logo

When retailer The Gap introduced a new logo last week on its Web site, updating its blue box logo of more than 20 years, the Twitterati unleashed its inner Heidi Klum.

Online critics said the new logo looked "cheap" and "unsophisticated" and as if it was designed in Microsoft Word or someone was experimenting with Photoshop for the first time.

Well, Gap takes design criticism better than many a "Project Runway" contestant: After touting the updated version last week as "contemporary" and "current," the company is now saying "auf … Read more

Welcome back to another Yuletide Mini-sode of CNET's The 404 Podcast. We'll be keeping you company all season with fresh episodes, year-end wrap-ups, CES 2010 previews, and much more!

It's hard to believe that 2009 has already come and gone, but with the holidays over and 2010 around the corner, we've decided to record a special wrap-up episode to finish off the year. Lots of big changes that happened in the past twelve months, but the most momentous for the show has to be the introduction of the Tricaster and the subsequent evolution into a full-fledged video show. Of course, we have to thank Jason Howell, the man behind all the CNET Podcasts who helped us set up and troubleshoot our new equipment.

2009 also saw our first ever corporate sponsorship by way of Beck's Beer and the Beck's Beer Semi-Weekly Audio Draft in Conjunction with Beck's Beer and Last.FM, a subsidiary of CBS Interactive, or BBSWADCBBLFSCI for short. As a result of this segment, new music became an asset to the show, and we were very excited to welcome musician Andrew WK, Family of the Year, Jonathan Coulton and The Paper Raincoat into our studio for an interview and even a few in-studio performances!

Another huge change we remember in 2009 was the contest submissions for our logo competition! We asked for your best ideas and you guys answered in DROVES! We had so many (hundreds!) of the most creative and inspired logos that the decision became much harder than we predicted. We finally voted on Blake Stevenson's bubbly design, and you can now see the finished product plastered all over our studio and merchandise. Thanks again Blake!

Before we welcome the new year, The 404 would like to extend a personal thank you to everyone involved with The 404. We consider ourselves incredibly lucky to say what's on our mind every morning, and we certainly wouldn't be able to do it without you, the listeners. The three of us listen and read each and every tweet, Facebook comment, e-mail, and voice-mail, and although we might not respond right away, we definitely appreciate every kind (and constructive) message. We also want to give a big thanks to every single person in the daily chat room, Jason Howell, Bonnie Cha, Cheryl Holloway, Mark Licea, Natali Del Conte, Richard Peterson, and everyone else that helps us navigate through the rigors of a daily talkshow.

It's going to be very difficult to top 2009 in the new year, but we're already off to a productive start with our debut at CES 2010. We're broadcasting LIVE everyday from January 5-9 on the CNET stage, so come say hi if you're heading to the show! In addition to merchandise (we promise!) and a very exciting new CNET podcast, we also have plenty of exciting guests lined up including artists, musicians, authors, celebrities, and sports starts, but you'll have to keep listening and downloading the daily show to find out more.

Have a fun and safe New Years everyone, see you in 2010!

Google on Tuesday added a small but welcomed feature to its Reader service: favicons. These are the little square icons provided by sites that show up both in your address bar and open tabs (in most browsers at least). Google Reader users can now opt in to see them in their feed source list, where previously, feeds just showed up as little blue RSS signal logos. According to Google it was the top requested feature from Google Reader's product ideas mini-site.

In many ways favicons are a logical step in simplifying the feed reading process, since you can now … Read more

Logos and logo stickers are a big deal for companies about to make a big push on a new product, and forgive us for getting this one wrong. Microsoft's Windows 7 Compatible program, which labels qualified products as being Microsoft-approved to work with Windows 7, is designed only for software and peripherals, not the computers themselves. Microsoft plans a separate program for labeling those. Like Apple's "Works with iPhone," it indicates that the device in question works under all conditions that Microsoft deems necessary. That includes being compatible with 64-bit Windows 7 as well as 32-bit, … Read more

Sometimes, it's hard to resist the relentless pressure of bloggers.

They make jokes about you. They spawn commenters who make even more jokes about you. Until you finally decide that your are the serf and the bloggerati and commenterati are your whip-wielding masters.

So it has proved for the dedicated and passionately committed staff of the Wisconsin Tourism Federation. Since this Web thing has spread around the world like swine flu, more and more witty folks have made japes about the WTF being, well, you know, I mean, WTF!!!!

So, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the organization sat … Read more

Any Logo Screensaver Creator is a very basic screensaver creation program. Although it works fine, some users may be frustrated by the program's lack of features.

The thing that users need to understand is that this program has a very specific purpose; it's meant to be used with a logo or other standalone image. Users cannot include multiple images or create slideshows as many other screensaver programs allow you to do, and there's no way to include sounds or music. All this program is really meant to do is create a screensaver with a single image that … Read more

Since we're not having a show tomorrow for Independence Day, there's a lot to cover today, including a new segment with Beck's Beer and Last.fm, a chat with the winner of our logo design contest, and a hilarious voicemail from everyone's favorite Tina Schwartz.

Our annual GetMcDonaldsBreakfastOnJulyThird Day leaves us with upset stomachs and wandering minds, so it's a good thing we have Blake Stevenson on for a quick segment in the beginning of today's show to talk about his winning submission for our logo contest.

