Jay Meydad's Life Mashup

I logged into the Disqus console today to change some settings and noticed a new feature. The settings pages do not have a visible “Save” and “Cancel” buttons.  Instead, only if you change a value/option on the page the buttons float and appear from the bottom of the visible area. This is a big usability improvement as it eliminates the need to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and hit save. I think this is very innovative and very cool. I have not seen this feature on other website but I am sure it will happen soon.

Just got an announcement from Xoopit that they are shutting down Xoopit for Gmail in order to focus on improving Yahoo mail and My Pictures. This comes as a surprise to me and does not smell like a business decision for two reasons:

• Xoopit should have more resources now that they are part of Yahoo
• I agree with Ouriel that Yahoo could benefit a lot from the data Xoopit collects about Gmail usage

For these reasons and also for the way their email ends, I actually think that it was Google who forced Yahoo and Xoopit to make that decision -

Thank you for using Xoopit for Gmail. We’ll miss you!

Anyways Xoopit, it was fun to use you. You helped me find some forgotten pics that were buried deep inside my Gmail archive. I will miss you as well.

Back in Oct 2008 Yahoo was testing a new homepage. This version of the homepage has not become live yet and probably won’t given the fact that Yahoo has now a new CEO, Carol Bratz, that has a very clear vision for the company. A vision that is also reflected in the new version of the homepage I just got (probably as part of a small percentage test Yahoo is running) – big focus on search, display advertising and a better portal to generate more page views on the Yahoo network.

Couple of observations:

• The header height was shaved by a few pixels, the Yahoo logo was moved right next to the search box instead of above it, and almost all of the essential information is viewable above the fold! pretty impressive that Yahoo was able to achieve that without getting eliminating links and content that is on the current homepage

• The expandable tabs that are used in the left side bar (called Favorites) make the home page extremely extensible with all sorts of information and applications, from Yahoo properties (Finance, Messenger, Flickr, movies) and partners (eBay, NPR, BBC, and more). It is also great for advertising since there is a medium rectangle ad (most desirable ad size on the market) on every tab. This should increase the number of home page ad impressions sagnificantly. Anyone wanys to model what it will do to the stock price?

• Yahoo clearly wants you to do more searches and that’s why they moved the “popular searches” box to the top and made it so prominent

• Yahoo also wants to regain their position as a portal to the Yahoo network. That’s why they:

(a) placed the link “View Yahoo! Sites” which expands to a directory of all the Yahoo sites at the top of the Favorites left bar

(b) moved the articles section to the top and increased its size from 5 to 10 links

• One very interesting application that was pre-installed for me on the favorites bar was MySpace. I wonder if that is a first sign for a deal that might happen between MySpace/FIM and Yahoo (the Google deal is supposed to end in mid 2010) or is that just a traffic aquisition campaign mySpace is running on Yahoo

Overall, I like the new design. It is lighter, cleaner and the information is organized in a more logical and accessible way compared to the existing homepage. Who knows, if this version will eventually become the live one, I might switch my homepage back to Yahoo like in the good old days.

Update: According to Sillicon Alley Insider, this new homepage is not a test but a phased rollout.

Here are some photos of the new design

[View with PicLens]

I have recently migrated my feedburner account to use a Google account. As a result the RSS feed url has changed to:

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/jaymeydad

If you are a subscriber please make sure to update your RSS reader with this new address, and if you are not, you might want to give it a try and subscribe to it. For an unlimited time, it is free.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC just launched a new exhibit called “State of Deception: The power of Nazi propaganda”. Beyond the live exhibit which I hope to be able to see in DC someday, it also has a Flash based web site which contains a fascinating multimedia collection with all sorts of materials showing the sophisticated propaganda that the Nazi party created in order to spread lies about its political opponents, Jews and the need for war.

Those materials include photos, posters, books, videos, sound recording, newspapers articles, paintings and drawing and more. All have commentary and are categorized under 7 different themes that demonstrate how well the Nazis understood topics such as mass communication, marketing & branding, and how well they used them in order to promote alluring ideas that appeal to the masses such as freedom, unity and prosperity, rather than pure hate.

