There’s always something magical about the Olympics. Sure it comes with the good and bad, but the essential and prevailing feeling that exists is one of sportsmanship, brotherhood, human triumph and achievement. This year on American television there were a couple of outstanding commercials that portrayed those same qualities. Top billing this year in my mind goes to Nike who captures the overall Olympic (and athletic) spirit through a series of fast-paced images and a killer [sic] song by The Killers.
A bit more calm but just as powerful goes to Visa with their Go World series of commercials, narrated by the great Morgan Freemon.
I love it when an advertisement makes you feel good to be alive.
In the 1972 comedy, What’s Up Doc?, Babara Streisand’s character coos that “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” while batting her eyelashes. In response, Ryan O’Neal’s character responds, “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.” John Lennon said, “Love means having to say you’re sorry every fifteen minutes.”
And so for those times when you have to say your sorry every fifteen minutes, there is now a Formal Apology Notice. You just fill in a few blanks, check some options, and ta-da — you’re forgiven (hopefully).
I recommend that you men go ahead and download this in preparation for Valentine’s Day, because there’s a good chance you’re going to screw something up. I’m just warning you in advance. And go ahead and make a couple hundred copies to use for the rest of the year, while you’re at it.
I stepped out the door on Friday and found my weekly “complimentary” issue of the Amlak newspaper sitting on my front doorstep. (I put “complimentary” in quotes because while it is free, I neither want it nor read it.) As I was preparing to toss it in the trash (as usual), I noticed that the picture that they used for the main story looked rather familiar.
Turns out Amlak cribbed my work. They didn’t even bother citing me as the author. Basically they’ve committed a copyright violation (which is nothing new in Jordan, I assure you). Had they asked, I probably would have said yes. But now I’m not sure whether I should be flattered or upset.
Second only to a Moleskine notebook, a ball point pen and a napkin are a graphic designer’s best friends. I’ve had more great ideas sketched on a napkin than I can remember (which is why I sketched them on the napkin in the first place). In fact, if I had a notebook made of napkins, I would wager that my productivity might increase by 120%. And lookie here…
One of the issues with web design these days is cross-browser testing. What looks good in one browser tends to be a bit off (or downright broken in older, temperamental browsers) in others, even with the common use of XHTML and CSS coding. A key to cross-browser compatibility is having a wide selection of browsers available for testing purposes.
Firefox
My favorite browser. Not only do I find it the easiest to use, but it also seems to be the most standards compliant. A huge range of extension add to its functionality. If you’re a developer, be sure to pick up the Firebug and Web Developer plug-ins. I always start my design work in Firefox and then tackle the issues with other browsers.
Internet Explorer 7
IE7 is a definite improvement over previous versions of the browser, but is still mighty flawed. It still has a commanding market share (for now), so it’s good to pay attention to it while developing.
Internet Explorer 6 (and earlier)
I blight on the existence of web standards, IE6 breaks nearly trick in the book. There are a ton of CSS hacks and work-arounds out on the ‘net for common compliance problems. The problem is that installing IE7 overwrites earlier versions. A company named Tredosoft has an extremely useful resource available (it’s free!) which allows the older versions of IE, all the way back to 3.0, to be installed along side each other (and alongside IE7). Statistics show that just under 10% of web users still use an older version of IE.
Safari
Originally for Mac platforms only, there is now a version available for Windows.
Opera
I’m not sure how this one manages to hang in there, but it’s still a useful addition to your blog arsenal. You can download Opera it for free.
I know I should probably be the last person to be writing about this since I have yet to thoroughly test my new Wordpress theme in anything other than Firefox. I’ve checked it out in IE7 and it looks decent, but not perfect. It’s completely hosed in Safari, Opera and IE6. I guess I’d better get cracking.
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