Tag Archives: Top Stories

Rundes
diciembre 22, 2009

Firefox 4.0: New Design Changes Revealed [IMAGES]Mashable!

The release of Firefox 4.0 may still be nearly a year away, but the excitement for the new version is already growing. In July, we revealed the first images of Firefox 4.0. Now one of the designers behind the browser has shared on his blog updated mock-ups of the new design.

While a lot of the original concepts from the July images are still intact (e.g. a combo stop/refresh/go button, color changes based on your actions), there are some new details revealed by designer and Mozilla contributor Stephen Horlander.

Here are the new mock-ups of Firefox 4.0, along with an explanation of what’s new in this iteration:

The New Design Changes

As we’ve previously noted, the Menu Bar has changed from version 3.5 to 4.0. The biggest change was that the stop, refresh and go buttons have been combined into one color-changing button. But in these new mock-ups, there is a new button: the App Button.


According to Stephen, the app button works a lot like the Windows 7 and Office 2010 menu button, which condenses a lot of those options into a single location. Instead of having File, Edit and all of those options take up space at the time, there would only be a single “Firefox” button at the top of the browser.

The look of this button, though, is still up for debate. In fact, there are multiple proposals for how it should look. See for yourself:


While the App Button may be the biggest change, it’s not the only one: the toolbar button is getting touched up to be more visible on multiple backgrounds, and the location bar is now recessed (rather than floating). Finally, the bookmarks toolbar is getting some new functionality — if it hasn’t been modified by the user, it will not appear by default.

Here are some more images for you to gawk at. Let us know what you think of the new changes in the comments:

Firefox 4.0: Even More Images

Firefox 4.0 with bookmarks toolbar:


Firefox 4.0 with tabs under the navigation bar:


Firefox 4.0 with bookmark bar between tabs and navigation bar:


Comparison of Firefox 4.0 and Firefox 3.5


[via Chromatic Pixel]

Reviews: Firefox

Tags: Firefox, Firefox 4.0, mozilla

Ben Parr
noviembre 10, 2009

GO: Google Launches Its Own Programming Language

One of the core philosophies of Google, and one of the reasons it has been so successful, is efficiency. It’s about both being as efficient as possible when serving search results and processing data and creating product that push the limits of efficiency for the user (as an example, Google’s trying to make communication more efficient with Google Wave).

Maybe that’s why we’re not surprised that Google is finally looking to tackle the underpinning code that runs the web. Today the search giant released Go, an open-source development language that Google believes will combine performance with speed, and one that the company probably hopes will reshape the development and software industries in its favor.

Go is based on the C programming family, one of the most widely used programming language trees in the world. However, the twist is that incorporates elements of Python (a preferred development language within Google) and the Pascal/Modula/Oberon family to make faster and more dynamic programs.

Why Did Google Make Its Own Language?

In its Go FAQ, Google explains the main motivations behind the project:

“No major systems language has emerged in over a decade, but over that time the computing landscape has changed tremendously. There are several trends:

- Computers are enormously quicker but software development is not faster.

- Dependency management is a big part of software development today but the “header files” of languages in the C tradition are antithetical to clean dependency analysis—and fast compilation.

- There is a growing rebellion against cumbersome type systems like those of Java and C++, pushing people towards dynamically typed languages such as Python and JavaScript.

- Some fundamental concepts such as garbage collection and parallel computation are not well supported by popular systems languages.

- The emergence of multicore computers has generated worry and confusion.”

Summary: Google believes that the web and computing have changed dramatically in the last ten years, but the languages powering that computing have not. But when you get down to it, Google could benefit a great deal from not only having a more efficient programming language, but having one it designed being used in thousands web and software apps.

If you want to learn more, Google (as usual) has released a detailed, hour-long Google Tech Talk on the new language (embedded below). However, if you’re a developer and just want to get started, we suggest checking out the Go Tutorial and writing your first program.

Ben Parr
noviembre 6, 2009

WOW: Facebook Adding Half a Million New Users Every Day

It’s no secret that Facebook is humongous: 300 million users humongous. Yet it still shocks us that it keeps on finding new users to fuel its ascent into the social media stratosphere.

A little over a year ago (August 2008), Facebook reached 100 million users. And now according to AllFacebook, that number is now a staggering 325+ million users.

So just how fast is Facebook’s userbase growing? We sat down and did the math. First, here are Facebook’s major growth milestones, starting from when it reached 100 million users:

- August 26th, 2008: 100 million users

- January 7th, 2009: 150 million users

- April 8th, 2009: 200 million users

- July 15th, 2009: 250 million users

- September 15th, 2009: 300 million users

- Friday, November 6th, 2009: 325 million users

Half a Million New Users. Every Single Day.

