I will be the first to admit that some of these posters are pretty terrible. I don’t know who designed them, but I have to applaud the effort. I think it’s a great way to market the space program and the adventures of blasting off into the unknown.

From a marketing design standpoint, however, it would be nice to see the posters have a little bit better design. You’d think with a budget like NASA has that they could put a little bit more money into their marketing. I would imagine having that extra public interest boost might help sustain some of their programs when they’re in danger of being cut by the politicians that be.

I don’t know why NASA doesn’t promote this type of thing more. It seems like it’d be a great way to get kids interested in space exploration and what NASA and other space agencies are doing to explore what’s out there.

It seems NASA has got a bit of a funny side after all.

It seems that Apple is more and more interested in determining how content will flow through its tubes. It claims that Adobe’s Flash is “buggy,” and it wants a more “open” world wide web.

Apple is pushing for HTML5, which is technically open source programming. Anyone with text edit and a little bit of knowledge can write code for HTML5, unlike coding for Adobe’s Flash, which requires several hundred dollars investment into proprietary software.

Google has fired back at Apple, embracing Flash. It recently announced that a Flash plugin will be bundled with its Chrome browser for Windows. This means there won’t be a need to download Flash’s plugin manually, allowing a smoother experience for the end user.

This is a direct shot at Apple that refuses to allow Flash content on any of its devices, like the iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad, by not supporting flash content on its proprietary browser, Safari.

Personally, I don’t understand Apple’s aversion to letting the user and developer decide how they create media and view that media on an Apple device.

Luckily, Apple hasn’t pushed to remove Flash on their desktop or laptop computers. But one can only assume it would be a matter of time before they try to start pushing in that direction.

Here’s the problem:

It’s the same problem you’ve heard us complain about with Internet Explorer, and that is the lack of support for new technologies on certain browsers. Once Apple starts to ban certain technologies on their devices, developers will be forced to build to the lowest common denominator; which means skipping flash altogether.

Now, before I get any feedback about HTML5 and how it’s a superior technology, let me say this: I’m not here to tout Flash over HTML5, or vise versa. Both have their advantages.

Flash for instance allows for smoother animation of objects, more integration of actual animation, rather than objects moving, but it is not great for adding content because of Search Engine Optimization reasons. Search bots can’t index flash content as well, for instance.

HTML5 allows for lots of dynamic content, which can be indexed by search bots, but it requires much more technical knowledge of JavaScript and there is no graphic interface to design dynamic HTML5 content.

I don’t develop in Flash, for some of the reasons stated above, but I recognize the value of a really cool, interactive flash intro for certain situations. Just click around the movie site for “District 9″ as an example of a great way to integrate flash into a website – d-9.com.

Unfortunately, you wouldn’t be able to view any of that on an iPad.

What I don’t agree with is a platform dictating to the developer and end user what programs they can or cannot use. If Flash were as bad as Apple claims it to be, wouldn’t Flash’s own shortcomings ultimately do it in? And wouldn’t it be up to Adobe to fix those problems to make it a viable technology? Flash’s pitfalls should be the downfall of Flash, not Apple’s decisions to forgo its use.

You can read up more about the Apple/Google spat here:

• blogs.zdnet.com
  
• computerworld.co.nz
  
• podcastingnews.com

Net censorship is a huge deal. Not just for citizens of the free world, but for the less fortunate living under authoritarian regimes and dictatorships it means the difference between freedom and tyranny. Being able to share differing views and opinions is a basic human right that just about every civilized nation can agree on.

Governments should be transparent and honest, because it is the governments job to protect and serve it’s people. If it weren’t for its citizens, a government would have no reason to exist. And just like the government, without your customers your business would have no reason to exist.

I don’t think it’s a huge jump to compare your business’ brand perception with the perception of the most powerful businesses in the land.

Having an open, transparent facade is not only important for governments, but it can be immensely important for your business as well. This can be especially true for firms that acquire more influence and power as they grow.

Being a rights junkie and free speech advocate to the max, one of the things that bugs me to no end is when a business gets upset at bad reviews or negative criticism and tries to delete those reviews or criticism from it’s blog, Facebook page, review site, etc.

It’s completely dishonest and misleading. Normally, it causes a bigger stir and free press for the reviewers, which only  makes it worse for yourself.

Recently, Nestle Foods created a huge fiasco by deleting negative comments on their Facebook page. In the end, they ended up making themselves look bad and only helped Green Peace get some free press, which is exactly what they were trying to avoid. Read the CNET article here.

