Sunday's starry-eyed Oscars and their little gold statues for the best in the business are inspirational…at least in a self-indulgent kind of way. To further indulge a society obsessed with award shows, I'd like to roll out the red carpet on Planit's inaugural Brandy Awards (in the spirit of the Academy Awards, the Grammy's, Emmy's, Tony's, Webby's, and Denny's Grand Slam). Here we could discuss the merits of a variety of brandies and cognacs (Hennessy or Courvoisier?), or the best episodes of Moesha. But instead this post will be a little homage to some of our favorite brands.

What makes a brand award worthy? I think it has to make an emotional connection; it has to tap into something that stirs us to sit up and take notice. An award-winner makes you want to experience and engage with that brand. There are some obvious choices like Apple, Google, Starbucks, The Gap. These are highly regarded, oft-publicized brands that invest heavily in their identities and have cultivated something special. They move their entire industries with cross-generational appeal and personality and a relentless attention to image consistency. We'll pretend these A-list celebs already made their long, predictable Brandy acceptance speeches and had to be cut off by the orchestra, and instead we'll focus on winners of some unsung categories. So without further ado, here are just a few primetime award winners…
 

Best Shopping Brand:

Whole Foods

Here's a business that created a category, and in so doing turned the drudgery of grocery shopping into something more noble, intelligent, and vibrant. This store made commodity into community; everyday into sublime. Its bigger competitors have been playing catch-up since.
 

Best Service Industry Brand:

Southwest Airlines

Consistently in the stratosphere vs. the competition, and reaping the rewards. Customer service isn't the sexy part of being a good brand, but it might be the most important. Stock symbol: LUV!
 

Best Brand of Something We Really Need:

American Red Cross

Is there a logo out there that makes people feel any better than this one? Not afraid to retool its processes to control for fraud in the wake of September 11 and Hurricane Katrina, this shows that a good brand is not necessarily without controversy but knows how to constantly fine-tune to stay on mission. And by the way, their "Text Haiti" campaign made it easy for the world to donate over $5 million via text message. Probably the simplest, most effective social media strategy ever.
 

Best Brand of Something We Don't Really Need:

Nintendo Wii

Turning video games into what we perceive to be "utility"; sedentary into active; older non-gamers into aficionados; product into its own marketing. Genius. (And just plain fun, too.)
 

Best Place Brand:

Las Vegas

There aren't many cities that can claim distinct brands of their own (New York, Paris, New Orleans come to mind). Vegas has a niche that it exploits excessively, which is precisely what the city is all about. It is not afraid of what it is, and not afraid to keep giving us more of it — it's one of the fastest growing cities in the country.
 

Best Lux Brand:

Tiffany

That little blue box is worth its weight in gold. Are Tiffany's jewels any better than the next gal's? Doubtful. But when you give or receive that robin's egg blue box tied in a bow, it stands for something more. It has come to define "expensive," "exclusive," and "quality."
 

Best Mundane Brand:

Post-Its

A simple pad of paper, a dash of color, and a little adhesive. To some it's an organizational scheme unto itself. When's the last time you used one of those clunky tape dispensers, anyway?
 

Best Person Brand:

Oprah

Next year she leaves the game on top of a billion dollar media empire. Like her or not, it won't be long before she'll OWN us all.
 

Best Person Anti-Brand:

Bob Dylan

The more this cat rambles and wanders the wilderness of activist folk poetry, the more endearingly eccentric he becomes. He defines genre-bending — and if you called him a brand to his face he just might spit in yours.
 

Best Brand on TV:

HBO

Maybe because it's not TV after all. A tireless pursuit of the best in drama, comedy, and documentary has brought this brand originally known for movies to the forefront of episodic programming. While the networks fumble, HBO continues to develop quality reasons for viewers to tune in to what some would call a dying medium.
 

Best Clothing Brand:

Levi's

Girls, guys, young, old; who wouldn't want a pair of Levi's? There's plenty of great jeans out there, let alone great clothing brands, but few that have been doing it this well for 150 years. If I did a poll on the one wardrobe must-have, I bet blue jeans would win.
 

