Clients very rarely understand the concept of file size. When they try to send a 20MB file by email and it doesn’t make it through, it baffles them. For about a year now I have pointed my clients to a service called yousendit.com. Without getting into too much detail, yousendit.com allows you to send large files by email. However, you run into a problem when there are a lot of large files that all need to be sent together. In these cases yousendit just doesn’t cut it.
Rather than set up and FTP account and try to explain how to use it, I would usually just tell my clients to snail-mail it or drop it off. That is, until recently. I discoverd a cool little FTP Java applet that has solved my problems. You embed it into a web page and it automatically connects to the FTP account you specify and it allows the user to drag and drop files onto the applet for easy upload. So all I did was create a web page in a directory with standard Cpanel directory protection on it. Then I added the applet to the page and sent my client to it. Problem solved and it really makes you look like the wizard of the web.
Here’s a link to the applet.
A few months ago I wrote a post comparing and contrasting the most popular YouTube clones on the web. One of the sites I reviewed was Blip.tv. At the time I was extremely impressed with the podcasting options Blip.tv provided. But I found they were lacking in the ability to embed a Flash player into a web site. This is a feature that nearly all of the other sites had and was a big deciding factor in my review of Blip.tv.
In doing some research recently for a client on video publishing options, I found that Blip.tv has added the embed feature to their service which, in my opinion, puts them at the top of the game. Check it out when you have a chance.
In any industry, but especially in new media, it is important to keep up with what’s going on. It keeps you from getting behind the curve and it invigorates your work when you see the cool things that other people are doing. Two good places to “get your learn on” are Vitamin News and Digital Web. I think they both do a good job of keeping a finger on the pulse of new media.
The success of the full length online documentary Zeitgeist is a huge step toward bringing professional video content to the web. It’s also a pungent reminder to the web community at large that we are now the gatekeepers of content. In case you haven’t heard, Zeitgeist is an elaborate and, in some cases, riotous story of far reaching conspiracies and historical deceptions that date back as far as the time of Christ. It all ends with 9/11 and the Federal Reserve (Don’t ask me how they weaved that tangled web).
I’m sorry to say that we haven’t been very good gatekeepers on this one. With minimal research, you can easily dispel many of it’s core arguments and yet I’ve seen mostly praise coming from the blogosphere. In just the first few minutes of the movie alone, they make more than a few preposterous claims about parallels between the life of Jesus and the myth of the ancient Egyptian god Horus. It just goes downhill from there.
If we want universally accessible self-publishing, then we need to take responsibility as researchers and testers. If you’re a blogger, you can start by letting your readers know about Zeitgeist. Do the research. Tell the truth.
This is really just a quick observation but I think it’s an important one. I was going through the proposed panel topics for the 2008 SXSW Interactive Festival and I was shocked by how much the general view of many topics related to the web has changed in just a few years. It reminded me of how important it is to not put too much stock into any one opinion. In our business it’s cool today and passe tomorrow.
No matter what size your new media business is, you will always be dealing with support issues. When you first start out, you can easily mange them with a handwritten to-do list; but as your team grows and your client list grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to effectively manage support issues.
Unfortunately, most email support ticketing software is designed for major call centers and doesn’t work very well for a small team. Enter Helperoo. Since it was actually created by the Canadian new media firm Meticulo, many of it’s features target similar firms. There is a free version of Helperoo and a Pro version that’s $12.89 a month.
It’s definitely worth checking out if anticipate support ticket growing pains in the future.
As cool as Bit O’ NewMedia is (no boasting here), I am sorry to say that it will never alone be a sufficient source of information for the cutting-edge new media professional. The diversity within the industry makes it impossible to have a one-size-fits-all information outlet.
I like to think of Bits O’ NewMedia as a pulse reading for the New Media industry. I won’t give you a step-by-step tutorial on how to build an actionscript calendar in Flash but I WILL point you to someone who does and discuss the pros and cons of using Flash versus AJAX and PHP.
I think this type of analysis is important for every NewMedite but you will also need to consistently read other blogs that speak more to your specific area of expertise. I have a list of the blogs I read over in the right hand column. I check them every morning and (I’ve said it a million times) I use NetVibes and so should you!
We work in a strange and unique industry where the right and left hemispheres of the brain must be engaged on a regular basis to complete the tasks we are given. If you have too much programmer in you, your designs will suffer and it you have too much designer in you, your functionality will suffer.
