Vectorloft Blog » Uncategorized http://www.vectorloft.com/blog Website ideas, information and rants... Tue, 22 Mar 2011 15:11:56 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 DJ Chuckie – Dirty Dutch Radio (01-09-2010) http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/chuckie-dirty-dutch-radio/ http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/chuckie-dirty-dutch-radio/#comments Fri, 04 Jun 2010 15:19:44 +0000 Matt Cassella http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/?p=228 Studio Mix from Dirty Dutch radio. Not as high energy as some of his live sets but some great tracks none the less.
DJ Chuckie

Tracklist TBD




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]]> http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/chuckie-dirty-dutch-radio/feed/ 0 Afrojack – Live at Gansevoort Beach Party WMC 2010 http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/afrojack-live-at-gansevoort-beach-party-wmc-2010/ http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/afrojack-live-at-gansevoort-beach-party-wmc-2010/#comments Fri, 16 Apr 2010 18:06:09 +0000 Matt Cassella http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/?p=201 Afrojack

Tracklist TBD

00. Intro : Mr Fingers & Chuck Roberts – Can You Feel It (Acapella)
01. ID w/ Major Lazer – Pon De Floor
02. Silvio Ecomo & Chuckie – Moombah (Afrojack Remix) w/ Afrojack – Bangduck
03. Afrojack – Bangduck (Original Mix)
04. Larry Tee feat. Roxy Cottontail – Let’s Make Nasty (Afrojack Remix)
05. ID w/ Laidback Luke – Break The House Down (Acapella)
06. ID
07. Major Lazer & Afrojack – How I Like It (Unreleased Mix)
08. Afrojack – Drive By
09. ID (Here I Go Again)
10. Spencer & Hill – Cool (Afrojack Remix) w/ Simian – We Are Your Friends (Acapella)
11. ID
12. Afrojack – Pacha On Acid
13. Imogen Heap – Hide and seek (Afrojack Remix)
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]]> http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/afrojack-live-at-gansevoort-beach-party-wmc-2010/feed/ 0 Email Etiquette 101 http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/email-etiquette-101/ http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/email-etiquette-101/#comments Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:00:59 +0000 Matt Cassella http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/?p=174 email
Emails are probably one of the best inventions know to man. They are abundantly useful in many ways. Yet some or rather most of us fail to use this important communication device properly. There are some key things to remember when communicating with people that most people forget when using email.

Email is an open form of communication similar to a mailed letter, but it should be treated more on a personal level. Below I’ve outlines some key points of communication that are important to making sure the person or persons your in conversation with don’t curse you out when they read your emails. Also some other points that are important as a base of communication that we usually discard when we shouldn’t.

1. Always use a greeting “Hello, Hi, Hey or WHATS UP HOMIE!”
Sometimes in emails we get into a conversation that doesn’t require a greeting, but when first contacting someone a greeting should always be used. Not saying hello sets a tone that people generally don’t respond well to and can come off a brash.

2. Don’t bark orders, ask someone to do something for you
I don’t know how many times I get emails with no greeting first off, and second they bark orders or are very short. It sets the same tone as not saying hello. Word your emails fluently and respectfully and people will respond positively.

Example:
“This work needs to be done by wednesday please let me know when it is completed”

“Hey Tony,
I just got word this project needs to get done by wednesday. We need to make sure we get this done by then. Please let me know when you can have this to me. Thanks, Matt”

3. Always end with a sign off
Another lesson is setting a tone. Saying thanks, please and just being courteous works wonders. This is a conversation, so write it out like its one.

Basic structure
1. Greeting
2. Body (be nice!)
3. Signature/sign off

4. Answer when someone writes you something
This is, I feel, one of the most important things in conversating via email. Acknowledge someone when they write you. I don’t know how many times I’ve written and email to a coworker and had to ask, “Hey did you get that email”. Just write back! A simple “Thanks”, “You got it”, “Foresheezy” ANYTHING will suffice. It’s a conversation for god sakes, answer the person. Would you not answer someone you were talking to directly? Since we are at a loss for body language in email conversations we need to confirm receipt and understanding. If everyone did this the world wide web would be a better place.

5. Leave emotion out of business emails
I don’t want to hear your sick of your dog just died in business emails. Don’t get me wrong I love my dog, but emotion emails sets a tone that you don’t want. Keep things professional and strong. Don’t be a weenie emailer. Be straight and to the point

6. If your email is two pages, its too long
This is email, not a ebook. Keep your mail short and to the point. If your email starts to get long, you might want to think about creating an attachment to put your life story into.

7. More than 4 attachments is too many
Don’t send someone 50 images attached to an email. First of all, its annoying second of all your email will probably get bounced. If you have a bunch of files create a package, or a zip file to compress it and make it more manageable. You don’t want to be crashing peoples email clients because you send over a ton of attached files.

