Never have I stopped everything I’m doing to write about someone passing away, until today. Mr. Steve Jobs, who died today Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 56 years old, created the platform on which my livelihood flourishes every single day. Mr. Steve Jobs, I salute you. We designers salute you. You were an inspiration to us all. May God bless your family and give them strength through these hard times. You will be missed and the face of the digital world will never again be the same. -D

If I could give this piece of music and video a 10 on a scale of 1 to 5, I absolutely would! In fact, on my site, I can! So here it is! Came to My Rescue by Hillsong United, a song also known as Be Lifted High.

Every time I listen to this song I get wrapped in goosebumps and all my hairs stand on end. I decided to look it up on YouTube and share it with you guys. Praise God!

Well, given it’s Google’s 3rd attempt at building a successful social networking service, I figured I’d give this one a shot. You know what they say about 3rd attempts. I tried Wave, jumped right over Buzz, but my friends finally dragged me into Google+. I still don’t know my way around, I just opened the profile yesterday. If I offend you by not liking you, I mean “encircling” you, sorry.

In the meantime, here is the link to my Google Plus profile, or wall, or circle wall, or whatever it is.

Now that News Corp. has finally sold Myspace to Specific Media, we’re all left to wonder what they are going to do with it. Mind you, even though the social network collapsed, at the supposed $30-$40 million that it was sold, it’s still quite a deal. Specially given the fact that News Corp. paid a whole lot more for it 6 years ago.

At this point, it’s very hard for anyone to imaging Myspace going up in popularity again. Unfortunately, the constant losses to Facebook has rendered the network “uncool”. You can be unknown, you can be hated, but being “uncool” is probably the worst of the bunch. If you’re unknown, you can always have a breakthrough and become known. If you’re hated, well that’s bad enough, but you can still benefit from it. But being uncool, is like being lukewarm. Hot coffee is good, so it cold coffee; but lukewarm… not so much! It just seems the new owners are either going to ride out what little life the network has left to make a profit over what they paid (before the network completely fizzles away) or they will have to come up with a completely different concept to try and grow (in order words, many risks). Unfortunately, all those redesign tries didn’t quite seem to work for News Corp. Specific Media is going to have to get pretty creative. However, for the old owners to recover their loses they needed a smash hit. The new guys wouldn’t need much to get a return on their investment.

Given that Myspace pretty much introduced most of us to social networking (unless your age is 50 right now) I’m sure we all have good memories of it. Being on Myspace was like having your own website, without all the trouble. It was cool to mess with CSS and come up with new backgrounds, headers and menu pictures for your profile. Somehow, we all thought that was extremely important. I guess not, since Facebook completely trumped it with an interface that was barely customizable. Having said that, I think the major blow to Myspace was and is Facebook’s appeal to all ages. Just think about it. 5 years ago the things there were important to us on Myspace are not important to us anymore. Meaning, we grew up. Facebook knew this and basically created a catch-all for all those growing up high school and college kids.

Can a car fan graphic designer with journalism skills properly review a sports car? Of course! Let’s start with the world’s favorite little roadster.

As a kid, and later as a teenager I was very much into cars. I could pinpoint the make and model of every single car I saw on the road. These days, I go through phases. There are times where I have car fever and times that I don’t. But overall, you could say I’m car fan. Right now, I’m going through a car fever phase. I’ve always been a fan of sports cars in general more than any other type of car. I’ve always had a special love for Corvettes and certain Porsches. On the other end of the spectrum, I have an affinity for pickup trucks as well. I read a lot of car magazines and I’m quite a fanboy of the UK TV series Top Gear. So, after reading the raving comments by Consumer Reports and hearing what all the magazines had to say in their feature videos about the Mazda MX-5 Miata, I had to get a hold of one and test drive it. The Consumer Reports article I read was based on the 2011 model. So I went and hunted one down.

“If you still need to prove to the world that you have a big penis, then by all means buy a big, big car.”

Being a big fan of Corvettes and 911 Porsches, I lean towards a slightly bigger, more powerful type of sports car. Having recently bought a Ford Mustang, that large car inclination didn’t stray very far from the norm. While I’ve always liked the little Miatas to a certain extent, I was never a big fan of the first and second generation body styles. I thought they looked too small, the driver looks like he’s sitting on top of the car instead of inside it, and the standard single exhaust in the rear didn’t strike me as very much fun at all. However, this new body style that came out a few years ago is a whole other story! Now this is more like it!

