Monthly Archives: June 2010
Posted by Pinaki Kathiari on June 28, 2010
James Chudley of Smashing Magazine posted a great article on How to Use Photos to Sell More Online. Its a lengthy article with great photo examples. The article was written for products, but I believe these can be put to use no matter what you are doing online. Most importantly, we don’t want to put up a photo just to put up a photo… make it do something for you like:
- Show off product benefits
- Don’t give reasons not to buy
- Create an immersive experience
- Make ‘em laugh
- Educate and inform
- Tell a story
- Highlight your innovation
- Show people doing something
- Don’t mislead users
- Evoke an emotional response
- Plug accessories
- Show features and versatility
- Understand needs
- Match imagery to the brand
- Sell a lifestyle
- Demonstrate exciting features
- Make it beautiful
- Avoid cliche stock shots
- Create desire
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- Be stylistically consistent
- Convey the itangibles
- Show some personality
- Be subtle sometimes
- Look professional
- Be consistent
- Use unusual vantage points
- Shoot from the best angles
- Show objects in their natural evironment
- Convey a sense of scale
- Image size is important
- Show the product in use
- Shoe how it works
- Make choosing easy
- Enhance the experience
- Show details
- Show me what it looks like
- Encourage interaction
- Show me I’m in the right place
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We curate quite a few websites where we manage the use of photography. We work hard not to “slap on a photo”, but make it have some meaning and usefulness in the grand scheme of the website. Read the full article.
Topics: art, design, inspiration, interfaces, life, marketing, photography, presentations, website curation
Posted by Michael Alfaro on June 28, 2010
I received this from our trademark & patent lawyer Rich Roberts at www.robertspatent.com
Interesting to see what’s new in the world of trademark and patent law:
This morning the United States Supreme Court issued its much awaited decision in the business-method-patent case of Bilski v. Kappos. The lower U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the rejection of the applicant’s patent application for a business method claims as not meeting its newly devised “machine-or-transformation test” of patent eligibility. Under this test a claim to a process qualifies to be considered for patenting only if it either (1) is implemented with a particular machine, that is, one specifically devised and adapted to carry out the process in a way that is not concededly conventional and is not trivial; or else (2) transforms an article from one thing or state to another. The Supreme Court rejected these tests and decided that although these tests may be a useful and important clue or investigative tool, it is not the sole test for deciding whether an invention is a patent-eligible “process” under 35 U.S.C. 101.
This case is important because the Court rejected the theory that business-methods are categorically outside of patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C.101. The Court upheld the rejection of this particular applicant’s claims on the basis of its prior decisions of Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U. S. 63, 70 (1972), Parker v. Flook, 437 U. S. 584, 588, n. 9. Pp. 5–8, and Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U. S. 175, 182, holding that the claims do not present patentable processes, but merely attempt to patent abstract ideas. The full opinion is at: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-964.pdf
If you ever need trademark & patent expertise, we highly recommend Rich, here’s his info:
Richard S. Roberts
Roberts & Roberts, L.L.P.
Attorneys At Law
P.O. Box 484
Princeton, New Jersey 08542-0484
TEL: (609) 921-3500
FAX: (609) 921-9535
E-Mail: rroberts@robertspatent.com
Website: www.robertspatent.com
Topics: business, process
Posted by Michael Alfaro on June 23, 2010
I just installed Outlook 2010 and saw my contact list double in size on my IPhone soon after. Took me a while to see that it added a “Suggested List” to the iphone where all these extra contacts were coming from. I found a blog post that shows how to remove the suggested list completely from outlook 2010, thus fixing the problem on the Iphone here: http://www.blackonstuff.com/2010-01-28/how-to-disable-suggested-contacts-in-outlook-2010/
You can also just look at your “Contacts” group on your Iphone instead of “All Contacts” and that would help you ignore the “Suggested Contacts” list, but if you have 2 or more contact groups that you need like from yahoo, gmail, exchange and such, then the solution below is a better option:
“Access the File tab and then the Options on the left …”
“… then the Contacts group and uncheck the “Automatically create Outlook contacts for recipients that do not belong to an Outlook Address Book”. After that, just delete all the harvested contacts in the Suggested Contacts folder and your iPhone will automatically update with just the contacts you’ve added.”
Topics: iPhone, Microsoft, technology
Posted by Michael Alfaro on June 23, 2010
Edith Shain passed away on Tuesday at the age of 91. I love American history and black & white photography. This picture has been hanging above my bed for years =) RIP…
Posted by Michael Alfaro on June 22, 2010
During a recent password audit, it was found that a
blonde was using the following password:
“MickeyMinniePlutoHueyLouieDeweyDonaldGoofySacramento”
When asked why she had such a long password, she said
she was told that it had to be at least 8 characters
long and include at least one capital.
Topics: fun
Posted by Melissa Penta on June 17, 2010
The 13th major version of WordPress has been released. Introducing WordPress 3.0:
Some key features include:
- Lighter admin screen
- WordPress/Multi-user integration – power many blogs off of one WordPress install
- Bulk upgrades for plugins
- Custom post types – for better CMS use
- A new default theme called Twenty Ten that takes advantage of current features
- Custom headers, backgrounds and menus
For a full list go to the Version 3.0 Codex page
Topics: development, technology
Posted by Michael Alfaro on June 16, 2010
Couldn’t believe when Derrick told me about this, and can’t wait!!!! Hey Shawn, quick game of escort, 1 on 1???
Topics: fun, inspiration, video, video games
Posted by Christine Robinson on June 7, 2010
Just a quick note to give Anniversary & Birthday shout outs to the following rockstars:
Pinaki Kathiari – 3rd year Anniversary, 6/11
Laura Hanania – 3rd year Anniversary, 6/25
David Spira – Birthday, 6/1
Don’t forget to send some love their way!
Christine
Posted by Michael Alfaro on June 4, 2010
This one was interesting since there were so many answers out there that didn’t work :) This is actually pretty easy, you open up the IIS 7 manager, go to the website you’d like to turn JS compression on for, in the menu you’ll see the MimeType icon, open that up:
When you open it up, look for the .js Mimetype as such:
And change the .js Mimetype to “text/javascript” as such:
It should take place immediately as it makes the change in your application’s web.config file for you under “System.Webserver”. BTW, just getting the JS files to compress does so much for the site speed!
Topics: internet, Microsoft, technology, website curation
