Archive for December, 2009

My Crusade

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

I have this issue (go figure) with how we display our contact information on business cards, specifically the web and email addresses. In a nutshell, I don’t understand why, if your email address is using your web address, why we are writing them both out.

This issue comes up whenever I’m designing a business card layout. There are already millions of domain names out there, and they seem to be getting longer. So where you were once able to have “joescars.com”, now you probably have to have “joesdiscountautomobiles.com” or something equally as cumbersome. So now you want to put both your web and email addresses on your business card, which takes up way too much space and ends up looking like someone vomited the alphabet all over your little 2 x 3.5 inch billboard:

joesmith@joesdiscountautomobiles.com
joesdiscountautomobiles.com

Why both? Here’s what I propose. If your email address is using your domain, display them on your business card like this:

joesmith@
joesdiscountautomobiles.com

Yes, this does ask people to actually take a couple of seconds to comprehend what they are looking at, but I don’t think that’s too much to ask. I don’t think looking back when you go through a door to see if someone is behind you is too much to ask either, but I’ll pick my battles.

This way of displaying your web and email addresses is cleaner, allows for more white space on cards, and is easy to understand. Let me know if you agree, and if you adopt this convention, please send me a card.

Why I Like The Internet

Thursday, December 24th, 2009

The Internet has revolutionized almost all of our lives over the last ten years.  The Internet has changed most of our views on communication, making possible instant communication anywhere in the world. Also, worldwide commerce and trade has become an everyday occurrence, and has become a thing we all expect.

We are able to text, chat, videoconference, and send email all at the push of a button. For me one of the best and most useful communication tools has been Skype (http://skype.com/). Skype is a communication tool that allows users to talk to other Skype users for free. You can either talk through your computer like you would a normal phone conversation, or you can video chat through your computer. This has been invaluable to me. Having many friends overseas, Skype has allowed me to keep in touch with them, without having to pay excessive long distance phone charges. With the creation of the Skype app for the iPhone, I am now able to place Skype calls directly from my cell phone whenever I am connected to a Wi-Fi network.

We can watch television and receive news on our computers (and now on our cellular phones) anywhere there is an Internet connection. While I am not sure if this is a good thing or not, I do have to admit that I watch my fair share of shows that are streaming from hulu.com.

The Internet also provides us all with the ability to shop online. This makes comparison-shopping much easier, and in the long run saves us money. We are also able to have purchases sent directly to our doors, savings us the hassle of dealing with shopping malls (especially great during the holiday season). I am happy to say that I completed all of my Christmas shopping online this year – not having to deal with crowds, and not having to drive. Thank you amazon.com and coffeesource.com!

These are just a few reasons why I like the Internet….

The Best App Ever

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Apropos of nothing, this begins from the WordPress iPhone app. My son, who incidentally just turned 5, is wondering why this app does not appear to be “tilt-sensitive”. (I don’t think I knew what “tilt-sensitive” was until about 6 months ago.) He proceeded to ask me to find one for sale. (More on that at the end).

When my wife gave me the green light to buy the new iPhone 3Gs, her biggest concern was that it would distract me from the already-infrequent conversations we somehow rarely manage to have. Little did either of us know that it would indeed be just slightly less addictive than crack cocaine… to our child. I tried the angle of “this is daddy’s work phone, not yours”, which worked about as well as “this is my crack cocaine, not yours” would on a crack addict. I recalled my own childhood, some of the gadgets my dad used for work, and how it felt to want to play with them. His TI 55 and the science-fictionesque LED display caused indescribable yearnings to press all of the buttons all day long (even though I had no idea what any of those funny symbols meant). When he switched from a regular watch to one of these, I nearly lost my mind. And… let me catch my breath…. when a VIC 20 showed up on his work desk, that was it for the boundaries; I had to use it even if it meant being grounded for a week.

But none of it holds a candle to the “I am the blue team scoring champion and all of my teammates should touch my head for luck before I battle the red team scoring champion” app, which is not available on iTunes or from Texas Instruments or at Best Buy. I just saw it for the first time today, and it’s not for sale.