8. Don’t send files over 10MB
I know the limit on email attachments is 13MB but don’t go there. Sending large files is just bad etiquette. Large emails take long to load in emails clients. And with the birth of smart phones and reading email on mobile no one want to wait 5 minutes to see that 30MB video of grandma doing backflips, although they might…

9. Make your subject relevant to the content of the email
“Hi” isn’t a good subject for any email. First of all it will probably get marked as spam. Second, it’s going to be hard to find anything important in that email if you need to access it later. If someone else has a bad subject CHANGE IT. Make sure the subject briefly and accurately describes the content of the email. It’s good practice and will help later when you need to find that important email with the elephant sitting on that car that was so funny.

10. Lastly, just be nice
No one likes to be barked at, so setting the tone of your email is infinitely valuable so everyone doesn’t hate you. Keep it simple, be nice and above all treat email as a conversation not a letter.

]]> http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/email-etiquette-101/feed/ 0 Alzheimer’s: The love and the heartbreak http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/alzheimers-the-love-and-the-heartbreak/ http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/alzheimers-the-love-and-the-heartbreak/#comments Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:58:34 +0000 Matt Cassella http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/?p=134 alzheimers
For nearly two years, reporter Denise M. Bonilla and photographer J. Conrad Williams Jr. followed six families in order to chronicle the agony of Alzheimer’s disease and to provide an inside look at the role of the caregiver.

Along with some of the great designers and developers at Newsday Media Group, Matthew Cassella’s design for each section of the project was executed smoothly. The product of weeks of effort came together in a rich interactive media experience.

View the Project

]]> http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/alzheimers-the-love-and-the-heartbreak/feed/ 0 A new look for vectorloft http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/a-new-look-for-vectorloft/ http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/a-new-look-for-vectorloft/#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 03:17:58 +0000 Matt Cassella http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/?p=122 siteshot

We finally got it together! Take a look at our new design for vectorloft.com. Aaron and I have been working on this for almost 4 months now and have finally launched the new design. This showcases some of our most recent work and incorporates some of the technologies we have been using on our client sites. It’s about time we got a spring cleaning. Please let us know what you think of the new design in the comments below.

]]> http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/a-new-look-for-vectorloft/feed/ 0 Strapped to Media: Media Centricity http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/strapped-to-media-media-centricity/ http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/strapped-to-media-media-centricity/#comments Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:14:01 +0000 Matt Cassella http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/?p=61 Strapped to media

Media is our vice. We are all strapped to it and bombarded with it on a day to day basis. Whether we watch TV every night, update our facebook wall on our mobile phone, or visit a website. You name it media is anywhere and everywhere. We cast our lives online, rush home for a new season of Entourage or play video games all night long. We are media junkies, strapped to it like never before in our history. Media gives me a career so I’m all for it, but do we really need to be so media centric?

I’ve been to a couple different countries in my travels and I’ve never seen another country so focused on entertainment and media as much as the United States. Movie stars are the highest paid people in our culture, not doctors or scientists, which is seemingly odd. In media’s defense, when you look at your day to day life, you’ll notice how much your life revolves around entertainment. The more money that is made of people clicking an ad or paying 12 bucks for a movie, the more those overpaid stars and entertainment companies get. Don’t get me wrong here, I love technology but I think we need to take the time to disconnect more.

Put your phone down, don’t update your status today, or shut off that TV for a night and just talk to someone face to face. We so easily fall into the outlets and social easements that many companies exploit everyday, why not fight the man and un-strap yourself once in a while. Life tends to slow down a bit when you take yourself away from all of what technology and media has provided for us.

Media advertising works. They taunt you to click, explore and buy. They put ads in video games, in you iPhone apps, over your videos, and who know where else. As time progresses more and more advertisers are finding new and unique ways to advertise. Although not all are are bad and can be useful, most are misleading or obtrusive. So say fight the man, turn off your phone, get off facebook for 10 minutes and try something more basic. Plain old conversation with no bells and whistles.

]]> http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/strapped-to-media-media-centricity/feed/ 0 Canned logo builders, your key to normality http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/canned-logo-builders-your-key-to-normality/ http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/canned-logo-builders-your-key-to-normality/#comments Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:45:40 +0000 Matt Cassella http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/?p=97 Cookie Cutter Logos
OK, your reading the headline and thinking to yourself, “this is just some advertising ploy to get business for Vectorloft”. Honestly, I don’t care where you get your logo done, but please don’t use an online builder or clip art.

There are lots of sites out there that boast that you can get a logo for 200 bucks. Some people would say thats a great deal, but your wrong. These companies are constantly cranking out logos for tons of companies. Use these types of cheap-o design sites and your asking for normality. You live in New York? Well someone in Texas could potentially have the same exact logo for you.

Not to mention an important part of the design process is guiding a client into a specific look customized for your location, industry, and overall spirit of your company. Logos and branding is important. They are a visual representation of your company. So spend that extra 2-300 bucks to get something thats fine tuned to your business. In the long run you’ll be glad you did. Or if you live on Long Island you could always just plop a picture of the island behind the name of your business and call it a day. Hey at least they will know where you are.

