Browsers

Hey Everyone,

An important factor in the development of web products is understanding of the platforms being utilized to use our products. As the table below demonstrates almost 90% of internet users are using either Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 6 or FireFox. I believe it is extremely important that all of our web products, whether it be web applications or web properties, are compatible with these browsers. We've encountered issues with clients using IE6 as well as Firefox and it's important to avoid these issues in the future. Going through some of our sites with FireFox most of our sites have problems ranging from minor to serious. I think it should be a top priority to correct these issues. In the future we should probably setup a computer with the all three browsers so we can test our web products before going live.

Also, an interesting trend to take note of is the apparent migration away from IE towards FireFox. Since March 2005 to March 2008 FireFox has increased it's 'market share' from 18.9% to 37.0% (a 18.1% increase) while IE (all versions) has gone from 72.5% to 53.1 (a 19.4% decrease) during the same period. If the trend continues in 3 years FireFox (55.1%) and IE (33.7%) will have traded places and FireFox will be the most commonly used browser.

2008	IE7	IE6	IE5	Fx	Moz	S	O
March	21.9%	30.1%	1.1%	37.0%	1.1%	2.1%	1.4%
February	21.5%	30.7%	1.3%	36.5%	1.2%	2.0%	1.4%
January	21.2%	32.0%	1.5%	36.4%	1.3%	1.9%	1.4%
2007	IE7	IE6	IE5	Fx	Moz	S	O
December	21.0%	33.2%	1.7%	36.3%	1.4%	1.7%	1.4%
November	20.8%	33.6%	1.6%	36.3%	1.2%	1.8%	1.6%
October	20.7%	34.5%	1.5%	36.0%	1.3%	1.7%	1.6%
September	20.8%	34.9%	1.5%	35.4%	1.2%	1.6%	1.5%
August	20.5%	35.7%	1.5%	34.9%	1.3%	1.5%	1.7%
July	20.1%	36.9%	1.5%	34.5%	1.4%	1.5%	1.9%
June	19.7%	37.3%	1.5%	34.0%	1.4%	1.5%	1.8%
May	19.2%	38.1%	1.6%	33.7%	1.3%	1.5%	1.7%
April	19.1%	38.4%	1.7%	32.9%	1.3%	1.5%	1.6%
March	18.0%	38.7%	2.0%	31.8%	1.3%	1.6%	1.6%
February	16.4%	39.8%	2.5%	31.2%	1.4%	1.7%	1.5%
January	13.3%	42.3%	3.0%	31.0%	1.5%	1.7%	1.5%

Table from W3Schools.

Thanks.

MACU - Tools for CUs

Hey Gang,

As a nich market for us is CU's I am looking for a strategic angle to approach this years MACU conference...I am thinking that our tools are so well recieved...brochure builder for example. I would like us to put together an attainable plan for this upcoming MACU conference...

We need to think about:

• collateral for our booth
• giveaways at our booth
• how to generate a list of potential clients

The primary focus at the conference is the development of relationships with the folks who can make decisions.

As other companies market brand, I want us to be able to support brand with tools that provide an immediate return...

• brochure builder
• mobile web
• lead capture
• calculators

What other ideas can you see us marketing?

Thanks!

Raving Clients - What Webtech Ultimately Builds

No sooner do we speak about the value of clients then do I get this email from Lyanne @ Shaunavon...

Hey there! How's things?
I've been talking up your company - specifically the brochure builder. I was at a Sask. Marketing meeting yesterday and shared with the group the brochure builder application. There was 2-3 that asked for more detailed info….
So, if they pan out, you paying for referalls ;)
I'm joking - I just wanted you to be aware of this, in the event you've Sk credit unions inquiring about it.

Keep this in mind as you put your cognitive genius to work on code, copy, graphics and strategy...we are in the business of building Raving Clients who are our marketing machines.

Great work everyone!

Chris

Top 25 websites visited by canadians

I was looking around today to try to figure out what to post on our blog and I cam accross the top 25 website visited by Canadians. This information cam from Alexa, the "Web Information Company," I thought it was kind of neat to see what people are looking at. Maybe we will have one of our sites up here one day!

1. Google.ca (www.google.ca)
2. Windows Live (www.live.com)
3. Facebook (www.facebook.com)
4. Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com)
5. YouTube (www.youtube.com)
6. Google (www.google.com)
7. Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org)
8. Microsoft Network (MSN) (www.msn.com)
9. Sympatico MSN (http://sympatico.msn.ca/)
10. Blogger.com (www.blogger.com)
11. Myspace (www.myspace.com)
12. EBay Canada (www.ebay.ca)
13. Government of Canada (www.gc.ca)
14. Ebay (www.ebay.com)
15. The Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com)
16. Microsoft Corporation (www.microsoft.com)
17. PartyPoker.com (www.partypoker.com)
18. Photobucket (www.photobucket.com)
19. Kijiji (www.kijiji.ca)
20. The Weather Network (www.theweathernetwork.com)
21. Craigslist.ca (www.craigslist.ca)
22. RapidShare (www.rapidshare.com)
23. TD Canada Trust (www.tdcanadatrust.com)
24. Flickr (www.flickr.com)
25. NHL.com (www.nhl.com)

Microsoft Windows 7

It appears that Microsoft is working on the successor to Vista, now named Windows 7. It is said to be on a 3 year development schedule and a milestone 1 build has been released to key Windows Partners.

