As a web designer in the UK, the new EU Cookie Law is something I’m (sadly) having to deal with!

[Editor's Note: If it can happen in the UK, it can happen in the United States.]

I’ve been looking at a number of compliance methods and I’ve found one, that I think is the best out there.

Cookie Consent is a nice bit of code, being released for free, under a GPL license by silktide, the same web software company who created the No Cookie Law site.

From the site:

Cookie Consent is a JavaScript plugin that we created for websites to comply with the cookie law. You can install this on your site easily with just a few lines of code. Users will be shown a message which drops down [or up] from the top [or bottom] of the screen asking them if they want to allow cookies.

I really like just how customisable it is – you can either link to the js & css hosted by Cookie Consent, or you can download and host the files yourself. This means you can also customise the design to fit the design of your site. You can also specific what types of cookies you need consent for and even put holding text in for elements which the cookies haven’t been given consent for yet (such as ‘disqus’ comments or ‘social’ buttons).

Another very clever feature is the ‘Allow for all sites’ button on the bar, which if you visit another site also running Cookie Consent, it knows you’re ok with cookies and so you’re not shown the consent bar!

You can see it in action already on my site: JPC-DESIGN.

So if you’re needing a solution for the EU Cookie Law, then have a look at Cookie Consent.

If you’re a UK/EU web designer/developer:

What are you using to get compliant?

[Image via Pam Roth]

Whenever I have the chance, I advise friends, family and clients to steer clear.

There are several reasons why (SOPA/PIPA flip-flop included), but the one reason that fuels my outspoken demeanor are the breasts.

If the Super Bowl ads weren’t bad enough, every other promotional email piece and each and every Go Daddy website visit flashes your eyes with airbrushed blondes and brunettes.

It’s cheap. It’s gross. It’s demeaning to women and insulting to men.

But now there’s a new sheriff in town, and that’s all about to change!

Meet Warren Adelman

Warren Adelman is the new CEO of Go Daddy and he’s ready to make some changes.

From here on out, Adelman wants Go Daddy to be more about domain names and customer service and less about cleavage.

In fact, Adelman hints that the next Super Bowl ads will have a much different flavor. A good thing, especially when you consider that only 60% of Go Daddy customers are men.

Of course, this all remains to be seen.

I just hopped on the Go Daddy website and although there are still blondes and brunettes, at least there seems to be less bust.

Do you think Adelman can turn Go Daddy around?

[via Pondodaily]

Forget about retina displays and multi touch surfaces, how would you like to operate your smartphone by simply touch certain parts of your body, like the picture above?

Simply tap your wrist to pause or switch tracks?

Crazy, right?

Not at all!

Disney is researching a way to extend touch technology — watch:

Touché

Cool or creepy?

[via Disney Research]

When we hit that 100 Like mark, Facebook did something amazing, they gave us $50 in free advertisement to promote our Facebook page. I am one to never turn down something free, so I went to work on it and have been pleasantly surprised on the results.

Normally the return on investment (ROI) is not very high for advertisements so we were not expecting much for the cost, yet I have been amazed by how successful it has become. Below is the latest graph of our Facebook page’s analytics just three days after we created an advertisement with the free gift.

Our weekly total reach has skyrocketed since posting that ad online. What is not pictured here is the number of people who have liked our page (at the time of writing this, three days into the campaign, we have doubled our Likes) and our traffic from our Facebook page has increased 400%. This little gift from them is already making me look at how I could buy another one soon.

You will notice from the above graph how much of the total reach is impacted by the advertisement. The total reach is synchronized with the paid reach while the viral is just starting to grow. Finally, we have a graph below showing how frequently people are visiting this site.

Now the break down that we have seen from this so far should make you want to invest, especially if you are new to the Facebook world.

• The cost per click (CPC) for us is currently $.43.
• The ROI for likes is currently .75 (EXTREMELY high for online ads).
• The cost per day is ~$1.65 for every 6,000 paid views and 40 likes

Now, those are our personal experiences with the audience that we targeted, the advertisement that we used, and the Facebook page that we have. You will experience something different than us.

Has anyone else made an impact with their Facebook page because of Facebook ads?

This should not be underestimated when you’re designing a website, logo or anything else.

Blue, generally receives a cool, calm, trustworthy, knowledgeable response. The color red, in contrast, is exciting, eye catching, fast acting and powerful.

Take a look at this color spectrum of logos:

Pretty cool, isn’t it?

Have you ever thought about the power of color, before?

Take a closer look at The Colors of the Web!

What if Pinterest was real?

What if instead of “pinning” it was actually “stealing?”

Here’s a funny, and a little dark, video at what’s called, Pinsanity:

Is Pinterest healthy?

