WordPress is a powerful content management system, and its popularity as a portfolio solution is enticing to many. There are a lot of themes out there that claim to do the job, but if you're as picky as me you'll find some pretty annoying flaws in many of them.

In my search for the best of the bunch, I installed about 30 offerings (out of the hundreds I looked at) and after trying them out and changing my mind a couple of times I finally settled down with a theme. This took me months, so I'm going to save you the bother and present the five free Wordpress portfolio themes that made my own particular shortlist.

SimpleFolio The Best All-Rounder

Despite being a tricky free WordPress theme to set-up, SimpleFolio by Omar Corrales is worth the hassle. For your troubles you'll get a clean and easy-to-navigate theme with a separate portfolio section (with the option to exclude portfolio posts from your blog) and a home screen to die for.

The home screen includes a JavaScript front-page slider to exhibit portfolio entries, which does a great job of making your work look awesome with its smooth transitions. There are a further three widgetized areas on the home page, so adding a contact form or Twitter plug-in is as easy as pie.

If you like the look of this theme and fancy giving it a go, then you're going to need a little help. There's a fantastic little guide over at WordPress Handyman which guides you through the ins and outs of setting up and maintaining your new portfolio. As always with WordPress, you can edit the style.css file to suit your personal tastes.

Vikiworks Infinity For Social Media Types

For an aesthetically pleasing, majorly customizable portfolio that's plugged in to Flickr, Twitter and Delicious, look no further than Infinity by Vikiworks. The free WordPress theme follows a three-fixed column style, and whilst not being widget ready could probably be modified with some serious Notepad'ing.

There are two PSD files to download as well as the theme, which makes customization in Photoshop that little bit easier. Blog posts themselves are presented in two thumbnail cover-style columns to the left of the page, so if you're not bothered about separating your work and your blog then this one's for you.

For the more courageous there's a sister theme called Mashup based on Infinity, only with widgets and a style switcher. The developer has appealed for help in completing it, and needs guinea pigs willing to give it a go. If you're not averse to beta testing, you can download Mashup here.

FolioGrid For Speed-Freaks, Designers, Photographers & Artists

This sharp looking offering from FrogsThemes has a little something for everyone. Utilising the tried-and-tested grid layout, the theme comes in a variety of colours and is easily altered with some handy CSS. All the styling is done through the theme's stylesheet, meaning you really can open up and customize this one.

The menu lives at the top of the page, and is always accessible from anywhere on the site, making it a cinch to navigate. There's some lovely use of jQuery for slick transitions, and the theme is widget-ready. For a fast and lightweight WordPress portfolio, FolioGrid does the job.

Fullscreen For Style-Conscious Photographers & Videographers

If photos are the order of the day then you may want to pay close attention. Fullscreen is a portfolio package developed by Graph Paper Press that delivers nothing but a menu and blog posts (represented by just images). It all makes for a very sexy looking clean interface, with some fancy JavaScript image rollover effects for added garnish.

One thing to look out for is some issues with the menu not displaying correctly in older versions of Internet Explorer, though some of you won't really care (and those that do can customize, of course).

Images can be implemented into posts using the WordPress media gallery, which makes for easy posting. If you want your photo or video work to be the main focus of your site, then this theme will honour your wishes.

Contrast The Black Sheep

SmashingMagazine once hosted a typographic layout competition for WordPress and Tumblr themes, and Paul Linder's Contrast didn't win. But that doesn't matter, because it's awesome all the same.

Using nothing but XHTML and CSS, it's lightning quick and beautiful to look at. Presenting you with a straight-up black and white home screen, Contrast is designed to be left as a portfolio rather than a blog as well.

As the focus is on text, many writers, copy-editors or web designers may find this appealing, though the minimalist design could suit anyone. It's bold, unique and quick.

Have you used any of these free WordPress themes? Got another favourite we've not featured here? Spread the word in the comments! Are you a photographer? Check out our very own photography PDF manual by Bakari The Essential Guide To Digital Photography.

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While it's been exciting to track the #NewHotmailHere sightings and from what we can tell from the comments on Twitter and here on this blog, most of you are pretty excited about the new Hotmail. For some, however, things aren't going so well.

On the Windows Live Solution Center, there are some 650 responses at the time of this posting to the forum post Issues With New Windows Live Hotmail. While some complaints are about confusion with the new look, etc., which probably can be expected with any change of any kind, a number of far more serious problems are being reported.

Scanning the forum posts, there seem to be problems on a number of fronts: using certain older browsers, using Qwest, ActiveX issues, along with some more general problems with performance and certain features not working. Some people are using Mac OS X 10.4 and can't upgrade to the recommended Safari 4.x (sorry don't know much about Macs or why this isn't possible), but others seem to be using more current browsers and are still having problems, here's a quick sampling:

• I can now barely log in, cant delete any messages, cant compose messages, signing out takes forever. I do not want social networking message options, or ultra rich test clipboards to type emails on i just want to be able to check my email and send messages.
• the exact issue is ever since the upgraded, when i sign in to my hotmail account I see that I have messages and can see who they are from, but cant view them. Mycomuter hangs up or says NOt Responding.
• I see the following message above my Inbox/email: "We can't connect to Windows Live Hotmail from Qwest right now. Please try again later"
  I use Windows Internet Explorer 7 & 8.
• Was using IE8. Dowloaded Safari to see if there would be a difference, but although it allowed me to access my hotmail, it works ever so slowly, and is still doing some very weird things like flickering of icons, and sporadic access to different hotmail folders. Methinks this is a Hotmail problem rather than a browser problem. Smooooth move!

