Day: 28 agosto, 2010

[Chicas relajen…, o no!, bueno aquí unos consejos] 7 Myths About Sex After 50

Who says sex stops at midlife? Dr. Dorree Lynn, author of Sex for Grownups, debunks the myths and reveals the lies.

Myth #1: Older women are lousy lovers.
False! For centuries, older women would initiate young men into the world of sexual pleasures. You have history and experience on your side; you’ve lived long enough to have earned your stature. Hold your head up high and believe in yourself. Think of some of those wonderful role models: Susan Sarandon, Helen Mirran, Meryl Streep, Iman and so many others. Roll like a Role Model and show the word how wonderful it is to be over 50 and how fortunate a woman is to get there.

Myth #2: Older women don’t want sex as much as older men do.
Women just want more talk along with sex. Women love foreplay and feeling desired. If your partner doesn’t “get it” suggest a date night away from the bedroom and gently talk to him (or her) about what you want. Communication is the key. Foreplay starts in the morning with an “ I love you” or a stroke of your hair. Desire can continue at any age.


By Dr. Dorree Lynn

7 Myths About Sex After 50

Who says sex stops at midlife?  Dr. Dorree Lynn, author of Sex for Grownups, debunks the myths and reveals the lies.

Myth #1: Older women are lousy lovers.
False! For centuries, older women would initiate young men into the world of sexual pleasures.  You have history and experience on your side; you’ve lived long enough to have earned your stature. Hold your head up high and believe in yourself. Think of some of those wonderful role models: Susan Sarandon, Helen Mirran, Meryl Streep, Iman and so many others. Roll like a Role Model and show the word how wonderful it is to be over 50 and how fortunate a woman is to get there.

Myth #2: Older women don’t want sex as much as older men do.
Women just want more talk along with sex. Women love foreplay and feeling desired. If your partner doesn’t “get it” suggest a date night away from the bedroom and gently talk to him (or her) about what you want. Communication is the key. Foreplay starts in the morning with an “ I love you” or a stroke of your hair. Desire can continue at any age.
Leer más “[Chicas relajen…, o no!, bueno aquí unos consejos] 7 Myths About Sex After 50”

Wendy’s Introduces “Natural” French Fries

French fries are not the first thing that comes to mind when you think about “natural” foods. But that isn’t stopping Wendy’s from testing out its so-called Natural Fries in select markets throughout Florida, North Carolina, and Louisiana. The fries are pretty bare bones–just skin-on strips of potato slathered in oils and sea salt. Regular Wendy’s fries contain table salt, oil, and sodium acid pyrophosphate (to protect color).

So far, customer reviews have been positive. Wendy’s executives are also excited about the new fries. Food blogger Rick Allen explains:

But at least one local Wendy’s manager is thrilled with the new fries, too. Larry Romanik, who runs the Wendy’s at 3001 E. Silver Springs Blvd., says in the three weeks they’ve been available, “They’ve been getting overwhelmingly rave reviews. I think we’ve had only one negative so far.”


BY Ariel Schwartz

French fries

French fries are not the first thing that comes to mind when you think about “natural” foods. But that isn’t stopping Wendy’s from testing out its so-called Natural Fries in select markets throughout Florida, North Carolina, and Louisiana. The fries are pretty bare bones–just skin-on strips of potato slathered in oils and sea salt. Regular Wendy’s fries contain table salt, oil, and sodium acid pyrophosphate (to protect color).

So far, customer reviews have been positive. Wendy’s executives are also excited about the new fries. Food blogger Rick Allen explains:

But at least one local Wendy’s manager is thrilled with the new fries, too. Larry Romanik, who runs the Wendy’s at 3001 E. Silver Springs Blvd., says in the three weeks they’ve been available, “They’ve been getting overwhelmingly rave reviews. I think we’ve had only one negative so far.” Leer más “Wendy’s Introduces “Natural” French Fries”

Line25 Sites of the Week for August 27th 2010

Line25 Sites of the Week is a weekly roundup of the most outstanding website designs that I stumble across during my every day browsing. In this week’s collection, we have designs from Little Black Dress Society, Themify, Hull Digital, CandyBar and Carbon Ads.


