A good article from Infoworld, on how you can start to incorporate HTML5 into your website development today.

What can I do with HTML5, and when can I start using it? The good news is that there’s a lot you can do with HTML5. The better news is that there’s a lot that you can do with HTML5 today.

But first, one major caveat: You need to know your audience, though, of course, this is true whether or not you want to start using HTML5. If the majority of your site’s visitors still use Internet Explorer 6, then you have no reason to rush. On the other hand, if your site is primarily for mobile browsers on iPhones and iPads, what are you waiting for? But if your site falls somewhere in the middle — as most do — here are some handy guidelines to ramping up to HTML5.

http://designm.ag/resources/chrome-extensions/

Check out this post written by Steven Snell.  Great list of Chrome Plug-Ins.

Firefox is the browser of choice for most designers and developers in part because of the vast selection of add ons that are available. While Chrome does not offer anywhere close to as many extensions (yet), there are still a number that can be very handy for designers and developers. In some cases they are not as robust as the Firefox versions (example, Firebug and Firebug Lite), but if you are using Chrome you may be interested to know about the extensions that are available. Additionally, Chrome comes with some developer tools built in.

The OK Go! Boys are at it again.  You may remember a previous post about their brilliant video of a Rube Goldberg machine that was AWESOME!

Well they have just released their latest video: End Love, and it is brilliant!

Using time lapse, and again the video is in ONE CONTINUOUS shot.

The only thing wrong with this video is I will spend the rest of the day thinking about video production workflow and how to recreate this.

Go buy their album. These guys have to stick around to entertain us.

From Lieberman:

“The fastest we go is 172,800x, compressing 24 hours of real time into a blazing 1/2 second. The slowest is 1/32x speed, stretching a mere 1/2 second of real time into a whopping 16 seconds. This gives us a fastest to slowest ratio of 5.5 million. If you like averages, the average speed up factor of the band dancing is 270x. In total we shot 18 hours of the band dancing and 192 hours of LA skyline timelapse – over a million frames of video – and compressed it all down to 4 minutes and 30 seconds! Oh and don’t forget, it’s one continuous camera shot.”

“We also made a special friend in the process. Her name is Orange Bill and she’s a goose. You will agree that she clearly has a future in music videos.”

You may know Ozean’s Lauren Kruglanski.

Lauren Kruglanski in better times

She is a zealot about customer service, a dyna-mo sales person, a HUGE gator fan, web site expert, SEO guru, and all around great person.

What you may not know, is that Lauren has a serious problem.

In fact, this problem has become so severe that she needs your help.  Yes, Lauren has an addiction.

Lauren is addicted to cupcakes.

She can not see straight unless she gets her fix of icing.  She can not function without her sweets.  She can not operate without the “sweet manna from heaven” as she describes these little morsels of goodness.   It is the female version of Frank the Tank from Oldschool - only replace the beer with cupcakes and you get the picture.

It has gotten so bad, that Lauren even started a blog.  Cupcake Addiction .  Go check it out as she chronicles her saga to kick the habit.

We know the path will be difficult, but Ozean will offer her all the assistance we can.   After all, it is in Ozean’s best interest to help her so that she can continue her stellar record of web site sales.

So, call Lauren and offer her support.  Or better yet, bring her a cupcake and she will SURELY give you a discount on your next custom website.

For some reason, I remembered this today, and I thought I would share.

So, I am reading my coffee this morning, and BANG - I read this article.  All becomes clear in the world this morning.   The article - “Creativity, Schizophrenia Share Similarities in the Brain.” - the clarity?  Ozean’s creative web site designers are CRAZY!  NUTS!

ceative web site takes slightly crazy people....it is PROVEN.

Excerpt:  ”What do creative people and people diagnosed with schizophrenia have in common? According to new research out of Sweden, both share similar dopamine systems in the brain.”

Yeah - we have a TON of dopamine around this place.

Another excerpt: “Creative people, therefore, might benefit from having fewer D2 receptors because a reduced amount of filtering….”

Ladies and Gentelmen, that is a good way to describe Ozean - “a reduce amount of filterning….”

So what are you waiting for?  Give our crazy, dopamine jacked-up, low filter creatives a call.  I promise you, it will be an adventure.  352-376-0505.