A number of posters have mentioned a problem with Hotmail from Qwest, apparently they are not able to get to their email, no matter what browser.

Responses from Microsoft personnel seem to be few and far between, but one workaround concerning ActiveX was posted:

For Browser freeze issues in IE, please try these steps and let us know if that helped or not:
In IE go to Tools > Internet Options > Security > Custom Level... >
Deactivate ActiveX objects.
Log back into Hotmail inbox - then go back and set the security to Default level.
For customers who arent able to access their emails at all in any of the browsers/computer, please try accessing your emails using a mail client as a workaround till we fix these issues for you.
For instructions, go here:
http://windowslivehelp.com/solution.aspx?solutionid=a485233f-206d-491e-941b-118e45a7cf1b

Older browsers seem to be a big problem, with a Microsoft poster offering a suggestion for the older Safari issue:

yes we fully support Safari 4.x. You could also try downloading the newest version of Firefox, which we also support. Sorry you haven't had a great experience with the new Hotmail so far, but it should be much better once you get upgraded.

Of course at least some of the forum posters are resorting to their own workarounds, by switching to Yahoo! or Gmail. Someone even started a Facebook Group, I Hate the New Hotmail, albeit currently with only 77 members. Still 650 responses to just one thread on the support forums (which aren't all that easy to find we have a link on our Wiki page if you're looking for it) and over 30,000 views since just last Thursday are some fairly sobering numbers. Are you having problems with the new Hotmail? Have you been able to fix them? Are you using the support forums? Let us know in the comments.

(via a comment from User55, hope you get your issues resolved soon)

Filed under: App Review

Gallery: American Museum of Natural History Explorer app

TUAWThe American Museum of Natural History's Explorer app for the iPhone and iPod touch originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 30 Jul 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner revealed today at the company's annual financial analyst meeting that the first beta of the Internet Explorer 9 Web browser is planned for release in September. This is a little later than expected; leaked documents that emerged last month pointed at an August release date for the beta.

Some apparently authentic screenshots of Internet Explorer 9 have leaked, though perhaps surprisingly, they show few changes from the current version. Microsoft has shipped three platform previews to show off the Internet Explorer 9 engine, but these previews used a simple, bare-bones interface; the company wanted to wait before revealing Internet Explorer 9's look and feel. If the new browser really is just a minor evolution of the old browser's interface, that decision seems a little peculiar.

The new browser is eagerly anticipated, especially by Web developers; Internet Explorer 9 is a big improvement on Internet Explorer 8, with considerably improved standards compliance and functionality. News of the beta is certainly welcome, but there's still a marked contrast between Microsoft's release policy and the more frequent updates of browsers like Firefox and Chrome. For all of its improvements, there's a good chance that Microsoft's browser will have been surpassed by its competition by the time it finally ships.

No release date has been announced, but most believe that the final version will not arrive until 2011.

Read the comments on this post

WordPress is a powerful content management system, and its popularity as a portfolio solution is enticing to many. There are a lot of themes out there that claim to do the job, but if you're as picky as me you'll find some pretty annoying flaws in many of them.

In my search for the best of the bunch, I installed about 30 offerings (out of the hundreds I looked at) and after trying them out and changing my mind a couple of times I finally settled down with a theme. This took me months, so I'm going to save you the bother and present the five free WordPress themes that made my own particular shortlist.

SimpleFolio The Best All-Rounder

Despite being a tricky free WordPress theme to set-up, SimpleFolio by Omar Corrales is worth the hassle. For your troubles you'll get a clean and easy-to-navigate theme with a separate portfolio section (with the option to exclude portfolio posts from your blog) and a home screen to die for.

The home screen includes a JavaScript front-page slider to exhibit portfolio entries, which does a great job of making your work look awesome with its smooth transitions. There are a further three widgetized areas on the home page, so adding a contact form or Twitter plug-in is as easy as pie.

If you like the look of this theme and fancy giving it a go, then you're going to need a little help. There's a fantastic little guide over at WordPress Handyman which guides you through the ins and outs of setting up and maintaining your new portfolio. As always with WordPress, you can edit the style.css file to suit your personal tastes.

Vikiworks Infinity For Social Media Types

For an aesthetically pleasing, majorly customizable portfolio that's plugged in to Flickr, Twitter and Delicious, look no further than Infinity by Vikiworks. The free WordPress theme follows a three-fixed column style, and whilst not being widget ready could probably be modified with some serious Notepad'ing.

There are two PSD files to download as well as the theme, which makes customization in Photoshop that little bit easier. Blog posts themselves are presented in two thumbnail cover-style columns to the left of the page, so if you're not bothered about separating your work and your blog then this one's for you.

For the more courageous there's a sister theme called Mashup based on Infinity, only with widgets and a style switcher. The developer has appealed for help in completing it, and needs guinea pigs willing to give it a go. If you're not averse to beta testing, you can download Mashup here.

