Today, in my email, I noticed the following ad:more
Is your business using Vine, yet? Did you know businesses are using Vine? Click to watch the MindscapeTV episode about Vine! Vine is a video app that allows you to record a six-second clip. The short clip will loop, creating a gif, which can then be shared on Facebook and Twitter. Your video clips can either be six consecutive seconds, or you can stop and start as much as you please until you’ve reached your six-second limit (which is a fantastic invitation to create videos reminiscent of stop motion).In case you’re not familiar, Vine is considered to be an app from Twitter, but it actually started out as a three-man company before Twitter acquired it in October of 2012, before it even went live. Twitter officially launched Vine in January of 2013 and it quickly climbed the ranks to become the #1 free app on Apple’s App Store within six months of its acquisition. Should you be using Vine? Twitter seems to care greatly about Vine, and its users are constantly on the rise. So, where does that leave businesses? Is Vine beneficial for everyone, or just pet owners, parents of small children, and amateur video enthusiasts?more
We've been working to solve a puzzle on webTRAIN for a while, and we're happy to let you know that we are rolling it out this week. Tablets and smartphones make up a large portion of web surfers now, and it's growing every day. The problem is, they rarely have the same internet speed available to them as desktop users. That means the large, amazing image on the front of your website takes an awful long time to load up on a phone or tablet. We've been able to get around this issue on a couple of specific sites through some hard work and javascript magic. But what we really wanted was a way to send the correct image size to all devices without having to do something special to each image.more
If you haven’t heard, Mike Jeffries, CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch is currently embroiled in yet another major PR gaffe for his 2006 quote: “In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either.” Alas, this isn’t yet another blog about how his company is contributing to bullying and eating disorders.more
I’m not sure I ever realized the value of “team-building” until I came to Mindscape. As our company has continued to grow from 12 people when I started to nearly 30 now, it’s more important than ever that we like each other. I don’t just mean as colleagues, but as people too. Mindscape has created a culture where this is possible. Each year, we go on a company trip that brings us together as an entire group. What I wanted to do was take that to a smaller level just for the people on my specific team. So we headed out to a Project Management conference in Chicago. Considering that my group is made up of 3 men and me, it was a little daunting for me as a new, female manager. I am definitely happy with how well the trip went and how much everyone seemed to get out of the seminar. Here are some of the things I took away from it both as a new manager and as a PM.more
I’m going to let you in on a little secret about the internet. It isn't real. Yes, you can log on the internet and it will show you things. You haven’t imagined it. In that sense, it’s real. But it isn't real like a car or a building or a plane. Those objects can be touched. Those objects have to be built. And those objects are not easy to change once they are in use. Product recalls are what happens when “real” products have to change. On the internet, it’s a whole different story. One day a website has just one page, the next day there are a dozen. One day something is broken, the next day it isn't. One day you can’t build a thingamajig, the next everyone is thingamajigging.more
First impressions…always available, never able to recreate. At least for the same audience. What’s the impression you make to your different audiences? Whether online or off; within your peer groups; your customer meetings or your personal interactions. Do you really put the time/energy into making it memorable (in a good way). Or do you rely on the same ‘ole same ‘ole, because it works pretty well. Well, whichever option you use, it has a result. My challenge to you is to reflect on those results. Are you getting what you want, or are you settling for what you receive?more
webTRAIN just underwent a big update. Although it’s a massive upgrade, nothing has visibly changed for you. Let me tell you what the big deal is.more
Over the past few months, I have been deep down the rabbit hole with .NET MVC web application projects. A pattern of development emerged out of these months of work, which I want to share with you today. I am not sure what to call it, but MVC Squared seems to fit. In reality, it is more of a .NET model-view-controller server side design with a view-controller, view-model client side design. One night I sat down to create a pseudo flow chart of my idea, so others working with me could critique it.more
This post has been republished here from its original source. As the years come and go, the types technology we use to access the web change and our approach to web design and development changes along with it. What made a good website five years ago does not make a good website today. When meeting with new clients, one of the first questions I ask is "What sites do you like and what do you dislike?" The answers are all over the board, but what I don't really see are examples of beautiful, modern websites that represent what it means to have a real online presence today. It becomes difficult for clients to understand what to expect from a modern website, as most of the sites they are seeing on a daily basis are not the types of sites we are striving to create at MINDSCAPE. This article aims to describe what I think constitutes a modern website in 2013, highlighting the way web design has evolved over the past several years. My hope is to illustrate to our partners the technology that's available to us today and why you should be taking advantage of it.more