Supposedly from all the rumors I've read this new version of Windows will be meant to supercede (replace) windows Vista and the following are some of the suspected key features that it will provide:

1. Service and client side architecture
2. Improved Hardware and performance capabilities
3. Improved collaborative solutions
4. Easy Bitlocker technology implementation
5. Hypervisor navigation
6. Touchscreen based navigation
7. Improved desktop search capability integrated in the Windows Server 2008.
8. Thin client and improved virtualization

Unfortunately, Microsoft itself seems to be tight lipped about the project and has not released any official feature lists for the newest Windows. It appears they don't want to make promises and not follow through on. This is a new approach for Microsoft, as they are notorious for promises that are never delivered. Perhaps, they are becoming more aware of the end user and are trying to provide a product that meets or exceeds expectations.

As of now the rumored release date for this latest Windows in open beta will not be until 2010.

Icon Archive

The Icon Archive is a high quality categorized collection of desktop icon sets. In total they have over 17,800 quality icons for Windows (XP, Vista, etc.), Macintosh (OSX, OS) and Linux Systems (PNG Files) in 644 sets from 150 icon authors. 

These icons are great for applications that we create like TrueTax, Headwater, etc. These are royalty free, and unlike iStock, they have no watermarks. They are all categorized in a simple left nav to make it easy to find the icon type and style you are looking for.

Thanks to Jeremy for pointing out this site to me.

http://www.iconarchive.com

Microsoft Sharepoint Server

It has come to my attention recently that the latest rage in the IT World, among larger organizations, is the topic of Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server. We have had 2 clients in the past little while ask us about our knowledge of the software, and it's implementation. Upon further research, I have come to the conclusion that it would be in our best interest to come up to speed on this technology, and subsequently portray ourselves as an authoritative resource on the subject.
A bit of background...In my understanding, Microsoft has chosen to remove several features that were previously handled at the Operating System level, and have instead developed software to manage these features. An example would be Public Directories. So imagine this, you are the network adminstrator for a large organization, and the method you used to share documents was to use Public Directories. Now, with the upgrade to Server 2007, this is no longer an option. You now need to figure a way to share all corporate documents with all employees, based on security groups, individual permissions, etc. It's a bit of a nightmare!! To the rescue comes MOSS, a software solution from MS, that allows you to create your company intranet, set permissions,etc and voila you have a solution!
The opportunity for us is this...IT Administrators are generally not the most creative individuals (no offense Ron), and once they have the software implemented, the out-of-the-box options are fairly limited in regards to design. In comes Webtech, with a full understanding of the way in which MOSS operates, how to update templates to match the look and feel of the corporate identity, and it's a fairly easy "sell". In the Credit Union arena, 1stchoice is the first CU to implement MOSS in southern Alberta, with many others now looking to them for assistance on how to get started themselves. If we can get up to speed quickly, do a great job for an already satisfied customer, this would bode well for us as we move forward in the CU world.
So, how do we become this "authority" if you will? Do we send someone up to Calgary for a crash course on MOSS? Do we attempt to learn it ourselves? Do we hire an experienced individual? Let me know your thoughts, as this could be a great opportunity for us.

Our Blog Process

Each week we are required to post a blog submission to help spark up ideas in the office and keep everybody in line with the latest trends in technology. I think we should also be required to post one comment along with the one blog submission. This way the blogs that are posted actually will take effect on what they where meant to be for. Each person will be required to read each blog, and post their comments and ideas upon the blog that was posted. This could possibly spark more ideas and be a good creative learning experience inside our work place.

Each week we should:
Post 1 blog submission
Post one comment to a blog already submitted.

What do you guys think?

Design Trends

When I was doing some research for our newsletter I came accross an article with some design trends that I thought were kind of interesting. This article is from 2003, however, I definetely think that some of the ideas would be useful for us for when we are designing logos. I've posted the link so you can check it out.

http://www.gdusa.com/feature/4_03/trends.php

Web Tech Text Editor

There has been talk in the office of getting a new text editor implemented into our admin suites. The one we currently have is not user friendly and leaves the user frustrated and confused. I have found a possible replacement called tinyMCE. I have tweaked it to a degree getting rid of un wanted and features we do not really need and implemented it into a property that we are in development with.

Please login to the admin suite for true tax that is on the dev to view and tests its functionality. If you need the full link please me ask for it.

