Yesterday I had the blues
Not the rain outside on the sidewalk blues
Not the Daddy won’t make French Toast blues
And not the deep down in your shoes blues
Yeah…
Yesterday I had the blues…
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Max belted this out just now while I was making him lunch. Where do 5 year-olds get their inspiration? I do not know, but I sure am loving life with mine =)
YVOD makes building websites quick and painless. We have developed a tried-and-true 6 Step process that our clients have called “quite enjoyable“. Hard to believe? Think about this for a second…
You know who your intended audience is. You may not know how to find them online (that’s our job) or to create a great looking website (that’s also our job) or even what needs to go on your website (again, our job). But you do know your business and you know how to come up with a few hundred words to describe what you do. You also know how to answer a few basic questions about design: What websites do you like? Do you have any existing branding or identity? What colors move you? Stuff like that.
YVOD handles all the heavy lifting. We meet with you two or three times for about 30 minutes each time. We are pleasant folk and you will walk away feeling lighter after each meeting. YVOD’s job is to make your life easier. You hire us to take work off your plate and to make your business more efficient.
The entire process really can be “quite fun” and “much quicker than expected“. We had one superstar client exclaim: “You really saved my ####! You guys rock!” And remember, we guarantee your unconditional delight. Now when was the last time you heard that from a technology provider?
Introduction: What is Important
YVOD’s approach to building websites is 100% client focused. Many businesses want to tell their own story. They spend a lot of time talking about their approach to solving problems and why they are so fantastic. While this is very good to know, it is of little importance on the web. A successful website must deliver what the visitor wants to see.
Step 1: Who Are Your Clients
YVOD likes to start the conversation by asking owners of websites to think about who is going to visit their site. We try to develop at least 3 “personas” of potential visitors. These personas may describe existing online visitors, desired visitors or existing offline clients that you wish to convert to online customers. What is important is to think deeply about who these visitors are.
Step 2: Client Expectations
Once we figure out who your clients are, our next step is to figure out what they are coming to your website to find and what expectations they will have while visiting.
Step 3: What To Give Your Clients
Now that we know who is coming and what they expect, we need to figure out what you want to give them. All websites should have a contact page and most should have something describing the individual, business or organization. Beyond that, the options are wide open. Remember: it is always good to give something away for free to entice people into asking for more.
Step 4: Information Architecture
The study of information technology and internet “best practices” states quite clearly that websites should limit the number of main navigational choices. We try very hard to convince our clients that “Less is more”. By offering fewer choices, the visitor has a greater chance of picking the “correct” option for the task at hand. Confusing clients is an excellent way to lose them.
Step 5: Design
After we know who your clients are, what they expect and what information you are going to display, we begin working on design. While we take guidance from existing corporate identity, we often find that because the web is a different medium that it requires a slightly updated look and feel. Additionally, the web has severe design limitation (fonts and colors look different on every computer).
Step 6: Build
While YVOD is busy with design, you will be busy collecting and creating content to fill each page. Once the content is assembled and the design is approved, YVOD will build your website quickly and efficiently. Most builds take less than a week from start to final approval.
Step 7: Updates
Your website should never grow old and stale. In order to keep content fresh and compelling, YVOD recommends that you update your website regularly. Updates can be as seldom as twice a year or as often as every day. We are happy to help you with these changes or we can teach you how to perform the modifications yourself.
Step 8: Online Marketing (optional)
A website can only help you if people visit. YVOD creates websites that are attractive to both search engines and people. We can figure out what your clients are searching for and develop a marketing package that makes sense.
Because everybody likes upward-pointing graphs.
On the road to creating user personas, YVOD likes to ask a number of questions about your visitors. Below is a small sample of questions that should be answered for each persona.
Life Related:
How old are they?
What proportion are female vs. male?
What is their level of education?
Where do they live (state)?
Where do they live (city, suburb, rural)?
Do they have children?
Work Related:
Have they ever had to move for their job?
Do they travel for their job?
How long has they been in their current position?
What is their salary?
How long have they been in their current field of employment?
What is their technological sophistication?
How do they use technology?
Do they enjoy technology?
How do they communicate at work (email, phone or in-person)?
How much time do they spend on the internet every day?
How often do they check email?
How large is their circle of work-related friends?
Are they popular in the workplace?
Play Related:
What do they do for fun?
Where do they shop?
Are they an educated shopper?
Where do they take trips (international, domestic, cities, country, beach…)
How often do they read a book?
What kinds of literature do they read?
What is their net worth?
Are they citizens of the USA?
Are they political?
Do they vote?
What languages do they speak or understand?
Are they concerned about their physical health?
Do they eat healthy?
Do they regularly exercise?
How much TV do they watch?
Do they play video games?
How often do they go to the movies, the theater or sporting events?
