http://search.deviantart.com/?q=by:AwesomeStart&section=today deviantART RSS for by:AwesomeStart en-us Copyright 2009, deviantART.com Sat, 19 Dec 2009 19:11:37 PST deviantART.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://s.deviantart.com/minish/widgets/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/27754622/ http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/27754622/ Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:51:25 PDT [link]

Today AwesomeStart released a new feature that allows users to create their own startpage theme. The site previously let users customize their own startpage based on over four hundred themes in their gallery. Now users can create their own theme.

The new theme creator is now up at: [link] and is ridiculously easy to use. You enter the URL of an image, select a few colors, and name the theme.

The theme is saved on your computer via cookies, but you can then go the extra mile and publish it to the site. All you have to do is enter the URL you'd like and click the publish button.

Anyone can use a published theme by going to the chosen URL and setting it as their homepage. These pages can easily be shared using the "Share" link in the upper right hand corner of each page.

AwesomeStart has also integrated the new public themes into the main site search and gallery. After a brief delay, the theme will show up in the public gallery: [link] The gallery allows users to view submissions by tags to make browsing even easier.

]]> ~AwesomeStart http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/27729022/ http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/27729022/ Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:28:55 PDT [link]

It's fun to read the posts on our facebook page. For months now people have been speculating on the new mystery feature. We've finally got an announcement ready - you won't have to speculate much longer.

The new feature will go live this Wednesday, October 14th, 2009.

Beta testing has ended, and we're now cleaning the databases for launch. We've already said too much! See you Wednesday!

]]> ~AwesomeStart http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/27525962/ http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/27525962/ Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:07:21 PDT [link]

There is a brand new share feature in the upper right hand corner of every startpage. We started developing this feature as a part of our big feature update (which is planned to go up sometime in October). We decided to put up the sharing aspect early so everyone could start using it.

It's pretty simple - so you click "Share" in the upper right hand corner of the page and pick which site you'd like to share on. The site will open in a new window with all the information filled in. There's also a text field with some code incase you're just looking to show off your startpage via HTML.

We've coded the share popup so it will work on both javascript and non-javascript browsers. [link] [link] has also received an update to make use of the new feature. If you have a startpage set up, the promote page will display these sharing options by default. If not, you'll see the standard banner codes.

By using our own code rather than a third party plug-in like Addthis, the share feature will load faster and can expand to include other functionality in the future.

Click the "Share" link on your startpage and give it a try!

]]> ~AwesomeStart http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/26903410/ http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/26903410/ Sat, 29 Aug 2009 20:18:34 PDT [link]

We love birthdays around here. They're international in celebration, universally recognized, and generally great excuses to eat cake. We're also big fans of looking back and seeing how far things have grown. As of today, AwesomeStart has been online a grand total of four years. That's like twenty-one in internet years, right?

This is usually the time of the year we gather 'round to reflect on the still surprising popularity and global reach of the site. This year is a bit different though…everyone's busy at work on the as-of-yet unannounced ''mysterious feature''. Seriously, what the hell is it?

Well, whatever it is, we're here to report it's in private beta! What does that mean? It means it's pretty much done but you still can't see it. We're sorry! All we're waiting on now is our self-selected team of startpage fanatics to get done testing it.

It's not as good as ''here you go!'' but it's certainly better than ''coming soon!''

As we say every birthday, AwesomeStart continue to offer everything for free. Yes, even the new mysterious what-not will be free. The best birthday present we could ask for is a mention on your blog, facebook, twitter, etc. Even if it's as simple as posting what page you use, help us out and tell people about AwesomeStart.com!

]]> ~AwesomeStart http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/26633422/ http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/26633422/ Sun, 16 Aug 2009 16:56:19 PDT [link]

We've been busy at work on a brand new ''feature''. It's not so much a new feature like the previous one's we've brought you. Think bigger. We're not ready to say just what it is yet, but it should permanently fix your thirst for brand new startpages. This has been the top requested idea for over a year. We're hard at work on the final phase, so this brand new what-is-it should be going up really soon.

]]> ~AwesomeStart http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/24444233/ http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/24444233/ Sun, 26 Apr 2009 11:22:51 PDT
I work over at this site that does custom startpages. A user can go over there and set up a page based on over 400 templates that have been designed by the site's design team. If you head over to the site, you'll see a bunch of them and totally get what I'm talking about.