Before we proceed, please keep in mind this is not a typical car review. Don’t expect me to start feeding you all kinds of tech numbers such as horsepower, torque, RPMs and all that other stuff. You can always search for that info yourself. This is my original “judge’s impression” of the car. And being a Top Gear fanboy, I might just comment on how incredibly stupid, little and girlie the car is and then completely shock you when I say how much I love it and want to buy one. Or maybe it’ll be the other way around. I don’t know yet.

Top of the Line MX-5 Grand Touring

First impression

A Thursday afternoon, after leaving the office, I finally tracked down a 2011 red Grand Touring edition with the power retractable hard top roof (PRHT). The first thing that struck me as awesome was the roof! What came to mind when hearing the words “Miata hardtop” was that I would have to remove the entire roof and hang it on the wall in my garage ala 911 996 Carrera Cabriolet if I ever wanted to go drive away as a convertible. On the other hand, I’ve never been a fan of rag tops. Where I’m from, if you have a cloth top, it will most likely get cut open and your car stolen. Even though I don’t live in such a place anymore, the fear stays with me. So, when I saw that the MX5 hardtop actually folds down and hides behind the seats I immediately fell in love with the thing. From then on, it was just a matter of exploring more of the goods.

Now let’s try and get past the fact that half the population labels the MX-5 Miata as a girl’s car, or a gay car. Let’s try and put that aside first by mentioning a few things: The body style on this car is astonishing! The car is still small, but unlike the older models, it looks bigger, faster and more like a little cheetah ready to jump and attack you. The extended and pronounced fenders make the car look wider and the bold shape makes it look stronger. The entire car looks like Mazda finally improved the newer body shape to near perfection. The larger 17″ wheels are also a welcome addition. If you still need to prove to the world that you have a big penis, then by all means buy a big, big car. Now that we have gotten that out of the way, we can proceed.

Awesome interiors! Photo courtesy of MazdaUSA.

The interiors

Once I got over playing with the fold down hard-top, I concentrated on the interiors. I find car interiors extremely important. The interiors are almost as important as the exterior of the car and the engine performance. I mean, that’s where I’m going to spend most of my time! As a comparison, I find the interiors of the Ford Mustang brilliant for the price. In contrast, one of my favorite cars of all time, the Corvette, has interiors that are generally, well, crap. Unfortunately, GM has never been that great at designing interiors and I don’t really think they are going to change any time soon. The fact that they put the same steering wheel in the Corvette as they did on the Chevy Cobalt just tells me they don’t know what the heck they are doing. But the interiors in the MX-5 Miata are very well thought through. Everything seems to be done just right. The steering wheel is of great quality and the shape is actually something worth having your face in front of all the time. The car feels spacious even for bigger guys. The controls are very well laid out and the manual shift knob sitting inside that perfectly round tray with chrome bezel is amazing to say the least. It’s absolutely perfect inside.

Being such a fan of manual cars, I was taken aback by the perfect shift lever setup.

Not a Jag, not exotic, but we’re not comparing apples and oranges here. When sitting inside you look and feel nice and low too! No more of that sitting on top of the car look that bystanders get to see. It’s absolutely comfortable. I sat in a Pontiac Solstice and couldn’t get over the fact that my right elbow kept banging against the back of the center console. Not the case in the MX-5. The bottom line is the car has GROWN UP. The quality of these interiors is miles ahead of the old Miatas and miles ahead of many other cars in that category and price range. Some people say, “What? Almost $30 grand for a Miata!” But, just look at this new car and compare it to the old Miatas. There’s a good reason for that. The inner door panels alone give it away.

Another thing I found amazing is the smile theme the car seems to have. Mazda seems to have finally got this right. It’s like if designers of the front grille started with a little round mouth a few years ago to have the car saying “ooooh” and slowly started modifying the shape into a full blown giant smile. Same goes for the Mazda 3. This looks like it has a real purpose, with the complete intention of going all out. That’s a lot to say when compared to some of the previous year’s grilles that make the car look like it’s shy, or constipated. This newer one’s bold and not afraid to be the center of attention. And it’s happy – happy to be awesome. The eyes make it look like a little alien; but a happy alien at that.

MX5 Top down, on the road. Photo courtesy of MazdaUSA.

