The Blogosphere got in a tizzy recently after Google decided to change its favicon (the little icon in your address bar that’s unique to each site).
To address those that demanded answers from the big G, Google has written a post about the new favicon, and explained that “the reason is that we wanted to develop a set of icons that would scale better to some new platforms like the iPhone and other mobile devices”.
Personally, I’m not a fan of the little G, and would have preferred that they stick with the big G, but apparently they’ve got some goals in mind, since they “tried in total more than 300 permutations”.
Apparently they wanted something distinctive and noticeable, as well as something that embraced the colorfulness of the logo, yet wouldn’t date itself, and considering the amount of feedback they received from people who noticed the change, I think they succeeded.
Rest assured though, if you can’t stand the new favicon, let them know, because they “really value feedback form users and want to hear your ideas”.
[Official Google Blog]
If you’ve already made the jump to Firefox 3, Beta 5, then go to your address bar and type about:robots for an Easter Egg page with a robot flavor.
(And if you haven’t made the jump, then I recommend you do so, because I love the new features, and I haven’t had a lot of trouble with it so far. If you’re still worried though, check out Lifehacker’s The Complete Field Guide to Testing Firefox 3.)
[Firefox 3, Beta 5]
[Lifehacker - The Complete Field Guide To Testing Firefox 3]
[Via: Lifehacker]
Faviconize is a favicon directory that wants to list the best favicons from around the Internet. (And with over 11,500 already, they’re well on their way.)
The favicon is an often overlooked and unfortunately under utilized tool. It’s the little icon/logo in your address bar that gives you a quick and visual differentiator between each site and the next, and it also separates out your bookmarks beyond just text.
Though it’s such a small piece of a website’s overall look and feel, it’s a large part of the functionality of a site, and especially if you want to bookmark that site and return later, which is why Faviconize celebrates each little icon as if it was a little piece of art.
You can favorite them, vote on them, and even sort them by color and rating, which means Faviconize covers just about everything you could ever want to do with a favicon. (And then some.)
[Faviconize]
Here’s a fun web trick to try, and it works with any page as long as the page contains images (try a Google Images search results page). Just copy the following Java code into the address bar of your browser, and hit enter:
javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.getElementsByTagName(”img”); DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position=’absolute’; DIS.left=(Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5)+”px”; DIS.top=(Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5)+”px”}R++}setInterval(’A()’,5); void(0);
When you’re done, just hit reload and you’re back to normal. Plus, it’s a fun game to play on those with slightly less computer savvy-ness than you.
[Via: Digg]
