It’s tough out there. The competition is fierce. So if you are a small business owner, you need to leverage everything you can to get a leg up. If you are not currently leveraging technology to get the word out about your business, it’s time to start. It doesn’t require a lot of money and doesn’t take a lot of effort to get stared if you take it one step at a time. Here are three steps to get you started.
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It has been a long time since I have seen a movie that is so artistically inspiring that it keeps me up at night reviewing the images and sounds over and over in my mind. The Single Man was that kind of movie. Directed and produced by Tom Ford (the former creative director of Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent), he bought the rights to “A Single Man,” the 1964 novel written by Christopher Isherwood, in 2006, and rewrote the script fifteen times within two years. (that’s passion and perfection at work!) I have followed Ford for years, admiring his design aesthetic and and sensual style. I had big hopes for this movie.

Colin Firth and Julianne Moore having a heart to heart.

It didn’t disappoint! Gorgeous camera angles, beautiful and honest set designs, and moments of white space. These quiet white space moments where the camera slowed down and the images became desaturated,  you had no other choice but be lost in your thoughts. Thoughts that meshed with the story line taking you to another time and place. Ford used color and saturation as a way of visualizing the emotions of the main character, played by Colin Firth. I was so absorbed by the acting and heavy sadness portrayed by Firth, that I was surprised that I didn’t notice the color shifts until a quarter of the way through the movie. In fact there are so many nuances and subtleties to this film that do not reveal themselves until thinking on it hours after the fact. This is probably one of the reasons why the majority of people I know have seen the movie more than once.

Julianne Moore in all her loveliness.

This is where I will end. I won’t share what the story is about, because I think it is better to see this movie not knowing much about it. Just knowing that A Single Man is a perfectly art directed, beautifully quiet, visually brilliant movie.

Fast, good or cheap. Choose two.

I’m always watching the various design showcase blogs and other sources of information for the latest and greatest in web design and development. It’s a lot of fun to see the newest techniques and showcases of work. It can be quite inspirational.

What I’m having a problem with is the number of sites and resources out there that seem to do little else than grab a bunch of links to various things and then publish that as content.

At first, it’s fun. Ten New Ways to Display Form Fields. Twenty Fresh Web Designs that Work on the iPhone. Forty Marketing Strategies that Attract Young People. Sixty Hot Trends in Clicking on Things.

So what?

Anyone can go out there and find options. I don’t care too much about options. I care about solutions. Don’t tell me the ten ways for doing something and leave it at that. Add some value to it. Tell me about the ten ways, how they are different, and in what circumstance each option might be the best choice. Give me a reason to care about all of these options you are giving me. I want these sites I read and people I follow on Twitter to be editors for me, not just aggregators of every other thing they find on a topic out there.

When you think about this, it makes it clear who has good information and who just appears to have good information. Use your knowledge and expertise to make decisions and select great options for yourself and your clients. If you’re giving people options, clearly explain why there are choices to make, what the differences are between then, and potential trade-offs. Also, offer your rationale for selecting one. This shows you’re paying attention, have expertise to offer, and have done some work.

Without an informed opinion, you’re the Yellow Pages, not a personal recommendation.

• Don’t use words that exist in the dictionary.
• Don’t use simple number substitutes such as “0”s for “o”s or “1”s for “I”s.
• Don’t user obvious words for people or places you may know.
• Don’t use the same password for longer than two years.
• Use different passwords for public and private online services. For example, don’t use the same password for social media services as you would use for online banking. Financial institutions are known for their heightened security practices. There is no way to know what processes and security a startup social media site may have implemented and if their servers are truly secure.

“To err is human; to forgive divine.” —  Alexander Pope

The fact is, we all make mistakes. So do brands. And we all learn the hard way that people never listen more closely than when you admit failure. While there are lots of examples, recently we’ve seen two big brands own up to problems and mistakes and publicly apologize. In very different ways.