Any rational person knows that a business won’t be right 100% of the time. The question you need to answer is, “How do you handle it now,” and “What do I do to fix this?” The correct answer is not covering up the problem and pretending like it never happened.

For most businesses, the answer is finding out what you did wrong, then fixing it so that it never happens again. Negative feedback from customers can be crucial when finding problems in your business model.

What are your thoughts on government censorship?

It’s important for a few reasons.

It helps us stay current and viable. Since we keep current, we can continue to grow by gaining big name clients and clients that are looking for a superior web presence.

If we aren’t up to speed with the newest ways to design and code our websites, we’ll be outdated and overlooked in no time.

Another big advantage is that the more we stay up to date, the more proficient we become at coding our sites.

This means less unexpected problems, a more streamlined process, and a better user experience for your customers.

A couple technologies I’m referring to, and the ones I’m extremely excited about are HTML5 and CSS3.

In fact, we’ve been using CSS3 techniques for several months now on a lot of our newer websites. Chances are, if we’ve done your site recently, we’ve included some fantastic new CSS3 techniques.

CSS3 allows us to do some really great things for your site, like include custom font faces, apply rounded corners, drop shadows, gradients, and lots of other stylistic things, without having to create and load external image files.

All of this helps us to cut down on load times, and helps to create a better user experience for people who visit your site.

One disadvantage, however, is that Internet Explorer does not support a lot of these techniques. Unfortunately, we’re still forced to create hacks and workarounds so that Internet Explorer will render the same as Safari, Firefox, Chrome and Opera (this is somewhat off topic, but you can always upgrade your browser to the much more advanced Fire Fox).

We’re very excited to expand our knowledge further with new hardware, software, and coding languages from right now until the distant future.

If you’d like your website coded so that it is scalable and relevant for the next generation of web users, give us a call. We’d be happy to help you move your company into the 21st century.

The concept is this:

Flinc users A, B, C, D, and E all have this app on their smart phone. Ideally, there would be hundreds of people using this app in each city on a daily basis. A user can either be a passenger or a driver, depending on how they set their status, which can be changed throughout the day, depending on if you need a ride or if you’re looking to pick up another user.

If you are a user, you input your destination, and based on your vicinity, other users will be able to decide if you are on their way. They can pick you up, for a fee, and drop you off where you need to go. The driver makes a quick buck, you don’t spend as much as a cab, and hopefully the ride isn’t as painful as a city bus or some other form of public transportation.

The idea is that you pick up another user, and they pay you for the ride, via the mobile app. Each user links their account to a checking or some other kind of money account. Theoretically this is for safety purposes, to ensure that you can’t change your identity, and work the system anonymously.

Also, to ensure politeness and cleanliness, Flinc will set up a rating system so that you can rate your experience with the users. Were they a courteous driver? Did they smoke? Did they shower? Were they maniacs? You get the idea. Once the passenger was dropped off, you would be able to rate your experience with the other user, hopefully setting up some kind of trust system.

For simplification here, let’s say their are only five users, “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” and “E.” Users A – D have their settings switched to driver, and User E to passenger. User E inputs his destination, and all users in his vicinity are displayed. In his case, Users A – D.

User E can use the rating system to set preferences of who they’d like to pick them up. For the sake of argument, let’s say user C has 5 stars, User A has 4 starts, User B three stars, User D one star.

User E  can set his preferences in whichever order he likes, so let’s say he chooses C, A, B, D.

User C is sent a message first with the user profile, along with the rating and final destination of User E. User A is not going that direction, so he declines, and a message is automatically sent to user A. User A accepts the offer, and picks up User E.

Once the ride is complete, the money is transferred from User E’s account to User A’s account, and they are then able to rate their experience. Let’s say User A smoked, and User E didn’t like that, so User E notes that in his review for future passengers.

It sounds great, right? Well, in a perfect world, sure. It’d be awesome if a system like this worked out. I wouldn’t bother driving anywhere if I weren’t so scared of being abducted, raped, or murdered.

Also, there are certainly legal issues. I can’t say with 100% certainty, but I would be willing to bet there will be some issues in certain cities regarding hire taxi regulations. Does this violate some of those laws? I don’t doubt that this app will receive a lot of attention from large cab companies. I wouldn’t be surprised if they brought civil cases or some other kind of lawsuits trying to ban such an app.

On top of the legal issues, there is the obvious safety issues. Without the set up of certain requirements, checks, or balances, what would stop a perfectly deranged person from picking up a young girl, and never dropping them off? I’m sure I’m not the only person that is a bit put off by a service like this.

Is it sad? Sure it is. Is it reality? You bet.

