It’s official – the iPad will be coming to a store near you sometime this year. Just one day after Steve Jobs introduced it to the world, the design industry was abuzz with one question: how does this affect web design?

Assuming that the iPad or its children will catch on (and based on Apple history, that’s a good assumption), there are some things that immediately jump out. For example, as some have pointed out, the iPad’s lack of mouse means that website buttons will likely grow bigger to accommodate fingers instead of cursors. Others are saying that it is the perfect tool for carrying and presenting your whole portfolio – an iPortfolio, if you like – without bulky leather suitcases. Another big claim is that the iPad will save newspapers, and that iPad-optimized dailies will change the way we read news online.

Some say that designers will be going for a more horizontal-style website to accommodate the iPad, but that’s the trend lately anyway now that more and more people have wide-screen monitors. Besides, as one blogger points out, the iPad will allow for both horizontal and vertical-style viewing so the user – not the designer – can decide which way is up.

What will really split the design community is the fact that iPad won’t likely support flash. If Apple sticks to its guns on this point and the iPad and future devices catch on with consumers, Flash designers will have to think long and hard about their target audience before alienating them with design that won’t work on their computers…

Perhaps the biggest change though will be indirect. The easy, one-button functionality of the iPad’s UX could inspire designers everywhere to simplify their websites and make them easier to navigate. If that turns out to be true, it will be quite a legacy on its own…

Only time will tell how the iPad will change web design. But if you believe that it will change design even a little bit, now’s the time to keep your eye open for iPad-optimized design tips.

Happy iPadding!

The DMXReady Team

Ctrl/Alt/Prnt Scn gives a nice, basic screen capture. But sometimes basic is, well, too basic. Sometimes you need something like Jing.

Jing, made by the same company as Camtasia Studio, is a neat little app that doesn’t just do screen captures, but also video screen captures. That way you can demonstrate certain things on your desktop, record them as you go, and then share them via email, your blog or website, Twitter, or more.

Here are a few things that Jing says you can do:

• Collaborate on a design project
• Share a snapshot of a document
• Narrate your vacation photos
• Capture that pesky bug in action
• Show Dad how to use iTunes
• Comment verbally on students' homework
• Post tidbits from your life on Twitter or Facebook

(We especially like the “show Dad how to use iTunes” bit…)

On the screen capture side, you can add comments and upload instantly to your server to share with Twitter, etc. Very nifty!

Jing, which is essentially an SaaS, comes in two versions: free and Pro. However, the Pro version is very reasonably priced at just $14.95 per year (yes, per year – not per month), and includes such features as unbranded videos, instant sharing on YouTube, and recordings from your web cam. At that rate, it’s almost silly not to go Pro right from the start!

Check out at:

http://www.jingproject.com/

Happy Jinging!

The DMXReady Team

(Note: DMXReady does not receive any money or endorsement payments of any kind from Jing. We just think it's a cool little app!)

Tools like the DMXReady Catalog Manager v2.1 make creating an online store much easier. But it is still a good idea to put some thought into how you want to organize your store, how to categorize your items, and most importantly how to market them.

You’ll find a lot of great resources online if you search for “organizing my ecommerce store” and related terms. But we found an interesting article on what not to do, based on the Coca Cola Store.

Now you’d think that Coke would have it all going on; a multi-national company with the kind of resources Coke has should be able to commission a top-notch ecommerce site.

As it turns out, Chris “Silver” Smith found several usability and SEO problems with the site. What’s really interesting is that even though this article was published almost two and a half years ago, these problems still persist.

(For example, if you search for “clocks” on the Coke site, you still do not get any hits; you have to search for “clock” to find what you are looking for. To see what a difference this makes, go to the DMXReady catalog and search for “photos” – you’ll find Photo Gallery Manager on the first try…)

Chris estimates that if Coke* did it right, they could improve site traffic and sales by 25-50%. Perhaps a drop in the bucket for a corporation like Coke, but quite a difference for the average ecommerce company!

In any case, Chris’s article provides lots of great information that you may not normally find on the topic of catalog management. Check it out for yourself before you start stocking your own cyber-shelves!

http://www.naturalsearchblog.com/archives/2007/07/16/build-it-wrong-they-wont-come-coca-colas-store/

The DMXReady Team

*Coca-Cola doesn’t actually run its store. You’ll notice that it is operated on its behalf by a third-party provider.

