The task?
Premier Prints Ltd, needed a complete shopping solution for their new business selling personalised goods on-line.
They wanted something to manage the orders, the design process and be in complete control of the users experience.

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Technology?
Dreamweaver CS5
Photoshop CS5

View this website in action

In late 2007, Google engineers set out to test a hunch.

For about a million oblivious users, the company throttled back the delivery of search results by 100 to 400 milliseconds for several weeks. Less than half a second is barely perceptible, but the results were unmistakable.

Use of the search engine dropped by 0.2 to 0.6 percent on average during the experiment, worsening as it went on.

If 0.6 percent sounds trivial, consider this: Had search advertising dropped off commensurately, and there’s every reason to believe it would have, the delay would have cost Google about $900 million in revenue last year.

The lesson: Speed matters. A lot.

That’s why the Mountain View company is dedicating huge resources to an audacious goal: the instantaneous Internet, an experience every bit as immediate as traditional media.

“Browsing should actually feel like flipping the pages of a magazine,” said Bill Coughran, senior vice president of engineering at Google. “The Web, in general, is very far away from that.”

Google believes that the more it can turbocharge its products, and the Internet itself, the more people will search, surf, watch videos, download music and engage in other activities that will become possible as the Web breaks new speed barriers. (Massive multiplayer holographic video games anyone?)

Google is by no means the only company promoting a faster Web, but as the dominant Internet business, it’s using its industry clout and bank account to goad webmasters, Internet service providers and even users to tighten the nuts and bolts of today’s Internet, and to think big about tomorrow’s.

“Other companies maybe pay lip service to this, but they don’t take it to the lengths that Google takes it,” said Ray Valdes, an analyst with Gartner. “Their view is that if the Web wins, Google wins.”

There are considerable challenges, however, to accelerating overall online speeds in meaningful ways. In fact, by some measures, the United States isn’t even making much progress.

The capacity of average Internet connections has increased by more than 74 times since 1996 in the United States, as more and more people upgraded from dial-up to DSL or cable, according to research by Aptimize, which creates software to improve website speed.

But consider a site like White house.gov. During that same time period, as the once simple site was loaded down with pictures and graphics, its size swelled by 54 times.

For the end user, the experience might be more enjoyable and informative, but it isn’t appreciably faster.

Once broadband customers outstripped dial-up users, “Website developers suddenly said, ‘We’re free. We don’t have to worry about developing pages that have to load fast,’ ” said Ed Robinson, chief executive of Aptimize.

It doesn’t help that the Internet highways are particularly shoddy in the United States. In the first quarter, the average connection speed was 4.7 megabits per second, ranking 16th globally. South Korea led the list with rates more than twice that.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/03/BULB1FL2BT.DTL#ixzz11Nltk04N

The task?

Foran Entertainment were looking to expand their current marketing material. We were tasked with creating an edgy look to their flyers.

The new look is unique, fresh and eye catching.

Technology?

Photoshop CS4

What they said?

We love our new marketing materials, it has given us an edge over the competition.  We’re now ready to take on the anything!

Microsoft today announced that Office for Mac 2011 will launch on October 26th, with pre-orders available through Amazon beginning today. The company also posted one final behind-the-scenes video from the Office for Mac team, highlighting speed improvements, dynamic reordering of layers in documents and presentations, and full screen view improvements.

Macworld has already published reviews for the new versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, finding the suite to be a significant improvement over Office for Mac 2008, although not without a few issues.

Word for Mac 2011 brings more than 30 new features and improvements, with Macworld finding that it offers the same look and feel as its Windows counterpart, but “more refined and better organized”. A solid implementation of the Ribbon toolbar, new enterprise tools, Spotlight integration, the return of Visual Basic for Applications, and speed enhancements all contribute to a vastly improved experience.

The bottom line is this: Microsoft Word for Mac no longer feels like a second-string word processing program in the Microsoft Office suite. It is in fact a powerful tool for creating all your personal and business documents and for collaborating with others. More importantly, Word 2011 now makes it possible to insert a Mac into nearly any business environment and offer Mac users the same set of features found in Word for Windows, without compromise.

Macworld calls Excel for Mac 2011 a bigger step forward than either the 2004 or 2008 version, with the shift to the Ribbon toolbar, macro support, sparklines, conditional formatting improvements, table improvements, and new sharing and protection features all making a significant difference for many users. Macworld did, however, find some uneven performance, particularly some slowness in scrolling, although Microsoft claims that the slowdown was intentional due to complaints from users about it being too fast in earlier versions. Excel 2011 also departs from the traditional Mac experience with its uses of custom dictionary and thesaurus, lack of support for Services, and other minor inconsistencies.

