Coupon Code - SPECIAL54532
Ian will probably get mad for our posting this - since it does not expire! Enjoy!
Add comment August 31st, 2007
It’s not in the contract…
(Free therapy for Developers & Designers! )
3 comments August 14th, 2007
The CD-ROM Development Contract is for use when creating CD-ROM, DVD or other mass produced presentations. Many web developers are now putting their clients PowerPoint, Web Site, Flash, Director and other Slideshow presentations on marketing CD-ROM’s.
Add comment August 11th, 2007
Get more developer ownership of project code!This is the standard Web Site Development Contract. Edit as needed to create your starting contract for your business. Each client may require modifications to the standard contract which you will need to deal with on a per-project basis.
There is an alternate version of this contract which is more client-centered, but reduces IP issues down to minimal ownership rights for the developer.
Add comment August 11th, 2007
Standard Marketing ROI Tracking
We have built into our CD-ROM presentations the unique ability to track how often your cards are played, how many times they are installed to users computers, how many contact forms are sent from your card and how often each web link is clicked on your card to take visitors to your web site.
Your card tracking can even differentiate between presentations run from the original CD-ROM and those installed to your users computers.
If you want to track your presentations by distribution groups we can easily track that too. For example, you put your presentation on 10,000 cards. Each group of 1000 cards can be tagged with a tracking number. This gives you the ability to distribute each group in a different city, mailing or trade show and track the effectiveness of each group.
You can login to our card tracking form and see monthly reports of how your cards are used.
For more information on using our CD-ROM and Flash Tracking Systems - please call us at 425-482-7941 to speak with a salesperson.
Add comment August 11th, 2007
What is a trademark?
Today’s post covers trademarks. Obviously.
Trademarks start with that little TM symbol that all of your clients seem to place on every bright idea they have whether they actually have bothered to file a trademark or not. We often find it is the later - but tend to not open our mouths too much concerning client’s legal matters.
When a Trademark is all grown up (filed & approved) - it gets to sport that little “R” symbol - meaning that the mark is registered with the USPTO.
The ® symbol means that a particular mark is actually registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Marks followed by a TM or SM symbol - then althought the indiviudal or company may be using the mark - it is probably not yet registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
.. or.. as we like to say - they are probably “faking it”.
So, in short, a trademark is merely: Any “mark” consisting of words, graphics, icons, shading, coloring, stipling, symbols or other items that identify goods or services from a company or individual. Further, a mark distinguishes the company or individual from other companies or individuals.
Trademark law deals with the registration, recognition and enforcement of these intelluctal property rights. If you have a registered trademark - then no one else can use that mark in conjunction with any good or service so it doesn’t appear to use your goodwill or make it look like you endorse, support or otherwise have anything to do with the mark. When a company or individual is displaying your mark or a confusingly simular mark in conjunction with a particlular good or service - they are attempting to trade on your “goodwill” for their own benefit.
This is why trademark law exists. To stop such non-sense.
What is a Mark?
Marks can be either a “Word Mark” - in which you are trademarking a particular word, phrase or combination of words and styles. Note - this is the more difficulat trademark to get. You just cannot submnit a word you are using or even one you made up - or else it may be ruled [insert]/
Getting a trademark on the actual mark or logo or stylistic experssion of the idea is easier.
Having registered a dozen or more trademarks for ourselves and clients, here’s our thoughts on the process.
- Your trademark will take around 8 months if you get it 100% right the first time and haven;t caught a trademark exanimer on a bad day.
- You will probably get an “Office Action” you have to respond to; essentially these are correctionsto you application, classification of goods and services and so forth.
- We find it kind of strange - that the logo or wordmark of the USPTO is not, in fact trademarked - interesting. {Not even the entire spelled out word or the mark itself.} I actually asked several IP Lawyers and them mumbled something about it is “probably” simply descriptive and unable to qualify. At $450/hour - I REALLY hate hearing the word “probably” from laywers.
