Comments for Jivemug

Comment on 2Advanced Studios by james

james — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 01:22:30 +0000

ha ha i think Ian has had issues with flash in the past, maybe couldn’t ever learn it. there for is aggravated at it…

Comment on 2Advanced Studios by Robb

Robb — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:06:20 +0000

Steve, very well said…

Comment on 2Advanced Studios by Steve

Steve — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:03:58 +0000

Ian, I feel as if you have some deep seated prejudice towards flash sites which has blurred your judgement on this one.
As Chris said, the browser controls do work, perfectly.
Concerning scrolling using the mouse wheel, yes, on this website this functionality is not implemented, but this is a fault with this website in particular as flash has a built in function that allows mouse wheel scrolling natively on Windows and with the use of JavaScript and a bit of fiddling it is possible to implement on Mac too. Anyway, I’d say this is a very small downfall considering in all cases where a scrollbar is necessary, it is mere centimetres away from the content it is scrolling.
Considering load times, do correct me if I’m wrong, but on my first visit to “Ian Pitts Photography”, I was staring at a blank page for about 30 seconds before reaching any real content, and at least with 2Advanced I had some reassurance from the loading animation that it was actually doing something. Amazing what a simple pre-loader can do.
Considering search engines, Google, and I’m sure many others, can now read text in .swf files. Just search “flash hiding content from search engines” on Google and you’ll find hundreds of articles about it.
Now, considering mobile browsers, ok I agree with you, the site cannot be rendered on most phones or PDAs, but if you were seriously a potential 2Advanced customer, especially considering the popularity of web-books and mobile internet, would you really be looking at it on your phone? Anyway I’m sure it won’t be long before Apple and Adobe put their heads together and come up with an iPhone flash player which would of course spark every other phone manufacturer to follow in their wake.
Now I’m sure people with vision impairments are a very small percentage of potential 2Advanced customers, and, without meaning to sound horribly offensive, due to the nature of “graphic design”, I doubt one with visual limitations would be able to fully appreciate what 2Advanced has to offer. Anyway, considering 2Advanced custom is aimed at large companies, rather than the individual, I’m sure this would not be much of an issue.

All in all, I think you’re forgetting that this is not just meant as a functional website to provide information about the company, it is meant as an interactive advert, a ‘here’s one I made earlier’ website if you will, the best website design and graphic design 2Advanced has to offer, and as such needs to be smooth and sleek with as many bells and whistles they can squeeze in, which I personally think they have succeeded in doing beautifully.
I’m sorry but I feel that you have a very old fashioned view of flash and its limitations. It has developed an unrecognisable amount since 1996. Criticising something you have no idea about… that’s what’s sad.

Comment on 2Advanced Studios by chris

chris — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:06:12 +0000

@Ian : Impossible to use the normal browser controls (back button) to go back a page?
huhu.. test it before posting..man, you’ll see back & forward buttons are functionnals..

Comment on 2Advanced Studios by Lee

Lee — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:42:42 +0000

Thanks for posting! In the near future I will look into those issues for the downside of sites as I review them. The main focus of the site is to inspire others with content and ideas for their designs through the reviews.

Comment on Glaceau Water by Lee

Lee — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:57:09 +0000

Thanks for the side note snipe!! I revised it! Check back for more reviews coming in the week!

Comment on Glaceau Water by snipe

snipe — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:15:33 +0000

Nice review, and interesting site idea. One quick note – the expression is “nitpick”, not “knit pick”. Nitpicking is an idiom that comes from picking lice eggs (called “nits”) out of someone’s scalp. Its very detailed work, and takes a lot of time and attention to detail, which is, I believe, where the expression came from.

From Wikipedia:
Nitpicking is the act of removing nits (the eggs of lice, generally head lice) from the host’s hair. As the nits are cemented to individual hairs with louse saliva, they cannot be removed with lice combs and, before modern chemical methods were invented, the only options were to shave all the host’s hair or to pick them free one by one.

Comment on 2Advanced Studios by Ian

Ian — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:56:49 +0000

Hmm… no downsides? How about the fact that it’s 100% in Flash? Content hidden from search engines? Impossible to use the normal browser controls (back button) to go back a page? Inability to render AT ALL on a mobile browser? What about people with vision disabilities? Can screen readers get at this content? How about the fact that it takes a good 10-15 seconds of waiting to get to any real content while the preloaders and intros run? In the scrolling elements on the page, you can’t use the scroll wheel on your mouse like every other non-Flash site. Tiny font size with no ability to increase it.

Sorry, but an all-Flash web site is just so 1996… Sad.

Comment on Glaceau Water by Lee

Lee — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:58:36 +0000

Thank you Adry, more content will be coming to the site so be sure to check back!

Comment on Glaceau Water by Adry

Adry — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:08:37 +0000

Nice ur review… i browsed the site because of ur description of it… good luck with ur blog!