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Interactivity and the rituals in business cards exchange

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There was and always will be a long argument about the use, the format, the content and reason behind a business card. Mainly the business card is a way for other people to have a way to contact you, but the truth is that not so many people nowadays do actually keep them or give them for that reason.

In any business interaction all it takes is one email to be exchanged and the signature of this email will be carrying all the information that someone needs in order to contact you additionally to just replying to the email. If that’s not enough our information are so easily accessible via your personal website, the website of the company you are working in, your LinkedIn, Facebook or twitter account. So, I don’t really believe that we give our cards for people to have our contact details.

Business cards transcended into a way to initiate conversation and create a memorable experience, in order words the action of handing your card became an, almost ritualistic process. The goal of this process is to impress and seal a face-to-face interaction with a physical component.

From each experience we have what we remember the most is the sensory components of it. Sound, vision, taste, smell touch. A business card adds a visual and a touch component to this process. Creating interaction between the business card and the receiver enhances and strengthens the experience.

Finally, although a huge percentage of the business cards we receive end up hidden in a box or another storage device if and when they are rediscovered they carry these memory and become a memory vessel.

Check out below some very nice examples of interactive business cards that do this very well.

Pilates instructor card
Web developer business card
Painter’s business card
Transport company
Photographer’s card that looks like a camera’s viewfinder
Card of a company called paper plane – could it get more literal?
That just makes you want to get your camera can take hilarious photos
Gym trainer’s card
Paperweight card – an excellent reason to keep it around
Filmaker’s business card
Fortuneteller toy card – that is just so cute and it also has so many connections with childhood memories
Remember what we where talking about sensory additions and taste not being a part of this experience? Well not in this case. This is an edible business card with chocolate – definitely not one to keep in your wallet.
After the tasty cookie card this doesn’t look so impressive but it IS still a nice idea.
And a bit more advanced version, build a chair cut-out b.card for a furniture company.
Look! I can reach my head with my feet!
Would you use a business card as a comb?

 

Well that’s all! What do you think? How does your business card look like? Do you believe that the material and the presentation plays any role on a business card?

 
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The two faces of a drag queen

Photographer Leland Bobbé’s world of photos expresses the modernity of humanity, humanity in the third millennium.

In his portrait series ‘I mezzi drag di’ (“The means of drag”, or “Half drag”) for Vogue Italy, Bobbé brilliantly depicts the two faces of drag queens—“the Nietzschean ‘overman’: the man that goes beyond, who is beyond. Not male, not female, not biological”, according to Vogue Italy.

In ‘Half Drag’, the split-faced images show men changing themselves and finding their feminine side in parallel to their masculine side—exploring the concept of contemporary queer and sexuality—clearly showing the difference what wonders make-up can do.

Though the images look as if they’re made of two separate faces and joined together, they were not constructed in post-production.

“These images are part of an ongoing series of portraits of Drag Queens in half drag. With this series my intention is to capture both the male and the alter-ego female side of these subjects in one image,” Bobbé said.

“Through the power of hair and makeup these men are able to completely transform themselves and find their female side while simultaneously showing their male side. These are composed in camera and are not two separate images joined together.”

More:
Vogue Italy
Leland’s personal website

 

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Hipsters and Cat lovers surely deserve to die

In a provocative ad campaign for non-profit organisation Lung Cancer Alliance USA, features controversial statements declaring that hipsters, cat lovers, crazy old aunts, the smug, genetically privileged “deserve to die”.

But in fine print, the ads write: “…If they have lung cancer. Many people believe that if you have lung cancer you did something to deserve it. It sounds absurd, but it’s true. Lung cancer doesn’t discriminate and neither should you. Help put an end to the stigma and the disease.”

The ads created by Laughlin Constable were meant to be polarizing, to breakdown the stigma barrier and promote awareness on the matter.

According to Lung Cancer Alliance, the biggest obstacle in lung cancer survival has been “the common misconception that those who suffer or die from lung cancer deserve their disease because they brought it upon themselves”.

“We relied on the extreme reactions to start the conversation about the absurdity that certain people may actually deserve to die,” Denise Kohnke, Senior Vice President for Strategy at Laughlin Constable, said in a statement.

“Every ‘type’ we featured had a real, pre-existing bias… That’s why the backlash often was intense and personal.”

