We are very excited about the creative potential inherent in this project and wish to extend WiseAsh a hearty welcome to the 16toads family.

We saw a need for a place that allowed for open communication. Not a publication disguised as a "community" or a community you have to buy your way into or, for that matter, a community whose "voice" is restricted to the who's who of the creative arts. 

The purpose of PAL is also simple.  We hope to break down the barriers that prevent professional artists from working together to better our industry.  We want to educate, advocate, and create a community bond that will eventually be strong enough to effect change in our industry. A grand goal, perhaps, but one we believe is worth working towards.

Please stop by and join us if you are interested, if not we will be here if you need us.

The fact is: You get what you pay for.

Purchase a $500 web site, and you will get a $500 web site. 

Another fact is: “Professional quality” doesn’t mean a thing if the potential client doesn’t see past the immediate dollar sign.

In the end, who is to blame for a buyer's bad experience with “web design”? Granted, bad experiences are possible even when thousands of dollars are spent, but the idea that you can buy a quality web site for $250 or $500 or even $1000 is as ridiculous as believing that the North Face Jacket you purchased in a Great Wall tourist depot in China is the same quality as the North Face jacket available directly from North Face. 

Few people buy a new car without doing copious amounts of research, so why don’t small business owners believe that researching web design partners (and market rates) is every bit as important?

Cost vs. Quality
It’s a foregone conclusion that “cost” is the single most important factor for most potential clients in determining which web design and development proposal they respond to.

But what so many business owners fail to grasp is that each and every image they put forth, whether via a website or through traditional mass marketing efforts, is a representation of how they conduct their business. Instead of asking, “How much will this cost?”, the question they should be asking is, “How much will it cost me in potential revenue if I cut corners on my web site or my marketing efforts?”  In an increasingly difficult business climate, image is everything, and an unprofessional one will send people scurrying to your competitor faster than a mouse click. 

That said, “quality” will almost always take a back seat to “cost” for most business owners ... despite the fact that “quality” is in the driver’s seat for most potential customers.

Cost of Designing Right the First Time
How do we as professionals change the paradigm? I have to admit to being shocked at being told by a recent referral that she had "invested" in a web site "package" by particpating in an eBay auction. Que? I had no idea web design companies were auctioning their services on eBay! If one could even call them designers or developers. Anyway, her "investment" amounted to a whopping $250 (rounded figure) for domain registration, hosting, design, and full eCommerce development. Needless to say, the results were/are positively horrific.

Part of our job as professionals is to educate potential clients about the cost of professional design and why spending $600 on an "all-inclusive, super-duper" web design and development package is guaranteed to disappoint. Nonetheless, as professionals, it is paramount that we work with clients to offer them the best deals we can possibly offer without compromising our integrity or the quality of our final product.  Web design and development requires specific skills and the patience to do things right ... Start cutting corners or promising more than you can deliver and it hurts you and the industry.  Treat your client to one bad experience, and it ruins the business for all of us.

You can’t compete with the “friend of a friend who does some web design” or the client who “knows some HTML”. You can only cross your fingers and hope that the potential client who has already been burned once has had an a epiphany and realized that finding the right design partner to design and develop their most important marketing tool is well worth the expense. 

Great, functional web design and development is a substantial investment. The question then becomes: "How serious are you about the success of your business?"

Bill # H.R.5889 & Bill # S.2913 - These bills effectively release creative work, whose authors or originators cannot be found, to be used by anyone, including major corporations. This will allow large corporations to take advantage of the limited understanding of Federal Copyright Law by artists, illustrators and other individuals who provide creative services.

These two bills would require the authors of so-called "orphaned works" to go through extraordinary measures to digitally copy and submit their work the federal copyright office if they discover that their work has been appropriated by another entity. This doesn't just effect artists and creative professionals, it will potentially effect everyone, including joe-Flickr-user. Regardless of who you are, whether you post images on Flickr, a social networking site, or in your online portfolio, if you do not take measures to protect your work, it could wind up appearing in a multi-million dollar advertising campaign.

