Google’s home page, iGoogle, Google Docs, and other apps are offering users a new look recently, changing the day-to-day just slightly for millions of people. These are mostly cosmetic changes, the kind that could be missed. I first noticed the unlikely dark grey with orange accents and generous white padding this summer at the introduction of Google+. Google ran with it and we expected “Try the new look” prompts to move across its vast suite.
Reed Hastings, founder of Netflix, in a recent interview with Charlie Rose called 4K the next thing in video, while explaining how the rate of change in video is accelerating now that everything is digital. Coincidentally, Netflix now accounts for the largest portion of Internet traffic in North America, at nearly 30%.
4K refers to the next generation of high definition video, roughly four thousand lines of resolution across the horizontal. It seems a consensus for what to call the technology has not arrived. I suppose that’s not surprising since we still hear HD, High Def, Full HD, 1080p, etc. The next generation is referred to as 4K, 4K TV, Quad HD, and Quad Full High Definition QFHD. You can read how Wikipedia describes the situation.
You can start video blogging for a small investment. But to achieve a professional look and feel, you’ll need to experiment and observe certain fundamentals. Here are some tips for choosing the right equipment, and setting up a simple, well crafted shot.
Camera: Any mid-range consumer HD camcorder will do. $1000 is more than you need to spend, unless you plan to shoot much more than video blogs. Cameras with some built-in flash memory are attractive for their simplicity, since you’re shooting relatively short scenes and usually moving the scenes to your computer immediately.
Web designers are often asked “what DPI do you need?” when clients provide digital imagery for their websites. The best answer is coy and not well-accepted: “it does not matter.”
DPI refers to “dots per inch”. It is a measure of print. Technically, DPI is a property of the image file that indicates nothing about the quality or resolution of the image. DPI exists to direct a printer how close to place the dots on the page. You can create a very high DPI file with very low image quality, and vice versa.
We learn to treat the Google Docs software different than other software, when we don’t wait years for the next improvements to our applications. If you haven’t used a Google Docs application recently, you should find the interfaces much improved. I recently discovered how far the Google Docs presentations application has come — Ironically, Google Docs apps don’t seem to be named separately. Like the aspiration of other Google Docs applications, Google Presentations are Microsoft PowerPoint presentations on an attractive diet.
HST is coming to Ontario and British Columbia July 1, 2010. Are your e-commerce stores ready? There are implications for small business and online retailers. HST is not simply PST + GST. For the purpose of this article we’ll stick to what online retailers need to know for selling goods between provinces, i.e. if/when/how the taxes are collected and remitted.
Your Business Needs Quality Design
Experienced web designers can tell amateur design by many marks. Observing heavy, thoughtless drop shadows and harsh inner bevels is perhaps the easiest. Google knowingly sported both for 12 years.
Google’s home page is legendary for its simplicity. The recent arrival of the new search results page, and other visual and functional enhancements, is accompanied by my favourite Google move yet. Google Docs is great. Google Earth? Super cool. But finally updating the worst logo to ever emblemize a company not headquartered in a car? Brilliant.
VANOC commissioned an awesome website for this historic event. Everything from the art to the technology is extremely well done. Here’s quick roundup of the noteworthy stuff.
Great layout, great design: The content organization and navigation is intuitive: find the sport, scores, venue, read the news, etc. It appears cluttered, but it’s got a lot to do! But more fun is the design. Notice the modern lineart used in the large backgrounds (peaking out the right side of the content) and through the header. The sport featured is random on the home page, and sport-specific on the sport portals. This original art is seen all throughout graphics at the venues and in associated advertising. Watch for it on the boards in the hockey and curling highlights we’ll be seeing for some time.
Using Vector Smart Objects in Photoshop can save a great deal of time. When a designer spends less time operating his technology, he has more time for his creative. Vector Smart Objects are embedded objects in a PhotoShop file that are edited elsewhere; they are representations of outside elements, used on your Photoshop canvas. Creative Suite has at once eliminated the lack of vector opportunities in previous PhotoShop versions, and integrated their powerhouse art applications.
The last three computer screens I’ve purchased are 1920 pixels across, the new 27” iMac is 2560 across. Designers often hear “make the design fit the screen”. This is not a reasonable request and it’s made without understanding the variability and indeed the nature of screen resolutions.
But what about making your design 100% of the browser width? This is no problem technically; just let the design expand horizontally as far as it will go and make sure the content still works at low resolutions. But we almost never see it in modern web design.
Toll Free (866) 889-1906 local (204) 889-1906
