Webdesigner Depot has a great look at the past 25 years of Apple design. The visual list of famous Apple products, both good and bad, can take old-timers back with fond memories, and provide a bit of a history lesson to Mac users who’ve just recently jumped on board. The article is loaded with large images (some used above) from Wikipedia, and covers All-In-Ones, laptops, desktops, monitors, keyboards, mice, and of course, the iPod.
Category: Internet
BrightQube and the future of stock photography
Guest post by Lee Corkran, Founder and CEO, BrightQube After more than 20 years of observation, former photojournalist and photo industry veteran Lee Corkran envisioned the future of the stock photo industry in an online marketplace with an innovative visual search engine. From that “aha” moment, BrightQube was born. Corkran, nearly three years ago, after going through his own experiences selling stock photos, knew there had to be a better way to make transactions. He appreciated that stock photographers didn’t want their work buried on, say, page 27 of lengthy list of search results. And, he understood buyers didn’t want to click through to get to that page 27, or to check dozens of different Web sites to find just the right photo to fit their design and budget. (more…)
5 things to do with Google besides search for other sites
We all know Google is the king of search, free Web-based email, and Web-based RSS feed readers. But there are a lot of other things you can use Google for which most people don’t know about. Here are just five useful things you can do with Google that I use fairly often: (more…)
Adding a snowstorm effect to your Web site
You may have noticed a lot of Web sites this past month which feature animated snowflakes falling down the page in the background. Pretty nifty for the winter months and holiday season. It’s a fairly simply Javascript effect which you can customize quite a bit. You can learn more about the Snowstorm Javascript Effect here. The downloadable Snowstorm Javascript allows you to have the falling snowflakes collect at the bottom of your browser window, adjust the speed of the falling flakes, and even follow your mouse as you move it across the page (wind effect) if you wish. Note: Just for fun, move your mouse over the blinking Christmas lights at the top of the page for a cool effect.
Logo of the Day site launches
Looking for a little logo inspiration? Logo of the Day, the latest of several high-profile logo sites, has recently launched. Each day a new logo will be screened and chosen by Jacob Cass & Jeff Fisher. The winning logo is then posted on the site, where viewers can vote and comment on the logo design.
Inspiring Web site header graphics
Toxel has listed 24 beautiful and creative Web site headers for your inspiration. Some of them are simply stunning. By the way, if you haven’t bookmarked Toxel in your RSS reader & Web browser, you should. They often list truly inspiring articles and imagery.
Finding and using Flickr images for free
Blog posts and Web pages look better with images, this is a fact. But where can you find images to use that don’t cost a lot? You could turn to some of the free stock photo sites out there. Some are pretty decent, but most of the images have a distinct “stock photography” look about them. Instead, try using images from Flickr.
Photo by Spoon Monkey @ Flickr
Before you say “the images on Flickr are copyrighted, so they can’t be used for commercial work,” think again. Flickr offers thousands of great images under the Creative Commons, allowing you to use them absolutely free, with little more than a photo credit in some cases. 
Flickr offers non-copyright images in the form of several different licenses under the Creative Commons. The type of license the photographer chose to license the image under determines what restrictions you’ll have in using the images. Typically, these restrictions are limited to commercial vs. non-commercial, photo credits, and re-distribution.
Attribution license is your friend
The best Creative Commons license you can choose is the Attribution License. Images that fall under the Attribution License allow you to freely crop and alter the image, and use it any way you see fit for free, just as long as you credit the photographer. Generally speaking, you’ll know you’re looking at Attribution License images when you see one of the two icons above on the page.
Photo by Hyunlab @ Flickr
You can make your search for Attribution License images easier by starting on the Flickr Attribution License page. As I said earlier, there are several different kinds of Creative Commons licenses. The Attribution License is definitely the most flexible, but there are others that allow you to use Flickr images with more restrictions. For more info on the other available licensed images, visit the Flickr Creative Commons page.
YouTube supports deep-linking in videos
You may not have noticed, I didn’t, that YouTube now supports deep-linking in their videos. Deep linking means you can tell the video exactly where to start playing – perfect for long videos where you only want to show off a portion of it. The code is easy. You simply add #t=XmXXs (substitute the Xs for the minute and seconds where you want the video to start) to the end of the link code. For instance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjBOTT0tr84#t=20s In the link above, the video is 2:42 long, but when you click the link to view the video, it starts playing at the 20-second mark. Unfortunately, deep-linking does not appear to work when you embed videos in your own site. Hopefully Google adds this feature to YouTube soon.
19 Creative Halloween advertisements
There must be innovation and creativity involved in any successful creative advertisement campaign. In this article at SmashingApps, you can see how different companies conveyed their marketing/promotion message for their products or services for the Halloween Season. All of them are worth taking a look at, even if most are for beer companies with bottomless pits of money for ad budgets!
History of the World Wide Web
With all the technology improvements to the Web over the last several years, it’s hard to believe that the Web is still in its infancy. Despite popular belief, Mosaic (later changed to Netscape Navigator) was not the first Web browser. Mosaic was released in 1993 and was simply the first popular one used by the general public. The first Web browser, known as WorldWideWeb (see screenshot below), was invented by Tim Berners-Lee in February 1991, the same guy who invented HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) in 1989. WorldWideWeb, later renamed Nexus, ran on the NeXTSTEP platform, which of course was formed by Apple’s Steve Jobs. 
Berners-Lee developed the software on his NeXTcube while working for CERN. The original code still resides on that NeXTcube in the CERN museum. Unfortunately, we’ll never get to see that code, because the computer is a historical artifact. While we were still using technology like Gopher, FTP, Usenet and various text-based BBS systems to access the Web (prior to the WWW), large corporations jumped on the bandwagon early. The oldest registered domain name was SYMBOLICS.com, registered in March of 1985. It didn’t take long for other companies to catch on. In 1986, Xerox became the 7th domain registered, followed by HP (#9), IBM & Sun (#11), Intel (#13), AT&T (#15), Boeing (#26), Adobe (#42), Tandy (#50), and Unisys (#50). On February 19, 1987, Apple Computer registered Apple.com (#64). As is typical, Microsoft followed the leader and finally registered Microsoft.com in May of 1991. For a list of the 100 oldest registered .com domain names, click here.