How to stop iPhoto from opening you when you plug in your iPhone 01-26-10
This is a mildly annoying default behavior. The fix is pretty simple:
1. Go to Applications > Image Capture (That’s right, not iTunes or iPhoto as you might expect).
2. In the Image Capture Preferences, select “No application”
3. Tell your friends.
posted by Mike McKenna on Tue, Jan 26, 2010
One in a Million 08-11-09
My iPhone camera captured this very-cool photo this weekend during a camping trip with the family. Sometimes creative ideas come from places you wouldn’t expect. Where do your ideas come from?
posted by Mike McKenna on Tue, Aug 11, 2009
New Search Engine Visibility Program from shotgunflat 07-27-09
We’re proud to offer a new Search Engine Visibility service! Our offering is designed to improve your positioning in natural search results without breaking the bank. We use a three-phase approach, spread over several months, to help us analyze the progress and success of the system. Our service includes reworking your site’s markup (if necessary), well-written and planned page titles, meta-descriptions, anchor attributes and a consistently updated set of inbound links.
To speak with us about beginning a Search Engine Visibility program, please call our office at 508-443-0201 and speak to Chris or Drew or email us at or .
posted by Drew McKenna on Mon, Jul 27, 2009
Welcome to Matt and Shea 07-08-09
shotgunflat welcomes Matt and Shea who bring years of graphic design experience to the team. Matt has been in the design business since the age of 16 when he started as intern with a local design studio, and Shea began her career designing play posters and working at a sign shop while still in high school. Find out more about both Matt and Shea on our Team page.
posted by Abigail Murdy on Wed, Jul 08, 2009
Don’t Fill This Out. 02-23-09
Nate Laffan came across this today whilst surfing the web. This should not be filled out. (You should know that, of course.)
posted by Mike McKenna on Mon, Feb 23, 2009
Ruston Lives! 12-03-08
After leaving Shotgunflat to coach the Taunton Tiger Sharks swim team, Ruston recently resurfaced in need of some graphics work! He was looking for a ferocious logo to intimidate the opposition and adorn the front of his athletes’ new swimsuits. In a week! A graphic was - rather hastily - put together, and we just got word that the printing just finished up. Good luck Ruston!
posted by Nate Laffan on Wed, Dec 03, 2008
Good-bye 10-03-08
A quick note: Ruston is no longer with shotgunflat; he’s moved on to a new line of work which suits him quite well. After two years, we’ll miss him. Along with his hard work and ability to keep all of our projects running smoothly, we’ll miss his liberal slant and campfire humor. Good luck!
posted by Mike McKenna on Fri, Oct 03, 2008
Five Tips for Getting More out of Your Website 08-11-08
Here is a free white paper written by shotgunflat creative agency founder Mike McKenna, Five Tips for Getting More out of Your Website (download PDF).
1. Analyze Traffic.
What is the web saying about your site?
How many potential clients or partners visited your site today?
What pages did they visit?
Where on your site were they when they left?
What search terms are being used to find you?
All of these questions, and many, many more can easily be answered by using a good website analytics program. A couple of our favorites are Mint and Google Analytics. There are advantages and disadvantages to each--for starters, Google is free and relatively simple to start up; Mint is flexible and simple to understand.
2. Start Email Marketing.
A monthly or bi-monthly email message to your clients, customers, and prospects holds an incredible amount of valuable information–for you and your audience.
Email marketing is cost effective (delivery will cost just pennies per recipient), immediate, and completely measurable. Unlike other marketing techniques, you’ll be able to see exactly who opened your email, what links they clicked, if they forwarded it to a friend, and much more.
3. Write A Blog, and keep writing (relevant) content for it
Blogging isn’t is difficult or tedious as it might seem at first. There are plenty of easy-to-use tools that you can use to literally get up and running in minutes; you can easily integrate the look of your site and blog; and most importantly, you’ll be publishing fresh, relevant content to the web with every entry. And the best part: search engines eat it up. In fact, no site should not have a blog, especially if you’re working towards search engine optimization.
A few great resources to get started with blogging for business: Blogger, Typepad, and WordPress.
