According to Google:

“We recognized there was a need for a Google icon that would better work across multiple applications including web, mobile and client applications. We felt the small ‘g’ had many of the characteristics that best represent our brand: it’s simple, playful, and unique. We will be looking to improve and enhance this icon as we move forward.”

Simple, playful and unique? That’s not the impression I have of Google at all. Am I missing something?

What do you think? Big G or little g?

Here are some iterations of the Google Favicon:

Read more about it here.

1. Your employees treat me about as well as you treat them.
2. I don’t understand a lot of the messages you send me. Can you make them clearer?
3. The wealthier I get, the more I like free stuff.
4. I don’t understand how to use your Web site, but I can’t admit that because it would make me feel dumb.
5. Our relationship isn’t equal and it never will be.
6. I hate salespeople, but I really like to buy things.
7. I want you to do the hard work for me. Even better if I can get all the credit.
8. I have the attention span of a goldfish. Go too long without contacting me and I’ll simply forget you exist.
9. embarrassment scares me more than death.
10. I believe I deserve much more than I’m getting.
11. I don’t know what I want most of the time. You need to figure it out for me.
12. It really is all about me.

If you knew, really knew, these 50 things about your customers, and acted accordingly, you’d gain their trust and even their love. After all, who doesn’t want to be loved despite all our flaws and embarrassing insecurities? The better you understand both the noble and not-so-noble secrets in your customers’ consciousness, the better you can serve them.

Read more.

It’s no wonder more and more agents are turning to the web to generate qualified leads. Because of the current market slump agents are spending less money on newspaper classified ads. Agents and brokers are now realizing that their ad dollars pay off more when they invest in their own websites. Investing in their own websites they own and control makes more sense.

If you plan on being in business in the next 5 – 10 years now is the time to get a website.

It’s getting harder and harder to obtain top rankings on search engines like Google. Being on the first page of any search engine when someone searches for keywords related to your business is not a random occurrence. Google and the other major search engines like Yahoo and MSN have complicated algorithms that determine who is on that first page when you search. Do you want to know what one of the factors they use to determine who should rank where?

It’s how old a website is.

That means sites that have been online longer take precedence over newer sites. It’s a fact. That means if you are not already online you are losing precious leads to those who are. A websites age is only one of a hundred or more factors that play a role in where a website ranks however. It takes more than just being online or having an older website then your competitors.

Just having a website is no longer enough.

Many businesses offering website design to agents are offering inferior, quick DIY websites that are built from templates. So your website looks like a lot of other agents websites and are built around outdated technology that makes your website immediately less favorably to the major search engines. There are several reasons for this.

They simply can’t see your content.

Online content is king and many DIY sites and even expensive website designs are designed using a technology called “Frames” which means your content is separated from the main site which makes your content basically invisible to search engines. See my post Real Estate Websites with No Frames for more info. Your content, the text on your website is a huge factor in how search engines know what your website is even about.

It’s better to be unique.

A majority of real estate website design agencies offer cheap alternatives so you can start building your website immediately online. They offer template based designs that even though might look enticing have a negative drawback – they are cookie cutter designs. The search engines can tell who is unique by what is commonly referred to as a “foot print” which a site leaves. Websites based on templates have a foot print you don’t want to have. Unique is better if you ever want to rank for your keywords and generate leads.

You have less control over your website.

When you choose a company who offers inexpensive website alternatives you are giving up your freedom to control many things you should have control over. Sure, you might be able to update colors, text and even images but there are a lot of things that you cannot control that are important to your websites rankings. Things like Meta tags, page titles, site structure and more. All which play a big role in where your website ranks in search engines.

This is where I can help you.

I can design your website so that it is unique, fully editable and found by search engines – a site that will continue to bring you qualified leads for years to come.

When you have me design your website you will receive the highest quality design — one that meets current web standards and is completely accessible by searchers searching Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Even though your website will be editable we offer complete maintenance programs to boot, just in case your not comfortable editing your own site.

And I don’t stop there.

I offer complete search engine placement services so that you rank for the keywords you need to be found under. After your website is designed I put into effect techniques for gaining top positions for your website.

This includes content creation, link building, article marketing, press release writing and more. It is a complicated process which I have mastered over the last 5 years.

See for yourself. You can check the rankings of www.bleschandassociates.com on Google right now. Just search for Redlands Real Estate, Yucaipa Real Estate or even San Bernardino Real Estate.

If you would like these types of positions – ones that will bring you qualified leads 24 hours a day please contact me. I am here to help.

If you’d like to view more real estate site I’ve designed please check out my web design portfolio.

But Why only 90 seconds?

While this might seem like an arbitrary limit, we thought long and hard about how video would complement the flickrverse. If you’ve memorized the Community Guidelines, you know that Flickr is all about sharing photos that you yourself have taken. Video will be no different and so what quickly bubbled up was the idea of “long photos,” of capturing slices of life to share.

I think it’s a great way to get more exposure if you’re a photographer. Bring along your video camera on your next shoot and film yourself taking photos. I can definitely see videos popping up with wannabe models posing, covert product endorsements, etc though.

