Networking sites and comunications

So many social networks so little time, however I do get frequent email updates from them.

We went to the movies yesterday and there was a preview for "He's Just Not That Into You", seems funny, but what really stay in my head is a line from Drew Barrymore where she talks about cyber-stalking and how you have to jump from this network to that other network and text message and ohhhh!!!!!!! it hurts to keep up with all this nonsense.

The bottom line is that in this day and age of social networking and cyber-visiting your friends is tough to find the time to do it, yet alone keep up with everyone. I don't spend a lot of time on this sites and rarely visit facebook, linkedin, and yet to have a twitter account, but I do receive helpful emails with notifications for things that sometimes matter. I could care less what you are doing right now, it simply doesn't have an impact on me whether you are thinking of which "f-word" phrase is more reasonable or you are having lunch, what has a bigger impact is the ability to reconnect with forgotten friends and keep up with the bigger picture of what your current friends are doing. We relocated 1 and 1/2 years ago to the Jacksonville, FL area and is hard to make friends, but is nice to get an update of what my old friends in CT and NY are up to. We may not find the time to talk all the time, but I know what you're doing...

With that said, congratulations Michelle on the launch of your new site!

Labels: brand, Connecticut, Florida, Social Bookmarking, Web Design

Paypal Integration

I recently have been setting up an ecommerce site from the ground up. One of the task at hand was to incorporate Paypal as a method to the checkout process. Paypal offers many ways to do this. From APIs that process the credit cards on your site to passing off variables over, to simply adding a buy now button on each product.

I opted for a middle of the road option at first, which they label _cart. HEre is the code:
<br /><form target="paypal" action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post"> <br /> <img alt="" border="0" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" height="1"> <br /> <input type="hidden" name="add" value="1"> <br /> <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_cart"> <br /> <input type="hidden" name="upload" value="1"> <br /> <input type="hidden" name="business" value="businessowner@business.com"> <br /> <? $count = 1; while (!$db->EOF()){ ?><br /> <input type="hidden" name="item_name_<? echo $count; ?>" value="<?php echo $db->DisplayInfo("Name"); ?>;"> <br /> <input type="hidden" name="amount_<? echo $count; ?>" value="<?php echo $db->DisplayInfo("TotalPrice"); ?>;"> <br /> <input type="hidden" name="quantity_<? echo $count; ?>" value="<?php echo $db->DisplayInfo("Quantity"); ?>"> <br /> <? $count++; $db->MoveNext();<br /> }<br /> $db->MoveFirst(); ?><br /> <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD"> <br /> <input type="hidden" name="lc" value="US"> <br /> <input type="hidden" name="bn" value="PP-ShopCartBF"><br /> <input type="image" name="Paypal_Checkout" id="Paypal_Checkout" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_xpressCheckout.gif" alt="Checkout with Paypal" /> <br /></form><br />

This option allows you to gather your products in your shopping cart and send each item to be listed individually on one invoice in the Paypal site. The problem is that this option does not allow the developer to submit discount or coupons.

This posed a major challenge as the site I was building makes use of coupons and other special promotions such as free shipping based on benchmarked dollars spent.

The solution, set the cmd hidden field to _xclick and pass all the items in one description field. It's not as pretty or user friendly as the previous solution, but you then only have to pass Paypal a total amount which includes all discounts, tax, shipping charges all in one line.

<br /><img src="https://a248.e.akamai.net/sec.yimg.com/i/us/smbiz/p/checkout_or_paypal.gif" vspace="10"> <br><br /><form name="_xclick" action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post"> <br /><input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_xclick"> <br /><input type="hidden" name="business" value="businessowner@business.com"> <br /><input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD"> <br /><input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="<?php echo $db->TotalColumn("FullDetails") ?> "> <br /><input type="hidden" name="amount" value="<?php echo $db->GrandTotal() ?>"> <br /> <input type="hidden" name="image_url" value="http://www.dbboutique.com/images/Logo_Small.jpg"> <br /> <input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="0"> <br /> <input type="hidden" name="cancel_return" value="http://www.site.com/failure/"> <br /> <input type="hidden" name="return" value="http://www.site.com/success"> <br /> <input type="image" name="Paypal_Checkout" id="Paypal_Checkout" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_xpressCheckout.gif" alt="Checkout with Paypal" /> <br /></form><br />

The bottom line is that as you are developing Web sites you will be thrown several curves. You will encounter a multitude of problems. The best thing to do is to go at it, do some research and thing of simple solutions. Don't get wrap up on the problem, the best solutions are simple, effective, and best of all easy to code.

