PimpZilla, the theme with bling

What is PimpZilla?

it's probably the most tacky & overdone piece of GUI design out there, aimed solely for true internet-connaisseurs. It's inspired on the cadillac love rides, as seen in old blaxploitation movies. If you fancy sexy fur and bling, you'll love this theme.

Redesign for pimpzilla.nl

Juli 28, 2006 - This website visualises the concept of PimpZilla: the tacky dashboard of seventies pimpmobiles. It's lay-out is supposed to represent a sort of cheap, duo-color poster for a blaxploitation movie. Although the design is nice (at least, that's what i think), it doesn't represent the luxurious, bling feeling that the pimpzilla really stands for.

I wanted a design that would really communicate what this theme has to offer. It would also be nice to add more fun stuff to the site, brought by you -> the pimpzilla user. I was thinking of a chapter like "Pimpzilla in action" where users would show off their tacky computer. The first beta of the new pimpzilla website is available, but only the homepage (which isn't even finished). If you have any suggestion how to fill this new website with stuff, or if you have 'action-shots' of PimpZilla, you can contact me at marco_troost at hotmail.com.

Clever usability-ideas from the Mozilla crew

juli 13, 2006 - Mike Belzner (user experience lead, mozilla corporation) has, together with of few of his mates, come up with up some cool new ideas for the 2.0 interface of our beloved browser. They believe that the 2.0 interface should be designed to fit the needs of the many and not the few.

This concept translates into a design where all elements that aren't really usefull for the majority of users will be given a less prominent place than where they are now. E.G. The reload button (which is really only used by webdevelopers in my view) will be placed inside the url-bar for instance. -> Excellent! (I do not think that placing the go button inside the urlbar is a smart move though) I think that a few of Mike's new ideas have been inspired by the new internet explorer 7.0 interface: this design also combines buttons that are attached to the content of the page to the urlbar.

You can read more of the 2.0 design-concept in mike's posting, which includes a rough 'ASCII sketch'.

Bon Echo pimped

juli 5, 2006 - I've been told by a mozilla editor not to upload any more PimpZilla stuff for version Firefox 2.0 (codenamed Bon Echo), if it isn't fully themed yet. I guess he or she is right. I will therefore make my beta-releases available only from this website (for testing purposes only) untill my product is ready for distribution. Any new releases of the blingiest theme on earth will be available here, by means of this blog. I will start by releasing PimpZilla version 3.27.
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PimpZilla for the near future

june 30, 2006 - It's been quite busy in both my personal- and my professional life. I therefore haven't had the time to sit down and do my theme-thing. I've been using Bon Echo for a couple of weeks now and it's quite obvious that it's super: I can't browse without the instant-google-autocomplete anymore. I feared that internet explorer would beat firefox nifty-stuff-wise, but our favorite browser is winning on points. PimpZilla will need to be updated soon. Stealth'll have to wait, since PimpZilla is still the main hobby-project. I hope i'll be able to update before the final release.
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Bon echo

june 26, 2006 - Quite a mysterious name for a developer release: "Bon echo". I installed the new version of our favourite browser in order to update PimpZilla. I have to say that it looks promissing. The tabs now have close-buttons and the search field in the upper-right corner has been given an query-button (more userfriendly in my view). I expect that this release will experience stiff competition from explorer 7.0, which is quite good. (Microsoft's Vista is major improvement anyway) As for PimpZilla: It will be compatible for the final release somewhere in august. Until that time, there will be no major pimp-releases. I'll publish some early releases for 2.0 in this blog.
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RSS-pimp-feed !!!

june 23, 2006 - Besides working for the man, this cat also has to maintain this glorious website. If would love to redesign the thing if only i had the time. I have found the time though to include a little rss thingy. Not too fancy, but nice enough to keep y'all informed about new stuff on this page.
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Stealth technology in PimpZilla

june 18, 2006 - I have made a technological breakthrough on what i have always thought to be a very difficult problem: the onmouseover-effect in the bookmarks-toolbar will now work with large font-settings. I discovered this when developing "Stealth". P.S. Stealth will be designed to look cool on black Dell monitors in combination with Microsoft's Vista. My new theme will be aimed at the taste of the masses, whereas PimpZilla has a sort of underground popularity.
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A new theme ...

june 10, 2006 - I've done some improvements on the display of the loading throbber for PimpZilla (to be found @ mozilla) I have also started the development of a new theme, which i have codenamed "Stealth". It 'll be based on PimpZilla's technology but will look completely different. PimpZilla's goal is to provide a theme that 'll put a smile on your face. Stealth is a theme that can be used in a boardroom so to speak. It will be sleek & professional. More info will follow.
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'shy' banners

june 7, 2006 - This site has been given public serive ads by Google instead of some good old fashioned bling-bling advertorials. Funny thing is that since of his morning sometimes an actual set of ads comes along, only to be replaced after a while by a default non-commercial banner. It seems that pimpzilla.nl makes ads a bit shy: I guess they become self-consious about the attention, causing them to shy away. Strange, strange.
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280.000 fans can't be wrong!

june 6, 2006 - PimpZilla used to get around 2000 downloads a week. Ever since the last update (to version 3.21), downloads have multiplied by 2000 %: PimpZilla now gets more than 40.000 downloads per week !!! I reckon that PimpZilla has been quite popular in the underground and people updated their copy. Anyway, I'm very pleased that people like it.
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PimpZilla relief fund

june 5, 2006 - PimpZilla is free and will always be. But, as a true e-pimp, i wanted mo' money. For this purpose, i'v sneakily included google adsense on the pimpzilla.nl pages, hoping to get payed. This really doesn't do the trick, but is nice to see that sometimes people will earn you a cool 0,06 dollarcent or so. Still, it's fun to check your google account to see if you've got some doe.

For some strange reason, google recently provided me with "hurrican relief fund" banners. I'm a supporter of good causes, but not if it f*** up my internet mojo. I found out that the display of public service banners is probably due to a lack of content on the homepage, since the other pimpzilla.nl pages work fine. The solution: more relevant news on the homepage. Google is actually quite clever: they more or less enforce website-owners to add some real value to the net. You càn make a site with just banners, but then you won't get payed.
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