Antoine Dubeauclard

As some of you know, I recently took a trip to the south of France, starting in La Ciotat and ending in the northern edge of Provence.

La Ciotat is memorable for a few reasons. One is its status as a birthplace of film. It’s fitting, then, that I used this opportunity to test two vastly different cameras: the Fuji FinePix XP20 and the Cannon 60D.

I invite you to join me on this retrospective and on-the-fly camera review, but first, a little history about the location. La Ciotat is close to Marseille, which is right around the middle of La Cote Bleue and La Cote D’Azur. Leave it to the French to distinguish the two colors of the Mediterranean. Most Americans know this area as the French Riviera.

Anyway, light and color are definitely on the menu here. After all, this place is known for its “Lumiere,” the basis of which inspired many artists to stay in this region and paint landscapes. Often, around the turn of 1900, artists stayed for free and donated a work or two to the people housing them. Out of this comes a great library of artwork showing the bright cliffs, rocky beaches, turquoise waters, and more. Two other Lumieres, brothers, also filmed one of the first films here. The film shows the arrival of a train into the “Gare de la Ciotat.” At the first showings, people were supposedly running out of the way of the oncoming train.

We arrived on this busy first weekend of July to the Marseille airport and within 30-45 minutes found ourselves in La Ciotat, and more specifically on our way to la Calanque De Figuerolles. There are many names for beaches in this part of the world and each has its peculiarities. Common beach types include Calanques, Anse, and Crique. In this case Calanques designates rocky fingers that jut out to sea and in the creases you can find small beaches. Due to their isolation they often have their own fauna and flora and are often hard to get to. The water is usually pristine and colder than typical beaches.

This particular Calanque has been commandeered by a wily bunch, who dubbed it an independent republic. Indeed, La Republique Independante de Figuerolles is on its own time zone and its own currency (figs!). All kidding aside, it is very unusual to have a hotel inside of a Calanque. In part, this hotel helped stop development and thus created the haven that exists there presently.

To get to the Calanque, it takes a bit of hiking, and after a long flight with two kids it definitely was tiring. However, we were quickly rewarded by this view from the private garden (which I took with the Fuji FinePix XP20).

We grabbed a quick dinner of a locally caught St Pierre and other delicacies from the south and crashed.

Upon waking up, it was time to test the XP’s underwater features. It is, after all, shock proof, water proof, heat proof, and cold proof.  As any parent with young children knows, we will easily put this camera to the test. In my next post, I’ll take you through the Fuji FinePix XP20 and how it performed for snapshots and video on land and in sea.

Part I: The System is Down… or is it?

When I received my invite to Google+ a few days after their restricted launch, I was excited. When I realized that Google was overcapacity and I could not get in, I grieved. Obsessively, I checked back hoping for an opening or an error that would let me sneak in. I started to question all that was good and beautiful in the world. Who was I? Why was I here?

Prior to reaching a full-on existential crisis, I got access to set up my very own Google+ account. I was in.

The wait was either a legitimate attempt to curb the influx of users in order to ramp up testing of the system, or a brilliant device to generate rarity and nurture a sense of exclusivity. If the latter, it’s working.

Part II: Stockholm Syndrome

I actually like Facebook, and so do most of you, even if it’s not in fashion to admit it. You don’t love it, but you like it more than no social networking platform at all. If it were otherwise, Facebook wouldn’t have 700+ million users. Facebook came along and did something better than its predecessors, but (and this is opinion only) they got greedy. Facebook didn’t listen to their users. How many Facebook redesigns were met with apathy or anger? How many cries in the night were uttered for a “dislike” button? How much time was spent unearthing security checkboxes because Facebook’s privacy was a mock wreck on a dark night designed to get you out of your car so they can steal your wallet (including family photos)?

That’s overkill, not to mention a mixing of metaphors, but Facebook made some enemies among their ranks. Despite all of the perceived abuse, these users kept coming back because it was a bad tool but it was the best one in the box. Eventually, people didn’t know what to do about it. Everyone was on Facebook and the abuse was systematic enough to create a comforting expectation. So, we stayed.

Part III: Really, You Had a Choice

Social networking options have come and go, and I’m not talking about the old Friendster or Orkut days, but new platforms like Diaspora and Google’s early trials with Buzz and Wave.