Labels: cms, CSS, demonstrations, Design, Paypal, Web Design, Web Development

Bank Implossion and failed economy

For three years now I have become very financially conscious to the point where I'm tuning more and more to CNBC. I'm becoming older and wiser following politics, the world around me and taking the time to hear some expert opinions before I do anything with the few pennies I have assigned to my name.

With the bank mergers and scares, three weeks ago I started googling for a new bank providing a similar high-yield for my account as Washington Mutual had been providing, but with less trouble and more peace of mind that it wouldn't go under. I once again looked at HSBC and ING. Both scare me as I have no quick way to access my money when I need it as branches are nill in my area. I then looked at money markets, once that stood out was Discover Bank, but once again, no local branch.

In my searches I found this site, the bank implode meter. Not much to look at from a Web design standpoint, but full of wonderful news and information on today's economy.

The bottom line is that at a time of turmoil and an unstable economy is best to keep an eye on your money, whether you have millions or ten bucks, you want access to your money when you need it. I delayed the transfer, but luckily WAMU was picked up by Chase preventing any FDIC situation, but I sweat it for a day or two. Now things are looking brighter and I'm still getting my 4% APY. Word of advice trust your instincts, it got you what you have and if you're happy then don't sweat the small stuff.

Labels: Google, Web Design, Web Searches

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

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.

Labels: Alexa, CSS, Design, Google, RSS, Search Engine, Social Bookmarking, software, techniques, Web Design, Web Searches

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:

<br /><div id="logo"><br /><div style="position:absolute;width:228px; height:110px; cursor:pointer" onclick="document.location='http://www.website.com/'"></div><br /></div><br />

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.

Labels: cms, CSS, Web Design, Web Searches

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.

Labels: advertising, Alexa, content management, Design, RSS, Web Design

New Google AJAX Language API

Google is one of those great companies who takes time to make great programs and tools to then turn around and give it away for free. That was the case for the Google version of Microsoft Office, Email platform, just to name a few. I read today the introduction of yet another tool, Google AJAX Language API.

The Google AJAX Language API provide developers with the tools needed to automatically translate content in their applications. I tested the English to Spanish version of the API on the Google Blog and noticed a 90% accuracy, granted I only tried a few phrases.

This is not only a great tool, but also a nice addition to the Google Family of Tools. In addition, it is an API so you're not limited to just using this on the Google site, but you are welcome to take full advantage of the API and create your own tools on your Web site.

The bottom line is that things at Google just keep getting and better each and every day. Although too many people have managed to game the search engine, and some have cause a great scandal in the fraud department of Google Adwords and Adsense, Google is yet to be stopped. How do you stop a 6 billion dollar powerhouse anyways? For more of Google Business Tools, visit http://bizsolutions.google.com/services/. For their consumer line, visit http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/

Labels: Google, Web Design, Web Searches

Dreamweaver Max CPU Bug

Recently I formatted my laptop because I thought I caught a virus. I'm very careful, I had Symantec Antivirus and Microsoft AntiSpyware installed, yet my computer seemed to start crawling after a few minutes of working. Since I work on the Web, I typically have Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Outlook running all the time, with 2Gb of RAM, I figured I should be able to do so without much problem.

I reformatted and things seemed better, until recently when my computer went back to timing out for about 30 seconds every time I'm coding in Dreamweaver. I opened the task manager and shut down every program but Dreamweaver. I noticed that my CPU was maxed out at 100% and yet no other process was taking CPU time. It then back down to 1% and then back to 50%, 60% etc, without me doing anything.

I did some quick googling to find out that Dreamweaver has a nasty bug in it that is yet to be addressed, let alone fixed, by Adobe. It seems that if you stay connected to a site after a while the ftp functionality takes over by sending packets out and maintain the connection. The temporary, band-aid, fix is to disconnect from the site and only connect when needed.

The bottom line is that Adobe, the most respected company in Web and Graphic Design, ought to address this issue or at the bare minimum inform register users of the bugs so that they don't waste valuable billable time chasing down their errors.

Labels: adobe, Design, dreamweaver, Joomla, macromedia, Web Design

US Budgetary Problems

I'm very concerned for our nation. It seems we have spent so much money with the War in Iraq that the president is now eating just Hot Dogs. It's detailed inthis reuters story that McCain paid a visit to Bush in the white house to secure the president's endorsement for his candidacy.

When Bush mention he was having a hot dog for lunch, McCain proceed to request the same. He didn't want to question the president's dining preference. Seems to me that if McCain is to run the country he needs to be more a leader than a follower.

"He said he was having a hot dog, so I had a hot dog," McCain, referring to Bush, told reporters on his campaign plane during a flight to Florida.

