Ideally, the measure should be somewhere between 50 and 80 characters long. We have not always followed that, unfortunately, and anything longer than 80 starts to get difficult for the viewer to read. Even this post you are reading right now does not follow that rule perfectly. Hey, I am being honest here

To achieve a good measure, the designer should consider adjusting the font-size and Robert Bringhurst came up with a great formula for that: Multiply the font-size by 30 to give you the acceptable measure for each line (font-size X 30 = measure). For example, if your font size is to be 12px, a good measure would be 360px.

Additionally, you could take the size of space on your design that is to contain type and divide that by 30 (font container / 30 = measure) to give you a starting point. So if your design calls for a 500px area of type, your font-size would be 17px. That, of course, is just a starting point. No one would want to read a paragraph of 17px text – yikes. You would probably want to find some ways to adjust that area in your design (pullquotes, images, etc.).
There are many rules and suggestions regarding typography in your design. This is just one area and we are going to try to post some other tips as we pick them up. We have found some really great guides and articles out there and will be compiling them into a post.

According to mobile anti-virus company NetQin there are new viruses targeting mobile phones disguised as hot topics like Free World Cup VOD.

Infection scenario: Smart Phone owner downloads an innocent game for their phone (some of those games are soooo cool). The game is infected w/ the ShadowSrv.A, FC.Downsis.A and BIT.NmapPlug.A mobile virus. That virus springs into action by sending SMS to all contacts listed in the phone with an interestingly titled link (Check out this World Cup video). Contact clicks on link in the message and is sent to a website hosting more viruses and then they are infected. And so on.

Right now, the Symbian OS is being targeted (S60 platform 3rd Ed. (Symbian OS 9.1) as well as S60 5th ed. (Symbian OS 9.4) which is used by Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Nokia. If you are using one of those brands, you should consider adding some type of mobile anti-virus (check with your Wireless Carrier for suggestions) and don’t click on any suspicious links you receive.

In a future website update, they will be adding a ‘Like’ button that will directly integrate with Facebook.

You can easily spend a TON of time looking at the hundreds of uber-cool images and videos on the site and now they will be easier to navigate to and view.

If you have not visited their site in a while, you should check it out http://www.nasa.gov/. Good stuff.

If you are concerned about your Facebook Privacy, go to the Reclaim Privacy website and follow the steps to check. It is super easy and very enlightening and might just prevent you from letting everyone on the planet know some of your personal information.

The new backlink feature won’t help your site rank better in Google because it will be nofollow-ed, but it could introduce your web site to a new audience and could help send some traffic love back to you and reward you for your blog readership building efforts.

Candice sent me an email this week regarding a hoarding situation in Jacksonville, NC. Animal Planet is developing a new documentary program about how hoarding affects the animals and was in Jacksonville to cover an example. A well-meaning individual had taken in so many animals that she was unable to properly care for them and the animals were suffering without food or adequate care. Rescuers from the Humane Society of the United States, Saving Grace Animals for Adoption and Collie Rescue put out a call to local organizations alerting them to the situation and the Carteret Humane Society was one of the organizations to respond by sheltering 7 dogs, 5 puppies, 3 cats and 20 kittens.  Now the animals need our help.
Due to the economic issues that many are facing, many owners are turning in their pets and this is causing tremendous challenges for the Shelter. Now, with the addition of 30 animals, the task of finding homes is daunting. If you can help, a page of their website outlines some suggestions ranging from volunteering to making a tax deductible donation right through their website. Anything you can do will be EXTREMELY helpful both to the Shelter and to the animals.  Even if you are not in a position to donate or volunteer, alerting others to this situation is a great way you can help.

If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines — including Google — do retain this information for some time…

O…..K. That is one way to answer the question, I… guess. Although that kind of elicits a surprised response similar to the dad that gets hit in the crotch when tossing a baseball for his kid’s batting practice.   (Google Bing it – its a hoot ).

Personally, I think it is slightly odd that Google would feel that way, especially when they don’t seem to respond the same way when the privacy tables are turned.

In a response, Mozilla is telling Firefox users to switch to Bing which is also surprising, since Mozilla has an agreement in place with Google through 2011.  I think that says a lot about how important Mozilla feels about privacy.