St. Petersburg Web Design Blog

A lot of graphic designers and web designers have been thrust into the video editing arena lately with the rise in popularity of video viewed on the web. While most of them just say “I don’t edit video” (I even heard one say that videos can’t be edited by anyone except a film studio or TV studio - liar!), others are willing to learn. I’m fairly good at it myself, but it’s always a complicated procedure and there are no shortcuts. Here’s a perfect example of how not to edit a video to remove something you’d rather not have the viewer see.

Again, there are no shortcuts. It takes expensive software, patience, alot of tedium from someone willing to spend the time on it and lot’s of computer processor time.

Everyone who’s been embedding flash into a web page for a while remembers last year when Microsoft changed their browser in response to loosing a patent -infringement lawsuit. And then they changed it again soon after because the first change was so awful (Warnings everywhere!). What they ended up with - that white border that appears around a flash object when it is hovered over and must be clicked on before the movie can be clicked on - isn’t very graceful, but it what it is and there’s no way around it for a web designer.

It may seem like, or even be, a blatant and desperate attempt to get people to stop using the non-microsoft technologies like flash, java, etc. But yet we as web designer must come up with a Internet Explorer Active Content Fix. You could choose to follow the instruction from the new owners of Flash, here’s a link to Adobe’s Active Content Update Fix. But dues that’s like 6 long scripts that you need to choose for your particular

You could write your own solutions. In theory it’s pretty easy, for JavaScript writers, just document.write your normal code in. For php programers just echo it in. etc.

But here’s what I’ve been doing lately. Since I almost always use DreamWeaverMX 2004 on web sites, I found a nice Dreamweaver extension called the Softery IE Flash Problem Solver. It inserts a command that works simply. It only has two options, Fix the IE Active Content Update Problem on the current open document or on all pages with flash in the current local site. It works quickly and perfectly every time.

Don’t ya love it when something works just like it should?

First impressions really do count, especially for web sites according to the Behavior and Information Technology journal. According to a study they’ve just released, a web user makes up his or her mind, thumbs up or thumbs down, within less than a twentieth of a second.

This could explain a lot of pages that mysteriously have high “Bounce Rates.” While the researchers couldn’t seem to pinpoint the reasons for poor or positive ratings by these viewers, they were able to determine that the results weren’t random. They flashed some of the sites on screen more than once and they consistently got, well, consistent ratings.

The lesson learned? If a page has a high bounce rate, try changing it’s look.

Read the quoted news story

What’s new in my life?

Well since my new job as a web desinger at Results Driven Marketing, I’m feeling more fufilled and busier. I knew I had what it takes to do thhis for a living! You can check out some of my work on our proofing site at: IzonDesign.com.

Ok we (my fiance’ and I, that is), got a new cat. We adopted him from some cat rescue thjing. He’s less than a year old and he likes us. His name is Spooky. I’ll post some photos later.