We're now looking for new designers. We have a whole page explaining our policy and submission guidelines here: [link]

The site is frequently in the Alexa top 25k, with over a million unique users. It's a great way to get your name out there (and might look pretty good in a portfolio/resume). It's also challenging and a lot of fun which is why I do it

You can design one for any music/movie/videogame that isn't already done. If you're just in it to please, there's a giant list of the most requested themes in order of how many people want them: [link]

If you have any questions you can contact us [link] and we'll get right back to you. Otherwise feel free to just send in some submissions. We're really excited to see new stuff.

-Eric Ingrum

]]> ~AwesomeStart http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/24441426/ http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/24441426/ Sun, 26 Apr 2009 08:18:11 PDT [link]

We recently updated our design policy. Our new policy gives designers full control over their work. They have the freedom to reuse part (or all) of their startpage design in other works and on other websites.

Our old policy stated that "No portion of [a] design may be reused on any other site or publication without written permission from AwesomeStart.com". This was originally meant to be a blanket statement that saved us the trouble of hammering out more specific details regarding usage. We had always intended to change it, but at the time our lazy design editor thought it would make due.

After several years of accepting submissions, we've relaxed our enforcement of that policy to the point where it was really meaningless. When faced with the decision of enforcement, it always made more sense to side with the artist. The designer made the themes, they should get to decide if they want to use that material anywhere else.

Now that most of our search code update is done, we're back to uploading new themes. We thought this would be the perfect time to revise the submission policy to include stronger artists rights. Under the new policy we keep doing what we've always done, but the designers retain the rights to continue using their own work.

We think everyone will be pleased with the changes. We encourage you to try submitting a design! You can read the new policy and guidelines over here: [link]

]]> ~AwesomeStart http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/24139853/ http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/24139853/ Thu, 09 Apr 2009 01:33:16 PDT [link]

We've taken a lot of user suggestions into consideration over the past few months. Our users are full of ideas; the hard part seems to be figuring out which to listen to first. The general rule of thumb is to let the numbers do the work. When we get a few hundred emails telling us they want an upgraded Google search, for instance, we get right now that.

The search technology we use has been upgraded to Google's new Custom Search Beta. This means a faster, more accurate search. The results page you get from searches on this site will also look much more like the official Google page.

The one downside to this is that domain searching will no longer work. This includes the domain options presented next to the "Search" button on startpages as well as the Amazon option in the drop down box. We're currently looking at ways to fix that feature. We'll be bringing it back as soon as possible.

Keep those suggestions coming!

]]> ~AwesomeStart http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/20821492/ http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/20821492/ Sat, 04 Oct 2008 08:24:17 PDT [link]

You may have noticed some small changes to your startpage in the last week or so. We’ve begun implementation of two highly requested features. Users will now be able to search Images, News, Maps and more directly from the search box on their page. If you use Google technologies (which can be changed in preferences), you can now click on a link to change what you want to search. For instance, if you’d like to search for an image, click “Image” and type in your query. Then search, just like you would have for the web. No more leaving the page first!

In addition to this feature, we’re also including a new drop down menu to give you more search options. It can be accessed by mousing over the small arrow to the right of the Email link. You can now search Amazon and Wikipedia in the same manner described above. Just select one from the drop down menu, type in your search, and away you go. Popular Google search technologies for Video, Books, Scholar, Finance, Shopping, and Blogs are all also available.

These new features are now available on all Movies, TV, Videogame, and “Other” startpages. At the time of writing, they’ve also been added to our twenty most popular movie startpages. Adding the new features requires a complete overhaul of each startpage. We’re recoding each page from HTML to XHTML using a new standard template. While this will make new updates easier to add in the future, it’s certainly a lengthy process. More pages are being updated with these features every day, and we hope to have the rest of the music startpages finished in the coming weeks.

Go try out the new features. Let us know what you think!

]]> ~AwesomeStart http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/15891216/ http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/15891216/ Tue, 11 Dec 2007 14:43:39 PST [link]

The request system has been the subject of much tweaking in the recent weeks. After some testing, we’re adding another function to the page. One of the basic problems we’ve had since the system went online is that it accepted requests for themes that already exist. This created two real issues . . . the first is that designers would see these requests and make themes we didn’t need. The other issue is that someone coming to the site hoping to find a theme that we did in fact have would put in a request and leave thinking we didn’t.

