CreativeHerb.com

Creativeherb.com Rebranding 2009 is now in the works. The direction of this site has been debated over many months as I expanded into new areas of expertise. I came from a design background with many years of focus on offline media such as print, outdoor, direct mail, corp collateral etc. Lately, I’ve kept myself extremely busy playing catchup with online media.

I did freelance web design and flash banners before, but now I’ve gone beyond that with a deeper and more cohesive understanding of user interface design, social media strategy, SEO, trending etc. Like many people, I fell into the trap of over expanding my range of discussion topics, some of it inadvertently, some as a testing platform for bigger projects.

The range of topics here will be refocused to pull more from my experiences, on subjects such as marketing, branding, design, SEO, user interface etc. The unique selling point will be an experience that will be presented in an integrated approach based around the designable aspects. Leveraging my broad range of experience across different sectors.

Design is a broad word, but also can be taken as a problem that can be solved through a creative and intelligent plan of action. That will be the new premise of the Creativeherb.com. You will see changes over the next few weeks as I phase in new categories, completely new theme, new post topics.

Behind the scenes, SEO will have more of a design focus based on the categories mentioned. I will keep everyone updated and post about my methods as well. I’m very excited about the upcoming changes, and I think it will definitely be getting more interesting for everyone too.

EDIT: In case you were wondering, yes I will still keep a sub-section for misc. helpful tools/tips like the Melamine Food List or the Canadian Google Flu Trends I’ve been keeping updated.

There’s one major flaw with Google Flu Trends, it doesn’t come in a Canadian version. So I went ahead and put one together here, daily updated charts and all. They are auto generated, so you will always get the most recent data.

For those who were wondering, Google Flu Trends is a search data tool that generates location-based search-trends statistics based on “Flu” related words. It can help to predict outbreaks of Flu (Influenza), giving everyone an early warning system that even precedes health agencies. Hundreds of thousands of people die each year from the Flu, so stay informed and be one step ahead.

Of course you shouldn’t rely on data alone, keeping good personal health and hygiene habits are helpful in avoiding infection too. And of course a vaccine flu shot certainly helps. However, these preventive measures are far from 100% reliable. If you get Influenza, you will be the most infective between the 2nd and 3rd days after infection, and your infectivity will last for around ten days. So try to cover your mouth when coughing or sneezing, and carefully dispose of tissues etc.

NOTE:

The charts below are grouped by Canadian provinces. If an upper chart line is not visible, that means the search volume is lower than the minimum requirement for chart display. If you see a sudden spike in the chart for your area though, you should be extra careful around your classmates or coworkers.

Across Canada - Last 30 days *Auto Updated*
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This is the most comprehensive list of Melamine contaminated food currently available, make sure you’re not eating any of this stuff. Note: I’ve included everything in a global list, as the product ingredients may come from anywhere due to possible product mislabeling.

UPDATE: November 18, 2008

U.S./Canada: Apparently some non-dairy coffee mixes from Korea contained milk and it is not listed as part of the ingredients. This is bad news for vegans or people with milk allergies, so be on the alert. And since the milk came from the Asia area, not sure if Melamine could be involved at this point, since it is not officially an ingredient of the product. What else sneaked by with milk as an unlisted ingredient? Here’s the full list:

Affected Products
Listed by brand, product, size, UPC

• Maxim Coffee Mix Original 1200 g (12 g x 100) 8 801037 019476
  Maxim Coffee Mix 1200 g (12 g x 100) 8 801037 019667
  Maxim Mocha Gold Mild 1200 g (12 g x 100) 8 801037 019667
  Maxim Coffee Mix 1800 g (12 g x 150) 8 801037 032581
  Maxim Mocha Gold Mild 1800 g (12 g x 150) 8 801037 032581
  Maxim Coffee Mix 240 g (12 g x 20) 8 801037 006391
  Maxim Mocha Gold Mild 240 g (12 g x 20) 8 801037 006391
  Maxim Coffee Mix 186 g (9.3 g x 20) 8 801037 034134
  Maxim Mocha Gold Mild 186 g (9.3 g x 20) 8 801037 034134
  Maxim Well-Being 1/2 Calories 186 g (9.3 g x 20) 8 801037 034134
  Maxim Coffee Mix Ice 183 g (18.3 g x 10) 8 801037 038972
  Maxim Cappuccino Mocha 360 g (18 g x 20) 8 801037 031300
  Maxim Cappuccino Hazelnut 360 g (18 g x 20) 8 801037 031317
  Maxim Cappuccino Vanilla 360 g (18 g x 20) 8 801037 031324

• Maxwell House Coffee Mix Original 240 g (12 g x 20) 8 801037 035650
  Maxwell House Coffee Mix Original 600 g (12 g x 50) 8 801037 035667

• Taster’s Choice Coffee Mix 240 g (12 g x 20) 8 801055 126316
  Taster’s Choice Coffee Mix 1.2 kg (12 g x 100) 8 801055 126606
  Taster’s Choice Coffee Mix Mocha 1.2 kg (12 g x 100) 8 801055 126538
  Taster’s Choice Well-Being Milk 189 g (12.6 g x 15) 8 801055 028672

UPDATE: November 11, 2008

India: Will this never end? Apparently massive amounts of Melamine contaminated milk products entered India recently, due to the demand for cheaper milk products from China. I guess you get what you pay for. And this is right after India banned milk product imports from China for 3 months back in September 2008, which was 2 months ago. Something doesn’t quite add up here… (more…)

Welcome to the relaunch party of CreativeHerb.com. In case you were wondering, I have been working on a v2.0 total redesign in Illustrator. However, this is version 1.5 because I took the v2.0 design that I was working on, ripped out elements of it and forced it onto my v1.0 design somehow. I wanted to get a new design for my blog out the door, but wanted to spend a few more months working on the v2.0 design. So look for that in the future.

Also with this relaunch, not only does the visuals look sleeker, but I also promise to be less polite. What?

I realized that my previous posts sounded very forced and often awkward. I was basically writing for others and not for myself. Writing flows easily enough for me, so why should I try to sound like something I’m not? I’ve felt so bad about it that I completely stopped blogging. Enough about graphics tutorials. Enough about money saving tips. I’m going to just share my thoughts of the moment because I think they are more than good enough.

Welcome to the new Creativeherb.com

Warning! 95% of product reviews are useless. Yes, I realize that’s a bold statement, but it’s true. The next time you decide to buy something, you really should read this first.

This also applies to other types of reviews but in particular, it applies to product reviews. When a new product is released, the majority of reviewers are not going to wait for the product to get old and stale before writing their reviews. They will try to stay updated, as much as they can, to the new products that are released so that people will keep coming back to them. And before the flood of other reviews come out for the product.

So what is wrong with releasing a product review quickly? It sure is great for gathering the limited information on the product in one central place. But the one major problem for reviews like that, is they will often not list the severe problems that pop up over time. (more…)

Many people are in the category of the self imposed (un)creative prison. I believe that everyone is essentially creative, but through many years of negative conditioning, you are led to believe that only highly specialized artists can be creative. I’m here to say otherwise.

There are many people in various job positions where creativity is frowned upon. That is also one of the reasons why as soon as something goes wrong, the speed of adaptation and response to the situation would be slow. Just do what you’re told and stick to it.

Like the classic sci-fi robot that is only programmed to do certain tasks and nothing else. Something out of the scope happens and you have a headless chicken running around.

On the other hand, The joy of giving birth to that creative moment is priceless. It is a great fulfillment and affirmation of the immeasurable brilliance that humans are capable of. (more…)