This word is used often, maybe too often. Because it is so open to translation. Accountants value the word value – see it’s a verb and noun, differently than a sales person. And a sales person interprets value differently than a customer. You can be sure a hiring manager looks at the value of a candidate differently than the candidate considers the value of employing him/her. But, if a candidate even goes through this process, they’re ahead of most.more
First off, let me be clear. There are many situations when it makes sense to own the source code to any web asset a business may own. Integrated web services with back office operations, complex enterprise security or just a really unique web experience where the code becomes intellectual property. These are all examples where ownership, title rights and interest to every line of code, is recommended. But, in terms of most web site needs, do business owners really want to own the actual technology that their website site is on? There are many in “the industry” that would find that question profound. I think it’s a question worth asking and one that isn’t asked enough.more
This post has been republished here from its original source. I recently had to add a search filter to a Drupal site where the user can filter down criteria to find a reduced listing of products. This is called Faceted Search and is a common navigation technique on ecommerce sites. Think of the left side of Amazon’s site where you can pick Toys then filter down to a specific department and age group. Exposed Filtersmore
The mobile application landscape is rapidly changing and evolving. New tablets and phones of all shapes and sizes are being conceived, created and released at an ever accelerated pace. Google’s Glass and Apple’s iWatch are confirmed and rumored new form factors just around the corner. There are mobile websites. There are mobile applications. There are mobile application stores. There are even multiple ways of distributing mobile applications. Clearly the options and possibilities are vast and potentially confusing. At MINDSCAPE, we typically take the approach of assessing a partner’s need and then compare that to the current and future mobile landscape to find the best fit. Today’s mobile development options generally fit into one of three basic types:more
What is a QR Code? “Quick Response Code” is that weird looking square bar code you've probably seen in print ads or on a postcard, and for half of you, maybe even have scanned (per eConsultancy). A user can scan this bar code with a smart phone and be taken to a landing page to take a specific action. A few months ago, Forbes Magazine proclaimed QR Codes dead, but are they really? Like many new tech trends, the world may have moved too quickly and customers may have dismissed their usage too quickly to really allow marketers to embrace them properly.more
If you want to sound like a web pro, there are definitely a few buzz words you can throw around to sound like a smarty pants. However, fancy words don’t mean much if you don’t know what they mean. With that in mind, let’s shine a little light on two of the most common web terms: cache and cookie.more
It’s easy for digital novices to be intimidated when people throw around terms like “SEO” and “PPC” and “URL,” if they speak another language in their daily work lives, like accounting or manufacturing. I recently broke one of my own rules by bandying phrases like these during an initial meeting with a new partner. After I was politely interrupted by a brave engineer, “Excuse me, but what is SEO?” I realized with regret that I had started at level three when I should have started at level one.more
Remember the last time you multi-tasked? Are you listening to music, talking to another person or engaging in your mobile device while reading this post? Then you are multi-tasking as you read. Good for you! Or not. We’ve become a society of multi-doer’s. In fact, it seems almost impossible to escape this lifestyle, except for those rare occasions where we’re remote and unable to access technology. But even then, we’re likely to be performing something other than just having a conversation or engaging in a specific task. But, at what cost?more
This post originally posted at mark-swanson.com CSS frameworks have been around for awhile. They've just changed a lot in the last several years. What started out as basic fluid or static grid systems have now evolved to include Javascript libraries, responsive layouts, more robust user interface elements and advanced typography.more
We all make mistakes. They may be big mistakes with far reaching repercussions, or small mistakes that no one else sees, but we all make them. There are two ways to react to your own mistake; accept responsibility or make excuses. When you make excuses, you aren't learning how to get better. You are learning how to blame others. There is no growth in an excuse. When you accept responsibility for what happened, even if it was not your fault or there are legitimate extenuating circumstances, you can then evaluate and learn from what happened.more
