The numbers 4-0-4 actually mean something as individual digits in the HTML code. The first 4 is telling you, that there is a mistake on your end, such as a possibly mistyped URL or a request for a page that no longer exists. The 0 just represents a syntax error, basically just means “something isn’t right”. Now after those, the last number could be any one of several digits that indicates the type of error. The 4 in that section means that the page cannot be located.

The 404 Not Found Page comes up on your screen for several different reasons:

1) The page may have been moved.

2) The hyperlink you followed might have a minor error in the URL.

3) There might be a typo on the URL your are requesting.

3) The page may simply be gone.

There is no longer the need to see it as not found page but more like “200 maybe” what does this means? Of course, sometimes you cannot help but remove a page or change the URL, and you will not be able to always prevent the occurrence of an Error Page. But if you can’t avoid it, at least make it work for you with some CSS creativity. You can create and code your custom 404 error page with all the information needed in order of your viewers could still reach you.

If you find there is a page that is consistently getting mistyped, or if you have moved a page that you know many people will be trying to view, instead of just showing them an error page you can automatically redirect them to the correct page. You can use a 404 pageby having it informs your visitor of what happen and links for the new page to inform visitors that the webpage is not available automatically, while at it, why not doing in a creative way? For inspiration, check out Mailchimp‘s awesome 404 page on our feature image.

What does a web developer do?

Clients normally believe you are a designer too, so that must be the first clarification to make.

A Web developer builds a Web presence from the bottom up, fashioning everything from the home page to site layout and function to convert PSD to HTML/CSS. A good Web developer takes into account the client’s products or services along with the target market to create a website that will have specific HTML to CSS worth pixel perfect.

Like any human being, websites have bodies too. It divides into HTML5 codes that function as a bone structure and CSS3 codes that work as the skin. Also PSD to HTML5/CSS3 should look great and remain fully functional regardless of the Web browser being used to view the site.

Easy navigation is a key element in any high-traffic website. That is why Flash is Evil. Few things are more frustrating to visitors than sites that are laid out illogically. Implementing a visually appealing webscape that is user-friendly along with an effective search engine is one way the Web developer ensures viewers will enjoy their visit and quickly get to products of interest. That way you will get more traffic.

As humans have different languages, so does the Internet. Various scripting languages exist in which to create surveys, contests, and sales mechanisms for e-Commerce like what we do on PSD to Magento in order to securely transfer information between visitors and the website. A Web developer takes all of this into consideration.

What does a web designer do?

Your client may think a web designer draws pretty pictures on the web. Once a design is supplied to your client, chances are they will cast their opinion over said design and expect changes to be made at no extra cost and in next to no time.

Why is that? Because they believe this is already part of the price or it’s your fault, so you shouldn’t bill more for changes. You should always make sure of:

1. Meet the client and gather their requirements for the website. This meeting and subsequent meetings should involve discussions about what websites they like and why. At this time you have the opportunity to explain what it doesn’t work and why.

2. Give more than one design option to your client because they are going to merge them or destroy them but it would make your work easier to have more than one idea “on the table”.

In general, the goal is to create pages with a specific design, a uniform graphic set, and eye grabbing details. Depending upon the needs of the client, a web designer may also write content for pages, though sometimes they merely edit and program content that clients provide.

Degrees tend to be less important than demonstrating how awesome you are when a client is choosing a web designer/developer. Instead of viewing credentials, they evaluate the pages a person has created to see if the aesthetic value is close to what they want. Still, our advice is, if you don’t know a thing about web development or design, always ask for outsourcing services.

We really hope this short guide comes in handy for you when you need it, specially if you find yourself in the position of trying to explain what is it that you do to your neighbor, the butcher, the plumber and all those people that come to you thinking they might need a website done.

“On first place we have: Shopify Helps Online Entrepreneurs “Build-a-Business” By Julia L. Rogers

Build-a-Business is back! Shopify wants to give a small push up to any small business that want to become the very best. The competition is for more than $500,000 in prizes, expert help and moral support, starts on May 1^st through December 31^st, 2011. Great opportunity if you have a good product but experience trouble selling it. Do not let this opportunity pass you by and get started with your PSD to Shopify project!

On second place we have: How to Create CSS3 Paper Curls Without Images by Craig Buckler

This tutorial is about creating a paper curl effect to make your HTML to CSS unique and easier. Paper curls have been popular for a few years now. The viewer sees a natural-looking slightly curved box but, in reality, it’s an optical illusion created by a shadow at the bottom of the element. Don’t you love cognitive process?

