“pro-pixel intensifying fauxtanical hydro-jargon micro bead extract infused with nutrive volumizing technology will leave your face virtually unrecognisable… My skin feels like plastic!”

thanks to Unionversity for posting this first

So switch off your computer, go outside and do something!

This top graphic is 849 x 312 pixels, with the small square being 180×180 (although this gets scaled down to 125 x 125. But rather than you having to worry about setting that up, I thought I’d upload Photoshop & Illustrator templates so anyone could make their own with little effort.

The .zip file contains layered Photoshop & Illustrator files 849 x 312px with a positional graphic for the profile picture in the Photoshop file.

download .zip
UPDATE: Almost 2,500 downloads in 21 days! Wow, I wasn’t expecting that!

A couple of months ago, I joked that I would look at creating an equivalent icon for websites, I actually sketched out a few ideas, but didn’t take it any further, until this weekend when I was realised I need one for my ID me at website, so I sat down to think about it a little more.

After numerous sketches and scribbled ideas based around “www”, “://” hyperlinks (even, dare I say it, a spider’s web), I eventually came back to a very simple solution and the first thing I’d drawn, a “w”

In keeping with the earliest web standards I used the web colour #0000FF (r=0 / g=0 / b=255) for the blue, plus added an underline to the “w”, both of these referring to the default way to identifying a hyperlink in standard HTML.

I’ve created a stylised “w” although I don’t see a reason why an underlined “w” in another font couldn’t work equally as well. As to colour, #0000FF makes perfect sense, but as with the blog icon, a colour more in keeping with it’s surroundings could be used.

As with the blog icon, I’m throwing this icon out there for anyone to use, tweak, do whatever they like with, totally gratis and without restriction. A mention or link back would be appreciated, but it’s not a prerequisite.

Let me know what you think and whether you’d use it, or know of anything else in use, I’ve included all original vector artwork and PNG’s with the blog icon .zip

Email may be being used less and less but we need email addresses, as they’re the most widely used open standard that we can use to uniquely identify ourselves on the internet. Of course Mr Zuckerberg would like to change that, and make having to have a Facebook ID the defacto ID and login for the web. That won’t happen as the web community naturally resists when a monopoly gets too big. Ironically you still need an email address to create a Facebook ID initially, although I’m sure it won’t be long before you can use just your mobile number to do it.

So why do I think needing an email address is likely to become a thing of the past, let’s look at phone numbers and domain names first.

When you purchase a mobile phone or have a landline installed, you get a unique number for your country or area, these numbers have in turn been allocated to the service provider you’ve chosen. If you choose to change service provider you can usually transfer the mobile number to the new one, thus retaining your number.

When you purchase a domain name, you choose a registrar that offers the services you need and pay them annually to retain it. If you decide to have a website you point the domain name at an IP address allocated to the service provider. The IP address is the unique ID number for the webserver that will host your website, 217.77.185.55 is an example. NB every device that connects to a network has a unique IP address.

So what? Well imagine this…

You go to a service provider that gives you a unique number, just like getting a mobile phone or a domain name, but unlike a mobile number, this number replaces your mobile, email, domain name, message service, voice calls, Twitter ID, Facebook ID, in fact any social network you choose to register it with.

If your number were +878101393436328

http://n.878101393436328 is your domain
@878101393436328 is you email, instant message ID
+878101393436328 is your phone number and entering the number is how you’re found on social networks (the same way someone finds you using your email address or mobile number)

You control how your messages are routed the same way you decide who hosts your website, or handles your email. So if someone calls +878101393436328 you decide if it gets routed to a mobile, landline, desktop, TV, tablet (or they could all ring at once, or in sequence), same when someone sends you an SMS, email, instant message, Tweet, Skype etc, it makes no difference how the message originated, as long as it’s routed correctly… the same way someone can call you on your mobile from the other side of the world using their phone / Skype, the audio gets routed to you instantly, no matter where you both are.

This will only be possible when the standards are open, there’s no monopoly and it’s available to everyone. That’s when email addresses or having to be on the same social network or instant message service or same VOIP service will become obsolete and a thing of the past.

Further reading: The ITU (International Telephone Union) introduced a universal personal telephone number (UPT) +878 in 2001 (wikipedia), controlled by VISIONng. ENUM is the process of converting a telephone number into an internet name space.

But think about this, email and messages in whatever format remains, but the days for having an “email address” are numbered! mmm, now that’s an interesting idea isn’t it.

But that won’t be until the various telephone, email services and social networks agree an open standard for messages and voice to flow freely and seamlessly between them, and that is unlikely to happen without coercion. The reason email has survived so long and is so prevalent is the same reason phone calls and SMS have proved so effective and robust, because they rely on open standards that anyone can use without restriction or more importantly, additional licensing costs.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could compose a message and send it, without worrying how the recipients have chosen to receive it, be it on their mobile as SMS, on a social network, as email, or whatever else they’ve decided upon.

Apple are making moves into this area, although very slowly, I write a text message on my iPhone, as I would any SMS, to a friend and it arrives on their iOS device, but it may have been routed to them as data (not an SMS), so via email servers but displays in their Messages app as an SMS.

Doesn’t sound that amazing at first, mainly because Apple have made it so effortless, but when you really think about it, the underlying principle is in fact ground-breaking. I send an SMS, and the recipient still receives it, even if they’re not on a telephone network or have reception (as long as they have internet connectivity)

But let’s take this one small step further, what if you had a single ID (not separate email addresses, mobile, landline, Skype, messaging, Facebook, twitter etc), a single way for people to contact you regardless whether the contact was voice, text, image, email, instant-message etc. How cool would that be? (of course you could still have a separate one for personal and home).

You give someone your unique ID (probably numbers 0-9 only, so it can be input using a phone), then they call, SMS, email, message you and you receive it regardless of the device you’re using, if you preferred you could split the incoming messages so voice goes to your mobile/landline/desktop/tablet/TV, SMS and messages to your messaging app, email to your email app… whatever you want, it’s your choice, the sender doesn’t need to know, it makes no difference to them… it just works.

So how cool would it be to have a single ID… mmmm, now where have I heard that idea mentioned before

You wouldn’t like it would you? Well, if you have a modern Android, BlackBerry or Nokia phone, then that’s exactly what’s been happening from the first time you switched it on.

And when I say every keystroke, I mean EVERY single keystroke! so yes every login and password you’ve made, even over HTTPS, has been recorded and is now stored by Carrier IQ

Don’t believe that’s possible, then check out this Wired article, plus the video below (although jump to 11 mins in for the good / scary stuff!)

Trevor Eckhart original post. The root kit creator Carrier IQ

* “rootkit,” a security term that refers to software installed at a low-level on a device, without a user’s consent or knowledge, in order to secretly intercept the device’s workings. Malware such as keyloggers and trojans are two examples.

UPDATE: there’s a Twitter hashtag for this now #CIQ

It’s an issue I’ve encounter numerous times, when a client thinks they are doing me a favour by giving me an open brief, as in reality there’s no worse type of brief to get! So I’ve often said ”Give me the flexibility of a tighter brief”

Plus I’m a firm believer of Occam’s Razor “The simplest solution is always the best” A design isn’t finished when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away

So in keeping with the article’s advice, I’m keeping the options of this post simple, here’s the link