What is a Service Mark?
Think “slogan”. Technically, it is a mark used to identify and set apart a Company’s services from other comapnies or individuals. “Start your next project half-finished.” is our service mark for TemplateKit.com.
What is Trade Dress?
Trade Dress is another aspect of trademark protection where a particular aspect of a good or service is recognizable in the marketplace. Think of it as the “total package”.
Examples may include:
- That unique red shade Coke uses.
- The shape of Microsoft’s X-Box.
- The layout and arrangement of a particular restaraunt
- The color scheme Starbucks Coffee uses
- The shape of a sports drink bottle
What can I possible trademark?
Words
Marks (Designs w/ Words)
Slogans
Trade Dress
Packaging
Audio Identifiers or Sounds (often called an audible mark)
Scents & Smells (Oh, yes…you can do this.)
What are Trademark rights?
An owner of a trademark/service mark has the right to use that trademark/service mark and to prevent others from benefiting from the trademark/service mark’s good reputation and recognition in the marketplace.
How do I get started?
Go to http://www.uspto.gov and first search to see if your mark is already registered or owned. Just because you think you came up with the idea doesn’t mean someone didn’t beat you to it first.
After that you have two choices.
1) File the Trademark application yourself.
2) Use a lawyer, service or other vendor to do it for you.
Filing trademarks is not terrible hard once you get the hang of it. However, it can be an expenseive learning curve and time consuming if you get even the slighest thing wrong on your application. The average amount of time it takes to get a registered trademark seems to be 1.5 years. We’ve gotten them in 6 months start to finish - however - that was after a few dozen of more applications for our various marks.
That’s it for tonight, good luck and .. apparently .. good night.
Add comment August 11th, 2007
We get this a lot when talking to customers, namely they bring up an example of a web hosting outfit who is offering a cheaper rate or more bandwidth for a lower price.
Example. We have a client who pushes about 620 gigs of data a month on one of our dedicated servers. They stream a large amount of videos (no, it is not what you think).
Now the way we work, being a specialty web host and all - is we do not employ limiting software for our clients as far as how much of the “pipe” they can use. So, that means their customers get to access that data up to 100 MBPS if they can download that fast. The bottom line is that if you suddenly get national attention and a rush of traffic because you were mentioned on Oprah - we want you to be able to withstand that and not have your website go down. We’d rather come back and talk if it continues rather than have some cost-saving software on our end cut you off at the knees.
It is all about the server’s connection to the Internet (the “pipe” if you will), so to put it into perspective – here’s what you get with different hosts.
——————————————————-
Typical Shared Hosting Account = as low as 256k/sec
Typical VPS / Virtual Private Server = 1.5mps
Typical Basic Dedicated Server = 10mps
Typical High-end Dedicated Server (Like Us) = 100mps
——————————————————-
That’s why the question “How much Bandwidth do I get?” is such a loaded one. It’s quality –vs- quantity.
Your shared web hosting account may offer “unlimited” data transfer a month – but to move that 620 gigs of data would take exactly:
264 Days 2 Hours 3 Minutes 33.76 Seconds on a share hosted –vs- 19 hours on our servers.
If you run a Point of Sale System ( POS ) & or Store on the same server, then performance is impacted by everything going on on that server.
Add comment July 26th, 2007
It’s 3:00pm PST as I write and I just got another “tip” from some ambiguous article archive I apparently opt-in on about starting a home business.
This is probably the 100th or so of these I have gotten recently and it’s time to spill the beans.
Most of these so-called author’s do nothing else except send out articles on how to run a home-based business. Kind of funny in a way, because they do nothing else except send small paragraph-length emails that are horribly devoid of any real useful information about small business, starting a home-based business or anything else along the lines of this topic.
So, here’s Tom’s tips for the home-based or start up business. It doesn’t matter if you are large or small - here’s the straight talk you need:
1) Don’t be stupid.
This is key. This may be unavoidable for some.
