Keep Words Together with a Non-breaking Space
Have you ever been typing a paragraph in Microsoft Word and had a multiword phrase, such as a person's name, get separated onto two lines? You can keep that phrase or name together by inserting a non-breaking space. To create a non-breaking space, select the space after each word in the phrase (except the last word), and press CTRL+SHIFT+SPACEBAR.
| DSpace is the software of choice for academic, non-profit, and commercial organizations building open digital repositories. It is free and easy to install "out of the box" and completely customizable to fit the needs of any organization. DSpace preserves and enables easy and open access to all types of digital content including text, images, moving images, mpegs and data sets. And with an ever-growing community of developers, committed to continuously expanding and improving the software, each DSpace installation benefits from the next. |
require("openurl").mailto(["john@example.com", "jane@example.com"], { subject: "Hello!", body: "This is\na generated email!\n" }); Naturally, the same technique also works with other programming languages:
Section breaks give you additional options for formatting your documents. Especially with lengthy documents, you can have multiple headers or footers or different page orientation. This document will help you understand what section breaks are and how you might use them in your documents.
Comparing Page Breaks and Section BreaksBoth page breaks and section breaks can be used to add a page; however, section breaks offer more options and more flexibility for formatting.
For more information on page breaks, refer to Inserting Page Breaks in the Page Formatting Options document.
| Page Breaks | Section Breaks |
|---|---|
| Adds the next, consecutive page | Can be used to add another page: the next consecutive, the next odd-numbered, or the next even-numbered page |
| Retains the page formatting of the previous page (e.g., margins, orientation) | Can be formatted differently from the previous text or page (e.g., columns, margins, orientation) |
When to Use Section BreaksUse a section break when you want:
different headers or footers for certain pages
EXAMPLE: You want to number your table of contents with Roman numerals (i, ii) and the main text with Arabic numerals (1, 2).
one or more pages in landscape orientation
EXAMPLE: Your main text is on pages with portrait orientation, but you have a wide table of data that fits best with the page sideways (landscape). Then you want to follow with more text on pages with portrait orientation.
multiple main sections or chapters in one document to each start on an odd-numbered page.
a certain amount or section of text displayed in columns, while the rest of your text is in a single column.
Types of Section BreaksThere are four types of section breaks. Each offers a different option for formatting in your document.
Next Page
Inserts a new page or continues text on the next consecutive page.
Continuous
Starts a new section without adding a page. A common use of this type of section break is for columns.
Even Page
Inserts a new even-numbered page or continues text on the next even-numbered page.
Odd Page
Inserts a odd-numbered new page or continues text on the next odd-numbered page.
Adding a Section BreakPlace your insertion point where you want the section break to appear
From the Page Layout command tab, in the Page Setup section, click BREAKS
The section break appears at the insertion point.
Removing a Section BreakSection breaks are easily removed. Formatting for pages reverts to the previous section/page formatting.
On the Home tab, in the Paragraph section, click SHOW/HIDE ¶
Place your insertion point just before the section break
Press [Delete]
Continuous section breaks frequently occur in pairs (e.g., to begin and end columnar formatting). In those cases, it is important to remove both section breaks.
On the Home tab, in the Paragraph section, click SHOW/HIDE ¶
Place your insertion point just before the first section break
HINT: This is the section break that begins the section (and related formatting).
Press [Delete]
NOTE: The formatting of your document will appear disordered until you remove the second section break.
Place your insertion point just before the second section break
HINT: This is the section break that ends the section (and related formatting).
Press [Delete]
Section Breaks IllustratedThe following shows an Odd Page section break. Notice the page numbering. The section break occurs on page one, continuing the text on page 3.
Applies to: Microsoft Office Word 2007
You can insert a page break anywhere in your document, or you can specify where Microsoft Word positions automatic page breaks.
If you insert manual page breaks in documents that are more than several pages in length, you might have to frequently rebreak pages as you edit the document. To avoid the difficulty of manually rebreaking pages, you can set options to control where Word positions automatic page breaks.