Best Sports Brand:

Burton

How's inventing an entire sport for your corporate resume? When your brand can create its own playing field and get others to play, it wins.
 

Best Local Brand (DC/Baltimore):

Honest Tea

These Marylanders started with a community-minded attitude and a laser-like focus on really good tea. Then they sold a big share of the biz to Coca-Cola and managed to keep just about all of their mojo intact. (Hey Honest Tea, if you ever want help taking your brand to the next step, let us know.)

And finally…
 

Best Toothpaste Brand:

Aquafresh

According to our intern, Roseann, it stays freshest the longest and it's relatively cheap. She says most other toothpastes keep your mouth fresh for about half an hour max after brushing. I'll give Roseann this: price is one of those things that probably gets overlooked in our quest for the best brands, and it's just as critical as anything else. That and the colorful minty stripes are enough to convince me.

These are just a few awards to stoke the fire. Now it's your turn. Relate, berate, debate, nominate. And then down a shot of Courvoisier.

Japan's Stats

First, he says that statistics in Japan show that most research done in that country is performed on smartphones instead of desktops. Whether or not that is also a spiking trend in the states, I cannot say. I'd imagine that at the rate at which smartphones are becoming ubiquitous among people of all ages, I'd assume that we're close on Japan's tail.

Storage in the Cloud

Second, information stored in the cloud could potentially replace the need for massive hard drives. This of course, as Mashable suggests, is Google's domain. With a growing number of services that allow users to store and access their documents and media from the web (instead of their computers), this point can't be ignored.

The question, though, is will we be ready to eliminate our need for a workstation? Maybe? Sorta. I believe there will come a time when we'll be able to come into work, plug a hand-held device into a monitor, and use this device as our operating system. As these devices continue to sync our accounts, media, and contacts together, it only makes sense that they will sync to our files in the cloud, too.

Some of the major problems with this theory include native applications and large files that require powerful processors. Can a smartphone's tiny processor ever be as fast as a desktop? Will Adobe make a suite of fully functioning applications in the cloud? Or will they continue to make lightweight versions native to the hand-held device itself? We've seen the limitations of Android's and iPhone's Photoshop app, so will Adobe improve upon this? Will Internet speeds increase to levels that make storing large files online a problem of the past? Truthfully, I'm not sure.

Tell me your thoughts:

Do you think John Herlihy is right? Will smartphones make desktops irrelevant?

What are some other limitations of my plug-and-play device-to-monitor scenario?

Sprint: The "Now" Network

Don't get me wrong, from a visual standpoint these commercials are beautifully executed. From the high gloss of the motion-graphics to the imaginative display of information, the Sprint ads are top-notch. But, after viewing this campaign in its many forms, I am still lost. For instance, are we supposed to assume that Sprint is Big Brother tracking our every activity? The voice-over delivers quirky lines that only slightly match what's happening visually, leaving me slightly lost. At the end of the commercial, I don't know what Sprint is trying to sell me.

Progressive Insurance

Yes, they have a different approach to selling insurance. I'll give Progressive that much. But, are we supposed to think that their store locations look like the live-action set of the Jetsons? I get so caught up in their campy spokeswoman and space-age set, that I never actually learn why they call themselves Progressive.

5 Gum: "Stimulate your Senses"

I don't even know where to begin. Maybe I should start with the reality of things—we're selling bubble gum here. Just the cost of this production and the visual effects of this insane concept could have fed a starving nation for 15 years. Have we forgotten that gum just freshens our breath for about 12 minutes and then we're done with it? Does such a short-lived treat warrant a Mad Max meets Bio-Dome meets American Gladiators creative execution? I think not. Now where's my Bubble Tape?