2) Don’t “try” different marketing approaches without quantifying the results.
That means if you spend $125 on a yellow page ad, you better be asking your clients where they heard of you when they do call so you can tell if it’s a good investment. That goes double for keyword advertising like: Google, Overture, Sprinks, etc.
3) Your idea may totally “suck”.
Don’t be afraid to revise your idea. Columbus was looking for quicker route to India, but things worked out for him pretty well. Just because you have “and idea” doesn’t mean it is a good idea.
4) Don’t copy someone else’s plan.
That means avoid MLM, quick-turning real estate or home-based franchises that do not have a corporate office, UNLESS you’re really good at conning and recruiting other people.
5) Don’t believe the “pay yourself first hype”
If you’re building an enterprise that has employees, facilities, etc.. you should probably pay them first… it’s bad karma otherwise.
6) If you do have a successful run, you’re next is more likely to fail on your next idea.
See #3 above. Hubris & pride are killers. Ask the dot-com folks or as we see here in Redmond, WA - Former Microsoft millionaires who cannot start a successful venture on their own. Funny stuff. I started buying up the expired domain names of some of these companies who failed miserably, but still turned moi down when interviewing for them back in 98′ - 99′ when I was a young buck.
7) You don’t always have to “spend money to make money”, but quit being such a damn tightwad.
You rarely succeed on cheap hosting, programming, design or PayPal-only ecommerce sites. It costs you more in the long run when you’re cheap.
8) There is no 8th thing.
9) It’s not quick. You cannot get rich quick unless you play the lottery. You should focus on building a solid business slowly over time. We’re in year 4 and doing well using this principal. That goes doubly for the web. The web should be a channel for your business, nothing more. If you have no experience running an online store… find someone who does. You can’t expect to jump or transition an existing business into ecommerce without finding good help.
10) 60% of all business’s fail within the first four years, but for you we give you 11 months.
Don’t “try” to succeed. That is a half-assed approach that is bound to fail. Make a plan, write it out. Distill your offering down to 1-2 sentences that describe your service, product or whatever it is that you are doing to make money. Darn, now I have to split this one off into #11:
11) Don’t use ambiguous language.
You’re not the best. You’re not fooling anyone. Your brand new company that has an Alexa ranking of 5,000,000+ (not good) and no visitors isn’t “The World’s Premier Provider of Technology-based Solutions for the Proactive Development and Deployment of Widgets.”
Look it’s easy:
Proposal Kit.com – Get the client, close the deal. Make more money from the jobs you take with easy to use contract, proposal and estimating templates.
Template Kit.com – Start your next project half-finished. Get a jump on development with our immediately downloadable source code templates.
Proposal Packs – Upgrade your image and your bottom line. Deploy proposals ranging from 3 – 32 pages in length. Our Wizard gets you up and running in minutes.
Add comment July 18th, 2007
Flash Email - Tips, Tricks and more importantly TROUBLESHOOTING. Are you really getting your message delivered or are you merely delivering alternate content all of the time. Read on and see what the problem is with Flash Email.
read more | digg story
Add comment April 3rd, 2007
The straight scoop on USB Drive Autoruns, Autoplays, ini’s or pretty much any other way you want to get it to boot. How you can or cannot get a USB drive to autorun or autoplay.
read more | digg story
Add comment April 3rd, 2007
NEW from Google - Gmail Paper! (BETA) - Google will print your email on demand and send them to you.
Tagline: You Click. We Stack. You Get.
With advantages such as:
Gmail paper has got to be the funniest thing I have ever experienced on the Internet.
More craziness - if you are a developer or a designer - click here.
PS - If you haven’t figure it out… this is not a new Web 2.0 thing…more of an April 1st thing.
1 comment April 2nd, 2007
This month’s technical question seems to revolve around the following questions.
1) How do I get a jump drive to boot?
2) How do I make a bootable usb drive or device?