If this editor does not meet the needs of our clients our next step would have to be either to build our own or try and find other possible pre built editors.

Please post some comments on what you think of this editor, Remember keep in mind I have removed some features, so if there are features you think should be in it post about them.

Photoshop Express

Adobe recently released a free, online version of photoshop for beta testing. Don't get too excited, it is a very stripped down version of photoshop used for basic photo retouching. The cool thing about this, is that it is built to be used online within a web browser.

You are given the basic photo editing functions to use, such as crop/rotate, exposure, red-eye removal, and saturation. Along with those tools, they also have various artistic filters like tinting, sketching and distorting. All of these are very simple to use, and offer thumbnail previews so you can see how it would look before you even edit your photo.

They have also added a community aspect to it, where you are given your own gallery to share with other users, similar to sites like Flickr. You are given 2 GB of space, and users can rate, comment, and even edit your pictures themselves. Not only can you upload your own pictures to use, but it also integrates with social network sites like Facebook, Photobucket and Picasa. You are able to login to your account on these sites and import those pictures to Photoshop Express and edit away. After uploading and editing a photo, you can save it to your personal gallery, download it to your computer, or email it to a friend.

Definately worth checking out if you are in need of quick retouch for one of your photos.

https://www.photoshop.com/express/index.html?bypass&wf=testdrive

Our New Calendar System

We have had many different issues that relate to clients wanting a good calendar system where they can set appointments and different events. We have been at a stand still for this calendar system for several weeks. I found a nice free open source system called kinky calendar. It’s pretty basic but holds a great building ground for us to start off and grab different ideas and expand on. It may not be the most attractive looking thing but that’s why we have a graphic artist with skillZ.

I would like everybody to visit the online demo, maybe play around with it and post some comments on what you think we should include in our system.

Put yourself in the client’s shoes. What types of features would you look for? How would you want the features to work, Look and feel.

http://www.bennadel.com/resources/projects/kinky_calendar/demo/

Keep in mind, this system will have to compare with outlook, iCal, and Google calendar system. I look forward to hear everybody’s post on this issue.

Do we have a moose on the table?

Recently I attended the Human Resources Management Association of Lethbridge Annual Spring Conference. The speaker was Jim Clemner, Author of Moose on the Table, A novel Approach to Communication @Work. During the conference he posed the following question:
Does your team or organization have a moose? There is a checklist to go through to find this out. I suggest you read it and decide for yourself.
1. Real issues are raised privately between colleagues after meetings.
2. Vocal people dominate most meetings and all conversations.
3. Commitments aren't kept and deadlines are missed.
4. Blaming and ducking is more common than accountability and taking initiative.
Surprises come "out of the blue" as simmering problems erupt into major issues.
6. Everyone feels overwhelmed by way too many priorities and conflicting messages.
I know that we do not have problems in all of these areas; however, we do have a couple of issues come up from time to time. You would have to have been at the conference or you would have to read the book to find out how to really solve these issues, but he had an idea for workplace to use when issues do come up. He suggested that organizations have a stuffed moose to put on the table when an issue comes up that needs to be discussed. He said that organizations using the moose have much better communication and a lot fewer issues than they did before they started using the moose.
Please note that I am just communicating what the conference was about. It was not my idea. I’m not too sure what to think of it, but I would like to get your comments if possible.

Meta Laureate

I'd like to share a great resource that was passed along to me by Paul. The site/blog is: www.metalaureate.com. The site consists of the 'informal writings' of Simon J. Hill, who has masters degrees in Linguistics, Literature and English from Oxford. He's been a consultant in the fields of management, organizations and e-commerce for the last ten years.

The blog is comprised of a variety of different topics including Design Theory & Methodology, Information Architecture, and Business Theory & Practice. Although the most relevant to me is the Information Architecture blog, he discusses many interesting topics including his latest which dealt with the Future of Usability & RIA (specifically Flex).

The Information Architecture blog has provided valuable information and insight into many aspects of the IA process. The blog goes into detail describing what IA is and the factors that determine of it's done. One recent blog dealt with important the evaluation the usability and understandability of web content.

BRIO Beta

Adobe's latest beta release is BRIO, a computer conferencing program of the likes of go to meeting. You can view it here http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/brio/.

BRIO allows you to invite multiple users to a central locale to view your screen. You can:

• share your screen
• share your mike (VOIP)
• share you webcam
• give control of your computer to another user
• request another user to share their monitor
• set up phone conference settings

However, the coolest feature I found was the collaborative draw and annotation tool. This tool allows all users to draw and write on a snapshot of the screen at the time you entered into the annotation mode. Therefore, you can highlight and comment on display without actually changed the original contents to show each other what your speaking of or point out areas of interest on the screen.

As a programmer I wouldn't have much need to use this utility very often but for the BDO and IA departments could find this to be a fun and valuable tool to use during phone or conference calls with clients.