Should you upgrade to Excel 2011 if you’re using an older version? I definitely think so. The new interface and improved functionality make short work of even large projects, while the protection and sharing features make it easier to work with others – both on the Mac and on that “other” platform. There are only a few negatives with Excel 2011. I feel scrolling has been overly slowed down, the live window resizing is jumpy, and the lack of support for Services is troubling, as that’s an OS X feature that I rely on daily. However, these things are not big enough issues to really affect Excel’s performance and features – the program just works, and has many new features and improvements that spreadsheet users have been asking for. Excel 2011 is a solid program for anyone whose work involves a heavy dose of spreadsheet duty.

Finally, PowerPoint for Mac 2011 is again seen as a significant improvement over its predecessor with the Ribbon toolbar, dynamic layer ordering, and enhanced media options making their debut. Animations now offer new features such as motion paths, but lack an advanced timeline for coordinating multiple animations and fail to offer several useful animation options found in Apple’s Keynote.

Source Mac Rumours

It didn’t take long, and nobody was surprised, but the iPhone versus Android battle has heated to a level that has become nothing short of a “mine’s bigger than yours” match from both sides.

Here’s the fact – neither Apple nor Google are going to “win” this supposed battle. Sure, they’re both in competition with each other, but the threat to both sides is something that likely doesn’t even exist yet. Getting down to brass tacks, both for the mobile phone and tablet markets, each platform has its strengths and weaknesses.

Phones

When the iPhone hit the market, there was no doubting that it changed the face of what we would come to expect from our phones. It wasn’t going to be good enough, any more, to simply have a phone that could also play music or maybe had a QWERTY keyboard. From that day forward, a new bar was put in place, not just raised from an existing point.

Following in the style that is typically reserved for Apple, Google brought the Android OS to the market after someone else (Apple) had released a near-perfect platform. Where Apple will typically start sparse and then add features once they’re perfected, Google took that path with Android. Though nobody is foolish enough to believe that Android is perfect, Google took its time and made sure that it brought to life an operating system that was at least competitive.

Over the past year, we’ve seen the two companies bounce back and forth with features, numbers and claims against each other. There is no other major competition right now, so each remains laser focused on its counterpart.

Tablets

Apple was the first company to bring a viable tablet to the market. Say what you will about the other offerings, but nothing has had nearly the success as the iPad, and that’s not due only to Apple fanboys. The device is good, and very few can deny that with any sort of proof.

Google, inadvertently, has entered the tablet market as well. The recent looks at Android-based slates have added validity to the competition, and will prove to be the first “real” choice to be offered.

The problem, of course, comes in that fact of inadvertent. Google has stated, with no uncertainty, that Android is not the ideal choice for a tablet OS. However, it won’t stop the tablets from coming to market and it shouldn’t stop their success – it’s likely that only carriers and poor pricing schemes will be able to do that.

The Carrier Conundrum

There is no doubt in my mind that this story could have been dramatically different if the carriers would have played a better role. Apple’s single biggest mistake was to release the iPhone exclusively to AT&T in the US. Verizon is raping the Android OS to the point of being unrecognizable and Samsung is releasing a “top of the line” device with an out-of-date version of the operating system.

In order to get past the mess that the carriers have created, manufacturers need to stand up and be counted. Thus far, Apple has been a bit better about this than Google, but it has still failed miserably (at least in the US market)

The Future

It’s time to stop the argument about iPhone versus Android. It’s a futile effort, driven by obnoxious voices from both sides. The real question, at this point, is “who’s next?” We’re continuing to see offerings from RIM, Nokia is still making some of the best looking devices in the world (with the worst OS) and there are upstart companies that still have a chance with ideas of their own.

Article

Hardware manufacturers liberally take cues from Apple products, so why not its approach to customers?
For the seventh straight year, Apple has topped its competitors in the PC industry in the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), achieving a score of 86 out of 100. Its Apple’s highest ranking since the annual survey began in 1995.