Line25 Sites of the Week is a weekly roundup of the most outstanding website designs that I stumble across during my every day browsing. In this week’s collection, we have designs from Little Black Dress Society, Themify, Hull Digital, CandyBar and Carbon Ads.

View the website

Themify

View the website Leer más “Line25 Sites of the Week for August 27th 2010”

When Crowdsourcing Goes Wrong

There are lots of success stories about crowdsourcing out there, but unfortunately, there are also a fair number about crowdsourcing failures. Recently I’ve read about or heard about some perceived failures, in particular the Pepsi Refresh Challenge and the Mad Men Casting Call, which have motivated me to write about why some crowdsourcing goes wrong. Naturally, we don’t like to talk about the failures; we’d much rather say all crowdsourcing projects provide benefit…


The crowdsourcing process in eight steps.
Image via Wikipedia

Randy Corke

There are lots of success stories about crowdsourcing out there, but unfortunately, there are also a fair number about crowdsourcing failures.   Recently I’ve read about or heard about some perceived failures, in particular the Pepsi Refresh Challenge and the Mad Men Casting Call, which have motivated me to write about why some crowdsourcing goes wrong.  Naturally, we don’t like to talk about the failures; we’d much rather say all crowdsourcing projects provide benefit… Leer más “When Crowdsourcing Goes Wrong”

Prepping Candidates and Taming Hiring Managers

Most candidates — even high-level executives — need to be prepped before the interview. The reason for this is obvious: they all think they’re great interviewees. Most aren’t. Making matters worse, the hiring managers they’ll be meeting think they’re endowed with some special instinct that allows them to accurately assess candidate competency. Most aren’t.

Since I don’t like to present great candidates who get inadvertently excluded for dumb reasons, I need to prep both my hiring manager clients and my candidates to increase the likelihood the candidates are appropriately and accurately evaluated. This way I don’t have to do searches over again and rely on luck to make placements.

To be taken seriously on this point I had to write a book: Hire With Your Head. Basically it describes a process on how to get hiring managers and candidates on the same page. From the hiring manager’s perspective, it’s describing the work as a series of performance objectives required for on-the-job success. (I refer to these as performance profiles.) From the candidate’s perspective, it’s having them describe a comparable accomplishment for each performance objective. For example, let’s assume the job required the new product marketing manager to develop and launch 25 new iPad apps over the course of the next year. During the interview you’d ask the candidate to describe in detail some comparable product-marketing-related accomplishment. I suggest spending 10-15 minutes getting lots of details for each accomplishment. (Here’s my one-question interview article I wrote for ERE in 2001 on how to do this.) These performance objectives can be split among the hiring team; then, during the collective debrief, the team can rank the candidate on how well the accomplishments compare.

At least that’s the theory. In the field other things happen to mess up this plan.


Photograph taken during the California rodeo, Salinas, 2006 edition Copyright © 2006 David MonniauxMost candidates — even high-level executives — need to be prepped before the interview. The reason for this is obvious: they all think they’re great interviewees. Most aren’t. Making matters worse, the hiring managers they’ll be meeting think they’re endowed with some special instinct that allows them to accurately assess candidate competency. Most aren’t.

Since I don’t like to present great candidates who get inadvertently excluded for dumb reasons, I need to prep both my hiring manager clients and my candidates to increase the likelihood the candidates are appropriately and accurately evaluated. This way I don’t have to do searches over again and rely on luck to make placements.

