Barack Obama's design team has garnered a lot of praise for their work on his campaign materials, including the official website. Heck, there have been entire articles devoted to praising their choice of typefaces. One of the cooler elements the Obama team has cooked up for their website is a slideshow-like animated list for front page navigation.
If you're a fan of this slideshow, and you want to create a similar effect on your own site, look no further than the aptly-named BarackSlideshow script. DevThought has come up with a bit of CSS and JavaScript that loads images and animation effects almost identical to the originals. Some users in the comment thread are reporting browser or plug-in specific issues with the script, so your mileage may vary.
Last time we took a look at the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, we showed how to do some fun, if easy, stuff with it--like setting up custom RSS news sources, placing VoIP calls, and even playing a little Quake 2. Now, we've assembled a new video demonstrating one of the most quirky hacks you can pull off with Nokia's little handheld computer: assembling a functional GPS tracking system using a Bluetooth GPS receiver and freely-available software.
In this feature, we'll show you how to set up Maemo Mapper, the open-source navigation software, and how to obtain and install the map tile images you'll need to equip your N800 with both street maps and satellite imagery. We'll also see how the N800 compares to Nokia's N95 smart phone, which carries onboard GPS hardware and mapping software.
We're big fans of Backpack, the online PIM organizer with a pioneering KISS philosophy from the wildly successful 37signals. At times, however, Backpack can appear too simple, making it seem like the only way to interact with the service is through its pleasantly minimal web interface. Fortunately, this is entirely not so, and we just stumbled across two handy Firefox add-ons that bring quick navigation and easy clipping to this increasingly useful online info organizer.
First up is Backpack Pages, a simple toolbar button that acts as a simple drop-down bookmark menu for all your pages. As usually with any external Backpack tool, simply enter your username and private API key to get the ball rolling.
Second is a really useful add-on especially for users of Google Notebook or any other web clipping tool out there: Backpack Publish (pictured). Setup is again pretty standard, and now you can select text on any webpage and use this add-on's menu to create a List Item or Note to add to any of your pages without breaking your workflow.
There are many advantages to designing with Cascading Style Sheets. CSS is extremely easy to learn and rework once a basic site framework has been established. Websites, or website components can easily be changed into something totally different just by swapping a single CSS file, or a line within a CSS file.
CSS designers always seem to have a few different elements that they commonly use over and over in all designs, these can include navigation elements and form fields, among other items. Smashing Magazine has compiled a list of 53 CSS Techniques that you couldn't live without, linking out to tutorials on CSS navigation, tabbed navigation, bar graphs, rounded corners, hover effects, image map, submit buttons, custom bullets, and sidenotes. Whether you are new to CSS, or have been in it for a while, these are some great tutorials to have archived as reference materials.
How would you like to take a test drive one of the only GPS devices that is powered by Yahoo's Local search? The Dash team is looking for you!
We first wrote about Dash, the first internet connected automotive navigation system back in early January. This GPS device, powered by Yahoo Local Search, was once only available as a test in the San Francisco Bay area for 200 individuals. Dash has opened up recruiting and is looking for 2000 frustrated commuters. Heavy commuters and mobile gadget enthusiasts are preferred to test the device on their own terrain and traffic conditions across the U.S.
If you are interested in seeing what Yahoo Local can do for your commuting in your car or truck, check out www.Dash.net and fill out the survey.
Google has released its online analytics software to anyone that wants to use it to interact with their website.
Google Analytics lets users track visitors, identify navigational issues, track keywords, and where visitors are coming from. Analytics will also tie into your Google AdWords account and let you know how visitors found your site, where they came from, how they were referred, and measure your total AdWords campaign effectiveness.
Google also has a "Conversion University". A place where Analytics users can go to read up on marketing and content optimization tips from industry experts. Current new articles in the University include Increasing Conversions with Internal Search and Monitoring Visitor Conversion.
Google Analytics is simple to set up. Log in using your Google Account ID, and enter the domain you want to monitor first. Multiple domains can be added later. A code snippet has to be added to the end of all HTML pages that you wish to monitor. Google Analytics displays a nice dashboard with Executive, Conversion, Marketing, and Content summaries, as well as Marketing Optimization, and Content Optimization reports. I am currently testing it out, and so far so good. It is easily a welcome addition to your current tracking software.
What do you
get when you take Google Earth and put it in a Volkswagen? Something
like this. Volkswagen has partnered with Google and nVidia to create an in-car navigation system based on Google
Earth that shows a driver's route in 3D. The touch-screen system is Internet-enabled and goes online to find real-time
traffic and weather information as well as other travel information like gas stations, restaurants, or hotels.
AutoMotoPortal has a half-dozen
screenshots for your enjoyment. For now it's just a prototype, so no word on when we could actually be seeing this
in VW's lineup.