4. Improve/Rework Your Markup.
It’s probably the last thing you want to think about, but the markup (typically HTML) behind your site could possibly benefit from an overhaul.
Recent improvements in the way that websites are coded can make a big improvement in a number of areas. Making sure your site is coded according to modern standards will make your site more indexable for search engines; it will make it easier for people using alternative devices (PDAs, mobile phones, screen readers, etc.); and it will ensure that your site is compatible with devices that are not even on the market yet (Apple’s iPhone, for example). Again, if you care about search engine optimization (and you should), it all starts with clean, standards-compliant code. That is, afterall, what the search engines are reading!
5. Clean Up Your Design.
Finally, take a look at your site. Does it properly reflect the message you want to get across to your audience? Does it cast your company in the best possible light? Just like with anything visual, styles change. And with the web, which happens to be the fastest medium your business has ever known, a site with an old design will appear old and behind the times to its readership.
Take a look at some of the featured sites at design showcases like CSS Drive and CSS Vault. How does your site stand up visually against these sites? Many of these award-winning sites were developed for less than you might think. Your site just might be ready for a makeover too.
posted by Mike McKenna on Mon, Aug 11, 2008
It’s Official. Nate’s Back From Africa, and We’re Sort of Worldwide this Fall. 08-05-08
It’s great to see that Nate Laffan is back from Africa safe and sound and in his little cave in Tuscany. He’ll be jumping right back in with two feet with us, and that makes us happy. Below is living proof that he’s alive. He needs a shave, but we’ll give him a break.
Also, now that Alek Andreev is on board as well (and headed off to Sofia for a bit), and Nate Clarke is ready to ship back to New Orleans, we’re sort of a little worldwide operation. Especially if you include our friends at Brown Box in Sydney in the mix. (We did include them in this map, as we’ve got some plans, and their push pin rounds out the map nicely.)
posted by Mike McKenna on Tue, Aug 05, 2008
web directories 08-04-08
One of the services that shotgunflat will be rolling out in the next few months is Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. An important component to SEO is directory listings. We recently added ourselves to the ItsWebRelated directory, and have already gotten positive results.
posted by Ruston Eastman on Mon, Aug 04, 2008
Laffan Resurfaces 08-04-08
It’s always nice when you hear from a friend after an extended stay in a place like Africa:
posted by Mike McKenna on Mon, Aug 04, 2008
Cuil New Search Engine? 07-30-08
With a suprisingly large amount of fanfare, a new search engine was launched this week, with aims to knock down internet giant Google. Pronounced “cool,” Cuil is driven by a team of former Google developers, and the new search engine claims to have indexed over 120 billion web pages, which it says dwarfs the number that Google, Yahoo!, and other search engines claim.
So, how cool is the new search engine? Early returns say not so much. While there have been a few defenders of the latest David to Google’s Goliath, the overall response was mostly tepid, with one article flat out saying that Cuil “sucks”.
Here at the ‘flat, we have mixed reactions. We all really like the user interface (UI), which is what you see when on the site. Cuil gives you a snapshot look at the web pages that the search brings up, and it is a much more attractive alternative to Google. Then again, nearly every search engine looks much better than Google, and Cuil’s UI is somewhat similar to how Ask started displaying their results over a year ago. While I realize that Google’s UI is plain and simple on purpose, I think that they could afford to spruce it up a little. Looking at pages and pages of plain text can certainly get boring.
But one doesn’t use a search engine because it’s pretty, one uses it to get good results. And despite claims from Cuil that it indexes far more pages than any other search engine, nearly every review I’ve read about it in the past couple of days says that this is not the case. Doing my own searches with Cuil, I got mixed results. Searching for our own company, shotgunflat, I saw cached pages of our previous design--even though it is over two months old, and Cuil is only two days old.
