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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

iGoogle Themes

Last year Google introduced iGoogle, an addition to the Google Web site that allows customization, thereby creating an individual homepage for each user. You can login to your personalized page via the iGoogle top right menu on the Google homepage.

Not only do you get to use the predefined gadgets, but you can add your customized RSS feeds or create your own gadgets via the Web developer tools.

Today I noticed that Google was featuring theme images for the iGoogle homepage. It got me intrigued and I starting browsing the many themes available. Thus far I had been using the beach theme which changes it looks depending on the weather and time of the day. However, there are many other themes available. You can even give it a world and create your own themes. I haven't experimented yet, but hopefully I will be giving it a whirl soon.

The bottom line is that Google chooses to keep improving every product, first came iGoogle, then came Google Tabs, followed by Google Themes, now iGoogle social networking via design your own themes, user rating, user comments and FAQ. This company knows how to get things going and keep going. Google guys, forget American Idol, you are my new idols.

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posted by Death is Forever at 9:50 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

Monday, April 14, 2008

IE6 PNG Transparency Problem

I been working on redisigning a couple of Web site and have come across a very serious problem. I created an image to be place as the background of a div. I then went ahead and included the company logo as a transparant PNG file. Everything was going great. I normally develop in Internet Explorer 7, but make sure to test on all other browsers, Firefox, Netscape, AOL, and Safari.

Turns out during my testing I forgot one, Internet Explorer 6. Well it came to bite me in the butt. When I pulled up the site, the logo was there, but to my surprise it had a grey background instead of the expected transparent background.

After many javascript and conditional comments trials, I decided to incorporate the logo onto the background image. The problem came in that I needed that logo to serve as a hot link to the Web site homepage.

The answer was simple, I created a div inside the div containing the background image and gave it absolute positioning with an onclick command. Here is the code:



The bottom line is that when problems seem complex, the main key is not to panic but to walk away from it for a few minutes and come up with a solution. At first glance, I became quite frustrated, but I turned to work on something else, an hour later, the solution hit me. Hope this helps you as well.

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posted by Death is Forever at 3:53 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

Friday, April 11, 2008

Instant Information

The Web is designed as an avenue for providing and finding information, yet many media companies insist on holding back on their content until after their publication is released to the market.

This is a fatal mistake, folks who read periodicals are not the folks tuned in to the Web. A once a month read is not bad, but what about the media junkies who just can't get enough, how do you deliver to that audience?

Some companies don't even bother to put their content online, while others drop 20 to 30 articles onto their site typically on a random fashion and without any organization. To most publishers, their Web site is but an after thought, designed to serve as an advertisement to drive subscriptions for the periodical. Other simply place news and press release items, but leave their readers hanging with original content living strictly on the print pages.

The bottom line is that in today's world the business and money is online. Publishers can save millions of dollars by turning their periodical into digital editions first. That is, release the content to the site as it comes in. Use the print medium as a place to publish the most important stories/articles. Showcase a variety of product and product release, while driving the reader to the site to see a list of all items. Use the medium as a way to sum up the news for the month, but the site as a way to keep the reader vested and interested in checking that site often to see the goings on of the profession.

The reader benefits because:

1. they can reach all the content instantly on the Web site
2. Monitor the RSS feed in their favorite rss reader
3. Get a weekly newsletter with all new content via email.
4. Get a monthly filtered view via print.


The Publisher benefits because:
1. More viewers to their Web publications
2. More viewers means a higher CPM for their Ads
3. A inherited CMS (Content Management System) for their Print Publication
4. A better staffed editorial team that is cross trained for Print and Online
5. Less crunch time, since the articles are pre-edited.

and many more benefits. Now go on and designed a great site with proper navigation.

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posted by Death is Forever at 9:47 AM 0 Comments Links to this post