The drive

I can’t comment on drift-ability, sheer top speed and super tight cornering because I didn’t get a chance to drive the car in such a way. So, let’s go for the real-world approach. If I ever get a chance to burn rubber properly on one, then I might come back and append an update to this thing.

First of all, the car is fun. I know, at this point, that’s a cliché when it comes to MX-5 reviews. But I don’t care. I had fun in it. The car does not accelerate like a Mustang or a [place your V8 car of choice here]. But it still feels quick. Since it’s so lightweight it responds fast to the gas pedal. The fact that the one I drove is a 6-speed manual makes that statement even more true. It just responds quickly to whatever you do. It feels nimble (another cliché), balanced and ready to do whatever you ask it to do. The test drive took me up a hill and then racing back down again. Brakes were great, the transmission and shifting superb and the overall feel of the car was right in line with the awesome interiors and the overall amazing looks. There’s no two ways about it. I loved the car.

Absolutely inviting! Photo courtesy of MazdaUSA

But hey, it’s a car for driving pleasure. You’re not in it to cause an impression on others like you would in a plus $50K car. It’s the most expensive Miata to date at around $30,000 (or so I think) but it’s not as impressive in nature as a similarly priced Mustang. Obviously, just opinions as there are plenty of folks that hate Mustangs. If you are a guy, the people around you, including your girlfriend or wife, are going to give you crap about it being a girl’s car. Keep in mind you’re not going to land a better job because of it either. That’s a Jaaagg’s job! The car also seems to depreciate more than other vehicles in that price range. But the car is simply awesome! What does this mean? Well, it means that if you want a car to be enjoyed from the inside out, this is the car for you. But, if you need everybody else’s approval before you can enjoy it, then either look elsewhere or buy one for your wife and drive it when you feel like having fun.

To conclude

As for me, I’d be happy to buy one. I do like the car THAT much. I’d drive it on the road exclusively for a year or two. Then, given the vast amount of performance parts available for them, I’d work on it a little bit and then take it to a nice, tight winding track every so often. I will still have my wife and a number of my friends giving me a hard time about buying it over a Corvette or Porsche, but who the heck cares right? I can always buy a Corvette later. They’re all over the place. Nice thing about it, it’s got 2 seats! That’s not a whole lot of space to bring a bunch of complaining critics along for the ride!

Ah, What the heck! Here are some numbers for you:

• Engine: 2.0 Inline 4 Cylinder
• Horsepower: Manual 167 HP – Auto 158 Hp
• Torque: 140 Lb-ft at 5,000 RPM
• Curb Weight: 2,593 pounds (PRHT) as tested
• MPG: Plenty

This is what happens when you stick to a flyer template and adjust it every time there is a price or product change over the course of 2 years. The template works and it has been producing sales, so the saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Just change the colors and the pricing a little bit! A new design should be in the works soon nonetheless. This is a legal sized sheet of paper and it actually adapts well to email marketing at 700px wide. In other words, even though the design is quite busy and complicated, at 700 pixels wide it is still readable. Not that you can read the tiny examples here, but then again, that was never the intention of this post. I just wanted you to see the array of colors and variations that went into this flyer design over the course of 2 years. -DC

How to Get Twitter Followers Without Being Completely Obnoxious

Seriously, if I had a new Twitter follower for every time I run into somebody who asks “How can I get more followers on Twitter?” I’d have followers coming out of my ears. So, instead of taking the high road, I’m going to address this situation head-on. Yes, I’m tackling the question straight on. However the heck I want to, but still head-on! I mean, look at the title of this thing. It says it all.

Ok, first things first! Why the heck would you want more Twitter followers? Do you suffer from some kind of complex or low self esteem problem? Are you 15 years old? Do you think you’re still on Myspace? Does the number of Twitter followers you posses dictate the size of your… umm… apartment? I know I feel like I’m tiny if I don’t have a million followers. Really tiny. So what? No, but seriously, too many people do the follow-to-follow-back thing. You know what? I pretty much stopped doing that. I’m not Ashton Kutcher. I’m not married to Jessica Alba. My wife’s hotter. Yeah, Jessica Alba is hot. But my wife is blonder. Same skin color, but blonder. Is that really a word? So, since I’m not a celebrity I’m not going to expect a crapload of followers, nor am I going to stress about how I’m going to get more. I just do my thing, day in and day out.

