Monday, 11 November 2002

Macromedia Releases Contribute. Is Macromedia now in the business of competing with the many and various CMSs out there, including those that Macromedia clients, such as our firm, build themselves. More information is needed.       Here is a quote from the brochure: “Now anyone can easily update and publish content to existing websites in minutes without knowing HTML. Macromedia Contribute is the easiest way to streamline your web-content maintenance. With Contribute, non-technical users can quickly make content changes that respect existing website style, layout, and code standards—which helps web professionals save time and stay in control.” 3:00:18 PM    Add a comment.

Accessible AND Informationally Architected. Copies of Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web and Building Accessible Websites have just arrived. Reviews soon, here and at Amazon. 2:32:59 PM    Add a comment.

According to InternetNews: Rich media ads are the best ads. InternetNews reports that: “Online ads that use advanced forms of rich media are more effective than both static and flash ads.       This is according to MarketNorms.       A study of 320 client campaigns showed that ads created in Flash and HTML outperformed gif and JPEG ads increasing message association lift to 37 percent.       Static formats saw only a 22 percent average lift, but rich media ads were seen to increase message association by an average of 44 percent.”       And there are any number of other surveys that show that doing web advertising well works, even in a poor market for advertising per se. 11:09:06 AM    Add a comment.

My Passion. I have a real passion for doing great web advertising that delivers amazing results and respects the readers and does not insult their intelligence, and that ensures the medium evolves and continues to make gains and earns respect. I just wanna do more of it. But how, as things stand right now? 11:00:13 AM    Add a comment.

eLearning Becomes A Word. I have just come across a new book about to be published in the US, on the subject of eLearning, named eLearning with Dreamweaver MX. A copy should be arriving soon. I have not seen any such books here yet, but I guess the trickle is about to start. Do a search on Amazon.com on the word eLearning and a few titles turn up.       Both Flash MX and Dreamweaver MX come with eLearning extensions, or libraries, or you can download them from the relevant Extensions page at the Macromedia web site. I have, but it was pretty obvious that a good reference book on what to do with these extensions was absolutely necessary before you could use them well.       I will be pleased whan Amazon finally sets up an Australian store! Far too few books make it through here. And far too many other kinds of products that you can get even in the east fail to make it to Perth. Luckily Amazon’s current product range just keeps on growing. 10:24:14 AM    Add a comment.

New PowerBook Reaches 1GHz. And gains a slot-loading SuperDrive that burns DVDs and CDs, in the top-end model. And both models get a big price drop into the bargain, even in Australia.       I hope that the iBooks, which have also been improved, finally get G4 chips instead of G3s, when the G5 or whatever its equivalent will be called, becomes the standard chip in all the desktop machines. I stlll think that G3 processors are inadequate for running Mac OS X well, even Jaguar which has had a considerable speed boost. 9:44:38 AM    Add a comment.

Red CAT No More. This morning was the last straw—I will not be catching the Red CAT bus from Perth train station to East Perth any more. The service is just too unreliable, and too frustrating.       This morning I ran from the station to the westernmost Red CAT bus stop near it, so the little bus would not be full and thus I would not have to wait for the next one. But two Red CATS travelling in a pack zoomed past without stopping, just like the London buses from Piccadilly to the Kings Road after 6PM. I ran after them but neither one stopped nor stayed at the next stop even when I had drawn up next to its door at the stop.       The Red CAT schedule claims they run every 5 minutes. Clearly that is not the case in reality. Each CAT bus stop has an antenna and a display telling you when the next one is due. After the second bus in the pack failed to stop, I watched as the display flipped over from 0 to 10 minutes. 5 minutes my ass.       I did a speed walk from there to the office, and got here within the period that a Red CAT would have taken anyway. 9:17:23 AM    Add a comment.