FolioGrid For Speed-Freaks, Designers, Photographers & Artists

This sharp looking offering from FrogsThemes has a little something for everyone. Utilising the tried-and-tested grid layout, the theme comes in a variety of colours and is easily altered with some handy CSS. All the styling is done through the theme's stylesheet, meaning you really can open up and customize this one.

The menu lives at the top of the page, and is always accessible from anywhere on the site, making it a cinch to navigate. There's some lovely use of jQuery for slick transitions, and the theme is widget-ready. For a fast and lightweight WordPress portfolio, FolioGrid does the job.

Fullscreen For Style-Conscious Photographers & Videographers

If photos are the order of the day then you may want to pay close attention. Fullscreen is a portfolio package developed by Graph Paper Press that delivers nothing but a menu and blog posts (represented by just images). It all makes for a very sexy looking clean interface, with some fancy JavaScript image rollover effects for added garnish.

One thing to look out for is some issues with the menu not displaying correctly in older versions of Internet Explorer, though some of you won't really care (and those that do can customize, of course).

Images can be implemented into posts using the WordPress media gallery, which makes for easy posting. If you want your photo or video work to be the main focus of your site, then this theme will honour your wishes.

Contrast The Black Sheep

SmashingMagazine once hosted a typographic layout competition for WordPress and Tumblr themes, and Paul Linder's Contrast didn't win. But that doesn't matter, because it's awesome all the same.

Using nothing but XHTML and CSS, it's lightning quick and beautiful to look at. Presenting you with a straight-up black and white home screen, Contrast is designed to be left as a portfolio rather than a blog as well.

As the focus is on text, many writers, copy-editors or web designers may find this appealing, though the minimalist design could suit anyone. It's bold, unique and quick.

Have you used any of these free WordPress themes? Got another favourite we've not featured here? Spread the word in the comments! Are you a photographer? Check out our very own photography PDF manual by Bakari The Essential Guide To Digital Photography.

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Have you ever wished that you could express yourself more thoroughly on your social network profiles and go beyond the conventional profile images and text? Vanityvid, a new Israel-based startup, is taking the profile pic to the next level by giving users the opportunity to turn their Facebook and Twitter profile pictures into videos. I had the opportunity to ask Vanityvid's CTO and Co-Founder, Oren Solomianik, a few questions about the service, it's inspiration and how Vanityvid is doing so far. See what he had to say after the jump.

Before we get into my interview with Oren, let's take a look at how Vanityvid works. Vanityvid brings profile pictures to life. On the company's website they explain that, Wherever your profile pic shows (social networks, online communities, blog comments, etc.), people will also be able to see you move and hear you talking, and get a better feeling of who you are and what you're like.

Users can record or upload their Vanityvid profile videos directly from the Vanityvid website. In order to see the Vanityvids of other users, a Vanityvid browser add-on must be installed. The add-on is available for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome. Oren explains how the site works in the video below.

I was curious to find out about what inspired Oren and the other co-founders of Vanityvid to start the company, as well as their vision for how the service would be used. Oren has this to say:

We are also the founders of Triond, so we sat one day going over pics of our users and thought, Wouldn't it be great to really see and hear these wonderful people?'When you look at a pic, you can't answer several basic questionsHow does this person view himself? How does he communicate verbally? What is his body language and what is his general vibe? A video answers those questions and much more.

Vanityvid gives users the opportunity to share a lot more of their personality with their friends and followers. They can tell people about themselves, who they are, what they do, what they enjoy and more, and give viewers a much better idea of their personality than they can with the traditional picture and text profile.

Oren told me that they are receiving a lot of great responses from their users, who see Vanityvid as a tool for a better social experience and for personal branding. He told me that more than 1,000 people have recorded Vanityvids and more and more people are making their profile pics into videos with Vanityvid on a daily basis.

I asked how the company is promoting themselves. Oren said, We're currently promoting it through people using the service. They are encouraged to share it with their friends on Facebook and Twitter. Also, each time we get a new partner on board we immediately have the potential to be used by all of their users. Triond is Vanityvid's first partner and, as such, users do not have to have the toolbar installed in order to see users' video profiles on the Triond site.

I think that the idea of allowing users to upload videos in place of profile pictures on networks like Facebook and Twitter is a great one. It really does allow friends and followers to get a better sense of who you are as a person, which is especially great for bloggers and professionals. It will be interesting to see how Vanityvid takes off and whether the service will lead to a future in which video is the new profile pic. What do you think of the idea? What would you share with the world through a video profile picture?

Filed under: Microsoft, Browsers

Very Chromeish, eh?

'Stay Fast'? Are these really from a beta build...?

Share

Images of IE9's interface leak, including Chrome-like 'start' tab and download manager originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple released Safari version 5.0.1 today, and while the version number may seem minor, it's actually a fairly important update since it finally brings extensions to the web browser.

Apple previously showed off its extensions last month, and Safari 5 users were able to get some early extensions from other sites, but this marks the first full release for extensions on the web browser. Today also marks the unveiling of Apple's Extensions Gallery, which is basically a prettier version of the extension repositories created by Google and Mozilla.

Mozilla's Firefox was the first web browser to embrace the notion of extensions small add-ons that can greatly increase the functionality of a browser and earlier this year Google's Chrome browser also received extension functionality. Microsoft's Internet Explorer has also had extensions for some time. At this point, it seems like any web browser that aims to be successful needs to have some sort of extension framework.

