Welcome to the Precision Computing Arts / Fastwebdev blog. We use this blog to post interesting news about our Sitebuilder web hosting and content management system (CMS). As with other blogging systems, blog articles from our system are indexed in Google and other search engines within a week or two.
(Customers can set up and maintain similar blogs on any Sitebuilder websites that we host.)
Site Builder (aka Cool Tools) System Update 4.16 offers many exciting new features and changes, summarized below.
Please let us know if you need our consulting help implementing any of these Cool Tools on your website. (Remember, these features are available only on the sites implemented with our Cool Tools system — officially named Site Builder. Not sure whether you're using a Cool Tools system? Simply contact us and we'll tell you.)
ROTATING BANNERS and OVERLAY TEXT
The banner/header system now supports rotating banners and custom overlay text/HTML. The rotating banner feature enables you to set up a sequence of banner images. The header area will cycle through the banner images, fading in and out between each image. Other options include banners that randomly display each time a page is viewed.
In addition to multiple banners, a text/HTML overlay can be set up that goes on top of each banner in the sequence. You can set the text, size and the position of the overlay. One use of the overlay text would be to create clickable text/image links that are in the banner area.
Text/css menus
Customize the colors and style for text based menus. Customizations include font color, style and background color for the regular menu, selected menu and hover over menu (to use this feature, you may need to reselect your layout or reselect your menu button style). Instructions:Admin > Site Design Tools > Menu Design > (main menu or submenu tab) > Select TEXT menu button
Forms
Customize the style for your website forms. Adjust the font size, colors, borders and spacing of your form fields/labels. Instructions:Admin > Site Design Tools > Text/Font Settings
Product catalog display
The product customizations allow you to set the borders/backgrounds/colors/fonts/styles for over 20 different areas in the product catalog display. The customizable areas include the product title, product links, labels, price fields, description text, title areas and more. Instructions:Admin > Site Design Tools > Text/Font Settings
TABBED ACCORDION VIEW
The new accordion mode displays a vertical list of tab names with the tab content below the tab name. The update also includes an option to set the font size for the tab and accordion text.
Instructions:Admin > Page List > (select a page to edit) > Insert Component > Design Accents > Tabbed Content > Change Layout > Accordion Content Box
ECOMMERCE - PRODUCT IMAGES
The product thumbnail image feature has been enhanced. The images are now be easier to set up. With the site builder preview/flash upload enabled, you can upload multiple thumbnail images at the same time for a product. The new thumbnail option displays the thumbnail preview images directly below the main product image on the product detail page. When a thumbnail image is clicked, the main product image will change to display the larger image for the thumbnail. This option lets customers view more product images directly from the product detail page.
Instructions: Admin > Setup Products > (create or edit a product and add the main large and thumbnail images) > Add More Product Images > In the More Images drop-down box, specify how the thumbnails should look and their width; you also can specify the number of columns in the Product Images Display Settings area. Then, choose upload image(s)/create thumbnails > specify the image settings > select & upload file and upload the files you want.
You may add a countdown timer to your website. The dynamically updating timer displays the number of days, hours, minutes and seconds to the date that you specify. You can set a destination page that users are taken to when the counter expires.
Instructions: Edit any page > click the Add button > Insert Component > Standard/HTML > Countdown timer > Add Countdown Timer. Then, configure the timer.
ECOMMERCE MAP BUTTON
A map button has been added to the user account details page and the order detail page. When you click the MapIt button, a new window that displays a map of the user's contact address.
Instructions: Admin > Customer Database > select Account Details for a customer > MapIt. Or, Admin > View / Process Orders > select View/Process link for a customer > click MapIt > select either the main customer or the shipping address tab to see the detailed map.
MISCELLANEOUS UPDATES
Set the font size for tabs in the tabbed content component
Updated image manager resize and crop features to work in FireFox
Added new view to image manager to see files
Added option to center align the main menu
Popup calendar for date selection (blog, calendar, coupon editor)
Text editor 2.0: background preview - allows you to see how your text will look on dark or light backgrounds
DESIGN SYSTEM
New logos
Updated banners
Gradient maker (background images)
Layout properties - updated page for selecting page width
SITE BUILDER PREVIEW - MISCELLANEOUS UPDATES
Miscellaneous graphic updates and adjustments
Added drop down menu to page properties button
USER MANUAL
The new downloadable site builder user manual is now available from the main help page. The manual is a 14 Mb downloadable PDF file. The manual contains screen shots and instructions for using the site builder system.