It also talks about the benefits CSS3 provides such as:

1. The effect can be applied to elements of any size.

2. The code is reusable and uses far fewer bytes than an image-based shadow.

On third place we have: Fun With Pulsing Background Colors in CSS3 by Joshua Johnson

More HTML to CSS wonders! Even though CSS keyframe animations currently have very limited browser support, they’re still quite interesting to learn about and experiment with. With a simple example of web page that leverages Webkit keyframe animations to gently shift the background color on a never ending loop you can choose between a live demo and a normal writing tutorial.

What the White iPhone 4 Says About the iPhone 5 by Matt Buchanan

Why all the fuss about this? It is more of a fashion release than an improvement of technology and some said it’s enough of a fatty difference between “Black and White” that the white iPhone 4 wouldn’t fit into an Incase slider case designed for the iPhone 4. We do understand is not as simple as painting it, but we are on the XXI century and is Apple we are talking about.

They could always make a different Incase slider but where is the exclusivity of iPhone4 then? Will iPhone5 have the same process?

One fifth place we have: Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: May 2011

Time for some desktop creativity! This post features 30 free desktop wallpapers created by artists across the globe for May 2011. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free. Let one of these wallpapers bring life to your computer or give you the inspiration to make your own!

Those have been the winners for this week; hope you give PSD to Shopify a try and win that competition.

Let’s begin by choosing one of our greatest designers and the process to decipher the creative apparel for the creative mind begins. All of our designers work with their heart on it, which is why we are going to examine it, let’s start with:

Right-Hand Side of the Heart- it receives all the power of Photoshop CS5: The ideal application to manipulate images and create web graphics. Photoshop has all the necessary tools and options you need such as: filters, brushes, actions, scripting, layer comps and the revert option. Here are other arteries that function to prepare the design for the PSD to XHTML process:

• Adobe Fireworks is a commercial raster and vector graphics editor designed specifically for web designers, it brings you a plethora of tools and options that make full web layout prototyping a breeze. This helps PSD slicing services a lot!
• FontStruct is a free font- Building tool brought to you by the world’s leading retailer of digital type, it lets you quickly and easily create fonts constructed out of geometrical shapes, which are arranged in a grid pattern, like tiles or bricks.
• Typechart lets you evaluate an assortment of web typography. Once you’ve discovered the font you like, you can use the Get CSS button to obtain the style rules for it.
• Designer Plaything- You can experiment with different web typography and color combinations. It also allows you to check color accessibility.
• Wellstyled Color Scheme Generator- A simple web tool that helps designers produce color themes.
• Browsercam, probably the most feature rich screen capture services available. It even offers an extensive browser remote control service giving you access to check javascripts, DHTML, forms and other dynamic functionality on any platform.

Left-Hand Side of the Heart- We all need a broad knowledge of today’s marketplace. On this side we can see all kind of topics like SEO, Marketing, Psychology to name a few. These topics must become general knowledge in order to survive. Why is that?

• Marketing- Increasingly website owners are grasping that their online marketing strategy has to be about more than their website. Understanding SEO can help you explain what is best practice within SEO? What impacts does SEO have on usability, accessibility and copy? How advertising works on Social Media and the importance of a right community engagement.
• Copywriting – Therefore they need to understand the principles of writing for the web and indeed more general copywriting techniques.
• Contextual awareness- times have change; your viewers could be using a netbook or a mobile phone.

·      Psychology- Designing usable websites requires an understanding of how users think and complete tasks. If you understand how people think it can also help with building and engaging communities.

That is all for now, it is time to revive our dear web designer to go back to working again, we hope you understand the function of our web designers and come back any time for the next experiment here at CodeMyConcept!

The first one goes to: 10 of the Best Looking Premium Magento Themes

Your favorite web salesman is at the top of the list with some of the greatest themes we have ever seen. Site Reviver got a fresh collection for the best eCommerce themes in the world, this article is a collection of those themes that could help you display your products in the best of ways and shows you which ones work with what.

The second one goes to: Expanding Image Menu with jQuery by Mary Lou

With neat effects, she creates columns with black and white image slices that will make a content area slide out when you click on them, with well explained codes she shows you the “how to?” of the Mark Up, CSS, Java Scrip and some other demos that can help you out.

