The most obvious thing you need is a place for people to find you and place orders. If you do not have a domain name, we can register it for you. Once you have a domain name we’ll need to set up hosting and a secure certificate. The secure certificate (also known as SSL or TLS) keeps all data between the browser and your website safe, allowing your customers to feel comfortable sharing their personal information and payment information. Hosting has become a commodity where you get what you pay for. We only offer enterprise grade hosting services in hardened facilities connected where the internet meets to exchange data across networks. This enables our servers to route around network congestion providing the best service to the greatest number of people.

Now we need something to sell with. E-commerce solutions are varied and we have settled on a 3 tier approach that can service the individual selling a product or two to multi-brand/storefront solution tied into a single administration point providing dashboard style reporting on sales activities. Let’s describe each tier and decide which you fit into:

Tier 1: You have a product or three and you need an inexpensive method of selling your product. You have a flat rate that covers your shipping, handling, and any applicable taxes. You do not anticipate any changes to products offered or total calculations.

Tier 2: You have a single storefront selling products that need to be categorized and searchable. You have a single point of origin for all shipping and would like to calculate shipping costs across one or more carriers or shipping methods. You also would like to either securely capture credit cards for offline transacting or setup an automated online method.

Tier 3: You have a catalog of products that need to be sold through several websites. Websites can share shipping and billing methodologies or have unique settings. Some of your products may overlap stores, and or find themselves bundled with other products. You need to be able to target different target markets or market segments and orchestrate your marketing efforts to each website while maintaining a single point of administration and tracking of products inventories and sales.

Moving from tier to tier has it’s own development costs, so it’s a good idea to consider where you will be in 2 years and make your choice accordingly. Each level has it’s pro’s and cons that are specific to your vision. Give us a call, we want to make sure people can find you in time for Christmas.

Posted via email from jeffmilton’s posterous

– jeff

If only moving were that simple. What about mail? It’s easy. You simply fill out a change of address form and the Post Office takes care of it for you. Guess what? It’s just about that simple. You supply us a list of email addresses and we setup your new mail and transfer it over the weekend. When you come in Monday, you check your email one last time to clear out any remaining messages, then change your email settings to the new server. Once you point your mail client to the new server, your mail will function like normal. If normal means you get a lot of spam, we can one up the post office. Simply upgrade your mail boxes with Graphics & Motion SecureMail. You will be amazed at how much less spam (read junk mail) you receive. Additionally SecureMail provides protection against Viruses and Phishing attacks. In case you don’t know, Phishing is where someone pretends to be someone they aren’t (like your bank) in an attempt to get your personal information.

I’m certain that every time you’ve moved you do your darnedest to make sure everyone you can think of knows where you moved. I don’t know about you, but every time I miss someone … okay a lot of people. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could put up an invisible sign that only your friends could see that would direct them to your new house? On the web, we have these giant long addresses called URL’s. You know, that string of text at the top of your browser that goes from http://www.address.com to something so long you wouldn’t even want to attempt to read it? Those things change when you move and it makes it impossible for the search engines to know where those old pages have moved to. In comes 301 redirects. These redirects are custom coded and act as that invisible sign pointing your old pages to the new ones so your visitors find you. Mapping redirects from an old site to a new one requires planning and can be time consuming. Redirecting every page might be cost prohibitive, but if you get all the key pages it can go a long way to making sure you keep those hard earned visitors.

I hope this website moving/updating guide helps you understand the key steps to a smooth transition.

SYSTEM (cmS)
In a CMS, the page organization and links are managed by the system, because of this you can organically grow your site and re-organize its structure to fit your business as it’s needs change. The cost of setting up an tailoring the system for your business creates additional overhead for new sites but is mitigated quickly as you save money in navigation/structure/interface edit costs.

Built-in Base Level Search Engine Optimization
Content Management Systems (CMS’s) provide basic formatting that makes it easy for Search Engines to find you and “Spider” your content. Search engines use programs that check websites for new and updated content. Organizing your content is key for search engine placement. They also provide basic tools so you can improve search engine placement. One of the many things we teach customers who participate in our marketing programs, is how to effectively use these tools each time they edit or add a page to the system. Our periodic review of statistics will help you make good decisions in improving the search-ability of your site. In some cases we can produce better results through a fine tuning process called Search Engine Optimization.