Much like work-for-hire abuses, Bill # H.R.5889 & Bill # S.2913, would provide coporations with the legal means to "steal" creative work they want to use without having to compensate the author.

These bills are being sponsored by Democrats, Howard Berman (D-CA), John Conyers (D-MI), and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Republicans, Howard Coble (R-NC) and Lamar Smith (R-TX).

Learn more about these bills here:
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/bills/?billid=11320236
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/bills/?bill=11322171

Please write your congressmen and express your opinions, outrage, and/or contempt for the elected officials who are supposedly protecting the rights of small business owners and average Americans. 

In the meantime, learn how to protect yourself and sign, watermark, and/or add meta data to any work you post online.  Don't post high resolution images and use your real name in blog posts, not fake names or unidentifiable email addresses.  If you post on social networks or file sharing sites, be sure to establish and regularly check your email inbox for requests to use the work. 

Lastly, learn about your rights.

In lieu of subjecting our potential golfing partners to our superbly lame golfing talents, we decided instead to give back to UHF (our first web site for UHS-Pruitt) by making a generous donation.

We would sincerely like to thank all of the conference attendees who stopped by our booth to say hello and find out what the heck a "16toads" is ...

And, we look forward to working together to expand the capabilities and web presence of the UHS-Pruitt family of web sites.

The billboard and press campaign, created by advertising agency Teran\TBWA, is a colorful map depicting what the Americas might look like in an "Absolut" (perfect) world.  The U.S.-Mexico border is shown as it was prior to the Mexican-American war of 1848 when California was Mexican territory known as Alta California.

As a professional designer, my opinion of the ad is three-fold:

(1) The cartographical divisions depicted are not readily apparant due to how we have been conditioned to "see" the shape of the U.S., so it takes a moment to "see" the border lines. This is effective because it illicites a reaction once the message becomes clear. Overall, I like the ad and think it is very relevant to today's political climate.

(2) The political nature of the ad is obvious. Absolut, a Swedish company, approved this ad knowing fully well it would elicit cheers in Mexico and jeers north of the border fence. I also can't help but chuckle at the bottle placement.

What astounds me is how easy it was for Absolut to achieve what I believe was the goal of the ad - to reveal the true nature of Americans. A quick read through the comments section of the related LA Times Article highlights the average American's profound ignorance of history, culture, and politics as well as a complete lack of humor. The responses go a long way toward proving what much of the rest of the world now sees as reality, that America has become an angry and intollerant nation.

We have so little grasp of global, national, and local issues, that it is easier to take the time to vent about an Absolut Ad than it is to have a reasonable discussion about immigration ... because, somehow ... somehow, this ad represents Mexico's attempts to overtake the U.S. through illegal immigration. Note: Boycotting a mediocre vodka will not stop illegal immigration.

(3) Who cares!?

Conclusion: The ad is very effective y amo México

The Hymn Project has not kept up with iTunes updates for some time and there are no Mac compatible DRM stripping apps I am aware of at this time.  But, I digress ... Why did I have a run-in with DRM? I recently upgraded an iPod and passed my old model along to my wife.  I also purchased an iPhone.  In the process of uploading my iTunes library to my new iPod and selected songs to my iPhone, I discovered a large number of albums that would not copy to either new device.

Why? Well, iTunes DRM authorizes your computer for every iTunes store purchase and then assigns a globally unique ID to each device that iTunes syncs it's library with.  That's all well and good until you reach the limit of five (5) authorized machines for each song/album.  After so many years of purchasing music through iTunes combined with upgrading numerous machines, I had apparantly reached my limit of authorizations with certain albums.

Needless to say, I was rather peeved and did what any normal person would do. I ranted for a minute, then clicked over to Amazon to purchase a new album.

