The StyleSheet » Sarah Buser

Dropbox

Sarah Buser — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 03:04:30 +0000

Dropbox is an application that allows you to access files across multiple computers seamlessly – just by dropping them into a shared folder. Download Dropbox to share documents between your Mac, PC, and most smartphones – it syncs automatically so you can have your most important files accessible from multiple places at once. You can even link your Dropbox to your friends’ Dropboxes so you can share files without having to email them or put them on a USB drive. You get 2GB free to start or you can use this referral link and we’ll both get an extra 250MB!

Only YOU Can Prevent Frankensite

Sarah Buser — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:07:08 +0000

Symptoms

Web site has no consistency when you click from page to page.
Photos take their sweet time to load.
Headings are used as decorations instead of for structure.
Site gives overall impression of jankiness.

Diagnosis

Frankensite (n.): A Web site made with a hodge-podge of graphics, fonts, and aesthetics. Risks include turned-off visitors and appearance of disorganization.

Causes

The Web site has been around a while and no one has devoted much TLC to it lately.
Half a dozen people with completely different aesthetic tastes have made changes.
People who haven’t been trained properly have used the editor incorrectly.
New types of content don’t quite fit the layout of your old site.

Prevention

Before you launch:

Make sure anyone who will edit the site learns about writing for the Web and using your system.
Think about basic layouts that might help your different types of content fit the best and create (or get help creating) a template.

After you launch:

Review your content regularly to watch for the symptoms above.
Get refresher trainings. If you only update the site twice a year, you may not remember how to do it.
Don’t paste formatted content (like from Word or an email) into the editor.
As you add new types of content, remember you can add templates (see above). A Web site is a living document, so you can add templates even after launch.
Keep the overall goals of the site in mind as you add new things to it. Don’t add clutter for the sake of clutter.

Treatment of Common Symptoms

Symptom	Cause	Treatment
Fonts look tiny or don’t match.	The text was probably pasted from Word or an email.	Go into the editor, cut the afflicted text, and paste it in using the Paste as Plain Text option. If you aren’t using an editor, you can paste the text into a Notepad or TextEdit to strip out the bad code.
Pictures load very slowly (usually top to bottom).	The picture hasn’t been sized properly, meaning a huge image was “dragged” to display at a smaller size. It displays small, but the file is huge so it takes a long time to load.	Test this by looking at the site, right-click the image and click “View in a New Window”. If the new window reveals a larger image than you see on the page, you know the image was sized incorrectly. Edit the actual image to the size you want it to show up and reinsert it.
Pages are disorganized or hard to follow and/or too much of the text appears big, bold or colorful.	Headings are being used for style instead of structure.	Use headings to structure and bold or italics to emphasize.
Pages are distracting: too many fonts/styles/mismatched graphics clutter the site.	Site goals have been forgotten in favor of adding everything one can think of to the site.	Simplify. You may need to reorganize some pages, cut back on varying fonts or graphics (or make them more consistent).

VLC Media Player

Sarah Buser — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:17:39 +0000

VLC Media Player by Videolan is a fantastic cross-platform, open-source multimedia framework, player and server and, well, a mouthful. To me, it’s a cool program that plays just about any video or audio file I throw at it – no more having to search for a program to play weird video files. It also does other fancy things like rip DVDs and stream media to other computers, but I just like having go-to program that’ll figure out file formats so I don’t have to.

Five Ways to Improve Your E-Newsletter

Sarah Buser — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:50:49 +0000

Have you started your e-newsletter yet? If you haven’t, check out Nick’s article on the basics. If you’ve already taken the first steps, here are five tips to make your e-newsletter better and increase your open rates and returns:

1. Know your audience.

Keep content relevant, and grab your readers’ attention with useful and innovative topics. It can be very effective to use a friendly, informal tone if it’s appropriate, but for highly technical articles, a more formal tone may be the best way to inform your readers.

2. Send it regularly.

Generally, sending between once a week and once every six weeks is ideal. Any more can be an annoyance; any less and your readers might forget you. When you decide on your frequency, think about what’s useful to your readers and if you can keep the quality high enough to send a newsletter however often.

