Blog

Technology, Education and Design, of course!

These videos are some of the most dynamic uses of presenting ideas on the internet today.

Check out: Top 10 TEDTalks and be inspired!

1. Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight
2. Jeff Han's touchscreen foreshadows the iPhone and more
3. David Gallo shows underwater astonishments
4. Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos Photosynth
5. Arthur Benjamin does "mathemagic"
6. Sir Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity
7. Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen
8. Tony Robbins asks why we do what we do
9. Al Gore on averting a climate crisis
10. Johnny Lee demos Wii Remote hacks

A long, yet interesting and entertaining, article on the past, present and future of web standards. If you spend a large part of your day cursing one web browser or another, you should get a kick out of this.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/03/17.html

The article goes over the long running struggle facing the Internet Explorer developers regarding web standards, especially now with the upcoming release of IE 8. Being one of the first major browsers to gain wide acceptance, many websites were built and tested on early versions of IE. These early versions were forgiving when it came to following the rules in terms of coding the site. In addition, along the way different bugs would crop up that people would simply "code around" to make things work. Now that there is a push for web standards, the IE 8 team must choose their path. Down one path they conform to these standards strictly as many other competing browsers are now doing. Unfortunately, this will result in many websites (even big names like HP according to the article) not working correctly anymore because so many old sites relied on the quirky way IE worked. The other path is either ignoring the standards or trying to balance between them and the old ways.

Our tagline here at CommAREus is “Design Without Drama.” One of the comments that we’ve heard again and again from our clients is how delighted they are with our professionalism.

I guess, when working with creatives like us, that meeting expectations and making deadlines is not as highly valued as it is in other areas of the business world.

Although we are still in what I consider the start up stage, we have had the opportunity to work on about 250 design projects. We have not missed one deadline. Not one.

Of course, we will eventually. Something will happen that is completely out of our control that will cause the wheels to come off the cart. When that happens, and it will, our client will not have to hunt us down. We’ll make the call and find some way to meet expectations.

And, no drama.

I have a pet theory that I usually keep to myself, but I’ll share with you here: The more that someone tells you how busy they are, is directly related to how inefficient they use the 1,440 minutes in a day. I have no empirical evidence to back this up other than my own observations over the years.

That’s why I’m hesitant to rail on about how busy it’s been here at CommaAREus and with life in general. Suffice to say that we’re all busy and it doesn’t let up until you’re six feet under.

One of our goals for writing this blog was to find a way to share some of our insights and core philosophies with vendors, clients, and other associates. We hope that we’ve been able to do that.

Yeah, we’ve been busy, busy, busy!

And, working like dogs…thankfully!

Wow!

Eric Swanzey really gave an inspirational presentation on the Content Management System, DotNetNuke.

The most compelling thing for me was Eric's breadth of knowledge and enthusiasm. He is truly a DNN-bible-thumping evangalist!

Take a moment to a look at his site: Swanzey Internet Group.

More About DotNetNuke:

• The largest open source .Net CMS project in the world
• 2007 Editors Choice Award from Visual Studio Magazine
• Info-Tech Research named DotNetNuke as one of the leading web content solutions (commercial OR open source) for small enterprises
• 500,000 registered users on www.dotnetnuke.com
• Currently 6 mainstream support books in print, including “DotNetNuke for Dummies”

Capabilities
As contractors for other web developers, we’ve made a conscious decision to specialize in the areas where we feel we can truly add value: CSS and Flash design.

With that said, the technology that we work in, and the needs of clients are constantly evolving. We need to evolve too.

We don’t do hosting.
We don’t do search engine marketing.
We don’t do database programming.
We don’t do copywriting.
etc…

There’s a whole world of website development that we don’t do.
But, we do know some pretty good organizations that we do work for that can do all that, and more.

So what CAN you do?

I’m glad you asked! Take a look at Commareus Capabilities.

As anyone who has done any logo design knows, it is never an easy task. Sometimes, especially if there are committees to review, it can break out into some type of unholy-religious-civil war!

Well, first and foremost, it's best to get some professional design help. With that said, it's also useful to follow some of the advice of the professionals you hire.

Recently, we collaborated up here in the attic on a brainstorming and research session on logo design. We wanted to put it in a format that was 'bite sized' and easy to read.

Here's the fruit of that effort. We call it: "Ten Things to Consider When Designing a Logo". Enjoy!

OK, it's obvious to most of us that video can communicate on websites like no other medium and that Flash is the best way to do this. At least, for now…

Recently I was doing some research on RSS and Wikis and stumbled upon a couple of tutorails:
RSS in plain English

and Wikis in plain English

These brilliantly done videos were produced by a web consulting company that specializes in social design: Common Craft. After poking around their site, it looks like they are going to start producing videos for others. I'm not surprised!

A few weeks ago, we received a call from a client in the middle of a design job: "Oh by the way, we have to design the site for Internet Explorer 5.0 for Macintosh." (Hear the sirens in the background?)

This prompted us to do some research on web design and browser compatibility. We call it: "How to Play a CD on Grandpa’s Phonograph." It's up on the White Papers section of our website. Thanks to our partner, Dan Rouse for this work.

We routinely test all websites for IE 6 and up, Firefox, Safari, and Opera. According to our research, this accounts for over 98% of the browser user base.

If you have a website that has a large constituency in that 2%, just let us know. We can do it, although it does take some more time to tweak the site.

We decided to dispense with the presentation part of the Roundtable this month and we didn't skip a beat. We don't need no stinking edeu-kation!

So, we networked, ordered dinner, made introductions and then started the roundtable discussion. The next thing we knew it was 5-of-nine and time for everyone to share one of their favorite movies.

Project management for creatives was the primary topic that emerged. Lots of great input and insights.

A special Holla! has to go out to Kevin Roy of Baylinemedia, who travelled the greatest distance, (Hamilton, MA) and to Jay Wightman of PIER Inc., who endured the gauntlet of a Mass Pike traffic from an accident to get there.

The next event is Monday, July 9. Hope to see everyone there.