A sneak peak at Adobe’s signature product PhotoShop CS5 shows that the product has once again gone to a new level of providing productivity features that make design and photo editing easy and fast. The product is reported to be released on Monday, April 12, 2010. A full feature set of updates has not been released for all products, but is this preview is an example of what is to come in PhotoShop than we can’t wait to see what the rest of the Creative Suite 5 has in store!!!

Have you been stuck in the situation of trying to determine what the exact RGB or PMS color of an image is? Website designers and graphic designers know the importance of color when it comes to branded images such as logos. It is important to stay consistent. Color Cop is a program that runs from your desktop or laptop and can identify any on screen color.

The tool couldn’t be easier to use. You simply grab the eye dropper icon and drag it across the screen to the exact pixel of color that you are trying to identify. Color Cop then displays the hexadecimal RGB color. You can then use the color chart interface to change the color within the Adobe CS like color wheel.
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Monday, January 18, 2010 - UPDATE - the there has now been over 2.1 million text message donations received and over $21 million raised for Haiti Relief Efforts.

Thursday, January 14, 2010 – The Red Cross has now raised over $3 million dollars through their text message campaign to help Haiti. By sending the text “Haiti” to 90999 you can donate $10 which is backed by the United States State Department. The text charge will be applied directly to your monthly cell phone bill.

The mobile fundraising effort was started on January 12, 2010 shortly after a devastating earthquake struck Haiti killing and injuring thousands.
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Pepsi will not be running ads during the Super Bowl for the first time in 23 years. Instead, the company plans to focus their marketing efforts in online ads. The company spent $15 million in Super Bowl ads last year on Pepsi alone (they also own Gatorade, Frito-Lay, Cheetos, etc.).

If a company with a marketing budget the size of Pepsi has realized that there is more value in spending with online ads than with Super Bowl ads, then it is clear that online marketing is starting to become the primary source for reaching potential customers.
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Here is a great gift idea if you are searching during the holiday season – Toms Shoes. Founded by Blake Mycoskie, Toms Shoes is a for profit company. Their business model is very simple: For every pair of shoes you buy, they give a pair away to a child in need around the world. This business was launched in 2006 and has already turned a profit and demonstrated that their philanthropic business model is a success. The idea of the business is very simple and was started after Mycosckie vacationed in Argentina and recognized the need for kids who did not have shoes.

The marketing strategy for Toms is very different than any other clothing or shoe company. Because of the nature of the business which involves giving, Toms Shoes is marketed very well by word-of-mouth advertising.
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Crown Point Design was recently recognized by Google as a favorite location on Google Maps. We received a letter from Google that included a 5×7 decal that is meant to be placed in your storefront window. On the decal there is a unique 1×1 inch bar code that can be scanned by a Smartphone by curious shoppers. After scanning the bar code they will be directed to the company local listing on Google that includes things like store description, hours of operation, and customer reviews.

This unique technology is part of what Google Maps is developing as a ‘Favorite Places’ feature.
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In a recent study by eMarketer, the most popular and rapidly adopted personal technology in the world is mobile devices. There are an estimated 4.6 billion subscribes worldwide who account for nearly 70 percent of the world’s population.  Of the top countries include the US, Brazil, Russia, India, and China and this industry has seen significant growth in every year of this decade.

Gartner, a leading market research provider, predicts that by 2013 nearly half of all worldwide mobile phones will be smart phones with the ability to access the internet.
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Google has recently rolled out new functionality in Google Maps to help find homes for sale. According to a post on the Google Australia Blog, “Some of us have been working on a particularly interesting project that combines Google Maps and search technology – we’ve been trying to work out if your search query in Google Maps means you’re interested in having current real estate listings returned to you.” Full article

Try typing “real estate [my zip code]” into a Google Maps search query and see what happens…
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The way the internet is being used around the world is about to change with the announcement that non-Latin domain names have been approved and fast-tracked for early-mid 2010. Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), is the governing body behind domain names, internet protocol addresses, and many other aspects of the Net. ICANN has has discussed the topic of International Domain Names or IDNs for several years and has finally made plans to make this possible.

This means that you will see domain names in Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and manty other languages that are non-Latin.
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Many people are not aware that different web browsers may display your website differently if it is not properly coded in the back end. Internet Explorer (IE), Mozilla Firefox, Safari, and Google Chrome are some of the top browsers in terms of market share (96.9% of the market in Sept. 09 according to w3schools.com). The issue is that there is no set of standards for how the browser displays all aspects of your web page’s HTML code. Some browsers make assumptions about HTML code that is not defined while others do not. This can create very big issues for poorly designed websites. Users may be taken back when things are out of place or the template gets distorted in a way outside of the designer’s initial intent.

The way to test is easy, pull up your website in each of the 4 major browsers and look for any differences in the page design. A well coded website should not display any differences. If you come across major elements of a page being out of place, it is directly related to a poorly coded website.
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