Buzz and Wave were never contenders in the social networking arena. Both of these failed to create a unique multimedia space. When you are on Facebook you are immersed in what Facebook is. You are Facebooking. Google Buzz was little more than an extension of Google Mail, and because it was text based communication it became redundant with the chat option and was otherwise a poor man’s Twitter.

Wave, on the other hand, had a unique space but didn’t capture the life sharing features that Facebook offered. It wasn’t user friendly, it was still primarily text, and it seemed like an abbreviated email/group chat service.

The fact is, there is a choice about being on Facebook or another platform, but you might just have to be there alone, shouting into the void about your most recent meal.

Part IV: Just Like Rocky Balboa

In “+,” Google has done some soul searching and come back stronger for the final bout. Google+ is a powerful, fast, clean, multimedia platform that creates a unique space.

Like Facebook: You can set up a profile, you get a feed of posts and comments; you can post text, images, and video; and you can approve of or comment on a post.

Unlike Facebook: You can incorporate additional features, including a “-1” option, which is the equivalent of the long-awaited “dislike” button; you control and own your content; you can see the “stream” (newsfeed) of pre-defined sets of individuals or everyone; you can edit a post or comment after the fact; you can make ‘flame retardant’ posts (disable comments); prevent ‘patient zero’ posts (disable re-share); in addition to the unique multimedia space, you can engage G+ though other Google services; and, the thing that may lead to the trouncing of Facebook, Circles.

Part V: Circles

There have been gripes about Circles from obvious sources *coughzuckerberg* because they are a little sneaky. Circles let you put your Google+ cohorts into sets that you can designate as friends, acquaintances, illuminati, or whatever you like. Then, and here’s the gem, with each post you identify which Circles will have access to that post and no one knows which circles they’re in.

Yes, you too can make a party invite for everyone but that guy who picks out the one and only three figure bottle of scotch to mix with his diet coke. You can avoid cursing in front of your mother or letting your kids know that you’re just as human and vulnerable as they thus shattering their innocent sense of safety. Circles give you all this and more.

Circles are not for the insecure. If you’re going to be kept up at night wondering if your spouse has put you in the mix with their best buddies, you’ll need to toughen up and realize that locks and closed doors don’t make people honest, they just limit the options. The power here is that Google+ lets people communicate the way they want, with whom they want.

Part VI: Predictions

On September 26, 2006, Facebook opened up for all users 13 and up. Imagine a kid having their 13^th birthday party and joining Facebook on that day. That kid is now only 17. There is a whole generation coming up that got involved in this new brand of heavy social exposure with no trial run.

This was a brave new world. When these kids graduate college and start looking for jobs, there’s a lot of information in the world that they didn’t take the time to control. Regret may set in and following on its heels will be the appreciation for content control. Mind you, this could go the other way. If everyone is overexposed, the standards for appropriate content may shift and embarrassment will be reserved for only the most depraved tagged party photos.

Facebook is not going away, but some people will likely mock its users in the same fashion people mock MySpace devotees (which still exist). Facebook may even change direction and become a social gaming platform, but it will not stay in its current incarnation. It may be a port of harbor for the less technical, less security concerned, or younger users. Google+ has an age limit of 18, rather than Facebook’s 13, which may be Facebook’s saving grace.

I believe that Facebook, in the next five years, is going to see a dramatic change due to the introduction of a robust competitor, Google+.

Part VII: Sparks, SEO, and the End of an Era

Google+ isn’t open to businesses, yet. Some have certainly joined, but Google would like them to hold off during this initial trial period as they’re preparing something special just for them that will be released later. Businesses and organizations do need to get Google+ on their radar, because it’s going to change SEO.

The “+1” feature is something that Google rolled out on their search results a little while ago. It lets you rate the results of the search, so you can have some very real input in the search algorithm. For example, if you search for “how to replace a head gasket” and you don’t find the best hit until page 11, you can +1 it to add to its credibility. In Google+, it becomes more important. Indications are that the Google searches you do as a member of the network (when you’re logged into Google) take the feedback of your friend network into consideration. If a bunch of your friends +1 a result for “how to replace a head gasket,” it’ll likely come up higher in your search. Bam.