Exhibit A in the case against Walter Isaacson’s flawed Jobs biography: Malcolm Gladwell in last week’s New Yorker, arguing that Jobs was “a tweaker”:
In 1779, Samuel Crompton, a retiring genius from Lancashire, invented the spinning mule, which made possible the mechanization of cotton manufacture. Yet England’s real advantage was that it had Henry Stones, of Horwich, who added metal rollers to the mule; and James Hargreaves, of Tottington, who figured out how to smooth the acceleration and deceleration of the spinning wheel; and William Kelly, of Glasgow, who worked out how to add water power to the draw stroke; and John Kennedy, of Manchester, who adapted the wheel to turn out fine counts; and, finally, Richard Roberts, also of Manchester, a master of precision machine tooling — and the tweaker’s tweaker. He created the “automatic” spinning mule: an exacting, high-speed, reliable rethinking of Crompton’s original creation. Such men, the economists argue, provided the “micro inventions necessary to make macro inventions highly productive and remunerative.”
Was Steve Jobs a Samuel Crompton or was he a Richard Roberts?
Jobs was neither. These men make for a poor comparison to Jobs because Jobs didn’t really “invent” anything — not in the sense that Industrial Revolution inventors did. Jobs understood technology but was not an engineer. He had profoundly exquisite taste but was not a designer. What it was that Jobs actually did is much of the mystery of his life and his work, and Isaacson, frustratingly, had seemingly little interest in that, or any recognition that there even was any sort of mystery as to just what Jobs’s gifts really were. Gladwell, alas, takes Isaacson’s portrait of Jobs at face value:
In the eulogies that followed Jobs’s death, last month, he was repeatedly referred to as a large-scale visionary and inventor. But Isaacson’s biography suggests that he was much more of a tweaker. He borrowed the characteristic features of the Macintosh — the mouse and the icons on the screen — from the engineers at Xerox PARC, after his famous visit there, in 1979. The first portable digital music players came out in 1996. Apple introduced the iPod, in 2001, because Jobs looked at the existing music players on the market and concluded that they “truly sucked.” Smart phones started coming out in the nineteen-nineties. Jobs introduced the iPhone in 2007, more than a decade later, because, Isaacson writes, “he had noticed something odd about the cell phones on the market: They all stank, just like portable music players used to.”
If this is the standard for innovation, then what product, from any company, has truly been innovative? Some people — most people? — can’t get their heads around the idea that “innovation” doesn’t mean “creating something 100 percent new using never before seen technology, ideas, and concepts”. Yes, there were digital music players before the iPod. There were “smartphones” before the iPhone. But, I say, the differences between those products and Apple’s iPod and iPhone weren’t “tweaks”.
Here’s an image from the January 2007 Macworld Expo keynote, where Jobs unveiled the original iPhone.
Those really were the leading smartphones of the day. Four years later and no company is making phones that look like those, save for RIM, and RIM is circling the toilet.
Here’s a video showing the Xerox Star in 1982, which Jobs and Apple, Gladwell would have you believe, “tweaked” to create the Macintosh. You can judge for yourself how much the interface resembles that of a Macintosh. Xerox certainly blazed the trail for many fundamental concepts the Mac built upon, but anyone familiar with the Mac would be utterly lost trying to use the Star without significant instruction. But the key difference between the Star and the Macintosh wasn’t design, but democratization. According to Wikipedia, a typical Star installation circa 1981 cost about $75,000 — it required a network and dedicated file server — and each additional workstation had a starting price of $16,000. The 1984 Macintosh cost $2,495 (and Jobs wanted it cheaper).
Bringing the concepts of a $100,000 networked workstation to a $2500 standalone mass market personal computer is, I say, radically innovative. The Macintosh was no “tweak”. Pixar was no “tweak”. The iPod is maybe the closest thing among Jobs’s career highlights that one could call a “tweak” of that which preceded it — but it’s hard to separate the iPod, the device, from the entire iTunes ecosystem in terms of measuring its effect on our culture and the way everyone today listens to music. Does anyone really think Apple’s entry into the music industry was a “tweak”? A “large-scale visionary” is precisely what Steve Jobs was.
Gladwell continues:
The idea for the iPad came from an engineer at Microsoft, who was married to a friend of the Jobs family, and who invited Jobs to his fiftieth-birthday party. As Jobs tells Isaacson:
This guy badgered me about how Microsoft was going to completely change the world with this tablet PC software and eliminate all notebook computers, and Apple ought to license his Microsoft software. But he was doing the device all wrong. It had a stylus. As soon as you have a stylus, you’re dead. This dinner was like the tenth time he talked to me about it, and I was so sick of it that I came home and said, “Fuck this, let’s show him what a tablet can really be.”