To be taken seriously on this point I had to write a book: Hire With Your Head. Basically it describes a process on how to get hiring managers and candidates on the same page. From the hiring manager’s perspective, it’s describing the work as a series of performance objectives required for on-the-job success. (I refer to these as performance profiles.) From the candidate’s perspective, it’s having them describe a comparable accomplishment for each performance objective. For example, let’s assume the job required the new product marketing manager to develop and launch 25 new iPad apps over the course of the next year. During the interview you’d ask the candidate to describe in detail some comparable product-marketing-related accomplishment. I suggest spending 10-15 minutes getting lots of details for each accomplishment. (Here’s my one-question interview article I wrote for ERE in 2001 on how to do this.) These performance objectives can be split among the hiring team; then, during the collective debrief, the team can rank the candidate on how well the accomplishments compare.

At least that’s the theory. In the field other things happen to mess up this plan. Leer más “Prepping Candidates and Taming Hiring Managers”

Robert Cialdini y los 6 Principios de la Infuencia

Robert B. Cialdini es el psicólogo social más citado del mundo, particularmente gracias sus 6 principios de la influencia. Cialdini (27 de abril de 1945) es escritor, y profesor de psicología en la Universidad Estatal de Arizona. Estudió en la Universidad de Columbia y se doctoró en la Universidad de Carolina del Norte, y actualmente es muy conocido por ser uno de los principales estudiosos de la psicología social de la persuasión.

Las 6 reglas de la comunicación persuasiva de Cialdini se basan en aprovechar algunos patrones de conducta interiorizados de manera colectiva en la psique humana, con el fin de influir en el comportamiento del interlocutor. Se trata de resortes naturales que surgen de heurísticas más que de procesos lógicos o de reflexiones.


Imagen: Open Salon

los-seis-principios-de-la-influencia-de-robert-cialdiniRobert B. Cialdini es el psicólogo social más citado del mundo, particularmente gracias sus 6 principios de la influencia. Cialdini (27 de abril de 1945) es escritor, y profesor de psicología en la Universidad Estatal de Arizona. Estudió en la Universidad de Columbia y se doctoró en la Universidad de Carolina del Norte, y actualmente es muy conocido por ser uno de los principales estudiosos de la psicología social de la persuasión.

Las 6 reglas de la comunicación persuasiva de Cialdini se basan en aprovechar algunos patrones de conducta interiorizados de manera colectiva en la psique humana, con el fin de influir en el comportamiento del interlocutor. Se trata de resortes naturales que surgen de heurísticas más que de procesos lógicos o de reflexiones.

Leer más “Robert Cialdini y los 6 Principios de la Infuencia”

Social Media Marketing to Baby Boomers

If your business or marketing department has dismissed Facebook and other social networking venues or social media platforms as digital playgrounds for indolent teenagers and twenty-somethings, this Pew Research Center study should be the blaring wake-up call to get you thinking otherwise.

More and more older adults are spending increasing amounts of time on the internet and on social media sites in particular. As you might suspect, they are connecting with old friends, keeping in touch with family members, building personal and professional networks to help find jobs and advance careers, and managing their daily communications. And wherever your company’s targeted demographic or secondary market is spending increasing amounts of time, you should be shifting increasing focus on your marketing efforts.


Facebook is not just for kids anymore, nor is LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube or the many other popular social media platforms and services. As today’s Pew Research Center study entitled “Older Adults and Social Media” concludes, “Social networking use among those ages 50 and older nearly doubled over the past year.” In fact, the fastest growing demographic of social networking users consists of Baby Boomers ages 50 to 64. Nearly half (47 percent) of internet users ages 50-64 and about one in four (26 percent) users age 65 and older now use social networking sites, according to the study. Leer más “Social Media Marketing to Baby Boomers”

Repeat Business: There’s More of You to Love

Are you familiar with the following concept? It is much easier and more cost effective to sell to existing customers than it is to acquirer a new one. Which one would you rather have? Sell 50 items to 5 people or 50 items to 50 people. When you are designing and tweaking your marketing campaigns, be sure to include your current customer base and maximum their profit potential. Here are several ways to do just that, give your customers a reason to come back for more.

