RSS de basanti !

RSS de basanti !

Which link do you access the moment you get connected to internet ? bookmarks like news, mail, photoblog, design showcase, gizmo-gadgets, horoscope etc in multiple windows? Finding choked net connection & slow response time of browsers ? finding too many windows to handle ?In that case, how about displaying all the favorite web-pages-news-feed in one window in easily accessible, usable, clean navigable fashion.

Here's the new breed netvibes.com, (rather 'beta turned 'alpha' ;) inspired by web2.0 trend & crafted with Ajax. Simply the best personalized home page and RSS/Atom reader I've ever used. It's even better than Google's-home in my opinion. It's just got a multi-page view feature I like it a lot. Recently they have included meebo syndication.The project looks great with simple & slick interfaces, runs great with ease-of-use navigation. Modules are intuitive, page interaction is quick to catch up with just a few seconds. User expereince is easy, fast, simple, higly responsive; every thing one can expect from this kind of web app. Stuffed with tight usability in catering basic user interaction. Learning curve is too minimal; which is the basic essence of any complex design. You should definitely check it out and draw your conclusions. Also don't forget to look out for the new features & updates from the netvibes Blog. The team behind netvibes.com is constantly adding new & more advanced features keeping User-Experience in tandem with latest web standards. Netvibes recognises a Atom or RSS Feed formats for content syndication. Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0) is a sum-up of dynamic web news feed. A content provider publishes a web feed link on their site which end users can register with an aggregator. In simple words -Netvibes is a intelligent web news aggregator.

Netvibes, a project started in France by Florant Fremont, is the latest web-app based on the idea of personalized homepages and like some others (like Start and Google’s personal homepage), it is powered by some nicely developed Ajax.

>> Know more about RSS

Less-Table-Less

Less-Table-Less

"StopDesign did on a remake of the Microsoft website from a tablebased site to a tableless layout. That remake showed a 62% file size reduction of the site, and using their average hits per month for the Microsoft site, calculated that Microsoft would be saving 924 GIGS in bandwidth per day, and 329 Terabytes of bandwidth per year. For any company that pays for bandwidth, these things are important."

Interesting isn't it ? It's a very interesting statistics blogged by webtrend evangelist Nicole Hernandez in her blog on Creating Tableless Sites Why and Some Basics. She continues to elaborate logical factors which drives one to opt for a tableless layout :

• Forces You To Write Well-Formed Code
  
• Faster Loading Time
  
• Easier to Read Code
  
• Print Alternate Views
  
• Search Engine Optimization
  
• Presentation Flexibility
  
• Selling Yourself On Standards

Was reading a lot on tableless-datagrid-layout for client-side presentation in recent past. Layout design is quite easy & workable compared to data-grid design in div based environment. I'm looking for a grid based content display technique for the current project I'm working on. I welcome your ideas, thoughts & techniques on designing div-based-grid layouts for dynamic data-grids display. I had a look through finetooth DataGrid, but it's not yet cross-browser compatible. I'm clearly looking at something which could run on 1.5 +above versions of FF.

"ICE" (In Case of Emergency)

"ICE" (In Case of Emergency)

Recently, the concept of "ICE" is catching up quickly. It is simple, yet an important method of contact during emergency situations. As cell phones are carried by majority of the population, all you need to do is store the number of a contact person or persons who should be contacted at during emergency as "ICE" (meaning In Case of Emergency).

The idea was thought up by a paramedic who found that when they went to the scenes of accidents, there were always mobile phones with patients, but they didn't know which numbers to call. He therefore thought that it would be a good idea if there was a nationally recognized name for this purpose. Following a disaster in London, the East Anglican Ambulance Service has launched a national "In case of Emergency (ICE)" campaign. In an emergency situation, Emergency Services personnel and hospital staff would then be able to quickly contact your next of kin, by simply dialing the number stored as "ICE".

Please forward this. It won't take too many "forwards" before everybody will know about this. It really could save your life, or put a loved one's mind at rest. For more than one contact name simply enter ICE1, ICE2 and ICE3 etc. A great idea that will make a difference.
[ Forward : Hari Jaybalan]

Remember Me ?

Remember Me ?

Pluto is a new victim of down-sizing fever :) Web has umpteen number of news on Pluto being stripped out of league of planets. This cartoon reminded my good-old-schooling-days. After seeing this I'm feeling like searching for Marina teacher :) of my nanne-munne school days.

I've a funny but curiosity clock ticking inside me about this news. In India(in western countries as well) the cluster-of-planets play a very vital role in deciding any auspicious event or in planning a holy event. Because of this pluto deletion, I feel the severely hit area is astrology-market in India.There're lot of pre-programmed computer janma kundli making shops considering 9 planets combinations. Imagine the change needed to all these preloaded softwares if Pluto is really masked from the list ? Many astrologers in remote villages don't even know that one of their tiny graha is deleted from their reference list recently :) .They are busy calculating & drafting a new 'horoscope' for a new customer including pluto in their list. Today I read in a news paper that, 'whether to consider Pluto as a planet in India will be decided by IISC soon'. How funny !

With all my reluctance my mother went to some astrologer & got printed version of my 'new' astrology matching; what we call it' jaataka' or janma kundli. Super isn't it ? She says it's to match with a girl's kundli I'm going to marry. Good I love that astrologer, if I knew him in advance, would have nicely bribed him to tweak my astrology as lovely as Enrique's :)

[ Cartoon Via: Anand .U ]