Among the Safari extensions available today are a Twitter client, a Delicious extension, and an Instapaper extension. More so than other browser extension frameworks, Safari's extensions seem to integrate smoothly into Apple's manicured user interface.

What's most surprising about this release is that it's taken Apple so long to get extensions into Safari. When Firefox was the only extension-equipped browser on the market, it was steadily building its user base over Internet Explorer, and dedicated users found it difficult to wean themselves off of the convenience of extensions making it a chore for them to move to other browsers.

Chrome was well-liked for its speed and simplicity when it was first released, but it wasn't until Google added extensions that it finally started making a dent in Firefox's market share. As of this May, Chrome had 6.73 percent of the browser market mainly consisting of the early-adopters that initially made Firefox so successful.

It remains to be seen how much the late addition of extensions will help Safari, but at the very least we can say it won't hurt. It will give users another reason to keep using Safari instead of being tempted by another browser, and it also opens the door for Apple's mobile Safari on the iPhone and iPad to eventually get extensions of their own.

Tags: chrome, extensions, Firefox, Safari, web browser

Companies: Apple

Apple announced today the release of its latest version of Web browser Safari. Version 5.0.1 introduces Safari extensions as well as an extensions gallery, bringing the browser into sync with other leading browsers, such as Firefox, Chrome.

Extensions were initially added with the June release of Safari 5, but primarily for developer testing. This latest release brings extensions to the forefront, with the introduction of the extensions gallery.

Sponsor

The new version of Safari debuts with extensions by Twitter, The New York Times, Amazon and Bing, among others. The extensions bring real-time functionality and integration to the Web browsing experience. The Twitter extension, for example, will notify you of mentions of the website your currently looking at and allow you to tweet about that site with an automatically created short link. The Bing extension adds search, translation and other functionality directly to any page - simply highlight text and the extension goes from there.

According to the release, extensions are built with HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript and are "sandboxed", or kept segregated from other parts of the user's filesystem to ensure that "they can't access information on a user's system or communicate with websites aside from those specified by the developer".

Last month, Chrome surpassed Safari in the U.S. to take over the number three spot in the browser market, putting Safari behind Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome. Safari had long held onto the number three spot in the U.S. but had already been relegated to the number four position worldwide. Will the introduction of extensibility, something the other top browsers already offered, bring Safari back into the race?

The latest version of Safari is available for both Mac and PC.

Greetings, Delicious community:

My name is Layla, and I am the new community manager for Delicious, Groups, and Answers. I came to Yahoo! after taking a one-year maternity leave. I had been enjoying motherhood so much that I figured I would go back to work only if a great opportunity knocked, and then I got offered my absolute dream job. I have been using Answers since its launch in 2005 and I belong to several mom-related Yahoo! Groups, so when I saw the position for a lead community manager for Answers, Groups, and Delicious, my first reaction was Yahooooooooooo', and my second reaction was, Delicious'? Who actually uses social bookmarking sites now that we can just tweet everything and share links with our friends on Facebook? The answer I got from those surrounding me was: Total geeks, college professors, and librarians.

Fortunately, the Delicious team gave me a chance, despite my lack experience as a geek or librarian. I started by looking at the forums and was lost in the midst of technical conversations, embarrassed by my inability to get the gist of it all. I visited the blog, only to be faced with more technical knowledge, and spent time on the help pages trying to figure out how to use this product to my fullest advantage.

Embracing three properties all at once was quite overwhelming. I was bombarded with internal sites I needed to bookmark and articles I needed to read. The last thing I had time for was learning how to do social bookmarking on Delicious while I was struggling to figure out how to best organize my own bookmarks on my screen until a delicious moment hit me.

From the conversations I have seen on the forums, I think most of you know how to save a bookmark on Delicious, how to add the Delicious Add-on to Firefox or Internet Explorer, how to create tags for your bookmarks, etc. (Drop me a line if you don't and I'll walk you through it.) But I wonder how many of you actually know that there's a beautiful way of organizing your bookmarks on your Firefox and Internet Explorer toolbars?

Once you have organized your bookmarks under the correct tags for instance, if you created a toread tag and tagged the articles you want to read under, you can then:

1. Click the Delicious button on the left
2. Click Manage favorite tags



3. Add the tag you like (for instance, To Read).
4. Click OK

And voil, your organized favorite tags will appear at the top of your toolbar.

You can continue to build new tags on your toolbar as you see fit, and also delete them anytime you don't want to clutter your toolbar. I know this discovery has definitely saved me a lot of time at work it is so much easier to find my needed bookmarks, and I wanted to be sure you benefited from this feature, too.

Would you like to share your Delicious moments with us? Send them to me and I'll feature them in our next blog.

The last two months have seen some important developments in the way data is made available. First, Infochimps created a web API for publishing data. The number of datasets is relatively limited; there are five available now, of which four have to do with Twitter data, and one maps IP addresses to census data (and that one appears not to be available yet). Their site allows you to request (or vote on requests) for new datasets. Pricing is reasonable. You can do significant experimentation, or even run a useful low-volume application, without running up any charges.

