Safari 3.0 Highlights

Pages load up to 2 times faster than IE7.0 and 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2.0.

Safari’s capability to execute JavaScript is up to 2.8 times faster than IE7.0 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2.0.

Clean and sleek interface allows you to focus on the web instead of your browser!

Easy to use bookmarking.

Pop-up blocking!! (essential)

Graphic search tool for content within web pages

Tabbed browsing! Of course, everyone is used to this by now. You can move your tabs around for better organization (which is something i wish firefox did). Also, take a tab and drag it to your desk top – a new window appears!

SnapBack is a button that allows you to get back to where you started searching, instead of clicking “back” a million times.

AutoFill forms.

Built-in RSS (Really Simple Syndication). Great tool for those who love their news.

Resizable text fields – c’mon!! If a field is too small, simple click, drag and adjust the size.

Safari supports SSL versions 2 and 3 as well as the next generation of security, Transport Layer Secuirty (TLC). In a nutshell, the browser is quite secure.

Experience Safari 3.0 NOW!

The font for the body copy can be one of the most annoying tasks faced when developing in CSS. The designer is always over your shoulder making sure the fonts look good on your PC and their Mac! Well, it can be quite a challenge to find fonts that are by default on both systems.

Today, is the day that all your problems are solved: http://typetester.maratz.com

This is one of the greatest tools ever – it allows you to view which fonts are safe on both PC and Mac AND see the defaults for both systems. You can even check out your own system fonts.

The super cool thing about this is that you can change the font and see a live preview in all the CSS font style properties. You can even download the CSS!!

Just check it out already!!!

What’s New

Email and export reports
Schedule or send ad-hoc personalized report emails and export reports in PDF format.

Custom Dashboard
No more digging through reports. Put all the information you need on a custom dashboard that you can email to others.

Trend and Over-time Graph
Compare time periods and select date ranges without losing sight of long term trends.

Contextual help tips
Context sensitive Help and Conversion University tips are available from every report.

The new interface has everything the previous interface had and more. In addition, links within reports make it easier to navigate related information and explore your data.

The following resources are available to help you get the most from the new Google Analytics interface

Report Finder Tool will help you see where data from the previous interface is located within the new version (it is also linked to from within your reports on the left
navigation menu):
http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/static.py?page=v1v2map.cs

Product tour http://services.google.com/analytics/tour/index_en-US.html

FAQs for more details about the new version http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/static.py?page=FAQ.cs

Help Center
Includes articles related to the new version: http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/

Support
If you encounter any issues with the new version that you can’t resolve with the help center, you can contact our support team through the Contact Us link at the bottom of the help

center web page, or receive higher-touch support through a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant. Find one here: http://www.google.com/analytics/support_partner_provided.html

Analytics Help Forum If you would like to discuss the new version or get tips from experienced users, please visit the Analytics Help Forum in English within Google Groups at: http://groups.google.com/group/analytics-help

A few notes about the new version

The new version works best with Flash 7 or higher. Most browsers have this installed already, if yours does not, please download it at Adobe.com

Google Analytics now uses the same geo-data source as AdWords, therefore, map and geo-location report results may vary slightly between the previous interface and the new interface. For those of you with filters designed for geo-data, you may want to verify the results and edit if necessary.

Limiting the Available Reports for a profile by specifying which Report Dashboards and Report Categories are available has been removed from the product in favor of the new customizable Google Analytics dashboard. If you would like to limit the availability of data within a certain profile for certain users, we recommend removing those users from the profile and instead scheduling an email to deliver data to them.

Source of article: Google.com

This presentation was designed for anyone certainly feeling the overload of information in this digital age that we all live in. With so much information at our fingertips, how can we possibly keep things simple? I know I’ve found myself striving for a solution which ended up being a lot more complicated than anticipated.

Through John’s presentation, I began to realize that I’m overcomplicating things instead of focusing on the simple aspect of life. Life is simple. It is as simple as you’re going to make it or as complex as you’d like to have it. The choice is truly up to you, but how can one keep their “cool” with so much technology?

John had a great graph that explained the progression of life attributes such as: strength, vision, memory, etc. Everything is usually up in early age and then declines later on in life (depending on the attribute). So at around 65, the graph shows that is when your memory starts to decline. The only one thing that was on an incline was wisdom. The older you get the more wise you become. Everyone knows that, but he put it into perspective in such a way I can not explain!

This also plays an important role on keeping things simple. As we get older we realize that the important things we once thought existed in life aren’t such a big deal and we begin to minimize their importance. In other words, simplify the complex circumstances that occur throughout life. (Reduction)

He ends off by showing natural, beautiful things in life and ensures that life can be a lot simpler if we pay attention to these things. Sunsets, birds, beach, people are some examples of natural, beautiful things in life.

Technology is good and I encourage everyone to embrace it! Don’t find yourself in a position where technology is replacing many things in your life. A very cognitive day for me indeed! Thanks John.

More on John

It was one year ago that Adobe announced this new product that they are working on. One year later, it is now available to use!

Here is a great example the eBay has using Apollo.

Here are some resources if you’d like to learn more (since it is THAT new!):
Adobe Labs
Virtual Ubiquity – Buzz Word (similar to Word!)

The designer who storyboards has a huge influence on the final design. Once the storyboards are approved by the client then everything goes into production.