Design Independence
Content Management Systems (CMS’s) “load” a web design. This means that your design is separate from the system or the content. When it’s time for a new design, we simply create it and load it in. Unless we are changing the structure of the site, no changes to the system or content are required. This represents a huge savings and empowers you to compete visually.

Plugins for Additional Utility
Content Management Systems have a plugin architecture that allows the developer community to write add on programs to extend the functionality of the system. There is seemingly limitless potential for custom development. Custom development of course is expensive, but most commonly used programs have already been written. As long as you are willing to accept the way these pre-written plugins operate, you can have amazing functionality for relative little cost. Examples of the more commonly used plugins include:

• Community Management Tools
• Calendar and Event Management
• Photo Galleries
• Shopping Carts
• News and Blog’s
• Multi-Admin/Editor Management
• Custom User Experience Based on Role or Group

Minglewood Hall is a new venue opening soon in Midtown Memphis. Located inside the beautifully renovated building at 1555 Madison Avenue, The Hall offers a wide variety of possibilities for any event.

If we expect to get different results in these challenging times, what are the few critical things that we must personally do differently…starting now?

My answer:

Progress happens by doing things mostly right and correcting along the way. The very idea of doing things differently suggests that you were on the wrong path entirely. When people feel pressured they often leap to extreme measures. I’m sure you’ve heard the expression “Extreme times call for extreme measures”. While this expression may have some truth, we need to be careful about the decisions we make and our outward communication.

Companies and individuals have contacts, skill sets, and experience. Utilizing these three things and adapting is key to success. A business may need to retool or an individual might need further education to adapt to a changing environment. What’s critical is to adapt or correct … along the way. Endurance is key in challenging times and we must continue to endure as we improve as well as inspire confidence in everyone around us. Businesses and individuals who choose to see this as an opportunity to stand out from the competition will benefit.

• Discuss strengths and opportunities for collaboration.
• Find your unique voice and let everyone in your contact list know what you have to offer.
• Be available to participate when opportunities present themselves.
• Never give up.

You might be thinking to yourself, “I thought there were web standards”. You are indeed correct. The web standards are created by a group called W3C (www.w3c.org). However, there isn’t a browser created that is fully compliant with any of the specifications put out by this organization and some interpret the specification differently or ignore it all together! This means that as a web designer you end up coding for multiple browsers. Even if a customer wanted to pay for the time to code a site for all browsers and all their versions, it would be nearly impossible to produce an identical visual result across the board.

Browser Compatibility Bang For The Buck

Internet Explorer: 67.55%
Firefox: 21.53%
Safari: 8.29%
Chrome: 1.12%
Opera: 0.70%
Netscape: 0.57%
Other: 0.22%

Data Provided by Wikipedia

Targeting Firefox and IE7 and Above you end up addressing over 70% of web users. To boost the number over 90% graceful degradation of the code should be considered for IE6. With this practical and economical approach to target browser consideration you can guarantee wide target audience delivery. This does not mean that display will be identical from one browser to another, but the differences should be minimal.

My house and the houses of others are decorated with my paintings, but I’ve only completed 1 painting in the last ten years. I’ve completed countless designs for print that are likely occupying space in landfills. Electrons and pulses of light that carried my designs to the screens of computers around the world now deliver others creative endeavors. The paintings remain. I might have to start painting again.

Elizabeth Gilbert muses on how creative people can create a protective psychological construct to mitigate the taste of failure that comes with daring to create.

The Women’s Foundation for a Greater Memphis (WFGM) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit grant-making organization. Fostered by an initial gift from local philanthropist Mertie Buckman, it was established in 1995 to encourage philanthropy and foster leadership among women and to support programs that enable women and children to reach their full potential.

Based in Memphis, Tennessee, The DeHart Group represents companies operating in transportation & logistics, professional “back office” services (including full service human resources), and entertainment marketing.  In all these businesses we drive performance advantages through technology differentiation.

Through individual initiative and partnering, The DeHart Group continues to provide opportunities for growth and a chance to excel through entrepreneurship and in doing so provide a better quality of life.