The bottom line is that we seem to have run out of leaders and everything has boil down to a pissing contest in which whoever has the less flow of garbage in their trail is set to win. Where have the days of good leaders gone? If you are as undecided as I am, you can login to http://www.votehelp.org/ and see how your preference on "the issues" match up to the current candidates.

Labels: Design, Florida, Politics, reuters, Web Design

Package Design

I have always been intrigued with design, specifically package design. There are so many ways to present an item, and yet so many designs exists for items of similar fashion. For example, I have at my desk to soda cups. One is from Longhorn, a steakhouse restaurant chain in the Jacksonville Area, another is from Daily's, the local store in the Shell Gas station. They both served as drink holders and hold the same amount, yet one is skinny in the bottom and the other one is straight up tall.

I can only imagine the meetings that took place to come up with each one of those designs. The arguments taking place, "no that's not going to fit in a standard cup holder", others stating, "have you any idea how long the straw is going to have to be?"

The bottom line us that there are many creative individuals in this world. You see them as inventors, marketers, advertising agents, and many other fields. I hope to one day come up with something as brilliant as these designs a friend forwarded in an email:

Labels: Design, Jacksonville, jax, Web Design

Happy Thanksgiving - it's CMS time

So Thanksgiving came and went, it was a great four days away from work. But here we are getting back to the grind.

I have been setting up a CMS for my company and it's going well. Originally, I wanted to create a custom CMS programmed and built from the ground up. I could not get my boss sold on the idea, mostly because he has been burned in the past with software development, cost, design, and time frames.

I understood where he was coming from and decided to get to work on customizing something that had previously been done. No need to reinvent the wheel, that's what they tell me anyways. Anyhow, turns out that there are a lot of good open source CMS out in cyberspace. Some are better than others, but the choices are pretty clear, Drupal, Joomla, Mambo, and Wordpress.

You can't go wrong with any of these, it all boils down to your specific needs, and the level of customization you will need. I used to think that if you wanted it done right you would need to build it yourself.

The bottom line is that these CMS systems are all designed to work with databases. Frankly, once you get the data into a database, it becomes quite easy to manipulate the display. If you are well verse in Web design and Web development, you can get pretty creative on how you parse and display the data, not to mention that they make it a lot easier to perform SEO (search engine optimization) work.

Labels: cms, Search Engine, SEO, Web Design

National Association of Photoshop Professionals

Three jobs and four years ago, my boss gave me a copy of Photoshop User Magazine. It was full of tutorials, opinions, and tips and tricks for Photoshop. At this point I had just started using Photoshop. Previously I had use the Corel suite of products and had picked up the GIMP, a free Photoshop want to be piece of software.

A year went by and I had forgotten how useful the magazine had been. After all I did not have a subscription and was relying on my boss to toss the magazine my way from time to time.

Recently, my employer suggested that we all pick out a few magazines to see what other publishers did and see if we could pick a thing or to to introduce onto our magazines. Being in the graphic design business, I selected very appropriately Photoshop User Magazine. I didn't realize at the time that this was the magazine I had been reading a few years back, but turns out that NAAP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) has very good SEO and as such off to subscribe I went.

Two weeks went by and I received my NAAP membership. What gives? I subscribed to Photoshop User Magazine and all of the sudden I received a huge membership package to NAAP. I didn't realize that my subscription came with a membership. At first I thought it was a scam, I was very leary. If you know me, you know that my first reaction to everything is that it is some sort of scam. Turns out it is not a scam.

I logged in to the NAAP site, after 30 seconds of trying to figure out how to register as a first time visitor, I realized that my NAAP member number is my username and password. I proceed ahead and started to check out some of the tutorials. Since I been playing with graphic/photo editing software for over 10 years now, everything seemed like a waste of time. Then I clicked on to tips and tricks and all of the sudden the value of this "free" membership became a full blown, jump up and down, exciting. I can tell you that the magazine so far is great, but is nothing compare to the site. They have so many helpful tips and have explore the nook and crannies of Photoshop. I have been on the site for 30 minutes now and have already learned about five features that I never knew existed.

The bottom line is that if you are a graphic designer, web designer, or a mere Photoshop hobbyist you can't afford not to become a NAAP member. The membership is $99 ducats and this will be the best one hundred bucks you would have spend. There is so much to be learn from this site that it is not available in the free space. Trust me, I'm just a NAAP member and not affiliated with them. Hell, they don't even offer a referral program, but I think it is well worth it.

Labels: Design, digital photography, photoshop, Web Design

Photo Resizing

Designers will tell you that photo resizing is one of the biggest challenge they find on the Web. More specifically, it is always hard to resize a large image because by the time you make it more of a thumbnail all detail is lost.