How is that “the idea for the iPad”? The motivation to make the iPad, perhaps. The extra nudge to pluck the idea of “a tablet” from the idea pile and move it to the let’s get to work on it pile, more likely. But how can anyone read the above paragraph and come away with “The idea for the iPad came from an engineer at Microsoft”? (And even with regard to motivation, if you really think the iPad would not exist if not for that one blowhard tablet PC engineer from Microsoft, you’re nuts.)
What if some seemingly obvious bit of conventional wisdom is not only completely wrong, but, in fact, it turns out that the opposite is true? That’s the Malcolm Gladwell formula. It does not fit here.
If anyone is the “tweaker” in the PC industry, a la Gladwell’s 18th century steam engine inventors, clearly it’s Bill Gates, not Steve Jobs. There was BASIC before Microsoft’s BASIC. Microsoft didn’t invent DOS. Windows followed the Mac. Word followed WordPerfect, Excel followed 1-2-3 (which followed VisiCalc), the Xbox followed the PlayStation.
I don’t even think it’s fair to call Gates merely a “tweaker”, though. Gates was (and remains) a large-scale visionary in his own right. He was simply never a product visionary. But the whole idea that software in general could be more valuable than hardware — or even just valuable, period? Gates. The man pioneered the concept of selling software. The idea that a software platform could be created that ran everywhere, on almost all hardware? Gates. And he built a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars from those ideas. So please don’t get me wrong and think I’m trying to belittle or diminish Bill Gates’s accomplishments. Gladwell’s entire premise here is fundamentally flawed; I’m just saying that given that faulty premise, Steve Jobs isn’t the one who fits the description.
Part of what makes Gladwell’s premise so wrong is that Jobs, clearly, was a tweaker too. Iteration — steady incremental improvements, prototype after prototype, design after design, year after year, release after release — that process is ingrained in Apple’s (and I think Pixar’s) culture. But Gladwell writes:
The visionary starts with a clean sheet of paper, and re-imagines the world. The tweaker inherits things as they are, and has to push and pull them toward some more nearly perfect solution.
Steve Jobs really did re-imagine the world. The thing is, he actually made it happen, too.
We have received a number of queries from people wanting to remove the image borders or add sidebar borders in the CSS layouts. In this article, we cover briefly what the border styles in CSS templates are and where you can find them. With this guide, you will be able to remove the borders around the images, sidebar or main posts, or change the style and color of the borders to match the Blog design.
The point to note is that some templates such as Scribe, TicTac and Thisaway use background images to create the look of the main post and sidebar sections. The 'borders' you see in these templates are the result of the background images. To change or remove the 'borders' around the main post and sidebar, the images will have to be altered and replaced. The sections in this article on CSS borders around Blog Posts or Sidebar will not apply to these templates.
Border Property
When you are logged into Blogger, go to Template -> Edit HTML and do a search (Ctrl+F) for the word “border”. You will see it appearing in a number of places in the template. In most of the stylesheets, the border settings are defined in one shorthand declaration like this:-
border:1px solid $bordercolor; |
|---|
1px (or any other length) thin medium thick |
|---|
none hidden dotted solid dashed double groove ridge inset outset |
|---|
#cc0000 rgb(204,0,0) |
|---|
.profile-img { border: 0px solid $bordercolor; } |
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.profile-img { border: none; } |
|---|
.profile-img { border: 2px dashed #ff00ff; } |
|---|
.post img { border:1px solid $bordercolor; } |
|---|
.post img { border:3px outset #ff00ff; } |
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a img { border:0; } |
|---|
.sidebar img { border:6px ridge #ff00ff; } |
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#header-wrapper #header #head-wrap #head |
|---|
.post { border:1px dotted #ff00ff; padding:1.5em; } |
|---|
#sidebar-wrapper { border:1px dotted #ff00ff; padding:1.0em; } |
|---|
#footer { border:1px solid $bordercolor; } |
|---|
Published on May 24, 2011 by wilsontech1
What are the CORE reasons that people HATE Apple? I discuss 3 of my reasons that people HATE Apple in today's video.
