Maybe I overstated my point -- but I still think all too often people go the Jackie Harvey route and start bolding things left and right when they could have written a little clearer to begin with.
Bolding, etc. definitely has its place. It's wonderful in textbooks where you're calling out certain key words and ideas. It's also fine as a way to break up subsections of writing.
But if your point can't be made clearly in regular communications without boldface or italics, you probably need to rethink how you're trying to say it.
Some ideas just can't be expressed as efficiently in plain text. Sometimes bold type is needed. Sometimes a proper table is needed. Sometimes embedded images. Even blinking marquee text may be needed! (just kidding!).
If your ideas cannot be expressed efficiently in plain text and boldface, italics, etc. are required to express them, the problem is your writing, not the format. Word choice and careful editing can alleviate the need for bolding, as well as your sentence length. Plus, the extra attention given to the writing will probably result in a better and more successful sales pitch.
As far as images, tables, etc: I don't think this is really great for e-mail. Attachments are fine, but most HTML mail is just mass communications. How about a text email with a link -- "to see the new iPod, go to http://www.apple.com/ipod" or something like that. Most e-mail clients I've encountered recently are smart enough to pick up links like that and activate them.
Actually, you may be surprised. Clients can throw away a lot of great work -- or stuff that's really funny. It happens all the time. A lot of an agency's best work ends up on the floor because a client either gets nervous when it comes time to buy, or because the client decides it wants to suddenly play it real straight. That's where you get nightmarishly bad ads... or the stuff that's completely dead.
This seems kind of ridiculous and pointless. Sure, it's an interesting idea, but it seems like a kind of needless branding of an identity/concept. Plus, you'll see all the least qualified latching onto it first, to prove that they're so plugged in to the culture.
And then in three months, it'll show up on peoples' resumes. And business cards. And we'll all die a little bit.
Speaking of which, time to update my resume, this may be the key to getting my hyper-1337 job.
I've upgraded every time since 10.1, hitting all the revisions in between. I did an upgrade install with Jag and did one again on Panther. Not a problem; everything's working fine.
The people who seem to have problems with upgrades are the ones who install all that unsanity haxie garbage. At least, that seems to be a common denominator among most troubled upgrades.
I said it in an earlier posting, I'll say it again here.
Mapquest is absolutely worthless in LA, unless you want to spend the rest of your natural life on freeways. Mapquest will try and put you on the 101 no matter what, even if you're going from Santa Monica to West Hollywood (..."Take the 10 to 101; exit at Hollywood boulevard; go west three miles."). It's the equivalent of going from Bangkok to Tokyo via Reykjavik.
While Yahoo isn't always great and sometimes takes some strange routes, it's a lot better for a city like LA, and looking back at some of my old St. Louis routes, it seems fairly sane. Granted, Yahoo may route you down some random streets, but a reality check against a regular map always helps.
Really, online mapping is nice to get a quick & dirty, but nothing beats a comprehensive street-level map like aThomas gude.
My girlfriend signed up for something with the ACLU. Before then, very little mail. Now she is DELUGED by stuff. The ACLU sold her info to all kinds of marketers, special interest groups, etc. That's a very annoying brand of weasley.
For instance -- I live in Hollywood, near the 101. I'm two blocks north of Hollywood; about 4-5 blocks north of Sunset.
I had just moved here and was trying to double-check where my insurance agent was on Sunset, so I punched his address into Mapquest. Now, the quickest and easiest way to get to his address is to take my street down to Sunset, and then east on Sunset to his office.
Mapquest starts out with, "Head south on the 101 freeway..."
So many directions here are marred by Mapquest's insistence to put you on freeways. Yahoo's driving directions, while sometimes a bit stupid, generally make more sense here than Mapquest.
Really, I check the Thomas Guide for LA more than I rely on Mapquest when I'm trying to confirm the quickest way to something.
If industry had to pay for the waste up front, there would be a hope that they would design products that create less waste product
Unfortunately, while it sounds like a good idea, I doubt you'd see it play out that way. They'd make a minor redesign to the cartridges, perhaps allowing just a slight boost in the life of the cartridge (not enough to hurt products) so it could be marketed as new and/or environmentally friendly. Then, to cover the costs of the supposed innovation (really, to cover the costs of their disposal fee), they'd raise the price by $5/cartridge, covering the disposal fee and netting a tidy additional profit.