The third one goes to: Web Design + Psychology = Satisfied Users?

A never-ending topic of using psychology in order to improve your web designs, they show you some psychological principles and researches on how the human mind works. This article mentions a few studies and theories and how to apply them, some of these theories are “Do People Visit Websites to Achieve Particular Outcomes?” “Persuasion is the best” and some tips for you to considerate when designing a website.

The forth one goes to: Less is More: Creative and Inspiring Minimalist Print Ads by Aquil Akhter

As a creative article we choose this recollection of very creative and minimalistic advertisement examples in order to inspire you to use the blank spaces wisely and the simplest of things can became the coolest of things.

The fifth one goes to: Is it Possible to Build a Disaster-Proof Nuclear Power Plant? By Rachel Swaby

After what happened in Japan, people are on their toes worrying of what is going to happen next, that is why we chose this article in order to spread out a little peace, remember that information is our bigger ally.
Ever since World War II nuclear energy has been a delicate subject to talk about, it is the cleanest energy at the time but it has the power to destroy us all, even though Albert Einstein regretted discovering it, it does have a good side with safe standards, there are plants in the world that are even safer than those affected in Japan. Here you will read about what the problems Japan is dealing with and how other countries are protecting themselves of any natural disaster.

Those are the winners; we hope you like them and keep looking forward for the next Top 5 Most Awesome Articles of the Week!

Even though there are add-ons for IE6 and IE7 to make life easier for HTML Coders, they do not compare to the lasted Explorer version or Firefox. Some of the comments you can hear about the browser at the moment are:

• “Three more years of just plain hell and chaos…”
• “I’m glad Microsoft if FINALLY going to end of life IE 6 but 3 MORE YEARS?”
• “Stop using Internet Explorer 6. Pleeeeeease!”
• “Stop using Microsoft’s IE6 web browser, says Microsoft”
• “I’m doing my part to get IE6 to 1%”

Microsoft had sent a mission to the world, to erase IE6 for good in 3 years, according to Net Applications, IE6 still has 12% share worldwide. The mission, if you want to accept it, is to get this share under 1% worldwide, a very possible mission if you ask us.

Sites like this one IE6Countdown, teach you the reasons why IE6 must stop working, one of them being security: hackers already know too well how to infiltrate your computer by these means.

Some of the benefits of being updated are:

• View and manage multiple websites in one browser window with enhanced tab browsing.
• Find what you need quickly with innovative search and visual suggestion features.
• Help protect yourself and your computer from online threats with the SmartScreen Filter.
• Navigate quickly to the sites and content you care about most with Favorites Bar.

The good news is that for the United States IE6 share is only 2.9%, 3.5% in United Kingdom, 3.3% in Canada, almost there keep it going! But Norway and Finland are the only two countries where IE6 has less than 1% very good for you!

Most of the IE6 users are companies, it is necessary to let them see what they are risking, if a person use it, hackers party with their information, just imagine what they can do with the business secret data? One problem with upgrading IE is that people using Windows XP can’t upgrade IE beyond Internet Explorer 8. It has been designed for what you really do on the Web like searching, shopping, emailing, or just catching up on the world. Except now you can do all of those things faster, safer, and easier than ever. Tell your boss about it will really increase you work production.

Internet Explorer 6 has become a really huge problem, especially for people afraid of change, we don’t know why but there is a worrying fear to update your computer’s software or programs that completely delay and prevent you of moving forward.

Do not forget to access to http://www.ie6death.com/ for the final countdown and the fare away, to an old hero that became an enemy, on April 8 of 2014.

Rest in Peace Internet Explorer 6.

The winners are:

1.    50+ New WordPress Themes: March 2011 by  Cameron Chapman

In first place we got, minimalist and simple wordpress themes are one of the favorite topics for web designers at the time. This article shows some example WordPress themes with big images or in a magazine style and how rare it is to find free WordPress themes, or of any other kind for that matter. These will also give you an idea about what a good HTML can do for you. He offers a comparison of what free and charged WordPress themes can do.

This information can help you choose, or at least get an idea, of which customized theme can work out for you.

2.    iPad2 Hands On: It Really Is Different by Kat Hannaford

On second place, the “oh so awaited iPad2” with all its new lightness and promises. You can read about the author’s own experience testing the iPad2, she gave out some guidelines about color, how does it look like when you are having a videoconference, the sound system and smart cover tricks.

