Archive for September, 2008
Adobe Creative Suite 4
September 23rd, 2008
MatthewAdobe Systems Inc. plans to unveil the latest version of its flagship Web-publishing software Tuesday.
The new software, called Creative Suite 4, is intended to make it easier to design Web sites that combine different types of media, such as animation and live video. These features are becoming increasingly important as Web sites evolve from the text-filled pages and static images that dominated the Internet’s early days.
“It used to be that video on the Web was enough to make you say ‘Wow,’ ” says Johnny Loiacono, senior vice president of the Adobe business unit responsible for the software. “But now it takes richer and richer experiences to keep our attention.”
Creative Suite 4 is made up of 13 individual software products, including the San Jose, Calif., company’s Photoshop for photo editing, Dreamweaver for Web-site design, and InDesign for desktop publishing. The new software runs 20% to 50% faster than its predecessor, says Mr. Loiacono. The different products are also more integrated with one another so a designer can now work with a video made with Adobe’s Flash technology while using InDesign, a task that previously required separate software.
The new software will cost $1,699 to $2,499.
Businesses are increasingly buying or developing visually compelling software that employees or customers can access over the Web, says Jeffrey Hammond, an analyst at Forrester Research. As the line between Web design and software development blurs, Adobe faces increased competition from technology giants like Microsoft Corp., whose Silverlight video software competes with Flash.
8 Bad SEO Web Design Moves
September 23rd, 2008
MatthewSome web sites receive hundreds or thousands of unique visitors a day, whilst others only get a handful or none. The reason is often because the web designers or Webmaster has built the site in one �really bad way’ or other. This can end up hindering the potential success of the web site. If you want to make sure your site is not a �traffic flop’ then here are some simple rules to follow.
Bad Move 1: Build the site using a frameset.
Framesets may save designers time but are bad news for search engines. They can struggle to follow links into the web site or read text on the page unless you use a no frames tag effectively. In addition to this, if an engine does keep a cache of a site with frames it will often pick up the individual frames/ pages and not the complete frameset. The downside of this is that you may lose your navigation for many of your pages, which is likely to turn visitors off. Whilst one or two partial fixes to framesets are out there, it’s still no wonder that many web site promoters still cry �Please No Frames�. For more information on why framesets can cause problems visit http://www.html-faq.com/htmlframes/
Bad Move 2: Build the site purely in flash.
Flash intros and web sites can be visually stunning, but at the same time they can be rather limiting when it comes to search engines. If your main site is all one flash site it will typically play in just one html page. Some search engines simply can’t read Flash and so your web site to them is just one relatively empty HTML page. If your competitors web site has 15 or 20 pages in HTML talking about their good sand services then they will have a big advantage on you. If you must have a Flash site for graphical reasons then it would be wise to budget for a separate HTML web site to have along side the Flash so your site content can be read and indexed by search engines.
Bad Move 3: Decide that graphics are more important than words
Be careful. As great as some images can be, try not to let designers convince you that you don’t need copy on your web site or that a few lines is enough. Only very occasionally is there ever an excuse to fill your web site with graphics at the expense of text. If the graphics look great, then match them with great copy. Sales copy is important to tell your audience why your goods and services are important. Search engines also like to index plenty of useful copy too. 250-500 words is a sensible starting guide for most pages or ½ of the amount you would place in a brochure. Text copy is important and will always be so make sure web site has some!
Bad Move 4: Leaving out the Meta tags
This is a bad move as Meta Tags are important to search engines. Clear and concise title tags should be written for every page reflecting what it contains. Avoid writing things like �Home’ or �welcome’ as it’s fairly meaningless. If you page is selling blue widgets then get �blue widgets’ in the title and keep the title to 10 words or less.
In addition to this create a well-written objective Meta description for each page, and list your Meta Keywords. These keywords should also reflect the content on your web page. Leaving these 3 things out, or doing them badly can be disastrous. The impact of Meta tags on rankings may vary from engine to engine, but without them your pages could be ignored. Most HTML editors allow you to easily insert Meta Tags into your web page and it only takes a few moments to add to a page. So there are no excuses. Make sure you have good Title tags, Meta Description and Meta Keyword tags on your pages today!