Most website clients want development tasks to be completed for no money and in no time. That’s understandable, of course, but it’s not realistic because building Web pages is as much art as science, and it’s time-consuming (though fun and creative) work that requires significant attention to detail.
To help her clients better understand what’s involved in building web pages, About.com “Guide to Web Design” blogger Jennifer Kyrnin recently wrote an article titled “6 Things Your Web Designer Wants You to Understand.” » read complete article
For those who want to know why things take time, cost money, don’t match printouts, aren’t the exact color you are expecting, and more, we’ve adapted her points as they relate to the work Precision Computing Arts does for our clients. As always, please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you might have.
1. Most projects are feasible, given enough money and time.
Chances are, we can do almost anything you want, but there are two big caveats: money and time. If we’ve already done exactly what you’re proposing, the project will cost less and take less time than if you’re asking for something new. We’ll always do our best to give you a ballpark idea about whether something is quick, easy, and inexpensive; whether it’s slow, difficult, and expensive; whether it’s something in between; whether we’re just not sure until we try it; or whether it is beyond our capabilities. Of course, if you change the criteria, that likely will change the money, time, and/or feasibility.
2. Web design is not instantaneous.
We try to create pages that look attractive and load quickly. But this isn’t necessarily easy or fast. A good rule of thumb is to allow about one or two business days for minor changes; a week for medium changes; and even longer for more difficult changes. These rules of thumb may vary a bit with our workload. If it’s light, you typically will enjoy quicker turnaround; if not, you may need to wait a bit. We’ll always do our best to be prompt and to keep you informed about any expected delays.
3. Web design is not print design.
It’s almost impossible to exactly replicate a print design on a website because:
Different web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari render pages differently. We do look at our designs in these different browsers and try to create designs that are pleasing, though not necessarily identical, in each one.
Print designs can count on easily replicated paper sizes, colors, fonts, and so on. With web design, the fonts, colors, and screen sizes people will see can vary considerably.
Website design involves more than just good looks! It requires careful attention to content, search engine optimization (SEO), navigation, and general usability issues as well.
4. Colors are a challenge.
While printed materials can specify specific color schemes using CMYK standards for ink, computers don’t use CMYK (they use RGB). Even if we exactly convert CMYK to RGB, the colors viewed on your screen still might not look 100% correct because different monitors are calibrated differently, and you may have different monitors, operating systems, Web browsers, room color schemes, and ambient light than we do. All these can affect a Web design in ways that the designer cannot anticipate or do much about. For example, we’ve had people refer to a red color that looks brown to us. Go figure!
5. E-commerce, databases, and other complex web applications can take a lot of time and work and can cost extra.
We employ our “Cool Tools” system to help us implement e-commerce, databases, and other applications as quickly and efficiently as possible. These Cool Tools typically will increase your web hosting charges over the cheap $3-$10 per month services out there. For example, a Cool Tools website with many bells and whistles costs about $20/month, whereas a website with the same bells and whistles plus a shopping cart costs about $40/month.
However, the Cool Tools save you money on development costs, and they enable you to maintain your own site with relative ease and without hand coding in HTML, PHP, or other difficult-to-use alphabet-soup programming languages. For example, adding e-commerce and databases in a typical hand-coded system can be astronomically expensive and take considerable time; with our Cool Tools system, it’s much quicker and less expensive. But you should expect that sites with these extra goodies still will require more work, time, and money than sites without them.
6. Remember why you’ve hired a professional web designer.
A professional web designer usually can get your website up and running faster and better than your typical friend or brother-in-law (unless they, too, are professional web designers). But, you often do get what you pay for (see “IF YOU PAY PEANUTS, YOU GET MONKEYS” blog article by Karalyn Eckerle). We promise to listen to our clients with respect, to consider your comments and suggestions, and to foster a great working relationship with you. We hope you will do the same for us so that your website can show off your company in the best possible way and provide your website’s visitors with a great experience.
Posted by: Elizabeth Olson AT 04:29 pm
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Our "Cool Tools" web hosting service has made it easier than ever to create and edit websites. So if you are maintaining your own website through our service, or you have friends, colleagues, or family members who want to set up their own websites, please tell them about these features, as well as our free 10-day trial sites.
One of the coolest new features is the Site Builder Preview, a spiffy new user interface that looks better and is better organized than the standard interface, making site editing setup and maintenance easier than ever before. To access this feature, log in to your Admin page. Then click the Site builder preview link under News and Updates.