In the same manner, when you enlarge an image typically it becomes quite pixelated and details become sharp boxes thereby rendering the photo useless.

A colleague just send me a video of how new technologies are been used to approximate colors and details that are now in use to address both the resizing up and shrinking down issues.

The bottom line is that with time technology makes all processes better. I was recently discussing with another colleague how old printing terms still apply today. The technology is much advance but the remnants are still there. I'm just glad that humans are always seeking to evolve, whether is monetarily driven or not is not the concern, but if money keeps the advances coming then let the creative ones become rich and the richer ones become richer. You can watch the video here.

Labels: digital photography, photo resizing, Web Design

Dell Precision M90 Browser and Image Problems

So I just got my new Dell laptop courtesy of my new employer. These guys really rock. They have gone out of their way to make me feel welcome.

As part of my new deal, my employer gave me card blanche to order which ever laptop I deemed suitable, the only restriction is that it had to come from Dell. Dell really has cornered the small business market. They designed a great site and a great service program that seems to attract the SMB and the consumer market.

Anyways, I love the new pc, it has a 17" widescreen with 2GB of RAM and a 2.33Ghz Dual Core processor. Needless to say, this is a great desktop replacement especially for a Web designer or gamer. I was surprised that after I customized it, the price tag was still reasonable, and trust me I left no feature unselected.

I have only experienced one problem thus far and that is that when I first launched Internet Explorer (IE6 then upgraded to IE7), images seemed blurry, jagged and pixelated. I was worried as I first thought it was the AT&T GSM card doing it, but after much research and thanks to the dellcommunity.com site I learned that this is a microsoft issue. Apparently the IE developers have gone out of their way to customize and best fit Web graphics on very high resolution screens, the problem is that this little layout fix causes the jagged, pixelated images to appear.

You can find the fix on the dellcommunity.com site, but for your convenience I'm pasting it below:

Copy the Text Below into Notepad.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]
"UseHR"=dword:00000000

Call it antifuzzy.REG

Save it.

Then Double Click it to Import into the Registry.

The bottom line is that when you encounter a problem, whether PC related or otherwise, it is important not to get frustrated or give up, but instead to turn to the Web for your answers. You will find that others have experience the same or similar situation and many communities are available to help. If you can't find an answer, don't hesitate to join in the forums and post away. You will then have an answer soon enough.

Labels: jagged images, pixelation, Web Design

digging and snapshooting digg

I was perusing digg today and the top story for the design sections is Digg's Front Page Stories as HUGE Mosaic Artwork.

Mosaic's of Web sites are an interesting concept as this seems to be the new movement. What I'm basically referring to here is the thumbnail display of sites and not necessarily a mosaic, as mosaics are very complexed and required a long time to create. The aforementioned site took a snapshot of the stories for February 2006. I wonder if it took them until now to finish their work.

More interesting will be to have some algorithm take a daily snapshot and then create the Mosaic accordingly an see if any pattern emerges.

The bottom line is that with a little creativity and some basic design and development skills an individual or group could make themselves stand out from the crowd. These folks at urlyart.com have certainly taken a stab and have obviously succeeded. Of course, there is a more interesting question here, where is the Web heading in terms of Web sites snapshots. Should we all start ramping up and start designing Web sites that are pleasing in a thumbnail view or do appealing sites look good no matter the size. After all, Opera started doing thumbnail views in their browser, IE7, has implemented Quick Tabs showing a thumbnail view of all tabs opened. Snap.com search engine results are driven by a pictorial view and so does Alexa. What's next? where do we go from here?

Labels: Digg, Mosaic, Thumbnails, Web Design

And the fight goes on

It's hard to believe that with so much war between the major SEs (Search Engines), Google, Yahoo, and MSN, one company would try to enter the Search Engine Market expecting to make an impact. But such is the mission of Snap.

Snap was started by Bill Gross, the same man who started Overture and sold it to Yahoo for $1.63 billion, seems set to continue a long line of profitable start-ups with this one. Snap has quickly become one of the top five alternative to the three major search engines. Though Google, Yahoo, and MSN combined hold over 90 percent of the search engine market, with Google dominationg over 60% of the users, Snap has shown its colors and that it may have a prayer in the Search Engine Market.

The bottom line is that while the big three are fighting for control, this small startup has shown that with some talent success can be achieve. Snap is not out to organize the world's information, they are not out to be the most use search engine, but simply to provide another way to search the Web. Right now the site provides a clean, easy to use interface and seems that it has not been gamed, I'm sure for SEOs will find a way to break it soon enough.

Labels: Search Engine, Web Design, Web Searches