Happy Christmas from South Africa

Wishing Happy Christmas from South Africa – the land of beautiful sunshine, music, grandiose landscapes abounding wildlife and . . . warm welcoming smiles! Including those from the meerkats you see below!

Meerkat Manor

If you are still looking for a Xmas gift for a child or a Nature loving person of any age but young at heart, I would warmly recommend “Meerkat Manor” from Animal Planet!

This is just a tip – no commissions or hind thoughts attached – Bianca style!

It’s just such a worthwhile experience to watch these series produced by Oxford Scientific Films over a time period of 10 years! So much to learn about social behavior! So much to laugh… to see ourselves mirrored in the most hilarious ways… and yes, to cry at times… Just simply wonderful and certainly something to watch together as a family!

Happy Christmas from South Africa

I knew meerkats very well myself when growing up in Namibia and I photographed them in the “World of Birds” in Hout Bay not too long ago… today they put on their little red hats for my “Happy Christmas from South Africa” image.

However, after watching the above series my heart even goes out more to them and I applaud the loving, knowledgeable and probably incredibly patient creators – before and behind the scenes! What a wonderful gift!

The Joy of Living in all its Wholeness!

Semiomantics XO 2011 Author Blogs

Semiomantics XO 2011 Author Blogs were the main topic of this month’s extensive and demanding Ycademy Seminar – an appropriate topic for the end of an eventful year of learning and producing on our mutual “Path to Profitability”.

Semiomantics XO 2011 Author Blogs

The new WordPress based Semiomantics XO 2011 Script  for the Semiomantics XO 2011 Author Blogs – while keeping its focus on high performance on Search Engines and improved user-friendliness – allows us to focus even more on an image- and media-oriented Web Design.

To this end, we acquired new knowledge for the integration of attractive Flash Components, be it slide shows, galleries or carousels.

Semiomantics Web Design

With my focus on Semiomantics Web Design, my first shot here is – possibly was – to integrate a slideshow featuring a way of introduction to my Web Design Showcase. The idea is that interested parties coming to my Author Blog, namely its Home page, would be attracted by the rotating images and stimulated to click on one or the other, which would lead them to my Showcase.

Accordingly, all 7/7 slides were produced as screenshots in the format to be shown and reduced to minimum weight in Adobe Photoshop.

First hurdle: as I am working with a brilliant poppy-red, reducing these slides is dicy – but it needed a try as the idea is right. Though I was skeptical about the result. However, one never knows without trying…

Then the slideshow was created in the new Wonder tool and turned into a .swf file that was loaded to the flash folder on the server and the code correctly adapted as to its name and size in the header-home.php.

The result made me gasp: it was not what I expected in terms of size – especially after those beautifully smooth slider-filling Greek landscapes -, although not without interest for a possible project in the future. I made a mental note of this and observed the rest…

When it stopped on a black player screen….  as you see on the image here … this was definitely not my intention and needed urgent remedy – but where?

All sizes were correct… what had I overlooked?

Well, it suddenly dawned on me: the Settings in the Wonder Tool had completely drifted out of my mind – and once the size (width/height) had been corrected here and saved (it hopped out in the first round, so this one can be tricky), everything appeared in the correct size and shape – albeit the result did not reflect the quality I had expected and hoped for… nor the sharpness and elegance of the originals on my Semiomantics Evolution.

Interestingly, the screenshots and pictures in Photoshop are absolutely clear… and I had set the quality to 100%/best in the Wonder Tool.

So my conclusion is: probably I reduced the quality too much when saving them for the web. As mentioned, red is not an easy color to work with – we know that. Turning down the quality to optimize them in terms of opening speed for the display leads to bleeding and fuzziness… and it’s most probably the crucial hook here. Hmmm….

So I will try something else. . .

Changing the Look

Changing the look of a website has many unexpected implications that obviously all bear the seed for discovery and invention.

When one finds oneself suddenly with a wide space without the many columns we so much got used to lean on, meaning with the whole page as a playground for content – text and pictures agogo – one has to find other anchors as balance and harmony still lead – at least in my view. Of course, pictures could appear in much larger formats than the 460 px we adopted mainly also in view of syndications… and opening speed of course.

Perhaps there is a possibility to change the inner pages to having columns . . . one day we’ll know!

Dynamic Digital Advertising for Events

Dynamic Digital Advertising for Events and Conference Venues in Noordhoek Cape Town, South Africa, hits stiff competition as the mother city abounds with beautiful and professionally run venues. One more reason to stand out with one’s advertising campaign – and what grabs peoples’ attention most is when quality images and a good message are presented in  dunamic format – here’s just another example promoting Monkey Valley Resort in Noordhoek near Cape Town, South Africa, as a truly exquisite Event and Conferencing Venue:

Dynamic Digital Advertising for Events

In the above example of “Dynamic Digital Advertising for Events”, care has been taken that the roof doesn’t fly off beyond the upper line of the visible screen!