The “Sparks” feature of Google+ is designed to give you interest-specific news feeds. If you like cooking, you can make a Sparks stream just for that, add it as an interest, and share from there. Sparks is very raw at this time, and needs some work. If I search for “motorcycle” for example, I get a bunch of articles about crashes, which are not among my interests. There are pre-established options (cycling, films, comics, etc.) that seem more organized, and I’m sure a little olde fashion Google algorithming will improve Sparks in the near future. Hell, adding a +1 option to it could be a big help.

The SEO implications are nearly too big to hold in the imagination. You’ll have the same behemoth ingesting all of your social data as that which serves up your search results and maybe even provides your email and other services. Just like the smartphone brought together an array of physical objects (maps, cameras, calendars, etc.) into one device, Google has brought our online services and tools together. They have also made a way to aggregate all of our online data to change how we find information. This could make searches individualized. What comes up as the top search hit for you, may not for someone else.

Part VIII: It All Comes Together, and It’s a Little Scary

The integration of the Google services allows you to bring everything together. When you’re logged into Google and using any of their services, you’ll be able to interact on Google+ with the module in the upper right, without having to leave Gmail, your Google search, or whatever you’re using. Google brings all of these to your mobile device as well. With this omnipresence and Google’s search algorithm omniscience, we just need to hold on to omnibenevolence.

Google’s motto of “don’t be evil” provides little comfort to some who see it as consuming every channel of communication. Google has its hand in email, chat, video chat, music (coming soon), maps, cloud storage, documents, eBooks, calendars, social networking, news, phone calls, how we find information, etc. What Google doesn’t do at this time is control the content source, but they may have some say over which source you’re most likely to see. Recently, Google was challenged to prove that they’re not giving preference to their own products over those of competitors in a search. We’ll see how that pans out.

Conclusion

Google+ is not for everyone, yet. Facebook has games and apps and those 700+ million users. Google+, after a couple weeks, topped 10 million users and is still in the early stages of development. Google+ is not a Facebook clone. This is a platform that can connect you beyond those people you already know, but connect you based on interests and content. Approach Google+ with an open mind and you might find novel uses in this dynamic information transaction environment.

Facebook learned the advantages of being big. Options were available, but none large enough to provide real competition. Google is entering the social network sphere with a different position; they already have a huge network of users and industry clout.  Google needs to keep in mind that there’s no such thing as too big to fail, with great power comes great responsibility, and all those other words of warning and wisdom. Please, Google, don’t be evil.

In my industry, the ever changing universe of SEO keeps us all on our collective toes. This can admittedly be frustrating, but we respect it and work with it. Google is the dominant gatekeeper for our information access. Every second, 34,000 Google searchers are carried out around the world. That’s 88,000,000,000 per month, and 75 percent of those searchers won’t look past the first page of results.

As obnoxious as it can be to try to get your URL into that short list of 10 links, Google does try to play the benevolent dictator. Giving favor to high-value, unique content results in greater user satisfaction and has the side effect of elevating the web as a whole. It’s natural selection and Google is the predator that will destroy the weak and sick, allowing us access to the strongest content.

Ages ago, Google knocked down anyone who tried to trick it with invisible content (White text on a white background? No one will ever know!). Remember the 90s, when a block of irrelevant keywords could lead you astray? Google made those folks essentially invisible. More recently, Google implemented measures to eliminate ‘content farms’ that generated redundant content or high-volume, low-value content. It was inevitable that, with around 11 percent of searches affected, there were some innocent victims caught up in the crossfire. This has forced anyone developing a web presence or working in the industry to invest more in content analysis and development.

Now, Google is implementing their Social Search globally. If you were not aware of Social Search, it includes relevant information from your social network, those you trust, follow and/or like, in your Google search. It is the next level of social network connection and bolsters the already powerful word-of-mouth effect.

This changes the search landscape and realigns the concept of expertise with personal experience. For example, if you search for “web development company” on Google, your results may include content from a blogger who has discussed the topic recently, maybe even mentioned Media Genesis.

As this service grows, what does it mean for your SEO? Get involved in social media, if you are not already. Don’t just have an account, but really get involved. Connect and interact with your followers and contribute something to them. Give people something to talk about and connect your message to your brand.

Cloud computing can be described using any number of metaphors that play on the name, from the positive (clouds can take on the shape of anything you need them to be) to the negative (the information is clouded) to the downright ridiculous (on cloud nine!).