Palm Pre

OMG. You're selling a cell phone, not a day-pass to Terabithia. This is a great example of when advertising tries way too hard. Maybe I'm sensitive to the gimmicks because I work in this industry, but this takes the cake. Over-the-top theatrics, lofty and reaching copy, and M83's spectacular but un-fitting "Lower Your Eyelids to Die With the Sun" to bring it all in for the kill…or over-kill, I should say. It's almost laughable to see the trivial touch-screen actions to this intense spectacle of sappy advertising fodder. In the end, you just don't care what phone they're selling.

Blackberry: "Love What You Do"

In this Blackberry campaign (that I always thought was Mastercard until I decided to write this post), I'm instantly put off by a painful cover of The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love." Beyond my personal tastes, I can't help but wonder why no one thought it would be necessary to possibly tie in the concept of "Love" back to the phone itself. A couple designers are sketching, then you see their fashion come to life on the runway, and then we're told to "Do What [We] Love and  Love What [We] Do." Then you discover it's a Blackberry commercial? But, why? So forgettable.

Cisco: "The Human Network w/ Ellen Page"

There was a time when I thought that Cisco's "Human Network" campaign was extremely poignant and powerful. Now they have Ellen Page. And weird scenarios where she is befuddled by their use of new advancements in technology. Sure, Ellen Page is a great actress, but why her? And what are they selling that they need someone like her as their spokeswoman? I'm confused.

Creative concepts should work hard for a brand without seeming like they're trying too hard to do it. At the end of the day, the most memorable commercials aren't always the most effective ones, but communicating a brand message should never become secondary, or an after-thought. The truth is, I have no stats whatsoever on whether these campaigns have been flops or major successes for each individual brand. These are merely my opinions as a consumer toward whom these campaigns are directed. Feel free to disagree and even add to the list.

Flash on the Nexus One looks great, not sure what all the hoopla is about with not being able to use flash on the iphone and ipad. 
I guess this is a little off-base after watching the video, but brings up an interesting point about the hover state not being supported on the iphone and ipad.

Record Tripping ,Ingenious flash game using record scratching and storytelling ("Alice in Wonderland").

Crazy lego model

http://www.fokistudios.com/superfun/

"To better explain the poor name for this plugin, I'm not exactly sure what to call this. Consider it an HTML5, CSS3 tech-demo / experiment with scale, rotation and transformation."

Beautiful Safer Roads PSA

Do you use Tumblr? Great looking theme here.

I'm a noob to design patterns, and being a self taught programmer I've slept on learning things like this. But, after picking up this book at the library, I realized how helpful it is to know these by heart. Instead of me trying to figure out how to solve a problem from scratch, I realized that the same problems have cropped up for every developer in every language, and this book covers how to avoid most of the same mistakes and architect your programming in a way that prevents a lot of the same problems from occurring.  If you haven't formally used design patterns, but do a lot of programming, you'll immediately recognize a lot of these patterns that you might have loosely used in the past.   If you don't want to buy the book, you can see all of the patterns at this website.  

Be the funny girl

Think Tina Fey. This actress and producer has created a brand for herself that goes beyond just “funny” —she’s smart, successful and witty. American Express highlights this in an ad from last year. Also consider Budweiser’s Superbowl ads—they make you laugh, they’re catchy (whazzzupp), and they hold the attention of guys almost more than a fresh, warm Chipotle burrito. To be the funny girl is not as easy as it seems. You can be silly after a few beers, but to be legitimately funny all night, or at least through a two-beverage conversation, takes skill and smarts. Just giggling at whatever McDreamy says, and him laughing at your giggle, does not count. I’m talking skillfully funny—where you are connected with current events, subjects of interest to him, and the community, enough so that you have your own opinion on these, and can spin it into an engaging, funny conversation. Guys love this—maybe they won’t all admit it at first, but you will hold the conversation longer than a “pretty giggler,” and he will leave that bar thinking, “Wow, she was funny and I’d like to hang out with her again.”

