In a statement sent via e-mail Thursday, Microsoft confirmed it removed the ad—one in a series to promote IE8—based on viewer feedback, and meant no harm in it.
“We make a point of listening to our customers,” according to Microsoft. “We created the OMGIGP video as a tongue-in-cheek look at the InPrivate Browsing feature of Internet Explorer 8, using the same irreverent humor that our customers told us they liked about other components of the Internet Explorer 8 marketing campaign. While much of the feedback to this particular piece of creative was positive, some of our customers found it offensive, so we have removed it.”
Category: Design
New CSS in Place
I’ve revamped the CSS here on ForkBombr. If you read my content via RSS and never visit, come drop by and take a look.
Gone is the dark background, the type is all a little smaller and the logo now lives in the sidebar. A few other loose ends have been tied up.
If you’re using Internet Explorer 6—and I know 16% of you are—you may have some issues with the new layout. But really, it’s time to move on. Find Windows Update in your Start menu and run it. There are lots of updates just waiting for you and your computer.
Shopping Cart to Go-Kart
Why waste a perfectly good used shopping cart when it can be recycled into something fun? Seeking to definitively answer that question is a twenty-year-old MIT student named Charles Guan who normally spends his free time building competition-spec battle robots. Our favorite of Guan’s projects would have to be the LOLrioKart, obviously a play on the classic Mario Kart series of games from Nintendo.
First assembled using an old NiCad battery pack that was quickly nearing the end of its life, the LOLrioKart is well into its second generation using some leftover lithium nanophosphate cells from A123 that the company had donated to the University. This latest 33 Ah battery pack sends its 48 volts to a Briggs and Stratton ETEK DC pancake electric motor, which operates through a DIY rear differential and to the tiny little tires out back.
Another Charming IE 8 Advertisement
@mynameispj (my co-editor from back in the high school newspaper days) sent me this on Twitter after reading my take on the Internet Explorer/Nickelback thing:
Seriously. I’m reposting this because it’s beyond absurd. Really, Microsoft? Really?
He was talking about this link, on CNET. The headline reads: “Microsoft resorts to vomit to market IE 8.”
I wish it didn’t but it does. The article contains this ad:
Yes, you did just see what you think you saw.
Birdfeed: A New Way to Nourish Twitter
Birdfeed - a new twitter application by Buzz Anderson (of PodWorks and more) and designed by Neven Mrgan - is now in the App Store for $4.99.
Five bucks is high for a Twitter client, but Birdfeed is simply gorgeous. It fits nicely between Tweetie’s simple layout and Twitterrific’s design-heavy approach.
As a 1.0 release, Birdfeed doesn’t have all the features that other (and older) Twitter clients offer, but the app does offer some features that others don’t, such as a local cache (for offline reading), timestamps in the feed to show you when you left off, and the ability to load more tweets once you hit the bottom of the screen. The developers are saying more features are on the way, but they adhere to the “Real Artists Ship” theory crafted by Steve Jobs when working on the original Macintosh.
‘Perfect Timing’
Palm’s new ad for the Pre is gutsy. But I suppose it has to be.
Using .Mac HomePage One Last Time
From Apple:
Dear MobileMe member:
As a final reminder, on July 7, 2009, the .Mac HomePage web application will be discontinued. As of this date, you will no longer be able to create new pages or edit existing pages using HomePage. Any pages you’ve already published will remain live at their current web address for as long as you like. If you need to make changes to your existing pages, please do so before July 7.
HP Classic Calculators on iPhone
I Never Tire of These
The boys over at Rapid Repair have already gutted an iPhone 3G S. It’s built pretty much like the 3G, but this is interesting:
This phone is capable of 833MHz and 720p video.
Right now, Apple has it clocked at 600Mhz. No doubt running the processor at 833Mhz would eat through the battery, but it’s interesting that the hardware is capable of it. My guess is that at 600Mhz, the processor can’t render 720p video in reasonable time.
‘Filling the Gaps’
Time has posted a piece about a service I never knew existed:
Presto and Celery, which both launched in 2006, deliver e-mail printouts almost in real-time because they require subscribers to purchase hardware to handle incoming messages. (In addition to personal updates and interesting articles, caregivers can send reminders about doctors’ appointments or family functions.) Celery charges $13.98 a month to send and receive (color printouts of) e-mails — as well as Facebook and Twitter updates — via a fax machine, which costs $119 if you don’t already own one.
My Eyes are Bleeding
Gizmodo has posted 94 ideas for iPhone apps - designed in Microsoft’s Paint application.
iPhone 3G S Rocking at 600Mhz
…the iPhone 3G S sports 256MB of RAM — up from 128 in the original iPhone and iPhone 3G — as well as a faster processor running at 600MHz, compared to 412MHz in the first two iterations of the device. The second-generation iPod touch also sports a faster processor than that found in the first two generations of iPhone, running at 532MHz.
Sweet.