We will be officially closed on December 24th & 25th to spend time with family and friends for Christmas. We will resume operations on Monday the 28th – but on a light schedule. We’re analyzing and wrapping up some things for an even more exciting 2010. So we’ll be working “half days” for the final week of the 2009.

We use the term “half day” loosely. We’ll still be taking calls, and we’ll still be making plenty of print & web things pretty for our clients, but all new work will be scheduled to begin in 2010.

Normal operations will resume as usual on Monday, Jan 4th 2010.

Cheers & Happy Holidays!

Moreover, it’s about the new packaging of the OS. This will mark the first time that Apple has actually used a picture of the corresponding animal for box art. Place your peepers on this:

And I’m not really feeling it. In the past, it was the focus on the “X” for the version of OS X (10). In version 10.2 (aka Jaguar), Apple had Pixar created a spotted version of the “X”. Complete with fur textures and patterns of the big kitty. And while granted, this is not a full revamped OS, like previous .1+ upgrades, I do find it strange for them to be focusing on imagery like this. Even box art that uses images (iPods, iPhones, iMacs, etc), they seem to use the images in a more elegant way. I really enjoy the simple and more dynamic layouts that Apple has produced, and I hope this is simply a one-off since this OS is just a retooling and not a revamp, and not the future of Apple’ OS packaging.

So that’s ORANGEHAT’s thoughts. What’s your personally or professional design opinion?

Well it’s not really a blog entry update, so much as a blog skin update. The old look was a good starting point, but being the design firm we are – wanted to put our on take on the look. So here it is – our new look. Still have a few things left to sort out, but it’s presentable. We hope you enjoy the new look.

Stay tuned for some actual content updates. Shock, we know. But we promise they’re comin’

ORANGEHAT will be closed today, as we’re going to be at Summit Point Raceway for a track day.

The Ford Fiesta, already in Europe, will be coming state side next year, and how are they going to advertise it – via social networking. But everyone’s done that. Here’s what makes it so great – they’re giving the car to a few dozen people in their 20’s and they’re going to give their feedback on social networking accounts that Ford has setup for this campaign. Wired’s Autopia goes into the nitty gritty, so be sure to read the article.

It’s great that they’re letting the people do the talking. Takes away the whole idea of them being a “struggling American car company” – which they’re not – they’re the only ones not taking the money. It also shows that they’re “in-tune” (oh, puns are fun) with the younger generations. Plus the fact that they aren’t going to moderate what these testers are saying about the car is also great. If things go wrong, Ford can show how great they are at finding a solution to a problem. Makes them seem human, and that’s something an American car company needs desperately right now.

Rock on Ford…. rock on.

What happens is some websites (even some URL shorteners) take the link you’re sharing, and puts the site in their own (sometimes short) URL in place of the actual URL. Digg is the biggest and newest culprit to this deal, and since everyone else is upset with them, let’s use them as an example. Say something you’ve posted on your site it’s a hit, and someone posts it to Digg.com. If someone from Digg wants to view it, Digg provides them a short URL link like: www.digg.com/1234. The site then has a top header (or frame) and loads the site underneath of that, so you can view what you wanted. You’ve just viewed a framed site.

Here’s the rub though. And there’s two biggies. One: Site traffic is not making it to your site. People finding your article through digg’s short URL, aren’t actually going to your page, but Digg’s. Because of the frame, Digg gets the hits you should be getting. The second thing plays off the first. If you don’t get the hits, you don’t get the ad money from google (if you’re setup) – they do. The other sites are actually the ones making money because their site traffic has increased and then they call sell more ad space. That hurts businesses like us, because we’re trying to drum up traffic, and they get all the credit. It’s turning the internet into a big business: the workers bust ass, but the bosses get and take all the credit. And that’s just not right.

Now this is not to say all URL shorteners are bad – because they’re not. Any Short URL service that serves as a URL redirect (and that’s the key part) is fine. Granted these kind of services still need some work, and services like Twitter should provide their own solutions, but all-in-all, the idea is decent.

This new epidemic is getting out of hand and hurting the places that are serving up the content for these larger sites to share. Daring Fireball has a lot of methods to help let you block sites from using framework (mostly Diggbar, unsure if they work for all).

Fight the Frames. If you see a frame when you click a link – click out of it and get redirected, like you should be, and make sure your traffic counts and gets where it should be. Avoid services that use it whenever possible. Make the internet a safe and speedy place to find information, and let everyone get their share of the pie.

Repeat after me: Frames are bad. Frames are bad.

All together now!: Frames are bad. Frames are….

“Papa” Nike must be watching his “son” closely – “Don’t be late for practice, home by 10, and no talking to strange wildlife creatures!” With that much prominence in a spot, it makes us wonder if Tiger’s name hasn’t been changed to Tiger Nike Woods.

We expect lots of great things for the next 365 days – and hopefully beyond!

Cheers!