Family Entertainment Blog

The Eiffel Tower has always had its critics. As it greeted the world in the 19th century, phrases like “useless and monstrous,” “arrogant ironmongery,” “black factory chimney” and “disgraceful skeleton” poured forth, though none stopped it from becoming one of the most recognizable and beloved structures in the world. In 2006, 6.7 million people visited, a record.

Now the tower seems ready for another round of discord. According to The Guardian, the Société Nouvelle d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel, the company that manages the landmark, has decided to restructure the viewing platform temporarily as part of preparations for the tower’s 120th anniversary next year. Serero Architects, a Paris firm, will do the redesign, left, the report said, and in the process change the tower’s unmistakable outline.

The observation deck will be bolted 905 feet above ground “without requiring any modification of the existing structure,” according to the architects. Floor space will be doubled, easing crowd problems and relieving long waits. But critics are already fretting that the crowds will dissipate along with the awe-extinguishing addition. The temporary nature of the deck expansion means that it will not need to stand the test of time. It also means that it will not have much time to win over critics, a number of whom are starting to come into view.

He is admired for his impeccable zen and ability to radiate a sense of inner peace.
And while other Buddhists may have to wait years to reach enlightenment, this devotee seems to have attained Nirvana in just two.
Unfortunately, appearances can be deceptive, especially when the “monk” in question is a Chihuahua named Conan.

The tiny dog actually launches into “prayer” when he wants treats - and is richly rewarded by impressed visitors.

Zen-like: Practice makes perfect for Conan whose prayers are answered (usually very quickly) with treats

Conan, a two-year-old male with black hair and soulful eyes, begins his routine by standing beside a priest before the altar and staring intently at a statue of a Buddhist deity.

When the priest begins to chant and raises his clasped hands, the little dog also lifts his paws and joins them at the tip of his nose
He is now the top attraction at his Japanese temple.
“He started to pose in prayer like us whenever he wanted treats,” said priest Joei Yoshikuni.

“Clasping hands is a basic action of Buddhist prayer to show appreciation. He may be showing his thanks for treats and walks.”

“It’s so funny that he does it,” said Kazuko Oshiro, 71, who has been going to Jigenin temple on the southern island of Okinawa for more than 25 years. 
It’s a dog’s life: Conan’s prayer pose is perfect

“He gets angry when somebody else sits on his favourite spot. He must be thinking that it’s his special place.”

Conan may not be as devout as first appearances indicate but he does seem to have brought his temple home good luck.

Visitor numbers have swelled by 30 per cent since his arrival and he a particular attraction for younger people.

“I’m glad that people feel more comfortable visiting the temple because of Conan,” Yoshikuni added.

Web Critic
A critic is someone who can form positive, neutral, negative judgements about something, usually able to give more explanation than just “I love it” or “it sucks”. A good critic understands the methodology well enough to teach it to others. A critic need not be a master of the subject judged. For example, some of the best music teachers have excellent ears but no ability to perform.

Most of us perform criticism in some way. We can be guided by professionals, but need not follow blindly.

So, let’s be Web Critics for awhile.

Web Template
Probably most web design software comes with samples of layout templates, or software wizards to set them up. Many are totally fill in the blanks operation. A web search on “web template” or “html template” finds about 13 to 16 MILLION hits, some for free downloads, others for pay.
To visit one template web site per day would take on the order of 44 THOUSAND years.

On the other hand, if you can figure out good search terms for your interest, you can drill down to much fewer sites. For example, search “html template div flexible” (without the quotes) for directions on making flexible web sites; this found about 91 thousand hits. The phrase “html template div liquid” found about 71 thousand. “html template div elastic” found 147 thousand.

If you’ve spent much time surfing the web, you have probably noticed some similarities between sites. Partly, that’s because “function implies form”. Partly its because many were built from the same templates. Should your web site have a “me too” look?

I think it better to study sites which impress you, then build your own template from scratch.

Graphics Tricks & Tweaks
Many web designers are quite clever at using graphic effects to tweak appearance. Examples include drop shadows under pictures or header-text, color gradients across sections, rounded corners on boxes and buttons, all of which take a bit more work than the old tiled background image. Properly done, such effects can be made with small background image sections and repetition to save bandwidth.

As I have gotten older, changes in my eyes have caused me to see things differently. I went from having 20/15 visual acuity to now needing correction at most distances for my visual accommodation and astigmatism. I now need more light than when I was young, and find some foreground / background combinations for text cause strain, even though I am definitely not color blind. Also, I prefer sans-serif to serif.

Jumping from site to site on the web shows a wide range of initial text sizes, so, I frequently use the Ctrl-key and the wheel on my PC mouse to change that. It quickly becomes obvious which sites employ fixed dimensions for text, boxes, lines, and placements. Many sites won’t adjust for me, but many more become unusable as text sections run into each other or are blocked by boxes and lines. So all of those cute graphics tweaks have just been tossed into the trash basket.

