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Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Print, Web, who cares, just be informed

Recently I had a friendly discussion with a colleague on the topic of print versus digital publishing. The mediums are very similar in that they provide information.

That is were the similarities end.

When an individual sits down to read a newspaper or magazine, they do so as a leisure activity, a way to pass time, which yields knowledge. At the same time they are limited to the information provided by the author/writer. If the user has questions, they cannot interact or find a quick answer within the same media vehicle. The reader is left to ponder and resolve their own thoughts and ideas on the piece. Readers usually find themselves reading the piece two or three times looking for clues that will help them come to a conclusion.

When a reader opens a browser, it is done with the purpose to satisfy a hunger for knowledge. They seat at this dinner table and start with a search, one or two key terms. They dive into the topic at hand and quickly find themselves jumping from one topic to the next, all trigger by the information they are receiving. Like in print, one topic leads to questions, the difference, the reader has a quick satisfaction. The need to think is drastically diminished. A reader simply needs to turn back to the search box and be ready to face a multitude of choices and options for an answer.

This medium is able to provide a great deal of information to be consumed. The hunger never seizes, but merely a level of satisfaction is achieved that allows the reader to walk away from the table empower with applicable knowledge.

The bottom line is that there is a need and room for both mediums. Writing for the Web is a whole different art form than that of print. The Web is a medium of collaboration where a reader is provided a multitude of opinions and ideas that lead to a conclusion. Where as Print is a medium for those seeking one experts opinion allowing the reader to either accept the conclusion or form their own with at their own capacity.

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Saturday, September 13, 2008

Google Chrome

Web designers faced many challenges, among them the compatibility across all browsers. In 2004, I downloaded Opera, and it became my rule of thumb that if it worked and looked good in Opera, it would be fine in all other browsers.

Then came a new version of Opera, and my rule went out the door. I know was creating sites and testing in three different browsers. I was testing in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera. I could care less about Safari or Mac browsers because at the time Apple was in the toilet and most were using PC.

Since 2004 many things have changed. Most households have adopted some flavor of computer and some sort of broadband. Each of the aforementioned browsers have evolved and have required many more band-aids across the board. CSS has also evolved and with it many more problems have followed. In June of this year (2008), I wrote a post alluding to Google putting all these broswers to shame with some standards.

Well the Google browser is now here. As with all Google products is a beta release and shall remain so for the upcoming years to follow. I download the savior last week and have been playing on and off with it. Test driving it if you will. As with most Google creations, it is simple, yet powerful enought to calculate your most visited sites and minimizes the crashes. Although it provides a lot of features, it somehow lacks flare.

I opened a few pages that have tweaks and patches and for the most part it looks like all sytems are a go.

The bottom line is that with the release of Chrome I hope to be able to diminish the patches, but the future looks gloomy thus far, I spoke with a few friends in the space and most had yet to hear of the browser, let alone taken it out for a test drive. Hopefully our Savior has come, but only time will tell.

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