The Cameranoob Photoblog Official Launch

I planned to start my photography blog sometime back. Even the domain itself was registered a year ago. However, I couldn’t find the time to plan and start the blog – until now.

Photography’s been a long standing hobby of mine from my college days. As much as I ignored the old lecturer who mumbled his way during the subject, I never did get bored of taking photos – especially people. After college, my experience using a DSLR came with a lot practice at family dinners and casual outings with friends.

Content was always there but I was worried the quality I’d have shared then wouldn’t have been good enough yet. Well, I guess I’m more confident now but as the name I picked, I’m still a camera noob.

Noob is a term used by computer gamers to call someone a beginner. Though some friends have asked why do I call myself that when my pictures are averagely well taken, I tell them it’s because I’m still not where I want to be yet.

Well, enjoy the photos at the Cameranoob blog. The upcoming album will be of the recent Korean actor; Lee Min Ho, who visited Malaysia.

You want the job? Wake up lah!

My interest in the whole wakuplah! marketing campaign came when Ikhwan (tekong) showed me a series of banners. One of them was this one:

The poster read:

If you think that as long as you know Photoshop and Illustrator, you can be an art director already…wake up! 13-year olds also know Photoshop-lah.

I giggled at the statement made because it was true. This poster was part of a series of others which also poked fun at copywriters, freelancers and attendees at AD Unplugged 2009.

From the very nature of the series, I already had a feeling the upcoming website was aimed at job seekers. True enough, when the website launched some time last night, the people behind it sent curious cats like me  an animated GIF with the access password. Yes, it was in an animated GIF.

Because sharing is caring and it should be shared, out of the 4 passwords they gave the correct one is, Kopi_O. That’s a capital letter ‘O’ and not numerical.

As much as the Matrix was cool, I’m not fond of a couple of things in this website.

• Wait to login due to Flash loading.
• Reversed text on button.
• Distractingly huge password text behind.
• Annoying spinning text characters after entering.
• Forced to catch the rabbit otherwise you can’t proceed.
• Forced to type in text to the self-proclaimed ‘Oracle’ before you’ve the option to proceed.
• Text heavy pages with typeface which isn’t comforting to read.

Honestly, the troubles listed above took away my expectation of experiencing something good from this campaign – online, at least.

As much as awareness goes, I won’t be saying on Twitter “Hey, you should visit this website. It’s damn cool.”

If the owner does read this review, it’s not been written purposely to cause damage. I’m only sharing my personal experience of using your campaign website.

Besides, I still applaud you for the lead up banners done. That was cool.

WordPress 2.8.5 Security Release

The hardcore WordPress users, designers and developers would’ve probably heard already. WordPress announced and released a security upgrade to their ever popular blog publishing software.

Before I upgraded, I did want to find out what were the changes and if it was a major plug. And if there’s one thing my partner at Simpleet Solutions taught me, it’s that major upgrades are normally in prime versions like 1.x, 2.x and you get the picture.

However, once I read the WordPress 2.8.5 upgrade plugs a security hole, that was enough reason to upgrade. Here are some of the changes:

• A fix for the Trackback Denial-of-Service (Dos) attack that is currently being seen.
• Removal of areas within the code where php code in variables was evaluated.
• Switched the file upload functionality to be whitelisted for all users including Admins.
• Retiring of the two importers of Tag data from old plugins.

Source: WordPress.org

Because there was a fix incase of any activity involving DoS attacks, this upgrade had to be a must. Especially if it’s your primary blogs.

Have you upgraded to WordPress 2.8.5 yet?

By the way, did you notice the WordPress smiley at the top right corner if you read the WordPress 2.8.5 release article?

The P1 Potong Story Continued

Just recently Packet One (P1) Networks launched their new viral video for their Sudah Potong campaign. And they’ve now released the sequel to it. Sticking to the storyline of a poor Chinese guy who had know idea he’s the only person in his community who still hasn’t ‘potong’.

If you’re not Malaysian, the humour behind this story references to the circumcision practice of some cultural beliefs in Malaysia.

However, I never did take this video to only target the Chinese. I thought the viral video was to generally relate to all Internet users. Oh well, I definitely had a good laugh from watching this.

What d’you readers think the next storyline would be?

E-Commerce Design Mistake to Avoid

I’ve never been a fan of website templates. Half the time they may look good but experience wise, they can be horrible because they lack user experience. If you’ve not heard of user experience, simple to say it’s about designing a good experience for the user.

How do you design an experience?

Well, in short it’s making the user’s life easy and mindless to fulfill the objectives they need to accomplish. By Wikipedia’s definition, user experience is:

User experience design is a subset of the field of experience design that pertains to the creation of the architecture and interaction models that impact a user’s perception of a device or system.

Source: Wikipedia

Shopping Cart is below the line

Whenever you add an item to your shopping cart, you’d like to keep track of it. Therefore, users would expect it to be in the most convenient place it can be referred and access.

That’s why I consider placing it below the line one of the worst e-commerce design mistakes to avoid. Especially if you’ve a lot of clutter in the area it’s positioned.

If there isn’t a shopping cart list, ensure the shopping cart button is clear and by default, should display the:

• Number of items
• Total amount
• Link to view all items
• Checkout link

What other bad e-commerce experiences have you had?