3 (2?) great web 2.0 sites

Bokardo.com mentions two sites which are trying to keep track of the explosion of Web 2.0 sites that are coming out -- apps apps apps! They say "3" sites, but perhaps they've removed one... I'd also add memeorandum and technorati. Where are the Web 2.0 games?

TechCrunch

From the site: "TechCrunch is a weblog dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing every newly launched web 2.0 business, product and service."

Serenity - go see it!

Ok listen up friends and neighbors. You probably have no idea what I'm talking about. You have no idea what Firefly is or ever heard of Serenity. That doesnt matter. Really. I mean it. Just put your mouse down and go buy some tickets for this movie and go see it. You will thank me. Yes, even you there in the corner. Now go - watch Serenity!

GameGame

Here's a downloadable card game that lets you pretend to be a game designer, trying to get your game out the door. Kinda interesting.

Web Based Apps

Gee, what's old is new again. Web Based Apps are making a comeback with AJAX as the banner flag. Check out this list of "web 2.0" apps.

Open Sword: Pixel - photoshop for pixel artists

If you own a Mac, and like to dabble in pixel art, then this tool will really light your fire. It has lots of features that pixel artist desire in a paint tool.

Play iTunes music on your PSP

This is a great technique to allow you to play any song from your iTunes library on your sony PSP. Coolness!

The 400 Project

From the site:

It’s an attempt to write up 400 rules of game design that can be used by designers to make better games.

So far it looks pretty good!

Lego Factory -- my idea realized

A long time ago I had an idea about creating a 3d tool that would let you create any lego model you wanted - and then have some way to order the pieces for that model + print out the step by step directions. It looks like folks at Lego had a similar idea with Lego factory.

You know what would be a very cool next step? a Lego 3D printer! Send your favorite models to your friends and let the "3d printer" create it right there.

Yahoo! Instant Search is out!

Yay! I can finally talk about the project that's been my #1 focus for some time now. I want to send out a thousand congrats and thanks to all of my fellow Yahoos for their hard work and dedication. We truly have the most awesome team of folks that I've ever worked with here at Yahoo!

If you have ideas or suggestions for making Instant Search even better check out the forums and post away! I cant wait to hear what you all think of it!

Adventure Game - using Firefox Canvas -- part 1

Developing on Canvas is really fun!
I spent a few minutes today and hacked together the barest beginnings of a little adventure game using Canvas. Going to call it The Canvas Adventure (yeah highly original).

One thing that makes this really easy to do is that you can layer canvases on top of one another using absolute positioning --- AND --- canvases are naturally TRANSPARENT. This means you can have multiple layers of stuff going on and not have to worry about erasing parts of the screen for redraw -- instead just erase the whole layer and paint the new state. FUN!

It's raining arrows - another canvas demo

After playing around with canvas a little I realize I'm going to be spending way too much time fiddling with javascript + canvas stuff. It's just too fun! I learned that you can insert images as well into a canvas. And, get this, you can use data: urls to define that image's source!!! So you could completely create a complex image in canvas without having to go hit a server to fetch some sub-images.

This demo requires Firefox 1.5 beta.

How long before we see some seriously fun games using canvas?

Firefox 1.5 beta is out! And a little canvas demo

To commemorate the release of the firefox 1.5 beta, here's a little canvas demo:

The Strange Zen of javascript

I can never get enough of JavaScript. It's by far my favorite programming language - ever. So finding another blog which goes into various wringles and the dusty musty upper attic of JavasScript lore is a great joy for me. Check it out.

Laszlo Hacks -

Johnbr has created a blog about interesting techniques and code "hacks" using Laszlo. I totally see this as a healthy sign that Laszlo is starting (finally) to make inroads into the developer community. Keep it coming!

Delgo - a 3d cg movie

In the spirit of Dreamworks and Pixar this team is working on a very cool 3dcg movie called Delgo. I posted about this --- years ago. You'd think the movie'd be out by now? Anyway go check out the trailers and daily renders to get a glimpse of how (long it takes) to make a CG movie.

Tinyworld Laszlo GreaseMonkey Script

This is an example of embedding a "live" Laszlo widget in your pages via GreaseMonkey. Basically you could do something similar to this to create very interesting interactive laszlo apps which arew aware of the page you using it in! The tiles and music in the game are fetched dynamically from my site when MyLaszlo.com invokes the script.

If you have Firefox, and GreaseMonkey installed - then right click on the link above and select "install user script".

OpenLaszlo 3.1 Contest

OpenLaszlo is hot! I mean imagine if you could take your html and javascript skills and create full fledged apps that anyone could run without having to install a plugin (since they already have it). OpenLaszlo is the shizzle and they are having a contest for the release of their 3.1 version -- if you are a graphic artist who would like to win and iPod Shuffle - go check out the contest.

Here's the 3.1 release notes.

OpenLaszlo Doesnt Suck

If you read my blog much you know I'm a huge Laszlo fan. Looks like we might have a new Laszlo user. This person offer's their first impressions of Laszlo.

Amazing regenerating mice

Amazing! Mice that can regrow limbs, organs, and other stuff. How long before you can regrow that lost limb?