So let’s do the math. From September 15th to November 6th, Facebook grew by 25 million users. That’s 53 days, if we include the start and end days. Divide that by 25 million and you get a daily growth rate of 471,698 users per day for Facebook. That’s a small city joining Facebook every single day.

Even more shocking is that the number used to be higher. Between July 15th and September 15th, 63 days, Facebook grew by 50 million users. If we do the math, Facebook was growing at a clip of 793,650 users per day. We’re barely able to come up with the words to describe this type of growth.

The Facebook train has to eventually slow down; there are only so many people on planet Earth with an Internet connection (yes, that’s how big their potential audience is), and it seems to be already slowing. However, if you consider half a million users per day “slowing,” then you know you’ve done something right.

This train’s going towards the sky for a good, long time.

Reviews: Facebook

Tags: facebook, trending

Ben Parr
noviembre 6, 2009

LinkedIn Is Getting a Redesign [Pics]

Business social network LinkedIn, fresh off its milestone of 50+ million users, is now getting a makeover, and it definitely changes the way you use the social media website.

In a detailed blog post, the company announced that it has begun a limited test of its new design. It features a newer, longer top-level navigation bar, the removal of the dreaded left-hand navigation bar, and a cleaner overall look.

Screenshots

The best way to describe the new layout though is to place the old design and the new one side-by-side. First, here is the homepage as it currently exists:


Now, here is the new design for the homepage, courtesy of LinkedIn:


You’ll notice immediately that the emphasis is on the top navigation, that the main content has been pushed to the left hand side of the screen, and that each of the top menu items have a deeper web of subcategories under them (just look at the options under “Groups” as an example).

One more comparison. This is a profile page currently:


And here is the new one:


You’ll notice that content has been moved up the page (this is very important – it requires less scrolling and thus less chance of people bouncing off of the page) and a far stronger focus on the profile and its content.

The key to this entire design it seems is the removal of the left hand navigation bar, which we are fans of. It distracted users away from the important information on the page. While the design is still being tested and iterated upon, more and more users should be seeing this layout relatively soon.

Let us know what you think of it in the comments.

Reviews: LinkedIn

Tags: linkedin, trending

Rundes
octubre 1, 2009

Want a Google Wave Invite? There’s a Website for ThatMashable!

gwave-invites-betterStill hunting for a Google Wave invite? You’re not alone — and in fact, there’s a whole community springing up just to meet your needs.

Google Wave Invites is a free “marketplace” for distributing Wave invites, much like have sprung up in the past for Gmail and other popular invite-only beta web apps. If you need an invite, simply sign up with your name and email address and cross your fingers.

[UPDATE]: The site is apparently being pounded with lots of traffic now, by a raging stampede of Google Wave invite seekers. If you can’t connect at the moment, try again later!

If you have invites to give out, you sign up with the site and get a list of those still in need of access. Once you’ve distributed your invites to people, they are marked in the database as having been invited and dropped from future “needs invite” lists.

It’s a simple and effective tool for distributing a scarce resource, and is friendlier and easier (not to mention cheaper!) than resorting to scouring eBay as has happened in the past for other high-profile beta invites as well.

Have you gotten your Wave invite yet?

More Google Wave Resources from Mashable

- Google Wave: A Complete Guide

- Testing Google Wave: This Thing is Tidal

- The Top 6 Game-Changing Features of Google Wave

- Google Wave Extensions: An Inside Look

- Could Google Wave Redefine Email and Web Communication?

- Twave: Google Wave + Twitter

Reviews: Gmail, Google Wave

Tags: beta, Google, Google Wave, invites

Rundes
octubre 1, 2009

Google Launches 9 New Ways to SearchMashable!

Google continues to work to address the threat posed by the real-time search capabilities of services like Twitter and Facebook.

In May, they launched “Search Options” to allow users to refine search results by content type and time (within the past day was the timeliest you could get), but today, they’re launching a “past hour” filter to make its index even fresher.

Along with this key update, Google is rolling out 8 other search options which should be available to everyone at some point today. Those include the ability to search within a specific date range, shopping site filters, a visited pages filter, and an option to see only results from Google’s book, blog, and news search tools.

The “past hour” filter is certainly the most interesting addition, though. While Google offers other timely ways to get information – Google News and Google Trends being atop that list – the vast majority of users simply turn to its search engine.

By giving users the option to filter results from the past hour, they’ll see more current news and information as opposed to the Wikipedia entries and other high ranking content that dominate the top of many results in regular search. Earlier this week, Google also added “hot trends” to search results, a move that might portend Twitter-like trending topics being integrated throughout at some point down the road.

Google is playing catch up here – not in the sense of market share, but in the sense of making their results as timely as those found on social media sites. To see how they’re doing, we’ll need to put the “past hour” filter to the test next time there is a major current event breaking. Stay tuned.

Reviews: Google, Twitter, Wikipedia

Tags: Google