No, don’t click :)… here I brought the z-distance far into the minus zone (left) and had the image hop straight into my face! However, who knows… I may need this effect for something specific one day! Imagination feeds on our experience…

Best Cape Town Conference Venues

As summer hits Cape Town and the holiday season is approaching, advertising for Best Cape Town Conference Venues is critical… and who doesn’t believe a beautiful natural environment enhances a readiness to learn… and with it Productivity?

Best Cape Town Wedding Venues

Following yesterday’s exercise and still using the same three images, here is another example promoting Monkey Valley Resort as one of the Best Cape Town Wedding Venues:

It’s sort of  “flying high”… so we need a solution to that….

Best Cape Town Wedding Venues

With this example for “Best Cape Town Wedding Venues” the number of slices were increased – as one can clearly see on the image below – and so was the z-distance to avoid the sliced particles to fly out over the top.

Dynamic Digital Advertising

Dynamic Digital Advertising is the current trend on the Internet; let’s see how long it will survive until the next gimmick overtakes it! No boredom for sure and lots of learning and inventing all the time!

Noordhoek Beach Blog

As we continue with our fast-fire “Sandbox” Exercise – creating different blogs at different complexity levels… I did my part on the “Bold Blog” theme – another Photo Blog theme in a way – we were given in last night’s Ycademy Workshop :

And this with extremely slow Internet connections… if at all.

Noordhoek Beach Blog

I call this Noordhoek Beach Blog “Misty Beach” after the photo I took on Wednesday. Moments after this, everything was enveloped in thick mist – a sensation like being in fairyland, with the sound of seagulls and ibis penetrating through layered cotton wool.

At the same time, and not even 1 km away, at the famous Kakapo wreck, a drama took its course. This picture will remind me… we turned around in time as we saw the world disappearing and – with noone around – making us very vulnerable.

Yes, it could also be a Photo Blog, or a Town Blog – the theme is flexuble and can be turned into many different variations. Time-permitting, I’ll do more…

Website Development Exercise

This is just one example of how the result of yesterday’s Website Development Exercise could look.

All scripts and themes behave slightly different, although the basic principles are the same. The more experience we gather, the faster we will handle our customers’ requests – and time is money. For them. For us.

Knowledge is always a result of experience, there is no mastering without it… excluding prodiges and sages of course, but that is a totally different aspect that I won’t cover here.

The biggest challenge in my case was how to get the thumbnails to eventually show… firstly on posts written in the Blog, and then those we had syndicated. . . but, with some tenacity and !!! the problem was solved!

Next!

Semiomantics Web Design

Need a professional Website that stands out and brings in all the Traffic you need?

Get a hand on the most sophisticated Semiomantics Web Design in my SHOP HERE.

Copyright © 2010 Bianca Gubalke. Visit the original article at http://biancagubalke.com/media-marketing/real-estate-blog-on-semiomantics/.

Real Estate Blog on Semiomantics

As we continue our “Sandbox Exercise” of setting up a series of extremely affordable blog themes, our first example being a  “Photo Blog“, we went into setting up a Real Estate Blog on Semiomantics.

My example here demonstrates the default theme with no interference in the stylesheet or functions.php (except resizing the Agent picture that was too large for my taste and messed up small pictures when loaded). While these are not my favourite colours, they may appeal to a customer – and that’s what counts: that the customer gets what he or she wants, in their preferred colour and layout.

Real Estate Blog on Semiomantics

A Real Estate Blog on Semiomantics will have to focus on the same main categories as any specialized Property blog or website out there on the market – it’s all about:

~ To Sell
~ To Rent
~ To Buy (we did not include this as yet… but it’s part of the line of thoughts and services obviously).

Then we need additional information about the Agent or the Agency, a Contact form, possibly a Calculator.

What do People look for?

What we need to know is what people look for – so we formulate certain criteria to offer a user-friendly surf and search experience.

Here are the main criteria:
~ Location (position) – meaning where is the object?
~ Price – what price bracket is it in?
~ Type – is it For Sale, To Rent or To Buy?
~ Features – what are the special add-ons, eg. a pool, garden, sea view, double garage, sauna etc…

The Property Salespage

While we don’t follow a typical sales pipeline here, a Real Estate Blog is nothing else but a Property Salespage, providing information and picture material about the different objects via a practical Multi-Search function…, and fast ways to contact the Agent… from there the ball starts rolling.

We will look into changing the colour scheme at this evening’s Call starting @ 7 pm London time in yorGOtalk.

Copyright © 2010 Bianca Gubalke. Visit the original article at http://biancagubalke.com/bianca-gubalke/diversity-in-africa-conference-in-dallas/.

Diversity in Africa Conference in Dallas

Presenting Part 3/3 of the LIVE talk from Noordhoek – Cape Town, South Africa, as part of the “Diversity in Africa” Conference in Dallas, Texas, USA, on 28 October 2010 – click to the right in the Media Box or go HERE.

Diversity in Africa Conference in Dallas

The “Diversity in Africa Conference” in Dallas also offered us a great opportunity to show our professionalism, flexibility and reliability in high quality Online Conferencing – something that is quite normal for all participants of Daily InfoCalls in yorGOtalk or the monthly Ycademy Seminars. The advantages of this practical, fast and modern form of Online Communication are endless. Lastly, it’s a way to bring the world together with a mouse-click and in a comparatively ecological way.