What else is new? New design templates, improved logo handling and new logo designs, new backgrounds and background features, new groupboxes, social networking features, mailing list and landing page referral tracking, and automatic email responses when users fill out a form on your site. You'll also find new Ecommerce features, including an updated store home page, support for editing coupons, the ability to use multiple gift certificates upon checkout, and more. The Help and Tutorials also have been improved. For a detailed summary of the features described above, simply log into your Admin page and then click the System Update - ver. 4.15 [09/26/2009] link under News and Information.
Want More New Features?
Here are a few from an update installed 11/2009.
More new template layouts
The ability to hide the top banner
The ability to update the top bar image for certain templates
Improved Background design page, including a background gradient maker
More control over the appearance of popup menus and the design layout width
Seasonal logos (Thanksgiving and end-of-year Holidays coming soon)
For consulting help using these features, or to have us incorporate any of these features into your own website, please contact us. (Note: These features are available only to customers whose websites are built using our "Cool Tools" content management systems. Most Precision Computing Arts customers are on this newer system, but a few of our clients remain on an older Dreamweaver based system. Not sure which system you're using? Just drop us a line and we'll gladly let you know.)
Posted by: Elizabeth Olson AT 01:15 pm
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Precision Computing Arts welcomes two new websites for the same customer! Please visit Frederick Michael King's art-related websites at:
Earth Fire Designs (www.earthfiredesigns.com) features hand carved ceramic murals, tile, architectural elements, and fireplaces.
King Contemporary Art (www.kingcontemporaryart.com) features contemporary wall mounted metal sculptures and encaustic wax paintings for private, hotel, and corporate spaces.
We also invite you to visit the new website for Mr. Shrine(www.mrshrine.com). Ralph Wilson (aka Mr. Shrine) and his partner Kathleen McLeod create and teach others how to create folk-art shrines, mini-art car kits, pins and magnets on copper, painted luggage, and more.
Don't forget that we LOVE referrals from our existing customers. These three sites were made possible by referrals from existing customers — thank you Brian and Kathleen!
WestCoast Natives (Ryan Gorretta) - We're creating a new website for him; he's creating new landscaping for us! Watch for www.westcoastnatives.com, coming soon.
Many thanks to our new clients and to our loyal long-time clients who have kept us in business during tough times. We are grateful to be a part of YOUR business and look forward to working with you in the future.
We're always looking for referrals, so if you are happy with our work, please tell your colleagues, family, and friends. We offer consulting fee discounts for every referral that becomes a client, making referrals a win-win for everyone.
Hey, Precision Computing Arts / Fastwebdev Clients!
Would you like to see your name on our Client News blog pages? If so, please submit your news by contacting us or by clicking the Comments link below.
Do you want some help figuring out the best keywords to use in your Pay Per Click system (e.g., Google Adwords or Yahoo Overture)? Do you want to find out what the competition is doing? If so, check out Google's FREE Search-Based Keyword Tool. Use this free tool from Google to generate a list of keywords found on any site, including your own and your competition's.
In the Website box, enter the website address that you want to analyze.
Click Find Keywords.
You can sort by any column (click on the column name), analyze the results in a variety of ways, and even export the keywords found. The tool is optimized for use with Google's Adwords system, but it's great all by itself. (Note that it shows a limited list of keyword ideas, not every possible keyword associated with the site you selected.)
Does your business need a kickstart? Whose doesn't? Below are two FREE features from Google — the world's most-used search engine — that can help give your business more visibility. You will need a free Gmail (Google email) account to set up these features.
Many thanks to our new clients and to our loyal long-time clients who have kept us busy with interesting projects. We are grateful to be a part of YOUR business and look forward to working with you in the future.
We're always looking for referrals, so if you are happy with our work, please tell your colleagues, family, and friends. We offer consulting fee discounts for every referral that becomes a client, making referrals a win-win for everyone.
Hey, Precision Computing Arts / Fastwebdev Clients!
Would you like to see your name on our Client News blog pages? If so, please submit your news by contacting us or by clicking the Comments link below.
Long URLS — such as those that you copy from a browser's address bar and paste into email messages or print for later reference — can be difficult to pass along to others. They may break in email. They are difficult to spell out in conversation. They require error prone typing. Plus, they can be hard to remember!
Several "URL Shorteners" are available to help you convert long URLs into short ones, often with easy to remember and easy to type names. Examples of such services include:
tinyurl.com
memurl.com
bit.ly
and more. (To find more, search for the term "URL shorteners" in Google or another search engine.)
The problem with these services is that spammers tend to use them too! Recognizing that these shortened URLs could belong to spammers, today's spam blockers are more restrictive than ever. Often a perfectly legitimate use of a shortened URL in an email message can cause your email to be blocked as spam.
If you are using a URL shortener and people complain that they aren't receiving your messages, you may need to revert to using the longer URLs in order to get your messages through.
