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Font Tips: Creating Printing Samples

March 2, 2010 · Latest News · (No comments)

When choosing a style to use for a project, there is no replacement for a printed type specimen. Fonts just look different when you see them in print, compared to how they look on screen. So, when you need to choose fonts for a print project, it’s smart to have a type case book handy that shows exactly how all your fonts look on the page.

Smart developers have come up with several useful utilities for printing font specimen pages not only for active fonts, but also for folders full of fonts you haven’t yet installed. Some of these utilities are free, but the best ones will set you back a few bucks.

Let’s start with the Font Book utility that comes with Mac OS X. It can print useful type specimen pages in three different layouts, but only for the fonts the user installed via Font Book. If necessary, you can temporarily activate the fonts you need to print by choosing File> Add Fonts, then deactivate them after you’ve created your font specimen pages.

For more details refer to the site:http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/189960/font_tips_printing_type_samples.html

Found Photoshop Contest: The Future of Grow-a-Frog

May 29, 2009 · Latest News · (No comments)

For six years, Wired magazine’s Found page has shown our best guess at what lies over the horizon, from touchscreen windshields to organ farming. Now, we’re inviting readers to help create Found pages: What do you think our world will look like in 10, 20 or 100 years?

Each month, we’ll propose a scenario, and present some initial ideas and concepts. Then it’s up you: Sketch out your vision, and upload your ideas (below). We’ll use the best suggestions as inspiration for a future Found page, giving kudos to contributors. We’ll add our favorite submission to this story.

This week’s assignment: Imagine the Grow-a-Frog of the future. Remember the kit that let you grow a wee tadpole into a mighty frog? It came with everything you needed — mini-aquarium, food and a mail-in coupon for one baby African clawed frog. The company’s tadpoles were first sent out in 1979 and they’re still arriving on the doorsteps of young science geeks across America (although the frogs are now banned as invasive species in at least 11 states). Surely the kids of tomorrow will be growing a lot more than frogs. In the future, what sorts of lab-bred life forms will come in a box?

You can write your ideas, but we’re keen on getting visual entries. These CC-licensed photos on Flickr may fire your imagination, and give you some fodder for remixing your own predictions:

Grow-a-Frog box
Aquarium
Sea-Monkeys Ad
Bird cage
Dinosaur egg
Dinosaur-like lizard
Dodo
Honey bee
Polar bear
Red Slender Loris

Use the Reddit widget below to submit your best idea and vote for your favorite. The image must be your own — submitting it gives us permission to use it on Wired.com and in Wired magazine. Please submit relatively large images (ideal size is 800 to 1,200 pixels, or larger on the longest side). Include a description of your idea and how you made it.

We don’t host the images, so upload it somewhere else and submit a link to it. If you’re using Flickr, Picasa or another photo-sharing site to host your image, provide a link to the image, not to the photo page where it’s displayed. If your photo doesn’t show up, it’s because the URL you have entered is incorrect. Make sure it ends with the image file name (xxxxxxx.jpg).

Check this page over the next few weeks to vote on new submissions, and look for an update announcing our favorite.

Vote on Found ideas submitted by other readers.

Prepare to ride the Google Waves

May 29, 2009 · Latest News · (No comments)

At the same day Microsoft revealed the name of the new search engine Bing, its biggest competitor decided to tell the world they are taking online communication to the next level.

It was as if Google knew exactly what Microsoft was doing when they planned the time and date to announce Google Wave. We probably are article 10.000 about the subject in the last 24 hours, but we would like to give you a short update on what Wave is and when we can expect this new way of communication.

So what is Google Wave? Wave is a ‘real time communication platform’. Now there are many of those, but none like Wave. Instant messaging or Twitter for example are real time communication platforms and so are social networking, wikis and projectmanagement tools. Google Wave combines them all.

With Wave people can work together on all sorts of content. Documents, photos, text, maps and more can be shared and combined real time. It’s also “live”. When you are typing when “on a wave” other participants can not only see what you are typing, but can actually join in. Because this is a ‘hosted’ conversation participants can enter text within the original e-mail. This way you can e-mail to each other at the same time. Kind of like chatting within your e-mail. According to Google this will speed up the conversation. A nice feature in this is “playback” with which you can see what everyone was typing in the correct order.

Google Wave has got so many features combined it’s hard to exactly describe what it can do. The best way to find out is look at this video below. At Searchengineland Danny Sullivan stated while live blogging Wave felt like “Lotus Notes 800.0″. And anyone who has used Lotus Notus will understand what he’s talking about.

