The Softmedia Blog

I listened to my voice messages today and one hit me in the core!  It was from someone who lived in Wyoming who was calling to dispute a credit card charge.  Caller stated he was charged $105 and it came from Softmedia. He wanted to know what the charge was for.  Boy did that startle me on many fronts!  First off, we do all our business by invoices and checks.  We don't have the ability to charge someone's credit card. Plus, how could this have happened!  Startled turned to curiosity as I put everything I was doing down and was now on a mission.  (I may regret that action later due to my current to-do list but that is for another blog!)

When I decided to start a business and incorporate Softmedia in 1994, the Internet was not known by many.  In fact, our core business was Client/Server applications in Powerbuilder. I know I am dating myself and I apologize to anyone who has no clue what client/server is or what is Powerbuilder.  Think of it as the Internet and .NET applications of today!  Anyway, we didn't even venture into the web world until the late 90's.  And when we did, much to our dismay, Softmedia.com was already taken. What? Wasn't I the only person in the world to come up with a great name like Softmedia? There was a French company called Soft Media whose business model was software and video for TV, not even in our market.  So we searched for Softmediainc.com and sure enough it was available.  Nobody would confuse the two companies!

Over the years different websites called Softmedia started popping up.  I really didn't think anything of it until we started to focus on SEO techniques.  We searched for our company in search engines and we were constantly referred to Softpedia. Why was Google or Yahoo telling me that I must have misspelled the name and meant Softpedia?  (By the way, Softpedia is a website for free software downloads)  It was a tad annoying but at least we were listed first.  As the months went by, I saw more sites called Softmedia but still it didn't register.

But that changed today...

I now did my search on "Softmedia" and scrolled thru 4 pages of Google.  The results were astounding.  Look at the list!!

http://www.softmedia.co.in/
http://www.softmedia.biz
http://www.softmedia.ee/
http://www.softmedia4u.com/
http://www.qsoftmedia.com/
http://www.softmediafoundry.com/
http://www.softmedia.nl/home/
http://www.softmedia.com.pe/
http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23softmedia?q=%23softmedia
http://edgesoftmedia.ro/
https://www.facebook.com/softmedia
http://softmediagroup.org/
http://www.linkedin.com/company/softmedia-group
http://softmg.ru/

All of these have NOTHING to do with my company.  One even showed up on a complaint board.  Lovely!  I started to click on all the above links.  Some had a similar set of services and even one logo looked similar.  How did this happen?  Do I have to change my business name?  What do I do? Or maybe I do nothing?

Today small businesses have a lot on their plate!  We all are trying to separate ourselves from our competition in all ways possible including products, services and price.  We try to find that one thing to make us stand out!  Something!  Now I have to add to the plate that even my name isn't unique!

Just like there are several John's or Mary's or Dennis', there is a very good chance your name may not be unique on the Internet.  But it's the total package that counts.  Even if you have similar qualities, find that one that stands out!  Maybe it's your customer service (this phrase may be foreign to you but trust me, it still exists out there!),  maybe it's the extra mile you show your clients or your potential clients,  or maybe it's the way you do something else!  Whatever it is, find it and run with it.  Make it stand out!  That will get you noticed!  And when you do, nobody will mistake you for some other company! 

SEO is key to all of this as well.  Do the necessary steps to move your website as high as possible.  The good news is even if there are other companies with a similar name, if you did your homework you will be listed first.  This is a good thing, even if you have to take some calls from people who think you did something that some other company did!  Of course, if you need help with SEO, contact us and we can help you find your way through the maze!

Oh and a couple of final thoughts... the good news in all of this, they won't confuse Softmedia with the other sites once they click. I compared the quality of both the design and the content of each site.  We probably may get more leads because of it!

And I couldn't find that French company that had the original Softmedia.com.  It is now a parked site!  We must be doing something right after all these years!

Finally, I left a message with that person who called me.  Should be an interesting conversation when he calls back!

In the beginning designers and developers were intrigued when they learned that HTML5 offered something called Canvas, which is a low level language that allows browsers to support vector graphics, motion, paths, rendering text, copying images and video, manipulating pixels and more. It was an open source alternative to Flash, which sounded great. But to say Canvas was a mixed bag is being kind. It had many limitations that made it less than an ideal choice for most. But when Steve Jobs, Google and Microsoft later sanctioned it, it changed the game and caused some to reconsider whether the time had come to pick it back up and take it for a spin. No Flash or SVG on the iPhone is reason enough to take a closer look at where things stand, because there have been constant developments for Canvas. After recent advances, is it now worth using?

