Design Challenges

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

The pretty colors of fall

Summer is quickly coming to an end. One of the things I miss about the north is the change of seasons. We have been in Florida now for a year, as such, we have experience all four seasons: fall, winter, spring, and summer.

Up north the seasons are drastically different, leaves change, trees come in and out of live and the landscape changes. In Florida we have really only two seasons, hot and hotter! No matter where you go in Florida it all looks the same, flat and green, with the occasional water spot.

Today, I can officially consider my self a Floridian as we been visited by a snake. This evening my wife went to get the mail after returning from a long workout and a bit of grocery shopping. As I'm putting the last of the groceries away, I hear her scream my name. I quickly ran out to the garage where she was standing to the side of the garage door ranting about some snake, I look over to the right and in the corner was a small and colorful snake.

One thing you don't want to mess with is snakes, they can be quite dangerous and poisonous, although most statistics will tell you that only 17 bites a year in the US turn fatal. We don't want to become a statistic. Needless to say, I quickly reach for a broom and swung the snake a few feet over to the garden where it quickly faded away into the evening. My wife, the obsessive researcher that she is, wasn't able to find a picture of a snake like the one we had, but I'm pretty sure it was not poisonous. The small thing was maybe two feet long and a couple of inches in diameter, but being that it had multiple rings of color, she wanted to be in the know.

The bottom line is that if you come across an unknown your best bet is to be cautious and not to panic. Quickly find a long object to put some distance between you and the creature and shut the door as quickly as possible. Most snakes, like all animals, are usually seeking food and shelter. They are probably more scare than you are. After all you are much bigger than they are. My one regret is that in my rush to rid of the creature I didn't snap a photo, perhaps next time I'll think more clear.

Labels: digital photography, Florida, Jacksonville, snakes

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Cuil

Cuil is officially launched and the buzz is in, the word, Google should be afraid. I don't think Google has anything to worry about as of yet. So what if the founders of Cuil where key engineers at Google. So what if Anna Patterson orchestrated the latest algorithm that Google is supposedly currently using.

I test drove cuil, I think they offer a great interface for the results, but I don't see where their claims that their algorithm is much more sophisticated than that of Google's. I found it to be quite inaccurate. Don't get me wrong, I'm far from being Google's fan. I think Google is quite sophisticated and offers great search tools that have been gamed and manipulated by scammers and skeemers to skew results. I'm still able to find solutions via my queries, that which I tried on Cuil and was unsuccessful.

I recently read a book that stated that just because you have the technical know how on performing a specialized task, does not mean you have the skills needed to run a company. Anna was the architect of Google’s large search index, but is she simply a search technician and coder or does she carry the ability to run the business while having other create and manifest her vision?

The bottom line is that many more powerful companies have try to take the Giant down and the giant is yet to loose. The numbers don't lie, Google has 50% of the search market share, while Yahoo possesses 20%. These numbers sound familiar, they should, think Coke and Pepsi. Others like MSN, AOL, LIVE, ASK carry the difference in the search engine space. Another search engine that had a big debut was Mahalo. It came out with an interesting concept of taking the machines out of the equation, but the buzz quickly ceased and I doubt that it will ever produced or come to full fruition. I won't hold my breadth on Cuil, but I'm glad to see competition as it will only make Google come out with a stronger search product. My prediction is that Cuil will be cool for a week or two.

Labels: Design, Google, Search Engine, SEO

Are you in a pyramid scheme?

Next time you find yourself sitting in a business meeting, instead of zoning out, pay attention to how things go down. Someone comes up with a new idea, the executive thinks the idea is brilliant. Together they identify who is going to perform the task, the executive will leave the meeting and head over to the CEOs office and present the idea. He will take full credit for the idea or he will say it was a collaboration from the originator and himself. Some lowly man down the totem pole will put in over time, they might even put in a weekend or two to accommodate this brilliant idea into their already full plate of tasks. Once compile and completed the sales person will bring in new money to the company where the CEO will congratulate the executive on a brilliant thought and a great job well done, while the lowly individual will get to put in many more extra hours and keep delivering product for another 20 years and perhaps one day get noticed and promoted to head janitor.

Wikipedia describes a pyramid scheme as a non-sustainable business model that involves the exchange of money primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, usually without any product or service being delivered. It has been known to come under many guises. In other words, the lowest man in the bottom does all the work while the ones above gets all the glory.

The bottom line is that you want to get yourself out of the bottom of the pyramid and march up the diagonal. In order to do so, you need to identify what makes you unique and sets you apart. What do you bring to the table? You must enjoy doing something that others don't. You enjoy doing because you are good at it. Take your talent and find the right place where you will now be able to sell it as the commodity. You, my friend, will not longer be at the bottom putting in the extra time and effort into tasks that other dreamt up for you; you will now be delegating to others and only performing the tasks which you enjoy.

