Do you have a battery back-up?

Friday’s power outage reminded me of another piece of advice I give clients: If you don’t have a generator, make sure you have a UPS! UPS doesn’t only stand for the brown delivery trucks we are all familiar with; in this case, UPS stands for Uninterruptible Power Supply— a battery back-up for your computer and peripherals. I work on a laptop now, (hooked up to a 23” monitor- heavenly) so when the power goes out, or dims in a brown-out, the laptop battery kicks in seamlessly to protect my work and files. I use a UPS as well, though, to protect my external drives and printers. How long the battery will power your equipment depends on the size (and cost) of the UPS you purchase. The smallest office models give you only a few minutes to shut down, the larger ones can give you about 20 minutes to close everything out.

©John Biehler

A UPS looks like a very large power strip; on one side, the outlets are supported by the battery, and on the opposite side, the outlets function only as a surge protector/power strip. When the power goes out, the battery starts to beep- loudly- so that if you are away from your desk you have a warning that you are running on battery power and need to shut down. Once my computer shuts down, I turn off each drive before I turn off the UPS. Your UPS will need to be replaced every few years. 

I learned this lesson the hard way. A surge protector works when there is a power spike, but doesn’t help in a brown-out, which is what almost fried my hard drive on one occasion. I was able to recover most of my files but I permanently lost almost 20% of my data. Learn from my experience and save yourself a lot of grief!

Put our knowledge and expertise to work for your business— visit our webpage and then contact Canzani Graphics today! All content ©2011Canzani Graphics

fonts for the web

Until recently, using typefaces other than the ones that come pre-installled on computers, such as Times or Verdana, required using images of the text, rather than live text that can be selected, copied, and most importantly searched by bots. Google can't read text embedded images, so designers were left choosing between style and practicality. Now the use of web fonts is coming into practice. By placing a line of code that links back to your chosen online service, each time your web page is loaded, the browser contacts the font server and "translates" your text into your chosen font and then displays that. The technology is nascent, and the service I am using on this test page did not offer any of the first three or four fonts I searched for, so compromises must still be made. You'll notice it take a second to load- not really noticeable, but just long enough for the server to say "Hey, can I have a font over here?" It's exciting, and long overdue, and I can't wait to see what possibilities are in store!

Put our knowledge and expertise to work for your business— visit our webpage and then contact Canzani Graphics today!
All content ©2011Canzani Graphics

Google+

Some automation makes life easier, but some takes control away from the user, and I am not a fan of that. So, a note to all of you thinking about joining Google+: in a particularly troublesome (IMHO) case of Big Brotherism, Google+ brought all the art I had posted on this blog into my Google+ page as an album. Since many had been replaced with newer versions, I thought it easier to delete the album rather than figure out which art was current and which was not, and you guessed it— most of the art from my blog was deleted! I had to edit every post affected to restore it all. So be forewarned, if you have a Google-based blog, do NOT delete the album of art from your blog in your Google+ account!

If you notice a missing piece of art in one of my blog posts, please notify me by leaving a comment, in case I missed any!

So far NOT liking Google+.

Put our knowledge and expertise to work for your business— visit our webpage and then contact Canzani Graphics today! All content ©2011Canzani Graphics

favicons and pinned sites

What’s a favicon?

A favicon is a 16 pixel x 16 pixel image that appears in the toolbar to the left of your URL. Images can be saved in this format in Photoshop; simply renaming a 16x16 image as “.ico” works in some browsers but not others. Other file formats are supported in selected browsers- see this Wikipedia entry for a comparison.

Another use of a favicon is as a shortcut for a pinned website. A “pinned” website is one that gives the user the option of placing a shortcut to the site in their taskbar/toolbar. By using icon overlays- similar to the up/down states of website buttons- webmasters can tell users when something on the site has changed.

