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January 31, 2011: The Best Interactive Music Videos..so far

Last year’s “The Wilderness Downtown” music video/Google mash-up from Arcade Fire changed conceptions about what music videos could be. “Wilderness” wasn’t just a one-off. Arcade Fire has already come back with a new way to make their musical experiences interactive, and they’re not the only ones.

January 31, 2011: Death to “Rich Media”

Saying “Rich Media” in 2011 is like saying a DVD menu was “Interactive” in 2006. All it meant was that it was gonna cost a bit more to produce.  Online advertising technologies have grown more complex and similarly so should our vocabulary.

December 27, 2010: Preloaders and Preloader Psychology: A few ways to make them wait for your Flash site

Don’t compromise the beauty or functionality of your site so your consumer get in there quicker.  They think they don’t have time to wait for your site.  But they do.  They’ve got 30 more seconds.  Because your website is that awesome.  Right?

December 21, 2010: Happy New Year, I can hack your facebook from here

While unsecured networks have always left us vulnerable to hackers, Firesheep brings that to a new level of one-click ease for anyone interested.  Your social media passwords are likely more vulnerable than you realize.

December 16, 2010: Font Use for Internal Documents

If your office is anything like mine, your employees use both PC’s and Macs.  Non web-based correspondence has no font choices beyond that on the user’s computer.  For internal documents and stationary, use fonts that come across the way you think they will in internal communications.

December 10, 2010: 12 Flash Bugs to look for

Flash websites, apps, and widgets require a different eye when checking them for quality assurance, when compared to a traditional site.  Below are the top 12 code-based problems, easily missed by traditional processes.

November 16, 2010: Chrome use keeps growing, IE6 still more popular than Safari/Opera

As we end out the 10th year of the millennia (arguably) I wish we could finally put IE6 to bed.  Alas, the browser is still the fifth-most popular, and the Internet Explorer trifecta of web dev pain still accounts for a third of browser usage. Internet Explorer’s popularity wains, Firefox reigns supreme, and if Chrome continues its growth, it could overtake Internet Explorer for second place. 

November 15, 2010: 20 people walk into a room… odds are one uses Linux

It’s the end of 2010.  We’re officially nearing the end of the “Aughties.”  (Looking forward to the “Teenies!”)  It’s been the most dynamic period in consumer computer platforms to date.  We saw the strongest Windows offering to date (XP), followed by the worst operating system ever (Vista), a major reprise (Windows 7),  then Apple got real loud, and, oh yeah, Linux was there, too.

After all these new releases, the 2001 Windows XP still holds nearly half of computer users’ loyalty.

October 28, 2010: Microsoft’s best works are Mac-only

A little while ago, Microsoft unveiled their new app icons for their Mac Office Suite.  And, despite my general indifference to Microsoft design, these icons seem current, modern, and even… fitting.

July 29, 2010: Conquer Adaptive HTTP Streaming with OSMF

Steve Jobs’ decision to stiff arm Flash has given us in the online video delivery world a bit without an answer.  But the OSMF Framework has left us with an answer that will work inside and outside the iProduct realm.

July 23, 2010: Reinhart’s “Flash-first” video delivery

Since Steve left those of us desiring online video delivery, a little miffed.  The question has remained, “How do we deliver video across the web and the newly divided mobile landscape?”

May 28, 2010: Show and Tell for the big boys

The Art Directors Club and YouTube have teamed up to create a great gallery of the best in marketing on YouTube.  Viral videos, interactive videos, even plain old brand channels, it’s all there.