By using a bit of the technology already in place in our search feature, we’ve changed the request function to eliminate both of those issues at once. When a request is submitted, the system will check it against our entire database of themes and return any results. If it looks like we already have that theme, it’ll inform the user of the good news and give them a link instead of submitting the request. The system is pretty smart, so it shouldn’t have any problems with slight variations on entries or seeing the difference between a movie theme that exists and a videogame theme of the same name.

Try it out! [link]

]]> ~AwesomeStart http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/15676559/ http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/15676559/ Mon, 26 Nov 2007 09:14:36 PST [link]

Our request page will not only allow you to make a request, but also to see a list of every request currently in the que. With literally thousands of requests, this list was getting very long! We’ve tweaked the list so that only themes with three or more requests are shown on the page. If a theme has one or two requests, it still stays in our que - it just won’t be displayed on the page. This will cut down on database strain, page load time, and some of the 500 errors we’ve been having. This will also act as an automatic filter for improper requests and input mistakes.

Many of you probably noticed that Halo has been at the top of the request list this week, even though there’s already a halo theme [link] ! While we were upgrading our code, we seem to have created a bug that changed every input to a request for Halo. Whoops! As a result of this, the Halo (UK) band may have more requests than they should. We’ve removed the halo videogame from the requests list, and emailed everyone who requested it to let them know we’ve fixed the bug.

]]> ~AwesomeStart http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/13672322/ http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/13672322/ Mon, 09 Jul 2007 14:19:39 PDT [link]

Things are finally starting to get back to normal. We’ve got a few new themes coming in this week. We’re attempting to fill some of the themes that have been at the top of the request list for the last few months. One Tree Hill went up today, and we should have some others later in the week.

We’ll also be putting up some new gaming themes over the next few days. It’s our way of getting excited about E3. A few of the themes have been requested for quite some time, so look out for those too.

Our experimentation with Google Analytics has been going really well. We’re going to continue tracking the new pages, and if all is still well at the end of the month we’ll be implementing the technology on the rest of the site. We’re looking at adding a new feature later this year, but we’re still unsure if we’ll have it done in time to do this all at once.

]]> ~AwesomeStart http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/13409375/ http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/13409375/ Tue, 19 Jun 2007 16:12:30 PDT [link]

Eric and Shannon have relocated their offices to a new city, and are still getting settled in. Designs are still being submitted, and we should have a few new ones up this weekend.

We’re experimenting with Google Analytics to help better track our statistics. We previously used Awstats, but we had to drop it once we switched our servers earlier this year. We haven’t found a good replacement yet, so hopefully this is it! After a week or so we should have a better idea of whether or not we’ll be sticking with it. If we do, we’ll be patching each page with a small bit of code. User performance shouldn’t be affected.
This will allow us to better understand where our users are coming from and how to attract more. Also, we hope to more accurately represent the top eight themes on the main page. Whether we’ll be able to achieve this is yet to be seen.

]]> ~AwesomeStart http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/12897011/ http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/12897011/ Wed, 09 May 2007 07:53:38 PDT [link]

We’ve been doing some major updating to the site. Over the last week, every single one of the nearly 400 startpages has been re-coded. We’ve chopped roughly one-hundred lines of code off each page and moved straggling style code to css. This means faster load times and a more unified look. Along the way, we’ve also fixed a few broken default links. Over time, some of the sites we’ve linked to have gone out of commission. If you find any links like this, contact us and we’ll fix or replace them.

The bottom links used to use a table for spacing; we’ve cut most of that code out to help unify spacing between long and short links. The spacing wasn’t a big deal before, but was starting to look weird with the addition of four extra links. As soon as we’re done revising our preferences page, this feature will pop up. We’re ahead of schedule - the additional custom links should be available in another week or so.

Different browsers and operating systems use different default fonts and widths for form elements. It’s really aggravating. The same code that creates a really short bar on Internet Explorer on a PC creates a ridiculously long bar with Safari on a Mac. We used to use PHP to detect the browser and change the size, but as it turns out that was really stupid. We’ve deleted that bloated code from all the pages, and are now using CSS. This alone should make your page load much faster.

Some users have been experiencing Service Temporarily Unavailable errors. Our current server only allows for so many connections per page. This is a pretty large number, but the load from development over the last week has been pushing our limits. The problem should be fixed, but if you’ve still got issues let us know.