The Themes and Gallery Search sections gives access to these materials from the years 1919-1948. In addition, there is an interactive timeline section which goes all the way from 1919 until 2008 and it lists major events around the world that are related to anti-semitism as well as genocide.

I find the timing of releasing this exhibit & website extremely important, especially in light of the recent anti-semic voices the are spiking as a result of the current economic crises, the recent holocaust denial statement made by British Bishop Richard Williamson (”There was not one Jew killed by the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies”) , and of course, the constant anti-Jews and anti-Israel speeches and announcements made by the leader of Iran, as well as other terror organizations such as Hamas & Al Qaeda.

This is by far of the most impressive website I have seen lately. Add to that the fact it is about such an important topic, that I have already selected it as my top website for 2009.

I highly recommend spending some time on the site, navigating through the different sections and reading the materials. It is important to remember what the Nazi’s did in Europe 60+ years ago and remind others, so it never happens again.

So, Share it, Bookmark, Digg, Twitt, StumbleUpon it, and use every other social media method you know to spread the word about this site.

Here is the link: http://www.ushmm.org/propaganda

ushmm.org - nazi propoganda exhibit - homepage

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One of my new year resolutions was to refresh the design of this blog with a new theme. I am happy that it took me less than a month to complete it and get it off my task list.

I am now using the stylish iNove theme, created by mg12. I like its simplicity, cleanses and how it brings the content to the front. I also find the RSS button implementation very cool (hover over the button to see it). Hopefully it will get more people to subscribe to this blog and consume my thoughts regularly via RSS readers or email.

I kept only the essential widgets on the site in order to shorten page load time:

• Twitter badge shows the number of followers I have on twitter (if you are not one of them, now it is a good time to do it) and the latest twits.
• MyBlogLog gives me information about the community who reads this blog
• Disqus powers the comments and integrates very well with this theme and Wordpress
• Outbrain lets you rate my posts and provide feedback that helps me improve my writing over time
• And of course, all external hyperlinks are enhanced using the product we have created at Snap – SnapShots
• For analytics I use both SiteMeter and Google Analytics.

The last credit goes to Alex Sirota, founder of FoxyTunes, who took my portrait picture that is displayed at the top right corner.

I hope you will like like the new design as much as I do.

Screen capture is a utility that I use daily. Ever since I switched from a PC to a Mac I was looking for one that has the same features as SnagIt, which is the best screen capture utility for a PC.

I tried many screen capture utilities for Mac OS. None of them support all four requirements which I consider to be a must:

• Capture multiple region types: selection (most important), full screen & window while providing a clear preview of the captured area
• Save in different file formats including PNG
• Capture video
• Fast and easy to use image editor, built into the screen capturing utility (no need to copy image to another application), that allows me to add basic elements like arrows, boxes and text to the captured image. I use this often to do quick and dirty mockups, report bugs and just take visual memos of stuff I see on the web

What I have found is that most utilities for the Mac support the first 2 requirements, a few also support the 3rd (Video) but very few support the last one (image editor) which is what I find to be the killer feature of a good capturing utility.

Until I discovered Jing, a freeware that has it all and more (like a one click upload of the captured image to Flickr).

BTW, it was created by TechSmith, the same company behind SnagIt — these folks clearly understand screen capturing.

You can download it for free here.

P.S.

PC users – You are not forgotten. Jing has a Windows version as well.

Yossi Vardi chat with Kara Swisher at Le Web 08 on his new initiative – internet for the dead. Inspired by Gil Rimon.

Big buzz today around the revamped Flickr mobile site (see TC, RWW, Mashable), their “universal access point for all device types.”, but a simple test that I did on my iPhone shows that the folks at Sunnyvale have missed one important and frustrating issue that mobile users experience daily when accessing Flickr urls.

This is not the first time I write about the fact that a direct link to an image does not load in its mobile version. The solution is so simple, that I am amazed no one at Flickr caught this while building the new version. All they have to do is detect the UserAgent and in the case it is of a mobile browser, change “www.flickr.com” to “m.flickr.com”. A simple manual test proves it is working.

So from now and until it gets fixed by the Flickr folks, you can use this manual hack and edit the url in safari’s address bar whenever you get a link (via email or twitter) to a Flickr image.

flickr-on-iphone-manual-hack