Amends are the thorn in every agencies side.
The brick wall we all fight against at the end of every project.
The things that make us question our sanity and ask ourselves: ‘wouldn’t life be simpler if I worked at Late Shopper?’
Why, we cry to the gods, does someone hire us for our expertise and then feel they know better at the final hurdle?! Read more…
Ok, I’ll admit it, as an avid Firefox user I have been the first to stick the boot into Internet Explorer in a question of standards. This level of arrogance is almost expected of me as a developer, which is why I was so surprised to find that Microsoft’s up and coming offering, IE8 is making some huge steps towards standards compliance among other things.
Sure, as I have been browsing around the internet this week I have come across a lot of pages that are broken in IE8, I expected this and thankfully so did Microsoft and with one click of the new “Compatibility View” button the pages were rendering correctly.
That’s not the only reason IE8 impressed me though, the page rendering is much faster than its predecessor, the interface is much tighter and as a whole, client side scripts seem to be much improved.
I don’t think I’ll be jumping the good ship Mozilla just yet though, there are still some large issues that must be addressed (in my opinion) before IE8 is let loose. The new accelerators, while a solid idea, fall short of useful, often getting in the way of what I really wanted to do. Similarly, the developer tools, while being an extensive resource of information, are far too slow and end up feeling more like an obstacle course on the route to knowledge.
All in all I feel that Microsoft are now paving the way to redeeming their reputation on the world wide web, in the browser stakes at least and who knows, if adoption of IE8 is good, maybe we can finally forget the thorn in every developers side that is IE6.
Here’s hoping!
I’ve never been much of a fan of providing site users with a search box, there’s a thin line between valuable functionality and allowing users to avoid all meaningful content in favor of slamming your database with high traffic requests. For this and many other reasons I’ve never really explored past the surface of how to create fast, efficient and (above all) useful search queries, until recently.
The newspapers and digimags are filled with doom and gloom about the credit crunch and everyone from Seasick Steve to Starbucks are tightening belts and watching wallets. We’ve been discussing what this means for digital marketing. The answer should be; good news!
Digital marketing is by far the cheapest medium out there. You can reach your customers, and new ones in a creative and interactive way for a few hundred pounds. You don’t ge that sort of budget with TV.
As people’s disposable income drops people start cancelling magazine subscriptions or read a newspaper online instead of buying a copy. With internet already in mind don’t forget that the internet and email (especially in the office where most net activity happens) is free and will always be. No matter how poor the consumer, internet and email use will continue to rise.
The internet isn’t the only bargain digital has to offer. People won’t be getting rid of mobile phones anytime soon, so we make the most of text campaigns and mobile internet as a cheap & direct way of contacting customers. Recent surveys say that 75% of users have their Bluetooth activated. Send mini flyers to 75% of people walking past your office, shop or restaurant. Even better sending and receiving through bluetooth is free.
My only conclusion? During a time when the accountant is king, ask yourself who gives you more bang for your buck? The answer is right in front of you.
It has been a good month for Magnitude with a fair few new account wins on the table… Read more…