That’s the problem with marketing lingo, it gets caught up in itself and anyone entering the boardroom feels like they need a language guide. Let’s set things straight.

Cloud computing is a network that allocates workload and storage as needed. It’s economical and efficient. The more you need, the more you get, and you only pay for what you use. This is a boon for small businesses that need a fraction of a server at first, but may grow rapidly.

In the Cloud, Internet services become much like other utility services. The infrastructure is there and you don’t need to learn any special software in order to tap into the computing power of the cloud. Data packets are automatically routed to the nearest servers to offer the fastest information transactions. The user doesn’t have to be concerned with the processes.

The word “cloud” replaced the less appealing “swarm.” The original name was attempting to get across the idea of numerous little packets of information flying around, each on its own efficient path. Then, “cloud” took over because it’s more appealing and, honestly, because it obfuscates all those details that the users no longer need to invest in.

“Swarm” computing, as a term, is returning as a new generation of the cloud emerges, but that is a discussion for another time.

More and more business is being conducted online and it is no longer being conducted only by those with deep knowledge about the technology, and it shouldn’t be. Online technologies are tools and a person shouldn’t have to know how to run a lathe to use a screwdriver.

It’s important to note that the cloud is not empty – it still contains hardware and software, but all of that can be spread across the globe and users access it through their web browsers. Some of this might sound familiar, and that’s because cloud computing processes have been around longer that the moniker.

Business to Business (or B2B) use of online technology is coming into its own with social media tools like Facebook and Workfolio.

The fact that websites and SEO are important in business interaction is no surprise. Newer elements, such as web events (think: online product release parties, etc.), social media, webinars, and the like, are being recognized as efficient tools for communication and commerce between businesses.

Marketing Sherpa’s B2B survey is telling:

• 96% will increase or maintain investment is social media
• 94% will increase or maintain investment in virtual events
• 95% will increase or maintain investment in SEO

Have a look at their results and see how they compare to traditional forms of media, like print advertising.

Creativity comes from strange places. There are research studies and even conferences dedicated to exploring the idea of a link between creativity and madness.

No, this is not a confession about my role as creative director at Media Genesis, but Part II of the “Madness in Innovation” series. Part I introduced the relentless Peter Thiel. Part II, on the other hand, takes us to the outer limits with Silicon Valley’s Fox Mulder.

Just over 12 years ago, Joe Firmage resigned as CEO from USWeb. USWeb is an online marketing company (another parallel with MediaG… scary) with prominent clients like Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, and Forbes. Firmage, who had worked for Novell, was a cofounder of USWeb. He stepped down before reaching the age of 30 due to his pursuit of something even less conventional than being a 20-something Internet mogul in the 90s: aliens.

Firmage not only believed that there were extra-terrestrials coming to Earth to help us with the development of technology, but said he had seen and talked with beings from another world in his home in 1997.

You may be thinking that this guy was nuts, but those who have talked with him say he was honest and courageous to expose himself to so much bad press for something he believed. He did not, however, want to expose USWeb to that kind of coverage, thus his resignation.

When asked why he would be so public about this odd fascination, Firmage said it was because he had “the money, credibility, scientific grounding and faith.”

Some believe his out-of-this-world ideas actually contributed to USWeb’s success. Firmage was in the media, a lot. As Jon Swartz said on Forbes.com back in 1999, Firmage did cofound “a firm that specializes in brand marketing.”

Was it a brilliant scam? No, likely not. Firmage put millions into his alien-focused projects, from promoting his book, The Word is Truth, to establishing Project Kairos to prepare us humans for alien contact. Few of his projects after USWeb, both mundane and extraordinary, had legs. It’s not clear if that had anything to do with his infamy.

These days, Firmage focuses on his original field of study, physics, and endeavors closer to home, like solving Earth’s energy woes. He founded ManyOne, which states that it is dedicated to its “mission of building a network of socially responsible organizations and individuals.”

Firmage was a key figure in the growth of Internet marketing. He really is brilliant. One has to wonder is why this man, who was so deeply involved with technology and cutting edge innovations, believed that the key inventions he worked with were products of a UFO crash in 1947?

Do you have aches and pains? Stuffy nose? Drink beer. Or, at least, this would be advisable in Sudanese Nubia around 350 to 550 A.D.  George Armelagos, a biological anthropologist with Emory University in Atlanta, took part in a study that found, quite unintentionally, that the Nubians of this era were culturing antibiotics in their beer.

