[here]

No related posts.

Disney introduced Tiana the first African American princess to the world on December 11, 2009 in their animated movie “The Princess and the Frog.” With ticket sales over $29 million, this magical movie has had the public buzzing ever since Anika Noni Rose from “Dreamgirls” was cast to voice the princess back in 2007. The setting for this Americanized tale is in the French Quarter of New Orleans during the 1920s. Tiana (Rose) is the daughter of two hard working African American parents (Terrence Howard and Oprah Winfrey) who stress the importance of hard work, determination, and reaching for your dreams.

This fairy tale is set in the South during the Jazz era of the 1920s. For the first animated African American princess to be crowned there, considering the fact that the South is also where the first Africans were sold into slavery makes me think that this is Disney’s attempt to perhaps right some of the wrongs that have been ingrained in American history. Similar to the way Pocahontas was supposed to ‘honor’ Native Americans, even though that movie was full of atrocious inaccuracies, it was not intended to be a history lesson. Nonetheless Disney could not have made this animated movie without being somewhat culturally accurate. For the most part I would say that they succeeded in telling Tiana’s story without completely disregarding the struggles that African Americans had to endure in that timeframe.

With “The Princess and the Frog” Disney introduces their first African-American princess, Tiana. Walt Disney Co. met with a number of black advisors during the creation of the film and many changes were made to the film and to the main character during production. The main character’s name was changed from Maddy to Tiana, her skin was made a shade darker, and her job went from maid to waitress. Now the movie is out and it’s time for all the movie product tie-ins to hit the shelves just in time for Christmas. Making the doll for Disney’s first black princess is no small undertaking as many are calling it not just a doll, but also a symbol.

NPR had a story on All Things Considered titled “The Symbolism Of Disney’s Princess Tiana”. In it they visit a Target in the Washington DC area and speak to people buying the Tiana doll. From the NPR story:

‘…Most of the shoppers looking for Tiana dolls are African-American mothers, but Disney reports brisk sales of Tiana nationwide and not just at urban retail stores. But for the moms and aunts and grandmothers we met at this Target, we heard the same thing as Gwen Arnold told us: Tiana isn’t just a doll; she’s a symbol.’

You could see all of The Disney Princess at the picture below (Ow yeah, I love Jasmine) :

The Princess and the Frog is beautifully drawn and much overdue. This movie is a step in the right direction for promoting role models with naturally darker skin tones and for that it gets my support. The animated cast comes from a variety of different cultures, reminding viewers how diverse America really is. Tiana is the second animated American princess to come from the Disney studios after Pocahontas. As the first African American Princess, Tiana’s story revolves around working hard to make your dreams come true, but there is much more to this story then just the moral.

As a Disney fans, I am happy to see that there is a new Disney Princess with dark skin and black hair, just like my three year old niece, who after seeing a picture of Princess Tiana pointed to Tiana and with wide eyes said “The Princess…like Oprah!” Be prepared to laugh and perhaps shed a few tears. I also recommend parents with younger children to take caution before heading out to see this Disney movie. The dancing murderous Voodoo dolls and demons could have them watching their shadows with a weary eye for weeks.

No related posts.

I unfortunately live 2 hours (yeah, with a fucking jetplane) away from the closest Apple store (in Singapore), so I do not have any experience shopping in one. However, from everything I’ve read, I know that Apple has put a ton of thought into how it all works for their users.

In this video, introducing the first Apple store, Steve Jobs walks viewers through the different sections of the store, highlighting some interesting sections, such as the “Solutions” section, as well as the “Genius Bar.”

Watching this video, I couldn’t help but feel that the layout, aesthetics, and overall quality of the store is just as fresh today as it was back then. Aside from the obviously dated computers sitting on the display counters, I doubt many could guess that this store is almost a decade old now.

No related posts.

As 2009 came to a close, Google managed to get SEOs riled up for one last controversial topic. For some time, SEOs and web designers have been noticing that Google has not been showing local listings in search results for queries related to their businesses — even location-specific ones.

As Matt McGee mentions in a Search Engine Land piece, even a query like “candy” without any geographical indicator will bring up a seven-pack of local results, but a query for “seo” or “web design” or even something as specific as “web design jakarta” will bring up no local listings whatsoever (although the organic results still heavily favor local businesses in location-specific queries).

Needless to say, some SEOs and designers are taking this as something of a slap in the face, justified or not. Search engine optimization and web design are both services after all, and just about every other type of service you can think of will yield local listings in a Google search.

While this phenomenon was originally thought to be a bug, Barry Schwartz of RustyBrick fame points to a Google Maps Help thread where a Googler going by Joel H. tells a different story:

Today, we’re intentionally showing less local results for web design / SEO queries. For example, [web design sacramento] doesn’t display local listings today. We believe this is an accurate representation of user intent. In some cases, we do show local listings, however (as NSNA/php-er noted) [web design in bellingham]. I’m sure some of you feel we should be displaying local results for queries like [Web Design Vancouver]. I understand that concern, but based on our understanding of our users, we feel this is the right decision for now.