No matter what all people say about this topic, we all know how great it really is, it is thinner than an iPhone and faster than many tablets in the market at the moment.

3.     To Reset or Not Reset- That’s the CSS Question by Craig Buckler

On third place a big inquiry about Reset CSS if you should or shouldn’t do it, the author talks a little of Eric Meyer’s CSS Reset, the HTML5 Reset Stylesheet from HTML5 doctor who can also help style newer elements. Sometimes is helpful to start with white canvas “let the code talk to you”. To some people it is better than using a CSS reset.

With a very poetic title the author promises an explanation of the necessities of this tool.

4.    How to create a Stunning Fire Effect in Photoshop

On fourth place, fire element is the king of “the most difficult to create in the 2D world” (curious that is so easy in real life) without looking like “what was that supposed to be?” This author share some tricks to render realistic flames and create a dramatic artwork in few simple and easy steps. Starting with blending options and ending with an unbelievable fire flower than any pyromaniac will love to have.

5.    Logo Design Trend Showcase: Retro Emblems & Badge by Chris Spooner

And last but not least, a recollection of Retro logos just for you to get your imagination working, sometimes you have to look into the past in order to keep moving forward, a combination of very bright and dark colors illustrate in some many similar and different ways to help you create your own with a few helpful tutorials.

Those were the winners of this week, cannot wait for all the new articles for next week, let us know how these articles help you out!

First of all we should remember that we are humans, a simple thing that can be forgotten easily in this great business of technology, but we must admit that it will definitely be easier if we could install in ourselves some kind of software that will give us all the magical answers in social and business communication, wouldn’t it? As time goes by it doesn’t sound crazy anymore.

Here are a few guidelines on how we do it:

1.      Patience- the first one and maybe the most difficult. You can control your temper by taking a deep breath and really analyze what the problem at hand is. Sometimes you could prevent a tragic war just by just listening.

2.     Be diplomatic- no matter what do not respond with anger, even if the client is a little rough, they are paying for a service or product and have every right to request the best, mean words could not really been directed at you but at the situation or just came from the client’s frustration.

3.     Be smart- if you are not offering the service they were looking for, try to explain what they really need and that you would be happy to help any time, this way you can make a future customer or be in the top of mind in what is categorized best customer service on that persons mind. Offer other solutions.

4.     Remember 3/33- if you gave a good customer service, the client will tell to 3 of their friends, but if you mistreat them, this person alone will tell 33 people how awful you are. Keep that in mind!

5.     Say no- when the time comes that you really can’t help them, tell them the reason why, and be clear and detailed. It could be because you’re not in charge of that area, there are no more products, but you should always provide a solution.

We all feel uncomfortable when the times comes when the confrontation cannot be delayed but at CodeMyConcept we try to get the best of it and win the clients’ trust and satisfaction, you can optimize your services studying your customers and giving them out topics they could be interested in when the service has been completed. There must be a balance, you cannot say: “Yes” or “Not” to everything, kip in mind that by optimizing your production and services will give you more recommendations, more trust and more customers leading you to a future success.

Well now you got the tools, tell us how they worked out for you and keep on the edge for more awesome new topics.

It is quite interesting to see that in nine months since it was first released, nearly 15 million iPad were sold, with an interesting revenue of more than $9.5 billion, about 15% of Apple’s total revenue for those nine months, not bad for a company that is known for using customers as beta testers.

We will update this information later on…in the meantime, enjoy the lovely “filtered” picture.

Computers had taken over the world but we are still too small to be able to control them. For example the new NFC technology is capable of transmitting and receiving very small bits of information, via wireless, at very close ranges (everything is better with Bluetooth!). Download is the new master of our time; you can find the ugliest dog on youtube or the newest update of your favorite software, the universe is the limit.

Another impressive new gadget is a laptop that can be controlled by your eyes, totally awesome, is on CeBIT in Hanover, if you want to take a look of what we are talking about, nothing compares to good old ENIAC, who could only resolve computer problems but both are the “Gigantic Brain” of their time.

Designers got a world of tools at their feet, unlimited themes, and software; there are sites that even give imagination out. Web development, is one of those websites that helps you show to the world that you exist, and how wonderful you are in code mode and how great you are at doing just that, the magic of words and pictures are left to the clients.

