Yesterday I found this excellent Web 2.0 how-to design style guide by Ben Hunt. I accidentally found it while searching with the keyword “Web 2.0″ in google’s new blog search.

This style guide focusses on the new trends in the web 2.0 designs such as:

1. Simplicity
2. Central layout
3. Simple nav
4. Bold logos
5. Bigger text
6. Strong colours
7. Rich surfaces
8. Gradients
9. Reflections
10. Cute icons

I can bet you’ll like this site as anything. Also do browse the other sections of the site, its a gold mine!!

After blazing with my HP Pavilion ze2115us for quite some months, today I’ve switched to Dell Inspiron 6400. Its one of the most powerful laptops around with a mighty config. I am looking forward to blast away my work performance with this exciting gadget.

My laptop is equipped with these excellent features:

• Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7200 at 2.0 GHz per core.
• 15.4″ Ultrasharp WSXGA+ display with TrueLife
• 2GB DDR2 667MHz RAM in dual channel mode
• ATI X1400 256MB graphics card
• 160GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
• 8X DVD +/- dual layer recorder
• 9-cell lithium-ion battery (more than 3.5 hr backup)
• Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition
• Dell Wireless 1500 (802.11n)

Here is a comprehensive review.

On the 23rd of December, one new jobsite was launched in BD – the prothom alo jobsite (http://www.prothom-alojobs.com). When I saw the ad in the newspaper, I was exctied because I highly regard Prothom Alo and most of its activites. My expectation for the jobsite was high and I was sure that it will be great, until tonight when I visited the site first-time!

First of all, the site looks too clumsy to me – too many information cramped in the front-page along with lots of dull colors – you can hardly understand any functionality at the first sight. Font size is less than average normal font size on the web – not very good for veteran people who is likely to be in the HR department of large corporations.

I tried to create an account as a jobseeker, and it was pretty quick and user-friendly! But that good impression didn’t last long when I was asked to fill the basic information form – a long form with most of the fields marked as required. The most irritating part is that I could not find any way to change my Basic Information again after the initial fillup!!! And you cannot even go back to the initial screen that you see after loggin in!!!

If you’re thinking about the ???!!! in the title of the post, that part is yet to come. While I was browsing through different sections, I found the following tip in the job posting screen (as an Employer):

Now, you are thinking that whats the big deal if they have a misspelling? Wait, take a look at the following screen (also match the order of the keywords):

This one is taken from BDJobs’s signup form. What is your feeling about it? This website’s reputation in my mind is lost for good. They are saying that this is a test run, but is there any solid ground behind such copying of contents from other site?

One thing they did better, they have just 1 flash banner in the whole page – compared to many successful jobsites in the country who are also successful in irrititating people at their first visit with 20+ flashes on their front-page!

All that said, the brand name of Prothom Alo is not reflected in their site. I hope they will be collecting feedback from the users and will try to shape their site’s functionality accordingly. After all, its the visitors who keep the site alive.

We all have designed databases in our life in various occasions. Its quite a fun job for small scale db, but gets hectic when lots of relations come into play. What if someone helps you out with a sample db model on the topic that you are going to make? Wouldn’t it be helpful if you can get an idea about the various entities, know some of the basic business rules and see a sample E-R diagram before starting?

Barry Williams thinks so and has built Llibrary of Free Data Models to help the database makers out there. Its a collection of over 400 ‘Kick-start’ data models that he created in the last 5 years. The top 10 most demanded models of the library are (full list here):

1. Libraries and Books
2. Inventory Control for Retail Stores
3. Hotel Reservations
4. Video Rentals
5. School Management
6. Clients and Fees
7. CD collections
8. Customers and Invoices
9. Payroll
10. Apartment Rentals

So, bookmark this site and use as a reference for any new data model you need to work with.

Wow…this is a great app as far as I’ve seen upto now….I have been always fascinating of an app of such functions and sometimes though of making one myself. Now that its here, i guess I will be blogging more. I really enjoy having small app sitting in my tray and facilitating me with creating functions

Thank Windows Live Team !!!