Adobe Releases Edge Preview 1: Open Web Folks Rejoice

August 3rd, 2011

Adobe Edge Preview 1

For some time now there have been rumors that Adobe would be releasing a new tool to create rich web animation without the need for the Flash plugin. Yesterday Adobe released a very early stage of their upcoming “Edge” software and we’ve had a chance to play around with it. On the surface Edge looks a lot like Flash. It has a timeline, a stage, and a number of panels to refine animations. While the interface is very reminiscent of Flash its output is what makes it special. Edge generates 100% HTML / Javascript / CSS which means everything can rendered on any modern device (even iOS devices).

Now what does all this mean to you? It means cost effective rich web experiences that work on everything are just around the corner. It is expected that a production version of Edge will be released with CS6 sometime in 2012.

If you want to try Edge out for yourself you can download it from Adobe Labs.

Posted in All, Browsers, HTML5, Web Design | No Comments »

To HTML5, or not to HTML5. That is the question.

May 19th, 2011

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With the arrival of HTML5 and its robust feature set, the future for website usability is looking considerably brighter. The big question is, “Are we ready to use HTML5?”

The answer yes, but it’s not that simple.

Not all browsers are built the same.

Although most popular browsers offer HTML5 support, they require the latest version of the browser to be installed. For example, the element “<video>” which is widely used in HTML5, is not supported by IE7 or IE8.

To make things more complicated, not all HTML5 elements are supported by all the latest browser releases. HTML 5 form elements which expand the form field options to date pickers, sliders, validation, and so on, are not fully supported by Internet Explorer 9.

While this may appear to be quite discouraging, there are solutions that can be used to substitute individual HTML5 features not currently supported by a specific browser.

Why should I use HTML5?

The answer to this question is quite simple. Usability.

Whether it’s on a personal computer or on a mobile device, HTML5 offers a whole slew of long-overdue additions to help users have a richer experience on their browsers. Features such as Geolocation allow your users to share their latitude and longitude locations with trusted web sites, allowing for targeted content delivery. Input field specific keyboards on mobile devices make it much quicker and easier to fill out forms.

And it makes it much easier for Web developers like us to offer videos, design better forms, or build web applications that work offline.

How can I use HTML5 if older browsers don’t support it?

This question is trickier, because HTML5 is not one big option for browsers to support; it is a collection of features. You can detect support for each feature, like video or drag and drop, and compensate for older browsers and the newer ones that don’t fully support that individual feature. For the most part, older browsers ignore the HTML5 elements that they don’t recognize, so you don’t need to discard your old markup. If implemented correctly, you can target the new features natively supported in the latest browsers, without leaving the older ones behind.

So do not be afraid. “Build it and they will come!”

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If you have any questions or comments regarding the reading above, please feel free to contact the author.

Valod Amirkhanian
Programming Director (valod@webenertia.com)
http://www.WebEnertia.com

Posted in All, Browsers, Web Design | 2 Comments »

WebEnertia Honored with Eight ADDY® Awards

March 23rd, 2011

2011 Addy Awards

SAN JOSE, Calif. — March 23, 2011 — WebEnertia today announced that the company took home eight awards, including two gold ADDY statuettes, at the 2011 San Francisco Bay Area ADDY® Award Show and Gala, held on February 26. Sponsored by the American Advertising Federation (www.aaf.org), the sold-out event was the first time that the ADDY Awards were held jointly between the four Bay Area AAF affiliate organizations.

Presented by the American Advertising Federation, the ADDY Awards represent the true spirit of creative excellence by recognizing all forms of advertising from media of all types, creative by all sizes, and entrants of all levels. With more than 60,000 entries annually, it is the only creative awards program administered by the advertising industry for the advertising industry.

This year, WebEnertia received the following ADDY Awards:

Gold
• Elements of Advertising / Illustration / Single — DC Systems
• Sales Promotion / Product of Service Sales Presentation / Campaign — Niamaj

Silver
• Interactive Media / Websites, B-To-B HTML / Other / Services — xMatters
• Elements of Advertising / Sound / Music Only — Down Syndrome Research and Treatment Foundation
• Interactive Media / Websites, B-To-B HTML / Other / Products — eIQ Energy
• Public Service / Broadcast / Electronic / Audio / Visual — Down Syndrome Research and Treatment Foundation
• Elements of Advertising / Photography / Digitally Enhanced — Niamaj
• Interactive Media / Online / Micro or Mini Sites — Niamaj

The 2011 competition was different from past years, in that it solicited entries from creative professionals in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, and the East Bay and was jointly managed by the four Bay Area AAF affiliate organizations: AAF-Silicon Valley, SFBIG (Bay Area Interactive Group), Greater San Francisco Ad Club, and AD2 San Francisco. The panel of judges for the 2011 Bay Area ADDYs included Todd Grant, creative director, Crispin Porter + Bogusky; Larry Corwin, creative director, BBDO/NY; and Seth Weisfeld, digital creative director, Wieden+Kennedy.

