PMA Media Group» Humor

Google Chrome Commercial

Brandon Buttars — Fri, 08 May 2009 20:08:48 +0000

Here is a sweet Google Chrome advertisement from YouTube. I wonder when Microsoft will come out with one for IE8. Ah oh. Here goes another Mac vs. Windows like fight.

What to do with IE6?

Mister Mc — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:52:42 +0000

I’m really tired of designing a simple, standards-compliant layout that looks fine in every browser but IE6. Aren’t you? Almost every web developer has something to say about this topic. I’ve found some interesting sites recently that suggest action we can take as a design community get IE6 out of our hair. The suggestions range from mild to extreme; either helping IE6 gracefully exit the stage or die a quick, painful death. We obviously want to make life easier for ourselves, but we can’t alienate our audience. I’m most concerned about those who don’t have the ability to upgrade their system because they work for a public institution with ancient machines or proprietary apps that don’t work on other browsers. For the rest of the world, maybe a little tough love is a good thing. Here are some of my favorite ideas:

Dan Cederholm suggests serving up an un-styled version of the site.
Nathan Smith points out that there ought to be a polite way to help the user upgrade their browser. This is accomplished through a meta refresh.
The creators of IE6 Update encourage an update with something that looks like IE’s Information Bar. It contains a link to the latest release of IE. Since Microsoft has marketed their browser as “the Internet” the creators reason we shouldn’t feel bad about tricking the visitor into moving on to a better browser.
http://www.bringdownie6.com/ appears to be the one of the nicest looking unified efforts to get people to do something to encourage user awareness of IE6’s shortcomings. I wouldn’t include their graphics on anyone’s homepage, but I included it here, and now I feel like I’ve done my part. IE6 users get the following message:

If you’re reading this, you’re surfing using Internet Explorer 6, an eight-year-old browser that cannot cope with the demands of the modern internet. For the best web experience, we strongly recommend upgrading to Firefox, Opera, Safari, Google Chrome, or a more recent version of Internet Explorer.

Education is powerful, and the unifying theme on all of these sites and posts is: making your audience aware there are better options available to then, they are more likely to change, especially if you help make the change easy.

Baby Rosaline Transforms!

Alan Carl Mitchell — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:58:29 +0000

My 8-month-old daughter Rosaline recently learned to stand up using other objects to brace herself, so I decided to make this little video. Behold, baby Rosaline transforms!

As with the video where Rosaline eats an oreo, this one is definitely better with sound.

Inspiring Creativity Through Education

Mister Mc — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:31:14 +0000

Nearly everyone has an opinion about education. It’s an emotionally charged topic, like politics or religion. Sir Ken Robinson adds profound insight into the discussion using humor in his talk at TED called, Do schools kill creativity?

This video has been widely circulated on the web for the past few years, but it seems that the message becomes even more important as time goes on.

Rosaline Eats an Oreo

Alan Carl Mitchell — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:05:58 +0000

So our 8-month-old daughter just learned to crawl a few days ago and we were trying to catch it on camera. We ended up putting a box of Oreos in front of her to see if that would be motivation enough. When she started crawling towards it we figured the trick worked, but soon realized it wasn’t the cookies she was after. To her credit, though, she ditched the keys pretty quick once presented with a clearer choice.

Oh yeah, It’s much better with sound…