/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC mms://anything_ending_in.wmv \ --sout file/avi:movie.avi The practical impact of a new Digital Millennium Copyright Act ruling may be limited because Apple's end user contract still restricts jailbreaking.
To help answer some questions about this week's announcement by the Copyright Office, a unit of the Library of Congress, regarding the legality of so-called cell phone jailbreaking--that is, modifying the software that comes with iPhones and other handsets and that is designed not to be changed--we've compiled the following questions and answers.
What does the Copyright Office's ruling mean?
The short answer is that jailbreaking your iPhone or other mobile device will no longer violate a controversial federal copyright law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA. Bypassing a manufacturer's protection mechanisms to allow "handsets to execute software applications" is now permitted.
But in practice, the actual impact of that portion of the decision may be limited.
How does it affect iPhones specifically?
Apple exercises greater control of its hardware and software than most of its competitors. Anyone remember last fall's court-ordered permanent injunction that Apple won against Psystar, which sold PCs with OS X pre-installed?
On the iPhone, Apple restricts the software that can be loaded onto the device. Applications can be downloaded through the App Store, and to be included in the App Store, the program has to be vetted and approved by Apple.
Apple says this maintains a high-quality user experience and weeds out malware. (An executive summed it up: "You and your family and friends can download applications from the store, and for the most part they do what you'd expect, and they get onto your phone, and you get billed appropriately, and it all just works.")
But if users want software that's not permitted in the App Store--Google Voice is a big one, and tethering is another--they need to jailbreak their phone. That unlocks the file system, allowing apps to be added without Apple's permission.
Groups of software developers and individuals work to devise jailbreaking software for every new version of the iPhone's operating system that is released. The best known is probably the iPhone Dev Team, which makes its software available at no cost.
Why do you say the practical impact of the Copyright Office's decision is limited?
Until this week, Apple has possessed the legal equivalent of a double-barreled shotgun, which would have permitted the company to file lawsuits accusing users (or jailbreak software creators) of violating both the DMCA and breaching the contract in the form of the Apple iPhone Software License Agreement.
Now, thanks to the Copyright Office, Apple's legal arsenal has been reduced to a single-barreled shotgun, the license agreement.
But these amount to legal claims that the company could in theory pursue. In reality, Apple has never sued a single person for jailbreaking or distributing jailbreaking software. It's never even threatened to do so, even after years have elapsed.
Translated: If Apple isn't going to sue the hundreds of thousands of customers merrily jailbreaking their iPhones, or the active developer community abetting their theoretically illicit activities, it doesn't matter what the caliber of their legal weaponry is.
So why should we care?
We asked Jennifer Granick, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the San Francisco-based civil liberties group that successfully petitioned the Copyright Office for the exception.
Here's what she told us: "Apple's never sued jailbreakers, but they claim it violates the DMCA, and thus there's a legal cloud. If they were right, they could stop people from jailbreaking the phones, i.e. get an injunction. Now, they can't. Even if it violates contract law, they'd have to sue, and all they could get would be a tiny bit of money. It greatly decreases any incentive they might have or develop to sue. And it takes injunction off the table. Which means that the law will not, in the next three years, prevent people from jailbreaking their phones."
In addition, the possibility of punitive damages has been eliminated.
What does Apple say?
Our old friend Leander Kahney extracted a statement from Apple on Monday, which says simply: "Apple's goal has always been to insure that our customers have a great experience with their iPhone and we know that jailbreaking can severely degrade the experience. As we've said before, the vast majority of customers do not jailbreak their iPhones as this can violate the warranty and can cause the iPhone to become unstable and not work reliably."
Earlier, Apple had told the Copyright Office it opposed EFF's request in part because the App Store process protected consumers, because iPhone customers only license the software and do not own it, and that fair use should not allow circumvention.
What was the Copyright Office's reasoning?
On all the important counts, it agreed with the EFF. It said, for instance, that "the amount of copyrighted work modified in a typical jailbreaking scenario is fewer than 50 bytes of code out of more than 8 million bytes, or approximately 1/160,000 of the copyrighted work as a whole." The Obama administration had sided with Apple. The Department of Commerce said that granting the exemption "might just as likely deter innovation by not allowing the developer to recoup its development costs and to be rewarded for its innovation."
