Archives for Uncategorized
Geolocation; localized content hits home
The online user experience is becoming more localized and we expect to see major growth in the coming years as AT&T, Google, Yelp, Foursquare and others get into the action. We already have geo-targeted ads, segmented content and social search serving content in a more personalized way. But now, we are seeing the emergence of [...]
Web Analytics
Marketers have always used analytics to measure consumer behavior and ROI. However, we now have more insight than ever before thanks to the internet’s ability to offer limitless measurement and analysis opportunity. The web analytics industry which had been fledgling in past years, now takes center stage in today’s global market place. There are several [...]
Great Clients make for Great Campaigns
A friend once told me that behind every great campaign is a great client. Of course, what they meant was that a client who trusts you take their brand in new directions will likely be a collaborator in the creative process. This could not have been truer than in the case of the latest online [...]
For Improved Client Relationships, Get to Know Your Employees
I saw an advertisement for a new CBS “reality” show that, while being heavily scripted, I think is going to provide some interesting food for thought for the business world. The show is “Undercover Boss,” and, according to www.realitytvworld.com, it will “follow corporate executives working in disguise at the ‘lowest level jobs’ in their own [...]
We’re All the Rage in France
How We Actually Went Viral From Boston to Bangalore and Toronto to Tunis, our little holiday endeavor has spread across the globe faster than risqué pictures of Lindsey Lohan. The Backstory Before the business world shut down for the holidays, we at Pop Art launched our 2009 e-card, The Holidizer. Running with the success of “Imma let you finish” [...]
40% Targeting, 40% Offer, 20% Creative
Having spent most of this fall with a cold or flu of some kind (blame the toddler for that one), I was especially intrigued by an ad I saw on Pandora the other night. This ad is genius, and caught my attention for a few reasons. As the old advertising axiom says, an ad’s success [...]
Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty…
In my many years of software development, I have come across project managers/producers with a smorgasbord of backgrounds. Artists, dancers, photographers, political activists, furniture makers and some ex-developers like myself. There is never one background that makes the best “type” of project manager. No, not even the ex-developers are guaranteed to be the best for [...]
What’s Your User Story, Morning Glory?
What is a user story? Stemming from agile software development, user stories are used by the customer to concisely convey what they need in their site or software. In only a sentence or two in the language of the everyday user, a user story describes a solution requirement. While they can be a by product of [...]
Content Marketing is not what it used to be
For the last 15 years, I have made my living as a content developer. I started off as a photographer documenting and telling stories through static images. At first, this was a pursuit in art and process related to photography but these explorations opened the door to many other mediums. Along this journey I bridged [...]
How to Do Something You’ve Never Done Before
As a technologist, I’m often asked to do something that I’ve never done before and have no specific competency in performing; tasks which I’m completely unqualified to execute. The more palatable way of saying the same thing is: As a consultant, technical lead, solutions engineer or a business analyst, I’m given challenges that require me to identify [...]
Mozilla’s “Ubiquity”: User-Generated Mash-Ups and the Semantic Web
Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo. Here is a neat little video on Mozilla’s new Firefox extension: Ubiquity. Some of the future digital trends it highlights, include: User-generated Mash-Ups: Allowing users (not just developers) to quickly combine information and services from multiple sources. The Semantic Web: Allowing machines to understand language to better understand human requests. The value [...]
Applescripting Productivity
Do you have a mac? Interested in maximizing productivity? Familiar with progamming? If so, you may already know the muscle of Automator and the blood that pumps it: Applescript. If the mention of programming is tempting you to browse off and away, I’ve included a pre-made script that may be worth it to you. My case for the [...]
Rick Strahl on jQuery
Even though we’re pretty busy at the office, I managed to slip out and attend the last PADNUG meeting and catch up with some friends. This time was the return of a PADNUG regular, Rick Strahl. If it sounds like we’re spoiled with outstanding speakers, it’s because it’s true. Rick, fresh from a vacation in [...]
Importing Data From Excel with C#
Behind the scenes, I see a lot of companies run on Excel and duct tape. So it’s common for clients to hand me a slab of data organized into neat little rows and columns. Excel is just a handy way to throw some data over the wall and get things done. This might be a [...]
Start-Up Junkies
When I was 8 to 12, I was big into Dungeons & Dragons. My brother was five years older, and sometimes I could sit with his friends and play. We had all the books, much to the chagrin of my parents. When the D&D cartoon came on, all other things ceased to exist for those [...]
Test for Existence of a JavaScript Method
One of my teammates recently had a problem with some Flash injection code. She was setting some properties and then calling a function on a JavaScript object that threw an error. We got a message that said “Object doesn’t support this property or method”. We isolated it down to a timing issue by dropping an alert() [...]
Understanding LINQ
LINQ is an acronym for Language-Integrated Query and a new feature in v3.5 of the .Net Framework from Microsoft. This new version of Microsoft .Net reached RTM status a couple of weeks ago — this framework is chock full of brilliant things I can use to improve my efficiency and effectiveness on daily tasks here [...]
Dear ClementDesign Mocha Master Coffee Maker
I think you’re a good person, but I can’t be with you. I have to break up. Sure 2007 was a fun year, galloping around the estate with that thick scent of delicious coffee in our hair and eager for the new dawn of a dark roast. We had some good times. The Techni Vorm label [...]
Double Hop Disaster
I was working with a web service client that talked to SharePoint this week. I wrote a quick Silverlight app that extracted a list of tasks out of a SharePoint list. I love how simple this is to tap into: http://sharepoint.yourcompany.com/_vti_bin/lists.asmx The previous URL will show the path to one of the web services provided out-of-the-box by [...]
Now Witness the Power of this Fully Armed and Operational Regular Expression
For a recent project, I found myself having to convert 60+ product detail pages from the old table-based format to the new XML-based format. I was doing this on my own, and I didn’t relish the thought of manually editing hundreds of tables of product details. For example, here’s an excerpt from one of the [...]
First Annual Web Design Survey
“People who make websites have been at it for more than a dozen years, yet almost nothing is known, statistically, about our profession.” A List Apart is hosting the first annual Web Design Survey in an effort to learn more about the people in the web design profession – presumably so we can have more efficient [...]
MSDN Article: Enforce Web Standards For Better Accessibility
At Pop Art, we have some very talented folks that adhere strictly to Web Standards. It takes much discipline to develop web application using Web Standards as its often not the quickest path to a solution, but offers significant advantages for clients and future maintenance. In general, gives almost all the tools necessary to create [...]
OneNote 2007
I was hooked on OneNote the first time I saw it beta before Office 2003 was released. When I was at Microsoft, I had a couple of opportunities to meet Chris Pratley and he always showed me some amazing feature that I never knew about. There are a few features within OneNote 2007 [...]
November Accomplishments
SelecTrucks Center Sites We launched two new Center Sites in November. Kansas City was a challenging design, with lots of absolute positioning, which caused a few problems when IE7 came out. The client was really excited about the puzzle theme. Birmingham is, I think, one of the best looking designs we've done. The diagonal navigation is [...]
