were done with pencil and paper first, and then transferred to Photoshop for refining. The entire process took about four months. In the process of designing the login screen, Chuck and Microsoft noticed an early version had a series of seven lines at the bottom. They started repeating that in the final design. If you look at his work, you’ll see there are seven branches, seven leaves, and seven flower petals in a few places.

Microsoft managed to collaborate well with a talented young artist, and our new Windows is much more attractive for it. Hit the story link for some work in progress images of the background and login screen.

Yahoo's Reinvigorated Homepage Rolled Out in Beta

Pulkit Chandna — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 17:38:00 -0500

Yahoo has lifted the curtain on its new homepage, which has been rolled out in beta. The homepage has not only received a facelift but also a number of newfangled features, including the ability to keep pace with updates from your favorite websites without leaving Yahoo.

With social networking websites almost holding internet users captive for long periods of time, the new Yahoo homepage will let users have one eye on the latest from their friends on social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Other notable additions include the ability to customize the homepage using widgets and the introduction of a top ten search list just under the search bar.

But the launch has been far from smooth, as some users still haven’t encountered the option to try the new beta homepage. Yahoo is under considerable pressure from Microsoft’s latest search offering Bing, which is increasingly closing in on Yahoo in the online search market.

Analyst Says Intel-based Thin Laptops Plagued with Design Flaws

Pulkit Chandna — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:12:10 -0500

Doug Freedman, an analyst for Broadpoint AmTech, has revealed to Cnet that early production units of ultra-thin laptops, which are being made out of plastic, are fissuring due to design flaws. He gleaned this information from his discussions with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and original design manufacturers (ODMs).

Freedman believes manufacturers will have to ultimately “go with a metal case” to achieve that ultra-thin form factor they are after. However, the use of metal cases will make ultra-thin notebooks costlier.

A reference to Intel’s CULV (Consumer Ultra Low Voltage) technology – meant for ultra-thin notebooks - in Freedman’s report elucidating the design issues prompted Intel to clarify that the “case design issues reported to be found by an ODM, not consumers, in early production units for ultra-thin laptops have nothing to do with Intel processors whatsoever.”

Freedman had said that some manufacturers are more interested in manufacturing 11-inch and 12-inch netbooks with the Atom processor rather than ultra-thin notebooks with Intel’s CULV technology.

Google Gives Details on its Once-Secret Server Design

Justin Kerr — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 14:52:34 -0500

To an internet based company, server infrastructure is the secret sauce that can really help a company pull ahead of its competitors. It determines the quality of service its customers will receive, and their cost and efficiency will have a huge impact on the bottom line of the company. To Google this secret was a carefully guarded one, with few outside of the company having any real details. The only thing that we knew for sure is that they were built in house using parts that are generally available to every PC builder. This all changed last week when Google decided to lift the veil of secrecy to a group of IT professionals.

Each server measures about 3.5 inches thick, and is designed in a custom rack for easy stacking. Each unit sports two x86 processors either from Intel or AMD, contains two hard drives (presumably configured as a raid 1), and eight memory slots. These components are mounted on a Gigabyte motherboard, and protected by built in 12-volt battery that also serves as a UPS.

The built in battery was perhaps the biggest secret that was revealed and is a slap in the face to traditional thinking when it comes to large scale battery backup. Typically, server farms employ massive uninterruptable power supplies in the event of a power failure. The biggest problem with this approach according to Chris Malone from Google is the ability to scale it perfectly for the number of servers, and inefficiencies inherent with the technology. “Large UPSs can reach 92 to 95 percent efficiency, meaning that a large amount of power is squandered. The server-mounted batteries do better, Jai said: "We were able to measure our actual usage to greater than 99.9 percent efficiency."

Google’s approach to server infrastructure is defiantly unique, and it’s use of low cost customer grade hardware defiantly helped them survive the early years on razor sharp margins.

