"The Party of 'No'" says "Yes we can" to Obama's web site design

Bangor Daily News has an article out right now about how Republican Les Otten, exploring the possibility of running for governor of Maine in 2010, has ripped off Barack Obama’s “O” logo. However, what they fail to point is the fact that Otten’s entire website is a rip-off.

The website not only has the same layout (navigation placement aside), but the font colors, font sizes, placement of content, and content borders are almost 100% the same.

To really get the full impact of how horribly ripped off this site/logo is, let me show you some screen shots–you be the judge.

www.barackobama.com as of July 1st, 2009

www.lesotten.com as of July 1st, 2009

What’s worse is the blatant logo ripoff. I have compiled a progression from Obama’s logo to Otten’s, increasing Otten’s logo by 25% opacity until it was 100% opaque. I also blew up the image so you could see it in more detail. I apologize for the pixelation.

Obama/Otten logo overlay as of July 1st, 2009

After studying the logos on top of each other you notice a few things:

• The “O”s both have starbursts around them, Obama’s has 40 “arms,” Otten’s has 50
• The distance from the outer edge of the “O” to the beginning of the whitespace within is the same. The difference is that Otten’s has the stem that encircles his “O” making his border appear thicker.
• The stripes are in the same quadrant of the circle and have the same perspective–from left to right.

If you saw Otten’s logo independent of his web site/campaign, you might assume this was Obama 2.0, the launch of a new PR push within the Obama administration. It’s no coincidence that Obama’s campaign won a couple of advertising awards from Cannes Lion, those guys knew what they were doing–you see the “O”, you think “Obama.”

According to the Bangor Daily News, Edith Smith, Otten’s spokeswoman, explained that the web site design firm “used standard industry templates and colors found on political Web sites nationwide.”

Here’s a random list of other politicians’ sites that meet Smith’s “industry standards” without reusing Obama’s layout and logo. In fact, I can’t seem to find another site that does.

• Susan Collins
• John Kerry
• Olympia Snowe
• Michael Bennet
• Mitt Romney
• Sarah Palin

Time Warner Cable Remote Control FAIL!

Today I came home to our Time Warner Cable DVR (Motorola) box not working properly – the DVR function(s) wasn’t working. Taking matters into my own hands I thought it may be an issue with our remote. Some things worked on the remote, such as ch+ ch-, vol, and basic stuff. I WANTED MY DVR FUNCTIONS!

As I flipped the remote over to take the batteries out I saw the following text:

Quick Remote Setup
1) Turn device on.
2) Press Device key (TV, DVD, etc.).
3) Press and hold SETUP (LED blinks twice).
4) Press 9-9-1 (LED blinks twice).
5) Press POWER key.
6) Press CH+ repeatedly until device turns off.
7) Press SETUP when device turns off.

I thought, hrmmm, maybe that will fix the remote. So I tried it. On step #2 I selected the CBL (cable) button on the remote. I got the blinking but the device never turned off.

I got fed up after trying several different things. I called TWC support and they told me they were in fact having issues with their DVR service. After talking with support for a few minutes (very nice by the way…I think I got the Portland office) I explained I followed the instructions on the back of the remote thinking it would reset the remote. The support person said if I did that on the remote when the CBL mode is selected, I cleared out the remote settings. I asked him if there was anyway to reset the remote and he said no. All remotes come pre-configured from TWC and there is no way to reprogram them yourself (unless someone has a nice hack they know of out there). If you pop the battery cover off the back of the remote you will see 6 pins…that’s what they use to reprogram these things.

The reason I am so ticked is because there is NOTHING on the remote that says that following those instructions wipes out the settings and the only way to get the settings back is to call TWC for a new remote! Why oh why would you do this TWC?