Having said that… If I’m not trying to be a celebrity wannabe (like you) why would I want more followers? Well, A good reason would be… to expand my design business. Ok, ok. Fair enough. That’s a genuine excuse. But otherwise, I love some of my Twitter friends, I really do. But I simply don’t have the time to talk to more than 1,000 people in a week. Heck, 500 is even too much! But there are some Twitter buddies that I simply love to speak to on a daily basis. You know who you are. Yes you.

I realize I still need to answer the question that sprung this post. How to get more Twitter followers without being completely obnoxious? Well, the best thing I can recommend is: write good tweets! Yeah, that’s it! Write good tweets and good quantities of them. “Write good tweets and good twitterers will follow”(made that up too). That simple. Because if you go around trying to buy followers just too look badass, or you spend your time playing the follow-you-follow-me game, your newfound followers are going to suck. So… instead of wasting your time doing that, how about generating good content? You don’t have to suck. It’s not you that sucks. It’s your practices. I’m a nice guy. But I won’t give you a follow back simply because you follow me. Not anymore at least Think I’m talking crap? Haha. Go ahead, follow me on Twitter here and see how I DON’T follow you back.

Now, go take a minute and write a good tweet. In fact, retweet this post. That’s a good start. Little retweet button’s on the bottom right. Later, -D

View of Point Loma from the San Diego Bay channel

Yes! Right now I’m writing a nice post about whatever the heck I want! I don’t care if it does well.  I don’t care if it ranks well on the search engines.  I just want to write for the sake of writing.

It’s Sunday.  The very day before Memorial Day.  I participated in a regatta yesterday from San Diego all the way up to Oceanside.  With all the years of experience I have in the ocean and on boats, I got seasick nonetheless.  I got cold, tired and miserable.  I felt sleepy.  The dang race took like 6 hours and that’s not counting the time it took to get to the starting line and the time it took to run the starting sequence.  Needless to say, I spent 9.5 hours on the boat.  Sick for 5-6 of them!  Depressing.  But hey, we all have our bad days.  I’ve spent thousands of hours aboard all kinds of floating objects, both fast and slow.  So, I guess I shouldn’t be complaining too much about this one.  I love sailing and I’ll be back!

Well, I’m busy working on a few sites.  A particular one is driving me nuts right now as I can’t quite get it the way it needs to be yet.  But it’ll get there.  On the other hand, I’m quite happy that I’m home.  I’m nice and warm, wearing some PJ’s and a hoodie jacket.  I’m listening to Led Zeppelin and the occasional Eminem rap.  I’m not cold or seasick.  Just drowning in work, that’s all.  :)  But honestly, I couldn’t be enjoying my day more.  I think I’ll have another cup of espresso!

Scan it! You know you want to!

What are QR codes? Let me clarify before we begin: Take a look at the image to the left. That’s what a QR codes looks like. There are other types of similar codes in use today that look similar, but QR codes are the most used. A user with a smart phone (iPhone, Android, Blackberry and others) and a code scanning application, will scan the code with their phone’s camera.  A quick search for QR code Android or iPhone will reveal a good number of popular scanning apps.  The application will then reveal the information in the code scanned and will trigger an action. These actions might be to take the user to a website or a YouTube video among many other available functions. QR codes can be used in advertising to help the advertiser communicate information to consumers. Musicians can also connect with their fans sending them to YouTube videos or a website were they host their music. Artists can hand out business cards with QR codes that can direct readers to their online portfolios. People who distribute media with QR codes on it can track how many people are actually scanning the codes. Think about it for a second… The possibilities are endless!

Lately I’ve been experimenting using QR codes on various advertising design projects. Needless to say, I’m very excited about the technology. While paging through magazines at Borders and Barnes & Noble (my 2 favorite places in the world) I’m coming across QR codes in advertising more and more. At the beginning of every month, when my batch of magazine from different industries start trickling in, I continue to see that more companies are jumping into the QR code bandwagon. I’m not sure how long this is going to last, but for the looks of it, quite a while! Looks like this technology is only just starting to take off. The future looks bright.

