The website features the ability to post news stories from a smart phone, automatic Facebook posts for news items, and the ability for visitors to subscribe to news updates via email.  In addition, a calendar helps keep visitors up to date on upcoming events.

Head on over and check it out!

Osborne 1 Portable Microcomputer

Happy birthday to the Osborne 1! Released on this date in 1981, the Osborne 1 was the first commercially successful portable microcomputer. This ‘laptop’ checked in at knee buckling 23½ pounds and featured 4 megahertz processor, 64 kilobytes of RAM, a 5 inch display screen, and stored data on single-sided, single-density 5¼ inch floppy disk.

Yep, you read that correctly. The floppy disks were bigger than the display.

It came preloaded with early versions of WordStar, SuperCalc, and dBase II, early word processing, spreadsheet, and database applications. All at the cut-rate price of $1,795.

The Osborne 1 itself had a short lifespan of success; the Osborne Computer Corporation filed for bankruptcy in September of 1983, mostly due to its CP/M operation system not being compatible with IBM’s new DOS operating system. It did, however, prove to companies that portable computers were commercially viable. Thank goodness, otherwise I might not be able to sit in my recliner and write this post on my netbook.

Wanted to take a moment to announce the launch of the Somerset Primitives website.

The latest website designed by us here at 10T Web Design, Somerset Primitives is a full e-commerce website and is integrated with their Facebook page for one-stop news updates and easy user sharing. It also has tiled image galleries and the ability to post from basically anywhere with a smartphone.

Head on over there now and check them out.

1. Specific targeting –  Be as specific as you like with your advertising. Want to be huge in Sheboygan? You can tailor a campaign to focus on just one city.
2. Global reach – Ever check into a country-wide television advertisement? Me either, because I’m sure it won’t fit in my budget. Advertise online and you can attract customers from just about anywhere.
3. Affordable prices – Spend only what you want because you set the limits. As little as a dollar a day can let you see if it is going to be right for your business. Even with a moderately conservative budget of five dollars a day can make a huge impact.
4. Enhanced analysis - Online advertisers offer a huge amount of information about how your ads are performing, allowing you to get a better grip on what is working, and what isn’t.
5. Quick changes - With quick analysis comes the ability for quick changes. You can change your advertisements at any time with just a click. Want to stop running an ad? Just click stop.
6. More effective use of funds – Ever figure out half way through a ‘traditional’ advertising campaign that it isn’t being effective? Too bad you had to pay for it up front. With online advertising, you pay after your ads display, so a dog of a campaign won’t cost you a fortune.
7. Only pay for those you attract – With an advertisement on television, radio, or in the newspaper, you basically end up paying to the potential people who see your advertisement. With online advertising, you can choose to pay only for the people who show enough interest to visit your website. Plus, with good keyword selection, you will only advertise to people who are looking for what you are selling.

What? You haven’t set resolutions for your business in 2013? Why not? It’s a great time of year to start fresh and see if you can attract new customers. Here are a few on-line based resolutions you might want to consider.

Give your business a new website. Been thinking about taking the plunge and going on-line? The first of the year is a great time to start a website before you spend the year’s advertising budget on something else. (You really should consider the costs as advertisement, because that’s exactly what it is.) More and more people are making buying decisions based on what they find on the web, and if you don’t have a website, you are missing out.

Update your business website. Already have one, but haven’t even looked at it yourself in the last year? You should. Out of date information turns customers off, and with a properly designed website, even a technophobe can post updates. I tell my customers that if they can Facebook, then they can learn how to post to their website, provided the website is well-built from the start.

Get social! Speaking of Facebook, does your business have a Facebook page? If not, get cracking! It’s totally free and a great way to build your customer base. Post about your specials, new products, or even industry news, just keep your business in front of your customer’s eyes. Once every couple of days is a good start. If you want to post updates every ten minutes, then you should go with a Twitter account instead.

Buy some advertising. Ever notice those ads at the top of your Google searches? You can do that, and they are probably not as expensive as you think, especially if you are already advertising on other media. Even a budget of a few dollars a day can make a huge difference in the traffic that your website gets.

I am looking forward to the challenges ahead in the new year, which will include launching several e-Commerce websites that we have been developing, working with new clients like the Belmont County Auditors Office, and enhancing the websites of our current clients.

Take care, and we’ll see you all in 2013.

Overly intrusive forms are annoying, not to mention unnerving, to your visitors. After all, they just want to ask you a simple question and, to do so, have to give you their maternal, fraternal, maternal great-great-grandmother’s maiden name. Do you really need to know that?

In a world of Privacy Policies, the more information you require from your visitors, the more information you have to keep private. And, really, do you need five different phone numbers for one person? They just want to know if you have that hand-made scarf in blue.

Keep your contact forms simple, and don’t ask for too much information. Four to five pieces of information is generally enough to get the conversation started, and getting the conversation started is what you want.

Ask for too much information, and chances are the conversation it will never get going.

How often do you buy something without knowing the cost ahead of time? Rarely, and when you don’t know the exact cost, you usually have an idea. If you don’t know the cost, chances are you’re not buying. The visitors to your website are no different.

I’ve found that if a website doesn’t at least give the visitor an idea of how much your goods or services cost, the visitor will either greatly overestimate or greatly underestimate the cost. If they overestimate, chances are you’ll never even hear from them. If they underestimate, chances are they will be shocked by your price when you make your pitch, and you’ll be wasting both you and your visitor’s time.

Even if they have done some research on the going rate, chances are they found that information out from one of your competitors. I don’t think I need to explain how horrifying that is.

I can already hear the service providers out there saying something about how the cost of your service is really dependent on what your client wants and each client wants something different.

I’m a web designer. Trust me, I know.

Still, you should be able to give potential customers an idea of what it’s going to cost them to get their project completed, and if costs can vary greatly, say so on your website. It’s better than saying nothing at all and leaving your visitors guessing.

Or looking up the costs on your competitor’s website.

Website fluff comes in all shapes and sizes, and what’s fluff on one website could belong on another. Before you have anything put on your website, first define your website’s purpose. Then ask yourself if what you want to put on you website helps carry out that purpose. If it does, great. If it doesn’t, either change the purpose of your website, or leave the content off.

Look, I know that cat picture you have is cute and all, but does it serve your website’s purpose? If you run a veterinary clinic, that cat might just be the thing missing from your website. If you run an electronics store, you probably should leave the cute little kitty on your hard drive.

Unless, of course, one of your employees helps place homeless cats in her spare time and this is the 1,000th cat she’s help find a loving home and you want to congratulate her on her continued efforts in the humane treatment of felines. Hey, it doesn’t always have to be about direct marketing.

Just make sure what you put out there falls inside the borders of what you want your website to do. If it doesn’t serve the purpose of your website, it doesn’t belong on your website.