Starting off on the Wrong Foot

Let’s take a look at what Canvas brings to the table. No longer are HTML developers stuck using blinking text when they want animation! Throw away mooTools and Flash, because Canvas is the answer to your interactive prayers. Right? No. Canvas will not be able to compete with Flash any time soon. Flash can bring Canvas to the wrestling mat with a reverse pile driver in most instances. The computing power required of your browser will not allow Canvas to do all that much. We must limit our expectations right out of the gate, but it does have pratical uses. Anyhow, here are some examples that are touted to be “ridiculously impressive”:

net.tutsplus.com/articles/web-roundups/21-ridiculously-impressive-html5-canvas-experiments/

If you think that is ridiculously impressive, you probably also play Combat on your Atari 2600 and think it’s pure visual magic. The showcase looks like Flash from ten years ago, which is seventy years in dog terms. Even a pure jQuery / PhotoShop tag team can get you further, although admittedly the image file sizes will be bigger. You also won’t require any emergency scripting for older IE browsers. And all of this is I learned the hard way. I test drove one of my Flash presentations after conversion into Canvas. With the help of a friend, we ported it over using a JavaScript shorthand plugin he created, and while his tool kit did work and the coding time was fairly quick, the browser was slow as molasses when rendering my vector based movie. Honestly, I’m surprised my computer didn’t erupt in a fiery mushroom cloud ten seconds in. The frame rate is just miserable when the page uses more than a just few moving visual assets, or actors.

If you are looking to draw simple images or do very simple animations, Canvas can do it. Too many moving parts means you better had better be fine with deplorable frame rates. If you are thinking about making complex interactive movies, interfaces or animation, I should stop you right here. Canvas might perform better once newer browsers come along with more horsepower devoted to the task, but right now I’d look to Flash, maybe Silverlight if you are a glutton for punishment, but Canvas is not a good option.

Gimme My Pen Tool

Let’s talk a little about the vector art in Canvas. Vector art is of course smaller in file size than raster art and scales nicely. That’s why Illustrator is a vital tool for many designers and why Flash files can stay so lean. Well, Canvas has more than a few issues here. First of all, drawing simple objects like a circle or a box requires a surprising amount of code. Illustrator and Flash objects contain similar code but the artist never has to look at. Canvas has no drawing board or tools, so many designers are not going to be very pleased. So far Canvas is not making my life any easier, it’s making it harder. Now imagine I need a more complex object, like a cartoon character that requires some points and curves. Canvas does support Bezier curves, but get a load of the steps required for two anchor points:

www.html5canvastutorials.com/tutorials/html5-canvas-bezier-curves/

That looks a lot like what makes Silverlight such a tedious piece of junk. Designers and developers are a deadline driven bunch, and I want, no, I need to draw Bezier curves in under three seconds without being ground to a screeching halt in order to grab the four x/y coordinates for each curve in some other application. This is not efficient, so we are going to have to grab these coordinates from another app like illustrator and then add them to our scripting in order to use them in Canvas. All I can say is ugh. Until there is a Firefox app allows us to complete this task as easily as Adobe Illustrator, I will not be partaking in this lesson in futility.

So let’s instead bring our actors from another drawing app. This is what I did, and since there is no drag and drop, no WYSIWYG action for creating Bezier paths, and easing controls that I simply punch a number into, you are stuck building it all programmatically. Very slow when you need things to snap to point, and synching sound or music is not an option. The window of opportunity to use Canvas is a small window indeed.

We do have one more choice here: if you have your heart set on using complex vector images in Canvas, and you are reasonable enough to see that calculating bezier curve coordinates point by point is too labor intensive to make sense, there is a solution available. As of writing this I haven't tried it out yet, but in theory it look like a great idea. This app should allow Adobe Illustrator users to convert their images to pure Canvas code. That said, converting an image with thousands of control points is not going to be happy fun time for your browser: 

visitmix.com: Ai2Canvas

Browser support

Basic support is ok, but Internet Explorer does need an extra library . Firefox is fine for everything starting at version 3, Safari at 3.0, Chrome at 1.0, iPhone and Android were fine right out of the gates. The use of radial gradients will require IE9 or greater.

