March 2011 – PDG & Associates Web Design

March 31, 2011April 30, 2011

Concerns about cell phone radiation

A new report by the Journal of the American Medical Association (download report) expresses concern that radiation emissions from modern smartphones and cell phones could pose a health risk.

The nonprofit organization The Environmental Working Group has a useful list of the radiation values (SAR) for most modern cellphones.

The NYTimes compiled some helpful advice (edited here for brevity):

Tilt the phone away from your ear when you are talking and only bring it in close to your ear when you listen

Wait until after your call has been connected to put your cellphone next to your ear

Cellphones emit less radiation when stationary because when you are moving rapidly — say, in a car — it must repeatedly issue little bursts of radiation to make connections with different towers as it moves in and out of range

If your cellphone has a weak signal it has to work harder and thus will emit more radiation

Texting, instead of talking, could be safer

Keep them at a distance by putting them on speaker mode or using a wired headset

The next best option is a wireless Bluetooth headset or earpiece, which emit radiation at lower levels.

Holding your phone away from your ear can make a big difference; the intensity of radiation diminishes quickly with distance.

Microwave News is a good source of techie phone information too.

March 25, 2011March 31, 2011

What is a website architect

Paul’s brief definition of the profession of website architect:

A web architect masterminds the creation of a website’s strategy, information structure, technology, design and usability.

Paul’s motto has been: A web architect sees the world through two lenses: information that needs structure, and structures that need form. It’s not enough for sites to function well; as I see it, they need to function beautifully.

A web architect will hire expert craftsmen such as programmers, designers, writers and marketers to help produce the final web product.

PDG has been fortunate to partner with many great experts in various fields, from programmers to advertising agencies to photographers.

March 23, 2011March 29, 2011

Does Your (Early Stage) Startup Need a PR Agency

Gregory Gomer from bostinnovation.com wrote recently:

If you are an early stage startup and you are paying for a PR firm, it really might not be worth it… you have more dire things to spend your money on than someone out there sending emails and networking on your behalf – like making sure your product is so badass that it is impossible for the media not to write about it.

I agree mostly with his assessments… despite my friendship with an excellent PR guy. My comments are inline below:

He describes 7 ways to do your own PR.

Leverage Your Network: Dig in to your LinkedIn and Facebook contacts.

I would add, join relevant groups (not too many, at most 5) with active discussions, and contribute ideas and tips, and ask for feedback when you get a feel for the quality of the group’s members.

Comment on Industry Specific Blog Posts: If you are a startup focusing on mobile payments, then you’d better know every mobile payments blog out there and read them every day.

This is a great point — it is difficult to make time to comment on other people’s blogs, but one or two comments you contribute add up over time. Seriously, do this. It will pay dividends.

Email Journalists, Create Relevant Dialogue: …take the time to email the author and provide some insight on his/her post, and throw some compliments out and share it over social media to score some serious points.

Follow/Tweet at Journalists: Make sure you are following the journalists who specialize in your company’s industry and keep an eye on everything they are writing. Every once in a while give them a RT and add a little flare to it.

Again, one or two per day. Then get back to work.

Pitch Your Story, Not Your Company: When pitching to journalists on any medium, make sure your personality and founding story connects with them.

Who better to tell your story than the cofounders? Practice your story, though… get verification that it is not boring or dull. Tell the story 5 times to 5 different friends/colleagues. Get feedback. I learned this trick from Guy Kawasaki.

Target Your Prey, Plan Your Attack: If you are going to an event every night you should really evaluate the value spent at the event versus in front of your computer doing ACTUAL work.

When you’re in startup mode, one event per week is plenty; I was spending too much time going to events rather than meeting with advisors and customers.

March 22, 2011March 23, 2011

Review of 5 Website Wireframe Tools

I recently decided to review our website wireframing/prototyping techniques to see where we could be more efficient in getting from concept to code. We currently use Dreamweaver’s Site tool and/or Fireworks or Illustrator for mockups.

The follow survey highlights some new wireframing and mockup tools. My main criteria was having the tool export the wireframe to html so that we could upload to our own servers for testing and client review.

Mockingbird

https://gomockingbird.com

Their description: Drag and drop UI elements to the page, then rearrange and resize. Go from idea to mockup in minutes. Link multiple mockups together and preview them interactively to get a feel for the flow of your application. Share a link and your clients and teammates can edit with you in real time. No more emailing images back and forth.