But the real story is how much further ahead of its peers Apple is in this area: most of the rest of the field (Acer, Dell, HP, and others) is tied with a score of 77, while HP’s Compaq brand is ranked 74. All of the PC makers improved their scores this year, but it didn’t help them collectively avoid sinking further behind Apple. The Mac maker’s nine-point lead is now the largest lead any company has over its competition in any of the 45 categories that the ACSI study surveys–including home appliances, gas stations, autos, e-commerce, airlines, and more.
Apple’s lead, while not insurmountable, can be attributed to a few things, including a lineup of products that is broad yet connected, a meticulously controlled retail experience, and a very particular brand of leadership at the top. It’s not just notoriously good customer service, said David VanAmburg, managing editor of the ACSI, though that helps.
“I think it’s a commitment to innovating and integrating products. Apple is still somewhat uniquely positioned with Macs, the iPad, iPhone, and the iPod,” he said. “There’s a plethora of IT products that have been integrated together easily, and Apple has been able to capture ‘IT’ writ large, rather than just personal computers.”
That is to say Apple, in comparison to its competitors making PCs, has an ecosystem of hardware connected by its own software, iOS, iTunes, and Mac OS X. Apple has total control over its products and has been able to branch out to other types of devices beyond desktops and laptops. PC makers are somewhat beholden to the product cycles of Microsoft and are seen as just that, PC makers–not consumer device makers.
So why aren’t they copying Apple? HP actually is beginning to take steps in this direction. By buying Palm, it’s looking to integrate mobile devices like phones and tablets into its larger ecosystem of laptops and printers. But other large PC makers like Dell and Acer are not there yet.

The Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in New York City is one of the company’s flagship stores in terms of both customer traffic and architecture and design.
(Credit: Marguerite Reardon/CNET)
“It’s taken a long time for other manufacturers to see the benefits that Apple is getting from this,” VanAmburg said. “We may be seeing it a bit with HP going out and grabbing Palm, getting into the handheld business and integrating (WebOS) within its systems.”
“There is some movement in the industry now beyond Apple to grow past this thinking of the PC per se, but I think the industry has been slower to do it,” he added. “But there’s a reluctance to go down that route.”
Face time with people and products
Apple Stores are the best example of what makes it different from its peers and are illustrative of the company’s approach.
The retail stores are one of the most important ways people interact with Apple. Not just for those who are already customers but potential customers–sometimes more than 50 million customers tromp through Apple’s doors every three months, and half of them who make purchases are first-timers, according to Apple.
There are 230 Apple stores worldwide right now, mostly in the U.S., but growing in major world capitals, like London, Paris, and Shanghai. Everything about the store is intended to represent what it is like to own and use an Apple product: Apple controls the whole experience, from the limited range of products on the shelves, to the training of the young, intentionally geeky/hip employees, to the manner in which some stores are designed with architectural flourishes normally reserved for museums, to the tech support received at the Genius Bar, to the educational classes offered in stores for using Apple products.
PC companies have dabbled in retail with varying results. Microsoft’s current experiment in retail–which borrows from Apple’s retail look and feel–is still small: four stores right now, with a few more planned. Dell’s foray was brief, and Gateway did well for a number of years until calling it quits before eventually being sold to Acer.
Retail stores are expensive to maintain, but it can define a company’s brand and dictate how customers interact with a company. Apple takes that task on itself, in addition to selling its products online and through some third-party retailers. PC makers either rely on the direct approach on the Web or trust a salesperson to properly present their product at Best Buy, Fry’s, MicroCenter and others, or just leave it up to the consumer wandering the aisles at Wal-Mart or Costco.
Putting the customer first
A lot of that “reluctance” to embrace Apple’s well-regarded approach to customers that VanAmburg spoke of may come down to the roots of these companies. Some are much more technically oriented than customer oriented, which has a sizable effect on how they prioritize, said Ira Kalb, clinical marketing professor at the USC Marshall School of Business.
“The reason that a lot of these companies don’t copy Apple’s customer service is they don’t realize how important it is, that’s the big one,” Kalb said. “They look at it as a cost rather than a return on investment item.”
Though it sounds obvious that the customer being taken care of should be a primary concern for any company dealing in consumer goods, it’s not always followed, he said. “A lot of these computer companies in particular were started and run by technical people, who are notorious for caring about technology over customers.”
Things like customer service, marketing, and making technology easier to understand for nontechnical people can make or break a customer’s perception of a company. Apple’s customer service, which is perennially ranked highly, is illustrative of the differences.

Apple was able to save face with customers by giving away free cases to iPhone 4 owners after complaints arose regarding its antenna.
(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)
The other major difference between Apple and the rest of the field is that no other company is as subject to a singular vision. At Apple, the only person whose opinion really matters in the end is Steve Jobs, and that goes for product decisions as well as how the company is run. That doesn’t work for everyone. At most large companies, there are competing agendas and fiefdoms that compete for resources and weigh in with differing visions on products. Jobs’ leadership style cuts that out.
It’s not that Apple does everything right of course. The most recent example is “antennagate,” which developed out of customers’ distaste for the way Apple handled problems related to the antenna design of the iPhone 4.
Apple’s initially condescending response to the issue was eventually addressed by the offer of a free case for iPhone 4 customers, though not without obvious annoyance on Apple’s part. Still, the lesson was a useful one for a company that already handles its customer interactions mostly well, said Kalb. And it could be why the company continues to improve in its customer satisfaction index despite such hiccups.
“I think (Jobs) was shocked by the antennagate reaction,” he said. “But I think that woke them up further.”