A side note: the Copyright Office also granted another exemption, which allows used handsets to be reprogrammed to enable use of the mobile phone on another network.
Why would I want to risk jailbreaking my iPhone?
You might want to jailbreak your phone if there's a piece of software you simply must have. But jailbreaking should probably be left to people who are technologically savvy--after all, if something goes wrong, you're on your own.
The two big dangers to jailbreaking your phone are voiding your warranty, and not correctly following the instructions of whatever software program you're using to do the jailbreak, which can lead to a unusable or "bricked" phone. Taking a phone that's been jailbroken into an Apple store, or sending it to Apple's service center means they likely won't fix it because you've violated your user agreement.
This includes repairing something that is not software-related, like a cracked screen. You may be able to find an authorized repair center that would do it, but it's still a risk.
According to Apple, the company's support department already receives "literally millions of reported instances of problems flowing from jailbroken phones." In a letter to the U.S. Copyright Office (PDF) opposing the new exemption, Apple warned that legitimizing the practice of jailbreaking would be a security risk for the devices and result in more malware being installed because the App Store's protections would be bypassed.
So does Apple have to support jailbreaking?
Nope. Section 2(c) of the Apple iPhone Software License Agreement (PDF) bans any attempt to "modify" the iPhone software or to reverse-engineer it.
What that means is that Apple can still legally--if it chooses--protect its phones from jailbreaking. The contract formed between the user and Apple (and the user and the wireless carrier) when the iPhone owner agrees to the user licensing agreement is binding, says Tom Sydnor, a senior fellow with the Progress and Freedom Foundation who takes an expansive view of copyright law.
Just because the DMCA allows individuals an exemption to jailbreak their own phones, "it doesn't mean Apple or a carrier can't protect contractual restrictions to deal with it," Sydnor said. "Essentially the exemption says this is the sort of thing that falls in bounds of contracts."
Apple could pursue breach of contract if someone jailbreaks their phone, or they could sue a person or company that creates jailbreak software for inducing someone to breach their contract with Apple. In other words, Sydnor said, "even if there was no DMCA, you could still be bound not to circumvent that technological protection."
What does the DMCA do, exactly?
Check out section 1201 of the text of the 1998 law. Part 1 says that, in general, "no person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access" to a copyrighted work, including a computer program.
Part 2 says that "no person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic" in any software that allows such circumvention. (Note this restriction has little impact on overseas software developers.)
But there's an important caveat to the first part. The Library of Congress' Copyright Office is charged with evaluating the DMCA's impact every three years and adding exemptions on behalf of Americans who want to make "noninfringing uses" of copyrighted works.
The last round of exemptions, for instance, said it's officially legal to "unlock" your cell phone's firmware if you're hoping to switch carriers while continuing to use the same device.
So how does this week's DMCA announcement benefit consumers?
While it doesn't completely remove all legal repercussions from users who want to jailbreak their own phone, losing the protection of the DMCA was a blow to Apple and other phone makers with proprietary software, according to Jason Schultz, co-director of Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at UC Berkeley School of Law.
"It is an uphill battle now for Apple. What this does is kind of shifts things in favor of users," said Schultz. "If Apple goes to court they have to explain to a judge why the copyright office is wrong (in this case) or why other laws should trump copyright laws."
"Another way to say it is the DMCA was Apple's strongest weapon in controlling the iPhone platform. (Losing that exemption) is like losing your best player on the team," he said.
CNET's Josh Lowensohn contributed to this report.
Apple is on a tear: shares up over $100 in a month, big product launches looming and a massive untapped market of tablet and computer buyers. Here's why it won't slow down anytime soon.
Apple's killing it. The reasons are simple.
Call this column "confessions of a reformed Apple hater." I've spent the better part of my career insisting that Apple products were not for me--this after my first job in tech was reviewing them for the now-defunct Mac Home Journal. The company was too controlling, the prices too high, the forced upgrade march too abusive, the closed system too limiting.
Now, just a week ago, I traded in my fourth Android phone (a Samsung Galaxy Nexus) for an iPhone 4S, which just about completes the cycle of Apple in my life. I bought a MacBook Air to replace a balky HP laptop running Windows Vista. I own an iPad because, well, what other tablet would I own? I have an iPod Touch almost solely to power a Bose sound system (and because I wanted to Facetime with my son back before I had the iPhone). And the other day, when my mom was complaining about startup times, printing, and wireless networking, the words, "you should get a Mac" were out of my mouth before I could stop them.
