He ain’t no hacker!

It’s been all over the place, a developer in Saudi is promising an Arabized iPhone. Claims are that he is half way through.

I’m concerned about one thing, and only one, his quote that has been quoted everywhere, in almost all the ME tech online portals.

And the quote is:

We are not hackers, we are developers

This quote, worries me so much! You know why? Because, well, let Wikipedia explain this and keep ma’self out of this. Any person who’s had at least a year in coding/development/hacking would know the meaning when we’re not speaking of Security.

Now out of all the press that “non-hacker” got, to my amazement I could get my iPhone to read Arabic with broken letters, got the squares finally turn into letters, one down! Now getting those letters to show up as words, quite a challenge.

I just can’t understand how sometimes journalists write up things and mess up that bad! I tell ya why? Get some real techies on board! ITP please!

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I Sony Ericsson vs. Be more Nokia

I had this in mind for a while but never remembered it while on the posting screen. I noticed a very weird campaign by Nokia lately, I’ve seen it everywhere. The core message is: do more, but the catch phrase was “Be more Nokia”, now that’s a complete copy of the “I Sony Ericsson XYZ” campaigns and new branding messages.

Here’s a TVC in case you haven’t seen the outdoors or prints:

And the SE’s:

While SE verbalized “Sony Ericsson” and swapped it with “Love”, Nokia got it rolling on an Adjective. Not so cool by Nokia! Being an SE fan, I feel proud though.

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Microsites, what kind?

Microsite debates have always been going on and never stopped. Be it between Designers and Developers or Media Planners and Clients or even the poor web-masters in the background.

John W Eliss, a seasoned online ads consultant, denies the need for microsites, he adds:

The Microsite, at least the original definition, is dead. Creating multiple, smaller websites for segments of the same brand only confused the customer and extended the purchasing process.

John continues the debate and adds a little +ve points too:

An advantage of microsite was search engine dominance. By creating multiple sites, a brand was able to dominate natural search rankings. No matter where the customer clicked, it was still the same company

There have been two types of microsites as of my observations, those that melt within a big site contents, and those that stand alone.

Excluding John, online marketers and for this case even the folks at online agencies would prefer to go with standalone microsites, because they’d want to have a clear shot, they often don’t want to mingle with existing websites and their Information Architecture & interactivity.

Clients on the other side don’t like to have their base website or corporate brand website touched by every campaign or product launch given that every campaign/project would have a different winner(agencies), think about conflict in style & message.

On the contrary, bigger picture believers, and those who give power to online agencies or perhaps have a big online department do go with microsites within their websites, name changes there, it becomes a section or a product page instead!

Good examples of inner microsites are the beloved Sony Ericsson and Nokia websites.

That’s right, I’m with John, Microsites are dead, but when it comes to cars? Bigger projects/products that are not daily consumer accessory, information that should not be confused with other information?

Every movie gets its own microsite, so? Should we put every Sony Pictures movie in one huge website that includes all the Sony movies?

I take my word back, it ain’t dead. It’s a relative thought, depends on three ends:

• Advertisers’ website & decisions
• Online Agencies or In House Department involvement
• Type of Product and Advertisers’ business & consumer habits injected over years of feeding.

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When it’s off, it’s jus’ off

You know it when you can’t get the best out of yourself, you know it when you keep on designing and never get satisfied with it. You know that you need a little change to get out of the daily routine and come out like fireworks. A muse? Something/someone/somewhere to inspire you? Someway to refresh that is.

It often happens when you’ve streamlined your processes, got your mind on reaching deadlines before time does, you lose some, and you win most of the time. Then you look back and see everything’s been going in an arranged circle, find out further, your social life goes the same way!

A lot has been written about how to keep yourself creative, motivated, and fresh all the time. But do you really need to read something about it? You know it when it happens to you, and you know exactly what is missing. All one needs is the first step in doing it and that’s the catch, one often gets tangled and caught up within his/her own traps, work, commitments, and different goals.

To me, it’s been about breaking free from all that, so hard to do. Now add a start-up-live to that and you’ll get a workaholic person.

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Online/Web related News, yet no link?

Now I’ve seen this many times, just to share my latest read, the News article starts speaking of a new website somewhere that is going to serve X, Y, and Z and is as good as A, B, and C. The News brief is over, where’s that website? A link? Nop! Google it ’till you find it.

And here’s my latest linkless read:

The Amman Stock Exchange has launched a new program on its website to foster disclosure and transparency in the Jordan capital market, reported Jordan Times. The Market Watch Live program will enable investors to follow their investments live and view updates such as the top 5 buy and sell orders, latest 20 executed orders, and 10 best and worst performing companies in terms of stock price. Source: AMEInfo.

Now end your misery and Google it, or search the Jordan Times for it. I wouldn’t blame AMEInfo’s editor either, even the Original article at Jordan Times does not have the link. Go figure.

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Windows to Mac migration, not so cool

Being a designer gets you facing a Mac everyday, but that’s only when you’re squeezing your right brain. Come left brain work and I always jumped on my Thinkpads. Finally made a reasonable decision of shifting my Workspace & daily uses including personal computing to my tiny MacBook. Never thought it wouldn’t be smooth, believe it, it’s not cool at all.

While I’m very well versed with Mac computing, I could get around doing anything and everything, but data migration between my Outlook to Entourage was not cool at all, syncing with my Mobile wasn’t pleasant as well.

Missing the red cursor on my Thinkpad

While having a bluetooth mighty-mouse on the MacBook is nice, not having the nipple mouse pointing is a huge drawback–You can’t use the mouse w/o leaving the keyboard! Not so cool!

