Ogilvy homepage

I designed the Ogilvy website in 2009. A minimal approach on a tight grid. A fullscreen video background with wide angle shots of the office linear space.

Categrory page

Ford A1 looked old and was not appropriate anymore to use. The design looked outdated and the usability looked like it came from the stone age. My job was to fix this.

The new grid and conversion scheme are based on the guttenberg principle

The new Ford A1 homepage. Based on 960px grid

Notice the image on the right. Two people holding hands. It symbolizes trust.  Therefore it is used to promote Ford credit.

The Ford A1 result page

The Ford A1 detail page

This a screenshot of the old Ford A1 website in a 1024px width browser.

So why this webiste? This is part of the ‘realise the potential’ campaign. First we launched an ‘offline’ campaign to direct people to this website. from here they could read about the benefits of American Express. After signing up and withing the first 100 days, new clients received weekly emails with new benefits and point programs. I designed the site and all the emails and helped set up the initial user flow steps. From landing on the page to becoming client.

The American Express RTP Landingpage

The third page

The last page before the signup form

You can also go manual and create backlinks to any site you want. If you go PRO, something I haven’t tried yet, but definitely going to do, it’s also possible to add your articles to many other article directories and social sites.
What it also does is ‘ping’ your backlinks and submit your rss to multiple aggregators.

Wpsynit is not a backlink solution for large scale linkbuilding. But it can help your personal or affiliate website boost in the ranking without any real effort actually.

The plugin is updated and improves almost daily so expect much from wpsynit.

Ok, so you accidentally deleted a photo  and you want it back. What to do?

For most people this is impossible to do. But if your iphone is jailbroken it’s actually very easy. Just follow these steps. and let me know if it worked for you.

I will explain a simple technique to clone copy your complete iPhone to a disk image. Then you scan this disk image for deleted files with Data Rescue 3. This works for ios4 and a 3gs iPhone. and probably for al earlier models and os’s to.

1. First install ‘Openssh‘ with Cydia.
2. Make sure your iPhone is connected to the same (wireless) network as your mac.
3. Touch the ‘Settings’ icon on your iPhone.
   Touch ‘General’.
   Touch ‘Auto-Lock’.
   Touch‘ Never’ – this ensures that your iPhone’s screen remains lit. If it doesn’t stay lit, we will lose connection.
4. Open system preferences > sharing.  and check Remote Login
5. Open the Terminal application in OSX.
6. Then copy this line

   ssh root@x.x.x.x dd if=/dev/rdisk0s2s1 bs=4096KB | dd of=myClonedIphone.img

   to the Terminal and press enter. (replace the x with your iphone IP)

7. If asked for a password its probably: ‘alpine’
8. Now wait for a couple of hours. To check if it working look for the “myClonedIphone.img” file in your home folder. If its getting bigger then its working.
9. The terminal window will only tell you when its done. So have patience.
10. Are you really sure it finished copying? Yes? Go to step 11. No? Try step 10.
11. It didn’t work? Go to step 5 and try replacing:

    bs=4096KB

    with

    bs=4096

12. Mount the disk image with roxio toast. it doesn’t show up as mounted. But Data Recue 3 will recognize it.
13. Open Data Rescue 3 and do disk image recovery scan of choice. Preferably the ‘deleted file scan’ option
14. Be happy

Be aware that deleting files on your iPhone absolutely doesn’t mean your files are gone and are still available to anyone.

I do a lot of developing on the road and use MyWi 4.0 to tether my iphone 3g to my macbook pro. But what I don’t want is Vodafone’s partner Bytemobile compressing all the images and injecting javascript into my loaded pages. The source code looks like crap and some scripts don’t work at all.

So I searched for months, and finally found the solution (only for firefox, since I use this for developing myself )

- Download Modify Headers add-on for Firefox.
- Add these 2 lines:
> select: modify headers | Pragma | no-cache
> select: modify headers | Cache-Control | no-cache

No more Vodafone (or actually Bytemobile) inteference.

• Use ruler guides. If the existing dimensions of a graphic has changed, update the corresponding ruler guide to reflect the new dimension.

• Also delete unused/redundant ruler guides.
• Minimize the layer effects in the layers palette. Do not leave them in expanded mode.

Organizing Layers

• Name all your layers and layer groups appropriately.
• Delete unused layers or elements.
• Group all appropriate layers if possible.
• Color-coding your layers can be useful.

Clipping masks

• The Photoshop clipping mask feature is a quick way to create effects such as text filled with a photograph.

Hold down [ALT] and hold the cursor between the layers. You will see your cursor change to a little double circle icon. Click between the layers.

You can also apply the Clipping Mask from the menu. Select the layer you want to become a mask and go to Layer>Create Clipping Mask.

A litle arrow pointing downwards indicates the clipping mask is applied to the layer it’s pointing at.

Adjustment layers

• Adjustment layers are the smart way to apply many of Photoshop’s most-often-used adjustments because they don’t permanently change the image itself.

• After you select the adjustment, you need to name the layer.

To create a new adjustment layer, open an image with only a background layer, choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer, and then choose the type of adjustment to make using it.

To apply adjustment layer for only one specific layer:
Hold down [ALT] and hold the cursor between the layers. You will see your cursor change to a little double circle icon. Click between the layers.

A litle arrow pointing downwards indicates the adjustment is applied to the layer it’s pointing at. Including clipping paths.