Special Discount Offers

I recently purchased something from an online retailer. When I received my package, I noticed there was a discount coupon inside that I could use on my next purchase. I’m a sucker for coupons and many consumers are. It is a great way to encourage and entice your customers to order again. For best results, the coupon should have a higher discount value than what is normally offered to the general public on sites like Retailmenot.com. The discount should also be a one-time use coupon. This will prevent others from sharing it online and reduce the perceived value.


Post image for Repeat Business: There’s More of You to Love

Curtis Stevens

By Curtis Stevens

Are you familiar with the following concept?  It is much easier and more cost effective to sell to existing customers than it is to acquirer a new one.  Which one would you rather have?  Sell 50 items to 5 people or 50 items to 50 people.  When you are designing and tweaking your marketing campaigns, be sure to include your current customer base and maximum their profit potential.  Here are several ways to do just that, give your customers a reason to come back for more.

Special Discount Offers

I recently purchased something from an online retailer.  When I received my package, I noticed there was a discount coupon inside that I could use on my next purchase.  I’m a sucker for coupons and many consumers are.  It is a great way to encourage and entice your customers to order again.  For best results, the coupon should have a higher discount value than what is normally offered to the general public on sites like Retailmenot.com.  The discount should also be a one-time use coupon.  This will prevent others from sharing it online and reduce the perceived value. Leer más “Repeat Business: There’s More of You to Love”

10 Free Website Chat Widgets to Make Your Site Interactive

If you want to make your website livelier, then adding a website chat widget is perhaps one of the more effective solutions for increasing user engagement and growing your community.

By putting a proper website chat widget on your site, you will get real-time feedback from site visitors regarding your product, services, or content. For sites that sell services or products, a chat widget will definitely help you communicate with your visitors in real-time and potentially make more sales.


by Phong Thai Cao

If you want to make your website livelier, then adding a website chat widget is perhaps one of the more effective solutions for increasing user engagement and growing your community.

By putting a proper website chat widget on your site, you will get real-time feedback from site visitors regarding your product, services, or content. For sites that sell services or products, a chat widget will definitely help you communicate with your visitors in real-time and potentially make more sales. Leer más “10 Free Website Chat Widgets to Make Your Site Interactive”

How to Stay Simple with your Product

Let’s face it, we designers love to start from scratch. For example: How may times do we revamp our own portfolios? Staying simple is crucial when starting from scratch.

We hear this “staying simple” phrase a lot these days. Is it just a bunch of jargon or is there something to it? We found one approach that you probably haven’t considered.

We all know that we need to focus the website visitor’s attention on a few core features which bring value to the visitors. The minute you start adding too many features to please every visitor, you bargain for too much attention.

The result is that visitors get overwhelmed and confused without understanding the value. You’ve got to show the value to the user right away. You can’t waste too much of their time.


thumbLet’s face it, we designers love to start from scratch. For example: How may times do we revamp our own portfolios? Staying simple is crucial when starting from scratch.

We hear this “staying simple” phrase a lot these days. Is it just a bunch of jargon or is there something to it? We found one approach that you probably haven’t considered.

We all know that we need to focus the website visitor’s attention on a few core features which bring value to the visitors. The minute you start adding too many features to please every visitor, you bargain for too much attention.

The result is that visitors get overwhelmed and confused without understanding the value. You’ve got to show the value to the user right away. You can’t waste too much of their time. Leer más “How to Stay Simple with your Product”

Web Design: Reboot, or Just Upgrade Instead?

Change is always hard, and knowing when to upgrade or redesign is among the most critical events in a site’s history. A successful transition from old to new will revitalise a community, give renewed interest in your content or perhaps better portray your services. A poorly thought through redesign may cause your current user base to consider going to your competitors instead. As such, we need to highlight the methods we use within upgrades and that may hold the longevity your site requires.

Web Design: Reboot, or Just Upgrade Instead?
Time for Something New

Whenever you begin walking the pathway towards a website redesign, the initial question which makes itself apparent is whether to start from scratch and come up with something totally fresh and new (which hopefully will appeal to your existing audience) or whether to take the website you have already and implement a wide series of changes and tweaks to optimize the existing experience. Both have their advantages and disadvantages but as is often the case, things aren’t quite clear cut.