Labels: demonstrations, Features

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Div Container Width

I have become a great fan of CSS and fluid design for the past couple of years. Tables are a thing of the past. The problem is that even though most Web designers have evolved, browsers have not.

You see browsers are put together by coders, developers if you will. Those types only understand 0 and 1s and have very little time to worry about nuances that pesky designers would devote their time to calculating. One of those nuances are containers like div.

Originally designed to serve as layers, again for Web and Graphic designers, div have become very useful as not only can they float and be positioned, but they serve as containers for content on the Web page.

Here comes my issue, I been having some problem fitting the content on a multi-column site. After some quick Googling, I came across a forum thread explaining that the total outside width of a div box is the sum of the values for the following properties:

margin-left
+ border-left-width
+ padding-left
+ width
+ padding-right
+ border-right-width
+ margin-right
= total occupied width of any {display:block} type box

This makes no sense to me. Although Firefox does follow standards and many accuse Internet Explorer of breaking rules and misbehaving; IE6 and IE7 follow rules much more closely to how designers work. When I designed a page I typically render it in Photoshop, then I translate the work into HTML and CSS. When I measure my drawings in Photoshop, IE follows suit, while I have to more intensely calculate when it comes to Firefox.

The bottom line is that it is unfortunate that browser creators can't come together and be unified so that we, as Web designers, don't have to patch holes cause by the multitude of browsers. Perhaps one day the W3C will succeed in unifying browsers with coming up with standards and rules. As for me, I'm just waiting for Google to come out with their own browser, take over the world, and keep making us drink their cool-aid, until then, I'll keep plugging the holes and hope to stay afloat.

Labels: CSS, Design, dreamweaver, Google, Search Engine, SEO, Web Design

Monday, July 14, 2008

You are ready for an update

I recently read an entry on Eric Shanfelt's blog entitled "Publish Web First, Print Second" which further reinforced my accounts from a previous entry Instant Information entry. I have discussed this topic to death, which by the way is endless, in the past couple of month. I have discussed it with colleagues, friends, and just about anyone I know who is interested or willing to hear it.

Yet, little change has taken place. We all continue, day in day out, to use the Web site as a landfill. A place to dump all information, whether relevant or otherwise, and continue to save the best for print. I have also noticed that this is the case for most sites for which I visit and receive a magazine.

It dawned on my this evening that perhaps is not our sites or our processes that need an upgrade, but ourselves. We are at cross roads, a place where digital media is changing the way we obtained our information. We are at the point where most jobs are going digital, yet change hasn't taken place. People still walk into their desks and the only digital they see is their email. I'm referring to the mail clerk all the way up the food chain to the CEO.

I can assure you that less snail mail is receive every day than digital mail. We have completely revamped our immediate communication avenues, but have yet to see that we no longer wake up and go outside to pick up the paper. We instead turn to Google news, MSNBC.com, CNN.com, ESPN.com or some other .com avenue to be feed our daily dose of information.

Then why is it that most publishers insist in saving the best content for print? Because the senior level editors fear for their jobs, they fear that the pimpled face twenty something is going to come in and replace them.

My mother always told me and re-enforce two important things that I carry with me to this day:

1. Go into any career you want, just make sure you work to be the best in your field.
2. Always associate with smarter people, they will teach you new things and take you to the next level.

I used to think my mother was crazy, but what 12 year old wants to listen to their parents, let alone pay attention to any advice they might have to give.

The bottom line is that if you give the new generation a chance for expressing their ideas, and you surround yourself with the best and the brightest, you will rise in your career as you will have the best team working for you. If you insist in keeping them in the dark basement and cultivate them as mushrooms, they will grow to resent you and you will miss out in sharing ideas and growing your company to the next level. Ever noticed the Windows Update icon that pops up near the bottom right corner of your PC? A little box typically pops up notifying you of yet another update/upgrade to your current flavor of Windows. Don't you wish you came equipped with such an enhancement. Time to update!

Labels: advertising, cms, content management, CSS, Customer Service, Freedom of Speech, marketing

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Internet Explorer 8 - IE7 revisited

While the Yahoo merger is yet to take place, Microsoft is in a quest to regain face to the lost suffer to Google. In an effort to regain momentum in the Websphere, MS has announce the beta release of IE8.

Microsoft promised HTML and CSS compliancy with IE7, yet there are still items on the table. IE8 promises to be a browser that follows standard compliant HTML and CSS 2.1 compliancy. IE8 will be showcasing buttons in the likes of firefox for forms. A demo can be viewed at designdetector.com.

IE8 will still have full support for conditional comments, which lets me to believe that there will still be CSS issues and cross browser compatability problems. Comments can be targeted as before via code like this:

< !--[if IE 8] >
[[ Alternative content here ]]
< ![endif]-->

Microsoft will also be introducing a way to emulate IE7 behavior via a special meta tag. To Emulate IE7, add this inside the of your web document:
< meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7" / >;

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is still the most used browser in the space. Although most designers and developers prefer Mozilla's Firefox as it comes built in with many useful tools and a vast array of plug-ins are also available to aid the developer in creating majestic sites.