Take a look at some name brand web sites. Google News has a few rounded corners on buttons but none on tabs or headers or menus, and a few small icons, but nearly all of the site scales nicely if I change font size or drag the edges of the browser view port.

Also remember that excessive graphics can slow page loading tremendously.

Wrong use of graphic effects is just plain dumb, no matter how many certificates a designer has for graphics excellence.

Usability
The most important consideration in web design should be the user experience. If a site is too confusing, crowded, overloaded with off-topic or competing ads, flooded with moving graphic elements, plagued with automated popups or popunders, et cetera, the visitor can use the back-button or simply abort the browser. It does not matter what “internet marketing guru” sold what bag of tricks to the web master. “Good bye!”

RESOURCE:
Author’s WriteAid.us web site offers tips for making web sites friendly to users, especially seniors and color blind.

Article Source: EzineArticles

Most graphics designers have excellent eye sight, at least with focus correction, and assume that viewers of their creations do also. A layout might start with theme colors selected from a color circle according to mono, triad, tetrad theories, with block dimensions following the classic golden ratio. Modern computer monitors can handle over 167 million colors, far beyond any printer.

However, an estimated 9 to 13 percent of males and under one percent of female population have some form of color blindness. Ouch!

A web search found these definitions for color blindness, compared to statistically normal eyes. Protanopia means difficulties to distinguish between blue and green colors and also between red and green colors, or no sensitivity to red. Deuteranopia is blindness to green. Tritanopia is blindness to blue-yellow.

Fortunately the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C.com) has included color contrast ratio algorithm in their guidelines, and free tools are available to measure the contrast ratios between colors for the main descriptions of color blindness. One such, Colour Contrast Analyser Version 2.0 (”CCA”), can be downloaded from http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/contrast-analyser.html

Note that black text on white background, or the reverse, has a ratio above 20 for all 4 eye conditions, and 21 seems to be the maximum. On the other end, a ratio of 1 means a problem.

Also note that color combinations selected by a young-ish designer of fantasy video games might be decipherable by a senior citizen, but require more effort than the viewer is willing to invest.

Here are some examples of contrast ratios measured with CCA. The tool accepts inputs in hexadecimal or color slider positions. On this tool, black & white have the greatest contrast ratio of 21 for normal eyes and 20.9 for protanopia, deuteranopia, tritanopia. The “primary” (RGB) colors on white range from 1.4 (green) to 20.4 (blue). RGB on black range from 1 (blue) to 15.3 (green). Thus Green on White and Blue on Black are terrible choices.

If you want to see what a web page looks like to color impaired people, enter the URL at http://colorfilter.wickline.org.

It seems that a minimum contrast ratio of 4 is a good target, so “RGB” is not safe. The combinations used for text on http://WriteAid.us provide contrast ratios from 4.5 to 20.9.

Web designers who ignore color blindness can lose or confuse about 10 percent of potential viewers. The extra effort to avoid this problem is not great.

RESOURCE:
Author’s WriteAid.us web site offers tips for making web sites friendly to users, especially seniors and color blind.

Article Source: EzineArticles

Cruise speaking is the best gig on the high seas. Not only can you trade your talents for free luxury cruises for yourself and a traveling companion but there is a potential to grow your shore-side business by using the opportunity to collect sales leads. This article is intended to describe how this strategy works:
Obviously you must first be approved to cruise free using the cruise line enrichment programs.
Next, understand that you may not do any overt (or hard) selling while onboard. Doing so will likely get you scratched off the approved list.
Be that as it may, it is permissible in most cases to collect names and email addresses of those people who may want to sign up for your e-zine that is, of course, related one of the topics you’re presenting onboard. (You have an ezine, don’t you?) You will need an auto-responder system to make this work.
In actuality you don’t necessarily need an e-zine but you do need a valid reason for people to give you their names and email addresses. For example, one of my clients gives everybody that opts-in a free download of one his topic related ebooks.
The best way to do this is to pass around a sign-up sheet about two-thirds of the way through your presentation (earlier if it’s a big crowd). The reason behind this timing is it gives your audience a chance to warm up to you; to like you.
Of course, you must tell (sell) people about what they get when sign up.
Important: Always clear your plans with your cruise line contact or the person who booked you in the first place. This will keep you out of hot water.
Once you have these leads, it goes without saying that you must monetize them. This is a subtle process that goes beyond the scope of this article. But suffice it to say that you must use this opportunity to continue to build a relationship: The relationship you started with your in-person presentation. The best way to do this is with a mix of high quality content and laser-targeted offers over the course of week, months and even years.

I hope it’s obvious to you that this same strategy can be used for just about any speaking gig. The first step is obviously one of the most important and if have not already been approved to cruise free as a speaker, you should get started. If you have not yet been approved to cruise free see http://www.speakerscruisefree.com/ to find out how. To see my recommendations on which auto-responders I like, seeDanielHallEsq /Recommend

Daniel Hall is the author of Speak on Cruise Ships: 8 Easy Steps To A Lifetime of Free Luxrury Cruises get a free report on how YOU can get started at SpeakersCruiseFree

Article Source: EzineArticles