We get to pick his brain a bit about how he came up with the design, and we're also curious about his work history and how he got so good! In turn, Blake also surprises us with the amazing poster illustration you see to the left. Click on it to see the larger version, and check out the impressively accurate caricatures of Wilson, Jeff, and me! From Wilson's highlights to Jeff's pursed lips and my ridiculous everything, Blake really did an excellent job of capturing the feel of the show, both with the poster and the logo itself. Attention Tom Green: critics agree, your logo sucks.

The good news is that Blake Stevenson is more than willing to redo it, so head over to JetPacksandRollerSkates.com and put him to work!

We're also very excited to debut the very first of our bi-weekly (that's twice a week) segment called The Weekly Audio Draft, sponsored by Beck's Beer in conjunction with Last.fm. Every Monday and Friday we'll introduce you guys to some fresh bands with varying genres that we hope will be music to your ears.

Jeff is first up with a band called The Twilight and the Sound, which features Jeremiah Rangel and Matt Lovato, former members of pop-punk band Mest. Their new band draws influences from The Cure, Deftones, Weezer, and Interpol, and you can buy their new album "100 Sundays..." on their profile page on Last.fm. On today's edition of the Weekly Audio Draft, we rock out to their new song "There's No Basement at the Alamo," a driving, upbeat track that combines male and female vocals in a call-and-response format that makes the perfect accompaniment to a weekend BBQ or road trip. Leave a comment on this post and let us know what you think! Check out more info for the band at their MySpace page as well.

The second half of the show is filled with hilarious voice mails including some bike shopping advice as well as a really funny voice mail from our favorite listener, Tina Schwartz. We have to reiterate that her views and opinions DO NOT reflect those of The 404 or our parent company, CBS Interactive. We even get into a few stories at the end of the show, including some back and forth about the Microsoft and Nickelback collabo, Facebook flirting and Universal grabbing the rights to the Asteroids full-length movie.

Have a great Independence Day weekend everybody, stay safe, and don't forget to check back tomorrow for our weekend throwback episode!

Last.fm is a part of CBS Interactive, which also publishes CNET.

This show is getting too many mascots. First Boxxie McFinderberg, then our soon-to-be beta fish, and now a baby panda?! On today's show, we discuss "Terminator Salvation," Asian actors in Pixar's "UP," E3 2009, the Sony PSP Go, and the leaked Palm Pre review on Boy Genius Report.

Sony and Palm are clearly using the same marketing team, because they're both mucking things up with the release of their latest products, the Palm Pre and the recent Sony PSP Go leakage. Jeff and Wilson suspect that they released it early on purpose, but the real story here is how boring it is. None of the internal specs have changed, it's the same screen as the PSP 3000 except for minor upgrades to the onboard memory. The most obvious difference is the sliding keypad. Wilson thinks it's simply useless and just another piece of hardware prone to break over time. Not surprisingly, the dudes think it's a wise move not to include a UMD slot in the new PSP Go. After all, everything is going the way of cloud computing, and you can still put a game on a Sony Memory Stick anyway. Wait a second, what the hell? Why am I even writing about all this gaming garbage? Up until five minutes before the show, I didn't even know what a PSP Go was!

Moving on: if you're running out of toilet paper for the day, print out Boy Genius Report's Palm Pre review and wipe away. BGR unveiled the "world's first review" of the new handheld on Friday, and it also happens to be the "world's most poorly written review" as well. First of all, there's a code of ethics that comes into play here, and BGR still hasn't revealed how or why they decided to leak the review before anyone else. Journalistic integrity, anyone? And come on, dude: if you're going to leak a high-profile review that you know will get a massive amount of hits, maybe spend a tiny bit more time shaping the text. We get that it's a blog, but this review reads like someone wrote it on the pot. Or maybe we're just jealous that we didn't get one first. :)

Finally, thanks again to EVERYONE that submitted logos over the weekend for our contest. It ended today, so don't send any more unless you have one that can seriously compete with the finalists (which we will debut tomorrow). Check out the final submissions below and let us know what you think in the comments. Do you have a favorite out of all of them?

After yesterday's much-lauded episode with Jill Schlesinger, Jeff, Justin, and Wilson are back to classic 404 goodness today. We're glad that for once in the world we can offer some helpful financial advice. And yes, we're still offering 404k options, so please send your checks to the show.

On today's show, we've got a First Look at the new Hulu Desktop app. It kind of destroys Joost and Boxee's previous efforts. For those of you who don't know, it's an actual application like Front Row or Windows Media Center that plugs into Hulu content and can be controlled with a remote. Pretty cool.

Also, we're pretty excited about Sonic the Hedgehog coming to the iPhone and iPod Touch platforms. Jeff and Justin don't like that the game will be controlled via tilt, but Wilson thinks that--considering you spend most of the game just hitting forward and jump--it's not really that big of a deal.

Finally, we spend the second half of the show picking up the pieces after Justin offends millions and millions of Dave Matthews Band fans, who call in to unleash their hatred. Hopefully, Justin learns never to mess with DMB fans again. They are rabid. After that, we spend the rest of the show going over the hundreds of 404 logo submissions. They are fantastic! Please continue to send them in. We're extending the contest until the beginning of next week. Have a great weekend everyone!