Their contract had expired and they are still exploring their options. They've been talking to major labels still -- doesn't mean they have gone totally indie. They just don't have a record deal right now. (The 2003 tour bootlegs are manufactured by Epic, as will the forthcoming rarities album.)
In the not too distant future: A boss and his employees
"Gentlemen, I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that as of noon today, you are all making an infinite amount of money with our company.
Unfortunately, as of noon today, in order to fund this initiative, you are all fired and will not be drawing a paycheck."
I was unwisely drinking coffee while reading the comments, knowing I'd see juvenile (yet totally funny) jokes. I was ready for every "dump" joke imaginable.
And then you blindsided me with this genius and made me reach for a screen cleaning wipe (heh, I said wipe) to remove the new anti-glare coating of a cup of folgers from my monitor.
If you're at a level that you're shooting news professionally for a newspaper/magazine, you aren't going to have a problem with red-eye or a need for red-eye reduction.
Oh, and you can't blow your computer up by convincing it that it's illogical.
AI technology isn't advanced enough yet to do that. In 3-5 years, you will be able to blow up your computer just by speaking into a microphone and giving a voice command.
Slashdot Mirror
What are you suggesting!?
:)
Too true. I concede defeat.
Maybe I overstated my point -- but I still think all too often people go the Jackie Harvey route and start bolding things left and right when they could have written a little clearer to begin with.
Bolding, etc. definitely has its place. It's wonderful in textbooks where you're calling out certain key words and ideas. It's also fine as a way to break up subsections of writing.
But if your point can't be made clearly in regular communications without boldface or italics, you probably need to rethink how you're trying to say it.
Some ideas just can't be expressed as efficiently in plain text. Sometimes bold type is needed. Sometimes a proper table is needed. Sometimes embedded images. Even blinking marquee text may be needed! (just kidding!).
If your ideas cannot be expressed efficiently in plain text and boldface, italics, etc. are required to express them, the problem is your writing, not the format. Word choice and careful editing can alleviate the need for bolding, as well as your sentence length. Plus, the extra attention given to the writing will probably result in a better and more successful sales pitch.
As far as images, tables, etc: I don't think this is really great for e-mail. Attachments are fine, but most HTML mail is just mass communications. How about a text email with a link -- "to see the new iPod, go to http://www.apple.com/ipod" or something like that. Most e-mail clients I've encountered recently are smart enough to pick up links like that and activate them.
That quote is actually in the original Newsweek article, not a statement by the submitter. (It's also properly noted as such with quotation marks.)
It's a tad on the outrageously-priced side, but you can.
From the people themselves, no less.
Here's a link to their order page -- this is for the 2003 winners but you can also request previous years.
You can, of course, also get the One Show Annual and also the D&AD Annual (or showreel and the Communication Arts Design Annual is at newsstands now.
I think One Show has a reel of ALL winners on TV available, but I seem to recall that the price was astronomical.
Actually, you may be surprised. Clients can throw away a lot of great work -- or stuff that's really funny. It happens all the time. A lot of an agency's best work ends up on the floor because a client either gets nervous when it comes time to buy, or because the client decides it wants to suddenly play it real straight. That's where you get nightmarishly bad ads... or the stuff that's completely dead.
But you try and tell the young people of today that, and they won't believe you.
Good point, I hadn't thought of it that way. :)
This seems kind of ridiculous and pointless. Sure, it's an interesting idea, but it seems like a kind of needless branding of an identity/concept. Plus, you'll see all the least qualified latching onto it first, to prove that they're so plugged in to the culture.
And then in three months, it'll show up on peoples' resumes. And business cards. And we'll all die a little bit.
Speaking of which, time to update my resume, this may be the key to getting my hyper-1337 job.
I've upgraded every time since 10.1, hitting all the revisions in between. I did an upgrade install with Jag and did one again on Panther. Not a problem; everything's working fine.