Enter Amazon MP3, their new 'beta' album download service. I decided to give it a whirl and compare its' ease of use with iTunes. It should be noted that comparing the two services is rather unfair. There really isn't any way Amazon's service could be more convenient than purchasing directly through iTunes. The question then is "does Amazon make the process easy enough to switch?"

Turns out, once you download and install the AmazonMP3Downloader (which takes 20 seconds), all you have to do is select "Copy to iTunes" in the preferences, and the process for purchasing music through Amazon becomes every bit as easy as purchasing directly through iTunes. The Amazon Downloader automatically adds the new album or songs to iTunes and also creates a backup "Amazon MP3" folder in your Music folder for all of your purchased music. Nice.

So, what are the benefits of purchasing downloadable music through Amazon?

(1) MP3s are DRM-Free

(2) The album I purchased was over a $1 cheaper on Amazon than it was through iTunes. It goes without saying that not every album will be cheaper, but it's nice to have the option to compare prices.

For my money, Amazon just got more of my business and Apple ... Well, I think you can finish this thought.

Business applications

1Password This program is probably the best investment we have made in a single piece of software. Period. 1Password is a secure password management tool that solved our issues with trying to manage hundreds of passwords spread across god knows how many web sites, memberships, and clients. Simply put, this program is a must have app that will make your life easier by a factor of a thousand. For $30, it's an absolute steal ... oh, and it works beautifully with iPhone.

Link: http://1passwd.com/

SuperDuper
Our never-ending quest for the most airtight backup solution ended last year when we discovered SuperDuper. Not only is this app the best backup solution for Mac bar none, it is also supported by one of the most diligent developers in the industry. Our backup system utilizes a three-pronged approach that is probably far more robust than most people need, but after a massive system failure occurred late last year, we decided not to take any more chances.

For those of you who have made the leap to Leopard, you may have found Time Machine a welcome tool for backing up your data. TM is a reasonable backup solution for the average home user, but for businesses or independent professionals it is simply not the be-all-end-all solution. That position is reserved exclusively for SuperDuper. We use SuperDuper for daily automatic bootable system backups, TimeMachine for incremental backups, and ChronoSync for daily automatic file-level backups.

Doesn't TM do all that? Yes and No. TM is not configurable and runs every hour. This is useful, no question, but the downside is that it means your system (if it houses millions of files) will constantly be allocating resources to TM every second of the day. In addition, while you can use TM for system recovery, the external drive you dedicate to TM is not bootable and the recovery process will require a ridiculous series of steps (read: hours) to complete. Whereas, with SD, you have the ability to automatically backup your data daily, weekly, or monthly at times of your choosing to a bootable clone of your entire hard drive(s). This means that on any given day you have a system failure, you can be back up and working within minutes.

Link: http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

ChronoSync
Chronosync is a configurable file-level synchronization tool. We use it as part of our overall backup strategy. But, our primary reason for purchasing this app was to solve one problem that has, over the years, been one of our biggest headaches ... travel. Transferring critical system files (Mail, iCal, Address Book, prefs), application support files, project files, and assorted crap to your laptop is a royal pain-in-the-[censored]. Under normal circumstances, getting our laptop ready to take our business on-the-road involved a few hours worth of hunting and pecking for each and every file needed to keep 16toads running smoothly while we were away from our main tower. And, nine times out of ten, we always forgot to copy something important, like that one obscure application support file needed to access your client's FTP site.

Once ChronoSync is set up, this process is as simple as rebooting our laptop in "target" mode, launching the Chronosync "travel" Container on our main computer, and clicking "sync". A few minutes (or seconds) later, ding, we are done and ready to go out-of-town with all the files needed to stay on top of our work. Then, when we return, we copy the same files in reverse (configure another sync container). Worth every penny even if you only have to take your work on-the-road once a year.