7 HTML Tags You Should NEVER Use Again

Florence Ion — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:30:00 -0500

Over the first seventeen years of the web’s existence, HTML has undergone beaucoup changes. What was once the predominant language of the web now shares the spotlight with a variety of scripting languages, stylesheets, and other types of markup, ranging from Javascript to Cascading Style Sheets. The flexibility of modern scripting languages, separation of content and style have combined to become more like applications than the static web pages we all remember from the early days of the web.

Back in 1995, when HTML first took off with the general public, there were a number of offenders that made the Internet look aesthetically awful. Designers employed atrocious HTML elements, such as the <blink> and <marquee> tags, which only made a show of serious web coders. It’s doubtful that anyone at that time considered blinking and scrolling text fluid web design.

In the last few years, CSS has taken off with the rise of Web 2.0 and has certainly transformed web design into a much simpler endeavor—gone are the days of having to repeat the same mundane code or navigating a sea of jumbled up HTML in search of that one inconsistency. Things have gotten better since the Nineties and early-2000s, but some web designers are still foolishly living in the past. We’ve decided to update the criteria of HTML elements that are simply outdated and have been replaced by a batch of shinier, better CSS elements. If 1997 was the last time you’ve had a crash course in web design, than read on to learn a few new things about this versatile web world.

Design Fumbles

<frame>

Back in the day, the main appeal of frames was that you could insert repeated chunks of HTML, such as a navigation bar, in multiple pages without having to reload a side menu bar for each page view. Regardless of their good intentions, frames were never user friendly and really did a number by confusing search engines—if a search query matched a site as a whole, the search engine would return the frame set, though sometimes it would link to the wrong frame, confusing the user. Having a search engine recognize the correct page link was especially crucial if you wanted to increase your chances of receiving even average traffic numbers. Add that to the fact that this element embodies the epitome of tacky web design and there was never a right way to beautify this particular design faux-paux.

<FRAMESET cols="20%, 80%">
<FRAMESET rows="100, 200">
<FRAME src="contents_of_frame1.html">
<FRAME src="contents_of_frame2.gif">
</FRAMESET>

There is only one reason for using frames and that’s so search engines like Google can differentiate their site from others. Frames will never fit the conceptual design of the web.

The Modern Alternative: Opt for a simplified CSS template with a minimal navigation bar. Place the navigation at the top of the page for easy access and make sure that it reoccurs on every page. If you keep the layout consistent throughout your website sections, users should have no problem even loading the pages, since CSS is a much lighter way to lay out a website.

<table>

Tables are the most misused HTML element of all time. They are constantly used for laying out web sites, though their original intention was to provide structured data. Take our benchmarks tables, for example.

Back in the day, not all browsers supported CSS. So, tables became the standard for formatting webpage layouts and designers put parts of their content into specific arrangements within the columns. Even Adobe ImageReady’s image slicing plug-in exported the final product into tables and web design software perpetuated this erroneous trend.

The table element was never really meant to layout an entire site. Using it clutters up your web code and unnecessarily bogs down the page’s file size, which could affect the bandwidth of your server and your visitors.

Tables are also incredibly labor intensive. For each cell, you’d have to write out the element and make sure to close the tag. In between closing the <tr> tag and making sure you didn’t leave a <td> tag open, the final product could turn out pretty disastrous. It’s also difficult to get each cell to do exactly what it’s specified it to do, and that’s primarily because, as reiterated, tables were never meant for designing web pages.

The Modern Alternative: Now that CSS has been refined and is compatible with all browsers, it’s become the standard for all web design. CSS not only radically reduces the weight of your website, it allows it to load at a faster rate and makes it available on a variety of platforms, including mobile web. CSS also make redesigns easier, since all you have to do is change the properties of your stylesheet instead of editing each page at a time.

A great way to get started and familiarize yourself with CSS is to find a site with free templates and practice laying out your own design. For those who learn better by doing, this is an incredibly effective way to learn how to manipulate stylesheets.

<imagemaps>

The image map is a list of coordinates on a specific image that are clickable and link to another page. Adobe ImageReady, Dreamweaver, and GIMP all contain plug-ins to map out image map coordinates and export them to HTML.

