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Review: Ghostery for Firefox works well

Bob — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 22:01:38 +0000

I have been getting more and more ticked off about spam in my inbox, unwanted text messages (I have one loser who keeps changing his/her phone number to avoid the block on my phone, all to send me a “Hey-y-y” text), and robo-calls. Gads people, leave me alone. WTH?

I use Norton anti-virus, so I have been free from viruses and worms, though my computer has been attacked. I use Ad-Aware and occasionally have to remove something. So with all this hoo-hah about Facebook’s new privacy guidelines, I got fired up about being followed online.

This brought me to Ghostery. Ghostery is a browser-based plug-in tool (I use it with Firefox, but it also works with IE, Chrome, Safari and Opera). It scans each page before loading and looks for scripts and other elements, such as tracking cookies and even iframes.

The neat thing is that you can customize what you want to block and what you want accept, down to individual companies and/or web sites. For instance, you could allow Google Analytics or AdSense to run while totally blocking ad-tracking sites.

It does slow down some page loads while it sifts through the list of what you allow and what you want blocked. But we are talking a half-second at most. I can live with that for feeling a little safer online.

All in all I am happy with it, but then again, I seem to be the only one I know who is happy with Norton. Your mileage may vary.

Ghostery can be found here

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Ah, letterpress. Paper. Ink.

Bob — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:08:30 +0000

I love old printing. I guess because I, in fact, am now old. Long gone are my days in a composing room, reading lead type upside down and backwards. Sigh.

Here is a brief vid about letterpress printing in one of the few shops in the UK still pressing ink on paper.

Upside Down, Left To Right: A Letterpress Film from Danny Cooke on Vimeo.

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Alternate story formats aid newspaper layouts

Bob — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 17:56:56 +0000

I am a real believer in presenting information in a variety of ways. Good newspaper design almost requires you to do this.

Whether you use a map, an information graphic, photo, photo/story, a story or whatever, you need to be sure you are using the best tool for the story-telling job at hand.

I am also a big fan of alternate story formats or ASFs. This photo or visual based presentation of a story was very popular some years ago, but it seems that some papers have forgotten about using it.

Here is an example and how it was done in a brief video.

WordPress plugin: NYTimes flyout

Bob — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 19:32:38 +0000

I have always thought the flyout tease to a related story was a great idea by the New York Times. You can see it in action here at the NYT. Or you can simply check it out on this page.

You can get the same thing for your WordPress blog with the jquery plugin (perhaps unfortunately and oddly named) “upPrev: NYTimes Style ‘Next Post’ Animated Button.” You can check it out at this site.

It can either fly out, as does the NYT version, or it can fade in. You can set at what percentage of the page scroll the plugin goes into action. It works well with the Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (found here). (See it in action, below.) Best of all, they are free. They both should help the stickiness of your site, an important factor in blog success.

Flyout example

This is your brain on…computers

Bob — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 13:50:30 +0000

Here’s another in the ever-growing list of studies that show all our time connected to gadgets costs us more than the time. It also costs us brain power.

The New York Times is reporting about a study that found when rats experience something new, their brains don’t really begin to process that information until they experience some down time. The rats seemingly couldn’t even submit those items to long-term memory for later use.

Creativity needs a relaxed mind, one free to make connections between unrelated ideas. The next time your newspaper designs or page layouts seem to lack that pop, do not check your e-mail, play an iPhone game or surf the web. Take a walk outside, meditate or just sit and watch the world go by.

You — and your designs — will be better for it.