Time for Something New

Figure 1: Whichever route you go down, your visitors should be at the forefront of your mind.

In the search for a direction to take, we must examine the benefits and pitfalls which each of those methods bring as there isn’t a solution which is perfect for every website. Arguably if we look at the statistics the idea of a total redesign is more appealing with smaller websites due to the dynamic nature of their audience, but with larger especially corporate institutions the trend is to patch and stretch the existing design to the limits which can be afforded. Both are of general equal popularity.


Change is always hard, and knowing when to upgrade or redesign is among the most critical events in a site’s history. A successful transition from old to new will revitalise a community, give renewed interest in your content or perhaps better portray your services. A poorly thought through redesign may cause your current user base to consider going to your competitors instead. As such, we need to highlight the methods we use within upgrades and that may hold the longevity your site requires.

Web Design: Reboot, or Just Upgrade Instead?

Time for Something New

Whenever you begin walking the pathway towards a website redesign, the initial question which makes itself apparent is whether to start from scratch and come up with something totally fresh and new (which hopefully will appeal to your existing audience) or whether to take the website you have already and implement a wide series of changes and tweaks to optimize the existing experience. Both have their advantages and disadvantages but as is often the case, things aren’t quite clear cut.

Time for Something New

Figure 1: Whichever route you go down, your visitors should be at the forefront of your mind.

In the search for a direction to take, we must examine the benefits and pitfalls which each of those methods bring as there isn’t a solution which is perfect for every website. Arguably if we look at the statistics the idea of a total redesign is more appealing with smaller websites due to the dynamic nature of their audience, but with larger especially corporate institutions the trend is to patch and stretch the existing design to the limits which can be afforded. Both are of general equal popularity. Leer más “Web Design: Reboot, or Just Upgrade Instead?”

40+ Elegant Free CSS/(X)HTML Templates from 2010


Today we present some useful free CSS/(X)HTML templates which are available for free download and use. You may want to consider using them for your next projects or build upon them, creating more advanced themes from these basic templates.

Free CSS/(X)HTML Templates

Blue Jeans (Demo | Download)
Stand out from the crowd with this cool, free template for a portfolio website based on blue jeans texture.

Blue-jeans in 40+ Elegant Free CSS/(X)HTML Templates from 2010

Portfolio (Demo | Download)
An HTML 5 and CSS based website template suitable for businesses. It has a jQuery slide show in the home page header for displaying your latest work, featured contents or can also be used to tell your visitor what your web site is all about.

Portfolio in 40+ Elegant Free CSS/(X)HTML Templates from 2010

High Five (Demo | Download)
It can be useful if you need to show case your work / portfolio. Most of the style elements are in the CSS including styles for Blog, Comment Template etc.

High-five in 40+ Elegant Free CSS/(X)HTML Templates from 2010

AppCloud (Demo | Download)
It has been designed with tones of blue, white and a bit grey to point out the gadgets and provide more usability that you can obtain information you need faster and more easily. You can display all gadgets you are selling.

Appcloud in 40+ Elegant Free CSS/(X)HTML Templates from 2010 Leer más “40+ Elegant Free CSS/(X)HTML Templates from 2010”

¿Es posible el diálogo político en la red?


Ayer estuve investigando, a raíz de un comentario de un lector coruñés (gracias, Roberto), sobre las venturas y desventuras del alcalde de la ciudad, Javier Losada, dentro de la web social. Vaya por delante que no pretendo en ningún caso en esta entrada significarme a favor o en contra de un alcalde cuya gestión desconozco en detalle, sino hablar de una cuestión más de fondo de la que este caso es solo un botón de muestra: ¿es posible el diálogo político en la red?

