A Couple Postcard Ideas
Here’s a couple postcards we’ve created recently: The first one was designed with ideas taken from several old posters and advertisements from the early 1900’s. The date format on the back is actually from an old poster found in our Grandmother’s basement. This next one is for a local dental instrument manufacturer. These postcards were […]
Continue Reading...Hourly photography with free post-processing
When you employ us for photography, we take that very seriously and go to great lengths to produce exceptional images. This usually requires taking of several hundred pictures per hour with our Nikkon D300 with a combination of our 18-200mm, 70-200mm f2.8, or 50mm f1.4 lenses. Post-processing involves filtering through these images to find all […]
Continue Reading...Content Management Systems
A content management system (CMS) allows anyone with simply a valid username and password to make changes, additions or revisions to your website without ANY special knowledge or training. We typically use WordPress, which is the most common of such systems by far. This is completely free and easy to use and update. When we integrate […]
Continue Reading...What is a Blog Page?
The word ‘blog’ actually means ‘web log’, and as part of a larger website, is sort of a diary for your company. In each ‘blog post’, you ordinarily record what the public might find of interest with your business this week/day/month (it’s up to you of course). Some people use them to showcase their work, […]
Continue Reading...Customized Live Chat App
A live chat app is a convenient way for website visitors to instantly get the information they are seeking. Many people (including myself) click the button to start a live chat as soon as they enter a site that offers such a service. It’s a way to directly communicate with a company representative without having […]
Continue Reading...Custom Contact Forms
We had created a ‘custom contact form’ for a client in Buffalo, NY: HomeAssistSeniorCare.com. This form allows job seekers to apply online for an opening through their website. It uses SSL encryption to ensure security. It records the data in the database, accessible by the administrator only. It sends text message notifications to the administrator’s […]
Continue Reading...Site-wide Graphics
A client in Buffalo, NY had asked me, “What exactly do you mean by ‘site-wide graphics’?” When we create a new website, or give an existing one an overhaul, we design the look for the entire site. This includes Layout Background Header Footer Paragraphs Links Headings Buttons Fonts Anything else you see on the website […]
Continue Reading...Google AdWords Bidding and the Auction Explained
I’ll let Hal Varian explain how Google holds an auction for the placement of AdWords ads in the 0.17 seconds it takes to run a search query.
Continue Reading...Advantages of Google AdWords
Google AdWords is an advertising network that extends to nearly every corner of the digital world. AdWords advertisements are usually encountered on the top of search results, whether someone runs a Google, AOL, or Ask.com search (Figure 1). Technology is changing the way marketing works. Previously, we could only place our ads and hope that […]
Continue Reading...The IP Address Geo-location API We Use
I had found an excellent IP address Geo-location API a few months ago to enhance a simple chat application I made for a church’s website. The nice things about this API are that it is automatically updated and kept current, the response time is very fast, the output is very easy to use XML, and […]
Continue Reading...Home Assist Senior Care Website Created
We’re pleased to announce the launch of Home Assist Senior Care’s website last week. This company provides at-home senior care, non-medical home care and companionship currently for seniors in the Buffalo, NY region. We’ve also designed their logo as well as their business cards, brochures, letterheads, thank-you cards, and corresponding envelopes. They are a local company […]
Continue Reading...Hamburg Music Fest 2011 (moved)
For those looking to view the photo gallery from last year’s Hamburg Music Fest, it’s located here.