"Data as a service" is not a new term, by any means. There have been any number of data services over the years. But this is something different from the many services that have sold data -- or even the more recent services that have sold data via the Internet. Data as a service is another part of the cloud computing alphabet soup, on par with "infrastructure, software, or platform as a service" (IaaS/SaaS/PaaS). Infochimps makes possible applications where data lives in the cloud. Granted, you're not going to access terabyte datasets over the Internet. But neither do you have to download (or have shipped) a giant dataset for the few Kilo- or Megabytes that interest you. Infochimps is pushing a bit beyond simple data access. Their Twitter APIs aren't raw data, but implement trust metrics, influence metrics, and more. So perhaps it's better to call this "algorithm as a service" (AaaS), not unlike the Prediction API (machine learning using Google's algorithms) that was announced at Google I/O.

The second new data service that has impressed me is Google's new Public Data Explorer. I assume that everyone reading this article has seen the latest spectacular data visualizations, in the New York Times, Nathan Yau's Flowingdata blog, and elsewhere. Here's one example from GE (created by Ben Fry's Fathom Information Design). Public Data Explorer lets you create your own visualizations, based on Google's data.

Here's one of their examples (nicer than anything I came up with on the fly). It's an animation of per-capita income in California counties that shows how the individual counties have fared from 1969 to 2007. I've highlighted a few interesting counties -- let's see how they perform:

Not surprisingly, the difference between the richest and poorest counties has drastically increased. Google provides many datasets, and gives you interesting ways to arrange and animate the data. I've displayed a fairly simple bar graph animation, but you can also do bubbles on a map and several kinds of Cartesian plots. You can slice and dice regions in many different ways, frequently down to the county level. They've got data from the European community, from Australia, the World Bank, and other sources. None of this is exactly new: the data has been around for years. What Google Data Explorer does is enable you to explore the data yourself and paste the result into your own sites and blogs.

Wolfram Alpha's Widgets provides yet another way to interact with data -- potentially the most flexible yet. (You'll have to create an account and sign in.) Widgets are web components for interacting with Wolfram Alpha's data back-end. You can do pure Mathematica queries, but you can also interact with the extensive data Wolfram has been collecting. There's no programming required (unless you want to submit Mathematica queries). There's a web-based widget builder where you start with an Alpha request, like "US Unemployment," parameterize it, specify the layout you want and how you want to embed it (lightbox, popup, and iFrame styles are supported), and finally test it. At the end, you get a link or a clump of Javascript that you can paste into a website or a blog, and you can include the widget in a public gallery. You can also post directly to Facebook, Twitter, and most other social sites.

Here's an example: a simple widget to compare two stocks. You can select your own stocks or just use my defaults (Apple and Google):

It took me about five minutes to whip up this widget, starting with the simple Alpha query "APPL GOOG." But there are many ways to look up stock prices and histories. What about something more esoteric? Alpha knows an incredible amount. The other day my wife and I couldn't remember what a half-diminished seventh chord was. Alpha knows, and can show you a piano keyboard, guitar fingerings, and even play the chord. Here's the result:

You'll confuse it if you try really odd chords; don't try fancy jazz ninths and thirteenths, and remember to specify "triad" if you want your basic three-note chord.

Alpha's weak point is that you frequently end up playing "guess what Alpha wants." I suppose that's what you trade off for flexibility; but it was surprisingly difficult to build an interest calculator. Building the widget was simple enough, but coming up with the initial query was difficult. Alpha would either assume I was paying off a loan, or doing a present value calculation, or something else, until I juggled the terms into the right order, which happened to be "10% interest $100 initial value 7 years." Not illogical, but neither were any of the other attempts.

That's a minor problem, though. Widgets makes it fun to explore data and computation, and makes it trivial to share the results. With "data as a service" APIs like Infochimps, and embeddable data components like Google Public Data Explorer and WolframAlpha Widgets, we're seeing the democratization of data and data visualization: new ways to access data, new ways to play with data, and new ways to communicate the results to others.

Related:

• Data science democratized
• What is data science?
• A data science cheat sheet
• Data visualization primer: What they are and why they're important

For those of you who swear by Internet Explorer, there is a new extension that you're probably going to find useful. Messenger Companion is Windows Live Messenger that lives inside of the browser, and the Windows Team Blog gives us the details.

Messenger Companion is part of the Windows Live Essentials beta that has been in public testing for a couple of weeks now. The goal is to have a handy way for you to share, update status and see what your friends are doing, all without having to leave the browser.

Granted, this could get unnerving very fast, but Microsoft seems to have taken some good ideas about how the service should work. Instead of being bombarded with messages inside the browser, Companion will simply tell you when one of your friends has shared things that they've found, when you visit the same site.

Of course you'll still be able to send messages about shared links, and carry on conversations even across sites. But it's all in how you choose to do it, instead of being as in-your-face as it could be.

Commenting on shared items will be done through whatever site the item was shared. If you're commenting on a Facebook share, the comment will go back to Facebook, for instance.

One-click sharing seems quite handy, and the service will update your Messenger status with whatever link you've shared, as well. Beyond Messenger, your links will be displayed on whatever sites you've connected to.

Overall, it could be in interesting service for those who use Internet Explorer and Windows Messenger. Give it a shot and tell us what you think.