“The ADDY Awards are always a tough competition showcasing the very best our industry has to offer. By combining the entire Bay Area into one event this year, the talent and creativity on display were kicked up to an unprecedented level, and the competition was tougher than ever,” said Steve Ohanians, creative director and partner at WebEnertia. “In such an arena, winning one ADDY is a tremendous achievement. Being chosen for eight by this esteemed panel of judges is amazing, and is a true testament to the talent of our team and the pride we take in every project.”

Click here to see the work that won the awards.

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About WebEnertia
Established in 1999, WebEnertia is a leading interactive digital agency delivering a broad range of services to Silicon Valley clients. As a full-service firm, the company delivers highly functional and engaging Web sites, Web-based applications, e-commerce, motion graphics and multimedia, graphic design, print, Internet marketing solutions, Web business consultation, and management services.

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2010 In Review

January 10th, 2011

2010 was an incredible year for us at WebEnertia. We created a number of new client relationships, expanded our services in the ever evolving digital landscape with innovative mobile and video solutions, and launched amazing work throughout the year. Thank you to our clients, partners, the WebEnertia team and all of those who contributed to a great 2010.

Visit the work section of our website to view more of our portfolio.

Posted in All, Web Design, WebEnertia | No Comments »

2010 Toy Drive Results

December 22nd, 2010

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WebEnertia joined with Toys for Tots in a 2010 holiday toy drive for impoverished kids in need. The results were amazing. Our goal was to collect 150 toys in 1 week, and we were able to collect 189! Thank you clients, neighbors, friends, family and the WebEnertia team members who made this possible.

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WebEnertia’s Toy Drive

December 9th, 2010

Toys for Tots

The Holiday Season is here and what better way to spread the love and cheer than to give a gift this year! WebEnertia would like to invite you to join us in giving the gift of toys to children in need. We will be collecting toys as part of the Toys for Tots Toy Drive. If you would like to participate during this season of giving please bring your new, unwrapped toys to our office by Monday, December 20th. Happy Holidays!

Follow our Toy Drive Progress on our Facebook page!

Posted in All, Browsers, Flash, WebEnertia | 1 Comment »

Lunch at the click of a button

September 3rd, 2010

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One of life’s greatest indulgences is food! Whether we crave sweet, salty, savory, or spicy we can all attest to falling prisoner of these tantalizing tasty treasures. Food is an essential part of survival and here at WebEnertia we do not take that lightly.

At WebEnertia we find that the formula to successfulness in the workplace is to have happy workers. So, what easier way to spring about happiness than by daily gathering our employees as a family around food…but not just any food…FREE food! Yes, you heard me correctly…we get free lunch everyday at WebEnertia.

With our finger licking muses at our creative fingertips it was only natural that we created our own in house food ordering system to help us enjoy the process of ordering lunches with swift style and ease.

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Whether you’re craving pizza, pasta, pad thai, sushi, salads, gyros or gelato…our ordering system has got it covered! So how does the magic work? Well as designers and programmers we kept it simple.

Each day a friendly email is sent out to every grumbling stomach in the office reminding them to place their orders. Like a magical genie…our lunch ordering system allows us to select a desired restaurant from our long list of frequented places, view menus and place a customized order at the click of a button.

Keep an eye out and check back in for updates and sneak peaks of life at WebEnertia.

Posted in All, WebEnertia | 1 Comment »

Flash and HTML5 — The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

May 18th, 2010

Flash and HTML5: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

If you’re working anywhere in online media, you’ve probably heard about the mud-slinging between Apple and Adobe over Apple’s decision to not support Flash on the iPhone or iPad. It would be an understatement to say it’s a polarizing issue in the web development community. Both companies have called out each other publicly with the latest volley coming from Adobe (Read about Adobe’s advertisements in the WSJ). Needless to say, both companies have their share of spin and hyperbole. As a Flash developer, of course, I have my partialities. However, let’s try to ignore the politics and spin for a moment and address the larger question that it seems everyone has been asking: has Flash seen its final days?

Let’s back up a bit, before we mourn (or rejoice) the passing of Adobe’s Flash, we’re going to have to indentify a technology or technologies to fill the many roles Flash plays. Currently Flash is responsible for aproximately 75% of all of the video on the web and is considered the standard for animated online content. On top of that, Flash and Actionscript have thousands of additional functionalities and libraries for special use cases that range from multiplayer gaming to realtime data visualization. According to Adobe, 85% of the top 100 websites utilize flash in some capacity. This market dominance is largely due to its platform ubiquity (it runs on just about everything that allows it), sophisticated toolset, and large developer base. Needless to say, whatever technology comes next has some big shoes to fill.