3) I JUST WANT MY %#$%ing THUMB DRIVE TO BOOT!!!!!
Yeah, we feel your pain, so brace yourself for the harsh reality. Whether you want to get a jump drive to autorun or autoplay - here’s the straight scoop.
Getting a jump drive, thumb drive or any nearly any other usb hard drive device to autorun is almost impossible to accomplish.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news - but with today’s security settings and restrictions - even if you do get it to work - it is only under the most controlled of circumstances.
Now, this does not stop customers and marketing firms from calling us every week asking for how to do an autorunning USB Jump Drive for some marketing project they have (and usually frantic because they have already promised someone they can) - so obviously there is great need for this.
That being said, we’ve been actively studying how this is accomplished and under what circumstances. Gleen what you want from this - as we are merely reporting what we’ve found along the way.
1) Pre-conception #1 - All I need is an autorun.ini right?
Wrong. That might work for your typical CD-ROM or DVD project, however a jump drive is not treated the same as a CD-ROM or DVD. It is a device, not media. Granted, on some older Win 98 machines - we actually got the following to work by including both an autorun.ini & a seperate autorun.inf (as if it was a CD-ROM ISO).
If your file was presentation.exe, then your files would look like:
[autorun]
open=presentation.exeor
[autorun]
shellexecute=presentation.exe
To see a list of all the various autorun commands you can use, visit this link.
Another resource is: http://www.phdcc.com/shellrun/autorun.htm
If you want Windows-based resources for booting from a USB Drive - here is the official Microsoft spiel: Recommendations for Booting Windows from USB Storage Devices: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/usb-boot.mspx
To sum the above article up - if you find that type of reading boring - Windows can easily make a USB Drive boot - if
1) You’re the manufacturer of Jump Drives, and
2) You can change your USB Device’s hardware BIOS to allow for Boot instructions.
If you cannot do either - then you cannot make a USB Drive bootable and anyone who says they can is a big, fat liar.
If you want to see some very cool multimedia presentations we can build for you - then give us a call about that. THAT - we can get to autorun for you!
UPDATED - We found this great little post on Digg - Simon’s Blog - how to autorun a USB Device.
4 comments March 16th, 2007
Most designers and developers do not know how much they should be charging for any given project. Oh, sure - they usually charge what “seems” like a high enough fee to generally cover what the project entails - however - this kind of guesswork leads to two equally painful problems.
Underbidding includes such overlooked items as: The time spent FTP files and synching with their current website or server; moving applications or components that require extensive testing and permissions; “face time” and other required meetings with the client, or even training and documentation requirements. Training and Documentation should not be thought as a trivial matter. Most developers and designers miss this one requirement and when the client wants to be trained on the software, open source or application you just built - they find themselves forced with either providing a hastily put together document - or spending unbilled time providing screenshots, walkthroughs and other documentation.
I do not know about you - but any time we need to travel to a client for training will wipe a minimum of 1/2 to 1 full day just getting to them and back again. You should set these expectations in the proposal and contracting process with your clients. We specify a $500 1/2 day and $800 full-day rate for onsite training and custom documentation. It encourages the right kind of clients and discourages the ones who do not understand the value of training and documentation.
| You can take an online web design program from home and learn plenty. |
Overbidding is equally dangerous. Sure, you may get more money from a client who doesn’t question your estimates - however - you are doing a great disservice to them by not accurately knowing how much to charge them for web development and design. We’ve forged a trust relationship with our clients that allows us to:
Often the projects wil come under budget (because we are good at what we do) - and the billing comes out less for our clients. That is 100% win-win from our perspective.
Some developers and designers see that as an opportunity to make some extra cash.
We see that as an opportunity to show our value to our clients. That is usually the difference between a “Professional” and “Moonlighter”.
If you have accurate estimating - such as using the Web Design & Development Estimating Spreadsheets from Proposal Kit - then you should always know how much to charge for any given job you do.
