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So here is the follow up to my first post about the products contained in the SkyMall magazine. In part 1 I focused on advertisements featuring ridiculous products. In part 2 I’m including those that made me laugh because of the advertisement itself. Read the rest of this entry »

Rebekah and I pick up the bus less than a block from our house in the Midway. As we were waiting this morning, I looked over to see a young woman (maybe a high schooler?) using a lint roller on her black pants. It made me smile because I’ve been there, we used to have a cat that shed like crazy, and now we deal with dog hair on a daily basis. Anyway, I looked back a few seconds later and saw four used lint roller papers sitting on the ground around this girl’s feet. I was immediately pissed off. I nudged Rebekah and told her that this girl had just thrown her lint roller papers on the ground. She looked at the girl and said “Excuse me, you dropped your trash on the floor.” The girl didn’t say anything, so I walked over, gave her my evil eye, picked up each piece and threw them away in the trash can that was sitting 10 feet away. Read the rest of this entry »

The Capella Education Company (CEC) web site was redesigned with several goals in mind. First and foremost, it needed an updated look and feel to tie in with the Capella University web site. The idea was that these two sites needed to be part of the same family, but still distinct sites. This was accomplished with the use of color and other elements such as tabbed navigation and the updated logo.

Another large part of the redesign was accommodating new content, and bringing more information to the front. The homepage now contains a flash piece with videos on “What it’s like to earn an online degree,” as well as facts on Capella and up-to-date news releases. This helps to give visitors (consisting mostly of investors and the media) a good understanding of Capella Education Company and it’s subsidiary, Capella University.

Many people were involved in the redesign of this site. Grant Eull deserves the most credit for coming up with the initial concept for this site, pushing Capella beyond the traditional 800×600 screen resolution. From there, Jason Galep helped to flesh out the mockup, working on placement of elements and layouts for the secondary pages. When Grant and Jason left Capella I took over, finalizing the header (updated logo and integrating tabbed navigation), the flash piece, and other elements on the page. I then enlisted the help of Valerie Allen to style the secondary page navigation. At that point I created the templates for the site using XHTML and CSS and passed the site off to our development team including Linda Tuma and Jeff Hoffman.

One of my favorite things about flying is looking through SkyMall magazine. So on the way back from Cancun a couple weeks ago I waited until we reached cruising altitude, reclined my seat, and proceeded to flip through and examine every page. When I came across something that made me laugh I marked down the page number in my trusty notebook. I finally had a chance to go back through the magazine, rip out the flagged products, and scan them in for your viewing pleasure. So in this first installment (of a 2-part series) I am including the ads where the product itself seemed, well, stupid. The next part will focus more on the advertisement and it’s cheesyness. Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of months ago I found out that I work with The Food Snob, The Bachelor, and The Cheapskate, restaurant reviewers for my community magazine: The Midway Monitor. I told them how much I enjoyed their section, and in return they invited me to join them for a review. I was happy when they let me write a guest review, and even more happy when they invited me to join again. I’ve now tagged along for three reviews and earned the name “The Chowhound,” although in my review of The Happy Gnome I am called “Basset Boy.” Read the rest of this entry »