© 2005 by Tomasz Sienicki

These early pharmacologists may not have known that the antibiotic tetracycline was being produced by Streptomyces contamination of the grains. The bacteria would flourish during the fermentation process, loading the beverage with the antibiotics. Children as young as two would move from tetracycline laced mother’s milk to this medicinal beer, and they would continue to drink it throughout their lives.

Researchers discovered this fun fact when they were examining the bones of African mummies for osteoporosis and found tetracycline deposits in the bones. The scientists thought at first that their samples had been contaminated, as the modern history of antibiotic use only goes back to 1928. Not only does this add to the already fascinating history of beer, but also to the history of medicine (not a first for beer).

“One scientist was wounded and the other killed. Confirmed reports say that the murdered scientist was in charge of dealing with the Stuxnet virus at the nuclear plants.” This was the end of an article published by Fox News, 12/9/10.

The assassination was carried out by men on motorcycles who attached magnetic bombs to the cars of the scientists. Although not said directly, one with a scrap of imagination can draw a connection between this murder and protecting another agent in the field, a digital agent that has been working from within Iran’s nuclear facilities. This agent is known as Stuxnet.

Stuxnet, to put it simply, is a sophisticated computer worm. Released into the wild, the worm went around infecting various computer systems, but it was looking for something in Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Iran is, needless to say, protective over its nuclear program. With none of the computers attached to the World Wide Web, the worm was released into machines around the intended target until, inevitably, infected devices were brought into the nuclear facilities, and then Stuxnet got to work.

All of this would take a good computer cracker, but what the worm did once inside Iran’s nuclear facilities shows something much more insidious and, admittedly, ingenious. Stuxnet infected over 100,000 computers but didn’t do much damage until it found its target. The worm attacked frequency converters in centrifuges made by Siemens (a German company) with components made by Vacon (a Finnish company) and Fararo Paya (an Iranian company).

Stuxnet caused the centrifuges, which were used for processing uranium, to spin very fast and then slow in a way that damaged several vital components of the machine and left the uranium that was being processed unusable for its intended purpose.

The worm hid itself, so the normal alerts that the equipment and security systems would provide were not triggered. It was so sneaky that the Iranian engineers never found it, but were instead left baffled by repeated failures.

The worm was discovered by a company that was doing business with Iran. When they put out a notice about it to a network of computer security experts, the alert sites were attacked and taken down for 24 hours; plenty of time to take precautionary measures.

Stuxnet is still being studied. The current best guess is that it was made as a military weapon through a collaboration of intelligence agencies around the world. They would need to have had intimate knowledge of the engineering behind Siemens’, Vacon’s, and Fararo Paya’s targeted products. They would also have needed some of the best programmers in the world. Microsoft estimates the worm took 10,000 man-days to create.

Embedded in the code was a handle: DEADFOO7. Possibly, this is a snarky tip of the hat to the fictitious secret agent who is particular about his martinis. The attacks on the scientists, however, drive home that this is not a pulp novel. This is real spy stuff.

Iran has not been able to clear its systems of the worm. The intricacy of this creature is not yet fully understood and, according to experts, Iran would have to throw away all of the computers used in their nuclear program, as well as those of their equipment vendors. Clearing the worm would take restarting their nuclear program from scratch and the technical expertise to prevent reinfection.

Between this and the recent fray over the Wikileaks cable release, corporate rebuff, and Anonymous’ retaliation (see the soon to come “Espionage in a New Age, Part II”), 2010 has made very public the inseparability of online technologies in real world espionage.

Being the highly visual creatures we are we don’t always appreciate things that are a bit too big to fit on our retinas; the Pacific Ocean, the Milky Way Galaxy, Google. With nearly 2 billion people online, Google is a household name and an official verb as of 2006 (according to the Oxford English Dictionary). Google is our concierge, our stalwart guide through the foreboding and yet wild jungle of the Internet.

Computer School has put together a fun info-graphic to help us understand the size of the friendly beast that is Google. Let’s look at a few of the highlights:

• In 1996 (also the year Media Genesis was founded) Google’s original index contained 25 million pages. It now has 40 billion and growing.
• Nearly four years of video content is added to YouTube every day.
• Google will soon have a storage capacity of 1 exabyte (1,152,921,504,606,846,976 bytes).
• It would take 4.75 million years to write all of the words on the Internet at 40 words per minute.
• To display Google’s index, you would need a 6 million-mile monitor.

