Sitepro Blog - Entries for category 'Tools'

Ruby Camp at Sitepro

Jessica Janiuk — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:45:00 -0600

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.

Sitepro Now Offers VeriSign SSL Certificates

Kate Rafko — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 10:56:00 -0600

Sitepro now offers SSL certificates through VeriSign, one of the most recognized trust marks in the world, displayed on over 90,000 websites in 145 countries.

What is Bing.com?

Cleo Gilgenbach — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:28:00 -0600

Bing search service launched in early June by Microsoft. It is their version of Google. It is different because you can ask it questions, as opposed to Google, where you mainly search for just information. Bing is capable of answering questions; it is like a decision maker.

the Mobile Web - Part 2

Jessica Janiuk — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:45:00 -0600

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.

reCAPTCHA: Blocking Spam and More

Jon Karna — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:40:00 -0600

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.

Widget Wizardry - Part 2

Adam Knight — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 09:12:00 -0600

Armed with a tag cloud and an RSS feed spitting your company’s insights into the twitterverse, you might think you’re good to go. Don’t. Like most things, there is always something else you can do to make your social media presence more effective. The first of these is a flickr widget.

Widget Wizardry - Part 1

Adam Knight — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:45:00 -0600

Continuing my series on company blogs, I’m now going to describe for you the myriad benefits that come from what MTV might call "Pimping Your Blog". These nifty techniques have nothing to do with the words you write, but rather how people see, interact, and (most importantly) broadcast them around the web.

What Makes A Website Successful?

Paul Her — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:18:00 -0600

We’re not going to focus on the design or the layout of a website, although we may mention some basic elements that will relate to the design, but more importantly, we’re focusing on how the website is structured so it can be successful.

There’s no question on arguing how a website can help you obtain a successful online presence and that it’s the most effective marketing strategy one can have as a designer or a company. A successful website should already have basic information where a site visitor can learn, identify and quickly understand how you can help. Essentially, a website provides a solution to a problem.

YouTube Video 101

Keif Oss — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:03:00 -0600

5 years ago clients typically wanted videos in a format that they can easily hand out such as DVD or interactive CD. As a multimedia supplier, Sitepro.com was unique from other production companies in that we were streaming videos within client websites as well. While physical deliverables and inter-website distribution have still been a stronghold, more clients are inquiring about services like YouTube, Facebook and other social media applications.

While there are lots of other social video sites out there, YouTube has proven to be the top of the crop. Did you know that YouTube is the number one video site on the internet? Get this: It’s the 4^th largest internet destination in the world and the #2 search engine behind Google and before Yahoo…….just huge. Often clients ask me questions like :

"How can I get my Video on YouTube?"

"How can we create a Facebook account and put my videos in it?"

"We just want to make some simple videos and upload them. Where do we start?"

Follow this series, YouTube Video 101, to gain some insight on these questions as well as thoughts you may not have considered when developing videos for social media and website use.

Using Friendfeed to Automatically Post Your Blog Entries on Twitter

Jon Karna — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 04:46:00 -0600

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.

Why Live Chat On Your Website …

Jan Hilton Koepke — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:49:00 -0600

I recently read the article "3 Reasons You Need a Live Chat Agent For Your Website - Make Every Visitor Count" The article supports the mindset that if you own a website that provides a service you should incorporate Chat into the site.

Using Twitter To Promote

Paul Her — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:55:00 -0600

Hard economic time brings less people and traffic to you making you second guessing your advertising strategies. Don’t have to spend a dime if you don’t want to but how are you still going to drive traffic? How are you going to announce your next big thing without any advertisement?

What Is Lorem Ipsum?

Paul Her — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:43:00 -0600

First we’ll look into what is Lorem Ipsum? Then we’ll head into the magical wonders of why creative designers and publishers use lorem ipsum in their initial designs.

Web Marketing 101

Steve Allingham — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 08:50:00 -0600

Web marketing is easy - put your web address on absolutely everything that will ever come in contact with a customer, prospective customer, or someone you hope may one day be a customer. Yet, how many times have you come across business advertising and marketing that omits a company's web address?

Intense Debate Now on the Sitepro Blog!

Jon Karna — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:15:00 -0600

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!

Sitepro CMS – Content Management System

Matthew Martin — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:08:00 -0600

The Sitepro CMS allows you to quickly make updates to your sites WebPages without the need to contact a Sitepro representative. This saves you time, money, and allows you to keep your content fresh and relevant, important issues facing every competitive business. The best part is, the Sitepro CMS comes standard with each and every website we host.

