FireFox 4 Enters Pre-Beta

The nightly builds for FireFox -cleverly named “Minefield”, to remind people of just how bleeding edge they are in the dev. process- have entered into version 4. Among being generally more zippy and amazing, there’s now an option to have tabs on top, which I promptly turned off (it looks quite horrid in OS X). You can find the nightly builds here. (via Lifehacker).

Johnson’s Backyard Garden has a new logo

The folks over at Brand New have another great writeup on an identity change by the Texan organic grower, Johnson’s Backyard Garden. Head over here to check it out.

Music and Workflow

The wonderful guys and gals of Smashing Magazine have written an interesting piece on integrating music into a workflow, to create mood. In brief, it talks about how music can create and set a mood, which is useful when you can link to something your doing (it’s especially relevant to designers and artists). The article is here.

Past and Future of the Logo

Again from Smashing Magazine, Dan Redding has written an excellent argument on the logo and its relation to branding. It’s far too nuanced to quickly summarize, and is well worth the read. So, check it out.

The Illegal Essay Writers

The CityPages newspaper has an interesting look into the world of “third party” essay writers, the people who write essays for students, in return for monetary compensation. Definitely interesting, and definitely a bit shady. Article is here.