If you have Web Design Job Costing - meaning you are tracking expenses and hourly time per project and actually comparing it to your quote - then you should always know when you are making or losing money as a web developer, designer, artist and so forth.
A professional makes money every time because of accuate pricing, tracking and contracts that do not hurt them. If you have need of such - you should take a good look at Proposal Kit Pro 11.0 for Web Developers and Designers.
Add comment March 1st, 2007
See a demo of the Flash Card Template application here!
Add comment February 7th, 2007
Add comment February 6th, 2007
Our new XML Flash Map is an easy to use, easy to edit United States - based Flash Map. You can add this interactive map to your website or application - AND - add links to other websites! All you have to do is edit a single XML file to power the entire map. You do not even have to own FLASH! Add events, locations, tour dates, offices - and more! (Source File Included with this Version., Works with Flash MX - Flash 8, PC or Macintosh)
Add comment February 5th, 2007
A recent release of ours is the XML Flash Web Calendar.
The TemplateKit Flash Web Calendar (ONLINE VERSION) is an easy to use, easy to edit Flash Calendar you can add to your website or application! All you have to do is edit a single XML file to power the entire calendar. You do not even have to own FLASH! The Online Version also allows your user to print a day’s events or entries or print the entire month.(Includes Flash MX 2004 & Flash 8 source code, PHP Scripts & Installation Forms to make this as close to a “one-click” install as possible.See live examples here:
Log into a live demo here:
The Online Version gives you everything in the “Lite” & Developer versions and:
Buy this version if you want to be able to add, edit or remove events and dates using an admin system to manage your entire calendar. It also allows your front-end users to be able to print the events for a single day or an entire month.
Add comment February 5th, 2007
Proposal Kit just released a new contract and agreement pack that deals specifically with Photography & Photograper contracts and proposals. It is no surprise since the owner of Cyber-Sea, Inc - the creators of Proposal Kit - is a world-class adventure, outdor and underwater photographer.
See the Photography Contract Template Pack
Add comment January 5th, 2007
America Online™ is a source of frustration to a great number of Developers and Web Marketers around the world. When you consider AOL you have to remember that you are not just dealing with a custom web browser, but you are also dealing with the manner in which AOL runs their Network.
AOL’s browser is basically just a custom “skin” or “branded” version of Internet Explorer. It is the AOL proxy server that makes the web browser behave differently than through a normal dial-up or LAN connection. Two primary reasons for these differences involve how AOL processes graphics and handles caching.
One of These Things is not Like the “Others”
Another common complaint is that images can often look blurry on AOL’s Browser and in many cases have black bars, distortion, or lines running through your graphics.
America Online utilizes a compression software on any graphics which run on their network in order to speed up the delivery of web pages & HTML to it’s members. It accomplished this by compressing images and various multimedia applications which run across it’s network. AOL uses the proprietary Johnson-Grace image format .ART. All images that are BMP, GIF or JPG are automatically converted into the ART format by default. An AOL member must deselct the “Use Compressed Graphics” option under their Web Preferences in order to avoid this.
| You should look into Exchange email outsourcing if you have various kinds of business email needs that you aren’t sure how to solve. Some Exchange email solutions can do anything you need, so read reviews on Exchange email outsourcing to help pick. |
Cache Me if you Can!
One you’ve selected not to use AOL’s compressed graphics option, then you still must clear out your cahe in order to see any sort of difference. In your WWW preferences you can set your history to “0″ pages and then clear the History. After you do this, then you must also delete the files in your Temporary Internet Files folder. AOL offers the follwing instruction on how to accomplish this:
“By holding down the “Control” key on your keyboard and simultaneously mouse-clicking on the Browser Reload icon while the browser window is active will also clear your proxy cache and display the latest data from the website.”
Some Background Information!
