One of the toughest searches seems to be for good icons. It’s usually easy to find standard icons, but to find a larger or broader set of icons to be used throughout a site or to find an icon set with a specific look and feel can be a bit more difficult. I’ve scoured some of the usual suspects for icons, like Smashing Magazine or famfamfam, both of which are great resources, but today I saw an article for the 50 Most Beautiful Icon Sets Created in 2008. It’s a great package of icon sets that can come in handy for designers and developers alike.

Couple other links from PSDTUTS that are worth mentioning (should’ve caught these last week, but c’est la vie!):

Best of the Web - November 2008: From custom brushes and fonts to tutorials on effects and finding inspiration, a great collection of design resources. Interested in the Slow Motion Bullet photoshop tutorial - just seems really cool!

Best of TUTS - November 2008: Web development screencasts (who wants to look at code when they’re coding?!), 10 CSS mistakes to avoid, and a collection of must-read web development books.

I was reading an article on Google Watch about trusting Google, and there are some interesting points in the article.

That Google lives and dies on trust is why I trust the search engine with my data. Here’s why. I happily use Gmail and Google Reader, not to mention Google search. I harbor no illusions about what data Google can collect on me and I freely grant it that right. It doesn’t bother me a lick that Google may collect the data and use it to forge more targeted ads on my behalf.

I think Clint Boulton’s statement on why he trusts Google is exactly why people shouldn’t trust Google. While Clint (am I allowed to call him by his first name?) understands the symbiotic relationship between provider and end-user, most people don’t. They are oblivious to the fact that they are being profiled.

I’m not one of the privacy paranoiacs, and I agree that when it comes to data theft that banks and retailers are a much bigger concern. While I trust Google now, at least as much as I trust any other such Enterprise or Corporation, will I be able to say the same thing in 1-year? 2-years? 5 or 10-years? I’m not sure I will be able to, and I’d rather be proactive rather than reactive.

With Google taking a near strangle-hold on the access of information, squeezing more and more ad revenue out of its network, and having what seems to be less and less accountability for their actions (examples here and here), isn’t it only a matter of time before the search giant becomes corrupted?

Facebook Connect Launches - There has been a lot of work done with Identity, and up until now, it seemed like OpenID was slowly becoming the leading candidate, but as Om Malik points out in the article, the number and quality of launch partner sites is one reason why Facebook is going to get more traction compared to its rivals. Another article on the topic is Why Facebook Connect Matter & Why It Will Win.

Top Stories & Searches for 2008 - In a year that seemed dominated (on both sides of the border) by the political landscape, it might be a bit surprising that Britney Spears and WWE both ranked higher than Obama on the list, however, there’s probably a reasonable explanation for the results.

2nd Annual Open Web Awards Final Voting - It might be a bit questionable to have the ‘open’ web awards being offered by a commercial entity instead of an organization of sorts, but if it really is the only multilingual international online voting competition that covers major innovations in web technology, it’s definitely got clout. Final round of voting can be found here.

Browser wars continue - As mentioned in a post earlier this week, browser market share had some interesting numbers; Firefox has passed the 20% mark, IE is below the 70% mark, and Chrome and Safari are slowly clawing out their own niche in the market.

Hirings and Firings - Maybe the specific hires like Microsoft adding former Yahoo! Exec Dr. Qi Lu as President of Online Services Group aren’t the real story. With AT&T announcing 12,000 jobs will be cut (4% of its workforce) and Google looking to eliminate projects, the tech industry is definitely being affected by the slowing of the economy.

I’ve made my own informal checklist of do’s and don’ts for web design, but I will always rely on the top-of-their-game professionals and their wisdom to help each individual project. While I consider myself a near expert on the subject, it’s often difficult to explain if for someone else to truly understand. An article on PSDTUTS does a great job of breaking down web design into 3 components: aesthetic design, information design, and interface design:

Good design isn’t just about good looks, and nowhere is this truer than in web design. In fact it makes sense to think of web design as being made up of three major non-technical components: aesthetic design, information design and interface design. If you want to be a great web designer it’s essential that you have a firm grasp of all three.

View the full article here: The 3 Components of Good Web Design.

UPDATE: The above article is part of a week-long series of articles on good web design. The rest of the articles in the series are linked to below:
9 Information Design Tips to Make You a Better Web Designer
8 Ideas, Techniques, and Tricks for Your Web Toolkit

Microsoft continues to find its way into the news, but there rarely seems to be much good said about poor old Redmond. On the browser front, Firefox has moved over the 20% market share mark for the first time since November 2004, while Internet Explorer has dropped below 70% market share. Safari, Chrome, and Firefox are all winners in IE’s loss, but keep in mind, there are a handful of alternative browsers.

On the same day, it was announced that Microsoft’s Windows has dropped to a 15-year low 90% market share. Again, this is another impressive number with respect to market share, but like IE, Windows has been steadily declining as the available alternatives increase.

Finally, Microsoft is yet again in talks with Yahoo! over some sort of purchase related to Yahoo!’s search property. There is tremendous pressure from the board, led by Carl Icahn, to make some sort of a deal to streamline the company, but a total purchase is said to be out of the question. This is all hot on the heels of Jerry Yang announcing his departure as CEO and the end to a proposed deal between Yahoo! and Google.

Some say the new Microsoft Yahoo $20 billion search deal is fiction, but who really knows at this point.