Cuil is brand-new, so perhaps judging it based on 36 hours of use is being a bit critical. Google didn’t become the search giant it is overnight, so we shouldn’t expect that of Cuil. In fact, for Cuil to get so much press so early perhaps is a good thing. Here’s to hoping they work out the kinks and become a viable alternative in the future.
posted by Ruston Eastman on Wed, Jul 30, 2008
Cautionary Tales: The blinking folder and question mark is bad, right? 07-02-08
After attempting to turn my computer on last Wednesday I found a blinking folder with a question mark. One result from a search into what I could do to rectify the problem produced what I can only assume is a tongue in cheek question. The answer is of course yes. The blinking folder and question mark is bad. Very bad. I tried everything I knew to try and get back in business, but the blinking question mark folder proved too powerful. I had to bring it to the nearest Apple store and have a new hard drive installed. Thankfully I was still under warranty – by 3 days.
You’ve heard the what, now for the why. Why does a Mac, less than a year old, suddenly die a quick, yet presumably painful death? Lightning. The night before I hadn’t shut down or unplugged the power cord and a lightning storm had come in and zapped the whole darn thing – through a surge protector. So the moral of the story is simple – unplug your computer. Having to reinstall all my software, remember everyone’s email address, and reminisce about all the great photos I’d taken and lost after neglecting to back them up is a painful experience, and one easily avoided.
posted by Drew McKenna on Wed, Jul 02, 2008
Flash now indexable 07-01-08
At long last, bringing joy to web design clients everywhere, Adobe has announced a partnership with Google and Yahoo! that will make Flash websites indexable by search engines.
Flash has always been a wonderful tool, bringing animation and a visual third dimension to websites. While this allowed for some fun and futuristic “bling-bling,” the problem with Flash was that it has always been invisible to search engines. Because it is animation, Flash works as a movie, which means that the text must be embedded into the Flash files, disallowing Google and other search engines from seeing it. It comes as good news that Adobe has worked together with the major search engines to make Flash files indexable.
The Google and Yahoo spiders/bots/crawlers will now have the ability to read the text inside the Flash files. Previously, this access was impossible, so the search engines had no idea what the Flash animation was saying. While the ability to index Flash will still be limited, this is a welcome step forward, albeit after ten years. Nevertheless, we still hope that websites don’t get too Flash-y, as sometimes too flashy isn’t flashy at all.
posted by Ruston Eastman on Tue, Jul 01, 2008
Book: Death by Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandries 06-30-08
I first learned about Neil deGrasse Tyson when I saw him on Book TV a while back, and finally got a chance to pick up his book yesterday afternoon. 54 pages later, I can already tell that it’s a beaut. I’ve already picked up on a few fascinating tidbits, like the fact that the moon is slowly slipping out of orbit to the tune of 2-3 inches per year, and that Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador is 1.33 miles further from the center of the earth than Mount Everest.
posted by Mike McKenna on Mon, Jun 30, 2008
Today’s Three Cents 06-20-08
One - Teebot
Our pals at thoughtbot have some good stuff for sale. “As you may or may not be aware – the web industry has a somewhat informal dress code for work, after work, training, conferences, professional events – you name it. This is our effort to contribute to that experience.”
Two - Retro Euro 2008 Shirts
Letters-Numbers.com’s Euro 2008 shirts are sweet. Go to the Letters-Numbers site, and click on Euro 2008 at top right. I want to collect them all.
Mostly Lisa
Lisa Bettany is talented. Very much so.
posted by Mike McKenna on Fri, Jun 20, 2008
Today’s Three Cents 06-19-08
One - Sketching in Code: The Magic of Prototyping by David Verba
Published at A List Apart, still one of my favorite sites of all time. We’d just completed a prototype for a client, and this article was published the next day. I felt validated. Even though I knew already that prototyping was the right thing to do…
Two - Firefox 3
Firefox 3 is “two to three times faster than Firefox 2,” according to Mozilla. Among the new features are one-click bookmarking, improved security, full zoom, and the “awesome bar.” The video “tour” is moderately amusing.
Three - Octave Engine Casual
If you have work to do, don’t download Octave Engine Casual. OE-CAKE! is a tool that lets you draw/create objects and then watch them obey the laws of physics.
posted by Mike McKenna on Thu, Jun 19, 2008
Today’s Three Cents 06-18-08
One - Getty Images’ Moodstream
Moodstream is a mashup of sorts that combines the vast collections of Getty’s images, videos, and music to serve up a flash-based app which has a high probability of getting your creativity going. Much like what the old CBC3 site did for me. Only with Moodstream, you can control a series of presets to serve up appropriate files. Veer, it’s your serve.
