Time for a Smart Car?

As gas prices head for the $3.00 per gallon mark, the American love affair with SUV's begins to look a bit foolish. Europeans have long lived with high gas prices and, have long accepted the inevitable solution: Drive smaller, more efficient cars!

One of my favorite small cars was first seen during a trip to Paris, France. It is the outrageously cute, utterly hip, Smart. This is a car a web designer can fall in love with. It began as a design collaboration between Smart Watch and Mercedes (it is now owned by Daimler-Chrysler) Sadly, the Smart may be too small for the US market. While the Smart is being imported to Canada, it will not be brought to the US. However, there are talks of a Smart SUV that will be created just for the US market! Huh?

Read the story here, then visit the Smart car website.

Web Designer Ramblings - Photo of the Day

Rio Grande Botanic Garden, Albuquerque, New Mexico, May, 2005

Web Designer Ramblings - Photo of the Day

Paris, France 2002

Web Designer Ramblings - Photo of the Day

Hawaii, August, 2004.

Google Page Rank . . . Where art thou?

Most savvy web designers have installed the Google toolbar in their web browsers primarily for the Page Rank feature. This tool reveals the Page Rank assigned to any website or web page by Google. It has long served as a valuable reference for search engine optimization. However, since 5/28/05, Page Rank appears to be disabled. It is not possible to see the Page Rank of any website using the Page Rank toolbar. Why?

There is all sorts of speculation across the Web as to the reasons. However, Google has been absolutely silent on this issue. Rather than add my own speculative blather, let's wait with bated breath for the next move from the ever enigmatic Google.com

Update: As of 5/30/05 Page Rank is back! Ignore everything I said above.

Web Designer Ramblings - Photo of the Day

Hawaii, August, 2004

Netscape 8.0 - Yes or No?

There are two articles posted on internetweek.com this week regarding the newly released Netscape 8.0 browser. Is it a hit, or a dud?

One article gives it a favorable review: "Netscape 8 is a sleek and cutting-edge browser, with top-notch password management and protection against spyware and phishing. It also has a much better user interface than Firefox or Internet Explorer, with myriad small improvements that, combined, make the browsing experience faster and more convenient than alternative browsers. I like it so much that I'm making it my default browser, even though I've been using Firefox more than a year. " - Mitch Wagner, http://internetweek.com/163106005

The second article, (posted 7 days later) is not so kind: "It's time for America Online to take Netscape 8 back to the development lab. Since its release this month, the browser has brought nothing but headaches to users. The latest flaw prevents Microsoft's Internet Explorer from rendering some web pages written in extensible markup language. In addition, RSS news feeds, which depend on XML, would also appear blank in IE." - Antone Gonsalves, http://internetweek.com/trends/

It appears that the smart web designer may need to wait until the smoke clears a bit before installing Netscape's latest offering!

Web Designer Ramblings - Photo of the Day

Missouri Botanical Gardens, St. Louis Missouri.

Web Design Update - Hot Blogging Tools

Savvy web designers often use blogging applications as basic content management tools for business web sites. Internetweek.com has a nice review of five top blogging applications. "Today's blogging systems range from simple applications that provide pre-formatted Web pages to sophisticated systems designed for multiple contributors and users (including a full range of contributing, editing, and viewing permissions). Which is best for your business? The answer depends on how much control you want to exercise over the content of your business blog." - internetweek.com

Internetweek reviews a very promising newcomer to the blogging arena named Squarespace which has potential as an easy to use content management tool for business websites. A worthy read!

A Web Designer's Dream Park?

The one park every web designer should visit for inspiration: Millennium Park, Chicago, Illinois. An incredible, ultra-modern urban setting that represents the state-of-the-art in urban park planning. Here are a few more photos of this wonderful attraction.

Millennium Park, Chicago, Illinois. Bandstand.

Millennium Park, Chicago, Illinois. Bandstand area.

Millennium Park, Chicago, Illinois, October 2004. If there were ever such a thing as a "designer park" this is it. Chock full of incredible "eye candy" this is the most impressive urban park I have visited in the US.

Web Designer Ramblings - Photo of the Day

New York Botanical Gardens, Bronx, NY, July, 2004

Web Designer Ramblings - Photo of the Day

Near I-40 between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico

Stop the Spam!

For years, we posted a contact email address on our web design portfolio website. However, we were inundated with spam emails as a result. Now we use an email form handler (software that sends email form results from our website to our email inbox) that hides our email address from spammers 'bots' that search the Web, collecting email addresses from web pages. Anyone wishing to contact our web design studio must use our online form to do so (we give our email address only to confirmed clients).

We found an excellent article that provides a number of good tips that will help web designers to spam-proof their websites. A worthy read for anyone who wants to avoid an email in-box full of junk mail! Read "Spamproof Your Website" by Dan Theis.

Web Designer Ramblings - Photo of The Day

Taos, New Mexico, February, 2005

Apple, Intel Rumored To Be in Talks

A deal with Intel, said one report, could possibly result in Apple computers being sold at less expensive prices, which would better position them alongside the traditionally cheaper computers using Microsoft's operating systems. Click here for the full story.

The Power of (Web) Design

"Whether it's software or sippy cups, when something works right, looks right, and feels right, it sparks an emotional connection. People come to love it and loyalty soon follows, along with the three Rs: repurchase, reuse, and recommendations -- benefits that fall directly to the bottom line. Such is the power of design." The Power of Design" Fast Company, June 2005

Calling all web designers: Run, don't walk to your nearest newsstand and pick up this month's issue (June 2005) of Fast Company. It's the second annual "Masters of Design" issue. It makes a compelling case for great design providing a competitive business advantage. This is especially so in web design, where the "look and feel" of the website heavily affects the viewers perception of the business it represents.

Web Design & Emotional Intelligence

One of the most interesting books I've read this past year is "Emotional Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman. What is emotional intelligence? Emotional intelligence," is a type of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use the information to guide one's thinking and actions"

Can emotional intelligence can make one a better web designer? The ability of a web design to touch the viewer emotionally is a key measure of its success. The ability to understand the emotions of others and to use that information to design better websites can distinguish a web designer from his peers (in my humble opinion).

In all the talk of css, web standards, and other technical aspects of web design, it may well be that the ability to affect the emotions of the viewer is not given the emphasis it should. My experience in designing websites suggests that it is the single most critical aspect of web design. I'm curious what you think?

Web Designer Ramblings - Photo of the Day

A photo from the Denver Botanic Gardens, Denver Colorado taken in Oct. 2004.

Link Checker Tool for Web Designers

Here is a cool plugin for Firefox web browsers that is of great value to anyone who maintains or develops websites. LinkChecker. This free Firefox browser plugin allows you to visit a website and check all links with the site. Check webpage links at a glance with simple color coding. Add LinkChecker to your arsenal of web development tools today.

A Cool Free Tool For Creating Panoramic Photos

Here is probably the easiest tool I've seen for creating panoramic photos, and it's free (for now)! It's Autostitch.

It is elegantly simple to use. Grab your digital camera, and make from three to 50 photos covering the view in front of you. Then simply start 'Autostitch', go to 'File/Open', select all your pics (holding 'shift') and click 'Open'. About 20 seconds later the software has automatically matched every edge, shape and color and given you back a finished panorama.

It's fun to use and creates beautiful results. Enjoy it before some software company buys the idea from the developer!