I recently designed 2 different ads in 2 major cycling publications, VeloNews and Mountain Bike Action Magazine. Both include a QR code that takes you to the product’s web page. Additionally, I just submitted another ad, this time for a book. The book has only a 5% ad percentage vs informational content and is published by an Australian company. The nice thing about the book over the usual magazine advertising is that the longevity of the book will be quite much longer. While a magazine is usually scrapped or put away after a month or two, many books are kept for much longer. All the QR codes I’ve placed in ads so far are tracked, both by Google Analytics and Bit.ly. Another cool feature is that I created custom short URLs for the QR codes that also include the name of the product. That way, when the user scans the code they can see right away the name of the product in the URL generated and feel more comfortable continuing. The VeloNews issue that has one of the ads is only starting to arrive to subscribers now and the QR code in the ad shows 77 scans already. Not bad. The insight one can get from using these trackable codes in advertising and marketing is just awesome. I’m totally in. It’s a perfect feature than can easily been incorporated into full marketing campaigns where feedback is key.

Next up, QR codes are going on my own business cards as well as customer’s cards. I can see usefulness for them in shop window stickers and POP stands. Since QR codes can be set to do various things, the usefulness of them is amazing. Since people are starting to get used to them, they are now fashionable and cool. There are plenty of artist using them for the sake of art alone.

Below is a short list of some of the things QR codes can be set to accomplish once the user has scanned it with their smart phones:

• Go to a website or webpage
• Bookmark a site
• Post on Twitter
• Navigate to a YouTube video
• Take you to an address on Google Maps
• Create a vCard for your contacts list
• Send SMS or Email
• Make a phone call

QR codes can actually do a lot more than what is listed above, but those are some of the most common usage trends. If you have a project where you think using QR codes would be ideal, or if you are considering organizing an QR code marketing campaign, feel free to contact me here. I can help you get on your way to using this great new technology for your company or product’s benefit. You can start tracking scans today!

There are a trillion WordPress websites out there! Yes, I said a trillion. Meaning lots! Mucho grande. With those trillion WP sites out there comes the desire by the owners to customize those sites. As most of you know, there are tons of ways to do WordPress customization. Methods available are both free and paid and range anywhere from themes to professional WordPress customization services. However, let me start by saying I don’t like or recommend free WordPress themes unless they are in the wordpress.org system. Apart from the spam and hidden code that’s often found in these free themes (stuff that can potentially mess up your site) you simply don’t have the kind of control that you really need over your site. I believe that when it comes to good things, it’s absolutely worth your while paying for them.

WordPress Customization – My secret to pro website design!

Now, I speak to you by experience. I’m not coming up with junk here that I can’t prove. I’m basing what I write here on my own experience customizing this website. What do I use to get this site looking and working as great as it does? The answer is: Thesis WordPress Theme from DIYthemes. When I want quality (always), free goes out the window. With the exception of WordPress itself, I just don’t find that free and quality go together well in the same sentence. That’s why I use Thesis. With Thesis I get the ultimate control over my website. I can design it however I want. I can add features and functionality that others can only dream of when they butcher their websites with a free theme. And it’s not just dannycruz.com! I run a number of other sites as well and all but one of them is running WordPress with Thesis.

When you run a quality theme like Thesis on your WordPress blog or website you also get access to world-class support and a community of web developers that is also kind and eager to help. In fact, that’s one of my favorite features when it comes to being a Thesis developer. When I post a question on the WordPress.org forum I NEVER get a proper answer. In fact, I don’t remember a single time I’ve been able to get help from somebody on the WordPress.org forum. However, when I have a question and I post it up on the Thesis forum, I usually get a useful answer within a few minutes to an hour. Additionally, since the forum is not crowded with junk and a million unanswered questions, like the WP forum is, I can quickly and easily search through it to find the information I need.

As far as functionality goes, this is a list of some of my favorite functionality features that I get by running Thesis:

1. Easy addition of a custom header image.
2. Easy addition of a favicon image for my site
3. Excellent SEO (Search Engine Optimization) control over every page, category, tag and post on my entire website.
4. Complete control over every color and font used throughout my site.
5. Piece of mind knowing there are smart minds updating the software for future WordPress releases.
6. Complete control over all parameters of WordPress blog customization.

Take it from me. It works. Don’t waste time with free themes. A very good friend of mine set me straight and put me on the right track by introducing Thesis to me. You’re reading my blog and I truly appreciate. I want to share this with you just like my friend shared it with me. If you want to have complete control over your WordPress site, Thesis is the best way to do it. Click here to learn more about Thesis Theme for WordPress and save yourself a headache.