In the first instance, one of my clients was featured on the notorious Gizmodo blog. The PR generated from this single post alone pushed thousands of visits to his website in just a few days - the kind of PR you’d have had to pay for previously. However, after 5 days - he’d noticed that the Gizmodo post had been noticed by Google too. In fact, the post was so popular, that when you typed the company name into Google - Gizmodo came higher than the company site! Not so much of a problem in the short term, but probably more of an issue as time goes by.

And latterly… yesterday infact, I read a post published on Boris Johnson’s blog (mayor of London) - which slated the Prime Minister on a bunch of economical issues. That same evening, the ’shocking revalations’ were featured on the front page of The London Paper. Again, proving the power of the blog - how else would an individual get his/her opinions on to front pages?

My point is, we’re really starting to see the importance of blogs - and the role they play in your online presence. So often I see companies, clients and individuals passing off this important corner of the net as simply ‘a passing fad’ - when in fact it’s changing the face of the internet for good!

“Press OK” Er… did I have a choice? It’s not like I can choose not to!

Oh yes, my Mac-dwelling friends… this is the kind of madness that plagues Windows. In fact, on installing windows… before even pressing the Start bar… I was presented with 4 separate popup messages simply telling me that a virus attack was practically imminent without some kind of protection.

And before you start telling me that PCs are better than Mac - let me stop you right there. I don’t care! We’re talking about operating systems here people.

Noticed this on my way to the gym today on Curtain Road. Nicki (who’s photo that is) and a few others noticed it too… pretty hard to miss! No idea what it’s about - but I for one welcome our new insect octopus overlords!

By all rights, I should hate this guy. After all, pretty much all my clients aspire to have websites like Apple - and he inspired the web2.0 trend that was so hard to break…. but his work is just so clean and beautiful, I’ve just got to love him.

Check out Wilson’s site here. Why not also check out Paul Nixon whilst you’re at it, he’s another designer behind Apple.

The point is not to do it all yourself, but just to be able to. Then you can provide an excellent service, and achieve excellent results.

Queue the sad music…
Back in the day, Quark and I were happy together - then suddenly, out of the blue, something new came into my life - something flashy and exciting… they called it InDesign.

It was a different package to what I’d been used to - but it was somehow, I don’t know… better. I used it, I learned it’s ways - and it was good. I thought we could all be happy together. I guess I was naive and young; as one wintery evening in 2005… Quark walked out on me. It was tough.

Now, over three years later, Quark has returned having had a make-over… expecting everything to be the same. But I’m not sure… I’m not sure I can ever take Quark back… it was so hard living without it… but I moved on.

Have you really changed, Quark? Have you learned to make PDFs quickly? Will you be nice to me when I’m in a hurry?
…end sad music.

Seriously though, hasn’t Quark had it’s day? Is this too late for a quick fix? I did have to laugh at their ‘Revolutionizing Publishing. Again’ strap-line though - clearly they know where they stand.

I’ll try you again Quark… just not for $800! You’re not worth that to me anymore.

Usability Post (link)
A new blog I’ve found. Some really useful insights into the importance of usability.

News Pond (link)
Do I like the design? I can’t work it out… but hat’s off to whoever coded this badboy - attention to detail! Quite clearly (over)designed in Fireworks though.

Type Tee’s (link)
A Threadless spin-off, but very clean and clear with some beautiful coding. Worth a visit - tee’s aren’t bad either!

Kropper (link)
This would have been useful for an application we’re building for Duchy - it’s a JavaScript image cropping script. Looks very cool, although I’ve not tried it yet.

Sprint (link)
No idea what this is all about - but it’s very nicely designed and executed.

I’ve mentioned favicons before (least interesting topic ever) - but nothing comes close to this. A 16×16 javascript game that pretty much only works in Firefox. Useless, but very very cool. Via Cookie