Is it just fun and games, or does it perpetuate want, coveting, greed and dissatisfaction with what we already have?

Thoughts?

[Video via Comediva]

This incredible photo of a ‘globular cluster’ (love that term!) called ‘Messier 55′ which is in the constellation of Sagittarius. It was taken by the ESO’s (European Southern Observatory) VISTA (Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy) infrared survey telescope.

The cluster is made up of tens of thousands of stars exceedingly close together, like a swarm of bees. About 160 globular clusters have been found in our galaxy, the Milky Way, mostly toward the centre.

That looks like a lot of stars huh? But what really blew my mind was the video below (also from ESO) showing just how SMALL it is in the milky way!

Isn’t that absolutely astonishing!? All those stars. And that’s one bit of one (pretty small) galaxy – in a universe of over 100 billion (100000000000) galaxies. How awesome is our Creator God!

I first read about this amazing astronomical shortly after I’d read a brilliant blog post ‘“Return To Mystery” – Doubt, God Unknown & A More Honest Faith’ by Vicky Beeching (a blogger, tweeter, worship leader & song-writer who’s currently studying for a PhD in Theology at Durham University in the UK). These two things fitted together so well for me. Seeing more of the vastness of creation certainly does open my eyes and mind the mystery and ‘unknowable’ splendour and majesty of God.

The God who created Messier 55, who knows each star in the universe and can call them by name – also knows me and can call me by name. Truly humbling.

You can read more about Messier 55 over on the ESO website and I really recommend you also read Vicky’s blog!

[Image via ESO]

My heart breaks for them when tragedy strikes.

So hot topic issues like texting while driving bring my blood to a boil.

Teens think they are invincible and it is okay to try to do both, but that is just not the case. More and more traffic accidents are due to texting. If we want to reduce the 1.2 million traffic victims worldwide each year, we have to act.

The Belgian Learners Drivers company put together this amazing video that perfectly illustrates why mobile devices and driving do not go together:

What is your stance with texting and driving, now?

To my joy, Disqus is now rolling out a 2012 package for free that includes several new goodies!

The focus is to offer a commenting system that promotes community, discussion, and furthering of the content written.

Disqus 2012 Commenting System

Here is a quick overview from their website of what the Disqus 2012 commenting system will include:

• Frictionless. The goal is to have a very fluid experience in Disqus. The new Disqus is truly realtime — their approach tries to take some of the best pieces of fast-paced chat and combine it with the structured depth of topical conversations.
• Quality. Today, Disqus uses “Likes” as a way to give others a lightweight virtual wink. In Disqus 2012, they decided to expand on this with voting actions. With voting, the new Disqus encourages richer discussions to form by letting the community surface the best comments. By pairing this with a smarter scoring system, Disqus will help maintain quality discussions — but without silencing simply less popular opinions.
• Personalized. They’re debuting My Disqus — a new personal view for people to stay on top of their conversations wherever they are. This is integrated right into the platform itself, so people will never have to leave the current page.
• Discovery. Disqus 2012 will help websites better connect with their audiences. One of the first features to work toward this is the new Community view. This new view shows off the website’s top participants as well as some of the hottest discussions happening right now.

What commenting system do you use for your blog?

[Image via Disqus]

It’s part of my daily “beat check” of technology blogs. The varied content here is a lot like Lifehacker, but the stories have a decidedly Christian spin. That’s why I was happy when Eric allowed me to write for it.

A couple of weeks ago, with Eric’s permission, I posted a link to my newsletter in the weekly Saturday/Sunday share post. I was honored when he subscribed.

This week I mentioned to my subscribers that I’d be giving away my first book Podcasting Church for free on Kindle today, Wednesday, May 16, 2012 between 3:00 am eastern (midnight pacific), and Thursday, May 17, 2012 at 2:59 am eastern (11:59pm on 5/16/12).

The Kindle version is the exact same book as you can buy on Amazon in paperback. It isn’t a stripped down version or a just couple of chapters. It’s 150 pages or so in print and I worked on it for three of four months to get it into it’s present form, although I wrote the rough draft in only about 40 days.

You don’t have to sign up for anything or even give your name (except to Amazon, but I don’t get a copy of that). Just head over to Amzn.to/PodcastChurch to get your copy. The first time I did this, I hit 3rd in the free Kindle store in Christianity right after two versions of the Bible, so I consider that a success.

If you’d like to know every time I give away something for free (which I try and do a lot), you can sign up for my newsletter which will let you know when my second book Tweeting Church will be free. Here’s a hint: soon.

One other thing. If you’re reading this and you’ve already missed the day, don’t worry. Amazon Prime members with a hardware Kindle can always borrow it for free until at least July 2012. I’ll probably give it away again some time, but if you want to know for sure, subscribe to my newsletter.