Original title and link for this post: Windows Live Messenger gets an in-browser sharing update with Messenger Companion

8-bit Color Cycling with HTML5. Euh what? A few years ago, video cards could only render 256 colors at a time. So it was very hard to do nice animations. That's why they invented color cycling. Certain pixel areas cylce through a palette of colors to suggest animation. A very simple idea with a really nice aesthetical outcome.
Joseph Huckaby adapted this principle to HTML5 (forget about Internet Explorer) and brought some artwork by Mark Ferrari to life. Check out these examples. And if you're up for it, heres some more information.

found via @mrdoob

Now personally I haven't had any need for this since I don't use Gmail but given that a lot of people do this tip might come in handy for those of you using Windows 7.

The tip come from Billy and was originally posted in the WinExtra Community Forums and reposted here:

I wanted Windows to open a Gmail browser window/tab when I clicked on an email link or such. I googled for quite a while, discovered that MS MVP's were telling people this cannot be done...you CANNOT force Win 7 to use Gmail as your default email program because it isn't a program..it's a website. They're telling people to install Windows Live Mail, or Outlook, and get Gmail through that.

Bullsh*t.

A bit of registry editing:

1. in the start menu search bar type regedit and hit enter.

2. navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\mailto\shell\open\command\ using the folder structure on the left.

3. right click on the name field (should say default) and click modify.

4. copy the text in there and save as a temporary backup should anything go wrong.

5. paste C:\Users\*username*\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exehttps://mail.google.com/mail?extsrc=mailto&url=%1 in the box (with quotes on both sides).

6. edit *username* to be your username on your computer this name can be viewed at C:\Users\.

7. click ok and close regedit.

NOTE: this is set up to open in the Chrome browser if you use another browser the Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe will have to be replaced with the other browsers file path.

Just thought I'd share

Thanks Bill.

[Win7 Tip] Make Gmail your default email client is a post from: winextra
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Windows: If you always open the same programs, websites, or media files on certain days of the week, Start My Day will help you easily automate your daily routine.

Start My Day is like the Firefox extension Morning Coffee, but for your operating system instead of your browser. You can tell Start My Day what days and times you want set applications, web sites, and music to load. You can also get a jump start by clicking "RUN ALL" to start the process ahead of time.

One small quirk that we'd love to see resolved in future releases is the limitation on URLs. Start My Day only accepts .URL shortcuts for the web site section of the application which means you need to use Internet Explorer to create the shortcuts before adding them to the application. That quirk aside the application performed as expected and made scheduling batch starts of applications and other shortcuts simple. Start My Day is freeware, Windows only.

Posted by randfish

Today, instead of playing in the uber-rare Seattle sunshine, I spent the day polishing off the PRO Training seminar schedule and it looks amazing. I'm excited to see these sessions myself (and I rarely sit through presentations). Check it out for yourself below; if you're inclined and available, we'd love to see you.

Oh, and don't worry, I'm not cruelly sharing when we've already sold out. We still do have some seats left. Dates are Monday & Tuesday August 30th + 31st with the tools training half day Wednesday, September 1st. However, I would strongly urge you to register soon, as we've sold out by early August in each of the past 4 years.

Top 5 Ways Our PRO Seminar is Different

1. "Tips" Focused Content
   Many sessions that I attend have discussions and opinions as featured content. Although I think that can be great, our focus is 100% on providing value you can apply back to your sites + campaigns immediately. I've talked to every speaker and reviewed every outline - the sessions at our seminar are exclusively focused on making you smarter, faster and better at your job.
2. Single-Track, Deep Dives by Only the Best Speakers
   Rather than panels of 2, 3, 4 or more speakers on an hourlong session, we have only a few sessions each day, enabling us to pick only the most talented, compelling speakers for our event. You can't pitch to speak at SEOmoz - it's by invitation only and those invites come because we've seen you speak many times and been seriously impressed. There are only 14 speakers in total at the event and every one is an oustanding presenter - we know because we've watched them.
3. The Same Incentives for all Participants
   At many events, the real revenue comes from sales of booths, promotional materials or sponsored sessions. SEOmoz has none of these. Our primary goal with the PRO Training isn't to make money (being fully TAGFEE; this year, we anticipate the seminar to generate less than 4% of our gross with relatively slim margins), but to spread knowledge of SEO in a deep, meaningful way and meet many of our community members in person. We also pay for our speakers' transportation and hotels so they don't have the burden of selling to recoup travel costs.
4. Less than 1/2 the Price of Other Events
   With a PRO membership, the event costs just $649. Add in a hotel for 2 nights and a flight from most US locations and it's still less than a single ticket to many of the larger conferences (e.g. the on-site price for Web 2.0 NYC or SES SF is $1,995).
5. No Vendors, Pitches, Booths or Sales
   There's no expo hall, no sponsors, no SWAG in a bag, no salespeople seeking to close a deal at lunch, nada. This event is about learning from experts, networking with peers and coming home with phenomenal, actionable information.