On this contemporary time, information is revealed by such a huge amount of items like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, etc that can be seen by any phone, computer, music gadget that you have. It makes us think that the dream we once had where “every human being will be able to have a computer someday” has become too little, it should be rephrased to “every human being will have a minimum of 5 computer like objects”: those when you are having a good time outside your home, those for school, those at home and those for the love of it.

The new plug-ins, magic mouse (complete time savers) or just the right playlist can make work even more bearing to the point to finish it without even noticing, full productivity that’s what we are talking about! Making a better place to work start with reminding that we are people first, and as people we know what clients needs and capable to listen to what they want. We all have been victims of “Call home” and the answer is “Did you said call Supermarket?” a part of customer service is to really listen to customers problems or suggestions the other part is to look at it as a way of growing.

Doing a conference call is as simple as picking up the phone and you can talk and see people in Asia, how great is to chat with a friend who is sitting next to you, without your other friends noticing.

We have found lives decode and we know how to use it, beware of our Coders than can do any PSD the ultimate web fighters or the next iron link.

Any idea of what will come next?

I have followed and observed our HTML coders for a while now and noticed quite a few interesting facts:

1. The vast majority of coders at CodeMyConcept smoke, one of the reasons why they do it is probably to have an excuse to go outside and see daylight, be social and talk to other people in the office, to force themselves to go get some “fresh air”. Well if you go and check reasons why people smoke is to release stress. although our HTML coders are extremely happy, outgoing people, they take their jobs way seriously and that causes stress.

2. The vast majority of our HTML coders drink coffee. At CodeMyConcept we currently offer two types of coffee: A coffee machine and a coffee maker, you could easily say that those two machines work harder than regular coffee machines. Days at CodeMyConcept start early and end late, they need caffeine to run the little engines on their brains.

3. When working on a project, their interaction with others is very similar to autistic behavior. Which leads me to the need for smoking most of HTML coders have, they probably realize at some point that they need to talk to others and interact with people, they use the cigarette as an excuse to leave the catatonic state and be “normal” for a few minutes.

4. A lot of the coders have an special appreciation for the rock band Tool. The PSD to HTML Quality Control program the guys at CodeMyConcept created is called “MJK“, as a tribute to Tool’s front man Maynard James Keenan, if that doesn’t tell you there is some sort of infatuation going on, what will. Oh! One of the coders has a huge Alex Grey work tattooed on his back, he is known for having done some of the best Tool Album art: Lateralus.

5. HTML coders are the sweetest creatures on earth. It is unbelievable the kind of love that fills this entire office. HTML coders at CodeMyConcept really care for their coworkers, they built relationships amongst themselves quickly (probably during the smoking breaks) . they have pet names, they dedicate songs to each other and what not. This office sometimes feels like an eternal Saint Valentine’s day.

These are only five facts from my intensive research. I would like to see if other web coders or even web designers share this behavior and who knows, maybe I’ll continue my research and share it with you. Other interesting facts are: they loose track of time quite easily, do not have a feeding schedule and have the tendency spend a lot of money on Energy Busters.

Do you have a HTML coder behavior?

This is a regular customer, who has been incredibly supportive to us in so many ways we can’t even count. He wanted a rush order and we let him know that at the moment, due to the high amount of work we have, rush options are not available. He didn’t get mad or anything but did mention that he would have loved to know the option was not available before submitting the order and he is right.

CodeMyConcept is a real company, with real people, all of our code is written by hand and our quality assurance process is quite extensive, we want everyone that works with us to know that every one of you is special and that we will always make our best effort to provide you all with the best PSD to HTML service on the planet and if we know we will not be able to provide that service before hand, we will let you know, just like we did with our customer today.

Yes, it would have been nice for the customer to know we couldn’t meet his needs before he submitted the order and that has also happened in the past, and we have thought of different solutions in the past for this specific issue, however, since we treat every single project with such love and care, we can’t just close the option without checking the customers’ project in depth to see if we really can make his project shine, every single customer with care, and reviewing their projects in detail is part of that care.

We do want to find a solution to avoid these type of situations from happening, provide BETTER COMMUNICATION as our customer mentioned so, we thought that maybe you guys, our fans, friends and customers may have some input, advice or anything that can help us be even better, make us even more awesome!

So we open this communication channel, starting with this particular issue and we would really appreciate it if anyone has an idea to share with us.

We don’t want to loose our human side, after all we are already known for providing awesome customer service and have great communication with customers, so if you have some piece of advice for us, feel free to share with us, either on a comment right here o via email at hello@codemyconcept.com.