Another option is to ask recipients to put your email address on their email system's "whitelist" (a list of e-mail addresses or domain names that are trusted to not send spam). The spam blocker allows messages from the whitelist to pass through, regardless of their content and regardless of whether they contain shortened URLs. The technique for adding email addresses and domains will vary, depending on your email service. (This whitelist feature is especially easy to set up in the email section of our "Sitebuilder" build-it-yourself website service.)
Our clients increasingly ask us to help improve their website traffic and pay per click results using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) techniques. These techniques can require considerable time to master and not inconsiderable expense to implement.
One way we can help is by sharing the latest information and tips about current SEO and SEM techniques. Recently, we explored some tips from Google and received an email newsletter from PPCSummit containing information that we would like to share with you. Most of this information is written in plain English that even we can understand, so we feel it's worth passing along to our clients. We've summarized these articles below and provided links to the original material for your reading pleasure.
One more tip: Consider running ads in craigslist. Most craigslist ads are free, craigslist offers local classifieds and forums throughout the world, and Google indexes craigslist ads! >> more about craigslist
Google Webmaster Guidelines
This article from Google provides essential guidelines for: Website Design and Content, Technical Tools (for webmasters), and Quality. Implementing these guidelines will help Google do a better job of finding, indexing, and ranking your website. Among the most important are the Quality guidelines, which, if violated, can cause your site to be removed from or penalized in Google's index. >> read the article
Facebook Advertising (You May Want To Try It)
Facebook has nearly 200 million users, of which more than 100 million log on to Facebook at least daily. This article introduces Facebook Advertising, an increasingly effective way to reach Facebook's targeted audiences (which typically make impulse buys) and to increase brand awareness. The article provides helpful ad creation tips that apply to Facebook marketing as well as other contextual advertising such as Google Adsense. >> read the article
How to Train Your Visitors to Improve Your Conversions
Your website's landing page should treat visitors like untrained dogs that need clear guidance to get them to do something, such as buy your product or contact your company. The article explains how to find the competition's successful landing pages on the Internet and how to design landing pages for your own site that get more conversions. The acronym MORE ? which stands for Marketing Effectiveness; Offer Clarity; Readability of the Page; and Engagement with the Visitor ? is used to illustrate key points. The article also stresses the importance of testing and measuring the results. >> read the article
Five Ways to Maximize Your Pay Per Click Conversion Rates
Companies using Pay Per Click advertising (PPC) such as Google Adwords or Yahoo Overture know that every click from a sponsored search costs money that can add up quickly. This article explains five ways to communicate your message so that more visitors will turn into leads for your products or services. (Many of these tips will improve your website overall, whether you use PPC or not.)
1. Clearly understand your target market and the 2-3 messages you want to convey.
2. Make the landing page relevant to the link the user clicked.
3. Make the site design usable and readable, with a clear structure and easy navigation.
Social media enables companies to learn what's being said about their products and services in real time. This article discusses social media tools that can help you uncover keywords that can improve your Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign results and search engine page rankings. Tools mentioned include TwitterSearch, Collecta, Facebook Lexicon, and Delicious Tags; these can supplement more traditional methods for discovering keywords such as Google's Keyword Tool, WordTracker, and Keyword Discovery. >> read the article
"Killer Insider SEO Tips": How to Create Targeted Web Traffic in a Week
Need tips for getting targeted traffic to your website and converting that traffic to leads? This article includes four mostly free ways to begin, including:
1. Keyword research.
2. Using social media and building links. (Google's page ranking algorithm currently relies heavily on high-quality links!)
3. Using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to build content-rich, keyword-rich copy and search-friendly websites.
NOTE: We are now taking on new projects and website updates. Do-it-yourselfers and professional website designers are always welcome to create and maintain websites on our easy-to-use professional-quality Sitebuilder platform.
Site Builder (aka Cool Tools) System Update 4.16 offers many exciting new features and changes, summarized below.
Most website clients want development tasks to be completed for no money and in no time. That’s understandable, of course, but it’s not realistic because building Web pages is as much art as science, and it’s time-consuming (though fun and creative) work that requires significant attention to detail.
Add your listing to Google Business at 
Long URLS — such as those that you copy from a browser's address bar and paste into email messages or print for later reference — can be difficult to pass along to others. They may break in email. They are difficult to spell out in conversation. They require error prone typing. Plus, they can be hard to remember!
Our clients increasingly ask us to help improve their website traffic and pay per click results using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) techniques. These techniques can require considerable time to master and not inconsiderable expense to implement.