Google Wave will be open for developers in the next couple of month. The API will be open for every developer. What you can do with the API is explained by Google on the Google Wave blog:

_{“The Google Wave APIs come in two flavors: Embed and Extensions. With Embed, you’re able to bring waves into your own site through a simple JavaScript API. For example, embedding a wave in a webpage is a good way to encourage a discussion among the visitors. With Extensions, you’re able to write programs, which are packaged as Robots or Gadgets, that provide rich functionality inside the Google Wave web client.”}

This will lead to a lot of new applications, with the first ones already made: Twave, Google Wave and Twitter combined. Basically its nothing more than your Twitter feed integrated in Wave. However, you can do a little bit more: you can manage them just as if it was a mailbox: archiving, replies and more. Very nice. Other extensions are for example Debuggy, Bloggy (Wave content pushed to a blog), Bidder (for use on eBay) and Ratings.

So, when will we all be using Google Wave? Not for a while I’m afraid. First its up to the developers to play around with Wave. After that it’s up for the big crowds in September. Probably US will be up first, so we might be lucky to see a Wave coming by in the last Quarter of this year. And looking at all the respons Wave is getting online that’s too bad because it promises to be big…

blogs.zdnet.com – Bing vs. Bing Pitching To Be Its Pitchman?

May 29, 2009 · Latest News · (No comments)

You had to expect it.

The personage who writes the Bing blog and column for Fortune is “moderately outraged” by Microsoft’s use of his pen name as the name of its latest search engine.

Gil Schwartz, the executive vice president and chief communications officer of CBS Corporation (which owns ZDNet), writes screeds about inanities about life at the top of American corporations. He does so under the pen name Stanley Bing. His latest book? “Executricks,” about enjoying the perks of executive live, while working only as much as absolutely essential.

So it might not be a good fit to use Stanley as a spokesman for Bing in Microsoft’s upcoming $100 million on behalf of a search engine that it hopes will set a new standard in tireless and effective pinpointing, retrieval and presentation of information.

But, hey, do you really expect this latest Microsoft campaign to show as much wit or creativity as the ongoing Mac vs. PC campaign from Apple?

Here’s a quick summary of plans from the Wall Street Journal, which hosts the All Things D: conference where Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer showed off Bing yesterday:

Microsoft’s ads for Bing are expected to take a swipe at Google without mentioning its rival by name, a continuation of Microsoft’s aggressive marketing tactics, according to people familiar with them. Its recent “Laptop Hunter” ad campaign dings Apple Inc.’s Macintosh computers as too expensive.

The premise of Bing’s ad push will be to highlight search overload. One of the humorous TV spots shows a woman asking her friend a question but her pal is unable to answer and begins to babble uncontrollably — a symptom of being exposed to too many search results, according to a person familiar with the matter.

In conjunction with the 30- and 60-second ads, the campaign will offer a heavy dose of nontraditional marketing, including a special campaign on video site Hulu.com, which will include a phone-a-thon for a fictitious illness caused by too many irrelevant search results, according to people familiar with the matter. The ad campaign was created by JWT, a unit of WPP Group PLC.

As suggested by one commenter on Bing’s blog, Microsoft might be snarky enough to give Stanley a cameo in this “onslaught of commercials.” You know, something like Bing versus the Cool Apple guy.

Only Google is the relevant competitor. And it doesn’t have a cool or uncool guy of any sort doing any commercials anywhere for its engine.

So maybe Microsoft should follow up what Stanley calls its “incredible act of branding sagacity” and perform an incredible act of marketing sagacity.

Put the $100 million back into raising Bing to a level where it is an order of magnitude better than Google’s engine.

Then people will switch. And Bing the Author (and his friends) can comment on how “massively well-optimized” Bing the Search Engine is, for further fun.

IMAGE SOURCE: Bing Blog

New Microsoft Bing Search Engine Ads On Google

May 29, 2009 · Latest News · (No comments)

Maybe it works, but seeing ads on Google for Microsoft’s new Bing search engine just doesn’t seem to send quite the right message. Plus, the ads link to a nearly blank landing page, since Bing hasn’t launched yet.

Microsoft is rumored to be spending up to $100 million to advertise the Bing launch. I wonder how much of that Google will end up getting…

There are also ads pointing to a Ning site called BingHub. I can’t imagine why whoever created it is spending cold hard cash to promote that, either.

Thanks for the tip, Gur.

Update: Bing ads on Yahoo, too:

Website:	microsoft.com
Location:	Redmond, Washington, United States
Founded:	April 4, 1974
IPO:	March 13, 1986

Microsoft is a multinational computer technology corporation. They are a veteran software company, best known for their Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software, but they have also ventured into… Learn More

Company:	Microsoft
Website:	bing.com

Bing is a search engine from Microsoft officially announced on May 28, 2009. Learn More

Microsoft challenges Google with Bing search engine

May 29, 2009 · Latest News · (No comments)

Microsoft Corp. introduced a search engine with enhanced shopping, travel and sorting features, an effort to show that Google Inc. can’t do everything.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled the service, called Bing, at a technology conference Thursday in Carlsbad, Calif. The program will be available over the next several days, accompanied by the company’s first broad advertising campaign promoting a search engine.

Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, has an eighth of Google’s U.S. market share in Internet searches, forcing it to find specific niches to exploit. The company is seeking areas where Google doesn’t deliver exactly what users want, said Mike Nichols, Microsoft’s general manager for search products.

“We don’t have any illusion that people will wholesale change their behavior in a massive way,” Nichols said.

A shopping feature, for instance, lets users find product thumbnail photos and reviews. By clicking on one of the listings, users can view a table with pricing and shipping information from various sellers. A bar on the left side summarizes the main features mentioned in reviews and how well they scored.

Searching for a flight route — say, Seattle to New York’s JFK airport — will return predictions on whether fares will rise. The software will list the best deal and let customers book travel and hotels. That feature relies on software from Microsoft’s 2008 acquisition of Farecast Inc.

When customers search on a term, Bing gives them a “best match” on the top of the screen. Searching for a company like United Parcel Service Inc. would list the shipping company’s customer-service number and provide a box where users can enter a tracking number to locate their package.

Google welcomes the new competition, said spokesman Gabriel Stricker. “Having great competitors is a huge benefit to us and everyone in the search space,” he said. “It makes us all work harder, and at the end of the day, our users benefit from that.”

Microsoft has lost market share since its first home-grown search engine debuted in 2004. Before that, it offered a program from Yahoo. Bing is the third brand the company has used for its search software.

Bing – Microsofts new search engine

May 29, 2009 · Latest News · (No comments)

Microsoft’s been telling us how new and exciting the new Live Search, aka Kumo, aka Bing will be. Seems like we’ve been waiting ages to catch more than just a glimpse.

In today’s IT Blogwatch, bloggers watch the long-awaited Ballmer demo, and tell us what they think. Not to mention the cutout of delight…

Julie Bort decided on this summary:

Steve Ballmer demonstrated Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, today. … Bing offers several new features intended to help people perform faster, better searches with less poking around.
…

A set of navigation and search tools called an Explore Pane which includes a feature called Web Groups. …

Related Searches and Quick Tabs features that provide a sort of table of contents. …

Quick Preview offers a preview of search results during a mouseover so people can decide if they want to … click on a link.

Erick Schonfeld adds:

Today, Microsoft publicly unveiled its soon-to-launch search engine Bing. It will become available over the next few days, and be fully launched by June 3. On the surface, Bing has a distinct gloss. The home page features a rotation of stunning photography, for instance, which can be clicked on to produce related image search results. But the most significant changes are under the covers.
…
Information overload is becoming a real problem … Bing tries to alleviate the problem by offering up different experiences depending on the search. It also acts more like a destination site for certain searches. Travel and product searches bring in comparison pricing, reviews, images, and more. Hulu videos can be played within the video search results. Bing pulls in data from other Web services when it can so that you often don’t have to leave to get the information you want..

But Gavin Clarke brings on the snark:

Microsoft can’t let the simple utility or innovation in its software speak for itself … With its supposed search-engine challenger to Google, Microsoft is once again trying to make us lose touch with reality … by adopting that old trick of redefining the market and thereby defining the competition out of that market. Bing is, therefore, not a search engine, it’s a “decision engine”.
…
What we’re looking at is another Microsoft product that’s taken ideas from different product groups and teams working on features, and ladled them into one to bombard the average user with features that are well beyond the scope of how people actually use search.
…
I can’t wait – really, I can’t. I must stay up all night just to be the first to Bing myself.

Microsoft’s Don Dodge toes the line:

It is designed to help make better decisions in four key areas; making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition, or finding a local business.
…
Last week I wrote about some of the Microsoft search improvements of the last 6 to 12 months and found it to be as good as Google, and in some cases better. With the launch of Bing next week I think the public will take another look at Microsoft’s search technology and come away impressed.

Greg Sterling answers the #1 FAQ:

No, Bing is not a “Google Killer.” It’s also safe to say that Microsoft doesn’t see it that way either. My understanding of what Microsoft believes it has in Bing is a much more competitive product than Live Search. I entirely agree.
…
Microsoft has told me that the company sees Bing as a start (or restart) and that improvements will continue to roll out over time. One can be skeptical of that position or not. Regardless, Bing is a big advancement for Microsoft. … There are range of features that I like quite a bit; among them the “table of contents” that often appears in the upper left column … and the easily accessible search history, which will likely be further developed in interesting ways.

Josh Bernoff wonders what it would take to overthrow Google:

We all used to use Yahoo or AltaVista until we switched to Google. We stayed with Google because it was better.
…
For this to make the slightest dent, here’s what has to happen. First, the search has to be better. Second, the search has to be qualitatively different. Not just better search, but “holy cow this is different.” Like it was when you first tried an iPhone, or first saw TiVo. … Third, it has to integrate with everything else, better than Google does.