Often, backgrounds used in designing both HTML Email & Webpages will display as “tiled” when viewed in the AOL environment. This is due to the compression algorithim which is used by the the Johnson-Grace compression software. A JPG which is wider than 640 pixels will be scaled down by AOL. You may use a GIF as a replacement for large background JPG’s, or try to save your JPG as “Progressive 3-pass” which the current version of the Johnson-Grace software does not recognize.
AOL Has It’s Own Format
Character formatting is only mildly supported by AOL. In order to format your email for AOL and get an idea of how your email will look to AOL recipients, you should start by eliminating all of the hard returns at the end of each line.
Justify my Paragraph
All paragraphs are left justified and have no indentation. There should be 2 spaces between each sentence as it provides white space. Every place you want to indicate a hard return, place
at the beginning of the next line. For paragraphs, use
, notat the beginning of the line. There should be no space between the
and the first character of the line.
Tabs
Do not use
, the tab key, , or other tab formatting methods. You will not like what you see, or what your recipient will see for that matter. It is far better to just use spaces whenever you wish to create an indentation or tab.
Character Emphasis
You may use your normal character emphasis tags as you think are neccessary for your mailing & message.(, , etc..)
Bulleted, Ordered and Unordered Lists
Unfortuanately, you cannot create lists using the traditionalor
, Unordered & Unordered List tags. The common workaround seems to be to simply put your number, followed by several spaces.
1) Whatever
2) Whenever
For bulleted lists, you merely need to replace the above numbers with an asterisk or other ASCII character.
* So on..
‘ And so forth..
“Don’t Quote me on this…”
Quotes and Apostrophes do not translate well into AOL Email. When entering these types of characters into AOL Email, be sure to usee ASCII Low characters. Furthermore, if you are using a program like Microsoft Word or other Office product to prepare your text/HTML before entering it into your mailing, you should be aware of Office’s Autoformatting feature.
If you cut and paste from Microsoft Word, there is always a chance that some formatting will not carry over into HTML very well. This is most often seen in the case of Auto formatting, when MS Word converts common keystrokes into symbols. -, “”, © and a host of others. These are called Windows Characters, and are not interpreted by your browser.
Word represents these ASCI characters as numeric values which a browser cannot understand.
This is why it is best to always work in text mode, or save your document as a dos text document and lose all formatting before transferring it to your HTML email.
Strange characters may inadvertenly wind up being inserted into your Email if you do not use a text-only editor such as Notepad or TextPad.
For more information see: HTML Email: An Introduction
Isn’t That SpecialYou will need to treat all special characters, those which are generated through an escpae sequence (™ ) as plain text. There is not currently a known workaround for getting special characters into your AOL Emails effectively.
Additional Resources
For more information on AOL issues visit: http://webmaster.info.aol.com/
Add comment November 8th, 2006
Since Javascript’s are mainly a unique and proprietary element, and by this we mean that you can write 100 different scripts which all do basically the same thing but in a different manner, complex JavaScripts will always have trouble in your HTML email.
Due to the wide variety of email clients, browsers, security settings, updates, and service packs installed, it is difficult to predict how a script will execute against any given email client. Javascripts can cause browsers & Outlook 2000 to disable and active scripting contained in an email document (there has been an increase in email security due to malicious scripts).
For more information on Microsoft Outlook & Office Security visit:
Outlook E-mail Security Update Information
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q262/7/01.asp
How Outlook Renders HTML
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q249/9/72.asp
You would be wise to test any Javascript you wish to include in a mailing. Not all email clients can handle the scripts, and most web-based systems disable scripts as a general rule to prevent malicious code from being executed on a system.
Javascript Navigation forms such as jumpmenu forms can easily be use, but even these will only work in non web-based email clients. Most other navigation forms are not supported because they do not work on the majority of web-based email clients.
Most Forms, which use the GET/POST method, will render and test correctly in web-based email clients.. You can often use this to get around many Javascript problems in HTML email.
This one comes up often - so the sooner you understand that scripts are bad in email - the better.
Remember! Most web-based email browsers are a
Add comment November 8th, 2006