As a general rule of thumb, anytime something isn’t working contact us. We have a very small development team, and it’s getting really hard to watch for errors on such a massive site. We can usually fix them within minutes, but we need you to help spot them. Thanks!

]]> ~AwesomeStart http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/12766347/ http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/12766347/ Sat, 28 Apr 2007 12:10:20 PDT [link]

Earlier this month, we took a break from new themes to refocus our efforts on the new features. Our main focus, an additional row of custom links, is proving to be more difficult than we previous thought. The current solutions are unfortunately creating an unacceptable amount of load time for each startpage. We’re going to pause our efforts there for a bit to return to uploading new themes. After another week or two of theme uploading, we’ll get back to work on the additional preferences features. Additional custom links are still at the top of that list.

A few people have emailed us asking why the top theme requests have not been filled in a while. What it basically comes down to is this: our designers are all freelance. They do whatever themes they select, and those selections don’t often come from the top themes list. While the list provides a great way to tell them what our users want, the end decision is theirs. If you’ve been waiting a while for a new theme, and know someone good with photoshop, have them send us an entry.

]]> ~AwesomeStart http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/12261998/ http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/12261998/ Tue, 20 Mar 2007 17:38:28 PDT [link]

We've been receiving a lot of emails asking for new features. We're really thankful for everyone's input. The majority of the requests have been for two features - a region specific search function and more custom links.

The custom links will most likely come first. We've already begun looking into various ways to accomplish this; at this point it's just a matter of implementation. As we approach 400 themes, the last thing we want to do is modify each one to include more links. When this new feature comes, it will be available in the advanced panel of the preferences page. If you choose not to use it, your page will remain unchanged.

Most of our users come from the US. Here our Google search is simple - search the internet. In other regions, however, Google gives users the ability to search specifically for pages in a given territory - "search pages from the UK" for example. As our usage expands in other countries, we've begun experimenting with this feature. We're still in the early stages, but this feature will probably make it's way onto the site after the new custom links.

We hear you, and we're hard at work. Hang in there!

]]> ~AwesomeStart http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/10554416/ http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/10554416/ Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:12:16 PST [link]

After months and months of coding and redesign, we've finally put the RSS feature online. You can now replace the generic two sentence blurb in the middle of your page with any xml feed!

If you haven't heard of RSS, you're not alone. RSS has been around for some time, but has just recently started to become popular. The new RSS system is a simple but powerful feature that allows users to subscribe to a newsfeed or podcast listed in the preferences - or enter one from another site.

Selecting an RSS feed will allow you to get the latest news or content delivered right to your start page. Each time a new item on the feed is updated, the paragraph of information on your page will update as well. If CNN posts a new story, it shows up on your start page. If "Ask a Ninja" posts a new podcast, you'll be the first to know.

This is the first of several new features finally making their way onto the preferences panel. For a while, we considered having an "advanced" preferences panel so as not to confuse users who just wanted the basic functions. Rather than switching back and forth however, we've come up with a more simple solution.

Advanced settings are going to appear on the right hand side in a special box, and you're going to have the ability to add or subtract them from your preferences panel. By default, the new RSS feature will be turned off. If you'd like to add that option to your preferences, you can click the link in the right hand menu. As new features are added, you'll also have the ability to go to your preferences and add them. We have two or three more major things we've already started working on. Keep checking the DevLog for details.

Ironically, if you want all the latest DevLog details delivered to your start page, you should probably NOT use the new RSS feature. We'll still be updating the default two sentence blurb on a regular basis.

UPDATE: Tonight we updated the default announce paragraph to randomize messages. There's currently seven of them, covering the various features of the site. We didn't want non-RSS users to feel left out of today's update!

]]> ~AwesomeStart http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/10501149/ http://AwesomeStart.deviantart.com/journal/10501149/ Tue, 24 Oct 2006 19:23:00 PDT
In the last DevLog we mentioned getting the RSS up before we moved the servers, but we were having so much trouble with outages that the move became the top priority. We're still working on RSS implementation, and hope to have it done by the end of the month. Currently, we're looking for a way to fit the feature into the preferences panel. We want that page to remain simple and uncluttered, but as the site grows it's starting to get pretty full.

One option under consideration is an "advanced" preferences panel - it would allow more "advanced" users to go to a separate page to change even more things on their theme - add more links, add a feed, etc. There's lots of ideas floating around right now, and it's really just a matter of trail and error until we find the one that fits.

]]> ~AwesomeStart