The Full PRO Training Schedule

Monday, August 29th

• 9:00am - 9:45am: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad SERP
  • The expansion of new results types in the search result pages has SEOs asking if traditional rankings are dead. They're not, but there are a whole lot more opportunities to get SEO traffic. In this session, Rand Fishkin explores the world of real-time, social, news, images, video & expanded listing results with specific recommendations for how to get included, stand out and win clicks.
• 9:45am - 10:30am: How to Win Rankings and Influence Competitive Local/Maps Results
  • As Google Maps and the 3/7/10-pack results have become more competitive, SEOs have been thinking less about the question "what are the local ranking factors?" and more about "how do I beat that guy in the top position?" David Mihm explores the answers with specifics about how to jump to the top of the pack.
• 10:30am - 10:45am: Morning Break
• 10:45am - 11:45am: The Science of Twitter Success
  • What makes some Twitter updates spread across the web while other languish in obscurity? Hubspot's Dan Zarrella examines the science of tweets, retweets and clicks and provides specific, actionable tactics for how to improve the results marketers derive from promotion of their content on Twitter.
• 11:45am - 12:30pm: Presentation Off: How to Pitch SEO
  • Distilled's esteemed director, Will Critchlow, has never lost against Rand, but they've also never faced off in the US. Watch Rand and Will on SEOmoz's home turf as they break down how to pitch SEO internally to your team/managers or externally, to a potential client. Specific strategies of how to win the battle for marketing dollars will rule the day. Voting to be determined by a show of hands immediately following the presentations.
• 12:30pm - 1:30pm: Lunch
• 1:30pm - 2:00pm: Earning Direct ROI on Social Media
  • Social media tends to send traffic that clicks once, visits fast and leaves without much engagement. Yet, we know that over time, these branding touchpoints and positive references can lead to awareness, influence and, ultimately, conversion. In this session, SEOmoz's community manager, Jen Lopez, shows real life examples of how social media can lead directly to conversions. She'll also cover how to track clicks to and conversations about your site/brand that happen across the web and map these to the metrics that predict web success.
• 2:00pm - 2:45pm: Site Architecture & Best Practices for Big Site SEO
  • Large sites frequently struggle against indexation, navigation and organization issues. In this session, Marshall Simmonds, chief search strategist for the NYTimes, About.com, and many other large content-based sites will present solutions for effectively analyzing the problems inherent with large sites, identifying solutions and implementation. Specific topics include controlling faceted navigation, creating index-worthy category and sub-category pages as well as XML sitemap & internal link optimization.
• 2:45pm - 3:00pm: Afternoon Break
• 3:00pm - 4:00pm: Uncovering a Hidden Technique for SEO
  • You're familiar with optimizing for a keyword by placing it on a page and acquiring anchor-text targeted links, but this session goes in a completely different direction. We'll be pulling back the curtain on a new way to rank higher, and a process to do it! Led by Ben Hendrickson, SEOmoz's Senior Scientist, this session will go heads down in the math and science of how search engines crawl, index and rank web pages.
• 4:00pm - 4:30pm: Constructing Effective SEO Audits
  • As the director of consulting at SEOmoz, Lindsay built dozens of audits for clients like Microsoft, Etsy, SimplyHired and more. In this presentation, she'll share her methodology for delivering a site audit that clients and managers will appreciate and actually use!
• 4:30pm - 5:30pm: Conversion Rate Optimization
  • One of the web's foremost experts in conversion rate optimization, Tim Ash will be sharing case studies and specific tips for how to make more of the visitors who click into customers.

Tuesday, August 31st

• 9:00am - 9:45am: 10 Sites the Earned Amazing Links: How they Did It & What we Can Learn
  • Sometimes, the best way to learn is through direct observation. In this session, Rand will walk through 10 sites that achieved top rankings through remarkable link acquisition strategies. He'll explore not just where they earned links, but why those links were created and what other SEOs can take away from the success stories.
• 9:45am - 10:30am: Reverse Engineering Your Competitors' Rankings
  • Why does that page rank above yours? Until you know the answer, you're optimizing in the dark and potentially wasting massive amounts of time, energy and resources on metrics that won't move the needle. In this session, Wil Reynolds, head of digital agency Thinkseer, walks through their process for strategically de-constructing the search results, determining the keys to ranking and executing on those metrics.
• 10:30am - 10:45am: Morning Break
• 10:45am - 11:30am: Manual Link Building: That's Right; It Still Works
  • Picking up links one-by-one may not be highly scalable nor incredibly fun work, but it does work. In this session, Distilled Consulting head of US operations, Rob Ousbey, walks through the power and process of manual link building. If you're ready to put your shoulder to the grindstone, you can have a serious impact on your business with these tactics.
• 11:30am - 11:50am: Top 10 Tips for Community Building
  • The power of user-generated-content and user engagement to build up a site's reach, branding and SEO is phenomenal. SEOmoz CEO Rand Fishkin walks through his top tactics for attracting an engaged audience.
• 11:50am - 12:10pm: Top 10 Tips for Blogging
  • Blogs are still one of the most powerful ways to build content, draw in links, grow your branding & attract new customers. Ian Lurie, founder of Portent Interactive and Conversation Marketing has a list of unbeatable tips to maximize the value you get from blogging.
• 12:10pm - 12:30pm:Top 10 Tips for Paid Search Optimization
  • Paid search will draw in $25 billion dollars in the US alone this year - a lot of that won't make much of an ROI. Joanna Lord wants to make sure that doesn't happen to you. Join her as she walks through 10 amazing tips to get high value out of paid search without spending a fortune.
• 12:30pm - 1:15pm: Lunch
• 1:15pm - 2:00pm: Designing Your SEO Strategy
  • Formerly the head of technical marketing at Yahoo!, Laura Lippay's responsibility included managing SEO across dozens of the web's most visited sites. In this session, she shares her process from years of experience and her popular blog series on SEOmoz covering the design and execution of an SEO strategy.
• 2:00pm - 2:45pm: Advanced Keyword Selection + Targeting
  • The basics of keyword research are well known, but discovering terms and phrases that are on the verge of becoming popular, in the middle or tail of the demand curve or have cyclical demand can be a huge advantage for your website. Tom Critchlow, Head of Search for Distilled, presents killer tips on how to select the right keywords and use them in the right ways to maximize your search traffic potential.
• 2:45pm - 3:30pm: The End of Analysis Paralysis: Tracking What Matters & Ignoring the Rest
  • Too often, the overwhelming quantity of data we get from tools like Google Analytics, Omniture, Conversion Rate Tracking + Testing Software can overwhelm us. SEOmoz's Joanna Lord is here to put an end to the overload and give striking examples of how to build an analytics dashboard that records what matters and ignores what doesn't so you can make the right decisions about what to invest in.
• 3:30pm - 3:45pm: Ice Cream Break
• 3:45pm - 4:30pm: How to Make SEO Data Reporting Sexy
  • Ready to take your data visualization skills to the next level? Join Distilled's Will Critchlow as he remakes the tedious process of SEO reporting on keywords, links, traffic and SERPs into something not only beautiful, but useful and ready to apply to the real world. Your clients & managers will be head over heels when they see the amazing, actionable data visualizations you present.
• 4:30pm - 5:30pm: No More Secrets: SEO Veterans Spill the Goods on Tactics that Work
  • 6 Expert Practitioners of SEO will share their most powerful & actionable tips for all things web marketing. If you're seeking an unfair advantage over the competition, listen closely - it doesn't come any better than this. Join Ian Lurie, Will & Tom Critchlow, Laura Lippay, Wil Reynolds & Todd Friesen for a remarkable session.
• 7:00pm - 12:00am: SEOmoz Annual Garage Party!
  • Bowling, billiards, beer and more! Don't miss our favorite party of the year, replete with free drinks, food and entertainment.