3. Give them a mission.

Your readers should walk away with an action in mind. If you’re a non-profit, maybe that means donating. If you’re a store, that means offering them something special. Think about what your goals are with your newsletter and try to steer them that direction.

4. Make sure your subject line gives a sneak peak.

This is one that we here at TradeMark Media and the StyleSheet have just recently adopted. People are more likely to open your e-newsletter if they know they’re going to benefit. Also, chances are they already know what month it is and they couldn’t care less about what volume it is. For more on subject lines, see this article: http://www.enewsbuilder.net/enewsbuilder/e_article001334533.cfm?x=b11,0,w.

5. Don’t overload it.

Keep it brief. If you have a lot of subjects to cover, consider dividing your newsletter up and having your subscribers choose which topics they want to read about.

Looking for more tips? Here are some good resources:

• http://www.nonprofitmarketingguide.com/resources/email_newsletters/nonprofit-email-newsletters/

• http://blog.subscribermail.com/2009/09/25/4-quick-ways-to-improve-your-b2b-email-newsletter/

• http://www.mailchimp.com/articles/improving_your_email_open_rate/

• http://www.michelfortin.com/how-to-improve-your-email-open-rates/

Yelp

Sarah Buser — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 09:13:10 +0000

Need to find a reasonably-priced restaurant? Dependable dry cleaner? Yelp has you covered. Yelp has thousands of reviews written by real people about the businesses in their communities. You can join in writing the reviews or just type in your zip code and heart’s desire to find the best of the best in your area.

picnik

Sarah Buser — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:23:58 +0000

picnik is a free, online photo editor that not only features the standard crop/resize/rotate, but also lets you apply styles, text and effects. Since Snipshot started charging, I’ve switched to picnik because it’s easy to use and doesn’t require a registration. It also has some cool-looking paid upgrades, but I’m all about free stuff so I haven’t explored it too much.

Roundtable Discussion: The Best of SXSW

Sarah Buser — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:54:57 +0000

This year, from March 13th through March 17th we shut down the office and headed a few blocks west to the South by Southwest Interactive conference. Held at the Austin Convention Center, this annual event allows our staff to catch up on all things interactive as well as network with other industry professionals. Here we bring you the best of SXSW – our favorite moments and cool stuff we discovered.

What new tech solution are you most excited to try out?

Technology Director Mike Wisian: I discovered many new site optimization techniques after attending “Even Faster Web Sites” with speaker Steve Souders of Google. I’ve already applied some of what I learned to the new TradeMark site and performance has noticeably improved. Thanks, Steve!
User Experience Director Caroling Lee: Balsamiq Mockups for wireframes. I’ve already tried it out and really like the low-fi wireframes it produces. I think it helps illustrate to the client that these are non-functioning and also that they are a tool for brainstorming more than anything else.
Designer Kyle Greenan: GameSalad is a game development environment built for non-programmers. The greatest part about GameSalad is its community-centered focus and idea that games should be shared among friends. The future for GameSalad, at least in my opinion is bright!

What was your favorite networking moment?

Business Development Director Jean Conover: My favorite networking moment happened at a computer kiosk in the Convention Center. Janis and I were walking by and saw a man on one of the computers with our TradeMark Media Facebook page opened on the screen – he was becoming a “fan” of ours on Facebook at the exact moment we were walking by! He had seen our new Web site and really liked it. We chatted with him for a while. He was from Monterrey, Mexico, and now we’re connected with him through Facebook. It was exciting to see how a social media platform like Facebook made a random, in-person networking opportunity possible!
Developer Janis Gonser: Ellis Lab threw one of the SXSW afterhours parties and I was lucky enough to call out the host and CTO Derek Jones for cutting in line for the food. A more detailed version of what happened will follow on our blog soon.

What was the best piece of business advice you got?