Personally, I think the technology is great. I think the concept is genius, but at what point do we say: “OK, I think technology shouldn’t enable certain things?” If you ask me, this app is only asking for abuse. Without certain restrictions and other safety nets, I think this idea could turn into a real mess.

1. It’s old.
2. It’s outdated.
3. It doesn’t support new technology.

What does this mean? It means that it’s a  pain for developers, and that means an increased charge for you to have us work around it. So, we do have some mutual interest in you upgrading your browsers regularly.

I totally get that some firms have invested a lot of money in certain technology. Upgrading that technology might not be financially viable.

Those people probably aren’t your target market anyway, unless you’re a “B to B” business. Still, I don’t believe that IE6′s market share of 9.6% are government workers, or people browsing websites at work. The relatively newer IE7 has 11%, while the newest version of Internet Explorer, IE8 has 14.7%.

Why is the market share for IE almost evenly spread throughout it’s 35.3% (down almost 1% from January) market share? I’ll tell you why. Because IE doesn’t encourage you to upgrade your browser.

I logged on with Firefox the other day, and I got this message asking me to download version 3.6. Note that it doesn’t require you to update if you don’t want to, but it does tell you why you should: It’s faster, more secure, with thousands of add-ons. As a bonus, it lets you do all of that in one easy click of the mouse. In less than 5 minutes you’re updated. You can even browse the web while it downloads in the background.

Aside from the visual and security updates, what’s important for web developers are the back end updates that come along with upgraded browsers. Features that support new technologies like CSS3 and HTML5 make coding your site easier. They help your website to load faster and more efficiently, in the long run helping your online sales or business to grow.

Microsoft doesn’t do this. Microsoft makes you find the update, download it, and install it. That’s why we still have 20% of users using outdated browsers. That’s why most (awesome) web designers hate Internet Explorer.

So, do yourself a favor. Switch to Firefox. When you notice that the web is a lot prettier and loads faster, you’ll leave me a comment and thank me for my advice.

Their first ad ever aired during Super Bowl 44 (that’s in 2010). I would be willing to bet that it was the cheapest to produce out of all the commercials that night, yet for me, it was the most effective.

It really is remarkable how much imagery was set off in my head by such a seemingly simple advertisement. By showing us 12 simple live keyword searches, Google managed to tell us an entire love story, from beginning to happy ending.

If you weren’t one of the 106 million people that watched the game, or if you just want to watch it again, you can follow along here.

“Study abroad in Paris“ – We start off with a (presumably) young male looking for a way to study abroad. What better place to start than Google?

“Cafés near the Louvre“ – We assume he’s found the right place to study, has just gotten off the plane, and is looking for  a place to relax near the Louvre in Paris. Oh, he’s found a place called the cabaret. That sounds nice. Maybe he’ll have a coffee and a croissant. I bet it’s nice outside.

(Did you notice he misspells Louvre – ‘Loo’? It ads a bit of realism to it.)

“Translate ‘tu es trés mignon’“ – A french girl has come up to our young student and said, “Tu es trés mignon.” He hasn’t got a clue what that means. Thanks to Google, he’s found out what it means. A French girl thinks he’s very cute?! What a great first day in Paris!

“Impress a French girl“ – Now that he knows she likes him, what is he going to do to impress her? What better way to find out than with Google?

“Chocolate shops in Paris France” - Thanks to Google, he’s found out that French girls love nothing more than chocolate. Thanks to the advice from Google, he finds “Cacao et Chocolate,” where the girl behind the counter tells him that a French girl’s favorite thing in the world is a truffle. He had better get her a truffle!

“What are truffles?“ – A what? A truffle? What the heck is a truffle?! Google to the rescue.

“Who is Truffaut“ – Since he’s new to Paris, and he’s not very fluent in French, our young student misunderstands the clerk at Cacao et Chocolat. A French girl’s favorite thing isn’t a truffle at all (silly Americans)! It’s the influential French film maker, François Truffaut! And luckily, “Day For Night” is her favorite film!

“Long distance relationship advice“ – Our young French girl was obviously impressed by our young student’s knowledge of French New Wave film. They both know it’ll be hard, but they’re determined to make it work.

“Jobs in Paris“ - Our two long distance love birds have suffered through several semesters away from each other. Graduation is only a few short months away. It’s time to start searching for jobs in Paris.

“DL 8601” - Our student is nervous. This is a big step. He checks his flight status to make sure everything is on time and ready to go.

Interestingly, this search term was changed from the original that aired on YouTube several months ago. The original search term was “AA 120.” If you notice the results, there are two hits for audio equipment. Did Google change the search term to get rid of irrelevant results? I think so.

