Don’t get me wrong, the favicon is still important, but it can often be overlooked as the only icon necessary when designing a website. Two others that are quite essential to every website or blog are the Apple Touch and Facebook Share icons.
The Favicon
If you are new to this Internet business, the favicon is a 16×16 icon used to distinguish a website in the URL or tab of your browser. The favicon has been around for a while, but is still worth mentioning if only to clarify which browsers support which filetypes. Or should I say, which browser doesn’t support image icons. I’ll give you one guess. Internet Exploder only recognizes the .ico file type, which…
A year ago, Twitter Co-Founder, Jack Dorsey, created an application called Square, which was recently launched last Tuesday! It allows a smart phone to act like a mobile cash register. The application functions the same as if you were swiping a card at any retail outlet. Once your account is set up you can immediately start scanning credit cards, signing electronic receipts, and receiving money into your Square account; funds from Square can be transferred to your personal bank account, in any amount at any time.
Square isn’t the first to enable the individual to process credit cards. Other software and devices include: Motorola’s MC75, VeriFone’s PAYware, or the recent Visa In2Pay – a case…
Over the last several years there’s been a steady emergence of online services that are changing the way we consume digital media. Now instead of purchasing and downloading the latest music, movies and tv shows, you can simply stream content from services like Pandora, Last.fm, Netflix, and Hulu, straight to your computer or tv for a straight fee or monthly subscription.
Recently launched Onlive – a new on-demand video game service – takes on-demand one stage further, allowing remote play of video games without ever needing to download and install the games themselves. A small container application is downloaded to the user’s computer, through which the service is accessed…
Over the last year, a group of entrepreneurs and developers interested in making things happen in Indy, have been quietly (and now more noticeably) building Hackers & Founders. David Hosei, Brennan Knotts, Matt Hunckler, Yaw Aning, and Drew Loftus are among the founding members and they’ve grown it from drinks & networking to presentation & pitches; from the small Upper Room to the forefront space of the The Earth House, where last night’s meetup was held.
The Earth House has also been quietly forming for the last few years, through the efforts of peace activists, artists, musicians, and more who are committed to growing peace, wellness, community and culture in Indy. They’ve grown from a free trade coffee house with local…
It’s a funny thing to think how quickly technology changes, and how quickly formats become obsolete. Take for instance this website, which uses sIFR (Scalable Inman Flash Replacement) to replace headers with a custom font. A few years ago, there were only a few routes you could take if you wanted to use custom fonts without dealing with the dreaded image replacement. Turns out, the sIFR route is a dead end only a year after our implementation. Not only does is slow page loading time, but it becomes increasingly unreliable with the popularity of ad (Flash) blockers to speed up browser load times (because nothing will ever be fast enough).
Last Friday I had the opportunity to participate on the Alumni Panel for Butler’s College of Business Freshman Seminar. Recent grads were brought in, who remembered what it was like to be in the shoes of a freshman: searching to declare a major, wondering what organizations to get involved in, assessing what types of jobs and internships they should try to secure, and, simply, which classes are worthwhile. But it’s more than the ability to relate that we alumni offered – it’s the post-college assessment of what activities and knowledge have “worth” when applied in the real world. Advice from the alum included:
develop your communication skills – verbal, written, visual
work and life are arguably inseparable – find something you love
For those of you that didn’t make it to The Combine this past weekend, make sure you add it to your to do list next year. Our good friends at SproutBox were one of the primary sponsors of the event and they, along with their partners, put on a great event.
On Saturday I lead a workshop/presentation called “Experience Design for Startups”. It’s embedded above for your viewing pleasure or you can view “Experience Design for Startups” at SlideShare.
Dividing up elephantine-sized projects is something I totally dig, and it’s always the result that is the most stunning. So when I stumble across a new company or platform that is bringing forward this type of solution through crowdsourcing, I get pretty excited, particularly when it benefits the non-profit sector (easily crushed by large tasks that they lack the resources to address). By divvying up a daunting task, responsibility, or problem into micro pieces, not only is the cost and workload distributed, but also the good effects. Here are a couple of cool companies that I’m following:
The Extraordinaries The Extraordinaries, a micro-volunteer network offers a platform to connect non-profits with skilled professionals…
There are many uses for Twitter – connecting with people, sharing status updates, promoting events, sharing content, generating support, finding employment – but one of my favorite uses of Twitter is to tell a story. Twitter can be used to engage your audience in your brand, and create a participatory entertainment environment in the service of your brand. Twittering Mad Men, Helen Klein Ross of Brand Fiction Factory (@BettyDraper@AdBroad) and Michael Bissell of Conquent (@Roger_Sterling@Bissell) refer to this as Brand Fiction. Read on to learn how they brought the AMC show Mad Men to life in the world of Twitter (earning them a Shorty Award), by employing Brand Fiction. …
One of the most frequent questions I’m asked is “What have you been reading lately.” With increasing frequency, folks are beginning to inquire about what Podcasts I listen to as well. So I thought I’d share a list of my favorite podcasts with our readers. These picks run the gamut from design, to technology, to entrepreneurialism. Some of them are not updated as regularly as I’d like, but they are all thought provoking, interesting, and inspiring. You can find them all on iTunes.
The Accidental Creative The Accidental Creative podcast addresses how to thrive in the create-on-demand world by instilling practical, everyday practices that