Best Accommodation Noordhoek Cape Town

In the last part, we will follow the amazing pictures of David Turnley featuring many aspects of what is certainly the Best Accommodation in Noordhoek – Cape Town, South Africa, for everyone who loves to experience the wonderful closeness with Nature at Monkey Valley Nature Resort…

Further to this, listen to “I am an African” – a beautiful poem written by Wayne Visser.

Enjoy… and keep South Africa in your heart!

Copyright © 2010 Bianca Gubalke. Visit the original article at http://biancagubalke.com/semiomantics/ute-schaedler-on-semiomantics-team/.

Ute Schaedler on Semiomantics Team

Finally – Ute Schaedler from Germany has made it to the Semiomantics Team! Click on the image below to see it enlarged!

Ute Schaedler on Semiomantics Team

What is Ute Schaedler on the Semiomantics Team all about… onlinewise that is?

In fact, she was the first to deliver her collection of Semiomantics Web Design screenshots, ranging from Health & Fitness and her favorite subject: Flowers (especially in soft yellows and purples) to PLRs, Ebooks and the many things she offers in her Semiomantics Shop. Just not that top photo that was needed… and that took a little while to produce and to prepare. But now Ute is ready amidst her favorite topics!

Besides her love for beautiful images and her precision due to her background in bookkeeping, Ute has a good command of what happens behind the visible scenes of website development – the html, the php, css and whatever code it takes to produce a smashing website, be it Semiomantics XO or Evolution.

She is the perfect partner for the German speaking community – be it from Germany, Austria or Switzerland: Nicht verzagen, Ute fragen!

Semiomantics Flame in Germany

So the Semiomantics Flame has travelled from New York across the Atlantic Ocean and all the way to Northern Germany… where will it go next?

We will know soon :)

Diversity Conference in Dallas

Presenting Video 2 (of 3) of the LIVE Conference in Dallas, Texas, on 28 October 2010, about ‘Diversity in Africa’  as part of the Diversity Month of the US government.

The focus here is on Noordhoek at the Southern tip of Africa. Please click on the image below to enlarge it and see how an Online Conference Room can look like – here with 2 audio/video channels and a large screen where projects with text, documents, images, videos and any kind of slideshow can be shown to anyone present in this virtual Microsoft environment.

Diversity Conference in Dallas

At this Diversity Conference in Dallas, Bianca Gubalke in Noordhoek, South Africa, is addressing the US audience LIVE on camera, while paging through her new website for Monkey Valley Resort on Semiomantics Evolution Flash.

Her partner in Dallas, Les Kudla, is LIVE on camera as well while projecting everything visible in this virtual room onto large screens in the high-tech environment and conferencing center in Dallas Airport.

Semiomantics Evolution Flash

Anyone interested in a similar website setup on the unique and brand-new Semiomantics Evolution Flash please get in touch via http://biancagubalke.com/contact

Diversity Month in US Government

“It’s Diversity Month in the US Government and there are African displays all over the show. We have an impressive list of speakers over here, but I would like to make an experiment here in Dallas, Texas – the 4th largest Airport in the world: can you talk on Diversity in Africa? I mean LIVE Online – from your Online Conferencing Center? I would then project via my laptop …? Right into our high-tech Conference Center over here …?” Click the below Image to enlarge…

This sounded exciting… and the distance from Dallas to Cape Town is just 8720.9 Miles – 14034.9 kilometers! A flight would take about 18 hours, 7 minutes…

Well, why travel that far at today’s cost and airport hassles when you can have it instantly… online!? Sort of from beautiful Noordhoek Beach?

Diversity Month in US Government Video

Due to loads of requests after the Conference in Dallas, here is the original, spontaneous Diversity Month of the US Government Video – Part 1 (9.21 minutes) – following impressions on the Semiomantics Flash website created for Monkey Valley Resort.

Look to the right, it’s in the brand-new MultiMedia Box – just go ahead and enjoy Part 1.

Bear in mind… I am addressing an audience in the large Conference Center in Dallas Airport – invisible to me… but due to high security the linking was rather adventurous and I had the Air Terminal chaos right in my ears: planes taking off, planes landing, kids crying, people shouting and laughing and luckily no bombs exploding … and inbetween technicians and engineers whizzing around to “…make this thing work”.

As our lines are so slow here and only 10 minutes may be loaded (meanwhile 15 minutes as I just saw but too late…) the 28 minutes Video of the LIVE Conference was ripped into 3 parts and is currently being loaded to YouTube. It takes about 6 hours per 10 minutes… depending on the African elephant stampede of course :) So number 1 is in the box… to be followed by Part 2 soon. Just check in!

Best Conference Venues Cape Town

The above video – Part 1 – features one of the best Conference Venues outside Cape Town – it certainly has the most spectacular setting. Definitely my choice!

And of course… there’s Thorfynn’s Restaurant… unbeatable with Darren Byrne and all those gorgeous smiles around him! Have a look!