Bad Move 5: Use lots of JavaScript
Search engines have a few problems understanding JavaScript in pages. At the best of time they struggle with it, at worst they may even ignore it. On its own, it can be an unreliable way to make web site navigation. If you must use JavaScript for your navigation make sure you have some alternative ways to get to pages by using HTML text links at the bottom of the page. If you have a large amount of JavaScript think about linking to it as a separate JavaScript file.
Bad Move 6: Don’t have sites linking to yours
Unless you want your web site hidden from the outside world you want to be found right? Well search engines ideally find a new web site by following a link from another site. This happens when people link to you and this kind of underpins the Internet. By having sites link to you search engine crawlers will find your web site and you never need to submit your web site to the likes of Google. It is still the case that web sites that rank highly on Google and Yahoo for relatively competitive key phrases often have scores if not hundreds of web sites linking to them Google help to explain the importance of linking here http://www.google.com/technology/ . So �think links� and be sure to get your site listed in some quality web directories as part of the process.
Bad Move 7: Focus on submitting your web site to thousands of search engines and forget the ones that matter
Now and then you will see some companies attempting to promote this idea - often by using Bad Move 8! It is true that there are thousands of search engines but the highest volume of traffic comes from less than 10 major search engines. The logic of �If I get one hit a day off each of the 1000 mini search engines I’ll get a 1000 visitors a day� unfortunately in practice does not ring true. It is a fact that a huge volume of search engine traffic comes from a small handful of search engine: most notably the Google, Yahoo and Msn.
Bad Move 8: Using unsolicited/ Spam email
This may seem obvious that this is not the best way to promote your business but is always worth stating. If you’re in any doubt simply ask yourself: �Do I like getting Spam emails?� It’s common sense to avoid using techniques that annoy people or damage your brand. Using unsolicited email campaigns could result in complaints and at worst your ISP could ban you. If you want a successful email campaign it is advisable to target genuine opted in newsletter subscribers and to always offer an opt-out button in every email.
Have a successful website
September 23rd, 2008
MatthewWhat makes any web site successful? What increases the number of your visitors, making them coming back again and again? The answer is simple - surely, web graphics on your web site! If you have a professional web design you may consider to have half the battle on the business battlefield! Bright and efficient graphics on your web pages will catch an eye, help to promote your business, serve as your visiting card and generally make the first impression about your business and its owners. The elements of graphics on your web site must be loaded simultaneously with the page and then be reflected properly in the web browser.
All the graphics elements should be placed in the same folder named IMG or images. Then the IMG folder is copied into the html-pages catalog. Now the person involved in professional web deisign and web development may think about how to implement the the image into the web pages. We use the attribute SRC to specify the location of the image resource. SRC stands for “source”. The value of the SRC attribute is the URL of the image you want to display on your page. In other words, the attribute SRC shows the file’s location. Here is how the syntax of a defined image should look like: <img src=”url” > where URL stands for image location (i.e. where the image is stored). However, besides this one, there are other attributes responsible for different additional features related to image placement on the web pages.
The ALIGN attribute serves to align the graphics on your web page. The attribute allows two values assigned - left and right. The value LEFT makes the web browser place an image on the left of the text as well as the value RIGHT allows to place the image on the right relative to the text. You should note that if the attribute ALIGN has already been used to align the text relative to the graphics on your specified page, you will not be allowed to set the parameters of text flow around the image. The attribute ALIGN allows to place the text between two graphical images. In this case the tags describing the image shall be placed over the text that is to be enclosed between them.
The ALT attribute helps to add comments that will be reflected if the web browser cannot load the graphics on your web page. The attributes WIDTH & HEIGHT help to assign the width and the height of the image you are placing. However, these attributes are not recommended to be used for the images in jpg format since an incorrect value assignment may result in deterioration of graphics quality. So before you insert any graphics on your web pages you should correct its parameters with the help of any graphics editor. If the while background of the page is not what you really want, you can put any graphical background on your page with the help of the attribute BACKGROUND of the tag <BODY>. Since the web browser automatically places the image copies the way they fill in the whole page, so the image you apply for your background may be done small in size.
