I’ve been writing on my blog over at xGrid.ca for some time now, but today the blog moves to the Accent Media domain and becomes ‘snippets’. Snippets are small, bite-sized chunks of information that may or may not be of interest to Accent Media visitors.
No heavy reading, no deeply technical stuff, although I will be writing about stuff I’m passionate about. Your feedback is welcome, please feel free to use the comment form to provide feedback!
You’ve probably all used Google Maps, and Windsor just got Street View, improving Google Maps by a factor of 10. Well, the third point on the Google mapping triangle is Google Places, a service designed to allow businesses to add their services to Google Maps.
Sounds like a great idea, huh? Everyone wins – Google’s services are enhanced, users can find and search more efficiently, and businesses have an easy way to help people find them.
Two weeks ago my business moved from my home to an office location not far away. This has to be a fairly common event, and as a service aimed at small businesses, you would think this would be well within Google Places capability. After two weeks of on and off editing, checking, forum-reading, reporting problems, moving markers, I can now tell you that even in common everyday use, Places is a disaster, unless you build a new building that is correctly located on Google Maps and your business moves there and remains there forever more.
First I updated my Google Places profile to reflect the change of address. The address now shows correctly, but the marker on Google Maps still shows at the old location. I can use the ‘move your marker’ option, but when I tried to do this at the new location which incorrectly reported the position of the street address, the result was a confusing mess where Maps, Places and Street View all end up reporting something different.
Second, I realized the new office address lists two old businesses (one at the correct address and one incorrectly placed two doors down). One has been closed down for two years, the other has been closed for over seven years. Probably in an effort to stop small businesses from tinkering with competitors listings, it is not an easy thing to alter a listing placed by someone else, but it seems as though Google expects people to politely remove their listing from Google Places once their business goes bankrupt, something I doubt anyone takes the time to do.
Added to all of this is the fact that you cannot email Google or contact them in any way for support or guidance. This is understandable, considering the number of users and the wide range of products they provide at no charge, but at what point did they begin believing their products were so bulletproof that forums and vague help documents were all that was required?
Currently my business is listed in Google Maps at the wrong location, and a search for the new address shows two outdated listings that I cannot edit or remove. Thanks a bunch Google.
Update: After some conversations with people both smarter and more frustrated than myself, I understand that Google, in their infinite wisdom decided to import existing business directory data into their system to get it started, and it’s this data that is currently un-editable in certain regions, Canada apparently being one of them.
At the Made In Windsor Open Air Crafters Market, a very talented girl named April Fawler did a quick portrait of me – she was even able to grant my request to make me better looking!
I posted a couple of weeks ago about a new project I’m working on that I’ve been a little cagey about. It’s a pretty big project and it involves me, Accent Media and a few people I’ve been working pretty closely with.
Plenty of people in Windsor are already familiar with The House, but for those who aren’t, The House used to The Nisbet Inn, on Elliott and Pelissier, but has been empty for several years now.
Here’s the official press release:
“131 Elliott Street will soon become a cultural hub in downtown Windsor. The House, set to open September 1, 2010, in the former Nisbet Inn, is a creative collective that will encompass several exciting new businesses. This creative and entrepreneurial development will allow clients to access a wealth of expertise via several business channels all under one roof. While running as a cafe and hyper-local food retail space (Rino’s Kitchen) it will also house a catering company (Black Kettle Catering), a graphic design studio and new apparel store which will feature “ON WINDSOR” t-shirts (SPOTVIN), a web services and strategy development company (Accent Media), and a promotions and social media hotspot (Taking On Media). Rino Bortolin, Shane Potvin, Toby Leftly, and Tom Lucier are the four partners making up The House. They’ll be collaborating with each other and outside influences to create new events and experiences within The House and elsewhere in the region.
The first project that The House is helping to launch is Christine Rideout-Arkell’s “Made in Windsor” art market, expanding in the parking lot beside 131 Elliott Street each Sunday afternoon starting mid-August.
This is a place to make new things happen, or you can come and sit in the back yard and enjoy a smoothie or cup of coffee while enjoying the breeze and a good read. The House will be what you make it.
For hours and special event info, look for the soon to be launched website: www.thehousewindsor.com.
Today is an exciting day for Accent Media. We are scheduled to sign the lease on The House and hopefully pick up the keys. What is The House? A project involving me and three other Windsor businesses. The House in question? It’s this one.. Stay tuned.
As a SMART car owner, I couldn’t resist posting this piece about innovative and creative SMART car advertising – love the idea of paying half for parking.
This piece from Information Is Beautiful is interesting because it’s become commonplace for the media to quote numbers and figures with little or no frame of reference. A simple infographic shows the cost of the Iraq/Afghanistan war compared to say, Walmart or Apple’s profit margin, or the global cost of the economic meltdown.
If the title of this snippet makes your eyes glaze over, you’re probably not alone – but if you own an iPhone or iPod touch you might want to pay attention. Apple has released the upgrade to the base software, and there are a couple of neat new features. Best of all, the upgrade is free of charge to all users.
It’s nice to be able to set wallpaper so that your iPhone doesn’t simply show a black background. Also, your device now handles jumping back and forth between apps better – simply click the home button twice and all open apps are shown at the bottom of the screen. Click the app you want to jump to, it’s faster and more seamless than before.
Folders is also a nice touch. Press and hold on an icon and it will start to ‘jiggle’. Drag it onto another icon, and a folder will be created to hold the two icons, and any other icons you drag onto the folder. If you have more than 3 or 4 screens of apps, this is a life saver.
Plug your device into your computer and open iTunes to see if your iPhone or iPod touch is eligible for the upgrade!
Adobe wasn’t always the black sheep of the design and tech crowd. There was a time when they were the heroes, the good guys. Maybe the shift from there to here is a conscious one – maybe some executive decided profits should be higher at any and all cost. It doesn’t feel like that though; It feels like Adobe lost it’s way.
When they lost their way and started lying to their customers about it, I began looking for alternatives to the Adobe software I used most. It’s slim pickings, but there are alternatives and they get better with every new update. Currently the best alternative I can find for Adobe Illustrator is Lineform, by Freeverse. The best alternative to Photoshop is Pixelmator.
I have always been wary of making the jump, but today I found a MacUpdate promo selling the current version of Pixelmator for $29.99 down from $59.00 – what a bargain!
I’m now officially running both side by side, picking and choosing tasks to try Pixelmator out. Is it a feature-for-feature swap out? No. But it’s built by a great team who seems eager to go for gold, and it’s cheap enough that I don’t feel burning resentment every time I see the spinning beach ball.