The “drop dead gorgeous” girl

Picture the models in almost any Victoria’s Secret ad, or any serious fragrance ad. The example that comes to my mind is Charlize Theron in the J’adore Dior ad strutting down a hallway like she is by far the most gorgeous thing on earth.  Minus the stripping part, this is what I’m talking about. Now this one is a little harder to come by, unless you are either naturally blessed by the “god of good looks” or you have thousands of dollars to get to a surgeon who can “assist you” in the looks department. Either way, if you are fortunate enough to be this girl, you better WORK IT. I don’t mean by dressing and/or acting “easy” in any manner. Let down your hair; wear a nice, stylish (and maybe slightly provocative) outfit with heels; and walk in like you KNOW you’re hot. Guys will take notice, and hey, the music may even stop blasting while you make your entrance. Even the funny girl will lose her pedestal for a moment. All eyes are on you—flash a few smiles at some droolers, work your way to the bar, and buy yourself a drink. The rest will come to you. From here on out, just ooze confidence, and flick your hair a few times.

The “I don’t care what anyone says, I want the attention” girl

This reminds me of the brand that Cameron Diaz has seemingly built for herself. She’s portrayed in the media as the fun, entertaining, outgoing, attention-grabbing Hollywood actress. From her early role in “The Mask,” to a lead role in “The Sweetest Thing” (a movie that most of you probably haven’t heard of but she is the loud party girl), she is always the center of attention and having a blast…you get the gist. If not, check out this montage. Be careful with this one; more often than not you will get on the nerves of almost every other girl in the bar. To be this girl, you don’t have to be Ms. Sports Illustrated cover model—you just have to be a bit loud, laugh a lot, wear a cute yet quasi-comfortable and bright-colored outfit (OK maybe not but that’s how I picture you), and act like you are having a great time—no matter what. Guys will want to know what you are about. They will think, “Whoa, she is having a great time. I want to learn more about this chick, and I want to join in the fun too.” The downside with this is you typically will attract a ton of guy friends as well, and let’s face it, this gets you nothing but a circle of armor for the night that almost no McDreamy would dare fight. Go on and be this attention-grabbing girl with a handful of fun girlfriends, and best of luck to you. Maybe bring some glow-in-the-dark straws with you for added effect.

The mysterious girl

The mysterious girl is like the Mona Lisa effect (is she smiling or is she reserved?) or like the lyrics to the Johnny Mathis song "A Certain Smile." Similarly, brands occasionally will run a TV ad and say nothing about the actual brand itself until the very end of the ad, making you watch closely and wonder who is speaking to you and what they are trying to sell. Hey, they caught your attention didn’t they? As for dating, be this girl if you are not, won’t be, or can’t be any of the above. The best place to be this girl is a new one, as in a bar or neighborhood you typically do not frequent. The key here—guys do not know you. Stroll in with one other girl, two at most, and pretend not to notice anyone else at the bar. Grab a spot in a back corner, and park yourself there for most of the night. Have intriguing conversations with your friend(s) and meanwhile scan the bar for McDreamy (or McDreamies). Make eye contact every so often and be sure to continue your conversation without missing a beat. If he’s interested he should approach you, and if he doesn’t, don’t fret. Instead, walk out with confidence, shoot him a small smile, say nothing, and come back on a similar night to be that mysterious girl he gets to see again. He will be wondering about you… In the end, I’m a fan of mixing it up a bit depending on the following: how your work week went, your posse for the evening, which bar you’re heading to, and frankly what your gosh darn mood is like that night. Take notice, if there are too many drop dead gorgeous girls there—be different, cut through the clutter. Be the mysterious one, be the Charlize Theron in the Dior ad, or be a sassy and funny Tina Fey, or be what you know will set you apart from the crowd (in a smart, ladylike way of course). You will stand out and maybe you’ll learn a bit about yourself. You will most likely have more fun, and realize that perhaps being single in Smalltimore, or any other city, isn’t so bad after all.

Wieden+Kennedy has certainly created a winner (and a star) with their latest Old Spice commercial. I'm sure at this point everyone has already seen the hilarious spot, where a handsome shirtless man informs his female viewers that their men could be more like him, if they just smelled like a man. Thanks to brilliant copywriting, fantastic acting (by Isaiah Mustafa) and some clever camera-work (as you'll see below), this commercial is bound to once again place W+K, (and hopefully) Old Spice at the top.

