Anahita Open Source Social Networking Platform finally launched

Anahita Screenshot

Have you seen that scene from the Matrix where we are introduced to Neo in his dark apartment and his computer’s searching the Internet for something? That’s how I was sometime in November of 2009. Only I was looking for the perfect open source social networking platform. I was very impressed by BuddyPress, but then I stumbled upon something that raised the bar so high that anything else just didn’t seem right. It was the Anahita Social Platform.

Despite several revised road maps, changes in technology and promises of public launch in January of 2010; Anahita is finally out.

This underrated social platform is absolutely stunning in terms of architecture, UI and overall design. What’s better, it runs on Joomla and the Nooku framework. It makes BuddyPress and practically all open source social networking platforms look very outdated.

Its demo currently requires an annoying form to be filled out and it does not have free documentation or a developer community, which would turn  about 90% of the their audience off, and I feel this needs to be looked into. But other than that, it is absolutely brilliant and I highly recommend this.

Looking forward to more developments from them!

Sitegrinder: The magic PSD to XHTML-CSS tool!

For a freelance designer, often, it is a concern that their designs don’t match the final web site. Plus there’s the additional development charge. On a tight budget one doesn’t think of things like SEO or excellent code. I found a magic Photoshop plugin to convert your PSDs to HTML!

That’s right. No coding requried. I wouldn’t worry too much about how accurate it is based on the good reviews it has gotten.

Without further adieu, here it is: http://www.medialab.com/sitegrinder/

How does it work? You just name your Photoshop layers according to what it expects and voila! HTML! There are very few PS plugins that are useful but this beats them all! Enjoy

Your web site, Flash and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Before we get into the details of how Search Engine Optimization works, you’ll have to answer one simple question:

Do you want visitors to find your web site through search engines?

If you answered “Yes!” to the above question, forget about a super fancy web site. That’s right. A super fancy web site (most definitely) is inversely proportional to the number of hits you’ll get on your web site. This means no Flash!

“But I don’t want my web site to look like just another one”,  you say? Well you’re not wrong. Every web site should have its own unique personality. Because every business is different. But unfortunately (or fortunately) search engines can currently only read what is readable (ie, text).

For best SEO results, a menu is supposed to look like a menu, a link is supposed to look like a link, and text is supposed to look like text. Why? Because that’s what search engines “expect” on your page. Picture a search spider like when you are urgently looking for something in the dark. If it’s your house you know exactly where to find things. But if you’re in the dark in your competitor’s place looking for vital information, you won’t get much because you don’t have all night and you don’t know where he/she keeps his/her stuff!

A search spider works in the exact same way. Each page gets a certain time for it to crawl. To make it easier for them to find stuff, search engines have given them a priority of important things to look for. If your web site doesn’t have what they’re looking for, then you have little to give them.

When your web site is built on Flash, what you’re actually doing is placing a Flash movie on a page. That’s it. So according to a search spider, its a page with a movie in it. Next!

I understand that it’s not the easiest thing to come to terms with. So it’s best if you leave the decision to your developer and designer to argue about. Because the designer would want your site to look the best it can, and the developer would want it to achieve the results you’re looking for.

The Indian Design Disaster

Chota Hanuman

India, in essence, is not one country. The implications of that fact cut through social and economic spheres. What many people don’t realize is that design comes straight out of the social sphere.

India is a backward country in most cases. It’s not unknown that trends take some time to reach us. And this is mainly through media. So, in short and bluntly put, Indian designs are only as good as what the designer watches on T.V or sees on the internet.

Our education system does not allow us to innovate, only imitate. The repercussions of this are experienced in our daily lives. We have been made incapable of making our own decisions, by our own decisions! So technically, we make sure we don’t lead, but follow.

Now that we’ve outlined that we have no culture or creativity of our own, the obvious answer to the design demand in India is: copy copy copy

Graffiti, Punk, Oriental styles, Spray-cans, “Sixties”, “Seventies”, Grunge etc. are design trends that we copy and implement in our designs and web sites every day. It is true that the world is moving towards a “global culture” and perhaps India will catch up to that sometime in the future, but my point is this:

Indian designers (print, web, mass media) are incapable of creating trends.

What’s worse, since there is so much out there, and since different designers and decision makers are exposed to different things, and since we can’t come up with our own ideas, the result obviously is: “The New Adventures of Hanuman” where Chota Hanuman fights a robot which looks a lot like one of the Transformers while an evil scientist looking for Hanuman’s locket (which btw, gives him his power) looks on; while the animation looks a lot like that of Popeye in the fifties back in “the west”.

Hatim!

That picture is a still from “Hatim” . I don’t blame you if you haven’t heard of it. If you note carefully, his entire attire (and sword) are not Indian! It looks a lot like something from… The Lord of the Rings! Here’s an article which will be a good read.

Raj - The Showman

Jack Sparrow? Are you serious?

How to effectively communicate with a developer

Geek Usopp

I’ve worked in a branding and design firm and was surrounded by designers. In fact, I was the only technical person there. Apart from all the attention I got there was of course, a clear-cut separation between our different schools of thought.

Developers like to be organized and categorize and re categorize their work… and thought! They even communicate in a very step-by-step way.

Designers don’t like to be organized. They like to work how they want and wait for a “creative spark” to hit them and “let the creativity flow”. It’s hard to describe what creativity really is, and this is a highly debated topic.

What designers must understand is that a good developer is a highly creative person. Imagine what it would be like if you had to write a line of code and picture what that might do to something in connection with another thing in connection with another thing in connection with another thing… So on and so forth. It requires foresight, experience and the ability to come up with something extremely… Poetic.

“Code is poetry” – WordPress

Having understood this, a designer has to communicate with a developer; as sad as it is to admit, like a machine. It is important to understand the limit to a developers understanding. Myself, having worked with several designers and clients understand what they want because I understand their language. For a developer who doesn’t get out much, this could be a problem and could lead to many iterations and going back-and-forth on a project.

Smashing Magazine had this really interesting post which specifies just that:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/08/14/how-to-effectively-communicate-with-developers/