Last month in his open letter “Thoughts on Flash” Steve Jobs points to HTML5 as the successor to Flash and many experts agree that HTML5 will ultimately perform many of the tasks now handled by Flash. The idea is to replace Flash with technology and standards that aren’t controlled by any one company so that a larger set of developers can work to improve the platform. It’s a great idea but what exactly is HTML5 and where is it in its development? HTML5 is the next major revision to the standard HTML markup language that has been with us since the mid-nineties. The vision for this updated standard is specifically to minimize the need for browser plugins (such as Flash, Microsoft’s Silverlight, and Sun’s JavaFX) for rich internet applications. HTML5 will do this in a few ways. First, HTML5 is adding native video and audio support. This means in theory videos and music can be embedded directly into web pages without the need for users to have anything else installed. Second, HTML5 will add what is called a “canvas” element. This is an area designated for drawing dynamic graphics and animations using javascript.

So open-source animation and video playback? Sounds bad for Flash, huh? Well hold on for a minute, while HTML5 offers a noble alternative to Flash’s functionality, it currently suffers from a number of setbacks. First, HTML5 isn’t actually a finalized standard yet. It’s currently in a “working draft” stage. Several browsers support the current drafts of HTML5 but it’s all still subject to change. Any content created before the final version is ratified could be rendered obsolete. Second, even when HTML5 is finalized (which is still a few years away) there will likely be problems rendering content correctly across all browsers. Flash has a real advantage here because Adobe is the sole entity in charge of making sure content looks exactly the same across all computing environments. With HTML5 this resposibility is shifted to browser developers, of which there are many and if they don’t play nicely it may lead to extra development time and cost to fix incompatibilities. Third, the HTML5 video support is currently hampered by a lack of concensus on which video format to use as the standard. (See the chart for HTML5 video support fragmentation) Without a consistent video standard, reliable video playback for everyone could be difficult. Fourth, HTML5 market penetration is still very low. Some estimates put HTML5-compatible traffic at as much as 60% which is much lower than Flash’s 95%+. Lastly, HTML5 doesn’t yet have a robust development environment. This means while the platform is coming together, there is still a lack of tools to create the rich media experiences currently capable on the Flash platform.

Ok, that was a lot of techno-speak. So what does this all mean? Well, if you’re like me, the most important thing is to get the coolest stuff in front of as many people as possible in the most efficient way. Given that set of values, HTML5 may need some more time to mature before it takes Flash’s throne. In some cases, it may be necessary to jump into the HTML5 world (like delivering embedded video to the iPad). However in many cases HTML5 just doesn’t have the toolset or compatibility to be the best solution yet. Rest assured HTML5 is an exciting and fast moving frontier and all of us here at WebEnertia are constantly evaluating emerging technologies to implement whatever platform best serves our clients!

Disagree with me? hit me up at brian@webenertia.com

In case I wasn’t long-winded enough, here’s some more reading!
Steve Jobs “Thoughts on Flash”
Adobe responds to Jobs with “Truth About Flash”
Hulu decides against developing a HTML5 player for now
Scribd Ditches Flash in Favor of HTML5
HTML5 And Flash: Why It’s Not A War, And Why Flash Won’t Die
I just love Foxtrot.

Posted in All, Flash | 2 Comments »

Student Art Gallery Sponsored by WebEnertia

April 26th, 2010

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WebEnertia sponsored our very own Vivian Mak’s senior art gallery show “I’m Mobile” at San Jose State University. The “I’m Mobile” gallery invokes an awareness of today’s culture’s intimacy, relationship and dependence on mobile phones.

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The mobile phone has evolved from the simple device to make calls without the use of landlines that was introduced in the 80’s, to the single most essential device of our lives, changing our cultural norms and values.

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Less a telephone, today’s mobile phone is a convergence of technological advancements that make our emotional connection to them inevitable. The mobile phone is a camera, an email system, an entertainment portal, a carrier of business data, and a method of commerce.

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They allow us to share and document our lives, create and maintain relationships, make fashion statements, perform business operations, and even mobilize political causes.

They can invoke emotions of isolation and anxiety when they’re forgotten or lost, just like they invoke happiness and calm when they’re with us.

A great show and a job well done by Vivian!

