Welcome to the new Engadget!

Welcome to the new Engadget! It's taken us a ridiculously long time to get to this point (could everyone please stop having keynotes we have to liveblog?), but we're finally ready to introduce the latest version of Engadget. We haven't just refreshed the design, either, we've added a bunch of new features that should make Engadget a little more user-friendly. Oh, and to celebrate the occasion we're giving away tens of thousands of dollars of gear -- dozens of prizes -- for the next few weeks. Yeah, seriously, you're gonna want to watch out.

For now, click on for a rundown of all the new features, plus some info on how you can give us feedback about bugs and whatever else we can to make the site even better. We're still working out the bugs, so please be patient with us as we get Engadget solid again -- you guys are first adopters, you can handle it -- and keep in mind that we'll be rolling out more improvements over the coming weeks and months.

Oh, and if things aren't yet looking right, clear your cache! Thanks, and on with the show...

User moderated comments

You asked for 'em, you got 'em! You can now vote up or down on comments, and filter comments based on their rating -- as determined by the readers! Comment ratings occur in five steps:

• Highest ranked
  
• Highly ranked
  
• Neutral
• Low ranked
  
• Lowest ranked
  

One vote up or down does not equal one rating level, so voting a "neutral" comment up won't necessarily make it jump to "good." However, when enough users vote up or down, the comments will hop up or down a notch (or two). As we develop this system, you should eventually be able to see the standing votes for any given comment.

If you wish to report a comment, just hit the report button instead (the "!" all the way to the right). Please, only report spam or trolls, DO NOT use it to report comments you disagree with or dislike!

To reply to a comment, simply click the reply link and enter your comment. To view others' replies to your comment, click the replies link -- it will drop down your replies in-line. If you'd like to view the whole comment thread of replies, click "View Comment in Thread" to see the thread.

Also remember, the ratings of your comments do not have any effect on your standing as a commenter or user -- in other words, don't get bummed out if your comment is negatively rated! Try to be on-topic and civil, and your peers will thank you for it.

P.S. -Yes, we know you want filtering and/or sorting. We do to, and we're working on it. Like, right this second. Seriously.


Comment logins

We know you guys are mad sick of having to authenticate yourselves every single time you leave a comment. We hear ya. So now you only have to authenticate once, and you'll be sent a password to use for future comments on Engadget. Lose your password? No worries, just leave a comment as a new user, and your authentication email for that comment will include your password -- just like the first time.

Note: we don't have a way for you to change your password just yet, so make sure you click on remember me or have your browser save it for you. Sorry!


Dynamic / scalable content width

We know you guys love widescreen monitors every bit as much as we do, so why the hell waste all that space? Engadget now scales as about wide as your average widescreen laptop (1440 pixels), so you can have as much Engadget as you want.

But what good is all that width with itty bitty pictures? That's why we added scalable accompanying images, too. Our largest, highest resolution images will grow dynamically to fit your browser with little or no discernible loss in quality. Go ahead, do it -- watch the screencap above, or the logo image at the top of this post.

P.S. - If it doesn't actually look good, your browser might need updating. Try the latest version of Opera, Firefox, IE, or Safari!


Breaking news, features box, Engadget Mobile headlines

People are always asking us where they can find the breaking news on Engadget. Well, we've got a place for you to check now: the Breaking News box, where all the hottest news is going to go as soon as it hits the wires.

Right beneath it is the Featured Stories box, which will show off the latest reviews, hands-ons, columns, interviews, and other featured content from the Engadget staff and our amazing collection of writers, columnists, and industry insiders.

Oh, and over there on the right you'll see we've added Engadget Mobile headlines, so you can stay on top of what's going on over in the cellphone scene while browsing Engadget Classic.

We've also resurrected the suspiciously absent open-link-in-new-window icon for our read link! Sweet!


Tags and tag feeds, comment feeds, and category feeds

We're like, so Web 2.0. You may (or may not) have noticed, but we now have tags (and tag feeds) for our posts. So if you want to check out all the posts we've done on, say, Sony, just add Sony at the end of engadget.com/tag/ -- i.e. http://www.engadget.com/tag/sony/.

If you'd like to subscribe to the Sony tag feed and see all the Sony stories we're doing in your RSS aggregator, just add an rss.xml to the end of that URL -- i.e. http://www.engadget.com/tag/sony/rss.xml.