The people who seem to have problems with upgrades are the ones who install all that unsanity haxie garbage. At least, that seems to be a common denominator among most troubled upgrades.
I said it in an earlier posting, I'll say it again here.
Mapquest is absolutely worthless in LA, unless you want to spend the rest of your natural life on freeways. Mapquest will try and put you on the 101 no matter what, even if you're going from Santa Monica to West Hollywood (..."Take the 10 to 101; exit at Hollywood boulevard; go west three miles."). It's the equivalent of going from Bangkok to Tokyo via Reykjavik.
While Yahoo isn't always great and sometimes takes some strange routes, it's a lot better for a city like LA, and looking back at some of my old St. Louis routes, it seems fairly sane. Granted, Yahoo may route you down some random streets, but a reality check against a regular map always helps.
Really, online mapping is nice to get a quick & dirty, but nothing beats a comprehensive street-level map like aThomas gude.
My girlfriend signed up for something with the ACLU. Before then, very little mail. Now she is DELUGED by stuff. The ACLU sold her info to all kinds of marketers, special interest groups, etc. That's a very annoying brand of weasley.
As a COBOL programmer, he could probably work for IL Dept of Revenue until the end of time, not to mention any number of state jobs.
Mapquest borders on useless in Los Angeles.
For instance -- I live in Hollywood, near the 101. I'm two blocks north of Hollywood; about 4-5 blocks north of Sunset.
I had just moved here and was trying to double-check where my insurance agent was on Sunset, so I punched his address into Mapquest. Now, the quickest and easiest way to get to his address is to take my street down to Sunset, and then east on Sunset to his office.
Mapquest starts out with, "Head south on the 101 freeway..."
So many directions here are marred by Mapquest's insistence to put you on freeways. Yahoo's driving directions, while sometimes a bit stupid, generally make more sense here than Mapquest.
Really, I check the Thomas Guide for LA more than I rely on Mapquest when I'm trying to confirm the quickest way to something.
Martian Dreams at 6 MHz? Torture.
Fun game, but I played it at 12 MHz and almost quit -- then when I got my 486 (50 MHz, woo!) I replayed it all the time.
That's one of the most interesting games I've ever played.
If industry had to pay for the waste up front, there would be a hope that they would design products that create less waste product
Unfortunately, while it sounds like a good idea, I doubt you'd see it play out that way. They'd make a minor redesign to the cartridges, perhaps allowing just a slight boost in the life of the cartridge (not enough to hurt products) so it could be marketed as new and/or environmentally friendly. Then, to cover the costs of the supposed innovation (really, to cover the costs of their disposal fee), they'd raise the price by $5/cartridge, covering the disposal fee and netting a tidy additional profit.
The first P stands for PHP. (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor).
Their contract had expired and they are still exploring their options. They've been talking to major labels still -- doesn't mean they have gone totally indie. They just don't have a record deal right now. (The 2003 tour bootlegs are manufactured by Epic, as will the forthcoming rarities album.)
I didn't know the former Iraqi Information Minister works at Apple now.
That is Steve's "One more thing...." at WWDC.
It's simple:
In the not too distant future: A boss and his employees
"Gentlemen, I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that as of noon today, you are all making an infinite amount of money with our company.
Unfortunately, as of noon today, in order to fund this initiative, you are all fired and will not be drawing a paycheck."
Better submit that one to Mac OS Rumors.
"Apple to buy Chili's restaurant chain".
I was unwisely drinking coffee while reading the comments, knowing I'd see juvenile (yet totally funny) jokes. I was ready for every "dump" joke imaginable.
And then you blindsided me with this genius and made me reach for a screen cleaning wipe (heh, I said wipe) to remove the new anti-glare coating of a cup of folgers from my monitor.
The screensaver will have better character development and dialog.
If you're at a level that you're shooting news professionally for a newspaper/magazine, you aren't going to have a problem with red-eye or a need for red-eye reduction.
(It's REALLY easy to avoid).
Oh, and you can't blow your computer up by convincing it that it's illogical.
AI technology isn't advanced enough yet to do that. In 3-5 years, you will be able to blow up your computer just by speaking into a microphone and giving a voice command.