When the military commissions a fighter plane, it often puts out a list of specs: must have this range, must travel this fast, must carry this many munitions, etc. As you would expect, that list of specs is often asking for the “best of the best” in technology, and ease of use is not exactly the highest priority.

The same is not true for website design and content management systems (CMS). The whole point of CMS is to make it easy for the non-tech user to update the company website. In fact in many ways, using cutting-edge technology like “the most advanced database system” can actually make a CMS less attractive. With all the setup involved, maintenance, and poking around the server, suddenly CMS is not as easy as it sounds.

That’s a big part of the reason why DMXReady has stayed with ASP and built-in Access databases. You might say that the Access database cannot handle the same load as MS-SQL or MySQL, and you would be right. But for small business and personal websites, traffic is not usually an issue. If you normally have 1-100 users visiting your website at one time, Access can easily manage it.

The best part is that with DMXReady applications, the pre-configured database is built in so that users don’t have to fiddle with backend settings. They simply upload and install the whole app right on their server, and they are ready to go!

As techies, we often get too wrapped up in trying to find out what’s next. As web designers and business people, sometimes what we really need to consider is how the technology will impact our clients – and it’s not always positive. If you are going to build an easy-to-use system, technology is not always the answer.

The DMXReady Team

You’ve seen them before on bigger websites (including DMXReady): Live Support, Online Help, Live Chat or some similar service that allows you to contact a live person through a chat system right on the web page. Well, now smaller businesses can add them to for a low cost – even free – using Olark.

Olark is a simple live chat that you can add to your website. It connects directly to your own IM system like GoogleTalk, so you don’t have to set up any backend systems. When someone is on your website and wants to ask a question, you get a message through your IM, just as if they were connected directly to you!

One nifty feature is that it can give you information about where the person is contacting you from, and lets you know if the person has contacted you before. You can also integrate Olark with Google Analytics for more in-depth stats tracking.

Best of all, Olark easily integrates with DMXReady CMS v2, Blog Manager v2, or any other DMXReady application. All you need is to add some code to the main page of your application, which you can easily do using the built-in Code Editors (in the case of our v2 apps) or using any HTML editing software like Dreamweaver.

Adding Olark to DMXReady CMS v2

Olark allows you to add its script anywhere within the BODY tags of a web page. These steps will add the script to your Footer area, which is as good a place as any.

1. Go to your DMXReady CMS v2 Dashboard
2. Go to Site Setup > Customize
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the “View Source” button.
4. Get your customized code from Olark* and paste it at the bottom.
5. Click the “OK” button to save and close the window.
6. Click the “Save Changes” button at the bottom right.

Done! You now have Olark installed on DMXReady CMS v2!

*After you sign up with Olark, they will give you a string of code, much like Google Analytics does, that you add to your website. The code will look something like:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.olark.com/js/wc.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> wc_init("YOUR_HABLA_ID_CODE"); </script>

 

Find out more at www.olark.com

Happy Chatting (and a Happy New Year)!

The DMXReady Team

The way we communicate via the Internet is constantly changing. Email was the only two-way method in the beginning, but then there came guestbooks and bulletin boards, instant messaging, and now Twitter.

Google has added yet another method: Google Wave. Google bills this as “equal parts document and conversation.” What that means is that you can carry on conversations AND attach documents like Word docs, images, maps and more to the Wave. And although the conversation may be linear to a degree, you are actually creating a type of work space for each conversation that you can move through non-linearly.

For example, suppose you are working on a project with one or more people. In a real-world workspace, you would have a table in a meeting room with all your materials laid out: research, photos, data, etc. You could choose to look at any of these items at any time, and talk with other project members about them.

Google Wave lets you do that, but in the cyber-space. All your materials are electronic and attached to the Wave, just as if they were on a table. Conversations are real-time, more like instant messaging than email. Best of all, your conversations are recorded, so you can move through and view past comments easily.

Sounds like a very useful tool, and will definitely have its applications. But we’re not sure that this will be an email killer or Twitter killer quite yet. More likely – at least in its current form – Google Wave will turn into a project-based tool like BaseCamp and other multi-person platform. (Though it would be nice if it could capture tweets and emails into each Wave…)

As with many Google products at launch, roll out is by invitation only. To sign up for your invitation, go to:

https://services.google.com/fb/forms/wavesignup/

The DMXReady Team

Web design is always an exercise in inspiration. Sometimes though, the muses are not sitting on our shoulders, and try as we might that design just won’t bang into place.

Well, when the going gets tough, the tough get surfin’ – web surfing that is.