]]> http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/canned-logo-builders-your-key-to-normality/feed/ 0 One of the Wonders of CSS3 http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/one-of-the-wonders-of-css3/ http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/one-of-the-wonders-of-css3/#comments Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:57:32 +0000 Matt Cassella http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/?p=92 I’m a big fan of an attention to detail and coding things in the most efficient manner. Lately I’ve been working on newsday.com and exploreli.com coordinating all of the css for the two sites, and have been complete deluged in CSS. So I’ve become somewhat of an expert on coding it and the best ways to execute a given look and feel. I’ll have to say, the rounded corner feature in the new CSS3 has been a life saver. Even though IE has still not accepted these standards, lots of people are in Firefox or Safari which are constantly gaining more and more ground as top of the line browsers. So if you don’t mind having square corners in IE and rounded everywhere else, take a look at the below link and forget about creating tables and slicing up a bunch of small images, its a thing of the past my friends.

http://www.css3.info/preview/rounded-border/

]]> http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/one-of-the-wonders-of-css3/feed/ 1 Your posts suck, be a better lifecaster http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/your-posts-suck-be-a-better-lifecaster/ http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/your-posts-suck-be-a-better-lifecaster/#comments Sun, 30 Aug 2009 12:48:26 +0000 Matt Cassella http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/?p=51 Social Media
Social media sites are the shizzle. Everyone is typing away their lives on the internet. It has become commonplace to life cast all of your activities, feelings, and desires to everyone. We all have a facebook account, wait you don’t? Some of us are twitterers and some are on both or on some other social media site with a collective of people. For some reason, people just love to tell all of their friends, and enemies what they are doing, watching, or liking at the moment.

When we think about the different ways people can find out what your up to, where you are, or how your feeling… its pretty scary. If you were asked “Would you like a stalker?” what would you say? Guess its easier nowadays to become one, but if you stop tweeting for a second and step back. Think about what your saying and how your saying it. You don’t want to air all your dirty laundry to the world.

Your creating a running dialogue of your life. An online diary of everything that is you with no lock and key. Anyone that is linked to you can access all of the information on you at any given moment. So when your having a bad day and hate your boss, wait and don’t tell the world. As part of a new generation of the internet we are given a great privilege. We are documenting millions of lives in a cloud of information in our history. So make it count! When the world burns up due to global warming, do you want some alien race, millions of years in the future to read how you ate too much taco bell and was sitting on the bowl for hours? I think not.

]]> http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/your-posts-suck-be-a-better-lifecaster/feed/ 2 Bad LI Design Firms: Lounge Lizard http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/bad-li-design-firms-lounge-lizard/ http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/bad-li-design-firms-lounge-lizard/#comments Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:27:32 +0000 Matt Cassella http://www.vectorloft.com/blog/?p=37 I have had this post in my queue for almost 2 years now, but felt at that time it was a bit harsh since my experience at this firm was quite short. But I feel that if there is anyone out there thinking of employment with this business, I owe them this gratitude to post my experience and my disgust with the way this business is run.

In all of my experience I have never been in contact with a company that had no compassion for their employees. After a offer for employment I was brought on to assist in the design and development of creative projects for the company. As with any employment, the beginning of my experience was great. Collaborative projects and creative brainstorming the company had potential to be a long term home for my career. As time passed the company stated receiving more RFPs for a larger set of clientèle but the management of such projects was a more on the privative side. With any growing business the advancement of project management and team work is something that needs constant attention. Some of these key character flaws stemmed into a constant distrust and animosity towards any ideas for advancement I came up with.

Although I understand the concerns with monitoring employees actions while working, my performance in my designated position was alway to highest caliber. Ken Braun felt the need to monitor my personal email regardless of my performance. My emails were seen as malicious in nature and for some reason a threat to his company. As a prelude to this, we had made an agreement that any business I brought in I would receive a percentage. If I wasn’t to contact clients via email, how would I drum up new business…

An addition to the ideology and un-trusting nature of the owner of the business is his wife’s role in the company. I was not aware when I started at this company that the “Project Manager” was in fact Ken Braun’s wife. Working 2 days a week, and half days, Sharon thought that in some way she would be able to manage all projects coming into the company. Trying to help out I made advancements and suggestions to assist in the project management of the company. This was my biggest mistake. Like a Hen protecting her eggs she lashed out at my ideas and proceeded to shun me out of any company meetings or progress reports.

In short this firm is filled with a bunch of washed up designers with large egos. If it wasn’t for its freelance staff, the company would have no original ideas or the resources to create good work. The short time I spent at this firm my ideals were put down as not good enough, my work was never “good enough” even though the creative director had a style that is stuck in the early 90’s and mine was refined.

If you get an offer from this place deny it. If Ken doesn’t like you you’ll be out in a month. And if you value your ideas, and want to work with a team, you should definitely look into other firms on Long Island.

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