At CodeMyConcept we take our work very seriously and have really high standards when it comes to our code, this is why every employee at CodeMyConcept has to go through a very intesive month of training before even getting close to one of your projects.

Training includes many different things: PSD to HTML, hand coding, basics of platform implementations, customer services guides and lots and lots of practice. At the end of the training people end up become part of the CodeMyConcept family and start working their magic in your projects.

We wanted to share this lovely picture of the newbies we took yesterday, it shows on their faces how awesome it is to work at CodeMyConcept and also you can see them before the get fat just like the rest of us.

The picture was taken by our very own Cesar Badilla, you talk to him on live chat all the time….

When I first started working here I didn’t really know this, none of us did actually, there were only 9 of us here and the company had only been in business for a couple of months, there was no way of knowing… but it is sadly true.

Our coders end up loving their work so much they forget to eat properly, they seem to get hooked on exercising their brain only (which is actually good for the company since we come up with so many awesome ideas), but every single CodeMyConcept employee ends up gaining a few pound as time goes by. One of the possible reasons for this problem could be the awesome Argentinian guy that visits us several days a week with yummy, mouth watering Argentinian Empanadas, or maybe because although we work on a third floor and go up and down the stairs continuously, we do it to go buy snacks.

A few months ago our CEO called us up on this and said everyone in the office was fat… a few minutes ago he made a smart ass remark about his assistant’s love handles (she doesn’t have love handles, if anything she is the only in the office who really is skinny).

We need to so something and we need to do it fast…If you guys have any ideas on how we can continue to be great looking, smart coders but loose a few pounds while at it…we would really appreciate it.

Love

CodeMyConcept Fatties

We also know how much everyone enjoys a good contest, so if you are wondering what this is all about, we have decided to combine some of our favorite things with your favorite thing, and throw contest via our Twitter account http://twitter.com/#!/codemyconcept with the hash tag #CMCeverywhere.

Everyone can participate and it works something like this:

1)All you have to is place CodeMyConcept in any picture, and for that purpose we are adding the vector for everyone to use right here: http://codemyconcepthq.com/logo-vector-colored.png

2)You dont have to use the actual logo but CodeMyConcept must appear in the picture anyway you want.

3 You have to share the picture via Twitter mentioning @CodeMyConcept and the hash tag #CMCEverywhere

4)The #CMCEverywhere contest will end November the 17^th

All the pictures will be later shared @ our Facebook official page

And don’t forget, no offensive pictures or you will be disqualified!

What about the price, you say?

The winners for the best pictures will win one of our super cool new t-shirts… check it out!!

UPDATE:

Good news everyone, since we are having sooo much fun with this, we decided to extend the CMCEverywhere contest until the end of November, so keep the pictures coming!

Is networking working?

A little information on how gain trust and meet people that not only you can help but help you succeed on your business.

Meeting people where?

The art of making business friends

When I first heard of the term networking it sounded quite confusing to me. I really had no idea how to “network” and how could it benefit me or my business. Honestly I learned by following my instinct, by talking to people and being accessible.

As the CodeMyConcept grows (even faster than expected) I have learned that PSD to HTML is not the only thing we do, we create relationships with our customers, with bloggers, with other companies in our niche and we need to keep and maintain those relationships at all times.

Quickly, I noticed this was the best way to do networking, so my first set of networking tips is about how to manage yourself:

1. Be responsive
2. Be yourself
3. Be clear about what you do and what your company is about.
4. Talk to everyone and anyone
5. Do not judge a book by its cover

People like people, so always act as yourself and be assertive. Once people feel they are getting a script out of you and not the thoughts of a successful and helpful human being they will lose interest and you will lose a partner, a customer or even worse a friend.

Credibility

For us, social media has to do with been transparent with the people around us, and we achieved that by letting people know what’s going on at all times, but there are a lot of companies out there that are willing to pay writers to create nice articles and post them in their blog sites as “positive reviews”. That might work on the short term, attracting people to the site or whatever… but on the long run, not so effective.

At some point, people want to be able to connect to other people, we respond to what’s real, yes we can be entertained by a good article, but that’s about it. Be yourself and people will notice…we promise you that.

Audience

Blogs are mainstream today, they are no longer that differential factor or that silver bullet we are all looking for, so today having one for yourself or for your company is not going to make the difference. The content will. Make sure you put an extra effort on your social media campaign regarding your blog.

