Let’s take my dad, for example. He’s in his sixties and super tech-savvy when it comes to computers, software, and general computer hardware. If the computer isn’t working, he’ll find a way to troubleshoot it, reboot it, reinstall something, call Apple Support, or whatever it takes to get it up and running again. He subscribes to MacWorld magazine, loves to learn new tips and tricks, and helps his co-workers when their computers begin dying. He does not work in the technology field; he just has a passion to learn new things, think analytically, and solve problems.
My mom is pretty savvy when it comes to using technology to connect with people. She was one of the first people I knew (outside of eROI, that is) to create a Facebook profile and use it to stay in touch with friends and family from across the country. She’s connected to some of my friends (that’s an entirely different story and post) and will quite often know about what’s going on with them before I do! Crazy, but true.
I would imagine that my parents are pretty similar to a lot of other folks from their generation. They love technology – to a certain extent – but shy away from things that they either deem irrelevant to them or that are daunting to learn. My folks tend to have a hunger to learn and try new things, so they adapt really well to new technology.
These two clips below – the first paying homage to the fathers and the second to the mothers – were funny representations of parents trying to adopt new technology, and using their son, Darren, as their teacher. They come from a video series on Current, called SuperNews!, and I found them particularly great because they poke fun at what I’m sure many of us twenty- and thirty-somethings have experienced with our own parents.
I’m curious about those real-life technology scenarios that you’ve experienced. Anything similar to these videos? Any funny Mom and Dad situations? Please share and commiserate!
Recently one of our designers came by and and asked me about how much actual control we could have over the aesthetics of scrollbars. I told him what I often respond with: “If you can design it, we can build it.”
Although this statement is fundamentally true, stylizing scrollbars creates a unique set of obstacles. Since scrollbars are handled by the browser window itself and not the website, controlling their appearance and functionality becomes more work than simply using CSS to skin the elements. Fortunately, there are plenty of options out there but finding the right one for your project isn’t always easy.
Styling scrollbars with CSS
One way to start stylizing the scrollbar attributes is to use CSS. A quick cross-browser test will show you that this isn’t a viable route. Ironically (to us developers) Internet Explorer is the only browser to fully support the scrollbar attributes allowing for an easy, quick way to customize your scrollbars’ look and feel. This may have been acceptable when IE had a 90% browser market share but those days are over and let’s face it — the designers pushing for these changes all use Macs.
In honor of Valentine’s Day’s impending arrival, I’ve compiled some images that I found inspiring in a sweet, adorable, lovey-dovey sort of way. We’re working on incorporating more posts which are image-based and simply put – inspiring to us, so you can expect more content like this from Fresh in the upcoming weeks!
Three years ago I began working on websites as a young account coordinator/project manager. I did not understand what CMS (that’s Content Management System for you kids at home) stood for or let alone what the difference was between open source and proprietary software. But, that didn’t matter because clients wanted a way to update their content that didn’t involve them taking classes at community college. Back in those days eROI had three CMS options to offer:
Marqui – A hosted proprietary system, which wasn’t terrible, but definitely was not worth the money and developing for it seemed to be a pain. I averaged 10 calls a month from two sites that had been live for years.
CMS/MS – An open source solution that served the purpose of a basic CMS with the best price around (FREE!). The only problem was that it was difficult to use from an Admin perspective, and was not as flexible for developers to be a truly powerful CMS.
Contribute – A trimmed down version of Dreamweaver by Adobe sold on Amazon and came in a real box. I won’t go into those forgotten nightmares too deeply, but let’s just say the software in the box had about as much value as an old AOL CD. The amount of time wasted trying to get this software to function as it was billed to could have been used to go to Mars by now.
Who has a phone with a mobile browser? Um…EVERYONE! Yeah, nowadays, people don’t just have cell phones, they have a mini computer in the palm of their hand able to find anything online within seconds.
