Michael Jackson Dies

Posted by ryan as Bummer

So The King Of Pop died yesterday of heart failure at age 50. Its crazy because he is my generation’s Elvis. In fact they have made the comparrisons since his early solo success. The thing is, I never got to see the final sad years of Elvis except for video footage of an over weight karate choppin struggling to remember lyrics singer that is now only a small part of his legacy. Elvis died the year I was born. I was only a few months old so I had to be told how great he was. I needed the TV shows, the radio, those old passionate fans to teach me to care. Turns out I really don’t. There are songs of Elvis’s that I think are ok, but that is more pop culture than feelings of being a real fan. So, the future will prove the same for Michael whose life was crazy to put it lightly. Pop culture can be amazing and at the same time a real bitch to someone trying to live a meaningful life. Only time will tell what legacy Michael Jackson is really remembered for. I think some of his music will be timeless elements of pop culture long after I am gone.

CP+B + Zune = Fail

Posted by ryan as Advertising, Bummer

I got to tell you this latest campaign that Crispin Porter + Bogusky has put together for Microsoft is just all around bad. Its almost hard to believe that a creative firm like CP+B would even want to even try to rep such an unreal slant on Microsoft versus Apple products. I’m willing to bet that they don’t use M products themselves. But lets give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they just really like the challenge of trying to trick the world into believing that getting a Microsoft product instead of Apple is a great deal and you will be happy. That may even prove true, as long as you never look into to Apple products and really compare them. That’s what they should add to this campaign. “Hey you, don’t use Apple products, they cost too much. Don’t worry your pretty little head about this one, Microsoft has you taken care of. Just please quickly leave that Apple store and come with me down to Best Buy and lets spend $1500 bucks on a machine that you can patch every month or so. Its one hell of a bargain.”

As far as this Zune commercial is concerned, this is ridiculous. I just got to say the whole $15.00 a month or your music player is worthless over the get a music player that you can fill with music the way the rest of the world gets music is just dumb. How dumb are potential Zune buyers? Apparently CP+B thinks they are real dumb. You find it, you can keep it!

Disconnected

Posted by ryan as Bummer

So I went into work this past Monday and turned on my MacBook Pro only to find that the screen wouldn’t turn on. It was a real bummer. My work associate suggested that I was one of the lucky ones to get the nvidea card problem. Well me and a lot of other people who bought a laptop at the time that had video cards that had a run with a higher fail rate. Apple covers it so it’s cool, but living a week without a laptop feels really unproductive. I can’t wait to get my machine back.

Ad Content As Content

Posted by ryan as Advertising, Bummer

Oh yeah, ad conent woven into the story line and product placement is what I call must see tv. I don’t want to have to wait until the commercials to see a commercial, give me that right in the show I am tuning on to view. Ad Age has an article Subway Places More Than Just Product in NBC’s ‘Chuck’ and they tout the new greatness of advertisers to get into the show’s story line. Yeah, they not only have the logo prominetly placed in the show but he also says the tag line, how glorious! (sarcasm) Wasn’t this tried in the 70’s with limited success? Do they really believe that a generation that is far more sceptical of advertising messages to really buy into having this kind of blantant product endorsement written right into their show? Give me a break. And that’s exactly what they will get from their audience. Sure they will solve the problem of people down loading their content, only problem is they will have no audience watching the show either. The model must adapt, but this isn’t going to be the successful solution. Its an easy call from my seat.

Microsoft Not Ready For Web Standards

Posted by ryan as Bummer, Interweb, Web Devlopment

Gizomodo reports that Microsoft’s IE 8 is still not making it happen when it comes to browser compatibility. Here is the list on Gizmodo of site’s that are having to rely on IE8’s old rendering style, aka not web standard compliant.

microsoft.com
google.com
yahoo.com
cctv.com
msn.com.cn
live.com (a Microsoft site)
wikipedia.org
flickr.com
wordpress.com
adobe.com
facebook.com
apple.com
youtube.com
imdb.com
thepiratebay.org
dell.com
netflix.com
nytimes.com
gizmodo.com (In case you’re wondering why you have problems in IE at Giz)
kotaku.com
sony.com

Now if it didn’t register with you that most of the big dogs are on this list, it needs to be pointed out that their own site is on the top of the list. More of the same from the IE camp. And I got all excited and what not half a year ago about the prospects of not having to develop a special version of each site for IE users.

Harsh Truths About Corporate Websites

Posted by ryan as Advertising, Bummer, Career, Design, Designer, Interweb, Web Devlopment

Smashing Magazine is a great website. Anyone who is a frequent reader knows that. They recently wrote a great article “10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Websites”. It is spot on for so many points.

#7 especially hits home for me as I feel this one often. (7. You’re Not Getting Value From Your Web Team)

Whether they have an in-house Web team or use an external agency, many organizations fail to get the most from their Web designers. Web designers are much more than pixel pushers. They have a wealth of knowledge about the Web and how users interact with it. They also understand design techniques, including grid systems, white space, color theory and much more.

Treating designers as pixel pushers wastes their design experience: post from Twitter complaining about being a pixel pusher

It is therefore wasteful to micro-manage by asking them to “make the logo bigger” or to “move that 3 pixels to the left.” By doing so, you are reducing their role to that of a software operator and wasting the wealth of experience they bring.

If you want to get the maximum return on your Web team, present it with problems, not solutions. For example, if you’re targeting your website at teenage girls, and the designer goes for corporate blue, suggest that your audience might not respond well to that color. Do not tell him or her to change it to pink. This way, the designer has the freedom to find a solution that may even be better than your choice. You allow your designer to solve the problem you have presented.

> Continue reading 10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Websites

Sorry PC Peeps

Posted by ryan as Bummer, Interweb, News, Web Devlopment, ryanshull.com

So I had no clue that a youtube plugin I was using was preventing all PC users to not be able to view the videos I am embedding in my site. Thats not cool. I should have tested it immediately after activating it but I guess I assumed that the creator took that into consideration when they built it. I was very wrong. So, I now will have to go through and strip its use out of my site. Seems like a good punishment for not putting in the effort in the first place. AHHH!

Mario Kart Wii Online Cheating Ruining Game

Posted by ryan as Bummer, Fun & Games, Interweb

So I’ve told a lot of people about how much fun it is to play online in Mario Kart Wii. Well, if you get the right group of people then you can have a great time. Recently though, I’ve been playing with people who are cheating. They either have infinite invisibility, always giant, or blue shells of doom. Its not cool. Man, people are gonna do what people are going to do, but me… I’m just logging off.