You can find the website for the campaign here:

http://noonedeservestodie.org/

 

Check out all the posters created for the campaign:

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Moving house

That was one hell of a weekend.

We’ve started packing Friday morning, the last 2 years of my life I have accumulated way more ‘stuff’ that I could have ever thought I did. When I came into the house 2 years ago all I had was a -admittedly- a very large suitcase and my photography/laptop bag. I think that in my mind this was the issue again. But, no that’s wasn’t the case AT ALL. It took us all day from 9 in the morning till late in the evening to pack everything up and we’ve ended up with tens of bags and so much electronic equipment.

Saturday morning we have an amazing experience moving everything from the 3rd floor down to the ground floor and waiting for Jam the Man with the Van. Jam was an amazing help and he came in a very good price as well. If you ever need to move around London let me know so I can give you his details.

Which brings us to Saturday mid-day with everything laying in the middle of the living room in a huge pile – On the plus side – Virgin Media was already there at 11:00 o’clock 2 hours ahead of schedule and had Internet, phone and TV connected in less than 20 minutes which was kind of REALLY awesome (thumbs up to Virgin Media once again)

After a much needed snooze we head to IKEA supposedly to get a small amount of small stuff we ended up with a large amount of large stuff like 3 books cases, a desk chair, a TV Table, 2 chairs and a table! Well it gave us something to do during Sunday.

Sunday was surely a more relaxed day. It started with pancakes made by Janet (which is always a good omen) and later on it involved a lot of screwing (unscrewing in the case of Janet putting Mr.Malcolm (her new desk chair) the wrong way), some hammering and a lot of innuendo around screwing and hammering, bending backwards, and how Billy and Billy (the twin bookcases) got Benno (The tall thin cd/dvd case) in the middle and had their way with him.

 

By the end of the day the house looked much better. We are still camping on a double inflatable mattress but it feels like home!

Next weekend we will be heading to Janet’s parents place in Long Clawson to get some more furniture and hopefully soon we will be having one hell of a house warming party!

 

 

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John Crawford: Aerial Nudes

John Crawford is one of New Zealand’s best known photographers. His portfolio of commissioned and uncommissioned works is diverse in subject matter and mood, yet unmistakeable in its use of light and its natural, simple style.

John says his aim is to capture images that have a high degree of interest and contrast, don’t look too technical, and are easy to look at and enjoy.

His corporate projects, undertaken with some of the country’s top design and communications firms, have included shoots for Lion Nathan, Fletcher Challenge, Fonterra, CHH, Air New Zealand, Ports of Auckland and NGC.

I found this particular project quite brilliant, John connected two completely different types of photography, aerial and nude into a unique, innovative and, quite honestly, a beautifully arranged collection of images. It made me smile but at the same time appreciate it for what it was.

So go ahead and enjoy, and do let me know what you think.


For a full artist’s portfolio please visit: http://johncrawford.co.nz

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The Dark Knight Rises review

Yesterday me, Janet and Jason went to see the new Batman movie. I must admit that after re-watching the first two parts of the trilogy I was quite thrilled and frankly psyched about watching the last instalment of the trilogy.

Many criticized the movie as being slow and detached from the characters. After seeing the movie I have to say that yes, this is was not a movie about the amazing-chaotic-demented personality of the villain (see Joker/Two Face take your pick). This was an EPIC large-scale engagement movie about a situation and above all, Batman not as the masked dark avenger but as a human being and closure.

The experience

First of all, prepare yourself for a long movie, this is a 2 hours and 30 minutes movie, which with advertisements and coming soon will very easily become a 3 hours experience, so I will suggest that if you are hungry or thirsty get enough to last you!

The special effects of the movie were amazing but still not overwhelming, which honestly it’s a very hard balance to get right these days. I loved how earthly but yet high-tech all the vehicles and gadgets looked. (I really want a model of Batman’s bridge jumper!)

We saw the movie at Stratford Vue eXtreme and the audio was mind-blowing at a level that at some points I felt that the sound and music was more engaging than the video. The music was so well stitched together and the established themes complimented so well each scene, creating a very immersive environment without being overbearing or trying to push an emotion or a reaction.

Scenario and cast

Christopher Nolan said that this is going to be the last movie of this franchise, and I think it’s  a very good decision. Regardless by the end of the movie he left some really cute plot triggers.