On the top of everyone’s priority list, in the web world, is how to go mobile. One option is to build a whole new version of your site so that it will look good on a mobile device, but not everyone has the time and/or budget for that. If your site is already in WordPress, then you have another option…plugins!
There are several handy plugins that will make your current site mobile friendly. I’ve been tasked to find a plugin for our blogs here at eROI. After doing my research, I’ve found a few that seem to top the list and do a great job out of the box. Read the rest of this entry »
In honor of WordPress week, I’ve collected an assortment of sites that are tickling my fancy in some way or another and oh yeah, they all use WordPress. Hopefully you will find a couple that you haven’t had the pleasure of checking out before.
This is a blog about all of the intricacies of typography ranging from the basics to super technical jargon-filled goodness. The design is a beautifully simple execution of what they preach.
In yesterday’s post I hit upon two major developments happening with WordPress this year: the merge of WordPress MU into WordPress, and better support for custom post types. But there’s more! Here are just a few more advancements in the WordPress world that I’m looking forward to this year.
New 2010 default theme
Kubrick: klassic, but old and krusty. At eROI we’ve discussed creating our own default/starter themes that contain all the basic essential functions for a blog or a non-blog website. Many theme developers just getting started in WordPress (or even those who’ve been at it a while) take the default theme and tweak it to fit their structure/design. Oftentimes this leads to having extraneous code that isn’t really needed or even code that has been deprecated. Having new default themes with up-to-date functions, heavily commented HTML and CSS, more basic HTML structures and without functions we don’t use often will help new members of our team learn theme creation faster.
I am a huge WordPress nerd. When Mary asked “If you have a half-hour to kill in between meetings, what do you do?” I promptly replied “Read blogs about WordPress. Which are written using WordPress.” (it didn’t make the video though, audio problems. Thank goodness. Hah.) The past few months I’ve been amassing a collection of my favorite blogs about WordPress, and the ones I love reading the most are those that discuss current features being developed, upcoming planned additions to the core and other kinds improvements to WordPress and the WP community. Reading the dev chat summaries from the official WordPress Development blog get me damn near giddy sometimes. I’ve even found myself diving deep into development discussions, where previously I might have skimmed a bit and then gone back to Facebook before my eyes rolled into the back of my head. But there are just too many cool things happening in the WordPress community right now, I feel like I need to have more and more information.
I’d like to share a few of things I’m excited about right now in the world of WordPress. Some of these are coming up very soon (WordPress 3.0 is on schedule to be released in April) while some might be rolled out over the course of the year, or maybe even next year. But even the fact that discussions are taking place is very exciting for a WordPress dork like me.
We’ve decided to dedicate this pre-pre-Valentine’s Day week to something which we all love around these parts: WordPress! Every day this week we’ll be bringing you a kickass post about the blogging platform/content management system we all know and love and share and obsess about. So put on your Wordcamp T-shirt, pour yourself some coffee in your WordPress Footed Bistro Mug and enjoy.
I just found out about this site today, and I really dig the idea! Humble Pied features interviews with creatives (check out the latest post which features Aaron Draplin) over iChat. The advice they share is geared towards recent graduates and folks still finding their way in the industry.
The presentation is super clean and the idea is simple : “One inspiring creative sharing one piece of advice, all over iChat.” Go check it out for yourself!
Marqui – A hosted proprietary system, which wasn’t terrible, but definitely was not worth the money and developing for it seemed to be a pain. I averaged 10 calls a month from two sites that had been live for years.
MS/MS – An open source solution that served the purpose of a basic CMS with the best price around (FREE!). The only problem was that it was difficult to use from an Admin perspective, and was not as flexible for developers to be a truly powerful CMS.
Contribute – A trimmed down version of Dreamweaver by Adobe sold on Amazon and came in a real box. I won’t go into those forgotten nightmares too deeply, but let’s just say the software in the box had about as much value as an old AOL CD. The amount of time wasted trying to get this software to function as it was billed to could have been used to go to Mars by now.
Kubrick: klassic, but old and krusty
