Are We Getting a Tablet (form Apple or Microsoft) Any Time Soon?

Many people are spreading rumors about upcoming Apple tablet. Nobody's ever seen it, but the buzz is live and interest seems to be picking up. So, I keep asking myself would I ever need one? Steve Jobs and people at Apple are great in this field - the make you need something you didn't even know you needed before.

Recently I saw an online demo of Microsoft's tablet. I was very pleased with a concept, and from what I saw, I could really see myself using one. The only thing it's animation, not a real product. The concept is great, and I would really like to see Microsoft pull out a product like that. There is some skepticism from me, but hey, it's about time they do something right.

Apple's Multitouch Mouse

I've always liked Apple's Mighty Mouse, but it always had some problems with a scroll ball. What was happening is that the ball sensor would get dirty after a few months of use, and it would need a regular cleaning from that point on. This is something that I didn't like about it.

Recently Apple released new mouse - bluetooth and multitouch Magic Mouse. Last weekend I had a chance to play with this mouse at the local Best Buy store. The mouse really looks great, and it it really responsive, but one would need a little bit time to get used to its shape. It's a little bit to thin, and nothing like any mouse I've ever used. Mulitouch swipe commands were great, and you just move your finger up and down n the mouse to scroll. I liked that a lot – no more scroll ball to clean any more.

Folks at the Apple Insider have a nice review about Apple Magic Mouse, and you there are some pictures as well.

Is Restaurant Service Important?

I've been visiting many local restaurants with my family because. We like to dine out from time to time, and it is also a nice family time. Kids could be handful sometime, and that's one of the reasons that we try to pick and choose those that are more kids and family friendly.

There are some restaurants that we keep visiting over and over again, and there are some that we visited once and have no plan to visit again. Stacy St. Pierre's blog entry is trying to find an answer to this question – If you had ok food but the service was amazing, would you go back?

One of the bad service restaurants that we have visited in the last several months was Orchid Chinese restaurant in South Burlington. Food was OK, but the service was not good at all.

We went there with several family members, and there was 11 of us. It was good that we were able to pick and chose what we liked, but at all times those employees were monitoring us like we were about to steal something. They kept looking what plates are we taking, have we use this and that, etc.

At one time one of the employees snapped at one of our kids fir talking a little bowl for ice cream, instead of taking some other plate. That put everything over the top. It was really uncalled for. As a matter of fact, there was not labels next to any of the plate, bowls, and silverware. How are we supposed to know this stuff if we are not told or made aware of in some way.

The whole experience was bad that I couldn't wait to leave. After we left, we all agreed that service was bad, and we all agreed to never recommend this place to any of our friends. As a matter of fact, we shared that story when ever the conversation ended up bening about service, or good and bad placed to eat.

So, to answer Stacy's question – I would not go back to any place where service was poor, nor I would recommend it to anyone. I would advise against it.

About Car Pool

Car pool is one of the feasible options for saving money on gas, as well as cutting on the green gasses. This is not talked about a lot as it was some time last year when gas prices were peaking around $4 a gallon.

You can check Levi Jackson's blog and his take on this issue.

Most of all I found his illustration amusing. However, some people are not quite comfortable to drive with others, or they might have a problem to commit to be picked up at the same time every day, or be the one to do the pick up.

Last winter I was checking up some car pooling options to Smuggs resort. I kept checking thier car pooling option (ride share), as well as free bus pickups on a daily basis. They have a page for people to look for a share ride, or to offer a share ride.

Macs Are Growing In Popularity

I have to admit that I am a big Mac fan – not a Windows hater, but just a Mac fan. I started using them on a daily basis about 10 years ago. The main reason to start using them was to be able to check and develop websites that would work good on both platforms.

As my web projects are coming and going I started using Macs more and more. Now I just use PCs to check my websites for Windows platform compatibility.

When Macs moved to the Intel processors I was able to have Windows installed on my Mac. Now I have both platforms on a single computer. This is really great and helpful as well.

In last sevearal years Mac popularity grew a lot. By the latest IDC research, Macs now take about 9.4% of U.S. market share. You can read the whole article here.

Every Website Needs Some SEO

Many website owners do not realize that SEO is as important as building a website. One can spend a lot of money to design and develop good looking website, but if there is nobody to visit it than it's not doing anything.

All the content needs to contain key words that are the most important and define that business, page titles need to be relevant to the content. This concept applies to every page – every single page on the website is different and content and titles should relevant to every page.

Once the website is completed the owner needs to promote it and drive traffic to his website. The website needs to be submitted to major search engines, and based on the content to other paid for and free business directories (like DMOZ.org).

Importance of Web Presence

Every business regardless of size needs to have a web presence. Pretty much, almost every person that is looking for something does a research online first. It is done on order to save some time before they go and visit brick and mortar store, compare services, offers, or anything else for that matter.

So, does anybody want to miss out on any potential customer by not having a website? I think not.

Even if the website is small it could be used to promote services offered, tell visitors what they are about, advertise current promos, post contact information and working hours, etc.

New Web Site

Hello,

I'm glad to announce that the EMH Design has a new website up and running.
Please visit us at www.emhdesign.com and please feel free to drop me a note.

Latter ...

E

Quick hello

This is the unofficial blog of EMH Design.

EMH Deisgn is small web design and graphic design studio located in Winooski, VT. The main goal here is to provide affordable and quality web and graphic design services to other businesses.

Currently the new site design is in works and it will be geared towards more CSS usage, and possibly some AJAX experiments.

We'll see pretty soon how it will turn out ...

E.