Link: http://www.econtechnologies.com/site/Pages/ChronoSync/chrono_overview.html

MailSteward
Email management is a pain every company has to deal with on a daily basis. But, how do you manage your email paper trial? We tried every solution out there before settling on MailSteward (despite many negative reviews) and we have been nothing but pleased with this piece of software. Built exclusively for use with Mac .Mail, MailSteward is an email archive solution that helps us manage our ever-growing collection of thousands of emails and, in turn, helps us keep our inbox sparkling clean. MS allows a user to manage as many or as few email accounts as he/she wishes and to schedule automatic backups on a daily basis, which means you never have to worry about accidental deletions or remembering to back up your collection. We tested a few other solutions, but we chose MS simply because it's fully compatible with OSX and bone-headed simple to use.

Link: http://www.mailsteward.com/

EagleFiler
If you are in need of an elegant and simple application for managing your information, look no further than EagleFiler. This app is made by the amazing developer who brought us SpamSieve and DropDMG.  Archive websites, documents, serial numbers, graphics ... you name it, you can collect and organize it with this app. (In fact, you can also archive emails with EF, but we found MailSteward a more attractive solution due to it's simple integration and speedier search capabilities). Yes, we looked at Jojimbo, but decided that we didn't like the idea of having all of our collected information stored in a single massive database. EagleFiler saves your data to a folder based system, which provides you with easy access to your saved data should you ever need it.

Link: http://c-command.com/eaglefiler/

BookDog
Manage and maintain bookmarks across ALL your browsers with this app. Simple premise, robust features.

Link: http://www.sheepsystems.com/products/bookdog/

MegaPhone
From eCamm Software, MegaPhone is a feature-packed utility for iPhone. iPhone is an amazing device with plenty of room for improvement and the one item that has driven us nuts is (unlike iPod) iPhone's completely useless Notes feature. Enter MegaPhone. Notes can be copied to and from iPhone (although we hate the process), making Notes actually useful. We will readily admit to being highly annoyed at having to purchase additional software simply to make such a basic feature useful and while we fully expect this basic iPhone feature to be improved eventually (thereby rendering MegaPhone useless), we, nonetheless, find it highly useful now.

Link: http://www.ecamm.com/mac/megaphone/

Work flow applications

Adobe CS3
We are going to skip CS3 simply because, well, if you are a designer this is a must-have software package. Gripe all you want about Adobe's monopoly on the design market, annoyingly restrictive package deals, and yearly (ridiculously expensive) upgrades, this is a software suite without compare.

That said, our process for web design has undergone a few changes in recent years, most notably our ever-decreasing use of Dreamweaver for web development. WSYWIG is useful, but we have been relying heavily on TextMate and CSSEdit for most, if not all, of our web development.

TextMate
This app rocks. It's superbly easy to use and has one feature we have found unbelievably useful ... "foldings". This simple, yet highly useful, feature allows you to collapse related tag pairs. Why is this a big deal? The "foldings" arrows are an indispensable aid in helping clean up code after we have rocketed through hand-coding our HTML templates and can't find that one tag pair we forgot to close properly. This basic feature has saved us countless hours tidying up code.

Link: http://macromates.com/

CSSEdit
In our opinion, CSSEdit is the single best "real-time" visual CSS editor on the market. This app makes layout and visual adjustments to CSS-based web sites an absolute breeze and has helped us tweak layouts in fractions of the time it would normally take re-uploading files each time you want to view a change in a browser.

Link: http://macrabbit.com/cssedit/

Transmit
FTP at it's best.

Link: http://www.panic.com/transmit/

You may ask, why not simply use Coda instead of three separate apps? Well, we have tried it and, frankly, really like it. It's interface is beautiful and, taken as a whole, it's a solid web development app that could easily replace Dreamweaver. Conversely, taken as whole, it's still young and lacks many of the robust features that the Apps mentioned above (including Dreamweaver) support natively. In the final analysis, until Coda can match CSSEdit and TextMate it's off the table as a dev solution for us.

Be sure to stop by EE Design to read the full interview and pay Brandon Meeks, the proprietor, a moment of respect for his stellar work supporting the web design community.