Having a blog that speaks to no one and everyone at the same time, that has no real identity, will probably be a waste of cyberspace and people will not really engage with it. Be consistent. We all have our areas of expertise, so make your content about the things you know, the things that interest you and the people around you.

Multiple tools

In today’s world, you have plenty of choices when it comes to social media sites. There is Facebook, Orkut, Buzz, Twitter and the list goes on and on. So, pick the one you like and work on it, make it your baby and treat it as such.

There are no right or wrong choices in this case. Yes, some are a lot more known that others, and some, like Myspace, have become a place for a specific audience like musicians, but again, having an account or a profile in one of this places is only the first step.

If you have a profile page that has incomplete information about you or your company, that doesn’t get updates very frequently and when it does is only to say things like “We are having coffee”… well, I might as well close it and get some java myself.

This also happens the other way around, a lot of people think that using Twitter means that they need to say something every 2 minutes, and that might be the case, but most likely, we will get overwhelmed and unfollow them right away.

Contact

Last but not least, if you have your own personal profile page, and want to be friends with everyone that’s great. But if you are using social media to promote your business then is time to re-think this one.

People might “like” your company or want to be fans or follow it, but not be “its” friend. If we think about it, it makes perfect sense. How can you be friends with a company? Am I friends with all the people that work there? Are there some benefits involved?

The other thing that goes along with this, is that no matter how you are “connecting” to people, and how many fans, friends or followers you might have, some might want to tell you something, and they expect some kind of response from you, and please let it not be the “We are working on your request and you will hear from a representative shortly”.

Basically these points, we believe make a great social media campaign: be yourself, understand your nature, share your expertise, communicate and don’t try to master every topic that comes to mind. This is how we have done our social media campaign and not only has it been lots of fun, but quite interesting and productive.

Things to avoid: talking too much about yourself, act like a bot on your social media profiles; assume people will follow you just because you are a brand and have a pretty logo and most importantly: do not let your social media campaign die.

I’m not exactly a Mac fan, in fact I’m the only person in this office using a PC running Linux, but when it comes to the Apple computers, the one argument (and a very compelling one indeed) that is almost undebatable by the rest of the non-Mac world, is the fact that when it comes to security, meaning viruses, malware and what not, pretty much nothing seems to affect what ever product comes out of Steve Jobs place.

There is a Disclaimer here: the reason I’m writing this is not to praise or criticize any of the platforms, but more like to warn all the Mac users out there, that slowly but surely, cyber-criminals are finding their way to your desktop.

For must of us, the name Koobface means trouble, why? Well, the name itself is an anagram from the word Facebook, but thats not the scary part, the fact that is a computer worm that wreaked havoc from December of 2008, (when it was detected) until it reached its most potent version in march of the following year is really the problem

Now, the traditionally Koobface targets Windows users on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other popular sites, but according to researchers, there is a renewed version of the worm and it is being launched as part of a multi-platform attack via a Java applet, and will target Mac users on the social networks.

According to security specialist, users can deny or allow the applet access to their computers, and you deny it, the applet will not run, and no infection will occur. However, If they allow it, it will attempt to download files from one or more remote servers. These files include elements designed to infect Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.

An advisory on the issue on the SecureMac site warned that the malware is currently appearing on sites with the message “Is this you in this video?”

Relationship status

In other (less?) important news, David McCandless and his team, decided to so some research on the times of the year were people are most likely to break up or end relationships according to information collected via 10,000 status updates on Facebook and even tho this is not exactly a scientific report, it does reveal some interesting trends

The results? See for your self:

If we think about it plainly, it all has to do with levels of interactions, when the ads where just printed, there wasn’t much one could do to know how people responded, then the radio and the TV came around, and things took a different spin, people could actually change the station or zap away. And then, the quantum leap happened… Internet.

Right now, millions of people can literally interact with each other and your business instantly, and if that wasn’t enough, now they can comment, Digg, follow, like or dislike anything you do. To mention some examples of these, you should take a look at the latest study published by ExactTarget called “Subscribers, Fans and Followers”. The study reveals that daily Twitter users who followed a brand were more than twice as likely to purchase from the brand after becoming a social media follower.

Other results from this same study showed that the pattern among Twitter followers, email subscribers and Facebook fans was similar when asked about whether they would recommend a brand. A third of Twitter followers said they were more apt to make a recommendation now that they followed a brand, compared with 24% of email subscribers and 21% of Facebook fans. Again, those who “liked” a brand on Facebook were most likely to actively disagree with the statement.

