Testing some more

The Ring > HTTP Mistake

Since i learned about product placement, it has ruined movie-watching experiences for me, i now look at everything in a scene except the characters or what the director expects you to look at.

with that said here are some sweet screen shots of the main-cheese character looking at what seems like a google web page and a crummy fake page. BUT... if you look at the address bar you can see it was a made-for-movie web site that was never pushed live and is all on the local machine they used to shoot the scene.

thought it was interesting to catch that.

Microsoft to sell Razorfish

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft has hired Morgan Stanley to sell Razorfish, its digital agency, and French marketing company Publicis Groupe SA is thought to be a possible bidder, the Financial Times said on its website late Sunday.

Microsoft acquired the agency, formerly called Avenue A Razorfish, as part of its $6 billion takeover of aQuantive in 2007.

The report cited an analyst valuing Razorfish at $600 million to $700 million, based on sales of about $400 million last year and profit margins for similar businesses of 12 to 13 percent.

Publicis and Morgan Stanley were not immediately available for comment.

Microsoft declined comment.

Razorfish is one of the largest interactive advertising and marketing agencies, boasting a client list that includes McDonald's Corp, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, and Carnival Cruise Lines.

Microsoft and VivaKi, the digital arm of Publicis, last week unveiled a broad cooperation deal to develop new content, improve marketing performance and better target digital advertising audiences.

Source>>

Local Wisdom \\Share EP11:Web Development series-Measure it and Screengrab

Part 2 of our series where we look at tools used in-house to make web development easier and faster. Mike demonstrates Measure it which is a browser pixel measuring tool and Screengrab which takes print screening to a the next level. We show you how simple the tools are to use and the needs they fulfill. Send requests for screencasts to share@localwisdom.com and follow us at twitter.com/localwisdom

Show Notes: Original Blog post with Measure It and Screengrab links

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Helpful resources on interface design patterns from Smashing Mag

Those rather helpful guys at

Smashing Magazine

have posted 40 useful resources for interface design patterns. I have some of these bookmarked and others where new.

They also just posted 10 design patterns to be paying attention to, talking about some of the recent patterns that are emerging and re-emerging in the websites that we know and love.

Good stuff to snack on and chew.

You're still counting clicks, huh?

UX Booth has a great article on Counting Clicks. The every famous "3 Click Rule", which is something like everyone should get to where they want to go in 3 clicks, is one of those "rules" that we aren't fans of.

Not because we don't like the challenge of making everything on your website available within 3 clicks. There might be times where it is applicable. As a general rule it places unnessary contrains on the architecture that might not really be a benefit to the user.

For example large navigation systems are not helpful for people to make decisions with. In that scenario people might want 4 clicks with smaller navigation items.

The truth is that hard, fast, and specific rules like this don't apply to everything. Just like saying that a glass of wine a day is good for you doesn't apply to everyone.

Some iPhone app stats that we all felt in our hearts

Some iPhone apps usage stats from adlabs.

-- Minutes per use: 9.6 (Greystripe)
-- Uses per user: 19.9 (Greystripe)
-- Only 20% of users return to use the app after the first day (Pinch Media)
-- After a month, this number drops to 5% (Pinch Media)
-- "39% of iPhone users cited weather-related apps as one of the three kinds of applications they use most frequently (Compete via MediaPost, April 2009)

Ordering online from Domino's

I just ordered a pizza from Domino's and here it tells me exactly what the status of my pizza is in real time.

Testing DNS SRV Records with NSLookup

Related to the post just prior to this, I had to figure out how to test or "ping" the newly created SRV record and I found this blog post that showed me how:

" Office Communicator relies on Service Location (SRV) records in DNS for auto-configuration. Frequently you can't create the external DNS record yourself so you need to ask your ISP or DNS provider to do it for you.

So if the service provider is swearing black and blue that the records have been created correctly but your external client is not finding the server checking your DNS configuration is a great place to start."

Original Post here

Enables Outlook 2007 to use DNS Service Location (SRV) records to locate the Exchange Autodiscover service

Original Error:
Microsoft Exchange offline address book
Not downloading Offline address book files. A server (URL) could not be located.
0X8004010F


We just recently upgraded our DC to Win 2008 and also upgraded to Exchange 2007. With that, we've run into a small issue of the Offline Address Book (OAB) not being able to be found and it's giving a sync error every hour in outlook. We had to figure out a way to get the Autodiscover feature to work correctly and after about 3 hours of searching, here's the article that set us up correctly:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940881

It worked great for us as we couldn't use the standard DNS solution due to having only 1 IP and only being able to use 1 SSL certificate on that IP (I did try a wildcard SSL, but then the email sync broke while the Offline Address Book error went away), so setting up a SRV record worked great!

Here's a link that shows how to setup the SRV DNS entry in godaddy

Local Wisdom \\Share EP10:Web Development series-Firebug for firefox

Part 1 of our series where we look at tools used in-house to make web development easier and faster. Mike demonstrates some of the most commonly used features in firebug which include on the fly css and html manipulation, turning styles on and off, layouts, page sizes and page caching. Probably the most heavily leaned upon tool in the arsenal and we'll show you how to use it! Send requests for screencasts to share@localwisdom.com and follow us at twitter.com/localwisdom

Show Notes: Firebug website

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Free your phone from AT&T shackles

"Take Action
Tell Washington: Free My Phone!

New "smart" phones have set the stage for the future of a mobile Internet. But companies like AT&T and Verizon are getting in the way by shackling open and innovative devices to closed networks. The FCC and Congress must step in to protect consumers and foster innovation. We demand:

1. The freedom to choose any phone or network.
2. The freedom to choose among many carriers in a competitive, low-cost marketplace.
3. The freedom to access any Web content, applications or services we want through our phones."

http://www.freepress.net/FreeMyPhone

How to shave your Groin: A lesson from Gillette

Couldn't believe it either when I heard about this one, but check it out, I'd say it's pretty accurate :)

Alternatives to paying for cable

Below is an interesting video I saw on CNET.com regarding not paying for cable. A solution is coming real soon to consumers.

Test to see if your website is optimized for speed

This site checks your site to see if GZIP Compression is turned on and shows you the results:

http://www.whatsmyip.org/http_compression/