Archives for Web Development
Top 5 Office Pranks in Pop Art History
We work pretty hard at Pop Art. There are late nights, and there are late nights. Booze sometimes takes the edge off, but where to turn when sobriety is your only friend, and there’s stress you need to relieve? Laughter is the best medicine, and it’s best enjoyed at a co-worker’s expense. 5. Jello Stapler VP of Client [...]
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 [...]
To Microsite or Not To Microsite?
I’ve been part of several conversations in recent months about when to build a microsite, or when a certain type of content is better placed within the confines of the corporate web site. To that end, I developed a quick little graphic that illustrates my thoughts on the matter. In my opinion, your corporate web [...]
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 [...]
So, You Asked for a CMS
In my position, I get to respond to a bunch of RFP’s. If there’s a marketing/brochure web site involved, you can make a reasonable bet that the RFP includes a content management system (CMS). These solutions are super easy to build and deploy, but organizations are often unaware of the entire bargain. The promise of a [...]
Thanks USAA!
My bank, USAA, is better than your bank. No, they don’t have any branches, except for that one in Texas, but they do have: Awesome online banking Free ATM withdraws (no matter which one you decide to use that day) An iPhone app Check deposit at home (on your scanner or iPhone) Customer service that can’t be beat. This is [...]
Google Chrome Frame for Internet Explorer
Long story short, Google released a plugin for IE 6, 7 and 8 that will run Google Chrome (which uses webkit) inside a frame in the IE browser. Now IE6 can be standards-compliant, and all versions of IE get blazing fast javascript and HTML 5 support. Sounds great, but there are some problems, as lifehacker [...]
Eliminating Development Traffic from Your Google Analytics Stats
Recently we were asked by a client if traffic from their test site was being posted to a Google Analytics (GA) account. It turns out it is. Not only that, so is any version of the site hosted on their development and test servers, and any developer’s local site. We tested this by placing several pages [...]
IE8 Compatibility Mode and IE7 are Not the Same Thing
Just so we’re clear, testing your website in an actual copy of IE7, and testing in IE8’s Compatibility Mode are not the same thing. Compatibility Mode does an acceptable job of imitating IE7, and for the average user who’s just trying to fix a site that looks broken under IE8, it’s good enough. However, there [...]
How to Avoid Paragraph Gaps when Using Superscript and Subscript
Frequently, when I see a webpage with superscript or subscript text, I see associated gaps in the paragraph. This is caused because the default way browsers render super and subscript text is to add enough vertical space in the paragraph to show them. The result is ugly, but as you can see in the following [...]
Intelligent Defaults Save Time
Have you ever been a regular at a coffee shop? The barista knows you by name, and every morning when you come by, she’s already got your Triple Non-Fat Sugar-Free Vanilla Latte waiting for you. That’s an intelligent default. She doesn’t know for sure that’s what you want, or even that you’ll come in today, [...]
Key Takeaways from An Event Apart
I’ve attended An Event Apart four years running now. It is, hands-down, the finest web conference around, and if you work on the web at all, whether you’re a designer, developer, copywriter, or client-services, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Reviewing my notes from previous conferences, I noticed that there were some running themes. Each year, [...]
Freightliner Trucks Homepage Redux
In the last quarter of 2008, I was tasked with redesigning the home page of one of our clients, Freightliner Trucks. The original design of FLT is from a few years back, and we have been slowly updating areas of the site to current standards and practices since then. A wider layout, better navigation, stronger [...]
How to Convert from Community Server 2007 to Wordpress
It’s safe to say that no one at Pop Art was ever really happy with Community Server. We selected it as a platform for a variety of reasons, some of which turned out to be based on faulty assumptions. Once we finally made the decision to switch to Wordpress, the conversion was a huge pain, [...]
Where are all the Mac Developers?
I heard an interesting quote on a recent podcast of RunAsRadio.com, where the guest talking with Richard and Greg said: We’re the second largest Mac development shop in the world behind Apple. We have more Mac developers than anybody except Apple. Who is “we”? Well, Microsoft of course! This seemed counter-intuitive at first, but after you consider everything [...]
JavaScript Injection Attacks
A little over a week ago, I described Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks and how they can damage your site with just a simple website request using any modern browser available today. This time, I’ll describe another type of JavaScript attack that can cause equal harm to your site. Lots of sites, including blogs, accept user input. [...]
Open Letter to PortlandOnline Refresh Committee
In May, one of the largest interactive firms in Portland announced it was closing its downtown Portland office, and that its staff would begin “working from home.” In the last 12 months, nearly every web development firm and design firm in the Portland area has laid off staff (thankfully, a situation Pop Art has avoided), [...]
Windows Notepad Stinks!
When making quick changes to an existing code file, using Visual Studio is akin to hitting a nail with a sledge hammer. These tasks are best suited for a simple text editor. Like most operating systems, Windows includes a small text editor named Notepad for completing such tasks. The problem with Notepad is that it’s completely [...]
Six Wordpress Tips from the Pop Art Blog Redesign
When we converted the Pop Art Blog to use Wordpress, I learned some clever tricks that I would like to share with you. If you like what we’ve done around here, you might be interested in some of these techniques for your own site.
XHTML 2 is Dead
Wow, I didn’t see this coming. Zeldman reports that the W3C is not going to renew the XHTML 2 working group’s charter this year. That effectively kills XHTML 2 in favor of devoting the resources to the HTML 5 working group. This makes sense in that HTML 5 is already gaining traction, and we’ve seen lots [...]
How to Get Your Most Recent Twitter Posts Using PHP with Caching
When we started redesigning the Pop Art blog, one of the chief requirements was to integrate everyone’s Twitter feeds into the site. In addition to the Pop Art Twitter feed in the sidebar, we wanted to add individual twitter feeds on the profile pages. The problem is that the javascript code that Twitter provides can [...]
Welcome to the New Pop Art Blog!
The new Pop Art blog is live! On the front end, it’s sporting a brand-new, and oh-so-spiffy, design, and on the back-end it’s been converted to the titan of the blogging world, Wordpress. Please look around, and enjoy the new scenery. And make sure you take a peek at the new profile pages by clicking [...]
Bugzilla’s Reset Password Page Sucks
Frequently, my coworkers will forget their Bugzilla passwords. They come to me, because I manage it, and I always send them to the reset password page. Inevitably, they come back a few minutes later and tell me that it didn’t work, and I just reset their passwords by hand. Well, I finally figured out the [...]
#PABlazers: Leveraging and bridging communities
Twitter is the fastest growing network on the inter-tube-web today, and we are still developing an understanding of its potential. I like that Southwest Airlines could help me out if I miss my flight, or that I may find Shaq in my town handing out free tickets-but what more could be done? Could you bridge [...]
