The New Ipod Nano - just so so?

Perhaps it seems that Apple is running out of creative juice? The newly released Nano-Chromatic boasts of having practically all the colors of the rainbow. It's slim and curved which Jobs claim that would make the display look sleeker. The new iPod Nano promises to be fun and gear towards the younger generation what with all those colors to choose from. From what I've seen, I was actually tempted to buy the green one or the blue one.

The new iPod Nano may look nifty and I do admit that the shake feature of the new Nano that shuffles the playlist but I don't think I'd be purchasing one just yet. Sure the prices are cut down from the usual but I don't think it's worth it. You get practically the same performance and the same features. Apple just pretty-fied it. I probably would buy it once I totally get tired of my Nano or just for the sheer sake of vanity and matching my Nano with my clothes but aside from that I wouldn't give it a second glance.

What is up with Apple and their baby steps to improvement? iPhone 3G leaves much to be desired and now Nano Chromatic lacks a little in the performance department. Maybe we all should wait a little more for some real groundbreaking changes in their products.

Large Hadron Collider: What the?

The project has actually been ongoing for quite some time now and it's only these past few days that it's given the spotlight.

Though the Large Hadron Collider is far from what you'd call a gadget, for purposes of discussion (and because I want to join in on the bandwagon) I'm going to post a little something about the LHC. Oh and because HowStuffWorks already posted "Will the LHC Destroy the World" which I greatly enjoyed reading, I'll be looking at another topic.

Remember the Y2K bug? The threat of the Y2K bug was plausible. The threat was so real, people can taste it and then what did the people to do? Well, the skeptics made money out of it of course! Customized Y2k shirts came flying around the market as well as mugs and other merchandise.

The thing with the Large Hadron Collider is that even the scientists aren't sure of what might happen. And the description of the possible offset of the LHC proves something to be alarmed about. We won't be seeing just a small smoke here. We're talking about a black hole disrupting the balance of the Universe and possibly ending existential life. That is of course, blowing things completely out of proportion since the chances of that happening is close to nil. Strangelets, those little things they say would eat up the Earth is still largely hypothetical.

The doomsayers are funny though. They're wasting no time in spreading the scare in an effort to get something out of this. Meh. But it's amusing to see what the hype is doing to everyone's humor. It wasn't just once that I read "Large Hardon Collider" the motivational posters are all over the net.

But ultimately, what does the success of LHC mean to us? It means knowledge advancement. It's uncovering something we don't know and it's overthrowing the things we do know to make way for the truth. That's really all there is to think about it.

Web Design Disaster

If there are award-winning web design endeavors, there is also a list of miserable failures. Actually, there's probably more information on the world's worst web design than the world's best ones. We can't exactly blame these web designers though. Creating designs in an extremely volatile channel like the internet is no easy feat. The genius you came up with today may be outdated tomorrow. If you think you did something cool today, there's a chance that someone will be introducing a new concept everyone would be jumping on and you'd be left with a design that nobody would buy.

So right now, as we speak, what makes a Web Design Disaster?

Let's take for example havenworks. Who hasn't mentioned havenworks when talking about web design disasters? Anyway what makes havenworks a disaster? At first glance you'd understand why it is such. I also find it funny that because of all the bad rep havenworks is getting, it has now risen to Google PR 5.

Havenworks website

The basics of the basics: Readability.

Visitors should be able to read what you have put up in there. If they click your link and could not understand half of what you're saying, they won't waste their time trying to decode you. Apart from the incredibly small column with squeezed in text, the blue links surrounding the content hurts the eyes and stunts the comprehension.

If you fail in Readability, you must be extremely lucky to get visitors to come back. Or you must have something really important and relevant to their interests.

I came across some basic guidelines on web design that may prove useful to some of you.

1. Thou shalt not abuse Flash.

Adobe's (ADBE) popular Web animation technology powers everything from the much-vaunted Nike (NKE) Plus Web site for running diehards to many humdrum banner advertisements. But the technology can easily be abused—excessive, extemporaneous animations confuse usability and bog down users' Web browsers.

2. Thou shalt not hide content.

Advertisements may be necessary for a site's continued existence, but usability researchers say pop-ups and full-page ads that obscure content hurt functionality—and test a reader's willingness to revisit. Elective banners—that expand or play audio when a user clicks on them—are much less intrusive.

3. Thou shalt not clutter.

The Web may be the greatest archive of all time, but sites that lack a coherent structure make it impossible to wade through information. Amazon.com (AMZN) and others put their sites' information hierarchy at the top of their list of design priorities.

... Read the rest here: Business Week