A piece of software that I still miss is my old Winamp. Itunes sounds bulky to my taste, its got everything, but not all that I need in my face.

Word isn’t so cool as it is in Windows, briefs, proposals and other documents have to go around and be accessible by PC users, a huge problem to address, and nah, PDF doesn’t solve the problem, online solutions are cool, but still, they ain’t Word.

I’ve used everything else in Macs for a long time, but never used a Mac as a personal assistant and as my productivity machine, it’s been challenging so far, facing many compatibility issues, and expecting more, did I take a practical decision or just because clients like to see a nice piece of hardware while presenting? I’ll find that out as I go, hoping for it to work out, I still miss the nipple pointer and not having to leave the keyboard to move the mouse pointer.

Beauty comes first?

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Al-Masraf, between branding and the idea

Lately “Arbift”, one of the oldest banks in the UAE started a multi Million Dirhams rebranding project, renaming to “Al-Masraf” following a new website, long showing outdoor campaigns, and more to come.

The new brand

According to a press-release at Arbift website:

Al Masraf to replace the 33-year-old ARBIFT via a multi-million dirham re-branding program

Ibrahim Nasser Lootah: Move signifies Bank’s fundamental shift to the regional market

The new corporate identity is represented through the Trade mark “Al MASRAF” in Arabic and English presented in a specially blended blue color arranged vertically and separated by a golden yellow line and the circular shape with Arabesque links circling the Cinquefoil in golden yellow color with a blue background logo.

The golden yellow links circling the Cinquefoil conveys unity, collaboration for knowledge and prosperity. Also, it represents a coordinated system of people, activities, information and resources working together towards the goal of delivering a product or service to the client while the series of links symbolize the unified leadership of the bank.

Ahmad Majed Lootah added: “There is a marketing misunderstanding in the region that brand is about logo, stationary and corporate colors. Our re-brand campaign encompasses everything from customer perception and experience to quality, look and feel, customer care, retail and web environments.

Critique

A confusing bit in the identity is the fact that it has been a tradition for the last years to have “Al Masraf” as a meaning for an Islamic Bank. So at the first glance the new brand makes you feel it is an Islamic Bank which in some ways makes sense, having the fact that the new bank offers Islamic Financing plans. Yet confusing.

The slogan, “One Nation, One Bank”. Again a very ambiguous one. It’s confusing for many reasons.

• Al-Masraf is the only bank co-owned by the UAE government, so the “One Nation” bit points to UAE nation.

• Al-Masraf as mentioned in the above quotes from the press-release, is going to enter different Arab and International Markets , so? Is it an Arab kind of “Nation”?

• Al-Masraft as mentioned above portrays an Islamic face more than Arabic, considering the name, and in Arabic, the slogan uses the word Ummah which is taken differently by non-Arabs, which confusing enough gives the bank an Islamic Identity.

I like the visuals, it is so traditional and shows where the bank is coming from, yet sending confusing messages.

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No XL for me, I’m good with Medium

Ladies might think of something, stop it already, I’m talkin’ about websites, not 38C, though 34A is my type. Why is it that small websites try to make’em look big, even though the amount of information is not much they tend to make it look like a directory?

Got some to offer? Well, then you got a reason, done? Made it all through and got your word out? That’s it, stop it, do not elaborate more. Keep it simple. The number of pages in your website, or the number of links on your Global Navigation is not a measure for credibility. Nor the amount of photos you buy to stick on your pages are eye catchers.

It’s really obvious, many talk about it, and most of us try do implement it, but it fails when a small business looks up to a big business’ website, and wanna’ portray the same image. Well, ah?

Do it like Etisalat, ahm, we’d like to have a campaign like Barkley’s Bank but online.

The like xyz fever

Uneducated marketers get you rolling around yourself after their first five words, when the start is like: “We want a website that looks like Etisalat’s website” or “We want to have a website that makes people say it’s nice or make our partners happy”.

Ah c’mon, it’s about Why you need the website and how you wanna’ use it. Spend a couple of days takin her out for lunches and dinners so that you get the idea in her head and tell her this is a serious medium, you gotta have an aim for it! So you get that blond convinced, then comes the judgment and deciding on the creative.

This looks like a small website, we’re a big company, it should look big, cover the whole screen and have no empty spaces, come on use that space, they say. I let the rest for you, it’s fun going around and finally getting the message home with these kinds of clients, one day over, ten more idiots learn more about online, and we lose tens of hours that we could instead produce some deliverables. Live at startup online agencies!

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Now smell this

Ever wondered how many perfumed products we use everyday? I just counted them for curiosity, weird how many of them are out there for us from the time we wake up ’till we sleep. Start with the toothpaste, then shower gel, come hair shampoo, then anti-deodrant, then shaving foam, then clone, and then the perfume. All that mix, straight from the morning. Oh and I forgot the hair gel. All these perfumed material, man!

On the other side of the story, you run for work, you enter the elevator, and your neighbors which happen to be ladies most of the time, come in and out-perfume you, you feel normal again and thank god you’re a guy.

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Microsot Genuine Software Campaign

Now this is swanging, non-typical and a first-timer for MS. Microsoft has started a campaign against pirated Windows software and particularly the Windows family of products. They’ve started a one dimensional public campaign with free Tissue boxes completely painted with MS Genuine software alerts and messages, keep reading to see the photos of the tissue box.

It’s Gitex time and this sort of stuff are expected, but to the extent of having all the Emirates Gas Stations loaded with MS tissues, now that’s completely reach, n’ I’m diggin’ it.

Check these tissue boxes:

Low rez photos, sorry for that. I’m totally blown by this, MS is finally paying attention and fixing the image destroyed by pirated software and cleaning the mess. Long way to go, but still, neat!

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