Programmer Manoj Thomas: The best piece of advice I got was from the ‘Designers and Developers’ panel. They explained that great products are created by people that are prepared to do whatever’s necessary to get the job done right. If someone doesn’t care then they should get the boot.
Business Development Director Jean Conover: There seemed to be a constant theme throughout all the panels this year about businesses being transparent. For so long, businesses have used traditional marketing channels and techniques to communicate, and I find it really refreshing to see that honest, open dialogs are now becoming standard practice when marketing your business and communicating with clients, prospects and the general public. Being transparent with our clients is something we pride ourselves in at TradeMark Media, and I’m glad to see this is being advocated by other professionals in our industry on a national level.
President and Strategy Director Nick Weynand: The best piece of business advice I got this year was to rewrite our Master Services Agreement to make it more friendly. We’ve already implemented this by creating an English translation to every clause of legalese in our services agreement. I think this piece of advice will help start our relationships with clients off on the right foot (and hopefully keep the legal department from getting involved).

What surprised you the most about SXSW this year?

Developer Janis Gonser: The amount of paper wasted for the program that was close to useless. Though, the online version has improved compared to last year.
User Experience Director Caroling Lee: I was really surprised at the number of people that attended this year. The reports say that attendance was up 25% this year with 11,000+ attendees. No wonder the wireless and phone access was so bad!
Account Manager Sarah Buser: I was surprised at the number of people I knew there. It was also cool to meet TradeMark contacts whose names I knew that I never got to meet before. I even randomly bumped into a Myspace friend I met two years ago at a concert two states away and haven’t seen since.
Designer Kyle Greenan: Mindless Twitter zombies tethered to their devices. “Hey, watch out where you are going!”’ It’s as if technology is the reason for Attention Deficit Disorder. I felt bad for the panelists, but for the folks not at SXSW following on Twitter at home, it’s like they were there.

Who was your favorite speaker/what was your favorite panel and why?

Technology Director Mike Wisian: By far my favorite speaker was Jared Spool of UIE. His panel, titled “Journey to the Center of Design”, talked about how the best design is created by teams that have a good vision, an effective feedback loop, and a great culture. I always enjoy hearing Jared speak because he is very engaging and uses audience participation to illustrate his points. He could use a little work on his Beyonce dance routine, though.
President and Strategy Director Nick Weynand: My favorite speaker was Leah Buley with Adaptive Path. She ran a panel called “Being a UX Team of One” and it really spoke to me. She provided great examples of user experience tools that her team uses and provided some great advice for getting everyone, including the client, on board with the design phase. Design matters!
Account Manager Sarah Buser: My favorite panel was an organizational one based on the book Getting Things Done by David Allen. I liked hearing how other people get things done as simply and efficiently as possible at work even though I hadn’t read the book yet. Caroling was already a convert and she lent me her copy, so keep an eye out for a book review soon on our blog soon.
Programmer Manoj Thomas: Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.com gave a good keynote speech. He talked about the history of Zappos and their focus on core values, team building and customer service – a nice motivational pep talk.

TradeMark Media’s Photos from SXSW 2009

Mint.com

Sarah Buser — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 20:36:24 +0000

Mint.com is a free budget and expense tracking site that pulls in your financial info from your bank account. It’s anonymous, so Mint doesn’t have your name, address, SSN or any way to transfer money. It’ll help you see where you spend, set a budget, and track your spending so you can see if you’re meeting your goals. It also has an application available for those ubiquitous MP3-player-turned-phones.

Roundtable Discussion: Our New Year’s Tech Resolutions

Sarah Buser — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 06:00:17 +0000

Each month, one of our team members poses a question about Web design and development to see how assorted TradeMark staff answer. For January, Account Manager Sarah Buser asks the team:

What are your tech resolutions for the new year?

Design Technologist Janis Gonser:

Try to resist the iPhone and make more frequent backups of my laptop data.

Account Manager Sarah Buser:

Update all of my weak passwords and finish reading my CSS book.

President Nick Weynand:

Mine is organizing all of my photos, including tagging and categorizing them appropriately. I also need to buy a new backup drive. With all of my photos, videos and music, the current one I have is way too small. I would also like to take a digital photography class so that I can start taking decent photos.

