Lost in Translation

I’m overdue for another post. Things get hairy when you run a business from home, have infant twins, and the air conditioning goes out. In many parts of the country, that’s not a big deal in May, but in Texas it can be HOT! We have babies and ferrets, so it meant several days of little work, no fun, and no sleep.

Meanwhile, here is a post I originally wrote for DrakNet that was posted April 30, 2010.

I thought I’d share it here for those that may not follow the DrakNet blog and also because this site is basically an extended FAQ covering issues I deal with all the time from clients. Google image search and copyright are recurring themes in my line of work.

I get a lot of images from clients to put on websites. Because I like to educate and protect my clients, I am prone to asking, “Where did you get this from?”

More often than not, the response is: “Google’s free image search”.

Let me clear up a common misconception: the image search on Google is not a repository of free images for everyone. What Google is doing is searching images on other people’s websites and showing those images to you. These are images that are protected by copyright law.

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In the past 10 years, I’ve made websites for a wide variety of organizations. I’ve made them for businesses, nonprofits, and individuals. One thing most have in common is a misunderstanding what is acceptable in terms of logo, and other image use, on their site.

For example, many sites have logos that belong to other organizations on their sites. The logos may be from manufacturers whose products they sell, or from professional organizations of which they are a member. The logos may be from social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

More often than not, these logos are used without explicit permission from those the logos represent. The website owner borrowing the logos isn’t doing so maliciously. In fact, most of them are convinced they are just giving the other websites some “free advertising”.

Let me once again be the bearer of bad news: that just ain’t so. What that is, is theft. (more…)

There is a common assumption among those who do not work in a technical field that because an individual is qualified to do one type of technical work, they are qualified to do it all.

Everyone hears it at some point. The dreaded phrase “well you work on computers so you must know…”.

“So, you work on computers so you must know about web design.”

Or conversely:

“You build websites so how do I fix X on my computer?”

I’m not entirely sure how this mindset came about. When you think about it, do you go to a proctologist if you have skin problems? Of course not! You see the dermatologist.

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I, like many others in my field, see the term Web 2.0 and cringe. More so when used inappropriately. Then we hear and see people in our own field using it inappropriately, and groan and smack our foreheads.

This, like a lot of lingo, is often thrown around without a real understanding of what it is and what it means.

Let me put it like this: I’ve avoided jobs where I saw postings from people stating they want someone who understood Web 2.0. Or that they wanted a Web 2.0 website. Because I would have to ask them, “What do you mean by Web 2.0? What does Web 2.0 mean to you in this context?”. And they’ll decide that I’m the idiot here and clearly I don’t know anything. After all, EVERYONE knows what Web 2.0 is, right?

It is almost physically painful for me to hear someone to ask, “Do you know Web 2.0?”. (more…)

This is part 3 in the series In Search of a Professional Web Designer.

Make sure you also check out Part 1 and Part 2.

Now that you’ve found a web designer, how do you get the most of your web designer and ensure that you get what you want and need? I’ve got 10 pointers for you.

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