Sunday, April 30, 2006

Google Does it again!

Friday Google released a great 3D program named Google SketchUp. The name does it justice as you simply draw 2D and then sketch up by the push of a button.

This 3D program is by far the easiest program I have ever used. It comes complete with a 3 part tutorial, all you need to learn how to use the program. These tutorials, which take a maximum of 5 minute each to complete, follow the same basic and easy to use interfaces that Google has become so popular for.

The bottom line is that the search engine giant has come far from its roots, they decided on a goal of dominating the PC space a few years back and slowly but surely they are doing so. On another note, they have definitely declared war on Microsoft by joining on the campaign of Explorer Destroyer, a group focused on taking the market share from IE and shift it to Firefox. Google is offering a $1 per referral program via their popular ad sense program.

Monday, April 24, 2006

Keeping up with the standards

Today Linksys announced a new family of products promising to deliver 100Mbps throughput of wireless bandwidth. This is faster than most wired networks have to offered and therefore revolutionary.

According to PC World, the new router is to retail for about $150, while the PC Card is expected to sell for $120. These prices although higher than current technology should go down as sales of the items reach the company's goals.

Recently, most news and technology sites have moved to provide videos. IPTV is the next hottest thing on the Web. The products been release are to coincide with the vast demand for higher bandwidth as the Web moved to the IPTV technology.

The bottom line is that Linksys, a division of Cisco, has seen the need for more bandwidth and they have step up to the challenge. More companies will be emulating this soon, but everyone always remembers where they seen it first.

Monday, April 17, 2006

Ads that work

We are constantly spammed and shown a multitude of ads as we move from page to page on the Web. Yet, I don't recall the last time I clicked on any of these.

This past Friday I was reading a story on MSNBC about Google and Yahoo. I have been doing some research on regards to both of these two search engines powerhouses. I read of yahoo buying a new service and was interested on reading about these as it rivaled Google's new Calendar service.

When looking into Yahoo's Upcoming.org service, I landed on Yahoo.com to be mesmerize by an ad about Saturn's new car (see image on the left) and found myself for the first time clicking on an ad. I don't know whether it was because I'm a car fanatic or because of the way the flash ad loaded and showcased the vehicle, but I like to think it was the latter.

The design of this car is magnificent and rivals many of its competitors, but with a much lower and attractive price. Though not a big fan of Saturn or American cars in general, I hope the car does well, in the hopes to see some of its competitors lower their prices.

The bottom line is that with a really attractive ad you can achieve a lot. I further investigated Yahoo as it provided something I never noticed before but apparently has been there for a while, that is, Yahoo allows you to rate the ads you see. This is a phenomenal feature as it not only provides some ROI for the investor, but further gives Web designers feedback they don't often receive.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Apple will never be #1

Today Apple released revision 3 of their Remote Desktop software. The software allows users to manage up to 10 machines, but comes at the steep retail price of $299. While management of unlimited systems comes at a whopping $499.

The software, revised, to make it compatible with the world wide talked about dual booter OS that came out with the acquisitions of chips from Intel. The new software also comes with improve software distribution, asset management and remote assistance.

However, what Apple still fails to see is that Microsoft users get the same software built in with the OS. If you bundle software together, you can charge a steeper price, but the consumers still feel like they're getting a lot of value for their money.

The bottom line is that if you want to stay competitive in a consumer market you have to cater to, who else, the consumer. People want to get the most bang for their buck. Apple will never dominate the PC market charging such ridiculous prices for their software and their PCs, no matter how much more stable their OS runs.

Monday, April 10, 2006

Don't sweat the small stuff!

Life is really short, recently it seems everybody is asking me to do a lot and with so little time I have been cranky to say the least. However, today I suddenly realize that there is no point in getting stressed.

As a creative person, I realize that there are creative ways to solve problems. One day at a time, one hour a time, to one email at a time. As well, it helps to think that no matter how bad you are doing, there is always someone worst off.

After all even Apple realizes that if you can't fight them, you must join them. The new beta version of Apple's dual-boot enabler allows Intel-based Macs to speak Microsoft's language. Apple switch to Intel's processors for the personal computers in order to allow users the flexibility to run both apple's OS and Microsoft Windows. Boot Camp is a dual-boot enabler specifically designed to allow users to install Windows XP on Intel-based Macs.

The bottom line is that when you see yourself cornered, you must think creatively on how to solve your problems whether is giving in to what is demanded of you or coming to a compromise by meeting your opponent half way. Either way, one step at a time is bound to allow you to come to a good decision.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Google analytics

A while back I wrote about a new tool from Google which offered to keep track of the traffic to your site. The problem was that they had an overwhelming number of people trying to sign up, and as such they close registration and later it became available by invitation only.

Today I finally received my invitation, only three months later. I guess better late than never. It seems to be a simple process of adding a little JavaScript to all pages on your site. Until you realize that I have a lot of pages to include this code into.

The bottom line is that with all the power that google has, you would think that they can simply use the google ads that are already on every one of the pages I want track to provide the analytics. It is a good thing that I have an include file that lives in every page and I can simply add this code to that include. For those of you not familiar with includes, these are files that get call by your pages and if you update the single page, the change expands to all files using this include. A very helpful way to do something if your pages use the same code in a multitude of pages. Typically includes are used for navigation bars and footers across a Web site.

Design Challenges