You can also subscribe to feeds for comments on individual posts now. Just add comments.xml to the end of the post (i.e. http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/18/welcome-to-the-new-engadget/comments.xml). Or you can go to the nifty little feed icon/link set up on every post.

We also made the category feeds a little more prominent. This should help you hone in on the stories you like, organized by category. Check 'em out here: http://www.engadget.com/feeds/


Multiple podcast feeds!

We told you guys over and over we were working on it, so here you go. You'll now be able to subscribe to the Engadget podcast in your choice of formats: MP3, OGG, and enhanced-AAC. We'll let you know how to get this rolling before our next show, so you can be sure to subscribe to the program in the format of your choosing!


We're all super excited about these new changes and features, but please remember: it's all in beta! If you're having any trouble, check out our bugs post, and see if there's a fix or some words on your issue in there.

Thanks for all your support everyone!
Peter, Ryan, and all the staff at Engadget.

P.S. - Mad shout outs to our whole tech team for making this happen. In no particular order, big ups to Brian Alvey, Mike Propst, Gavin Hall, Alex Rudloff, Celly, and the whole crew at AOL. You guys are the best -- now back to work!

[Rick @ Mar 26th 2008 12:14PM]

test

[DiscoCat5 @ Apr 10th 2008 2:45AM]

the site looks good, nice and fresh, and im sorry if soemone has already said this cos i havent read every post thoroughly, but i think that the date of each post is wrong, its sating september 18th 2006

[DiscoCat5 @ Apr 10th 2008 2:48AM]

it seems as though its been fixed.... not entirely sure

[zxions @ Apr 24th 2008 7:56PM]

That was intresting

[Uchendu Nwachukwu @ Sep 18th 2006 3:51AM]

The site literally changed right in front of my eyes!

Yay! I like the comment moderating feature and the comment login. Having to authenticate my email every single time was driving me batty.

All in all, good moves Engadget. :)

[X Budd @ Sep 18th 2006 3:45PM]

Way to go guys! I really like how everything looks! Very Web 2.0-ish!

[Hunter @ Sep 18th 2006 3:58AM]

This is insane, much like above, it changed all of a sudden.

I like it a lot.

[FGT @ Sep 18th 2006 4:10AM]

I don't like it! I mean the layout is nice, but I can't croll with my mouse wheel anymore. The screen and it's content gets garbed. Oh Well...

[Digital Death @ Sep 18th 2006 4:07AM]

Cool stuff...thanks for all the hard work!

[Ryan Block @ Sep 18th 2006 4:01AM]

Thanks! We're looking forward to all the rad things we've got planned in the next couple of months, too. The fun doesn't stop here!

[Ryan Block @ Sep 18th 2006 4:02AM]

By the way, we may not have passwords in the emails right at this moment, our servers are going to be updating throughout the night. Stay tuned!

[Alex @ Sep 18th 2006 4:05AM]

Sweet :D

[Damage @ Sep 18th 2006 4:06AM]

Very nice... It's about time to make good use of all that screen real estate.

[nowhere @ Sep 18th 2006 4:08AM]

Looks terrible and loads incredibly slllllooooowwwwlllyyyy in Firefox for Mac. Looks good in Safari though.

[Hunter @ Sep 18th 2006 4:12AM]

It looks great on my MacBook in both Safari and FireFox.

Are you using the latest version of FF?

[Conrad Quilty-Harper @ Sep 18th 2006 4:17AM]

Some very good advice: clear your cache! I visited just now and got a very ugly Engadget 1.0 / Engadget 2.0 mashup, but after clearing the cache it was lovely and pretty!

Hope that helps,
Conrad

[Cypy @ Sep 18th 2006 10:20AM]

On Firefox you must enable it to display all images, if it is displaying them for the orriginating website only, it will look terrible.

[James @ Sep 18th 2006 4:06AM]

I guess the other Weblogs associated blog links haven't been added back yet. So far so good.

[K @ Sep 18th 2006 4:21AM]

Wowzer! Brilliant!

[peteremcc @ Sep 18th 2006 4:09AM]

Awesome, thanks guys. Been waiting for this.
1 thing, the comments submission still doesn't seem to support CoComment.
Thanks anyway!