Put our knowledge and expertise to work for your business— visit our webpage and then contact Canzani Graphics today!
All content ©2011Canzani Graphics

cinemagraphs

@ Jamie Beck 

Are you fan of those slightly moving photographs where part of the image is frozen but something else is moving? A still photo with only slight movement in one chosen area of the photos is called a Cinemagraph, and the effect can be strikingly dramatic. A cinemagraph is actually an animated gif where each frame is shown for a chosen length of time before the next frame is displayed, like a flip book. This effect is achieved by isolating a 1-2 second segment from a video, importing the video frames into layers in Photoshop and then masking out the parts that you want to remain still. This is a just a basic explanation, and even a very simple cinemagraph might take a half a day to produce.

Diego Guevara includes some stunning examples and a more detailed explanation from creators Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg in this blog post and also this one. Jamie Beck's own site is here.

Put our knowledge and expertise to work for your business— visit our webpage and then contact Canzani Graphics today!
All content ©2011Canzani Graphics

the twitter effect

One could spend all day marketing your brand and browsing on Social Networks. They’re interesting.

I never expected much from twitter, but joined to follow some tech people who post there. It's a great way to get breaking news and follow industry trends. I didn’t anticipate posting anything myself, but to my great surprise, in a very short time I had 16 followers, only two of whom I know personally. It’s what I am going to call “the twitter effect;” the “you tell two people and they tell two people,” phenomenon. If you post something interesting, people pick it up and decide to follow you for next time you post. It’s effect on raising your profile is immediate and profound.

You must remember that you are talking to everyone (if you don’t tweet to one individual) and should remember that anything that enters the digital universe is there FOREVER and can no longer be controlled, so be careful what you post anywhere online. The internet is a big dumb machine (very much like your desktop computer) it serves up whatever is put into it without regard to veracity, and while new data is constantly surpassing old data, the old data remains and will pop up when you least expect it- or want it to. Pretend the internet is your most desired potential client, and address it as such.

Put our knowledge and expertise to work for your business— visit our webpage and then contact Canzani Graphics today!
All content ©2011Canzani Graphics

never underestimate the value of a good proofreader!

I am editing a book. Out of my usual realm, I know, but I’m good at it and do it on a regular basis for all my clients.

My parents' insistence on proper English (reinforced by the nuns!) has served me well both personally and professionally. Not everyone is good at this, just as some people are good at math and some are not, and some people are good at spelling and some are not. Everyone’s brain works differently, and this has more to do with perception than intelligence. It’s extremely difficult to proofread your own copy. You know what the text is supposed to say and your brain will fill in the way you it is rather than the way it written. But being grammatically correct is important- it conveys an attention to detail, and no one will hire you if they perceive you as sloppy.

There has been much written in the past few years about the inability of recent grads to compose a proper business letter. Maybe the emphasis on learning foreign languages to adjust to the increasingly global community has left little time for schools to focus on our own, but proper grammar and spelling convey a message the same way your appearance does- it shows you care. There may be no need to sound erudite or overly intellectual, but your content should be consistent, correct, and clearly convey your message.

Put our knowledge and expertise to work for your business— visit our webpage and then contact Canzani Graphics today! All content ©2011Canzani Graphics

does it look like you are ALWAYS on Facebook?

We had a great block party for the fourth, but I was a little puzzled when a neighbor remarked that I am “always on Facebook." I am not, in fact, always on Facebook, so it got me to thinking about why it might appear that way.

I follow a lot of tech journals and software pages on FB; it's a great way to get all the latest headlines at once, (Gasp! FB has a legitmate business purpose!) and I often follow links to articles, webinars, or videos posted there, which usually open in a new tab. I tend to leave a lot of tabs open, which doesn't phase me unless my browser is running slow, in which case I'll close the ones I am not using at the moment. So very often I'll have FB open in a tab even if I am not using it, which must make it look as if I am always on, even when I am doing something completely different. There are ways to be stealth on FB, and a quick search will reveal the “how-tos" for doing that. Since I am not hiding out from anyone, I had not even thought about it, but I don't want people thinking I have nothing better to do than hang out on FB all day, so maybe I will have to rethink that!
*I also love the iPad app Flipboard for that, but when I am on my computer, Facebook is easier.

Put our knowledge and expertise to work for your business— visit our webpage and then contact Canzani Graphics today! All content ©2011Canzani Graphics