Web design tools

One of my favorite new tools Are My Sites Up (previous coverage) has a new premium service for its heavier users. $75 gets you some niceties like no ads, secured RSS feeds, direct messages via Twitter, and faster checks on your sites. Users can also add an additional 10 sites to watch on top of the 50 you get with the free level of service.

Coming to the site soon is a mobile interface, statistics tracking, and an IM bot that will send you a message when there's a problem with one of your sites.

Users who are on … Read more

Online travel itinerary and trip-planning service TripIt announced Monday that it has launched a new application programming interface for developers who want to integrate the company's travel itineraries into their respective service. The API will allow developers to share itinerary information between sites and travel agents. The first iteration of the TripIt API, which is available now, will only allow users to read, add, or delete trip plans.

ChaCha, a human-powered answers service, wants to raise $30 million in a Series C round of funding, reports PEHub. So far, the company has been able to raise approximately $11 million, … Read more

Google on Friday released an open-source project, Google Blog Converters, intended to help people move their blogs from one service to another.

There are a number of popular publishing systems for housing blogs, some of them services and some of them software people can run on their own servers. But if you want to change infrastructure, it's rough going. Information isn't necessarily locked up and inaccessible, but the practical barriers of moving it to a new publishing system are high.

Google, which actually has a "data liberation team," announced the Blog Converters project to deal with … Read more

LightInTheBox.com, a China-based global online distribution company that competes with Amazon.com, announced Wednesday that it too witnessed record holiday sales over the past month. According to the company, it tripled its fourth-quarter sales over last year. LightInTheBox would not divulge any more financial information, but its executives were quick to note that Amazon's increase--16 percent--was substantially lower than that of their own company. Regardless, Amazon is still a much larger company.

Angelsoft, a service that connects venture capitalists with entrepreneurs, has released a software update and has decided to open its service to angel investors. … Read more

Google has released SketchUp 7 (download), the latest free version of its 3D modeling software, along with its premium counterpart, SketchUp 7 Pro.

Like previous iterations of the software, SketchUp 7 will enable you to model just about anything you'd like as long as you start with a predesigned template. The new version, released Monday, offers simple templates that help you gauge size through feet or meters, but it also includes architectural design, Google Earth, and a product design template to aid you in your modeling endeavors.

Once you choose a template, you're brought to a relatively simple … Read more

I blogged on Wednesday about the photo archiving site Digital Railroad's abrupt shutdown, leaving thousands of professional photographer customers confused and worried. On Thursday, I got a statement saying that the site will extend the window time until Friday, October 31, 11:59 p.m. PST, for customers to migrate their photo archives.

The statement comes from both PhotoShelter and Diablo Management Group, the firm in charge of the shut down the defunct Digital Railroad, and reads:

As part of the process of terminating the business operations of Digital Railroad, Diablo Management Group has informed PhotoShelter of its intent … Read more

Intuit shared details of bookkeeping app QuickBooks 2009 on Monday. With this release, the company aims to broaden the focus beyond the ledger book, providing a management center for small businesses that includes expanded online banking, support for transactions in more than 100 currencies, and 12 months of free Web hosting.

The applications are set to arrive in stores October 8.

The 2009 release targets businesses that do work globally, whether that means say, shipping vintage Disney toys to eBay buyers in Japan or employing basket weavers in Uganda. At least 30 percent of QuickBooks users handle international transactions, according … Read more

Adobe released details Monday about Creative Suite 4, its first update to more than a dozen design and editing tools since Adobe CS3 some 17 months ago.

The costs of the applications, set to reach consumers in October, haven't changed since CS3, but remain hefty. Should longtime users upgrade?

Of course that depends on the specific tools you need. However, we suspect that only the most well-heeled will jump at the chance, as CS4 shares the majority of tools with its predecessor. Perhaps more dramatic, life-changing alterations will come with the next Creative Suite. That said, time-saving tweaks to … Read more

It may be a little too early to do a roundup of the best redesigns of 2008 like we did last year, but with Thursday's one-two punch of new looks for social sites Twitter and FriendFeed, it's a good chance to take a look back at some of this year's redesigns and talk about what was changed or fixed.

I've picked 10 of my favorites below, listed in no particular order. See also the honorable mentions section at the bottom of the post, which includes content sites or other places that didn't quite make the cut.

1. Twitter

Twitter's redesign was a twofold change: one part to simplify the interface, and another to reduce the resources needed to host the site. Now when users hop between various functions it doesn't reload the entire page, meaning a faster experience and less data to serve.

The most interesting part of the redesign is actually something we don't know about. The tabbed interface on the right was apparently set in place to make room for additional features as they become available. It could be the new things from Twitter itself, or the foundation for special developer-created applications users will be able to use without leaving the service.

2. Facebook

The "new" Facebook was one of the most drastic changes of any site this year. Like Twitter, tabs took center stage, as did the chat which shares screen real estate with what's essentially the "start" button on Windows. This new menu let users launch networked applications from any page they're on. The change also embraced widescreen displays, making use of the extra room to let users build out the experience horizontally instead of having to scroll up and down.

You can read more about it, and the user backlash, here.

Continue reading the rest of this article after the jump.… Read more