For now, let’s focus on the designers. If you are a great designer, then you need to be a good programmer to survive in new media. You don’t need to know how to hack into the pentagon but you need to know your way around. It will make you more valuable and more efficient. Even if you don’t plan on doing any programming yourself, you still need to know a little bit so your designs won’t frustrate your programmers. All that being said, here is a great newbie tutorial on PHP to get your feet wet. I know for some of you super artistics this is like pulling teeth, but it’s worth it.
For all the wonderful things tableless layouts have brought us, I give thanks. But you have to admit that some of the CSS browser quirks are a serious pain. Much like the author of Blueprint CSS, when I first took the plunge into CSS design, I couldn’t find a good lightweight CSS framework that would neutralize the quirks and get me started. I eventually built my own which I use on the majority of my projects now.
I might have been able to avoid some of the headaches and nail-biting, though, if Blueprint CSS had been around then. It’s lightweight (only five files) and, most importantly, it automatically resets the default styles in browsers to avoid those nasty little quirks. If you are fairly new to CSS and haven’t had time to build your own framework, this is the way to go.
Confidence and humility are two very important characteristics of a good new media consultant. Your confidence gives your clients confidence about your services and your humility makes you approachable and enjoyable to do business with. Yet it can be an extremely difficult task to mirror one without destroying the other. Too much confidence and you are a condescending jerk. Too much humility and you are an indecisive snivelling little weasel.
What I like to do (especially in first meetings) is start out by listening intently to the client’s description of his vision for the project. No interruptions. I just let them go at. Then I respectfully ask a few questions to clarify whatever points are a little muddy.
Next, I launch into my schpeel. I’ve already developed a rapport with the client by listening and nodding. Now I reinforce that rapport by complementing a few features described by the client, even if the features are just remakes of things I do routinely. Now I have a connection.
Last, I assert my knowledge and authority in the new media field by throwing in a few ideas and explaining where the rough patches in the project might occur.
By the time we’re finished talking (most of the time) they are excited about their project and they see me as an invaluable friend and resource.
If you’re anything like me, you are never completely happy with your desktop wallpaper. There’s always a better JPG just beyond the horizon. It doesn’t make any sense but it’s true.
Possibly to my detriment, I recently discovered desktopography.net. It has a limited selection but every image is noteworthy. You’ll at least have enough choices to rotate for a few months. Here’s my current pick.
A huge part of being both efficient and fulfilled in the NewMedia business is the ability to stop tweaking projects. It seems like every time we finish a project, there is always something that we think we can improve. This is a slippery slope that always ends in tears (take it from me).
The 80/20 rule is a great way to put an end to unnecessary tweaking. It simply states that 20% of your effort is used to bring a piece of work to 80% perfection. So next time you are tempted to tweak, remember that once you pass that 20% mark, your efficiency drops dramatically. It will take 80% of your effort to bring the project the other 20% to perfection. If you are worried about not “giving 100%” like your high school coach told you to, don’t. You will be helping your clients spend their money more wisely by taking this attitude.
I have found that creating very strict rules for how I run my business ends up having the opposite effect of what I intend. In fact I think I have actually been pretty arrogant in thinking that my rules could account for every future hurdle I might encounter. On the opposite side of the coin is a business that is run mamby pamby by fleeting whims which is just as bad.
Somewhere in the middle is a principle driven business that is both controlled and flexible. It’s actually pretty easy to get into this mindset. First, lay out a very short list of principles by which you would like to run your business. Then whenever you are about to make a business decision, just ask yourself if your decision is in line with the principles that drive you business. Okay, maybe that’s an over simplification of the matter but you get the picture.
Of course, by “clean”, I am referring to keeping the HTML clean. One of the biggest problems I run into when giving content control to a client is that they inevitably ruin my beautiful standards compliant XHTML templates by cramming ugly code right into the middle of it.
It’s not their fault. They don’t know anything about HTML and every line of ugly code they are generating is being produced behind the scenes by a WYSIWYG editor. Never fear; there may be a solution. WYMeditor claims to force standards compliant code in an embeddable WYSIWYG editor. Up to this point, I have been using the open source FCKeditor for all of my projects but I am considering giving WYMeditor a try just to see if I can cut down on the ogre code.