Here are a few sources of great inspiration to help you get on the right path with your own designs. Some of these, like Minimal Exhibit, are straight galleries and collections of great designs. Others, like Vandelay, are general design blogs that offer helpful tips and as well as galleries.

Check them out the next time you’re in a design funk:

http://minimalexhibit.com/
http://thebestdesigns.com/
http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/
http://www.outlawdesignblog.com/
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/
http://www.csselite.com/
http://adsoftheworld.com/
http://www.ventilate.ca/

Happy Creating!

The DMXReady Team

Since the dawn of time – well, at least since 1995 – web designers have been frustrated by lack of font choices. Computers have been getting faster, what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) display is so common now that it’s kind of like saying “color TV”, and yet we are still stuck with Arial, Times, Georgia, and Verdana to create websites.

But the problem isn’t really about the technology (in fact some browsers have been able to use embedded fonts since the 90s); it’s been about copyrights. Most fonts are treated like software, which is to say they have EULAs and are protected from unauthorized use. Like so many things in the digital age, it is hard to say whether or not that Aviano font on the website is being used by the web designer (who has the license) or the web page visitor (who probably doesn’t…)

The Good

Two things have helped move things forward. First, there is the fact that some fonts are becoming available for font embedding on web pages. A full list can be found here.

Second, there is now a CSS @font-face property, where you can designate fonts outside of system fonts. What happens is that you actually create a set of font files that are called in the CSS so that the font displays correctly in the web browser. This property also allows for a backup default font in case your new font can’t be displayed.

The Bad

That last sentence, “in case your new font can’t be displayed…” should have sent up a red flag. Yes, the truth is that not all web browsers support the @font-face property – at least not easily. Basically, Firefox-type browsers do, IE needs a special format, and Google Chrome has the property, but it is shut off by default due to a security vulnerability.

The Ugly

In other words, you’ll still have to pay careful attention to what your default fonts are to ensure that everything looks relatively pretty, which kind of defeats the whole purpose.

Of course, there are other methods of font embedding that are perhaps bulkier to use, but more stable (like the sIFR method we’ve discussed here). Not the perfect solution, but in certain circumstances reaching at least some of our visitors with non-system fonts will be worth the work. Either way, there will be compromises.

But hey, we’re web designers. We’re used to compromise…

Happy Fonting!

The DMXReady Team

Clients are an integral part of the design process. That's obvious, you might say. Without clients, you wouldn't have work.

But that’s not what we mean. Your clients often become partners in your web design business – at least while you are working on their websites. Sometimes it is day-to-day meetings, sometimes it is weekly updates, reviews, and feedback. If you have been a designer for any length of time, you know that every project is different, not least of all because every client is different.

Recently we read a blog post at “A List Apart” about this very subject that we wanted to share with you. It’s about some of the red flags you should keep your eye open for to avoid partnering with “difficult” clients, or at least making sure that partnership will be worth your while.

Some great tips here for all professional web designers. Give it a read, and let us know what you think!

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/getting-to-no/

The DMXReady Team

As websites optimize content for mobile phone users, there has been one area that is noticeably left out: Flash. Of course the biggest reason for this has been that mobile devices traditionally lacked the power needed to do much beyond basic HTML rendering.

That is changing. Smartphones like the iPhone and Blackberries are taking over the market, and soon most consumers will use this as their standard communication device. Well, Adobe is trying to keep ahead of that curve with the introduction of Flash Player 10.1

According to its own desciption:

"Flash Player 10.1 enables uncompromised Web browsing of expressive applications, content and video across devices. With support for a broad range of mobile devices, including smartphones, netbooks, smartbooks and other Internet-connected devices, Flash Player 10.1 allows your content to reach your customers wherever they are."

…which is just a fancy way of saying your website users will be able to see your Flash content on their smartphones.

There is one notable exception: according to an Adobe statement, Apple is not playing nice. “Adobe needs full support from Apple beyond what is available through the SDK to enable Web browsing of Flash-based content on the iPhone,” the company says on its website. It will concentrate on those smartphone platforms who will give their developers the support they need, Adobe said.

Information is a little sketchy about how this will all affect web developers, probably because this new Flash is still in the beta and development stages (Adobe said general release of the player will be available in first half of 2010). However the company states that SWF Object 2.0 will work with Flash Player 10.1, though developers should take care to update their detection scripts.

For more on Flash Player 10.1:

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/

Happy Scripting!

The DMXReady Team