I’ll give the usual disclaimer that we’re constantly working on improving the user experience and results will vary over time. So, this could change in the future, but I wanted to be explicit about what we’re doing today.

So if you use the word “in” in your query, you are more likely to get the local results. Some still have a hard time finding the logic in this move.

“I’m all for their interest in balancing for user intent — it’s their business, their product — but I’m missing the logic here,” comments Bill Sebald.

“I find this disturbing,” says Scott Clark. “If I have a physical location in a given area, offer a service to customers in that area that is close to their query, then onebox listings should appear as they do for other creative-class industries.”

Not all SEOs have such a problem with what Google is doing though. “I want to be found by people everywhere, not just in the small city I happen to live in at the moment,” a content writer comments.

“But you would think that if people typed in a city name or other location, they are actually looking for local results and the maps could be useful,” they add. “Although if you have optimized your website for your location, you should get found anyway. And I do all my work online, people don’t need to visit me or even know where I am located so in that sense the maps aren’t always useful or necessary.”

People are saying that in some countries, they are still seeing local results for the type of query in question. It is possible that Google has just not rolled out the changes everywhere yet. The quoted content writer suggests that Google just doesn’t know the user-intent of all of its countries’ people as well as it does for the countries where the changes exist.

No related posts.

This Way Up, Handle With Care, Fragile, and Keep Dry. Do you recognize all of those signs ?? Yup, those signs are seen sometimes in several big boxes. Us human beings are a bit like big boxes.

By the way, the image above are a design of Origin68’s T-Shirt. I love informative, label-type designs like this. Pretty clever. The WOW factor about this shirt is, it’s an organic shirt. So you can enjoy this shirt without annoying the fudge of Mother Nature !! and those activists to be exact

If you like it, you can buy it here

source

No related posts.

The Apple iTablet, or sometimes called as iSlate, got some impressive hardware specs which enough to bang our brain. But there’s a specific spec that really gets our attention. According to the leaked documents, iSlate will run Mac OS X 10.7 Clouded Leopard.

Mac OS X 10.7 Clouded Leopard, the new operating system, is expected to be a touchscreen-friendly version of Mac OS X that uses a new widget-based homescreen. It’s not clear if Clouded Leopard will actually do any cloud computing.

Take a look at Apple’s rumored specs for their tablet computer:

• Precision Alumunium Unibody
• 7.1-inch capacitive multi-touch touchscreen with some sort of “intelligent feedback” and an anti-fingerprint coating (i love the anti-fingerprint word )
• 2.26Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
• 2GB DDR3 SDRAM
• 120GB Hard Drive
• Built-in Projector
• Built-in iSight camera
• 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Mac OS X 10.7 Clouded Leopard

Man, that’s wicked spec. But hey, where’s the GPRS/3G/HSDPA connection ?? I thought it is a mobile device. Any explaination, Apple ??

No related posts.

Late goals from Aaron Ramsey and Eduardo gave Arsenal a place in the 4th round of the FA Cup. Arsene Wenger’s side were heading out at the first hurdle with 12 minutes to play at Upton Park as they laboured to recover from Alessandro Diamanti’s first half strike.

But the Gunners finally found enough rhythm in the closing moments to equalise through Aaron Ramsey before Eduardo capped their fightback by heading in the winner that justified Wenger’s decision to make five changes ahead of Wednesday’s crucial league game against Bolton.

Defeat was harsh on West Ham, who deserved their lead and could have been out of sight well before Arsenal’s late revival.

Arsenal’s Starting XI & Subs

Fabianski
Sagna – Gallas – Vermaelen – Silvestre
Ramsey – Song – Merida
Wilshere – Eduardo – Vela

Subs: Mannone, Gilbert, Diaby, Nasri, Traore, Eastmond, Emmanuel-Thomas.

Now, let see the next fixture. Arsenal’s reward for getting past West Ham in the FA Cup is a tough away tie to Stoke City. The fourth round draw was made just minutes after Arsene Wenger’s side scored two late goals against to triumph over a spirited Hammers team.

Tony Pulis’ tricky Stoke team beat York City yesterday with Rory Delap’s long-throw providing the biggest threat to the Conference south side — something that Wenger will certainly be aware of.

The tie will be played on the weekend of the 23 and 24 January.

Video Highlight:

No related posts.

Several hours ago, I was watching this great Sony Bravia ‘Play-Doh’ ad . At first, I thought it was a great, smart, creative, and original ad UNTIL I found it is a rip-of from Kozyndan’s work with a little help from Apple. Now that’s what I call a “THIEF” !!

And this one is another rip-off: Sony Bravia ‘Balls’ ad stolen from the David Letterman Show.

No related posts.

Happy NewYear to you all. It’s a new beginning of  our next step in life. Get a grip, make a path, and kick some ass !! Yeah !!

No related posts.