DWG Archives

Communities: Ukraine

We all are part of various communities — clubs, family, neighborhoods and work. Sometimes communities are social, purposeful, or just because there is a commonality — sometimes we help – sometimes we ask for help.

Right now one of our communities, technology experts from Ukraine, is in circumstances I can’t fully fathom but I know we should do what we can to help. I think of all the developers and IT specialists who are unable to work right now as they are protecting their lives — but I also imagine they are wondering what will happen to their job. The other side of this equation is the challenge this must be causing for those companies that are struggling to maintain their work, create new projects and serve their customers.

Here’s how we will help with the goal of helping Ukrainian developers be able to return to their work.

When we agree to take on a job from those in a war torn region, we ask that they return the work back to original techs once they are able to do so. We also be proactive with the technologists pass back the work the moment they are ready. In this way we act as a project caretaker and not a project taker.

If you need assistance whether technologist or client, let us know how we can help during this distressing time. Let me know how we can help: [email protected]

To my technology friends and competitors: please think about jumping in to do the same. Not so that we can gain work but so that we can help our communities displaced by war.

~LaMae

The Vital User Experience

When I (LaMae) do presentations about web design and navigation, the User Interface / User Experience, the discussion is always lively because inherently everyone understands that UI/UX is vital. I often tell the story of a mirror I installed in our home hallway and how I was so pleased with myself for the handiwork. Then, I showed my husband who happens to be taller than me, his head was chopped off and I realized the great job I had done would only work for me … or those very close to being the same height as me. Missed the mark on that one.

A simple UI problem

This picture is a more analog example of the user experience. Imagine how many folks had difficulty using this paper towel dispenser for someone to have taken time to make and tape up an additional explanation? My experience was just as confusing. I read the sign, “PLACE HAND RIGHT BELOW THE GREEN LIGHT …” but the green button was nowhere to be found unless you moved your hand under the dispenser, and then it was intermittent. Most of us would eventually figure this out and frankly, it is only an annoyance, but how many people are choosing someone else because of an annoyance?

UI/UX on your site

The user interface (page design including the look and its ease of use), as well as the user experience (how do the site pages flow work together to get things done), should be the primary, or at least one of the primary planning considerations. Can the visitor find what they want, is it aesthetically pleasing, can they/will they buy? These questions are your goals (or should be). There are probably others, too.

If someone wants to buy – let them. Heck – make it easy for them.

Finally, this brings me to Quality Assurance. Check your site (or paper towel holder) based on real users and not your own expectations and assumptions and minimize annoyances.

Acronyms for the Rest of Us!

I promise technology is not a language all it’s own even thought I think that some days. But tech folks do love Acronyms/Jargon. I’ll share two examples as insight into technical minds.

WYSIWYG — I had used this acronym for quite sometime before I understood the origins. To me it is simply the ability to enter content via text and then there is a toolbar to select things such as bold, italics or creating a link. I later learned it is What You See Is What You Get. I find this both odd and beautifully simple at the same time.

Hardening — As you can probably imagine, this word is used often at Dream Warrior Group since we have such an array of servers. My impression was that this was a precise series of steps to secure a server – which it is and we have a team of folks who do just that. But the actual origin of the word is much less process oriented: Hardening — to make the server harder to hack. This seems like it would be a great word to use in other cases like hardening my lawn (to make it harder for weeds to grow) or maybe I can harden my cell phone number (to avoid SPAM calls).

Anyway, I’ve come to appreciate the actual simplicity behind technology speak — it is very literal. I’ve complied a list of some common terms below and I’ll update it from time-to-time as well. And, if there’s one you’ve been dying to understand, Let me know and I’ll figure it out. — LaMae

SaaS – Software As A Service — This is typically a could based software application that you subscribe to rather than own. The advantage is that you do not have to host,manage or secure. The disadvantage is that you do not own it.

PaaS – Platform As A Service — While similar to SaaS in that it’s cloud-based, this is more goal-oriented and often includes many software tools combined in one ‘platform’. For example, Zoho software includes about 15 different software elements and if you subscribe to the platform – you can use them all.

CMS – Content Management System – This is the interface on your website that is the master controller for placement and display of content and can range from WordPress, a great general tool, to ARTdynamix(R) that has been specifically created for Arts Organizations.

WP – WordPress – The most used Content Management System that began as a blogging tool.

CRM – Customer Relationship Manager

AI – Artificial Intelligence

MA – Marketing Automation – It’s likely you have already used some form or marketing automation such as autoresponders in your Constant Contact account or thank you emails from your shopping cart.

CSS – Cascade Style Sheet – This is where your website gets a consistent look…a style sheet defines your design element in code format.

iOT – Internet of Things –

SEO – Search Engine Optimization – On and off-site work to make sure you name or offerings reach the top of the Search Engine.

Mother of Invention

If there has ever been a necessity, it was 2020.

We all have lots of stories, ours includes knee surgeries, burglary and our need to quickly help our clients with some technologies they never thought they would need, but had become their new paradigm.

Technology brought us many great things in 2020. And it was more than medical-related items – although medical technologists made so many things possible.

Looking closer to our own work, zoom expanded capacity and improved its security quickly. Desktop and web streaming technologies, and services bloomed and became a life saver. Over ten months ago, we did an article LinkedIn about an interesting read on a new technology that was saving live symphonic music. The article referred to Dan Tepfer and Michael Dessen who had worked with a decade-old open-source software – JackTrip – which due to necessity was coming to its own.

To quote NPR, “[…] when it comes to playing music online with any kind of rhythmic integrity, latency quickly becomes a total dealbreaker […] The solution: an open-source software called JackTrip, developed by Stanford University researchers Chris Chafe and Juan-Pablo Cáceres over a decade ago, that can transfer high quality audio data across the Internet at low enough latencies, within a geographic radius, to mimic someone playing music roughly 30 feet away […]”

Full circle I just read a series of new articles about the JackTrip Foundation which was helping singers and musicians collaborate online. The little engine that could has proven mighty and is going strong.

This was only one of the many stories of technological accomplishments in face of the dreaded 2020. During the same period, we worked with Clients and friends to bring quality live performance to the public: from simplicity of using DaCast, to the more complex Kaltura, to Isadora or OBS with zoom, and for many others using OBS with Youtube or Vimeo and even a couple of other very esoteric combinations that proved themselves.

And while we helping clients with their web streaming, we had to jump on the bandwagon and build up and expand on the technology behind our systems. Stay tuned for the next release of ARTdynamix™ which will knock your socks off.

-LaMae

Timing is Everything

I’ve written before about making sure there is human intervention in data. As much as I love AI (Artificial Intelligence) and MA (Marketing Automation), our eyes are still needed. If you’ve ever ‘fought’ with a undeveloped chatbot, you know exactly what I mean.

Last week, GoDaddy experienced a server outage for about two hours and as I understand it was a network disruption. That disruption kept us on our toes monitoring well into the night. So as you can imagine, we were on alert for GoDaddy communications.

Here’s what I received the next morning:

It would not surprise me if this was automated or scheduled far in advance – and indeed that’s how it should work. But here is where the human eye (I just liked the cat-eye picture) comes in to play – let’s keep things in mind and double check marketing tasks if something significant happens – that may be in the news or internally.

Important Note: This is not in any way meant to disparage GoDaddy – we use them often and indeed resell at Silver Lining Host. And, for the most part, their media communications are a model that any of us could use.