Rick Howard

In honor of tax day, I am gonna steal todays entry in my Freakonomics calendar.

In 1987 the IRS change one simple rule: Instead of merely listing the name of each dependent child in order to get a deduction, tax filers were now required to provide a Social Security number for each child. On April 15 of that year, seven million American children suddenly vanished from the tax rolls.

It’s amazing how many people break the law if they think they wont be caught. If you think that is interesting, you should read the Freakonomics book.

If you are looking to waste some time, try out the Magic Pen game.

Addictive and fun!

Link courtesy of Komando.com

Billy Madison is one of my favorite movies. Sure it juvenile humor, but it is a heartwarming story of one man’s journey to educate himself in order to save the name of his family.

Ok maybe not that honorable, but funny nonetheless.

Turns out it is really happening as a 70yr old man has re-enrolled in first grade.

Yay for him, I hope it all works out but remember O’doyle Rules!

I realized its been awhile, i actually had plans of grandeur. A redesign was imminent on the horizon, then like all other redesigns before it, I decided I didn’t like it when it was almost done. So back to the drawing board.

Today I present a few good links. I need to figure out how Cameron does his linkage so that I can just put some useful links up when I find them so that these link posts don’t fill up my blog with ways to leave.

No matter, these links are solid.

Blogdesignblog.com offers up the 25 Must books for Web Designers, Amazingly I have read 3 of these and they were great. I guess I need to get to reading the rest. Unfortunately, the library doesn’t carry a lot of them and I am not paying $40 for a 10 minute read book.

Visual-blast.com has 124+ Free Photoshop Actions, even more amazing, I don’t have any of these out of the 40 I already have. I never realized pre-made actions existed but some of these are beyond basic Photoshop usage.

Noupe.com gives us 101 CSS techniques that other designers are using, why aren’t you? It could be you don’t need them, but more than likely you are using some derivative.

Gamedaily has a pretty good list of the top 25 SNES games, although my elation with the list took a downturn when “Secret of Mana” and “Killer Instinct” were not included.

If you are gonna leave off two of the more innovative games made for the SNES, then you might as well have included Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball on there.

On the 15th, I officially became a vegetarian for two weeks. If you would like to keep track of what I have been eating, you can click the vegetarian link at the top of my blog. Any major updates, weight loss, loss of feeling, tree hugging, etc. will deserve its own blog post.

So stay tuned for the fun and adventure of vegetarianism.

It’s On!

Recently my boss Adam has been pushing “Call to Action” as the thing we need to be doing. If you don’t know what a call to action is, wikipedia says it is “an organization that advocates for a variety of causes within the Roman Catholic Church.”

We will not be using that definition, rather we will define it as “An element that deviates in design from its surrounding elements in order to draw attention to a specific instruction”. That specific instruction is usually to click or type something in order to get something.

I can’t argue with the logic of it. It is easier to get people to do things by telling them exactly what to do. A child is more likely to clean his room without being told the benefits of it than a web visitor is to sign-up for a newsletter without knowing why.

So remember you can’t just say “Sign up for my newsletter”, you should say “Sign up for my newsletter and receive great information”. If you are still confused about the call to action, you can check out Attitude Design’s appropriately titled article “Calls to Action - Click Here“. It contains actual examples that are being used across the web of Calls to Action.

DO IT ALREADY!

Heath Ledger was found dead in his NYC Apartment this morning.

Cause of death is still unknown. He leaves behind one child and The 28-year-old actor has a two year old daughter with former fiance Michelle Williams. He plays The Joker in the upcoming Batman film, “The Dark Knight.”

He was in one of my favorite teen movie, “10 Things I Hate About You”. This is truly disturbing.

Scrabble shutting down Scrabulous

After reading the article, I am bit confused about the reaction. The creators have basically said they made a blatant ripoff. If Hasbro does not want their game online, then so be it. Why should Scrabble lose money and pay the creators of Scrabulous for their software?

Can I create a big mac at home, add Worcestershire sauce, and sell it at Burger King? Then have Mcdonalds say I ripped them off, but buy it from me.

That’s not very realistic. Copyright infringement is wrong, there is no situation where the infringed should have to appease the infringer.

The second issue, boycotting, I find humorous.

Why dont boycotts work? Well it is quite simple, No matter how much of one company you boycott, your business or interest in a product is usually not a measurable percentage of the total. Oh but what if you get a large group to participate, say 100,000, how many of them are actually going to participate? Ask the American Family Association if their old boycott of Disney had any effect on Disney’s final figures in those years.

The success of most boycotts are merely trumpeted by one’s ability to stick to it. The reason is, for every person for something, there is someone against it.

That is why they just don’t work and why the ageless Scrabble will win and fad of the year Scrabulous will lose.

I guess everything is right with the world.

Logoblog posted their list of 6 things to look for in a Logo Designer.

I would add to this list the ability to sketch.
If a designer can’t sketch out 10-20 designs, then it is highly unlikely they will be able to come up with a quality logo. Very rarely does a logo come about on the first try, so the ability to draw out a good number of ideas will help you more easily find the best one.

This would add another quality to the list, which is patience. If you don’t have patience, then you will have frustration. We all know how hard it is to design when we are preoccupied with designer’s block.