Apple is winning. It's doing much more than winning me over, but I think my experiences point, in part, to why Apple is currently and will keep winning well into the near future.
Look at the numbers alone. Apple stock is up almost $100 in just the past month, reaching an all-time high of $509 this week. As Dan Frommer points out at ReadWriteWeb, the company has been riding a decade-long growth period, increasing revenue every year at an ever-increasing pace.
Apple's stock price reached a record high in February, breaching the $500 a share mark for the first time.
The company is making that money on products that are the vast minorities in their market-share categories: Mac sales hit an all-time high of 5 million, which still rates at maybe 6 percent of estimated global market share. The iPhone clocks in at 23.8 percent of the global smart phone market, according to Gartner. The iPad is the obvious exception here: it is its market, and when you add its sales to global PC sales, it's a big part of the reason that Windows
Tue, Dec 13, 2011
It may be a niche social network, but Pinterest is growing like mad. While other tools and networks like Quora, Instagram (my favorite) and Google Plus have stolen the headlines this year, Pinterest has quietly amassed a relatively huge user base–especially among young women (in my opinion). From October 2010 to October 2011 Pinterest grew from just 40,000 users to a whopping 3.2 million.
That’s some serious growth.
But, not only is Pinterest adding thousands of users each month. Its users are also spending an inordinate amount of time on the site. And, this, at a time when EVERYONE is complaining about being social networked to death (see Google+). Anecdotally, I have heard from several Pinterest users that claim they spend upwards of two hours A DAY on the site. Hmmm…sound familiar? Facebook’s entire MO (or at least their initial MO) comes down to finding ways to keep people on their site. Pinterest appears to have found the magic formula.
But WHY is the site so damn popular? That’s what I set out to discover. So, I pegged 12 Pinterest “power users” and asked them 5 simple questions about their use, how brands might use the platform and the future of Pinterest (Note: My take on Pinterest is coming in a separate post next week).
The Secret To Pinterest's Success: We're Sick Of Each Other
Pinterest's recent success, which flies in the face of so much speculation about social media fatigue and information overload, holds an important lesson: It's not social media we're frustrated with. It's with one another.
The two-year-old, Palo Alto-based photo-sharing site allows users to "pin" images they find while browsing the Web or pictures they snap themselves onto a virtual bulletin board for friends to peruse and enjoy. It recently reached the 10 million monthly visitors mark, the fastest of any standalone site to do so. It already sends more traffic to other sites than LinkedIn, YouTube, and Google+ combined.
Tech pundits attribute Pinterest's rapid ascent from merely popular to phenomenon to its emphasis on images and ease of use. Napkin Labs CEO Riley Gibson calls it as the "Apple of social networks." Indeed, it "just works," to borrow a Steve Jobs phrase. Sure, these elements are crucial, but that alone can't explain Pinterest's uptick. There are a slew of other simple social sites chock full of beautiful images, such as Instragram, Tumblr, Path and even Flickr.
What sets Pinterest apart and makes it so appealing is its focus on who we want to be -- not on what we're doing, where we've gone, how important we are or how beloved. While much of the content shared on existing social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare screams, "Look at me," Pinterest posts urge, "Look at this." At least for now, the site offers a refreshing haven away from the boosterism and boasting that plague so many sites.
Consider this snapshot view of Facebook and Pinterest. The most recent posts from my friends on Facebook could be summed up as a lot of "was on this TV show," "wrote this article," "read this intelligent op-ed" and "ate this." On Pinterest, the pinners I follow have just shared a nail-art idea, inspiration for a disco-inspired outfit, a colorful guide to manual photography and an entrancing knee-length blue dress. It's hardly insight into the European debt crisis, but it's entertaining news I can use.
A great deal of the content that we share on social networking sites focuses not only on ourselves but (even worse!) it depicts a carefully curated version of ourselves hobnobbing at exclusive parties, distilling current events into 140-character witticisms, snapping artfully aged photos of flowers and sunsets, and finagling a dinner reservation at New York's most exclusive new restaurant last Saturday.