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20017064-260.html#ixzz108t7bofJ

In an effort to compete with services like Facebook, Yelp and Foursquare, Google is preparing to distribute millions of custom mobile devices to small businesses around the U.S., says a source with knowledge of the program. These devices will allow customers to check-in and rate the businesses and perhaps even purchase items via Google Checkout. Eight million of the devices will be distributed, says the source.

Another source has said the 8 million devices figure may be significantly higher than the actual number of devices being rolled out.

Google clearly wants to get a lead in the potentially very lucrative local business market for both checkins (Foursquare, Facebook) and reviews (Yelp). Online to offline commerce is “a trillion dollar opportunity.” Money spent at coffee shops, bars, gyms, restaurants, gas stations, plumbers, dry-cleaners, and hair salons, etc. makes up a very large percentage of overall spending, and online services want a piece of that. Yelp touches this world, as does Foursquare and others. Groupon’s growth can be attributed to the huge untapped potential in local online to offline promotions as well.

Google wants their piece.

The devices will presumably allow customers to check in to businesses, leave reviews and possibly even purchase items via Google checkout. But there’s a lot we don’t know. We’ve heard that Google will give these first devices away for free, but we don’t know if they’d plan to charge once the product is more established, for example.

We’ll update as we get more information. We’ve reached out to Google for comment.

Source

Steve Jobs told the AllThingsD audience a few months ago that the reason no one including Google and Apple have been successful in the TV space is that they lacked a successful ‘Go to market TV strategy’.

Apple has that strategy. They’ve been working on it since the original iPhone release three years ago. But you won’t find much of it on their website touting the new AppleTV.

The new AppleTV in its current form is basically a Roku box that streams content from various places on the Web. It does Netflix, iTunes, Youtube photo albums, etc. and it also can stream media from computers around the house. It costs a paltry $99. That is close enough to the ‘almost free’ that Steve Jobs talks about above. But it isn’t really bringing all of the video on the Internet to your TV is it?

Sure, you can search YouTube directly from the AppleTV. But it is a hassle too pull over YouTube URLs when you find something cool while browsing the web with your iPad?

The stated use above isn’t how people are going to use their AppleTVs the majority of the time. In fact, what’s on Apple’s site right now is a red herring. This will be just one way people use AppleTV. I think a much bigger use will be what puts these in almost every house in America – or at least gives it the market share that the iPod enjoys.

AppleTV is a Airplay-compatible device, meaning it can stream video/sound from other Apple devices. We found out last night that it isn’t just iTunes content that it will be able to broadcast. Any H.264 content from the web can be broadcast over Airplay to your HDTV.

That includes any video that can play on your iOS 4.2 device, like: Facebook video, YouTube, Netflix, Videos, BBC News, MLB and really anything else you can watch on your iOS device. That also includes videos built into Apps and magazine subscriptions too. All of this can be beamed to your AppleTV via Airplay.

Source

As we heard tonight, Facebook has officially launched Places, the social network’s location-based platform. We know what Places will mean for Facebook users. Users will be able to check-in to Places (created by both people and businesses) via the web or through mobile apps. And the feature has an API so partners like Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and Booyah can allow their users to check-in to Facebook’s places.

But what does this mean for businesses? Interestingly, Facebook seems to actively be targeting advertisers on the network. It is already distributing a how-to guide for registering a Place page for their businesses, the benefits and more. You can find the guide here and we’ve embedded the document below.

Facebook is wasting no time encouraging advertisers to start registering their businesses. The social network may be starting from behind, but it wants to ramp up its directory quickly and is encouraging advertisers to create their own Places Here’s how Facebook markets Places to advertisers in its how-to guide:

Places creates a presence for your business’s physical store locations- encouraging your customers to share that they’ve visited your business by “checking in” to your Place. When your customer checks into your Place, these check-in stories can generate powerful, organic impressions in friends’ News Feeds, extending your brand’s reach to new customers.

Of course, many advertisers and businesses may be confused about the need for both a Page and a Place. But those can be merged. However, Facebook says that not all advertiser Pages and Places can be merged at this time and those businesses who should merge, will be contacted directly by Facebook.

One incentive that Facebook is using to encourage businesses to create a Places page is advertising. Facebook says that “Once you claim your Place, you’ll be able to advertise it just as you advertise your Facebook Page. To advertise your Place, click “I want to advertise something I have on Facebook” in the ad creation flow and choose your Place from the drop-down menu.” Advertising is completely self serve and seems fairly simple. Currently, you cannot target people who check-in to your Place, but a business can target people who ‘Like’ your Place page if you have performed a Page to Place merge.