“Churches in Paris“ – Their patience has paid off. He’s asked her father for permission, and now it’s time to find the right place. Not just any place will do. Ah, the Paoisse Saint Léon. A beautiful church on Place du Cardinal Amette. Perfect for this budding couple. They even have a website where they can see pictures of previous weddings online, from the comfort of their Paris flat.

“How to assemble a crib“ – The Paoisse Saint Léon on Place du Cardinal Amette was a beautiful ceremony. The newly weds immediately left for their honeymoon and began growing their family. There’s only one problem, he’s not very mechanically inclined. Thank God for Google!

—

Google told us this entire story without actually saying anything. All of this imagery was portrayed by the simple use of searching for everyday things online via their search engine. I’m sure this ad wasn’t made to turn any Bing or Yahoo users into avid Google followers, but what it did do was evoke an emotional response from Google’s already established users to make sure they weren’t going anywhere.

Overall, the ad was simple and well put together. It wasn’t the normal, over the top, cute animals talking, unfunny celebrity cameo garbage we normally get for a Super Bowl commercial.

This ad was only one in the series of videos made by Google called “Search Stories,” which you can find here: http://www.youtube.com/searchstories. they’re all similar to this, with subjects ranging from starting high school to fixing pot holes, but this one was definitely the most heart warming.

This ad had class, and I dug it.

I could go through an almost infinite list of fonts that should never be used, but for this particular blog post, I’m going to talk about only two.

At the top of the list resides Comic Sans. If you don’t know the history of Comic Sans, I’ll give you a brief overview. Basically, Comic Sans was created by a Microsoft engineer in 1994 for a program called Microsoft Bob. The geniuses at Microsoft thought it would be a good idea to use Times New Roman in the talk bubbles of cartoon Characters. Vincent Connare thought that was ridiculous, so he designed Comic Sans for a more fun interaction.

In the mid 90s when Comic Sans was shipping with Windows, there weren’t really many font options for the average Joe. The internet was still young and it wasn’t a simple to search for a new font online. Even installing a new font took a Doctorate in Computer Science.

Comic Sans seemed like a great choice for you new born’s first birthday party, when you wanted a “hand written” look, something playful, etc. I’ve also seen some pretty terrible uses over the years. Here are just a few.

A graphic designer’s job is to choose an appropriate type face for the message they are trying to get across. The font face should have the desired impact, and issue the correct response from the message reader. These previous examples did not take their message, or their message’s impact, into account, and they ended up looking completely ridiculous.

The second worse font created by man is Papyrus. Papyrus is probably more overused these days than Comic Sans. No scientific research was done before making that claim. I only base that on the amount of times I see Papyrus each day, which is about a thousand.

Papyrus is the font of choice for day spas, organic grocery stores, hair salons, frugal engaged couples looking to save money by designing their own wedding invitations, but most recently by James Cameron and his bloated budget blockbuster, Avatar.

I read a great blog recently, “An Open Letter to James Cameron,” written by Papyrus himself. It’s an obviously satirical letter, but it brings up a lot of great points.

Avatar is the most expensive movie ever made. James Cameron has been working on Avatar for more than ten years. The production company basically invented a new technique for filming movies. A process so advanced, that James Cameron had to wait for the technology to catch up. Obviously, a lot of thought and planning went into the production of this movie.

A comment was left on the blog that sums it up perfectly for me.

Posted by Jordan:

Just unbelievable that they spent as much as they did on this movie, and yet COULDN’T spring the minuscule extra cash to get something more suitable selected or designed.

Easily for a comically miniscule amount of money you could have had a unique custom typeface designed to use solely for the film marketing and subtitles, designed by any number of the worlds top typographers or type foundries. Plus, I’m sure most would have loved to jump on the opportunity to be part of this epic titanic-sized movie.

AND, it’s not like there wasn’t an insane attention to detail to begin with. They created an entire legitimate language for the Na’vi to speak, enlisting the help of top linguists! Really, an entire language… from scratch… and a default font pulled off your secretary’s computer?

I can’t believe on a production that probably had at least a thousand different hands touch it at some point, not a single person ever had the ability to speak up, at any stage in the game, and point out this gross typographical monstrosity. So sad.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that the movie is intrinsically bad, or that no one should see the movie simply because of the font choice. What I am saying is that with so much money spent, and with so many other finer details gone over, how does something as important as the movie title’s font choice not get more scrutiny?

How does one justify spending so much on a movie, only to skimp on something as important as the movie’s logo, using a font that’s found on every house wife’s computer across the country. What is the rationale for not thinking about this further?

It’s beyond me. It really is.