Video on Flickr is going to be defined by our incredible, diverse, far-flung and fabulously talented members. Some answers that we’ve come up with:

1. A long photo
2. Personal
3. Simple – not overproduced or slick
4. Possibly the best answer so far: The Great Unknown

Personals?

Hmmmmmmm. I can already see this as not good for Flickr. Hopefully they can keep it under control.

Check out the Flickr blog and also their video faq

W3Markup Provides:

• Pixel-precise PSD conversion (PSD to HTML)to CSS / XHTML by hand (W3C Valid)
• CSS / HTML implementation into skins, themes, CMS, shopping carts or other software
• “Re-slicing” of existing sites (bring old code up-to-date)

With:

• AJAX, sIFR, swfIR, mootools, script.aculo.us, jQuery, Prototype code,
• Search engine friendly / semantic code,
• Usability, accessibility and page weight optimization,
• Cross Browser / Platform Compatibility { FF 1.5+, Safari 2+, IE 6+ },
• 100% control of code style and preferences via our order form,
• Easy online project management via our intranet

They can convert your Adobe Illustrator, Fireworks or Photoshop artwork into CSS / (X)HTML code for you! They handle it all: AJAX / JavaScript, CSS, (X)HTML, CSS drop-downs / flyouts, mouseovers, file optimization saving you time and headaches at a fair price.

They have a super easy to use order form where you can select all the options you want.

They have a ton of options available covering everything one would need. You can even deliver your website template to cells, Sony PSP, Nintendo Wii, Blackberries and other PDAs.

You’ll have to visit their order form to check out all the options available to you, but if you are curious if they handle the javascript functionality as well. You can see they support every major javascript library available.

Preferred JavaScript Library

Select the JavaScript Library you prefer them to work with if your project requires advanced scripting functionality.

• mootools
• script.aculo.us
• jQuery
• Prototype
• Mochikit
• Dojo
• None

Software Implementation

W3Markup can convert your PSD to be implemented into various blog, content management, shopping cart and portal software (scripts) packages.

Templates

• DreamWeaver Template $39
• Server Side Includes $19

Blog

• Blogger $179
• Movabletype $279
• WordPress $279

Shopping Carts (e-commerce)

• CubeCart $279
• Shopify $329
• X-Cart $329

Content Management Systems

• Drupal $279
• Expression Engine $279
• Pligg $279
• Mambo $279
• Symphony $279
• Textpattern $279
• Typo3 $379

Frameworks

• Joomla $279
• SMC $279

Forums

• phpBB $199
• vBulletin $279

Other

• MySpace Profile $199
• Email template $299

They can also convert PSD’s into these Content Management Systems / Frameworks / Portals »

(starting from $400)

Apache lenya, Ariadne, Bitweaver, e107, eZPublish, CleverCOPY, CMS from Scratch, CMS Made Simple, Cofax, Collaborative Portal Server, ContentNOW, osCommerse, Dotnetnuke, Dragonfly, easy Portal, Elxis CMS, Etomite, exponent, Flux CMS, Fundanemt, fuzzlime, Geeklog, Jahia, Jaws, jLibrary, Krang, Managee, MasonCM, MDPro, Microsoft Office SharePoint, Midgard CMS, MMBase, Magento, MODx, MySource, OpenACS, OpenCMS, Ovidentia, Pheap, PHP-Fusion, PHP comasy, PHProjekt, PHPnuke, PHP Website, Pivot, Plume, PostNuke, rubrics, runcms, silverstripe, SiteFrame, SlashCode, SPIP, SyntaxCMS, TRIBIQ, ttCMS, TypoLight, V2 CMS, WebGUI, Website Baker, Xaraya, Xepient Open-Point, XOOPS, YACS, YaWPS, Virb, Zope / elevateIT / Silva

If you are looking for an easy way to have your artwork turned into a website template then look no further then W3Markup.com.  Their easy to use order form makes it a snap.

David Carson is my favorite designer and here he is in the documentary about the font Helvetica.

There are 3 other videos on David Carson over at ilovedesign.com - enjoy!

Oh and if find any interest in Typography and Helvetica be sure to check out the Helvetica documentary if you haven’t already. Very good stuff…

Sounded interesting… and the video looked cool. Check it out:

So after installing it I came up with this screenshot of my desktop:

Looks pretty damn cool… so I created a flickr group if you happen to decide to take a screenshot of your desktop and want to share it: Kaze Desktop Screenshots

Let me know what you think and upload a screenshot if you test it out.

View their page to download it. There is a free trial. It only works with windows.

Anyone remotely familiar with hot rods knows who Boyd Coddington is and surely will be sad to see he has passed away. I can’t believe it myself. I regularly catch “American Hot Rod” on tv here in Norway when I can. It’s always cool to see what they are working on.

Boyd has built some of the sweetest hot rods in existence and is world renowned for his custom hot rods. Some of which you can see below. He will be greatly missed. You can read more about his passing here.