Mobile devices a possibility

Flash was not invited to the iPhone party. Even SVG was given the brush off. Here is our shining moment! If you have something pretty light as far as animation, and you need it for mobile devices, then Canvas might actually make sense. JavaScript languages like jQuery can move images, so developers with skills heavy in this or mooTools could get by just fine without Canvas, so its up to you.

Interactive Charts

Flash was not invited to the iPhone party. Even SVG was given the brush off. Here is our shining moment! If you have something pretty light as far as animation, and you need it for mobile devices, then Canvas might actually make sense. jQuery is also alright if we don’t need vector/scalable art, btw, so you are not stuck using Canvas.

Conclusion

You know what ? Let’s try and polish this thing – no need to be a downer. Simple animation and scalable graphics via Canvas is a good fit for mobile devices. And I bet a Canvas project would look pretty good on a young front end developer’s resume. We’re not really at a point where employers are going to beat down your door with more Canvas projects, but it would show you have some versatility, and the ability to pick up new technologies, and things could change. But who else needs this trick in their quiver? Not many.

Some new advances show promise, and some kits tools have made things a bit easier on the coding end, so the engine of progress has not stalled , but browser performance is still a major hindrance to Canvas’s relevance. It is not an all-in-one solution, at least for anyone who needs more drawing tools than simple shapes and gradients, so I am not feeling the love. Yet. But I’ll keep checking back every six months to a year, and you should too. One day this thing might make sense.

Resources:

Canvas Cheatsheet

renderToCanvas: Off-Screen Rendering (good to use when Canvas has to do complex drawing)

Comparison of layout engines (HTML5 Canvas)

Google has created an environment where new content can give your the site some serious searchbot recognition. If the body copy is poorly written, however, your bounce rate may increase, in which case Google may agree with your fleeing visitors them and give you a demotion in the rankings. Copying and pasting other people's content is not the answer either, and Google will not be very impressed. Putting just anybody in charge of producing new content is not exactly ideal; what you put in is what you get out. What you need is a writer. A skilled writer.

Rediscovering a Lost Talent Pool

Most people can write, but but few can do it well. Putting someone who has marginal skills at the helm of your web blog is not going to give you the results to need. A talented writer can add content that is fun, compelling and informative. They can influence your audience and create a positive user experience in ways that an average writer simply cannot, regardless of whether or not they understand your business and your industry. So we should call upon the professional writer, the group who can actually make it happen for you, people who were all but forgotten by many businesses after the internet bubble.

What Happened to Bubble Buddy?

We wouldn't even be having this discussion prior to the rise of the internet; print, radio and television advertising once understood the pivotal role good writing played in their success. If you needed visibility and wanted a chance at some good results, you either hired a veteran writer or hired a creative agency with writers. This wisdom was even valued by web companies right up until the bubble popped. Then the money dried up and companies made some hard choices in order to survive, and not all of those decisions made good sense over the long haul. Many cheesed out by dumping their writing talent and giving the job to someone who could wear a number of different hats. The writer's cap, it turned out, was not a great fit. But to be fair, even many print publications dropped the ball by letting much of their staff go and turning it over to interns and lesser talent in an attempt to maintain profit margins. Pennywise and pound foolish for sure.

Now imagine a post bubble crowd that was attempting to quantify the drop in content quality after jettisoning their writers, and then correlating it to a drop in positive user experience, and then further showing correlation to increased bounce rate or drop in sales. The sophistication, the science wasn't there yet. We were still waving away the smoke from the bubble implosion, finding our way through the aftermath of the wild wild west we once rode through with a surreal giddiness. Serious tools to measure these changes are a only few years old, and their usefulness is being further solidified by Google's assertion that content is a primary factor in search worthiness, so let's follow where they are leading us.