Posted in All, WebEnertia | 2 Comments »

WebEnertia Takes Home 12 ADDY® Awards, Including Two for Best in Category

March 15th, 2010

Addy's

San Jose, CA — March 16, 2010 — WebEnertia today announced that at the annual ADDY® Awards presentation held by the Silicon Valley Chapter of the American Advertising Federation, the company was honored with 12 ADDY Awards. Held on March 4, at the Downtown San Jose Marriott, WebEnertia’s impressive haul for the evening included two Best of Category Awards, five Gold ADDYs, four Silver, and one Bronze.

Presented by the American Advertising Federation, the ADDY Awards represent the true spirit of creative excellence by recognizing all forms of advertising from media of all types, creative by all sizes, and entrants of all levels from anywhere in the world. With over 60,000 entries annually, it is the only creative awards program administered by the advertising industry for the advertising industry.

This year, WebEnertia received the following awards:

• Best of Category: Trivia Burst iPhone Application
• Best of Category: WebEnertia Holiday eCard
• Gold ADDY: Asoka Logo
• Gold ADDY: Niamaj Promotional Campaign
• Gold ADDY: Vocera Communications Smart Phone
• Gold ADDY: WebEnertia Logo
• Gold ADDY: WebEnertia Web site
• Silver ADDY: Vocera Communications Holiday eCard Interactive
• Silver ADDY: Vocera Communications Holiday eCard Campaign
• Silver ADDY: Vocera Communications Smart Phone
• Silver ADDY: WebEnertia Stationary
• Bronze ADDY: Sconza Candy Web site

“It would be a true honor to receive one ADDY Award. Taking home 12, including two for Best of Category, is almost unbelievable and it speaks volumes to the talent and creative drive of everyone at WebEnertia,” said Steve Ohanians, creative director and partner at WebEnertia. “As an agency, we put our very best into every project and take an enormous amount of pride in our work. It’s a great feeling to have our efforts recognized by our industry peers.”

More information on WebEnertia and its services can be found at http://www.webenertia.com

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About WebEnertia
Established in 1999, WebEnertia is a leading interactive digital agency delivering a broad range of services to Silicon Valley clients. Click here to view our winning projects and follow us on Facebook.

Posted in All, WebEnertia | 7 Comments »

Retro Holiday eCard Fun

January 27th, 2010

In case you missed our Holiday eCard this year — here’s your chance. Make sure to check out our matching game and visit the jukebox to re-live some retro holiday spirit!

http://www.webenertia.com/holiday2009ecard/

Posted in All, E-blasts / HTML Emails | No Comments »

Quoted on InfoWorld’s “Adobe Flash’s security woes” article

December 14th, 2009

WebEnertia’s in-house flash guru, Brian Huntley, contributed to InfoWorld’s “Adobe Flash’s security woes: How to protect yourself” article as an expert discussing vulnerabilities and weaknesses in Adobe Flash, due to its widespread use in delivering multimedia, video, and Web content.

Read the full article here: http://www.infoworld.com/d/security-central/adobe-flashs-security-woes-how-protect-yourself-664?page=0,0

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A new logo, new website…

April 28th, 2009

It’s finally time to take the wraps off. For the past 6 months, we have taken on an extensive overhaul of our identity, including a new logo, a new website (which you’re looking at now), new collateral, and a top to bottom evaluation and reorganization of our processes and services.

When we sat down to discuss the redesign of our identity, we all agreed on two things: 1) Our old logo had overstayed its welcome. 2) The new logo had to be clean and timeless, one that would look relevant today and ten years from now.

Besides the clean design that defines our new look, there’s a lot of technical Web nerdery going on with our new website for an informative yet fun experience.

So click around and definitly let us know what you think!

> http://www.webenertia.com

Posted in All, Web Design, WebEnertia | 1 Comment »

Biggest ever study of worldwide email client usage

April 28th, 2009

“Outlook 2007 usage starts to increase, older versions are starting to become less popular. Web-based email providers are continuing to grab market share, as are Apple’s key clients Apple Mail 3 and the iPhone.”

CampaignMonitor has published results of their survey of email clients usage. Check it out.

Posted in All, E-blasts / HTML Emails | 1 Comment »

In Defense of Eye Candy

April 23rd, 2009

“If we believe that style somehow exists independent of functionality, that we can treat aesthetics and function as two separate pieces, then we ignore the evidence that beauty is much more than decoration. Our brains can’t help but agree.”

Some very interesting points regarding how things that we find attractive seem to work better: A List Apart

Posted in All, Web Design | No Comments »

Bring Down IE6

April 23rd, 2009

“In today’s market, surrounded by Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera and its own successor, Internet Explorer 7, version 6 of Microsoft’s browser looks positively ancient.”

Bring Down IE6

Join the mission at BringDownIE6.com.

Posted in All, Browsers, Web Design | 4 Comments »