I believe that Christian Bale gave a beautiful performance but it was not as good as the previous two movies, but still acting wise he fulfilled his purpose. I believe that in this movie was more of Bruce Wayne than he was Batman but that was intentional and it was carried very well through out the movie.

Tom Hardy at the role of Bane was, mmm, ok but nothing special really. I believe it had to do with the fact that Bane’s mask – while hiding his mouth stripped off the character of any visible emotion.

I didn’t know what to expect from Anne Hathaway as Selina. It was not disappointing but at the same time not thrilled as well. She really tried the femme-fatale but I am not sure he actually got it. What I can honestly admit that she must have had a lot of training and she worked hard to move like a cat. Quite elegant and somewhat sexy.

Excellent performance and high marks to Joseph Gordon-Levitt for the role of Blake.

As always, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman and Michael Caine held the pyre as really grade A actors. (I can’t believe how old these guys are getting 🙁 snif!). I think that Michael Caine made me cry a bit yesterday

Although Janet managed to guess almost all plot twists I must admit me and Jason were delightfully surprised by all of them.

Conclusion

This was a REALLY good movie, I don’t know if will be as memorable as “the Dark Knight” but was surely a very entertaining and strong experience. Please note that this is NOT-a-TV-movie-experience it’s a Cinema-MUST-go.

“Romeo says Go and watch it” 

Rotten tomatoes: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_dark_knight_rises/
Imdb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1345836/ 

Buy and watch the 2 previous movies, they were AWESOME!

 

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Zend Framework and mysql_real_escape_string(): Why doesn’t it work?

I had that question asked plenty of times from developers and I just wanted to give a simple clarification and solution.

mysql_real_escape_string() needs a connection to the database using mysql_connecT(). If you are using PDO or mysqli to connect to your database there is no way for mysql_real_escape_string() to find the connection. This is the reason it will not work and prompt you with an error.

There are several ways to fix that.

  • Create a dummy mysql_connect() which will only be used for that. This is not the best solution but it will work.
  • Use $db->QuoteInto(), where $db the object holding your PDO/mysqli connection. This is a ZF function
  • Create your own simple function that will handle XSS injections. (example below)
  • Use $db->quote(), which is the PDO alternative see PDO::quote();

Example of function:


function mres($value) {
$search = array("\x00", "\n", "\r", "\\", "'", "\"", "\x1a");    
$replace = array("\\x00", "\\n", "\\r", "\\\\" ,"\'", "\\\"", "\\\x1a"); 
return str_replace($search, $replace, $value);
}

I really hope that this helps.

If you have found this article useful, do let me know – leave a comment!

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Samsung’s window comes with blinds too!

 

Samsung has designed a window that doubles as a monitor, allowing users to look outside while surfing the net. Samsung’s ‘Smart Window’ works like a touch screen, allowing users to select a variety of apps and functions with a touch of their fingers. Users can even ‘draw’ the windows blinds by simply sliding their fingers down the screen.

From the videos below, the window demonstrates the ability to surf the web, watch videos and even give presentations. The window is reported to be eco-friendly, as it runs on LED lights and is partly powered by solar energy. Could this be the future of windows in our homes? And if that’s the case would Janet let me put those on our bedroom?

 

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Look duckies!

With moving house, melodious.me, The One Off and a hundred other things to do I really need to find a way to have more active hours within the day.

I wake up at 6:00a.m. and work on Melodious Me till 7:30ish I get breakfast and then off to the office, when I come back I want to work more but I feel drain and tired – I look at the screen and it makes no sense.

In addition the last year was a horrible strike of deseases, I mean, I never got THAT sick SO many times before during my whole life. Add to that, that the last 2 years I am stuck between 90 and 85 kilos and it’s like no matter I do at some point I will loose my will to try – fall on a eating junk and end up again at 90! Yay! 🙁

I need to radically change the way I do things, and I know that exercising would help but there is simply not enough hours in a day! BAAAAHHH! I don’t know what to do.

I really hope that our new house will bring some serenity back to my life – and that it will help me out establish some more healthy habits. My sweet Janet helps so much with that. I don’t know what I would have done without here. I would have possibly been 300kilos coughing my lungs out and sitting like a blob in the middle of nowhere!

Aaaaanyway! This was a bit therapeutic!

Did you ever had to face the same or relevant issues? And how did you manage to get unstuck and go on?    

And as promised …  duckies!

These two were two very protective parents!