Supply and Demand

In the wake of the internet bubble, many writers have been battered by a drop in demand. We saw the same thing with freelance photography; most website owners are too cheap or simply cannot afford to hire quality photographers, so they scuffle over to istockphoto or some other McDonaldland can-i-have-fries-with-that stock photo vendor for $2 a pop, and they end up with some rather questionable image choices to try and prop up their site. This was also driven by the old channels falling by the wayside, as businesses that take control of their website won't have the same freelance connections that an established agency has, and they might find traversing the professional stock photography market an expensive and confusing endeavor. For very small businesses and start ups, cheap stock photo sites may have to do the job, just like a cash-strapped greasy spoon may have few options other than printing out a plain Jane, black and white menu for their take out customers. But for others, where the business has outgrown the model they chose and branding can finally be reconsidered, the time has come for them to move the brand to a place where it can be properly leveraged. Quality photography is important to a good user experience and so is good writing, and if you have the smarts to hire a good writer, you are in for a treat. Rates for writers are often rather reasonable because of the glaring lack of demand. That same lack of demand that gets you quality writing on the cheap also indicates most competitors still do not value writers, so hiring one gives you the opportunity to build content that will make your site a destination point for people in your industry.

Barber Shop Versus Beauty Salon

We would be remiss if we did not consider the skill set of the writer that needs to be hired. A tech writer is not a good candidate to write engaging text for a fashion site, and a fashion writer will rarely be suitable for writing competent, tech industry copy that can be churned out quickly. It might be worthwhile to explore various options for finding the talent you need. Creative agencies often have people in house or have a stable of writers with different skill sets, so this is a logical choice. Or you can strike out on your own and try to find them yourself through other channels. They should be able to supply you with sample writing so that you'll have a gauge on what it is you'd be getting from candidates.

Conclusion

Whether businesses know it or not, their hand has been forced by Google if they expect to blog and be taken seriously. The author of new site content when it has to be produced regularly needs to be just that &emdash; an author, a word which is practically synonymous with writer. I'm not talking about having a book under your belt or having any street cred, but a solid mastery of the craft to draw upon, a cleverness with words. The talent pool is there waiting for you, ready to do your bidding, to create a reason for people to link to your quality content, so what better time than the present to make use of it?

If you are pasting content from Word into Kentico, and the styles from the original document are coming along with it, you might need to take action to rescue your site from an evil soup of conflicting styles. There are a number of scenarios where a writer might need to cut and paste from Word on a regular basis. Some people do not like writing directly into a content management system; they may have another app they use for their writing and then move it to the CMS once their work is complete. Or perhaps they are moving old content to the web that previously existed only in Word or PowerPoint. Your website probably has its own style guides, which can run into trouble with Word and Open Office since they can carry over their own style tags. The Word styles may not agree with the look and feel your company wants to maintain. In this case it is first necessary to clear the text of all "Microsludge", or the verbose, semi hidden code that Word employs to control the look and feel of your site text. Rather than manually editing each item in the Kentico editor in order to purge the Microsludge, we'd like to suggest a number of more efficient, less tedious methods of removing these style tags and put your content management system back in charge.

Make Word Clear the Style for You

2010 and 2007 Microsoft products can clear it for you:

2010 Word and PowerPoint

 

2007 Word and PowerPoint

If you are using an older version than that, you will have to try another method. Some people have found the newer versions don't always clear all the tags, so check out the other solutions listed below if this is what you are up against.

Get an Kentico editor patch

Depending on what editor is being employed by your Kentico CMS, you may be able to add a patch that will automatically filter out Word tags. This cuts out most of the trouble and allows you to then go directly to adding your site style guides in Kentico. If you are not a developer, you'll need to request this from whoever is running your website. It's certainly worth your time and effort.

Using an Text Editor to Kill the Styles

Start by copying and pasting the text into a editor like Notepad ++ (not regular Notepad), Textwrangler, bBedit, etc., then find the "clear text formatting" function; most serious text editors will have one, but it might take a moment or two to find it in the menus. Once you find it, se;ect the text in question and then hit the button. Your text should be ready to be added to Kentico.

Use Google Docs / an Online Code Editor

Cutting and pasting into Google Docs or any online editor that has a clear formatting function works just like I explained earlier with the text editor solution.

Using Lowly Notepad

Notepad can be found on any Windows machine, and if you do not have IT staff available at that moment to help you with the aforementioned solutions, you may be forced to use this in a pinch. Cut and paste here first, then cut a paste the content into Kentico

Wrapping Up

These techniques will remove the Microsludge but aren't going to help you put the correct style tags in place. That said, you should now have a starting point that is not going to be any more difficult that creating a brand new page and writing directly into Kentico, so life is good.