If you can stand listening to the commentary of the radio personality, it's actually a really interesting play-by-play with Craig Allen and Eric Kallman, the creators of this commercial, on how the one-take-rapid-scene-changing camera trickery was done.

Code Organ - See what the Planit Website sounds like.

Keep up with Adobe at the mobile world conference. I've been seeing a lot of flash on mobile platforms.

Welcome Tableau Public to the multitude of Social Data Vis tools out there now, such as  Swivel, Daytum and StatPlot. Although, this seems to live in a more robust desktop application.  It would be nice if you could use private data without making it public to use on your own presentations, but still seems to be useful when you need to embed some nice infographics on a website and don't have the time to create them yourself.

In other infographic news, Google released their own chart tools.

Beautiful website for Manchester City Soccer.

Great resource for seeing AS3 code samples.  And Stack Overflow has become my favorite forum for posting developer questions, incredibly responsive replies.

Opera Unite, turn your opera web browser into a server, share files, host websites (well, host them until you close your browser).  I find myself flipping between two browsers already, Chrome and Firefox, now I might need to add a third one to the bunch, BROWSER OVERLOAD!

Need to give a client the ability to edit a site, but don't want to build a giant cms. Use Edit-ease.  Simply put some javascript on your page, click admin, and edit away.  Just saves the content back to the HTML page, and has a nice WYSIWIG.

Really amazing TED talk on Bing Maps. It's been a while since I have checked out the mapping functionality on BING, the photosynth feature is impressive.

If you weren't sure what HTML 5 was capable of, this will show you (so will this)

Nice Style on the Wrangler jeans site.http://eu.wrangler.com/bluebell/

Really great image search site http://www.moofe.com/

With the record amount of snowfall we've had in the past week I have been spending a lot of time indoors watching television.  And something that has always bothered me with watching cable television are the really poor interfaces they use for basic channel switching. There are many aspects to why these are bad, but the overall problem is that  the interface design and technology are at least 10 years behind everything else. Compare your cable tv interface to your iphone, android, website navigation, and even your home computer.   I live in Baltimore so most of what I see is the Comcast interface, but I have seen many other Cable Providers that have exactly the same problem, actually I have never seen a good Cable TV Interface. 

Now I don't work for a cable TV provider or pretend to know the In's and Outs of interface programing for cable television, but I do program and see many open source alternatives online that have much more intuitive interfaces to allow you to switch between channels,however these are just a hassle to set up and not many people have a computer hooked up to their television.  It seems feasible that Cable Providers could easily update their interfaces, especially since they all double as internet providers as well. The two are never connected, at least not in a way that lives up to their potential.

I am going to outline aspects of bad design in the Comcast Television Interface (which looks almost identical to Time Warner, Cox, etc), point out some improvements that could be made, and show some design concepts in the process.  The intention of this post is not to come up with an entire new interface design, it's more to conceptually lay out a better interface design. I am not looking too far past what is available now, so no wii-motes or minority report interfaces. These are practical suggestions on how the interfaces could be brought up to speed to today's standards.

The main problems I see in interface design are similar to the same problems in web design:

1. Speed
2. Usability
3. Transparency 

Speed

My main gripe with most of these interfaces is the speed at which you can flip through channels. If channel flipping were faster then the interface would already be at least 50% better. These should just be text inputs, when you hit down on your remote their should be an immediate response with what you see, whereas right now it takes about a half second to go to the next menu or page down.  I find it unbelievable that this can't be made faster when a gaming system like the wii has such sensitive controls on its remote, even when you are just using the arrow buttons.
You would think that the cable box could be used better for this, cacheing channel guides and periodically updating them on the backend, so that when you flip to a new menu or channel guide it is not calling for a response from some remote server. 

When you look at well put together web interfaces with similar quantities of content to flip through, you don't see nearly as much of a lag. And when you do, it is for a good reason. 

