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Archive for the ‘User Experience’ Category
A rapid increase in “Cloud” technology in 2011 changed the way users accessed their music, movie and web connections — it was only a matter of time before video gaming too moved to the heavens, so to speak. With the recent launch of services like OnLive, OTOY and Gaikai, this has become a reality that may change video games and their consoles forever.
Cloud computing is a phrase used to describe technologies hosted on a platform somewhere other than a user’s local machine, hence, ‘the sky.’ While the concept of using centralized technology for other users to access is the base foundation of the Internet, several technical aspects kept more advanced sharing concepts from being used, in particular, the advancements in the speed of processors and memory. Broadband connection speed and popularity and overall size of storage drives has allowed for items that were once best maintained locally to be broadly accessed in rapid speed using the Internet as a true conduit.
Rest easy, you don’t have to worry about getting locked up for jailbreaking your iPhone anymore. Through the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Library of Congress declared it legal to jailbreak (or “unlock”) your iPhone.
For those unfamiliar with the term, jailbreaking your iPhone allows a user to bypass Apple’s official App Store and install and run apps that have not gone through Apple’s testing and approval process. Due to a security exploit in iOS 4.0.1, jailbreaking went mainstream when all users had to do was visit Jailbreakme.com and follow the instructions to try it out. For the first time, users could jailbreak their phones without even connecting them to another computer. Apple patched this flaw with the release of 4.0.2, but the damage had been done.
Many of the applications users are downloading on their jailbroken iPhones have not been approved by Apple for various reasons. However, several unique applications have come out of this movement. One app is MyWi, which allows your iPhone to turn into a mobile hotspot without additional charges. Another, IntelliScreen, allows users to place e-mail and calendars on their screens. With minimal effort from the user, one can also pirate apps that have been cracked by the jailbreaking community.
There are some drawbacks to jailbreaking your iPhone, however. It will void your warranty and could possibly make the device useless (aka “bricking” the device). Additionally, when Apple releases an update with new features, you will have to wait until there is an updated version of the jailbreak tool or you risk damaging or destroying your device. Finally, if you do unlock your cell phone to work with a different carrier (Verizon and Sprint do not allow this in the U.S.), you will have to do some fine tuning to utilize most features. One word of caution, though, is that you can still be found guilty if the modifications are done to illegally steal software.
Another major drawback is basic usability. Apple employs a team of really smart designers and programmers to make browsing the App Store as painless as possible – yes, they may reject apps that some users would find useful, but in general they’re probably doing it to maintain a consistent experience on the device. The jailbreak “store,” however, is more like the Wild West – anything goes, and if you’re not careful out there you’re going to regret it. Most of the legal software is just wallpaper and ringtone collections – aka “junkware.”
The Copyright Office concluded that, “while a copyright owner might try to restrict the programs that can be run on a particular operating system, copyright law is not the vehicle for imposition of such restrictions.”
Regulators stated that “the activity of an iPhone owner who modifies his or her iPhone’s firmware/operating system in order to make it interoperable with an application that Apple has not approved, but that the iPhone owner wishes to run on the iPhone, fits comfortably within the four corners of fair use.”
While this may be true, we don’t recommend you even bother jailbreaking your device any time soon. The exploit has already been fixed, but even if it hadn’t, there’s not much on display to make it worth doing. Apple’s control over their platform is a problem for some, but it’s also very much their greatest strength.
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5. Your website is Flash based
- As a best practice your main business website should not be completely in Flash. Now, this does not mean you have to swear off using any Flash within your site. Having Flash modules to add interactivity to your site is perfectly appropriate if you want to simulate how a certain product functions or a process. A couple issues with having an entirely Flash website are:
- Search engines view an all Flash site as one file, meaning there is not the same opportunity to optimize different pages for different keywords, titles and descriptions.
- Flash files, particularly those using sound effects, embedded movies or bitmap images, may take some time to load. How fast it takes your website to load is a factor in how Google will ranks your page.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Alternatively, I could go look up your restaurant on Yelp and not get fooled at all.
Yelp is a website with social aspects that allows people to rate and write reviews for stores, restaurants, bars, hair salons, barbers, dentists, doctors and pretty much any business I’ve missed. You can look a place up to find reviews and leave a review after you’ve been to a place. That’s the whole premise.
If you haven’t noticed yet, we designed and developed a new Media Genesis website. As you already know, we are a website development company, so keeping up with trends and new technology was a must for this site. Our goals were to have more collaborative content, the ability to easily update the site and simplicity in design.
So, want to find out how we accomplished these goals?
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Go ahead, Google your company‘s name — do you like the results?
Organizations undergoing redesigns recognize the importance of their online presence, and managing it has become a full-time career for many. What’s the advantage of rooting social media directly into your website, anyway? Shouldn’t it be enough to show up in Google search results?
One advantage is centralizing and confirming all sources of your company’s online presence. This recognition enforces an image of complete transparency. Users need to know if they can trust you. They want to see how you interact with the public. By placing links to Wordpress, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. on your site, you’re showing you’ve got nothing to hide.
You’re afraid the average Internet user – a slightly attention-deficit, click-happy web surfer – will never pick up on what your website is all about. Their eyes are dashing around, judging whether or not your site is worth their time.
Unfortunately, this fear leads to the desire to cram every bit of significant information onto the screen as it pops up. A bit of classic newspaper journalism terminology, above the fold refers to exactly that – the content area above the creased fold of a printed newspaper.
The time has come. The time is now. Internet Explorer 6, will you please go now?!
Much like Dr. Suess’s beloved Marvin K. Mooney, it is getting to be about time that IE6 went. It will be a solemn passing of once a mega-browser whose life has spanned much longer than we could ever imagine.
It seems like just yesterday that IE6 came packaged with Windows XP. It was a savior. It was newer, faster and prettier. Who didn’t love that default “Luna” theme that came with a shiny new install of XP? It wasn’t just good looks and that little extra zip that made IE6 great. At the time DHTML enhancements, content restricted inline frames, a fancy media bar, Windows Messenger integration and automatic image resizing made IE6 the darling of web. Well, until 2003 that is. (more…)
In the second half of last year, while Microsoft’s Internet Explorer series continued to fight it out with Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari (among others), web giant Google quietly but confidently waded into the fray with their new browser: Chrome. And while Microsoft and the other competitors fought for supremacy to view the web, Google’s intent was significantly larger – to change how you use your computer.
Cloud technology – that is Google’s aim: The idea that your applications and programs do not need to be hosted, supported and run by your operating system from your personal computer any more but rather, that they can exist on the web. The concept that you no longer have to buy, install and run a word processing – or any other – program when you can go to a website and write/save/print/publish everything on the spot.
It would be easy to make an argument that development of a mobile website is a frivolous endeavor, considering the advancement in mobile browser capabilities. However, the reality is that even with the ability of some smart phones to view web pages intended for desktop browsing, it is still a necessity to have a mobile-friendly aspect to your website.
Phone-based browsing is becoming too much of a presence to ignore. On-the-go connectivity isn’t just knocking on the door of technology, it’s letting itself in.