To be sure, not all sharing is self-aggrandizing noise: Twitter is my first source for news in the morning, and Facebook has numerous virtues. Yet the tooting of horns can be a big distraction from the good stuff and a major turnoff. Facebook photo albums are filled with carefully edited fictions, while the frequency of Twitter-based boasting has spawned a popular hashtag, #humblebrag, that's so successful it's made the migration from online meme to real-world slang. I scrupulously avoided Twitter for a week last month for fear of a nervous breakdown induced by stumbling across yet one more tweet about a Davos party's playlist.
In short, too many of our posts come with the silent subtext "Here's how great I am." On Pinterest, the tone seems to be "Wouldn't this be great?"
The stream of pictures on Pinterest will look different to every user depending on whom they follow, but much of the most popular content thus far has been decorating tips, fashion ideas, recipes, DIY projects and wedding inspiration. The top four posts on the site currently include a photo of a belted skirt, a snapshot of rainbow fruit kabobs, and two text-heavy images, one poking fun at teenagers and another declaring, "I work out because I know I would've been the first to die in the Hunger Games." It's about this, this and this -- not me, me, me.
Of course, everything we share on any social network is a cry for attention, and in this sense Pinterest is no different: It involves sharing because doing so makes us feel good.
Yet the nature of the content on Pinterest so far seems to succeed at both satisfying the needs of those posting it as well as those of the people perusing it. Too often I leave Facebook feeling fat, friendless and a failure -- and studies show I'm not alone. Instead of feeding my FOMO (fear of missing out), Pinterest has taught me things, like how to make a leek-based pasta sauce or pair a striped sweater with a plaid shirt.
This sharing of things rather than personal updates, while deeply consumerist, enables Pinterest to connect strangers in ways that Facebook hasn't yet perfected. While Facebook pioneered the concept of the social graph that allows us to peruse a Web personalized by all the people we know, Pinterest may be paving the way for an interest graph, whereby we can discover and connect with people whose tastes we share, but whom we've never looked in the eye.
Through Facebook friends, we discover new content and products based on recommendations from people we trust.
We also know which tips to disregard because we know which of our friends don't share our taste in food, hotels, music and clothes.
Both Pinterest and Facebook are extremely powerful ways of linking people together. Pinterest has an opportunity to branch into still unconquered territory and exploit a Facebook weak spot by helping people "meet" and connect over their shared love for, say, shabby chic.
Pinterest is still in its early stages, however, and risks losing its unique feel as more diverse audiences sign up. Unlike most social networking sites, Pinterest's first, most ardent supporters came from outside the Silicon Valley scene and only now am I beginning to see my techie friends trickling on. It remains to be seen whether the arrival of corporate users, like Newsweek, Whole Foods, Cabot Cheese and GE, along with a more mixed crowd of individual users, will change the nature of what's shared.
Already, I'm seeing more Instagram photos of people's swanky meals, ski vacations and cooking feats on the site. Please, make it stop. I'm not pinterested.
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Now Available! The newest iPad accessory everyone has been waiting for. All around the home, office or anywhere you use your iPad, now you can enjoy it hands free. iProp.com
Let's get your hands on your applications!
CyberGlove Systems is proud to be the Americas reseller of the innovative iliGHT multi-touch interactive table display!
Through the iliGHT project, Immersion is developing new input devices resulting from the company's latest researches on tactile and motion capture technologies that will bring a more direct, natural and intuitive interaction.
With the iliGHT multitouch table, you're getting the following advantages:
Uploaded by barcoTV on Feb 10, 2012
http://www.barco.com - TransForm N is Barco's versatile control room management system, which helps you to create the most effective control room solutions. It allows the safe and easy distribution of any data or video source over the standard IP network, between multiple rooms in one building and even multiple locations around the world.
More info: http://www.barco.com/en/controlrooms/productcategory/250
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Context matters
However, as far as design is concerned, it is useful not to think (judge) in terms of "right or wrong," but rather in terms of what is "appropriate or inappropriate." That is, is it appropriate or inappropriate for a particular context? "Good" and "bad" are indeed terms we use when talking about design — including PowerPoint slides — but I'm personally cautious of this dualistic thinking, especially when judging a design without its full context available. So much depends on how the visual is placed within the context of the presentation, and the content and objectives of that particular presentation are of paramount concern. Without a good knowledge of the place and circumstance, and the content and context of a presentation, it is impossible to say this is "appropriate" and that is "inappropriate."
