THIS IS
OUR BLOG!

Ever noticed that most business cards all look the same? How many have you seen that are plain white, with a little logo and contact details? I have literally thousands of cards in my files and they’re all pretty much the same. Functional, but boring…

Fortunately there are some creative people in the world who realize that memorable cards make for memorable meetings. Here are a few gems.

Ooh, and a little gift, too!

Got to love the Beatles.

Good on the front, and the back!

Very self-explanatory, aren’t they? There were others that folded into mini-cars (car repairer), that grew grass when watered (landscape architect), that had perfect bite mark indents (orthodontist), etc etc. By being original and innovative in the design of business cards, individual artists/designers and small businesses have a greater chance of being noticed. Not only is it a form of exchanging information, it’s a form of effective advertisement. I mean, what are the odds of these fascinating cards being thrown in the bin? I personally think that in the long-run, it’s something very much worth investing in.

In the scheme of things it really wasn’t that long ago that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer doomed Netscape Navigator to a grisly death. Pretty much every computer in the world had a copy of IE installed because of the way Microsoft marketed their browser with their operating system. Basically, it came as one.

People around the world shouted out in protest. Microsoft was taking over the world! They’re killing the competition! This is bad for the internet! But it didn’t take long for other browsers to fill the void left by Netscape’s departure. Apple’s Safari browser has gained a nice chunk of market share, and Safari on the iPhone is going great guns. Of course, Firefox is going wonderfully well too. Despite these inroads by the smaller browsers though, IE continues its market dominance.

But is there a contender to the throne? I think there might just be! Today I discovered a new browser developed by Google, called Google Chrome. In short, it is very cool! As their blurb says, traditional browsers were never designed to view complicated web applications (like internet banking) but were instead built just to view web pages. Google Chrome changes all that though, and it’s going to turn the market on its head!

The biggest thing for many users will be the way it manages downloads. So, using 2Large2Email just got easier (and you thought it was impossible!), which is good for everyone.

Check this out: Google Chrome Promo

Oh yes, this will be big!

I briefly touched on file-sending and file-sharing websites in my last entry, but I decided it’s something I’d like to talk a little more about.

I’m sure everyone’s used a file-sharing site before. In fact, I used one yesterday myself, to receive a file from a friend. I felt a bit sick afterwards.

Alright, tell me if this sounds familiar.

You open a notification email from a file-sharing company, and after scrolling up and down to skim through the rubbish and find the right link, you click it. It takes ages to load, because the page you arrive at is infested with flashy, trashy ads. It gives you the option of either downloading with paid premium (with ALL of these fantastic benefits that you can get! Hurray!) or downloading free (this option is in a small font, on a grey miserable little button). You move your mouse over the free option to click it, and then - SURPRISE! An online poker ad pops up in front to trick you into clicking on it accidentally. You successfully close it and click on “download free” - only for it to prompt you to prove that you’re not a computer, by deciphering this almost IMPOSSIBLE-to-read 5 digit number-alphabet combination. You somehow get it right - but don’t be too happy too soon, because you’ve got to wait for 45 seconds before you can even click “download”. And when you do, painfully slow download speeds and a quick page jump to another obscure gambling website ensues.

So just in order to download ONE file, you have to undergo this Indiana-Jones-like adventure of dodging ads and deciphering cryptical characters, as well as possibly picking up a few trojans on the way.

Frankly, I don’t like the way they abuse the user into their “premium” services. “Sure, you can have your download, but we’re going to bash the hell out of you before you get there so that you’re going to wish you paid your share.” Now this tactic makes me sick. I’d never wish that on any customer. We offer our services safe, clean and easy-to-use. We want it to be about usability and intuitive design. Confusion and frustration should not be a part of the simple process of downloading and transferring files - and this, I think, is one of the most important concepts we base our design on.

What are your thoughts?

A couple of months ago we suffered a little hitch. All our blogs went missing. They were written in some obscure blog program and I assumed they were safe. Then, one day, they went missing. I wasn’t very happy! There weren’t many of them, but blogs do take time to write, and to be honest we had a lot on our plates in July and August, so I didn’t want to rewrite them all.

Then, after working his technical magic, our lead web programmer found the “missing” blogs and restored them to the public side of cyberspace. We now use Wordpress for our blogs (and Twitter for our tweets) and everything’s ok. Phew. I’m glad, because I didn’t want to rewrite them all!