Design a Website on a Small Budget
Posted on Apr 20, 2011 by Peter Ellis in Advertising, News, Web Design
These economic times are hard, and business owners have to make tough decisions on daily basis. When business cash flow is low; work is not coming in or the budget is being cut, one of the first things that gets neglected is marketing. It is very sad to see a business in the position of not being able to promote their product or service. Marketing, advertising and promotion are vehicles that bring in more business, and when they get neglected or cut due to lack of finances…well, we all know the outcome.
I wanted to share this story with you, to hope to inspire and encourage the business owner through these difficult economic times.
A few weeks ago, a loyal customer of ours emailed me to inquire about her website that we had designed 3-4 years ago. She wanted me to review and analyze her website and it’s relevancy. I emailed her back after taking a close look with the following remarks:
- The framework of the website was outdated due to changes in the Internet and search engine industries. Some of the features should be updated to current criteria.
- The design and overall look of the website can be refreshed to keep up with expected visual trends.
- Social media networking needs to be integrated and implemented on the website and in her marketing strategy.
- Large portions of the website needed to be re-tested for browser compatibility, considering that Google Chrome did not even exist when her website was originally designed and developed. In addition, new browser versions have come out in last 3 years, so the website had to get tested to ensure compatibility with the latest browser versions.
Her reply to me was, “That seems ok, can you take care of it for me, and how much will this cost?” It was difficult to say, but the amount of work that it would take to address those issues would be equal (if not more) to designing a brand new website.
The client expressed to me, that she’s been going through some tough times in her business and that she did not have the money in her budget to redesign her website.
As much as I always want to help our customers succeed, there was not way around these issues without a lengthy effort.
Nevertheless, a few days later, we were able to find a solution. One of her clients is a graphic designer of 25 years, and he offered our client to barter his design services for hers, to help her with a large portion of her website design. We worked together with her designer to ensure that the design of the website was compliant with features and functionality of what she was looking for. After the design stage was complete, we would take the new look and develop the rest of the website for her.
This was a great compromise, which allowed us to still offer our services to this loyal customer, even on her limited budget.
This is not the only time that we were able to find an alternative solution to reach the goal at hand. I am happy to look back at this and realize that everyone’s situation is different and here at DIF Design we were able to meet the customer’s needs and not compromise on quality.
April 2011 Wallpaper
Posted on Apr 01, 2011 by Anne Lopez in Freebie, Wallpaper
April – Spring is finally here! Download this wallpaper and bring the joy of Spring to your monitor. Light up your desktop, laptop, iPad, iPhone or netbook screen with this great addition to our FREE wallpaper collection.
Choose your size below:
640×960 (iPhone)
800×600
1024×768
1024×1024 (iPad)
1280×800
1280×1024
1440×900
1680×1050
1920×1200
IE9 vs Firefox 4
Posted on Mar 30, 2011 by Dennis Driscoll in IT
Upgrading your browsers, do you do it immediately or do you wait? Well, just for our readers (and poorly managed curiosity), I upgraded both as soon as I could. Well, that wasn’t a good idea. Here are some specifics: FireFox 4.0 – only 1 out of 7 plug-ins I use still work. This is bad as I depend on them daily. IE 9 – some sites that use asp, don’t work. I am repeatedly thrown from the website as the browser crashes. We all know this isn’t gonna fly.
Now for the noticeably good stuff in these browsers. They are both super fast, I mean Maserati sleek and cool fast. Websites that would normally take 5-6 seconds to come up (database driven), now come up in less than 2 seconds or are noticeably faster. Both have redesigned their user interface and look similar, and function quite the same. IE 9 has integrated itself fully with Windows 7 to create a better experience. IE9 has also become fully integrated with HTML 5 usage, enhanced developer tools and better add-on control. FireFox has added a menu button that allows for easier use, InPrivate browsing, and an app tab.
If you are looking for a seamless transition over to one of these browsers, wait 3 months. Sites that need to get updated to handle this code base will be up to date by then, and Microsoft, Mozilla and plug-in providers will have worked out the bugs.
I will periodically update this post for those of you who want to know my findings.
Web Wednesdays – March 30, 2011
Posted on Mar 30, 2011 by Anne Lopez in IT, News, Web Wednesdays
Web Wednesdays – Wednesdays we will feature websites that we’ve come across while in our process of searching for inspiration, the latest trends, or learning about anything and everything we can get our hands on that interests us.
Are you looking to be the next big director? Well look no further. Xtranormal is where you can go to create your own mini-movie with funny avatars and voices. All you have to do is create a script and you’re good to go.
Xtranormal.com is a web-site powered by Xtranormal’s text-to-movie™ platform—a web-based application used to create short 3D animated movies from simple text-based movie-scripts.
The characters in the movie speak the dialogue in the script, and react to performance triggers—icons that are dropped directly into the script, just like smileys in IM/chat.
Movies can be shared through e-mail, blogs and online video sharing and social networking sites such as YouTube™, MySpace™ and Facebook™.
The best part is, it is free to sign up. Like they say, “If you can type, you can make movies.”
Entrepreneur who breaks free
Posted on Mar 24, 2011 by Peter Ellis in Advertising, Social Media
MasterCard just released this great TV ad, it’s an animated spot of an entrepreneur who breaks free from the confines of the corporate world and realizes his own dreams of starting his own small business.
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