[liquid @ Sep 18th 2006 4:09AM]

still a lot of wasted space, would be nice to scale to 1920x1200 resolutions.

[dogarms @ Sep 18th 2006 7:24AM]

you're fullscreening windows on a 24" display?? for shame, for shame...

[Suntiger @ Sep 18th 2006 12:41PM]

Actually, for some of us 1920x1200 is a 17" widescreen laptop... M570U, anyone? Just because Apple can't fit more than that into a 24" display doesn't mean the rest of us can't.

A little padding (say, 100 px on a side) is nice, but I agree it should scale a little bigger.

[effward @ Sep 18th 2006 7:57PM]

It would be nice if it scaled to 1680x1050 monitors too, but we can't have it all.

I think it looks great! Thanks for all your hard work.

[Brian @ Sep 18th 2006 4:10AM]

I like it...Especially the password feature! The Engadget Logo on the frontpage surprised me, being 3:09 AM :-)

[woodylobster @ Sep 18th 2006 4:12AM]

wow, I like the new layout alot keep up the good work.

[peteremcc @ Sep 18th 2006 4:11AM]

Hmm... i didn't get a password in the message...

[peteremcc @ Sep 18th 2006 4:13AM]

ah just saw your comments above guys... :)
thanks for the work.

[Gabriel @ Sep 18th 2006 4:11AM]

nice :)

[Mat @ Sep 18th 2006 4:12AM]

Nice! But don't you think when the window is maximised the column for the text is too long?

[bumsk @ Sep 18th 2006 6:28AM]

agreed. I think there should be an option for fixed or scalable width. And with the comment voting system it shud be ranked with numbers (eg 4+ or -8)

[peteremcc @ Sep 18th 2006 4:16AM]

comments that are replys to something else also get added on the bottom of all the other comments too... oops.

2 comments for the price of 1!! :D

[Darrol @ Sep 18th 2006 4:13AM]

Wow, I like what you guys have done, it's awesome.

[Chris @ Sep 18th 2006 4:13AM]

Nice.

[rex @ Sep 18th 2006 4:17AM]

This is totally radically awesome!!! :D

[Gil @ Sep 18th 2006 4:15AM]

I like the new comments

[PJ @ Sep 18th 2006 11:09AM]

Yes, the comment voting is interesting. I wonder if this will catch on...

[Will @ Sep 18th 2006 4:15AM]

I love the new look!

[Terry @ Sep 18th 2006 4:15AM]

Initial response to what I see soi far is I like it.

Have not delved too deeply in to the feature, but so far I see no problems.

Good job!

[DinnyHoon @ Sep 18th 2006 1:32PM]

Wow, great new layout!

[AliasK @ Sep 18th 2006 4:37AM]

Wow, what a difference. The biggest one for me was the widescreen, it looks schmick.

[SLy @ Sep 18th 2006 4:17AM]

Excellent! You guys took your time though.

[Ryan Block @ Sep 18th 2006 4:37AM]

Yeah, we're doing the best we can though! It's not like we didn't want to do this over a year ago. Thanks!

[CowboyNinjaPirate @ Sep 18th 2006 4:18AM]

Great look guys, not too different but still really refreshing. :)

[Adam @ Sep 18th 2006 4:19AM]

I really like it!

Only think i can think that would make it easier to distinguish between the main content, breaking news and right column (because at the moment its a thin line that blends it for me) is to make a raised page type effect. Have a look at how http://www.smh.com.au/ does it on their front page.

Just a thought anyway, I'm sure people will disagree.

Keep going engadget!

[CowboyNinjaPirate @ Sep 18th 2006 4:21AM]

Oooh I second the guy who mentioned this before.
I posted my previos comment as a New User and got the validation E-Mail but thus far have recieved no password..?

Am I doing something wrong?

[peteremcc @ Sep 18th 2006 4:26AM]

nope, they've said they're having some problems at the moment and still working on it.

[Will @ Sep 18th 2006 4:26AM]

According to Ryan Block: "By the way, we may not have passwords in the emails right at this moment, our servers are going to be updating throughout the night. Stay tuned!"

[Terry @ Sep 18th 2006 4:26AM]

Same here, no password.

[Will @ Sep 18th 2006 4:23AM]

Are the other Weblogs Inc (Joystiq) going to adopt this system too, its amazing.