Entries for category 'Development'

With the recent announcement of Internet Explorer 9, the discussion of which browser is the best seemed approprioate.  For many people out there, Internet Explorer is the browser of choice if not simply because it came with their installation of Windows, and it's what they are familiar or comfortable with.  Though many people have been flocking to the many other browsers out there.  There are plenty of reasons for that too.  Hopefully we can cover a few of those reasons here.

On Saturday, February 13th, Sitepro was the proud host to the first ever Chippewa Valley Ruby Camp.  Developers from all over the Chippewa Valley and even into Minnesota were in attendance.

Yes, I like consonance.

In this entry I would like to share my thoughts regarding the value I perceive in entering dynamic site data through a paired CMS within the vacuum of a development environment. While its fast and easy to simply switch a datasource to existing sample content, the avoidance of doing any content grunt work also has a price.

Driving Directions, powered by Google Maps, are a great way to add an inexpensive feature to your website that allows your users to find you from virtually anywhere in the world.

Wouldn’t you like to know what visitors to your site are thinking?  Certainly an unhappy or pleased visitor could email you through your capture form, but I’ve discovered a better way.  One of my clients turned me on to a new program; it’s great for all flavors of sites, but extraordinarily important for ecommerce sites.

So you’re going to hire your own team to build your business website.  But wait – is that really the cost effective way to do it?  At the very least you’ll need a web designer and developer and probably a technical writer if you aren’t skilled in writing.  And do you know how to best optimize your page in the search engines?

Well, the simple answer is that they are all optimized to be hearty, robust, competitive, unique and original!

Now, seriously, I bet you never even considered that these three items have many similarities so let's explore this......

Even if you're not planning on selling online, a well-crafted site is an essential for any business. Many times we hear my business is very small, just me and a couple employees and our product really isn't sold online so why do I need a website?

Episode 7 of the Sitepro Podcast is now available. The Sitepro Podcast was created to help educate clients and the community about various aspects of web, video and other multimedia content. This is the last of four episodes of the podcasts that focus on the the Grace Lutheran Foundation and all the multimedia work that Sitepro has produced for them. Be sure to subscribe to get all of the episodes of the Sitepro Podcast.

After spending a little more time with the mobile web, there's a bit more to be said about issues surrounding designing websites for the mobile browser.  Differences in phone technology as well as new software technologies in development are changing the field of mobile web design.  This post takes a look at some of those phone issues and new developments.

A few months ago, I developed a ColdFusion/Mach-II implementation of the reCAPTCHA API.  This type of CAPTCHA requires the person to enter two words rather than a single sequence of random letters.  In addition to protecting your website from spam, reCAPTCHA helps digitize text books.  They do this by using a mystery word as one of the two words, until there is a consensus about what the correct answer for that word is.

Are you new to ColdFusion?  Are you new to the Mach-II framework? 
Do you often use the web to find solutions to your development needs?

Yes... Yes... Yes...

I have been writing software and web applications for quite some time.  Every now and then,
I have the opportunity to work with a new language or structure.  Today... happens to be one
of those opportunities!

I am new to Cold Fusion and Mach-II.  I did what I usually do when I am working with a new
application: search the web for a solution or answer!  I spent some time searching for an example
of how to retrieve information from a ContentService using SOAP.  After a while of reading
numerous pages/documentation/blogs/etc., I realized that I was not going to find a specific answer
to my task.  With some guidance, I was eventually able to piece together the code to retrieve and parse
the appropriate data from the contentservice API.

Hopefully, this code snipet will help you.  Click below to see the code...

Many modern day websites (in addition to being a source of information for customers) are now providing applications to clients and employees in order to improve customer service and allow instant access to information such as current inventory levels, custom pricing and sales quotes. These applications built into the website for ease of access and “hands free” administration are the reappearance of a software architecture that appeared with the original mainframes.

Websites grow old and die for a variety of reasons, but most notably because site content goes out of date.  Since visitors to your site equate the quality of your site with the legitimacy and credibility of your company, you want to make sure that the information you present is clear, concise, relevant, accurate, and up to date. Here at Sitepro, we make it easy to keep your content fresh.
 

Friendfeed is a feed aggregator that groups together updates from twitter, facebook, digg, youtube, your blog and much more.  It can also publish entries from your friendfeed to twitter.  This article shows you how to tap into that twitter publishing feature of friendfeed to automate the posting of your blog entries to twitter.  Watch my screencast to create a seamless connectioin between your blog and your twitter account.

While the recession continues to batter brick and mortar stores, online sales are still pretty hot (in comparison).  When gas prices climbed through the roof last year and no one wanted to leave the house – everything you needed was just a few mouse clicks away. 

An American inventor, Charles Kettering, once said “The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.” Unfortunately even in an industry linked with incredible growth and innovation this saying holds true.

Recently on the Sitepro Blog, we have switched to using an enhanced commenting system called Intense Debate.  Intense Debate provides many features that will supercharge the community, increase comments, and increase pageviews.  Some notable features include commenter profiles, reputation scores, email notifications, reply by email, and facebook integration.  Watch my screencast and read all about the awesomeness that is Intense Debate!

Last Thursday, a few Sitepro developers attended the Twin Cities Coldfusion User Group at University of St. Thomas.  We were introduced to the future of Coldfusion, specifically Coldfusion 9.  There was free admission, free food, free shirt, prizes, and an abundance of new Coldfusion features.

So just how is a website developed? Building a website may seem like an overwhelming process, but we make it as simple as possible by taking it one step at a time. The following outlines the 10 steps that Sitepro takes with each of our website clients. For us, it's a tried and true process.