Too Busy to Blog

Posted on June 24, 2010 by Mitch

I just wanted to post a quick update about my lack of posting lately. This time of year I am very busy with one of my best clients; Vexilar, Inc. I’m putting in long days working on video for DVD distribution, associated packaging, instructional manuals and press kit material. Vexilar is one of the biggest names in the ice fishing market. They’ve got some cool new products coming out, which means a lot of work for me. No complaints here, as I love the work. Hard to believe that all of this material needs to be done now, in the heat of the summer, but until I get my part done the assembly line can’t fire up. The pressure is on and I’m up to the challenge. Hope to be back with a fresh blog post soon.

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Let’s Get Over the WWW Thing

Posted on June 16, 2010 by Mitch

No WWWOkay, enough already. The WWW in Internet addresses is not needed, so why do some companies insist on perpetuating this waste of typing time? We all know by now that it’s called the World Wide Web.    Maybe the makers of W keys are hoping for more business. More likely we are just stuck in the WWW rut and are having a hard time getting out of it. Here are some of the reasons:

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SimpleFilePage for Large File Exchange

Posted on June 11, 2010 by Mitch

SimpleFilePage ScreenshotI just built a new website for a script I wrote and want to share with my fellow web designers, developers and anyone else who might find it useful. It’s called SimpleFilePage. When it comes to exchanging files with client’s, email works great until the file sizes get up over 10 MB. Then things get iffy as to whether the message will get through. This makes exchanging these larger files with clients a challenge. Yes, there are file sharing services abounding, but I wanted something simpler, on my own server and with my name on it.

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How to Design Your Email Address

Posted on June 10, 2010 by Mitch

The look and feel of your main business email address is an important choice. I say main because most people who use email a lot have more than one email address. Your main address is the one you communicate with your important clients or customers with. It’s the one everyone knows you by. It’ll often be printed on a business card and listed in other made-for-human places to be read. A strangely formatted address makes it hard to remember and increases the likelihood of typos tremendously. Take some time to plan your address well.

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Royalty Free Promotional Video Music

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Mitch

This week I was working on a video project where I had to set two different promotional videos to three different sound tracks each, using a variety of genres. Six videos total, all to be burned onto a looping DVD for in-store play. The single goal of this project is to appease store sales people. They get tired of listening to the same promo jingle and one-liners over and over again. If they get sick of your video, they will stop playing it. I guess I would too. I can remember working trade shows where the TV with too much volume down the aisle played the same theme song all day long. I wanted to go push it off it’s rickety table by the end of each day. Music can be torture if overplayed, so these videos needed to have a wide enough appeal and just-catchy-enough melodies to keep them playing in the stores.

Because these are in-store point-of-purchase videos, the music had to be legally sound and professionally done. In these days of the RIAA and all of the music sharing issues you can’t use just any music. Fortunately there are some great resources on the internet for us.

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cPanel Hosting Account Webmail

Posted on May 17, 2010 by Mitch

CPanel Webmail Login ScreenIn my last post I talked about setting up Microsoft Outlook to connect to your domain email account. This works great if you’re at the office or have your computer with you when traveling, but what if you need to check your email from another computer? If your website and email is hosted here at Element Engage, or your host uses the same, highly common, cPanel web hosting platform, you can access your email from anywhere via Webmail.

Here’s the two quick steps to get into your webmail from any computer:

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Email Marketing in the Social Media Age

Posted on May 4, 2010 by Mitch

With all the attention on social media marketing for your business these days, I started wondering if email marketing is becoming a thing of the past. Web users have evolved to accept that much of the email that comes through is spam or a waste of their time. But if done well, email marketing is still easily one of the most effective ways to communicate with your existing and prospective customers. To email market effectively in these times of social media explosion, increasing privacy issues and customer trust hurdles, one needs to be very careful about how they go about it. Here are some essential tips for effective email marketing today. Continue reading →

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My New Netbook

Posted on May 2, 2010 by Mitch

I picked up a netbook about a month ago. I was looking for a small computer that I could easily take along with me when I’m out and about. I have to say I’m very impressed and pleased with what this little machine can do. And the portability opens doors to different ways to use a computer I never considered.

The brand I chose was Acer, their Aspire One. This is not a computer review, so I won’t go into the likes and dislikes of the netbook. Just know that the likes outwieght the dislikes by a lot. For anyone looking for a small personal computer that’ll run for 6 to 8 hours on a charge, I highly recommend the Acer Aspire One. Continue reading →

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How to Make Your Website Social Media Friendly

Posted on April 29, 2010 by Mitch

In my last post I talked about the importance of making your website social media friendly. Now it’s time to tell you exactly how to do it. In essence, what we are trying to do is make it easy for site visitors to be able to share your pages into the social media realm, for when your enthusiastic friend adds your site to their social stream, their friends will surely take notice.

Fortunately, it’s very easy to add this functionality to almost any website. There are two great and free services that make this a snap: AddThis and Add To Any. I personally like to use the AddThis button. You’ll see one to the left of this post in the blog. Hover over the button and a menu will pop up with a plethora of sharing options, plus many more with an extra click. All the visitor has to do to share your web page is to click on the social media venue of their choice. Go ahead and give it a try. It even has email to a friend and page print capability. Continue reading →

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