Friday Tiger Woods’ abject, and very rehearsed, press conference/public apology came off as as a bit insincere to me. It sounded painfully scripted and the fact that he took no questions from the eager reporters who have been specially selected to see him speak made it feel even more stilted. I read a snarky comment somewhere that the same George W. Bush media advisers who gave us Mission Accomplished were hired by Tiger to present the world with Emission Regretted.

Watch full press conference here.

If you’re thinking Tiger is just a man, not a brand, read the transcript of Tiger’s apology and you’ll note he details the specific consequences of his actions: “I hurt my wife, my kids, my mother, my wife’s family, my friends, my foundation, and kids all around the world who admired me.” In case you’re wondering, that last one is code for brand.

As Sally Hogshead said: … the Woods brand “was founded upon prestige, mystique,” she added, “and an aura of elusive untouchability,” but now “we all suddenly know more about his bottom-feeding behavior than we ever cared to.”

And then there’s Toyota. Toyotas have long been considered among the most reliable cars on the road. But it has had major problems the last couple months and its failure to stem its widening safety crisis has stunned consumers and experts who’d come to expect only streamlined efficiency from a company at the pinnacle of the global auto industry. It is now trying to rebuild consumer confidence after a recall that has extended to millions of cars around the world and tarnished the company’s reputation.

First came the apology.

Then the promise to fix it.

Can these brands survive the withering publicity? Will we forgive? Will we trust them again? After all, Toyota has made great cars and until recently was the most popular car brand on Earth. And Tiger Woods is a phenomenal golfer. Only time will tell. But in my humble opinion Toyota seems more sincere in their efforts to earn back our trust.

When designing website navigation it is important to remember user expectations and familiarity. Users are finicky and you only have a few seconds to keep their attention. If you are tempted to design something the user has never seen before, don’t. Imagine if every car designer moved the placement of the steering wheel and gauges for the sole sake of aesthetics.

Fox’s American Idol beat the telecast of the Olympics on Tuesday night, pulling 23.6 million viewers during its two-hour show, compared to the Olympics, which pulled 19.7 million. But the Olympics smashed Idol’s one-hour show on Wednesday.

The Olympics averaged a 5.4 rating in the 18-49 demo on Tuesday, while Idol generated a 9.1.   Tuesday’s airing of American Idol, which unveiled Ellen DeGeneres as a judge, pulled the biggest numbers for a non-finale, non-debut in two years.

But on Wednesday night, the Olympics brought the heat to the singing competition. During the hour that the two shows competed against each other, the Olympics pulled 30.1 million people, while American Idol was seen by 18.4 million. 

I myself am all about the Olympics so I say God Bless the U.S.A!

Everyone knows I’m a huge fan of Google’s Chrome browser. I started using it as soon as it came out and it’s been my primary browser ever since. With the introduction of extensions, it has become even more useful.

One of my favorite new features is Bookmark Sync. Simply by using Google Chrome and having a Google Account, you can enable Bookmark Sync. Your bookmarks are then automatically synchronized between every computer you use Google Chrome on when you’re logged into your Google Account.

I’ve really enjoyed being at work, at home, or on my laptop and having access to every bookmark no matter where I’m at. There are many ways to do this with FireFox and other extensions, but Chrome has made it elegant and simple, with things I’m already using.

When developing a website it is very common for people to forget about the print style sheet. A normal website should have two style sheets developed for it. One is designed to tell the web browser how to display content and structure. This includes things such as logos, headers, content, promotional modules, etc. What some people often forget is that while users will always display the website in a browser, they may also choose to print the page. If a print style sheet isn’t developed for this purpose, the quality of the printout may be lacking and the integrity of the website experience diminished.

http://www.onextrapixel.com/2009/05/05/how-to-create-a-simple-print-css-for-your-site/

http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/css/print-stylesheet.shtml

http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=PrintStylesheets

http://line25.com/tutorials/handy-tips-for-creating-a-print-css-stylesheet

http://www.cssnewbie.com/7-tips-print-style-sheets/

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2010/01/10-tips-for-better-print-style-sheets/