Las circunstancias específicas del caso pueden leerse en medios como La Opinión Coruña, Xornal de Galicia o El País: el alcalde se ha convertido en blanco de la ira de las asociaciones antitaurinas por su aparente defensa de una fiesta a la que habitualmente acude, y por un criterio de reducción de gastos que le llevaban a, por ejemplo, suspender un festival de rock mientras mantenía el cartel de la feria taurina (tampoco tengo ningún interés en entrar en la discusión sobre si toros sí o toros no en esta entrada). El alcalde es, además, un ferviente usuario de la web social: tiene blog, página en Facebook, canal en YouTube, galería en Picasa y Twitter, y aunque desconozco si los actualiza personalmente, al menos mantiene en ellos un tono muy directo y personal. Leer más “¿Es posible el diálogo político en la red?”

Quality Athletic Websites

Quality Athletic Websites
By Brady Nord | Published August 27th, 2010 in Inspiration

There are not many aspects in life that can bridge gaps between religion, race, and nationality. Although, one that has proven time and time again is sport. There is not a city across the world that you can visit without seeing a team jersey or logo somewhere! Because of this, many sports clubs and teams have a unique challenge of designing their web presence to appeal to an international arena more so then the rest of us. I have assembled what I would consider out of the box and quality athletic based websites.

Whether you love or hate the brand or team, I hope you would agree that these companies are standing out in comparison to what the rest of the field is doing.


By Brady Nord

There are not many aspects in life that can bridge gaps between religion, race, and nationality. Although, one that has proven time and time again is sport. There is not a city across the world that you can visit without seeing a team jersey or logo somewhere! Because of this, many sports clubs and teams have a unique challenge of designing their web presence to appeal to an international arena more so then the rest of us. I have assembled what I would consider out of the box and quality athletic based websites.Whether you love or hate the brand or team, I hope you would agree that these companies are standing out in comparison to what the rest of the field is doing.

Manchester United Football Club

Manchester City Football Club

USA Soccer

Leer más “Quality Athletic Websites”

Free Wireframing Kits, UI Design Kits, PDFs and Resources

To mock-up the user interface of a website, software or any other product, you’ll need some basic UI elements. And this is where wireframing kits and UI design kits come in handy. When you want to create a low-fidelity prototype for your projects, you can use these kits to give your idea a certain shape, keeping it abstract and not losing yourself in details.

In this post, we’ve prepared an overview of useful web and mobile user interface kits, handy PDFs and resources that you can use in your projects. We’ve carefully selected the most useful kits and resources to get you going in the early stages of a project.

[Offtopic: by the way, did you know that we are publishing a Smashing eBook Series? The brand new eBook #3 is Mastering Photoshop For Web Design, written by our Photoshop-expert Thomas Giannattasio.]
Free Mobile GUI PSD

Android GUI PSD
This Android GUI PSD is based on elements of the Android 1.5 GUI and was made to help the open-source community with its Android application mock-ups. Most of the elements and phone illustrations are done in vector paths and so are easily resizable. Android Sans was used for the text.


To mock-up the user interface of a website, software or any other product, you’ll need some basic UI elements. And this is where wireframing kits and UI design kits come in handy. When you want to create a low-fidelity prototype for your projects, you can use these kits to give your idea a certain shape, keeping it abstract and not losing yourself in details.

In this post, we’ve prepared an overview of useful web and mobile user interface kits, handy PDFs and resources that you can use in your projects. We’ve carefully selected the most useful kits and resources to get you going in the early stages of a project.

[Offtopic: by the way, did you know that we are publishing a Smashing eBook Series? The brand new eBook #3 is Mastering Photoshop For Web Design, written by our Photoshop-expert Thomas Giannattasio.]

Free Mobile GUI PSD

Android GUI PSD
This Android GUI PSD is based on elements of the Android 1.5 GUI and was made to help the open-source community with its Android application mock-ups. Most of the elements and phone illustrations are done in vector paths and so are easily resizable. Android Sans was used for the text.

Uidesignkit50 in Free Wireframing Kits, UI Design Kits, PDFs and Resources

Leer más “Free Wireframing Kits, UI Design Kits, PDFs and Resources”