tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48005849737950656062007-09-06T05:51:36.435-04:00Sayf SharifBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800584973795065606.post-16065136476197155162007-08-31T18:49:00.000-04:002007-09-06T05:51:36.465-04:00

Go with more. Always take more pictures than you think you need. Many will be useless and only when you take several (25-50) will you get ones that are great. Pictures and diagrams catch the eye and make a site look polished. They also make pages look more readable when a page is full of text. Make sure your pictures and diagrams are high quality (at least medium resolution on most digital

Tim Hinkeltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800584973795065606.post-77032148016899612592007-08-20T18:07:00.000-04:002007-08-20T18:22:19.707-04:00

Having broken links on your website or page layouts that look fine in Internet Explorer but make no sense when viewed in a different browser, such as Firefox, sends a red flag to your customers and any potential new customers. For example, I am thinking of joining my local chamber of commerce. I checked out the website and nothing is happening this summer, so I decide to wait until fall. I

Tim Hinkeltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800584973795065606.post-29134730252200652782007-08-15T15:56:00.000-04:002007-08-15T15:57:04.060-04:00

Among many other possible purposes, your website should first represent your organization. Everything you and your employees do represents your company. From the way they answer the phone to the way they interact at a trade show, employees are representing the company. Many companies train and re-train their employees to do their work more professionally. Companies hire a vendor to create your

Tim Hinkeltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800584973795065606.post-52846747800971070822007-08-08T17:12:00.000-04:002007-08-08T17:22:46.006-04:00

Just a quick note on some thoughts on web credibility and how to position your company today... You should always aim for your online appearance to be one step beyond what you actually are. Puff out your chest. Look bigger, fancier, shinier. Appearance is everything. If I learned one thing from staying up too late in 1984 is that it's better to look good than to feel good. What I mean is that

Sayf Shariftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800584973795065606.post-16853596040603798012007-08-04T04:37:00.001-04:002007-08-04T10:18:15.081-04:00

Last week I thought I knew something about marketing. I met with a client about their Google Adwords campaigns and we discussed making some changes since we needed to set their ads apart from the competition. After I brought everyone up to speed on how Adwords work, one of the senior members of our meeting said "We should make two ads per campaign. After a couple of weeks, we check the click

Tim Hinkeltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800584973795065606.post-59115803204603013982007-08-03T10:32:00.001-04:002007-08-08T17:24:25.131-04:00

So Microsoft and Apple have renewed their font licesnsing agreement. I guess it's a good thing. Fonts on Windows and OS X will continue to be relativily simliar for users on the web. We're still really limited to some fairly boring and common, if not downright bad fonts. It'd be nice if both platforms could expand their common font libraries, but I guess it's asking too much for these companies

Sayf Shariftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800584973795065606.post-83901502214200470162007-08-01T11:05:00.000-04:002007-08-01T11:13:56.037-04:00

Go Daddy allies to take over America Apparently someone, somewhere, thinks they can make money off the .us domain. Outside the U.S. many websites have the country code domain rather than a .com. For instance NELA's German branch is nela.de whereas the U.S. branch is nela-usa.com. Well there's a .us one as well, and Go Daddy thinks they can sell it better. I don't doubt that they can sucker

Sayf Shariftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800584973795065606.post-31923300851929147012007-07-31T14:16:00.000-04:002007-07-31T14:21:06.383-04:00

Today we launched NELA USA's Portugese site. NELA USA specializes in registers and plates for newspapers and commercial printers. Their new portugese site is aimed at servicing and assisting their growing business in Brazil. They already have websites in English, Spanish and German.

Sayf Shariftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800584973795065606.post-8090763937046251432007-07-31T14:08:00.000-04:002007-07-31T14:21:57.408-04:00

This morning we helped Ballotin Chocolates send out their first, of hopefully many, newsletters. Ballotin Chocolates is a high end Chocolatier located in Newburyport, MA. If you live around that area, or like to visit (and Newburyport is a pretty neat place), and you are interested in special events at Ballotin you should sign up for their newsletter.

Sayf Shariftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800584973795065606.post-66758875201448916602007-07-31T08:43:00.000-04:002007-08-01T10:01:24.722-04:00

Using Flash in websites is a tricky beast. It's an extremely effective way to get cross browser multimedia content to your users, and add some dynamic elements to your page. Yet it's also easily abused. It can be a fine line between abusing Flash, and leveraging it for your website's benefit. Don't be afraid to use Flash technologies, but be vigilant. All the kids are doing it It's easy to get

Sayf Shariftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800584973795065606.post-15634808071218457682007-07-30T12:22:00.000-04:002007-07-31T09:26:37.730-04:00

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title. Romeo,

Sayf Shariftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800584973795065606.post-34471340508813355802007-07-27T08:30:00.000-04:002007-07-27T09:42:46.707-04:00

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released a new study on Online Video usage which is quite illuminating. "The growing adoption of broadband combined with a dramatic push by content providers to promote online video has helped to pave the way for mainstream audiences to embrace online video viewing. The majority of adult Internet users in the U.S. (57%) report watching or downloading

Sayf Shariftag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800584973795065606.post-5934911463454166022007-07-26T13:21:00.001-04:002007-07-26T14:24:00.807-04:00

You know, I've been advising clients on what to do with their websites for over a decade now. Things have changed since I graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1995. Heck, back then I was still doing my email directly in Unix with Pine. Web sites were basic hyper linked nodes of information, and most companies didn't have a website at all. Back then just getting people to realize they

Sayf Sharif