You should remember that while creating a graphical background of your page you should use such images that provide interesting visual effects and at the same time that would not disturb your customers from reading the text itself. For example, placing a text on the page with tiger background would result in lost of interest to your content since the reading would be completely uncomfortable in this case. A good image being repeated multiple times looks “smooth”, without any seams or joints. Don’t forget to pay attention to the color and size of your font if you make a graphical background to achieve absolute easiness in reading. The attribute BORDER helps the designers to assign the frame’s size around the graphical image. Experienced web graphic designers recommend to use gif format for graphics web site elements such as menus and banners and for jpg format for full-color images. Anyway, whatever you apply, keep in mind the fact that you are creating your professional web design for your potential customers and your web site should be easy to use from the point of web graphic design and web development.
Improve Online Experiences
September 22nd, 2008
MatthewThis report outlines key findings from surveys that explored factors that drive online experience as expressed by the three different subject groups – nonprofit organizations and cities, web designers and firms, and the general public. The survey’s major findings are:
Designers underestimate the thresholds for an effective site. Respondents consider a site “effective” when visitors are satisfied with respect to enjoyment, can find information somewhat easily, and never get lost in the site. By at least one point on a five-point scale, visitors have higher expectations for effectiveness than do designers. Nonprofit organizations believe that effective sites do not have “information gaps between what visitors want and what the site provides” and that visitors are at least “somewhat satisfied” with their sites. Designers should give greater consideration to overall effectiveness, thereby reducing the chance of failure for a user to find the information they seek.
Easy access to complete information is key to visitor enjoyment. All three survey groups believe that the ease with which visitors can find information and the ability to maintain orientation is critical to enjoyment. Both organizations and visitors believe that reducing the gap between what web sites provide and what visitors seek is critical to enjoyment. These variables explain 25% to 30% of the variance in visitor enjoyment; hence, ease of finding information is an important foundation for most sites.
Good visual design and up-to-date information are critical. Over 80% of designers and organizations believe that good visual design is important. A healthy 50% of the visitors agree. Fully 80% of visitors and organizations believe that up-to-date information is very important. Only 60% of designers believe that to be the case. When budgeting for your project, don’t be overly seduced by fancy graphics and multimedia. Invest in strong, clear design and simple methods to quickly deliver current information to your visitors.
Visitors want information fast. Web site visitors are looking for simple, accurate, fast, and easy to navigate web sites - preferably with links to information they seek. A significant number of comments revolved around the need for speedy access, including but not limited to download speed, in order to find the information visitors are looking for. Even in a broadband age, visitors value fast sites, both those that are fast loading and those that quickly deliver sought-after information.
Visitors want a broad range of topics. Relative to designers and organizations, visitors more strongly believe that a broad range of topics is important. Visitors believe sites can be more effective by helping visitors find interesting information - even if they are not looking for it. Designers and content developers can provide ample sidebars that link to other recommended pages, and extensively cross-link to other pages based on keywords.
Designers are overly optimistic about visitors’ ability to maintain orientation. In the survey, the ability to maintain orientation was defined as visitors’ ability to know “where they are, where they can go next, and which pages are related.” About 70% of designers believe that visitors are almost always able to maintain orientation. That drops to about 30% when non-profit organizations express their view. In contrast, only about 10% of visitors report being able to almost always maintain their orientation. Fewer than 5% report that they tend to get lost frequently. Said another way, your visitors don’t know your site as well as you do, so make sure it is obvious how to find information through meaningful menus, prompts, and not too much clutter.
Rob and Big
September 16th, 2008
MatthewWe tooka family trip up to hollywood and stopped by Rob and Big’s house.
outside of rob and big house
inside rob and big house
yahoo pipes
September 2nd, 2008
MatthewSo have you been hearing about mashups recently? A data mashup is basically a web app that combines data from several sources into a single source. An example would be to combine a photo feed and google maps. The result is a map with points showing exactly where your photos where taken. Sounds cool hu? Well yahoo has created a visual tool that makes creating mashups relatively easy and fun called Yahoo Pipes.