I can't get that Bobby McFerrin song out of my head every time I see the Browse Happy logo.

The Web Standards Project (WaSP) has created a sub-site called Browse Happy - listing the reasons to switch from IE to another browser; and like the Apple ads - featuring profiles of "switchers". As a switcher myself I've been using Firefox for a while now and can enthusiastically recommend it over IE for both mac and pc (I use both). Try it - I bet you'll like it.

A few good links to get you into the fall/school season:

• A better image rotator by Dan Benjamin (from A List Apart)


• Three things I learned about screen reader users by Joshua Kaufman (Unraveled)


• Real World Web Design by D. Keith Robinson (Asterisk)


• Dynamic Text Replacement by Stewart Rosenberger (A List Apart)


• Web Development Mistakes Redus by Roger Johansson (456 Berea Street)
  

Got back from vacation overseas late last week and have finally found some time to update the blog.

Here are some photos from Istanbul, Turkey, where we went to visit family and do some site seeing and generally get a bit of summer (rain + fog has made it pretty much a write-off here in Atlantic Canada).


This is the courtyard of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. It's all marble and pretty slippery when wet. (We ran into a very rare August downpour the day we visited).

 

These are some details from the ceiling and walls of the Haigia Sophia. The Haigia Sophia was built in the 500's as a Byzantine church commissioned by the Emperor Justinian (the name actually means Divine Wisdom), and when the Ottoman's conquered Constantinople, they plastered over all the religious art within the church and painted their own designs over them rededicating the church as an Islamic mosque. The church is now a museum and the original works are being restored.




We also visited the Museum of Archeology and came across a medusa head in their garden of bits and pieces.

We found two more medusa's in the Byzantine Cistern, a structure constructed in the 500's to store and provide water for the city of Constantinople. Both medusa's are pinned at the base of two of the many hundreds of columns that support the roof, they are pinned supposedly to keep them from being unleashed on the world. Here is a photo of the upside down medusa.




Another structure built around 500 AD is the Galata Tower. The word Galata is apparently derived from the word celtoi which means barbarian. You can go up the tower (which now has an elevator) to the observation deck and get some wonderful panoramic views of Istanbul. This photo of the tower is from down the street as you walk towards the lighting district.




We also visited the Topkapi Palace museum and the Grand Bazaar (Hey mister - come to see my beautiful carpets), took a ferry ride across the Bosphorus over to the Asian side, visited the street market in Ortakoy and generally soaked up loads of sun, good food and good hospitality.

Have you seen it yet? It is the most ridiculous ad I've seen - and yet howlingly funny. I can't find a link to it so I'll try to describe it:

(scene: Professional Office - woman typing at her keyboard.)
She stops suddenly and turns her hands over, wrists up. Then (sound effect: foont) flames erupt from her wrists.
A female co-worker asks "Are you taking a break?"
Fire-lady: (looking up from her wrists in amazement states calmly) "My wrists are on fire."
Co-worker: (makes many complex passes with her hands to accompanying swishy karate sound effects and produces box of Bayer aspirin) "Try this".
(scene: fire-lady typing at her keyboard again; wisps of smoke are all that remains of the fire)

D and I looked at each other in amazement. I cannot believe someone okayed this spot and I wondered if anyone got (or will get) fired (ha ha) for it.

An ad is as effective as the message it conveys and this one conveyed such sublime kitsch that it remains imprinted on me. It is soooo funny. I watched thinking man! the art director is either clearly insane - or a genius. Would I take Bayer because of it? No, not likely. Has it worked - hell yes for brand recognition. Am I offended by the ad? You've got to be kidding! It's too ridiculous to be offensive. I mean - what is with the retro karate chop moves to produce the box of aspirin? (I assume he was going for something that would indicate magic, arcane passes of the hands - if so, silence would have worked better than chop-swish). And as a concerned co-worker/thaumaterge wouldn't you rather cause a fire-extinguisher to magically appear than a box of aspirin?
How has the ad done it's job? To me it says: Bayer... ridiculous. Probably not quite what the creatives intended.

Carpal Tunnel syndrome is not fun - I've had it. Masking the symptoms with pain killers will not cure it. Only stopping the activity that is causing the CTS will help your body heal. This may mean rearranging the way you work - mousing with the left hand for example. Pain killers, however, will help you get through the other activities in your day. Unlike others who were really offended by the ad I don't believe the co-worker was an overseer trying to get her slave to continue working through the pain (and continue to damage herself) - I think she was just trying to help out a fellow worker in pain.