I am a film student at Berkeley Digital Film Institute and I need to get an external 500GB drive for my work. I was looking at a drive from New Egg and was wondering if you think I should get it.
The drive you are looking at costs $120. This is a nice price.
You might want to look at this one that costs $99 with rebate.
Unfortunately, your instructor told you to get a drive with a Firewire 800 external connection and the one you are looking at is USB 2.0.
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USB 2.0 is about equal to the speed of Firewire 400 (1394a).
USB 2.0 is about half as fast as Firewire 800 (1394b).
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To make matters even more confusing, SATA is another connection that is even faster than Firewire 800. It was developed to be smaller, faster and cheaper than Firewire. Many internal drives use SATA.
There is just one problem – Macs can not connect directly to SATA drives since they do not have an external SATA port!
Here is a $70 case with a SATA internal and a Firewire 400 / USB 2 external connection.
Here is a $100 case with a SATA internal and a Firewire 800 external connection.
Please note that these prices are for the case alone! You will still need to purchase a 500GB SATA hard drive to put in these cases. Here is a $150 500GB SATA drive.
$120 for USB 2.0 vs $250 for Firewire 800 with internal SATA
5 years ago film folks would have been ecstatic to have that amount of space at USB 2.0 speeds. Now that you can get almost double the speed using SATA/Firewire 800, people with cash buy the faster drives.
If you are tight on cash, purchase the $100 USB 2.0 solution and run with it…
Just got this album from a Evan Naylor and I can not stop listening to it. So nice… Go grab a copy!
Gomni – Ali Farka Touré & Toumani Diabeté [In The Heart Of The Moon]
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In The Heart Of The Moon is a duet recording by Malian guitar slinger Ali Farka Toure and Mandé lineage griot Toumani Diabate on kora. There are a few other players who contribute percussion here and there, and Ry Cooder plays a Kawai piano on a couple of tracks and a Ripley guitar on one, but other than these cats, this is a live duo set without edits or enhancements of any kind.
There were three sessions in the conference room of the Mande Hotel in Mali, the first of which was on the eve of Farka Toure being elected mayor of his town, Niafunké.
Most of the music here dates back to the Jurana Kura (translated as new era) cultural movement, which was part of the independence struggle in the 1950s and early ’60s. The music created by the Jurana Kura for the guitar created a entirely new style of rhythmic fingerpicking. For those familiar with Farka Toure’s blazing lead style, this disc may come as a shock. While he does solo many times here, he is also playing in balance with Diabate, whose kora has the larger lyric and harmonic palette, so he is in a supporting role. It doesn’t matter.
Whether the song is “Kaira” (written and performed by Diabate’s father in the ’50s and the earliest recorded track on the album, from before the Mande sessions), “Ai Ga Bani (I Love You)” and “Soumbou Ya Ya” (both written for young people during the Jurana Kura), or one of Farka Toure’s originals near the end of the set, such as “Gomni,” the style is the same. Everything echoes this earlier era because it has informed all Malian and Guinean music since. The purpose was to make people aware not only of its existence but to inspire and exhort.
The music is insistent but not strident. It contains a gentleness and tenderness that seem to drip from the region, one of the poorest in the world. The players’ focus and intensity are captured, but they make it all come off so easily that the listener gets lost in the pleasure of these gorgeous melodies and the call-and-response style of interaction between the players.
Simply put, In the Heart of the Moon is nothing short of remarkable, and one of the best offerings World Circuit/Nonesuch have ever released. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
“whiners” is a perfect post. Apple is finally getting it right and people are blasting them. So friggin’ what. I bet they are laughing all the way to the bank with all this free publicity.
Two clients called me yesterday saying how happy they were that they could now get the iPhone. They think they are getting a S-T-E-A-L because the thing is “worth” $600 but they are only being charged $400.
How do you spell “brilliant”?
Think about it another way… If Apple had released the iPhone for $400 they would not have been able to lower the price for a very long time. Every iPhone they sell from now on will be valued at $600 >>and<< folks will think it is cheap.
Apple also was able to rope their competition into thinking they would be able to sell similar phones for $600 and make a profit. I am sure many of them thought; "Ohh... we can do better than the iPhone and sell our babies for only $500! We will rule!" Now the Zune phone™ and every other killer "SmartPhone" is dead on the drawing board. Hell, the Treo which hasn't been seriously updated in 2 years sells for $400 if you do not get a discount.
Apple is about to do some serious damage to the cell phone business. I would not be surprised if they are capturing 5% of all non-subsidized USA handsets by the end of 2008. They will sell 10 million iPhones by July of 2008.
PS: A friend calls Steve Jobs the new Willy Wonka because he makes gadgets everyone wants. When you finally taste one, you are hooked and desire everything he has for sale ;)