Price: $9/month Basic to $99/month Expert plans.

Cons: does not export to actual html for a true click-through web schematic.

Pidoco

https://pidoco.com

Their description: A GUI Design Software for clickable Wireframes. Fast and easy like Rapid Paper Prototyping, but completely web-based and with many more features. Advantages: Clickable Wireframes; Fast and easy Prototyping; Easy Remote Usability Testing; No Software Installation. Products & Features: Interface Prototyping; Prototype Reviewer; Remote Usability Tests; Realtime Collaboration.

Price: $9/month Personal to $85/month Unlimited plans.

Pros: has versioning. Online review tools with user commenting. Usability testing built in!

Cons: does not export to actual html to load a click-through web schematic to your own server or the client’s.

Denim

http://dub.washington.edu:2007/denim

Their description: An Informal Tool For Early Stage Web Site and UI Design.

Price: free

Pros: standalone program for desktop PCs. Exports as HTML.

Cons: does not look to be current (last mod date 2008). Uses our own handwriting to make the mockups.

Pencil

http://pencil.evolus.vn/en-US/Home.aspx

Their description: The Pencil Project’s unique mission is to build a free and opensource tool for making diagrams and GUI prototyping that everyone can use. Top features: * Built-in stencils for diagraming and prototyping * Multi-page document with background page * Inter-page linkings! * On-screen text editing with rich-text supports * Exporting to HTML, PNG, Openoffice.org document, Word document and PDF. * Undo/redo supports * Installing user-defined stencils and templates * Standard drawing operations: aligning, z-ordering, scaling, rotating… * Cross-platforms * Adding external objects * Personal Collection * Clipart Browser * Object snapping * Sketchy Stencil

Price: free

Pros: Firefox plugin and standalone program (via XULRunner, but not for Mac). Sketchy-like look and feel. Exports site as HTML.

Cons: Unintuitive initial screens; hyperlink fields have no obvious URL field until a new “page” is created within the document. No site-wide export as HTML without arcane steps to install a so-called “template” of some kind. Not ready for prime time.

Wireframe Sketcher

http://wireframesketcher.com/features.html

Their description: WireframeSketcher is a software tool that helps you quickly create wireframes, mockups and prototypes for desktop, web and mobile applications. It comes both as a plugin for your Eclipse-based IDE and a standalone application. * Create wireframes and mockups * Get quality feedback fast * Build better software * All using your favorite Eclipse IDE * 45+ built-in UI controls * rough, unfinished, hand-drawn look for your mockups

Price: Trial (watermark on exports), $75 one-time buy.

Pros: standalone program and plug-in for many IDEs. Very cool sketch look. Nice toolset.

Cons: No HTML export. Complicated to begin; following the tutorial is essential.

March 18, 2011March 19, 2011

How to speed up your website

We discovered a useful social media website called Store Crowd

http://storecrowd.com/blog/pageload-time/

From their description: StoreCrowd is a Social Engine for sharing your favorite deals. Built lovingly in Melbourne, Australia we are trying to change the way people share great bargains with friends.

See what steps they took to minimize page load time… advanced strategies like:

Speed up the Application / Server

Use Fragment Caching on elements that change less frequently
Memcache & CacheMoney
MYSQL Indexes & Query Optimization
Dedicated Database Servers

Reduce Number of Queries

Combine Javascript & CSS into a single file & minimize
Use CSS Sprites

Reduce the load time elements

Make sure Gzip is Enabled on your Server
Move 3rd party scripts to the bottom of the page
Move all static content to a CDN
Compress all images with Smusher

March 14, 2011May 24, 2011

Pentalobular screws and your iphone

A reader posed this challenge: did we know what “pentalobular” was without using a search engine. Latin tells us it’s a 5-sided something. If you have an iphone, then you have several pentalobular screws.

Turn to iFixit to work with these type of screws.

They have an iPhone 4 Liberation Kit for $10.

March 2, 2011March 19, 2011

If Libya shut off the internet, why does bit.ly still work?

Twitter users, fyi: the Libyan government has “shut off” the internet in their country. All websites hosted there are inaccessible. However, domain names like http://bit.ly (a URL shortening service used for Twitter) still function because they are not hosted inside the country. Hopefully some citizens of the country can use international dial-up services to access the global internet and keep getting the word out.