Ozean Interactive Media announces the launch of another quality web design and web development project www.Remzey2010.com

www.remzey2010.com screenshot

Republican House Candidate candidate Remzey Samarrai, running in Florida House District 22, wanted a website designed and developed that was different from most politicians’ websites. He wanted it to be visually different, wanted it to include detailed position papers on issues (most politician are afraid to tell you where they stand on the issues, aren’t they?), and wanted it to be simple to maintain.

Mission accomplished - designed differently - check, include issue papers - check, and easy to maintain - check (Ozean placed them in our easy to use, web-based, content management system so that the campaign staff can easily amend and add to the website.)  This project was also designed and developed very quickly. Once the design was approved by the client, the site was developed and launched in approximately 3 days.

Just on a side note, Ozean Consulting is a division of Ozean and is performing the role of general consultant on Remzey Samarrai’s campaign; therefore, in a precautionary move, we will include the Florida required disclaimer: “Paid Political Advertisement, Paid for and approved by Remzey Samarrai, Republican for Florida State House, District 22.”

One of my favorite Twitter accounts to follow is @smashingmagazine. LOVE their stuff.

They had a great tweet this morning regarding the mess that is Internet Explorer v6. We have stopped our support of the browser, but you can never quite get away from it.

The article is a comprehensive overview of the challenges of IE6 and should be read by every designer, sales person, and client.

http://bit.ly/bOuRWN Great article on the future of video on the web. HTML5 v. Flash.

Top ten easiest SEO Techniques

The World Wide Web is constantly growing and changing. With thousands of new websites launched daily, search engine optimization is a necessity in the process of differentiating your site from competitors. The following is a list of the top ten most effective SEO techniques:

• Provide Good Content
  Be sure the content that you are implementing is relevant and useful. Not only are search engines more likely to rank your page higher for relevant searches, but informative, valuable content also encourages other sites to link to your site.
• Provide Unique Content
  Filling your website with content that other competitors do not offer will increase visitor and crawler traffic to your site, ultimately increasing your search engine rank.
• Use Keyword-Rich Text
  Make sure to use relevant keywords, search terms and queries in your content. Try to use words and phrases that your target audience would likely type into a search engine, but are not overly used by competitors. These keywords should be placed prominently on the web page, preferably above the fold.
• Frequently Update Your Website
  Frequently updating your site can prove to be extremely beneficial in terms of search engine optimization. The more frequently you update your site, the more frequently search engines will visit, increasing traffic and crawler activity, ultimately giving you the opportunity to achieve higher rankings. It is also better to update little bits of content regularly versus updating big chunks of content every so often.
• Ensure your website structure is conducive to Search Engines
  Structure your site so that it is favorable to SEO. Make sure your site map is current and your robot.txt file is correct. Always use title and meta-descriptions, as well as keywords and clean code. And most importantly, make sure visitors and search engine crawlers are able to easily access all pages of your website.
• Establish a Link Building Program
  Establish connections and alliances with other websites. While it is extremely beneficial for other websites to provide a link to your website, embedding links to other websites within your own webpage proves to be an insufficient SEO strategy. Your site will rank higher if you are linked to a few well-respected sites versus many unknown, insignificant sites.
• Include Meta-Tags
  By including meta-tags within your webpage, you have the ability to control how your website is described by search engines. Often, meta-tags are used to communicate information that human visitors are not concerned with. This information helps search engines categorize your website so that your page is easily found when your specific product or service is searched.
• Track your Performance
  First, you must establish a benchmark ranking for your website. Continue to track your improvements using programs such as Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools and Yahoo! Site Explorer. Look specifically at your SERP (Search Engine Ranking Position), your traffic statistics, and the amount of crawler activity. If you notice an increase in crawler activity, search engines are taking notice in your site and the quality of your content.
• Avoid Black Hat Techniques
  Be sure to use ethical search engine optimization strategies. Techniques such as keyword stuffing and cloaking, or presenting different pages to human visitors and search engines, will eventually get you penalized by search engines. Search engines will not only drop your rankings, but they can also ban your website from the index list.
• Stay up-to-date on the latest SEO strategies
  EO strategies are constantly changing. Be sure to know what techniques are effective or ineffective and you are sure to steadily optimize your site!

If SEO is to be done correctly and effectively, it must be continuous, deliberate effort. It can be quite a time-consuming process. If you don’t have the time, give us a call!