Usability

Cable TV Interfaces are far from intuitive. You often have to go through three or four menus  to get to what you want, which might be a show you watch all the time. I know the Comcast interface the best so I know how to get around the menus. But, when I sit down to use one that I'm not familiar with (i.e. Time Warner), it has a pretty big learning curve.  The key here is lack of simplicity.
 

The logic for menu priority should go like this:

Highest Priority:  What is on TV Now

Secondary Priorities 
What can Watch that I might have saved or is on On Demand
What is coming up Next on TV
What is on TV in the future 

And when it comes to what you see visually:

Highest Priority: The TV Show
Secondary Priority: The Guide
 

The Interface:

The actual visual interface for Comcast seems to be 10 years old at this point, there are menus inside menus of menus, then menus within those menus that take you to the same menu. Sound complicated? It is, it's like there was never any plan for updating the interface, for adding additional content, etc. Here I will lay out what you should see visually as you navigate through the menus.

The Breakdown

Basically there are three levels of menu here.
1. Immeditate channel surfing – A minimzed version of the full menu.  
2. Full menu subnav, before launching into the most in-depth part of the menu, figure out what the user is looking for.
3. The Full menu, fullscreen, with the most options for browsing. 

1.  Immediate Channel Surfing

When I sit down to watch TV, I click on the menu and what it brings me to is  the most minimal menu on the interface.  A TV grid at the bottom with what you are watching now. Besides the design being clunky, it takes way too much attention from the actual screen content. Where is the use of transparency, overlays, and just a simpler way of navigating.  The first thing I want to know when I go to this screen is

A. What am I watching now then
B. What else is on right now and finally
C. How much time is left, or what can I watch next.

So, with this logic in mind, wouldn't a menu like this be more efficient and less intrusive?  

Ok, it's probably not that different than what they have now, just simplified. Hit that down arrow key on the remote and it will go to a menu like this:

This menu shows what is currently on as you scroll down, which current Cable TV Interfaces do now, but this is way less confusing, I don't need a full TV grid at this point, and it takes up the same amount of real estate as the previous window.  On this menu I see what is on now in rows of two, if I want the next hour I just click to the right.  It's similar to what Comcast currently uses with some slight usability features that make things simpler and more efficient. Also, the menu is subdued in design, it doesn't cry out for attention. If someone else is watching TV with you, and you begin flipping through the channels, it's unobtrusive.

2. The Full Menu Sub Navigation
Now, If I want to browse stations on a more in-depth level, then I go to the main menu. Since the main menu will have more features, I turned the navigation from horizontal to vertical to be able to hold more buttons without interfering with screen real estate.

The purpose of this navigation is to give you the top level categories for the entire interface while always focusing on the quickest way to find what you want.  The reson you go to this menu is either A) You don't know what to watch so you just want to browse within specific categories or B) You want to watch a show you recorded or something on ON Demand.  It seems obvious but when I go to the current comcast main menu, my screen shrinks to 25% and I have these gigantic buttons on the screen, most of which I never go to. 

For browsing purposes there are many options here.  The first option is to open up the full menu for the most robust browsing experience.   The menu items below this are more to narrow down what you see in the full menu.

Flip-Thru Favorites:
This is something I have seen in one form or another. It's usually a button on the remote, and it is hardly ever used. The reason it isn;t used is becauase people don't want to add favorites manually. Cable boxes should be capable of logging what you watch most frequently, what channels you go to most often, and then flip through them when you want. When you click this flip-through favorites button, it goes directly to your favorite stations, one after the next. Think of it as browsing in autopilot, like stumble-upon for TV.

myShows:
This is basically a DVR/On Demand Feature. This menu narrows down your browsing to shows you have specifically included in your myShows box, shows you frequently watch that might be coming on shortly, shows you have recorded in your DVR and shows that you like that might be on on-demand. It is a one-stop spot for everything you like in it's simplest form.  Right now, on Comcast, I have all of these things in different places. If I recorded a show then I hit DVR, if I want onDemand, then I click another onDemand button. Putting these things all in one place and using statistics to present the user with the most used options will not only make the interface more intuitive and less busy, but would also make the remote controls simpler.

