noisylime

I didn’t know what exactly to call them, but I’ve seen these shapes appear in many places across the design world. I’m calling them “teardrop foliage.” I think they are cool shapes, and they are relatively simple shapes, so they are very versatile and can be used in many different ways. I spent some time putting together a free set of Illustrator brushes to help you create these shapes quickly and easily in Illustrator. If you don’t use illustrator, I have EPS and SVG source files for you to download. Enjoy the brushes!

[via bittbox]

Even with consolidation going on left and right, the galaxy of sites that make up what we call "web 2.0" is expanding at a frantic rate (or perhaps that elusive goal of being snapped up by a bigger fish is helping to drive it). So how do you keep up with this ever growing array of web 2.0 sites? That is, other than reading Read/WriteWeb. The answer: via the ever growing array of web 2.0 lists.

[via del.icio.us/popular]

Firefox plugin PicLens from Cooliris provides full screen immersive picture browsing of Flickr and other web sites that support Media RSS.

To use PicLens, a user clicks a small translucent icon that appears atop the image of interest once the plugin is installed. The PicLens slideshow interface appears and the user can move from one photo to the next or press play and enjoy the show. A user can intuitively browse images within search results, photo albums, and Media RSS enabled websites.

Support is currently provided for Flickr, Facebook, Friendster, Picasa Web Album and image search results from Google and Yahoo. Site owners can add support to any site with photos by including Media RSS support.

The best way to describe PicLens is that it’s a like the slideshow feature in Picasa or a similar photo viewing tool, but applied to web pages. The full screen rendering does require a decent internet speed when displaying large photographs, but visually the results are stunning. This Firefox plugin is going to find a lot of fans very, very quickly.

(thanks to Ouriel Ohayon for the tip)

[via TechCrunch]

Web-developers can create amazing web-applications with AJAX. Stikkit, Netvibes, GMail and dozens of further web-projects offer a new level of interactivity we’ve used to give up the idea of. Modern web-applications can be designed with enhanced user interfaces and functionalities, which used to be the privelege of professional desktop-applications. AJAX makes it possible to create more interactive, more responsive and more flexible web-solutions. And it’s the first step towards rich internet applications of the future.

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Freerange Stock has announced a major new initiative - revenue sharing through Google Adsense for contributing photographers. Photographers can now make money giving away their photos. Freerange is a free stock photo agency that is supported through sitewide Google Adsense ads. Now, contributing photographers can keep 80% of all the ad revenue generated by their submissions.

[via The Photoshop Blog]

Please design and build me a house. I am not quite sure of what I need, so you should use your discretion. My house should have somewhere between two and forty-five bedrooms. Just make sure the plans are such that the bedrooms can be easily added or deleted. When you bring the blueprints to me, I will make the final decision of what I want. Also, bring me the cost breakdown for each configuration so that I can arbitrarily pick one.

Keep in mind that the house I ultimately choose must cost less than the one I am currently living in. Make sure, however, that you correct all the deficiencies that exist in my current house (the floor of my kitchen vibrates when I walk across it, and the walls don’t have nearly enough insulation in them).

As you design, also keep in mind that I want to keep yearly maintenance costs as low as possible. This should mean the incorporation of extra-cost features like aluminum, vinyl, or composite siding. (If you choose not to specify aluminum, be prepared to explain your decision in detail.)
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Photos are everywhere on the web. From sharing with friends, to editing, printing, buying, selling, searching, remixing and free hosting, we’ve lined up a plethora of resources for photo fiends.

[via del.icio.us/popular]

Google is in acquisition discussions with telephone management startup GrandCentral, we’ve learned, and we have a high degree of confidence that the deal has actually been closed. We are trying to nail down the acquisition price.

The basic idea around GrandCentral is “one phone number for all your phones, for life.” As we change jobs, homes and cell phones, there are a lot of phone numbers to keep track of, and keeping everyone up to date with your most recent phone numbers is a real cost. If you use GrandCentral you can give out a single phone number. What happens when that person calls that number depends on his/her relationship to you, and what you are doing at the time.

The company, which has raised less than $6 million in capital from Minor Ventures (the exact amount has never been disclosed), beta launched just last September. Earlier this year mainstream press and blogger attention heated up.

The company may have received too much press attention before the product was ready, and we reported on some backlash from beta users abandoning the service in March. Still, the company pushed ahead, launching a mobile product and other features.

GrandCentral was recently pitching a second round of financing to Silicon Valley venture capitalists, but broke off discussions abruptly as the Google talks heated up.

I’m speculating on where Google will use GrandCentral, but the synergies with Gmail and GTalk are fairly obvious and could be the next step in Google’s competition with Skype and other instant messaging platforms.

Google won’t comment on this story. I have an email in to GrandCentral to see if they’ll confirm.

[via TechCrunch]

SlickSpeed is a CSS selector test suite provided by the MooTools folk.

This tool comes at the same time as they release CSS3 support in Mootools, and it compares Prototype, jQuery, MooTools, Ext, and CSS Query.

Every framework runs in his own iFrame, thus no conflicts can happen. Tests are run selector by selector, with an interval to prevent the browser from freeezing.

Tests are run in a neutral environment, no library or framework is included in the main javascript test, to avoid favoritism.

[via Ajaxian]

Harald Kirschner has released FancyUpload:

Swf meets Ajax for beautiful uploads. The release of the long awaited MooTools upload widget thats allows queued multiple-file upload including progress bars.

It features:

• Select and upload multiple files
• Filter files by type in the select dialog
• Optional Events to add your own behaviour
• Show and filter useful file information before the upload starts
• Limit uploads by file count and/or file size
• Platform and server independent, just needs Flash 8+ (> 95% penetration)
• Unobtrusive, since the element is replaced after the swf loaded successfully
• Cancel running uploads, add files during upload
• Everything is optional, documented and easy editable

You can try it out, along with Harald's AutoCompleter and History Manager.

[via Ajaxian]