As a rule, I don’t like the use of Flash for the entire Web site. I think it’s overkill, and it usually means that someone is trying to overcome their lack of creativity with bells & whistles. But every once in a while, I come across a site that is done completely in Flash, is creative and easy to navigate. Erik Otten has such a site. It’s his personal Web portfolio of design work that he’s done from his home in the Netherlands. I particularly like the Flash pre-loader graphic of the pencil scribbling progress bar. Very clever. Once loaded, the tabs on the left take you to the various sections of his site, and a scroll wheel appears on the right when there is more to read. Give it a quick once-over, it may provide some inspiration.
Category: Internet
Sending large files via email
If you’ve ever had to send a large file via e-mail to a printer or publication at the last minute, only to realize that either your ISP, or the ISP of the person receiving the e-mail cannot send files as large as yours, you know how frustrating it can be. You could get your own domain name and post it on your site, but that seems like overkill. You could use FTP, but your run the risk of having to spend an hour on the phone explaining to some underpaid secretary how to use FTP on her 7 year old PC – not to mention you still need a site to upload it to. Enter YouSendIt. YouSendIt is a “remailer” service, and it’s totally free. You go to their site, upload your file to THEIR server and type a custom message. YouSendIt then sends the person you want the file to go to a simple text message with a link to the actual file that they can download via the Web. Since pretty much everyone on the planet is capable of clicking a link, it couldn’t be simpler. The file remains available for download for a short time, so the end user isn’t forced to download it immediately, though you don’t want them to wait too long, because the files are deleted after a set amount of time.
Cool Web site: Montage-a-Google
Montage-a-Google is one of those sites that isn’t immediately apparent how fun & useful it can be, but that should change fairly quick. Of course you could do this sort of thing manually, this Web-based application written by Grant Robinson makes it a bit more fun, and a little less work. As you can see by the sample above, I used the keyword “bikini” – a favorite subject matter of mine! I can think of a few projects I could have used this for, simply for a background image. Just remember, you don’t own the images used in the montage, it’s perfectly legal to use the images for personal use, but you might want to avoid using them in an ad for a national client!
Disposable email addresses to combat Spam
In an effort to combat SPAM, I came across a disposable e-mail address site. SpamBob offers a free email address that you can use for registering with Web sites that you don’t really want to give out your real address to. While these Web sites offer what appears to be valuable services in the war against spam, I urge you to take caution when using them. Some sites may or may not be a front for spammers to begin with.
Cool Web site: Tonik Health
For the most part, any site with Flash is a site I don’t like to frequently visit. I find all-Flash sites to be about as annoying as it can get. There’s really no reason to do it, other than the fact that “you can.” 
Every once in a while though, I come across a site that doesn’t go overboard with animation, even though the site is done completely in Flash. Check out the Tonik Health site by Blue Cross of California. It’s a great example of a Flash site that’s NOT used for Evil!
Check your browser pop-ups blocker
If you’re using Firefox, Safari, OmniWeb, Mozilla, Netscape or any other browser that offers pop-up blocking, you can visit Pop-Up Test to see how well it’s actually working for you. I’m not sure why Mircrosoft faught so hard against pop-up blockers for so long, but the most recent version of IE finally has the ability to block pop-ups. Now if MS would only give you the option of not allowing ANY pop-ups in the entire system, that would be cool. But this is a whole other discussion. If you’re really looking for the abuse, you could visit the site using IE for Mac, an older version of IE for Windows, or turn off your pop-up blocker in Firefox to see what you’ve been missing!
The war against Spam – choose your weapon
In the war against SPAM, one can’t have enough weapons. All modern email applications offer some sort of Spam filter. Some are better than others. Then there are dozens upon dozens of add-on applications as well. Here’s one I’ve never seen before. SpamGourmet uses the most obvious tactic to reduce the spam you receive. Read the brief description on the front page of their site.
Creative Latitude
Creative Latitude is an interesting little site I came across a while back that offers a lit bit of everything. In particular, I noticed the article titled Why Freelance by Ronnie Lebow, which some of you may find interesting. The site offers a fairly nice layout, good color combinations, easy navigation and most importantly, good content. Give it a look see when you have the time, paying particular attention to the articles.