Two - Gap Brands, Inc.’s Quadruple-Whammy
The Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, and Piperlime have finally combined online into one pretty coherent, cohesive shopping experience which lets users bounce around between the four shops and check out one time. I was thinking, when I first saw this, “yeah, they should do that. We could do that, too. Great idea.” It was likely a huge undertaking, and it appears at first glance to be well worth it.
Three - Finally, MySpace Cleans Up.
It was a long time coming, but the new MySpace navigation and other visual tweaks are a step in the right direction. Frankly, the closer they get to Facebook, the better:
posted by Mike McKenna on Wed, Jun 18, 2008
How to blow your traffic up 06-12-08
OK, I should have titled this post “How to have someone else blow your traffic up,” But then you wouldn’t have read. Or maybe you would have. At any rate, we got a call from a client last night who mentioned that they might be mentioned at Daily Candy today. They were. The results were really amazing. Visits and sales went through the roof, and the site (on a hosted service, not ours) staggered a bit from the traffic.
This goes to show the value in hitting an interested, targeted audience with quality content. Despite a few creaks and our complex design slowing things down a bit, the day overall was a total success.
In the graphic below, note the jump in page hits on Daily Candy day.
posted by Mike McKenna on Thu, Jun 12, 2008
Summer Isolation 06-09-08
Summertime is a somewhat isolated time for us. Nate L is in Italy en route to Africa. Nate C. is in Berlin for a bit, and our old Victorian-style floor plan and the heat of summer means we’re all working with air conditioners on and doors closed.
We’ve just received the go-ahead on a very exciting, ambitious project which will keep us busy through the entire summer, so perhaps a little doors-closed-heads-down work will be good for us.
posted by Mike McKenna on Mon, Jun 09, 2008
In Defense of a Culturally Irrelevant Mobile Phone 05-19-08
On account of agreeing to a new two-year contract with Verizon Wireless and a reluctance to shell out the $399-plus for yet another gadget, I decided to take the free (after mail-in rebate) phone and suffer silently while my friend Murph taps away on his touch-screen QWERTY keyboard, checks his voicemail in the order he sees fit, and effortlessly googles answers to the odd questions that always seem to pop up (what is the capital of Slovakia, what was Tony Gwynn’s highest single-season batting average, etc.).
My new Motorola Razr arrived, and Murph had a good laugh at my expense, but I’m starting to actually appreciate my decision. The phone isn’t half-bad, and here’s why:
» I can’t check my email with it, which means that other drivers are much safer than they were two weeks ago.
»There is nothing remotely interesting about the phone’s UI. In fact, it begs not to be used. (This means that I am not the least bit interested with tinkering around with it, customizing it, etc.
» Because I only use it to -gasp- make phone calls and send the occasional text message, it sits in my pocket and doesn’t waste its battery. I may actually have some life in the thing when I really need to make a call. My last phone, the Helio Ocean, was good for about one phone call before the charge was totally drained. As a result, I just stopped bothering.
The Razr may not be the head-turner it once was, but it is doing one thing for me that I didn’t expect--simplifying things. I can always check my email when I get back to the office.
posted by Mike McKenna on Mon, May 19, 2008
CBC Radio 3 05-15-08
Thinking back at the way CBC Radio 3 used to crank out issue after issue of flash-based ezine, it’s amazing that they kept it up for so long. I miss the simultaneous image and sound beauty that was a staple of the site. The good news is that the archives are still hanging around, which for the time being is a good thing.
posted by Mike McKenna on Thu, May 15, 2008
Finally 05-14-08
We’ve been trying to get a new site out for some time now. Nate (Laffan) and I began bouncing ideas off each other before Christmas ‘07. Fortunately, client work kept us too busy to really focus on the new design.
After a few months of playing around, we came to a design we were happy with. The entire point of this project was to really feature the work we’ve been doing--to put our portfolio at the forefront of the site. Furthermore, we wanted a site that gave our visitors a sense of exactly how clean and crisp our sites tend to be. I think we’ve accomplished those goals with this new design. Enjoy!
posted by Mike McKenna on Wed, May 14, 2008