Simple but not simplistic
If there is one important precept worth following, it is the idea of simplicity. The best visuals are often ones designed with an eye toward simplicity. Yet, this says nothing about the specifics of a visual presentation. That will depend on the content and context. For example, even the best visuals used in support of a presentation for one audience on, say, quantum mechanics, may appear complicated and confusing to a different audience.
Simplicity is often used as a means to greater clarity. However, simplicity can also be viewed as a consequence. A consequence, that is, of our careful efforts to craft a story and create supporting visuals that focus on our audience's needs in a clear and meaningful way. Ok, simplicity is great you say, but how simple? What is the formula for simplicity? If you can't give me concrete examples, you might say, at least give me a formula for making powerful, simple visuals. But do static formulas for achieving simplicity exist?
In Living Zen, author Robert Linsen (in speaking on the simplification of needs in everyday life) says that a "simplification of existence" is a consequence of an "effective experience of Zen." In other words, as one discovers their true nature, "needs" such as possessions or status are reduced or seen for what they are: superfluous. This begs the question then: "What are the minimum or maximum needs for an individual?" To this the author responds
"No one can define them or draw up a system around them. That is where we should exercise our judgment....Use depends for each one of us on the place and circumstances. If we were to codify the laws concerning it they might soon become a great bondage for us."
Here the author is not necessarily speaking of design and presentation visuals, of course, but we can see how we can apply Zen principles to everyday life including design, even the design of slides and other visuals. Simplicity is an important design principle. But simplicity in design is as much art (small "a") as science. It is, therefore, quite difficult to offer up prescriptions or "rules" for appropriate design. Without full knowledge of the context and circumstances, such rules could become "a great bondage," so to speak, leading to inappropriate design choices or recommendations.
Visual makeover
Having said all of that, below are a few slides demonstrating different visual treatments in support of a single message. The context is a presentation on gender and labor issues in Japan. The purpose of the slide is to visually support the claim that "72% of the part-time workers in Japan are women." This statistic is from the Japanese Ministry of Labor. The figure "72%" is something the presenter said she wanted the audience to remember as it is discussed again as the presentation progresses. So how to design a slide that is subtle, simple, memorable, and fits into a theme that is appealing and attractive?
BEFORE. Above (left) is the original slide. The problem with the slide on the left is that the clip-art used does not reinforce the statistic, nor does it even fit the theme of women in the Japanese labor market. The background is a tired, overused PowerPoint template. The text is difficult to read. And as one trainee commented: "it's ugly."
The slide on the right (above) was an effort to display the same information in a pie chart. Besides using an overused template, the visual displays the pie chart in a distorted and inelegant fashion. For the sake of clarity, it is usually best to avoid 3-D effects. Also, rather than giving the slide a title, a declarative sentence that states the point directly may be more appropriate.
AFTER: All the slides were redesigned to match the theme above. The slide on the left was the one used for the presentations. But the one on the right could also be used effectively. Notice that either slide (especially the slide without any text) would be virtually meaningless without the presenter's narration. The handout that followed the presentation expanded on the relevance of the statistic and gave it context. The five-page handout proved to be a good reference for those who attended the presentation and for those who did not.
Using a pie chart is also a good way to represent this simple statistic. Here (left) the large text at the top can be easily seen. The text reads more like a headline — a declarative sentence — rather than just a title or category. The slide on the right is another possible way to support the message. In this case a completely different template was used.
Should you design your slides to look like this?
The design choices are many. The examples above are just a few attempts at improving the look & feel, impact, and effectiveness of the original slides. Should you design your slides to look like this? That's your call and depends on your specific circumstance. Also, this particular example does not deal with a technical presentation. If your presentation is on a less technical topic such as leadership, HRM, marketing, etc. then simple slides like these may be very effective. If you are giving a very technical presentation to a technical audience hungry for data, then your slides may look quite different. But even for a very technical presentation, embracing simplicity of design and striving for the greatest clarity possible should still be the objective. How you do that will depend on a great many things.
In future I will show a design makeover featuring more technical content. In the meantime, if you have good examples of visual support for very technical presentation content, please feel free to share it with me. I'd love to see your examples.
Posted: 2/14/12 | Updated: 2/14/12