<img src="awesomecomputer.gif" width="145" height="126" alt="This computer is awesome" usemap="#awesomecomputer" />

<map name="awesomecomputer">
<area shape="rect" coords="0,0,82,126" href="sun.htm" alt="CPU" />
<area shape="circle" coords="90,58,3" href="mercur.htm" alt="GPU" />
<area shape="circle" coords="124,58,8" href="venus.htm" alt="PSU" />
</map>

Many sites use this element for their navigation bar, but it is one that should be avoided unless the situation requires otherwise. Generally, image maps are not very accessible and can be confusing to the average web user, especially if there’s no obvious indication. And, should there be a server timeout and your user is left with no image, rendering navigation around your site impossible.

The Modern Alternative: If the information you’re presenting is best exemplified visually than in text, use the image map. For example, in an educational setting, you could use a map of the United States, with each state linking to a page full of important factoids and information about that state.

Otherwise, a nicely designed navigation bar at the top of a page is easily noticeable and not at all confusing. You can use a CSS template to navigation bar. Make sure to use simple terms like “make your own buttons", or get creative using Photoshop to fully customize your own "home” and “about”.

Text Offenders

The font element specifies the font face, size, and color of your text. However, the  tag is limited in style options—only font face, size, and color can be formatted— and you’d have to write additional code to add any sort of text decoration, such as bolded text.

Maximum PC

Font elements also need to be applied at the instance of every new element. For example, if you’re using the paragraph element and are closing that tag, your font element is, by default, closed with it. So, you have to reestablish that element at the start of your next  tag, and repeat this process throughout your layout code. There is certainly too much code clutter when using this element.

Additionally, the  tag is a major hindrance because it means that the coder made a basic assumption about the web user’s browser and configuration.

The Modern Alternative: With the integration of easy-to-use style sheets in today’s web design, the font element is almost considered ancient history. Using CSS, you can apply properties to various forms of the font element with just one single batch of code. You can establish your heading and link elements at the start of the document without having to repeat any sort of code each time you want to use that specific element.

In addition, not only does the CSS lighten the load of code in the page source, but should the site requires a color theme redesign, all it takes is tweaking the appropriate hex values in the stylesheet.

and

The Web Hypertext Technology Working Group (WHATWG) specifies that both the  and  tags are to be used as a last resort when no other element is more appropriate.

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The truth is: it’s all semantics. The  tag does not specifically imply a strong emphasis on a particular word, nor does the  tag indicate that there is light emphasis. You could argue that you want the elements to convey either meaning.

The bold and italic font elements do not have to be considered illegal. Rather, it’s that they’re hardly used in the proper context. The  and  tags should never be used solely for the purpose of stylizing text and especially not for headers. After all, that’s what CSS is for.

The Modern Alternative: Use the and  tag to bold and italicize, respectively.

And what about underlining? W3schools.org, the leading opinion on fads in web coding, deprecate the  tag and strongly advise against it, especially since a user could confuse underlining text for an active hyperlink.

and <big>

The point of small and big is to indicate text as either very important or not important at all. However, web designers and bloggers alike have made the mistake of using this particular element to actually set the font size of their body text.

The problem is that some browsers actually ignore these elements all together. In particular,  was supposed to simulate small caps, but the result is that the text is actually just a size smaller than the default.

<big>Maximum</big>PC

The Modern Alternative: Specifying your body text and headers at the beginning of your code is the most organized way to manage fluidity in your body text.

If you’re writing something that requires citation, there is actually a citation tag, which is <cite>. Use this for attributions where applicable.

<bdo>

This tag allows you to set the text decoration of your text. When applied, the <bdo> will make your text display backward, with letters flipped horizontally.

<bdo>Maximum PC</bdo>

The Modern Alternative: If your goal is to specify the alignment of text, use paragraph elements, such as the <div> tag. You can add whether you want your text to align to the left, right, center, or justified.

