Between work, play and everything in between, we strive to sharpen our skills here at Circumerro. To remain experts in our respective fields—whether we manage accounts, design visuals, craft copy, write code or sell publications—we’re all committed to a school of life-long education.
Our programmer Mark Wright recently became a PHP5 Zend Certified Engineer.
In a recent blog post, Doug Mack of Adobe Scene7 provides some sage advice (in the Jan 27th post) on the importance of Web Video in eCommerce. Specifically, he refers to the use of Scene7 on the Cloudveil website to cleverly mix skiing eye candy in with soft touches on product features. The argument is that the audience is captivated by the oh-so relevant content and consequently drawn in, to A) learn more about the brand and its products or B) strengthen an already existing brand affinity that leads to more purchases down the road. Can we say “conversions”?
You are preaching to the choir, Doug, and we couldn’t agree more. We are constantly pushing the power of video, and love nothing more than helping our clients incorporate it successfully in their projects. From Web projects including Cloudveil and the Town of Taboro, to business profiles on Jackson Hole Roasters and the 4UR Fly Fishing Program, video and rich media are setting the curve. The question, are you on board or behind the times?
Programmers are a logical bunch. No need to start from scratch every time when there are proven and reliable solutions already out there, right? One of the mantras floating around the Circumerro office is: “the Internet was founded on the principle of sharing.” If you have information that’s relevant, make it known. We work smarter, not harder.
If you are still searching for a New Year’s resolution, try this one on for size: dump Internet Explorer 6. Not only will you see (blogged) shouts of joy, you’ll be looking out for your own computing safety and increasing the efficiency of millions of programmers around the world. The scoop:
• IE6 was released in 2001 but fails to even properly support the CSS 1.0 standard from 1996.
• IE6 prevents the rest of the world from experiencing the full potential of new features and technology associated with up-to-date browsers
• The extra coding programmers are forced to develop for working around IE6 wastes time and potential
• IE6 is a security risk, leaving you vulnerable to viruses, trojans, phishing attacks and other unwanted headaches
There is no legitimate reason IE6 should be around anymore, yet as of December ’08, it still held roughly 20% of total browser market share. The grip is loosening, but it needs a final kick out of cyberspace. Upgrade to IE7 here, but its reviews aren’t exactly rave either. And within the year, IE8, now in beta version, should be complete and we’ll be programming for two obsolete browsers. GMail has recently stopped supporting IE6 on it’s lab features.
If you are shopping for an alternative, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome and Safari are all excellent browser choices, and free.