Continue Reading...T-shirt customization website designed
I stepped into Mr. Mugs & Awards in Hamburg, NY a few months ago and handed one gentleman our brochure, and was immediately presented with questions about designing a website capable of customizing text on a shirt imprint, and then handling the custom shirt as an e-commerce object for purchase with PayPal or something similar. […]
Continue Reading...Simple stock photography website coming soon
A local Hamburg, NY villager stepped into our studio a short while back, and inquired about establishing a website for the sale of his photography. He mentioned how it would need to prevent a user from simply downloading the full-sized image through any back-doors or loopholes before paying online for the license to use the […]
Continue Reading...A website with advanced AJAX navigation designed
I’ve recently had the pleasure of converting someone’s PDF mockups to a fully functioning website. This job came from freelancer.com, and happens to be my first bid on that site that was (honestly) accepted. The employer (Niklas Olsson) wanted to remake his personal website: niklaso.com into something completely custom, impressively smooth and easy to navigate. […]
Continue Reading...Timeclock web app created from scratch in one evening
Tom was keeping track of the hours he spent on a particular project in a notebook for a while, which seemed adequate, but not ideal. “Tom,” I said, “how about we create a web page that acts as a time clock: we can have a MySQL database of employees (ourselves), customers, projects, and sessions with […]
Continue Reading....htaccess redirects may conflict with WordPress’s URL structure
Since we updated our site, the location of some pages has moved to a different URL address. Search engines have already indexed these pages to be in the old location, and if it turns up as 404 (missing), my SEO rank will be harmed as they try to find the new URL. The ordinary way […]
Continue Reading...Flag graphic designed
I received an email from American DND of Grand Island, NY, about a need for a custom graphic for the side of trailers. “A waving American flag that blends into a checkered flag” was the description given, and 3 days was the deadline. “Certainly” was our reply, and we had it done the next day. […]
Continue Reading...Highland Acres Landscaping website
Todd and Wendy of Eden, NY found us when driving by our office in Hamburg, also back in September. HighlandAcresLandscape.com is their new site. The keyword for their site is, “simple”. Simple is ok, I suppose, although it’s not what we would have liked to have done with it. You certainly won’t get lost when […]
Continue Reading...Dr. Franklin H. Meyer’s website
Check out EdenDentist.com — Dr. Frank Meyer of Eden, NY. He found us when driving by our office here in Hamburg back in September. His is a simple, clean looking site with a custom CMS. Semi-transparent drop-down menus and a “Verizon footer” are some of the features (We copied the footer style of VerizonWireless.com – […]
Continue Reading...Whew it’s about time!
You may notice it’s been just over 6 months since my last post. I’d have liked to have posted about all the things we were doing, but I chose not to draw attention to the old website layout by refraining from such things. Every time a post is published in WordPress, search engines and blog […]
Continue Reading...Starlight Specialty Gifts
Starlightspecialty.com (Starlight Specialty Gifts of 284 Union St. in Hamburg, NY) is a fully custom content management e-commerce site. This site also boasts complete ‘mapping’ and other security enhancing features, PayPal checkout, custom cart, and many other dynamic features. It is complete in structure, and is only awaiting pictures and the rest of the products.
Continue Reading...Palette Films Website Nearly Complete
We had submitted multiple proposals for the design of this site before finally being approved last week. Some of them can be viewed at samples.idwds.com. Palettefilms.com uses a completely different style from all of our previous designs. I personally prefer this use of photography in the design over HTML generated image repeats or other synthetic […]
Continue Reading...2 websites built for Liberty Engineering in Hamburg
We designed and built LibertyAutomated.com during this past week and a half. It didn’t take us very long to complete because the owner provided specific details and his own images to insert. Tom designed the header graphic and basic layout. We made this site HTML5 compliant. We also departed from the HTML ‘table’ for a […]
Continue Reading...Photography and more stylizing for bulldog website
They requested Tom’s photography for BabcockBulldogs.com recently. He took one of the few not-so-rainy days this month to meet with the owners and their dogs at Tifft Nature Preserve in Buffalo. We then applied some of the photos to the header graphics of the site. Most of the photography will be used in the content […]
Continue Reading...Dividing text into columns with PHP script
I prefer to display text so that it can be read easily, as a book. Naturally, web pages stretch the text across the entire width of the column, which is usually too wide for comfortable reading. Books are divided into narrower columns so you don’t lose your place when you get to the end of […]
Continue Reading...Oldtimebaptist.com rebuilt today with PHP
Oldtimebaptist.com has taken many different forms over the years, by many designers/maintainers. When we re-did it graphically a few years ago we didn’t focus on complete validation of the code. The code is now valid on every page according to its !DOCTYPE, and the very structure of the site has been streamlined. CSS now efficiently […]
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