TED 2009: Maximum PC Takes You Behind "The Great Unveiling"

Norman Chan — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 19:14:15 -0600

If you check the list of hot topics on Twitter right now, you’ll fine #TED at the top of the list. That’s because today is the opening day of the annual TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference, a prestigious gathering of just over 1000 of the world’s most influential thinkers, entertainers, and futurists. This private event (registration costs $6,000, and that’s only after you’re invited) hosts a series a thought-provoking presentations aimed at stimulating the minds of attendees who are then encouraged to engage in an exchange of ideas throughout the week-long session.

Past speakers include Al Gore, JJ Abrams, and Jeff Bezos, who each gave provocative talks about their passions and innovations. This year’s lineup includes Green Auto Pioneer Shai Agassi, web pioneer Tim Berners-Lee, and one Bill Gates. The public typically has to wait several months before videos of these 18-minute long TED talks get uploaded, but we’ve received special access to the live stream of the main stage. Over the next three days, we’ll be posting recaps of tech-related talks to give you some insight into what goes on in this exclusive and enlightening forum. Keep tabs on our TED coverage by clicking this link!

(image via Flickr)

Report: Roadblock Ahead for Multi-Core Processors

Paul Lilly — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:30:06 -0600

In case you haven't noticed, multi-core processing has taken hold and the race is on to cram more cores onto a single die. But assuming developers can keep up, at some point, chip manufacturers are going to have address a potential major problem that could make adding more cores a useless endeavor. More specifically, a "memory wall" looms large in the not too distant future that, as Jon Stokes from ArsTechnica puts it, could make more than 16 cores pointless.

The problem stems from memory bandwidth not being able to keep pace with faster processors, whether those speed bumps come from a faster frequency or more cores. Put simply, memory is creating a bottleneck and can't feed the processor fast enough, a problem that has existed for some time. Intel and AMD have been able to mask the problem by adding more cache, but doing so doesn't overcome the memory wall, which looks poised to really rear its ugly head as more cores are piled on to new chip packages.

"Engineers at Sandia National Laboratories, in New Mexico, have simulated future high-performance computers containing the 8-core, 16‑core, and 32-core microprocessors that chip makers say are the future of the industry," writes Samuel K. Moore at IEEE Spectrum Online. "The results are distressing. Because of limited memory bandwidth and memory-management schemes that are poorly suited to supercomputers, the performance of these machines would level off or even decline with more cores."

According to the simulation, performance gains level out at 8-cores, with 16-core chips performing no better than a dual-core processor. As the core count increases, the performance starts to decline sharply.

One solution Sandia has proposed is to stack memory chips on top of the processor, something both Intel and IBM have been working on. Some might also remember reading about multi-core memory, a new memory architecture developed by cryptographer Joseph Ashwood. But no matter what the eventual solution, someone's going to have to come with something relatively fast. Sixteen core chips might not be as far off as you think, and the memory wall isn't going to crumble on its own.

Image Credit: Tpan.com

Get a Grip on This Hanging Hard Drive Concept

Andy Salisbury — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:55:16 -0500

With a design so simple it falls under the “I-can’t-believe-no-one-else-thought-of-this-before” category, Sangho Jin of Yanko Design’s hanging hard drive concept is looking to clear up desk clutter, one tiny footprint at a time.

The hanging hard drive, which would mount to your laptop’s screen, provides a nice way to add additional storage to your machine without using valuable desk space. Granted, this simple shift in external HDD placement wouldn’t change any lives, there are definitely plenty of laptop users out there worried about aesthetics (looking at you, Mac users), and to them this will be a welcome change.

“Portable hard drives are not really THAT portable if you have to tote around another peripheral but maybe you should have bought a laptop with a bigger hard drive! OOO Zing! No I didn’t! Yes, yes I did just go there,” writes Yanko Design’s Long Tran on the concept’s page, “Kidding aside, the Hang it On hard drive encloser lets you hang you 2.5” companion off the back of your lappie’s LCD screen. Sure, now your MacBook Air looks like it has a tumor growing off it’s svelt lines but at least you’ll get more than a measily 80GB.”

Well said, Mr. Tran. Well said.

Image Credit: Yanko Design