On a Friday in early June, the Pica Design team took a road trip to Portland to attend Abstract Maine 2011. The conference was hosted by AIGA Maine and their supporting sponsors. Abstract brought together six heavy hitters from the design community to talk about editorial design and its future (psst…it’s digital): Florian Bachleda of Fast  Company, Dirk Barnett of Newsweek, Scott Dadich of Condé Nast, Arem Duplessis of The New York Times Magazines, Luke Hayman of Pentagram and Gael Towey of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

We got an inside look at the process behind putting a Newsweek cover together;  staging a photo shoot with Conan Obrien; blow-drying Martha Stewart’s Hens for a photo shoot; and rebranding the New York Magazine with Pentagram. More than that, we got an inside look at where the editorial world is heading and, yes, it has to do with the iPad and the tablet computer. We took a sneak preview at InDesign 5.5 with the good folks from Adobe and saw some of the digital tools they are building into future versions. Exciting stuff, to be sure.

Stepping outside of the daily goings- on around the office and listening to some great talks was both refreshing and inspiring. Overall, we brought home more ideas and inspiration than our brains could carry from some of the top professionals in our industry. The day was topped off by excellent food and conversation in Portland’s Old Port. Many thanks to AIGA Maine for putting together an excellent conference.

Ever wonder exactly how fast your internet is? Why the 120 gigabyte hard drive you bought is only 111 gigabytes according to your computer? I’ve encountered a lot of confusion explaining these concepts to clients over the years. This mainly stems from the confusion about bits and bytes, two units that measure data. While many people use the two terms interchangeably, they are not the same thing.

Techy Russian Dolls (Image Credit: LaughingSquid.com)

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Hey, my name is Zak and I’m a summer intern here at Pica Design. While reading a blog today, I saw a rumor that Google Voice is supposedly opening to the public soon, and I decided to write this blog post to elucidate this great service for our readers. While many of you may not know what Google Voice is, I urge everyone with a Google Account (and who doesn’t have one, these days) to pick up their own number.

Google Voice was originally called Grand Central, a company founded in 2005 which Google bought in 2007 for 97 million. Even years ago it was a promising business opportunity, and it remains a great service.

But what does Google Voice actually do? Well, it’s essentially a new phone number that allows a number of features that most phone services don’t offer.

The Google Voice Inbox (Credit: Google)

First, it offers a unified number that you’ll never lose when you move, get a new cell phone, or change phone service. This number can ring any other number of phones that you own, for example, when somebody calls my Google Voice number, both my cell phone and my home phone ring, which means I almost never miss a call.

Google Voice also features a robust voicemail system. When somebody leaves a voicemail on your Google Voice account, it notifies you via text message and even email, transcribing the voicemail into text and delivering it to your inbox.

Finally, there are a host of other features  Google Voice offers. You can send and receive text messages for free online, screen calls, set different voicemail greetings to different contacts and groups, and more.

Google Voice is free, and a great service. I have been using it since 2008 and its unification makes life easier, which everybody deserves. I urge everyone to pick up a number and at least try it out.

Within the last three weeks we’ve been noticing a show-stopping trend. We’ve found more than one local area site plagued by this notice:

The problem is usually a piece of javascript that a hacker has added to the site. It can easily be removed as long as you can find the infected files and remove the necessary code. We’re trying to figure out if this is a local occurence, or something that’s more widespread. We’d love to hear from you if you have any idea as to the source of the attacks, or encounter other sites that have been attacked. And as always, keep your passwords tough to guess, and close to the chest!

Browser Blunders
Have you ever seen a website and wondered why it looks so…odd? If a site has not been tested and programmed to work with your Internet browser (and version), it can look positively wacky. We now test a site’s functionality in various browsers, in various versions, including Mac and PC variations, before a site goes live.

D!d U Kn0w?
Creating a great password is your first line of defense against a hacker. What’s a great password? One with upper and lower case letters, a number or two, and maybe an exclamation point! Make a password tough to guess (but memorable for you), and you’ll be one step closer to hacker-proof.