On Demand:
I'm not going to go too much into ON-DEMAND, there is too much there to cover and I think you will already get the gist of what I am getting to with the other menus.  ON DEMAND should be way more robust, it it could be doing things like pulling in movie reviews from the internet, offfering a much more sophisticated music listening (and video) interface, and amongst others, it should be offering up more web content like podcasts and youtube video.   Look at the XBOX Live menu's for the best example of how this could work.

Channel Categories
Let's say you want to look for a sporting event, nothing in particular, you just want to watch some sports.  This is where the category menu comes in, which most Cable TV Interfaces it's  buried and works poorly.  This shows you your categories, Network programming, sports, Kids and Local.  It has, in small type, shows that are currently showing below the category name. When you click on one of these categories you can see either a grid navigation (as seen below for kids), or a more linear navigation (as seen below for sports).  The tv grid navigation is to be able to see other shows grayed out while seeing the category shows highlighted, the linear navigation is to just see those shows in that category for that time period. Notice how you can still see what is on the tv without it having to be minimized to a quarter of your screen real estate.  It's amazing what a little transparency will do.  Although I am showing the standard TV grid navigation for the Kids section, I find the vertical, linear navigation of the Sports section to be way more intuitive, you have it right there, what you can watch right now in sports.  

This all might seem pretty obvious, but still something nobody has improved upon.

Category TV Grid Channel View

Category Channel List View

And for a little embellishment, put some transitions into those menus. Have them slide out, fade-in, etc. It's not necessary, but it makes things look so much better and gives the impression of the menu's moving gracefully and working smoothly.

4) Transparency
I have talked about transparency through this article in terms of actual alpha channels, but what I am referring to here is making the interface invisible to the user, make it feel like they aren't using an interface, like they don't have to learn. I might not have fully accomplished this with my examples, but they are a step in the right direction for Cable TV Interfaces.  Give me the options when I need the options, learn my channel browsing habits.  TIVO did this, cable didn't learn much from it. 

The Future Although this is all meant as a concept for bringing the Cable TV Interface up to speed, it seems like it should be even farther along than even what I am proposing. When are cable providers going to open up their software to allow for API's, allowing developers to make widgets that sync to television programs? When is syncing your phone to your cable going to become more widespread? What has been talked about and what will make all of this better and quicker will be when television comes completely to the internet, I more often find myself watching shows on Hulu and other internet TV sites than I do regular cable television at this point.
 

Two weeks ago Google announced that they will limit support for Internet Explorer 6 starting March 1st.

"Many other companies have already stopped supporting older browsers like Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers. We’re also going to begin phasing out our support, starting with Google Docs and Google Sites. As a result you may find that from March 1 key functionality within these products — as well as new Docs and Sites features — won’t work properly in older browsers."

Rajen Sheth, Google Apps Senior Product Manager

If the G-giant is throwing in the towel, shouldn't we?

Nope, not yet

While Google's motion to drop support may provide developers the needed backing to say "Google's doing it, you should too," convincing an organization that has spent millions on a custom app to upgrade to a new browser may be difficult to say the least. It may also be challenging to convince your client that their IE6 users are holding them back. Unfortunately, the enterprise is still in love with IE6 and there are a number of reasons why. Feast your eyes on these articles for more info.

• IE6 and the enterprise
  
• Internet Explorer will not die
  
• Dropping IE6 support not an option
  

Don't be a geezer

Remember this gem? It's 9 years old…just like IE6

They say that 80% of your cool is determined by your shoes. If that's true, then how much of your cool is determined by your supported browsers? Everyone loves a pair of vintage kicks, but who loves a vintage browser? Using IE6 means that your shoes, and your client's, are bo bo.