The bottom line is that Microsoft is yet to release a product that is bug free. I will hold up in downloading IE8 for at least a month or two to allow for the service packs and other frequent updates to take place. As well, there are many users that are still using IE6, to test your site in a cross browser environment, I encourage a visit to IE Tester. If you prefer not to have any software installed, then the VNC remote access options offered by BrowserCam is for you. As for me, I'm still waiting for Google to release a Web browser to destroy all competition while not being yet classifed as a monopoly, I knew I should have bought Google stock when Google was but a funny word and Yahoo, Lycos and Altavista were king.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Melissa Etheridge - Revival Tour

My wife bought tickets to go see Melissa Etheridge for the June 19th concert in Jacksonville, FL. I said wtf, how bad could it be, lets do it. So we went down to the landing for dinner, dine on some fine Italian, the best so far in Jax, but mind you that there just aren't that many Italian restaurants in Jax, and don't get me started on the pizza situation.

I digress, the concert was very revitalizing as marketed by the title. I never thought I would enjoy a Melissa Etheridge concert, but I actually would venture to say that this one was one of the best, if not the best concert experience I have had. It had a very unplugged feel to it, yet all the mechanics of the typical rock band were present. She was very low key, yet her voice was as powerful as it was 20 years or so ago. I think what made this different was that there was some story telling involved. Melissa paused between songs to tell the audience about the song and where she was in her life, both personal and professional, at the time which led to the motivation for the lyrics. I found this type of performance refreshing and honest.

She concluded with her battle for cancer and living with no regrets. She encourage the audience to look deep within themselves and ensure that they live their lives as they would want, because there is only this one.

These messages hit very close to home. We moved to Jax to experience a better live but is a better live a financial statement or a more relax and sedentary one?

The bottom line is that we have made a great home down in the Jacksonville area. We have done well economically as well, but no better than we were doing in CT, the biggest change is the quality time I get to have with my wife. We have now pick up golfing together and sharing more moments together. I think that's what life is about experiencing joy with the one you love and choose to spent your years with. Intellectual curiosity is also another factor to consider, as humans our number one gift is the gift of learning and we should strive to learn at least one new thing a day, whether is to expand and promote growth in your career or to learn a new technique to improve upon your hobby, is just crucial to never stop learning. Once you decide you can't learn anymore, then you might as well select your grave next.

Labels: college, Connecticut, Entertainment, Florida, Jacksonville, jax

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Embed fonts on your Web site

Recently, I have been thinking about design and the nature to code safely on the Web. As designers we typically choose to use Web friendly fonts like Verdana, Times New Roman, Arial, and Trebuchet MS.

Designers, however should not let browsers inabilities to carry a vast array of fonts interfere with their designs. Michaelangelo would not have sacrifice the roof of the sixteen chapel due to lack of a smaller brush, so why is it that Web designers so often sacrifice bandwidth and turn to background images or heavy downloads to convey their message; not to mention the lack of search engine friendliness involved in presenting picures and images instead of text.

I sought out a clear answer on how to embed fonts on a site without the need to sacrife speed or SEO. Back in the late 90's both Netscape and Internet Explorer were fighting grounds for the title of browser reign supreme as such both came out with unusual plugins and font rendering programs, however this was but a mere patch and band aid on the problem as fonts were translated to images solving only the small side of the equation. I don't blame them as SEO wasn't a hot topic in those days and Google was but a silly word some guys thought of to represent their brand.

In today's Web, where Search Engines are the hot club were your name must be on the list, it is crucial to create SE's friendly sites. to do so, the @font-face construct must be utilize.

Here is a simple example courtesy of the css czars at A List Apart:

@font-face {
font-family: "Kimberley";
src: url(http://www.princexml.com/fonts/larabie/ »
kimberle.ttf) format("truetype");
}
h1 { font-family: "Kimberley", sans-serif }

"Those familiar with CSS syntax will recognize the last line. The @font-face construct may not be familiar, however it’s easy to explain: as the “Kimberley” font is requested, the font file is fetched from the specified URL. The syntax is described in the CSS2 specification.

To avoid long lists of @font-face declarations in the style sheet, they can be hidden using @import" like so,

@import url(http://www.princexml.com/fonts/larabie/index.css) all;
h1 { font-family: Goodfish, serif }

The bottom line is that you should not limit yourself or set the bar too low, there is always a way to solve the problem. Problems are easy to come by, but securing an answer is where the intellectual matter comes into play. Don't let the ineptitude of todays' browser interfere with the future, just make sure that you gracefully prepare your site for degredation or for those living in the past. To appreciate the true power behind css, please refer to the Zen Garden project.

Labels: brand, cms, CSS, Design, dreamweaver, Features, jagged images, photo resizing, Search Engine, SEO