Now, in our experience, Social Media is pretty awesome. For us it always has been about letting people know what we do and what we are all about.

It is true, you could say that our approach has not been exactly conventional, but then again, that’s not a word we use around the office all that often. Let me give you an example, from the get go we wanted people to trust us, so we had this idea that we were not going to take payment upfront, in fact, we encouraged customers to pay after they were satisfied, and you know what?, They did!

With that said, what we did was jump on Facebook and start developing a community so we could let everyone know who we are, what we do, and everything else there is to know about us. I mean, have you seen Mike’s puppy? Cute isnt it?.

And yes, we also kept some of the more traditional ways, like the newsletter and email promotions.

The kicker is, all of what we did was never about how much money are we investing on this campaign or what ever, f*ck we still haven’t figured that one out… But Ill tell you this, the result? Today we not only have customers, we have fans!!

Like many other things that are technology related, outsourcing web design services and web development projects can be a realistic alternative, so the question is if it`s the company you are thinking about hiring to outsource web design services (or any other service for that matter) is the right one for you and your business.

Now, there are tons of information and you can read reports and studies from all kinds of experts about this particular topic, and yes there are many different routes you can take to approach choosing the web design services you need as an intelligent choice but, the reality of it is that they all respond to the same principle: if you are considering outsourcing any part for your company, it has to serve a purpose.

With that in mind, the first question you have to ask yourself would be, what purpose while i be serving if I choose to outsource web design services?

This simple question sounds complicated, but its not. If you think about, if you are looking to get a team off site to do some kind of work you need done it usually responds to one (or more) of these reasons:

You are trying to save money:

In other words, sometimes the choice responds solely to comparing the costs of having a team developing a specific project on-site against having it outsourced, because let’s face it, money does not grow on trees.

You are trying to make money while saving money:

Yes, this also has to do with comparing costs, but what it really does is give you the ability to still take new customers or projects while keeping your costs in check. Putting it differently, resources are limited, and you cant hire new people every time you have an overflow, so outsourcing can help you keep your people working on the existing projects while taking the additional work coming your way, so the ball keeps rolling.

You want to grow (in a some what organized way) and explore new markets:

Let’s say you want to expand but you don’t want to go ahead and rent new office space, make all the installations, hire new people and buy all the equipment right this instant.

So you start taking on more work than usual, taking on new projects, and why not, exploring new ideas and opening up to other areas for your company, but as things progress, you can manage some of the workload, and you start pushing the multitasking abilities of your team. This is when you start asking yourself, “how far can we really go?” answer is, not that far.

Again, outsourcing web design services might be the way to help you in this transition, for instance, you want to start offering a new service, but you don’t have that many customers needing right now, you hire someone off-site yo handle your current demand while you look for someone full time. In the meantime your team is doing what they do best, and you are still generating enough income to take on the next step when the time is right.

You have more projects coming in than you can handle; This is kinda like growing but without really planning it:

To some extend this a different approach, but can be tied in to the previous item.

There are some really good days, weeks or even months when we have plenty of orders coming in and we are all working at full speed, but then sometimes we have LOTS of projects and deadlines are just piling up and you simply cant handle the increasing amount of work (this may sound like a bad thing but its actually great!).

In this case you can either go crazy and rent the office next door and hire a bunch of new people and then when the rush dies down… well you get the idea.
Another way is you go ahead and outsource the less important stuff you have pending so you can keep the ball rolling and if or when the time is right you can make your move and get new office space and get more staff or you simply pay the bills for the work that was done, and go back to business as usual.

You don`t have the people in-house to take on this project:

This relates directly to the purpose you are trying to serve. You want to keep your customers happy and bringing you new projects and every now and then things get complicated and you get face that tricky question“can you guys do that for us?”.

Immediately you think, well, I know a guy that knows a guy, and you say “sure” and add a price tag to the idea and we are all happy. Now you can either offer this guy a job and have him do this one project for you and then just keep him around for the sake of company, or you outsource (he can still be your go-to guy, if you don’t want to hurt his feelings), so he is happy for the extra work, you are doing great because you will deliver a finished product and more importantly, your customer is happy.

What ever the reason may be, remember that when you think about outsourcing it has to serve a purpose for you and your company or else it will just turn into one of those great ideas gone bad.