Check out some of their work here: www.the-mill.com (the Budweiser commercial is funny!)

Adobe Creative Suite 3 is now available for purchase so you can begin creating your masterpieces. I’m really excited about the integration between all of the different software’s and the cross-over between them. Since this is the first official released of all Adobe products (Flash 8 was under Macromedia) they have taken into consideration all their software and have designed the panel system to look very similar consistantly throughout. This is extremely important when going between Photoshop and Illustrator or Illustrator and Flash, etc. There are a ton of new apps available in CS3, I suggest you go check it out. www.adobe.com/creativelicense/

Flash CS3 has more of a refined look to its workspace and allows the user to create engaging experiences more efficiently. A new function to this software is the import from Photoshop or Illustrator feature! That’s correct; you can now import your files directly into flash using the same important feature. If you’re importing a Photoshop file, for example, it will prompt you as to which layers you’d like to import. You can choose them all or a select few. You also have the ability to customize each layer as it comes in.

If you have a set animation for a symbol and want to apply that same animation for another symbol, you can “copy motion”. Once you paste the motion to the symbol you want to have the same animation, it will do the identical thing using the new symbol. In previous versions, you would have had to copy and paste frames and swap out the symbol for each key frame. In addition, you can take an animation and covert it to an entire XML file! Your XML file will contain all the data required for the graphics to animate. This can be handed over to a developer who animates in code! Oh yeah, one more thing – you can do 3D with ActionScript 3.0!!!

Adobe Flash Player 9.0 has been adopted to more than 80% in 9 months!

Adobe also mentioned a lot of new cool things going on in the Flex community. A lot of companies are using Flex for enterprise solutions to build complex and nice-looking applications. With the new addition of Flash, I’m sure the applications will be even better!

At last year’s FITC, Adobe announced a new project that they would be working on – Apollo. Apollo allows developers with existing skills (such as html, javascript, etc) to create desktop applications for the internet! An example they gave was a application that runs on your desktop for eBay. This application allows you to do searches in their database right on your desktop. You can place bids on an item and if you’re outbidded, you can be notified if the application is running. If you’re not connected online, the application will download current data for it to work. Another example was a RSS aggregator that loads your RSS feeds. If you’re offline, then those feeds are cached onto your system and will update the next time you’re online. Apollo allows web developers to create these types of applications – the sky’s the limit!

Lastly, they spoke briefly about the Flash Media Server which allows for video to be fed to the user really fast! They showed an example of a live web cam streaming into the flash media server and displaying on a webpage. It was absolutely flawless, there was no delay! If you’re dealing with lots of video, this is something definitely check out. They also have their own media player that is schedule for the future.

Thanks to Adobe for providing us with useful tools that make fun and profitable.

He is very talented and showed off a good array of projects. The main thing that interested me was the Maya tricks that he used for some of the projects. Although I don’t know much about Maya, it made me feel comfortable enough to want to get into it.

www.gmunk.com

Critical Mass was a new face this year’s FITC and they are trying to get the word out about their company and what they do. Their most recent client is Rolex and they launched www.rolex.com in late January – impressive! I spoke with Julie and Joe from the event and they seem like really nice people who enjoy what they do. You can see more about their company www.criticalmass.com

I picked up a free design magazine that focused on web typography in the latest issue. Although I’m a web developer and a not a designer, I found this feature article eye-catchy (review to follow). There are a bunch of typography issues when working on the web and I’m interested to see what advice they have to offer.

Humber was there again, as they have always been in previous years (they are a sponsor of the event). I generally don’t go over to them, but their new program course guide caught my attention. They have a course starting in September of this year on Ajax. They currently have part 1 for beginner’s and part 2 for people who have been programming in Ajax a little.

FITC was selling t-shirts, hats and other items with cool designs on the products. A new addition to this years even is a DVD that contains a pre-selected few of presenters. I’m still waiting for mine and hopefully it will come this coming week! The DVD itself is $50. I made sure to miss all the presenters that were on the DVD so that i could catch them later on – hopefully my plan will work as I missed some pretty good presenters!

I also talked to a girl over at Organic who was doing the same thing as Critical Mass. They were getting the word out about their company and opportunities for designer’s and developers. I believe her name was Lisa – nice girl!

He began by showing a few video clips of two race car drivers. As he was showing the clips, he was creating a very elaborate story to the clips. He said that this one guy kept losing to this other guy who was always getting first place. Not only that, but the guy in first place stole that losers wife and was sleeping with her. Not only does he have to bear that fact that he’s losing his first place spot but he also lost his wife.

Then he showed another clip of the cars all stopped at the end of a race. The one guy who kept losing got out of his car, ran up to the winner’s car and kicked in the windshield causing trauma to he man’s head. They get into a huge dispute and start fighting on the race track.

He then begins to tell us that the entire story was made up and that when he tells a story like that, his semi-good work becomes really interesting. Which absolutely worked!

Throughout the presentation he showed us progressions of his work and how he really started out. Most of his work contained a key element – humour.

He ended his presentation with quite a bang or “moan” I should say. I’m trying to keep this Blog for everyone, but it was pretty funny so I’m going to provide you link:

He brings truth to the work we do at the end – have fun with it. “we’re not surgeon’s or anything, so it doesn’t have to be serious all the time”. Point well made thanks for sharing Hoss!

www.flamjam.com