Woop, Woop! That's the sound of tha…

Police your products, your sites, your systems and your environment. Upgrade already. What's the problem?  You lose functionality in your custom app? You need to upgrade it anyway. You upset your IT people? Oh well, it's their job. Get over it.  IE6 won't go away unless you, yes you, do something about it. Tell your clients and their friends to file for a divorce from IE6 and make sure they take everything. Show them the features they're missing out on, and help them to understand that supporting dated software that even Microsoft doesn't care about can only hurt their business. You can't run IE6 forever.

Take responsibility for the products, machines, and services that you provide. You give IE6 extra mana every time you develop a site that's IE6 friendly. Don't gloss over your tech requirements and blanket IE6 into your supported browsers—you're losing money. What are you waiting for, the interweb gods to do it for you?

Upgrade already

Thanks to the shortcomings of IE6 and the browser wars there are a number of tools we can use.

Internet Explorer 8 – Microsoft's latest release of the almighty browser. IE8 supports tabbed browsing, 'secure surfing', accelerated searches, increased performance, and a smart address bar.  IE8 also loves code a bit more than its predecessors and offers better support for images with transparent areas. Check the feature list.

Firefox – Quite possibly the leader of the pack with 43.6% of the market share according to the W3C and just over 20% according to Statowl. Firefox is a user's best friend as it supports tabbed browsing, is secure, loves code, is hella' fast, and loaded with useful features.  Just peep the feature list.

Google Chrome – The newest guy on the street and definitely one of the most promising. Google Chrome is the browser's browser and is quickly gaining popularity amongst users.  Chrome is fast, stable, secure, offers support for extensions, themes, and incognito mode (for those of us who need to keep our history safe from wifey's eyes.)

Safari – A 'newcomer' to the browser market (sorta). Safari has been Apple's browser for some time now and was released as Safari 3 for Windows in 2007. Unfortunately, Safari for Windows hasn't gained much of the market share although it's still more powerful than IE6.  Personally, I'd stick with Firefox, Chrome, or even IE8.

Must haves for the contemporary surfer

Simply put, if you want to stay current then you need to know what people are using and how.  I can't think of a single person my age, under 30, who uses a browser that doesn't supports tabs, extensions or plug-ins, and some sort of incognito mode.

Tabbed browsing – Who likes having a million windows open at once? Not this guy. IE7 & 8, Firefox, and every other browser supports tabbed browsing.  Don't get left in the cold.

Plug-ins / Extensions – As a web developer, I rely heavily on plug-ins, add-ons, and extensions. They make my life a lot easier. I use Firebug for front-end development, Colorzilla for color matching, and Delicious for my bookmarks. The list goes on and on.  It's not only limited to Firefox. Google Chrome has some amazing extensions as well.

IE6 gotz no love for tabz, browza' extensionz, incognito modez, or securitiez.

Outro

I was lucky enough to attend the TED Mid-Atlantic conference last November and heard Marcus Ranum share his thoughts on software and a developer's responsibility to police it. Ranum expressed frustrations over FTP, HTTP, TCP/IP and other dated protocols. He showed that these technologies have cost the enterprise trillions of dollars over the past few decades due to security patches, fixes, hardware development, etc.

Why? Because they weren't properly managed or QA'd from the beginning and small bugs in the code led to the need for security solutions, like the firewalls he developed. His point was simple – if those who had developed the technologies took responsibility for the errors in their code then new products and tools could have been developed and implemented. He also pointed his finger at the consumers for accepting said technologies. It's not only the responsibility of the admin but of the user as well. We're all responsible for allowing IE6 to continue as it has.

Ranum beckoned us, the developers in the crowd, to step up to the plate and be honest with our users about the software they use. Technology is organic and it changes rapidly. Nothing is set in stone especially when it comes to software – hence the name.

So that's what we're doing, stepping up to the plate.

Drop IE6 and get with the new.

Note – We have an ongoing joke here at office that Smashing Magazine listens to our conversations and posts them. Today they posted a lovely comic that provides a bit of IE6 history.  Check it out.