It also must be mentioned that the Internet, and the trusty assistant that is Google, is not just a tool or an amorphous blob of information. As we interact with the Internet we shape it and is shapes us. For instance, participation in the online community is linked to child literacy.

The one bit of information I find hard to believe is that Google allows dogs on-site but not cats. That’s a serious discrepancy between real-world and online practice, since most of the Internet seems to be made up of this:

In the early days of the web, you know, when we talked about the “information superhighway” and used a bazillion search engines from AltaVista to Infoseek, Dogpile, and Northern Lights, we used to talk about a paperless society.

Ah, those glory days when we were both mystified and scared about the burgeoning web and the Internet. We held it as a great promise that pulpy forests would be spared by a Silicon Savior. Who would need to print anymore? Everything was available online. How old fashioned to demand a paper cut machine in the form of the printed word!

And yet we print; we print often, irresponsibly and perhaps even more than we did before the Internet. The paperless society is still a long ways away.

So, recognizing that printing is a reality of the web, here are a few suggestions of how to best design for printed content and also address a common set of issues with printing from the web:

How to Design around Intelligent Printing

As users, many people now include some notice in the footer of their emails encouraging the recipients not to wastefully print. That is definitely good advice and guidance, but some users still print every communication, seemingly uncontrollably. So, what we can influence most as marketing managers, web developers, or architects of web sites is where and when is it appropriate to print.

Attribution: Marcin Wichary

At Media Genesis (www.mediaG.com) we have seen time and time again that users scan web content and they do so at a clip of about 30 seconds to 45 seconds per page. We also know that users commonly click, on average, 3 pages in a site visit. So we believe that the printing should happen on the page which provides the terminal content. The goal of pages one and two (and we’re talking generalities here) should be more transitional – getting users to a more specific set of selections quickly by providing highly scannable content.

From there, the third click (and this varies for users and web sites) should offer a terminal content section in the form of a PDF or such supporting document that answers the users question. This method allows the viewer to use the web for a transactional purpose (getting to the right information) and then leverage a tool designed for printing, such as a PDF, when the user has found what they want.

Issues with Printing from the Web

One of the key reasons why the idea listed above makes sense for many web developments and people in charge of managing the web experience, is that printing from the web has always been an inconsistent and relatively unreliable solution.

Back in the days of 800×600, as users were transitioning to 1024×768, many browsers would cut off part of the page because the printing utility didn’t manage the aspect ratio. Specifically, it became a well-known bug that plagued Internet Explorer 6, which, for a long time, was the most popular web browser. The bug manifested so that shrink or size to fit were ineffectual. Web pages developed for the growing popularity of larger screens would not print correctly, and you can understand why this was very frustrating for developers trying to stay on top of the trends.

While this issue is now fixed, printing from the web as a whole still comes with many common problems. Case in point: Firefox Support Forums continue lighting up with print errors following updates. In many browsers, text can wrap awkwardly and content can spread page to page or add all kinds of content not desired on a printing page. For the longest time, MapQuest always forced a second page containing just a footer! Imagine the paper cost alone for the hundreds of millions of maps printed during that time.

Fact is, the web is too dependent on how the user has the machine configured. It’s as if each person has his/her own version of Word and each time someone opens a document the settings are different. There are simply too many variations of fonts, browsers, operating systems, and even changing platforms of how people connect to the web – let alone how they print. There are two approaches as solutions:

1)      Focus on what a user can print and don’t confuse quick informational and directional pages (pages that point you to more specific content) with terminal content where the user has found what they want and likely can print. When the user gets to the terminal content, provide them something that is DESIGNED to be printed, such as a PDF versus a web page that is too dependent on settings not controlled by the web developers.

2)      Work through as many of the circumstances as possible, both on the user side (see below) and working through CSS (cascading style sheets) or CMS (content management systems) that can extract code to leave just simple text.

Printing from the Web – A Handy Guide!

• Printing from IE 7.0 and 8.0 in Vista

• Printing in Firefox

• How to adjust spacing and remove headers and footers

• Common CSS