Wednesday, September 1st (Tools Training)

• 9:30am - 10:30am: A Deep Dive Into Link Research w/ Linkscape, Open Site Explorer & Keyword Difficulty
  • These three tools comprise the most powerful resources available for advanced link exploration, algorithm reversing and competitive analysis. In this hour, Rand Fishkin shows how to apply the full spectrum of data to strategize, measure and acquire links.
• 10:30am - 10:45am: Morning Coffee Break
• 10:45am - 11:45pm: Getting the Most from the New (REDACTED UNTIL LAUNCH)
  • Obviously, I can't provide a description without giving too much away. Needless to say, though, it will be big :-)
• 11:45pm - 12:15pm: Adding Value to Your SEO w/ Q+A, the mozBar + SEOmoz Labs
  • Rand walks through the best practices and some hidden ways to employ PRO membership utilities from Labs, Q+A and the mozBar. There's a lot of information and functionality to be found here and with Ran'd guidance, you'll be able to get maximum value from these products.
• 12:15pm - 1:00pm: A Sneak Peek Into SEOmoz's Product Roadmap & Call for Suggestions
  • Join Adam Feldstein, head of Product at SEOmoz and Rand Fishkin, CEO, for a look at the product roadmap for SEOmoz over the next 6 months. We'll be soliciting your feedback, too, so please come ready with your ideas!

Bonus: Oilman is Our MC!

We've employed copious quantities of beer, cookies and B-rated action movies on DVD to compel Todd Friesen, aka Oilman, to MC the event for us. We're honored to have Todd run the show, make sure our panelists stick to their time slots and badger anyone who tries to hold back critical information. In exchange, he's promised to wear his pearliest white hat and make sure every attendee has a phenomenal experience.

That smile means he's up to something... (via jenn.matthews)

Thanks Todd! We're showing our appreciation by bolstering your follower count on Twitter.

Looking forward to seeing many of you at the PRO Seminar and showing off our big August launch too!

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On July 26, Ford, along with Mike Rowe of the Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs series, will use Facebook to reveal the 2011 Ford Explorer. The online event will coincide with a big offline reveal in several cities across the nation, but this marks the first time a major car company will forgo the auto show for a web unveiling.

Scott Monty, Ford's head of social media, tells us that this is a very comprehensive online play that extends beyond just Facebook and involves several other web-centric elements that the company cannot reveal just yet. Monty speaks enthusiastically when he says that, This is a really really different Explorer, and we wanted to reveal it in a really really different way.

On reveal day, you can expect to see a number of videos introducing online users to the new vehicle. Monty disclosed that some of the videos will serve as virtual walk-arounds designed to mimic the experience a person would have at an auto show.

In case you haven't been following the Explorer build-up, some of the vehicle's specs have already been released to the public. We know that it will be one of the first to include the much-discussed MyFord Touch technology, as well as a bevy of driver safety features and an optional EcoBoost engine for 30% better fuel economy.

To heighten the anticipation, Ford has put out a few teaser videos and photos on Facebook. The Ford Explorer Facebook Page is also drumming up interest in the reveal with the promise of a free car. If the Page can garner 30,000 likes the tally is already nearing 28,000 the company will give away one 2011 Ford Explorer to a Facebook fan.

Ford continues to push the boundaries of social media innovation. The company has been widely regarded as an early adopter brand for years, especially when