Rather than have a daily image served to you like Bing does, Google lets you select an image from your own computer, your Picasa album, Picasa featured images and images recommended by Google. Google recommend that your background Images must be at least 800 x 600 pixels and in one of the following formats: .jpeg, .tif, .tiff, .bmp, .gif, .psd (Photoshop), .png, .tga, and selected RAW formats.

This new feature is independent of iGoogle. Checkout Google’s official blog post here for more details

]]> http://nikhilvishnu.com/2010/06/04/add-background-image-to-google%e2%80%99s-home-page/feed/ 3 http://nikhilvishnu.com/2009/12/27/mozilla-firefox-4-home-tab-design-challenge/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://nikhilvishnu.com/2009/12/27/mozilla-firefox-4-home-tab-design-challenge/#comments Sun, 27 Dec 2009 10:55:35 +0000 Nikhil Vishnu http://nikhilvishnu.com/?p=165

Mozilla declared a Design Challenge for Firefox 4 ‘Home Tab’. UI changes in the Firefox 4 had been revealed earlier this week. The challenge is based on a UI change. In Firefox 4 the ‘Home Page’ in the older Firefox will be replaced with a ‘Home Tab’ which is residing in the browser itself. The page can access browser — history, add-ons, bookmarks etc.. since it is not leaving the browser.
Mozilla is expecting designs like  My Yahoo, iGoogle etc… it is an explicit non-goal of this challenge.

How to participate

If you want to participate in this challenge, just answer the question “The Home Tab – What are some interesting uses of a Firefox-hosted start page?” in video form. Mozilla expecting some creative solutions for this question. You can explain your ideas using mockups. A couple of templates are given in the Mozilla site itself. For more details check out the official site here.

Important Dates

• December 2009 – Launch of The Home Tab – Winter ‘09 Design Challenge
• February 14th, 2010 – Submission Deadline
• February 15th, 2010 – People’s Choice Voting starts
• March 1st, 2010 – People’s Choice Voting ends
• March 15th, 2010 – Best in Class honors are announced

Impotent Links

Design challenge official site

Submission form

Concept series forum

Stephen Horlander, a Firefox developer has posted a mockup of Firefox 4’s User Interface in his blog. He pointed out five UI changes coming in the new Firefox version. The new UI changes borrowing some design elements from Google Chrome and Microsoft Office. Five UI changes in new Firefox are listed below

1. App Button

‘Menu bar’ in the old firefox is replaced with an ‘App button’. App button is similar to the single menu approach in MS Office, Paint etc..

2.Tool bar
Forward, Back, Address Bar, Refresh are coming in the toolbar. Design of these elemets will be changed.

3.Location Bar
Location bar is the address bar itself. The redesign will let you ‘reevaluating site identity’

4.Separate Search Bar
There will be a seperate search bar in new version, unlike one in google chrome. Horlander says that it will increase the functionality.

5.Bookmarks Widget
The Bookmarks Toolbar will be hidden by default and the Bookmarks Widget placed in the Navigation Toolbar.

Firefox 4 and Firefox 3.5 Comparison

Ref: chromaticpixel