If you love to browse through creative content online (youtube vids/flikr pics etc) and would like the ability to store it locally in your hard-drive there is an amazing little Firefox add-on "downloadhelper" that allows you to do just that. I just hope by now you have Firefox browser installed on your machine, there is absolutely no reason not to have it. Even though its a bit slower than Google's Chrome, FF is a lot better than most other browsers in terms of security, speed and level of customization.
In addition to capturing videos & images from your favorite website, downloadhelper also allows you to automatically convert those files into most commonly used extensions like WMV & mp3.
You can download the add-on here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006
P.S.
There is also a great add-on for Chrome, FF, IE, & Safari called Xmarks. It allows you to save your webpage bookmarks in the cloud and sync them across all of your computers.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
Evolution of In-Store Advertising at the Point of Sale
It’s a researched fact that about 70% of customer decisions in retail are made at the point of sale and not because of some interrupting commercial you saw on TV. Due to this, retailers are trying really hard to advertise and convey as much information as they possibly can in as little space as possible in-store. Some do it well like Wal-Mart, Apple, & MSFT retail stores, others not so much.
Back in the 80s it used to be just posters and handmade signs. In 90s it was customized color printed banners. In early 2000s TVs installed 12 feet high with unrelated infomercials that nobody cared to raise their head to look at. Now it’s digital signs and interactive solutions that inform a target audience about a specific product of interest at the right time and in front of their eyeballs (and not up in the no-attention zone). Generally that information is relevant, and if its interactive, engaging and permission based its a WIN and I love it!
Case in point a recent project that our team worked on here at Nanonation: http://www.nanonation.net/casestudies/quickglance/room_and_board.html
There are many other REALLY cool & impactful projects that Nano team is working on. Like heuristic product finder kiosk or iPad related solution that I unfortunately can’t share :/
Back in the 80s it used to be just posters and handmade signs. In 90s it was customized color printed banners. In early 2000s TVs installed 12 feet high with unrelated infomercials that nobody cared to raise their head to look at. Now it’s digital signs and interactive solutions that inform a target audience about a specific product of interest at the right time and in front of their eyeballs (and not up in the no-attention zone). Generally that information is relevant, and if its interactive, engaging and permission based its a WIN and I love it!
Case in point a recent project that our team worked on here at Nanonation: http://www.nanonation.net/casestudies/quickglance/room_and_board.html
There are many other REALLY cool & impactful projects that Nano team is working on. Like heuristic product finder kiosk or iPad related solution that I unfortunately can’t share :/
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Nargis Bandishoeva An Unbloomed Flower
I was listening to some traditional Tajik music (via last.fm) while testing our new software app. After about 8 tracks this beautiful song started playing by Nargis Bandishoeva. I immediately tagged the track "Navoi Dilam", added to favorites and searched for more of her songs. Unfortunately I only found 3 :( Those 3 were probably one of the best songs I've ever heard. I can't get enough of them really.
Later today searching for more songs and wondering why there are so few them I came across an article written by Eldar Galiev & Ramziya Mirzobekova called "Unbloomed Flower". According to the article Nargis Bandishoeva was in a bizarre fatal accident that happened in 1991 soon after her wining the "Voice of Asia" (most prestigious award for the best singer in former USSR/Asia). The weird thing is the bus that hit Nargis's car had plenty of open road to navigate around and the road conditions were as good as they can be back then. Apparently all the injured passengers were taken to the hospital immediately but Nargis. She was left on the pavement (alive) to be later picked up by some truck and died without any visible serious physical injuries. Worst of all the authorities refused to investigate the matter. Really fishy.
Nonetheless, Nargis had a chance to leave a legacy behind her. Her songs and performance at 20 something were praised very highly. She won the "Golos Asii" award beating superstars like Daler Nazarov, Yudluz Usmonova, Karamatullo Kurbanov and Oleg Fezov to name a few. According to the article with her stunning voice she charmed everyone even Thomas Anders (lead singer from Modern Talking) who was in love with her voice and personality (if I had to guess he was probably in love with her and I don't blame him). Such a shame this gorgeous and amazing artist left this world too soon...
Later today searching for more songs and wondering why there are so few them I came across an article written by Eldar Galiev & Ramziya Mirzobekova called "Unbloomed Flower". According to the article Nargis Bandishoeva was in a bizarre fatal accident that happened in 1991 soon after her wining the "Voice of Asia" (most prestigious award for the best singer in former USSR/Asia). The weird thing is the bus that hit Nargis's car had plenty of open road to navigate around and the road conditions were as good as they can be back then. Apparently all the injured passengers were taken to the hospital immediately but Nargis. She was left on the pavement (alive) to be later picked up by some truck and died without any visible serious physical injuries. Worst of all the authorities refused to investigate the matter. Really fishy.
Nonetheless, Nargis had a chance to leave a legacy behind her. Her songs and performance at 20 something were praised very highly. She won the "Golos Asii" award beating superstars like Daler Nazarov, Yudluz Usmonova, Karamatullo Kurbanov and Oleg Fezov to name a few. According to the article with her stunning voice she charmed everyone even Thomas Anders (lead singer from Modern Talking) who was in love with her voice and personality (if I had to guess he was probably in love with her and I don't blame him). Such a shame this gorgeous and amazing artist left this world too soon...