Client Education | Akira Media Designs

What is Responsive Web Design?

The trend towards Responsive Design has been going for a while now, but there’s a good chance that term means absolutely nothing to you. What is Responsive Design and why should you use it when building your website? Hopefully by the time you are finished reading this, you’ll have a good general handle on the concept. What […]

Creating Something Timeless (Tedx Talks)

Creating an environment that fosters innovation.

The CAPTCHA is dead?

No more crazy, warped letters. All hail Google!

What your zipcode says about you

Esri’s Tapestry(TM) project is one of those borderline scary tools. Type in your zipcode (or any zipcode) and get instant demographic info for that area and all sorts of information such as median income, age, and segmentation classes. Link: Esri Zip Lookup

Dropbox Passwords Stolen?

Dropbox is dismissing today’s news of stolen passwords from their site saying that they weren’t hacked and the stolen credentials are from other sites. While this is probably true, could it really hurt you to change you password? Or maybe even turn on Dropbox’s 2 step authentication and make it even harder for the bad […]

Microsoft Fake Telephone Support Phone Scam

I got a call last night from someone with a fairly heavy accent claiming to be from Microsoft. They were calling to tell me that I had a virus and needed to go on my computer so they could show me where it was infected and how to fix it. Yeah, right. Microsoft is never going […]

Copyright 101: You Can’t Use Stuff Without Permission

Image Credit When I worked in television, we occasionally would get a request from a client involving using a popular song on one of their commercials. Our response was always something along the lines of, “You can’t do that without permission or you’ll get a cease and desist letter from or (worse) they’ll just sue […]

The Three Components That Make Your Website

While working with clients, I find that there can be some confusion on what is required for a website, so I want to take a little time to spell out what the different components of are and how they work together. Today I’m going to cast some broad strokes and talk about the three main […]

Three Reasons to Buy Your Own Domain Name

It may feel like it’s something you can’t do, but you can & should purchase your own domain name. Here are three quick, compelling reasons why. You will save money Granted, it’ll only be a few dollars per year, but the rich don’t stay rich by just giving their hard-earned cash away, right? Might as […]

Attention vs. Connecting

I frequently bemoan the state of online marketing today. We have such a great opportunity as small businesses to really connect with our customers to make them more than just anonymous one time consumers of our wares and make them part of our families. Unfortunately the way most social media streams are managed, we seem […]

Facebook Contest Rules

We all know that more “likes” on Facebook means better value for our Facebook business pages. In the never ending quest for more likes, it’s tempting to run a contest, but before you do, you need to know that Facebook has a few rules for such things. Some are obvious (“you are responsible for the […]

Long Hours Can Be Deadly

In Japan they even have a word for it; Karōshi (過労死) which means “death from overwork”, but now research is showing that working long hours can mean a shorter life. So, go home on time today, alright? link: Fast Co. Design – Working Long Hours Could Kill You Photo Credit: Flickr Commons – National Media Museum

Free eBook on Social Media & Blogging

I’ve been saying this for a while now and it’s nice to have such well known people back up my belief that your blog should be your social media hub. It’s nice because, well, it makes me look less crazy. Not that I’m crazy, or even look crazy. I don’t look crazy, do I? Anyhoo, […]

Google Image Search

Typical Phone Conversation: Client: “Yeah, did you get the pictures I sent over?” Me: “Um, yes I did. A lot of them are kinda small. Where did you get them?” Client: “I got them from Google. You can just make them bigger, can’t you?” Me: “Well, not really. I can make something bigger smaller, but […]

Mozilla on How to Choose Strong Passwords

via Digital Inspiration Technology Blog As some of the comments on the Youtube page have pointed out, this does not work as some sites don’t allow non-alphanumeric passwords and limit the length to something ridiculous like 6 characters or less. Still, good to know.