Usability in Web Design

Paul Her — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:02:00 -0600

Usability testing determines the success (or failure) of a website. Site visitors click through the site with the mouse and decide what the next step should be. Whether your site is a product driven site and the main focus is to generate a profit through people buying things, or a content heavy site with just loads of information to educate or get a point across, all site owners have one purpose in mind and a single goal to accomplish, how will the site visitor interact with the web site and how they think.

Why call when you can Chat…..

Jan Hilton Koepke — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:35:00 -0600

So it comes down to competition - which team can produce the most informative blogs within a given time frame wins the pizza and the whole ..... well you get the picture. Obligation, arm twisting and team competitiveness wins every time and prompts the writing of this blog about Live Chat.

Consider Paperless Billing

Cleo Gilgenbach — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:07:00 -0600

Take a few minutes and think of how many invoices a business receives every month. Telephone billings, utilities, and vendor bills are probably just examples of what you receive. Each invoice arrives in an envelope; each envelope contains an invoice, many include a return envelope for payment, which requires a check and also a stamp.

Flex Examples: Week 1

Matt King — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:02:00 -0600

Every week I'm going to highlight an example of Adobe Flex technology that I feel showcases the power of this program.

For those who don't know, Flex is an Adobe tool that generates Flash-based content. Whereas Flash began as an animation program that expanded into multimedia, Flex is geared towards generating business applications. Here on this blog I'll locate great uses of this outstanding program and provide links and information regarding their uses.

The inaugural example comes to us from Philips Electronics.

Sitepro Developers Attend TCCFUG

Jon Karna — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:29:00 -0600

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.

Just Point and Twit with TwitPic!

Josh Gore — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:14:00 -0600

Okay, I know that social media tools are flying at us faster than a teenager driving home with the latest version of "Halo", but this one's definitely worth taking a few moments to examine (and yes, this too is flying extremely fast).

Get Followed on Twitter!

Benjamin Stroinski — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:05:00 -0600

Regular readers and my colleagues know that I'm quite the Twitter junkie. It's been particularly great to use Twitter to speak in an open conversation with local businesses, get tips and news from design colleagues, get quick texts about upcoming area events, and even to send myself RSS feeds of great local shopping deals within a few minutes of being posted. I don't have a ton of followers, but that's ok - my goals for Twitter are mostly personal/professional communication, and to dialog in an interesting way with people I might not meet otherwise. Are you happy with who's following you?

So let's assume you've read the article I keep posting regarding 50 uses of Twitter for business (heck, why not browse all of our Twitter-related articles), and you've started your Twitter account. But what's this? No one will follow your tweets? What do you do? I have some suggestions about getting those elusive Twitter followers, so read on past the break to learn some simple ways you can encourage followers and gain that Twitter audience you crave!

Privacy and Social Networking

Benjamin Stroinski — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:24:00 -0600

Still not sold on facebook, twitter, linkedin, and similar web applications? The most common reason I hear from people as to why they won't try social networking is the loss of their privacy. Well, if that's all that's keeping you from connecting with friends, colleagues, and potential customers, I'm here to share some simple things you can do to participate and maintain whatever level of anonymity you choose!

Read on for ideas for guidelines you can set for yourself, and settings relevant to several of the more popular sites to keep your personal information private.

50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business

Benjamin Stroinski — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:37:00 -0600

Several weeks ago I posted an article about joining Twitter. If you haven't yet, give it a try! It takes just a few minutes, and can be adapted for a variety of different business purposes. Still not convinced? New Marketing Labs President Chris Brogan has written about 50 ways you can use Twitter as part of your business.

Check out the complete article here!

The Business of Blogging

Susan Sudbrink — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 10:27:00 -0600

Aren't blogs part of this "social networking" fad for younger people, simply journaling to each other online about what's going on in their lives? As a professional who has been employed in the business sector for over twenty years that is exactly what I thought social networking was all about. Boy was I wrong.

This January I had the privilege of attending the Internet Retailer Conference in Miami, Florida. Read more about how it changed my perspective on social networking, and blogs in particular, after the break.

Blog?

Kregg Knox (K2) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 11:48:00 -0600

The word "Blog," makes many people cringe, roll their eyes or go huh?, but many companies are praising the application of a Blog on there website for many reasons.

Twitter wants to know: What are you doing?

Benjamin Stroinski — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:16:00 -0600

Today's the day. Are you ready to get started with social networking? Let's start up your very own Twitter account! Click past the break to see how easy it is.

Top Five Advantages of CMS

Lauren Haugh — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 12:34:00 -0600

A Content Management System (CMS) is computer software that allows the user to easily create, edit, and manage website content in an organized, consistent fashion. Not all CMS are created equal. Some allow more control than others and are developed differently. But, all in all, CMS definitely provide website owners with some serious advantages.