Producer Caroling Lee:

Fix my iPhone! Cancel my paid Yahoo! account (Google is free and it’s better anyway). Clean up the files on my laptop and buy a portable external hard drive to store all my music and photos. Oh – and of course, BACK UP, BACK UP, BACK UP.

Director of Business Development Jean Conover

Keep Salesforce updated by entering business cards as soon as I get them so they don’t pile up!

Systems Integration Specialist Manoj Thomas:

Clean out my inbox and defrag my hard drive.

Technology Director Mike Wisian:

Finally replace my printer cartridge so I can print in color again.

Junior Web Developer Kyle Greenan:

Organize and back up my data.

Happy 2009 everyone! Be sure to check out Caroling’s article this month and make some resolutions of your own!

What We Did on Our Summer Vacations

Sarah Buser — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:44:18 +0000

It’s been a long, hot, busy summer for everyone here at TradeMark. Fortunately, most of us managed to beat the heat and get out of town for a little while. Here’s a little summary and some photos from our summer vacations. What did you do?

Nick

What did I do on my summer vacation? Had a baby. Most of you may already know because we announced it in last month’s StyleSheet. I took two weeks off to stay home with the little one. Eisley is now doing well and growing up fast.

Janis

My wife Amie and I moved about a year ago from Florida to Austin, so a four-day trip through the Texas Hill Country seemed to be a great choice for our short and sweet vacation. We stayed two nights at the Guadalupe River State Park, where we kayaked despite the low water level. On our way to Fredericksburg we went through Boerne and made a stop at the Cave Without A Name. We took Ranch Road 1376 north towards Fredericksburg and stopped in Sisterdale at the Sister Creek Vineyards. We strolled through the nice scenery and lodged ourselves into a Villa at the Grape Creek Vineyard, where we enjoyed the next two days with visits to various vineyards, plenty of wine, and a night of scrabble (American English only) under the stars.

Mike

I spent a week in fabulous Las Vegas. I attended a wedding, I got my picture taken with life-size Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, and I learned that my skill level and the amount of free drinks consumed are inversely proportional at the No Limit Hold ‘Em table.

Sarah

For my summer vacation, I went to my beautiful hometown of Momence, IL for a family reunion. Everyone on my dad’s side got together to eat, drink, carry on and play euchre. While I was there, I also visited a lot of my mom’s side of the family. This vacation made me realize that I have come by my reputation honestly: I come from a long line of feisty women. Here’s a picture of the ~~biggest~~ smallest fish I caught while fishing with my family.

Jean

I spent my summer vacation with a wonderful bunch of people named the Conovers: Richard, Cathy, Bill and Ted to be exact. We had many excellent adventures, but some of the more notable were fly fishing on the Jefferson and Yellowstone Rivers (yes I really did it – although I almost capsized the boat by jumping up and down when I thought I landed my first catch!), grilling burgers at a 1910 homestead (much like the one in Little House on the Prairie – seriously!) and horseback riding through the mountains. The air was cool and crisp and I loved snuggling up in a warm fleece jacket at night – (a novel idea for summers in Texas). Now I remember all the reasons why summer vacations are so much fun. Montana, I miss you already!

Caroling

Ah – summer in New York City. For my summer vacation, I went ‘back East’ to visit old friends and meet new ones. Only in NYC can you get a ’snack’ for $70- but isn’t that part of the charm? Great friends, great weather and plenty of city sass.

Manoj

This summer I helped my old roommate pack up and move to Ann Arbor, Michigan. We left Austin and hit the road early the first day with the intention of stopping overnight in Tennessee, but after making good time we pushed a little further and 14 hours into the drive we found ourselves in St. Louis, Missouri. Tired and delirious, we hit the various casinos that lined the Mississippi and gambled away a good night’s sleep. By the end of day two, we were in the beautiful, liberal city of Ann Arbor and spent the rest of the week checking out the University of Michigan and all the local downtown hotspots. Great weather and fun people, but I’ll admit it felt pretty nice flying back into Austin (home, sweet home).