A conversation I had recently with a friend and business owner I have a great deal of respect for really highlighted some of the problems that small businesses face.  For years she has run a well regarded local business by working hard and treating her customers with fairness and respect. About six or seven years ago a national chain big box competitor moved to town less than five miles from her office.  The big box retailer built their shop on Interstate-20 just off the frontage road - premium real estate.  Naturally, the location itself has cost my friend some of her customers.  There is an element of convenience at stake and the visibility of the signage plays into some of the customer attrition.

What this has led to, for my friend, is a tighter budget and clawing for as many customers as possible just to stay afloat.  You see, I've been trying to talk her into letting us build her a new website for months - maybe a solid year now and she keeps telling me "Jason, I just can't afford it right now!"

My message to her and to many of the Small and Medium Business owners I've had similar conversations with is - You can't afford not to.  This is more than building a website - this is competing for business in the only place you stand a chance.  

The Internet is where you can compete and you can compete without the same budget and media that Mr. Big Box Retailer, Hospital, Vet, Non-Profit, etc... has at there disposal.  The Internet is a level playing field but you have to know the rules of the game.  If your looking for an animal doctor you might drive straight to Pet Smart and deal with them and their corporate ways of doing business.  But many people will go to Google or Bing "Veterinarian + 75052"  (that's my zip code BTW) and see who shows up. 

Here you can compete with Pet Smart and you can be the vet of choice.  You can bring your personality and the personality of your business online.  You can do things with a website that creates the right funnel that lead to a phone call, an appointment, a service call and a new customer.  You can engage the public with the same fairness and the same handshake and the same honesty that you have always prided yourself on - you just gotta gotta gotta know the rules of the game and you have to get on the field and play ball.  

Does it cost money?  Sure - maybe more than you expected and maybe not.  But at the same time - every day you are losing opportunities to reach out to potential customers and compete with those big box national retailers.  In the end - making the decision to spend the money on a quality, professional website with enterprise-level hosting and some SEO (Search Engine Optimization or what I like to say 'getting found') might just save that business you've been busting your tail to build all these years.

Get in the game!

We are getting ready to to make some pretty significant changes in how we do things that are going to create immediate benefits to our clients.  

The first significant change we're making center's around our web-hosting product line.   We are moving our hosting digs a bit closer to home.  We've been buying up some beastly servers that can jump off the line and blow your doors off.  Scary fast.

The way we're building out this new network is even more fault tolerant than what we have which has been pretty reliable but as most know when you start talking about computing you have to constantly reinvest to reap the rewards of technology gains.  The new digs will also allow us to do some things from an SEO perspective that are going to just rock.

The architecture is nearly complete and we're about to start turning the screws on this thing.  When we do, buckle up kiddos because we're going to go fast!

The countdown begins NOW!

So after the server's back up and we run through several restore scenarios we decide to just restore the box to get our Primary DNS up and running (secondaries were working fine but you can't leave the primary down long). 

IWeb attached the old drive to the box and I began looking for a quick and easy way to get DNS back the way it was (we had about 200 domains on the list). Copying the zone files is only part of the story to resurrect MSFT DNS. 

If you don't know - MSFT ties their DNS to the Windows Registry files. The only real way to edit it is with REGEDIT. There are other tools but nothing really good. And a text editor gets you gibberish - so there's no find and replace.

All the instructions tell you to import the old registry file to an alternate spot in the registry (i.e. HKEY_USERS) where it doesn't mess anything up and copy the entries you need over manually. That works for small entries, but not for 200 domains with 4 - 8 records each. 

Other blogs tell you to import the old registry and then export the section you need and then double click the resulting file to re-install. But if you imported to alternate location - the export points back to that alternate location and the reinstall just rewrites that same alternate location. Useless. And who published that anyway.

So - the big deal here is you export the section you need. THE EXPORTED FILE IS CLEAR TEXT AND CAN BE EDITED WITH NOTEPAD. Change the key locations to the production DNS keys with find & replace, save the file, and then double click to re-import. 

Then make sure your DNS is set to read in from the registry on restart, save and restart the DNS. Magically all 200 domains re-appear just like they were. 

Imagine that. Someone paid to create these pages, paid to put them on the Internet to promote their business. Spent good money then forgot all about them.

And today, these same well-meaning business owners are still paying, month after month, to keep their dusty dinosaurs online, napping comfortably; happily loafing web pages representing otherwise important, competitive companies, greeting millions of potential customers across the world wide web with long, soft yawns…

“Not my company’s web site, no sir!” you cry. But are you sure?

If the Internet has proven to be anything, it is immediate. Current. Instant. Urgent. The web brings the entire world to your company’s doorstep every single moment of every single day. And while the principles and qualities - the cornerstone concepts upon which you founded your business - are as strong and viable as the day you opened your business, the tools, products, services, and language you use daily in your industry all change constantly. Easy to see how the last thing on your mind while trumping your competition is updating your web page.

“But I’m not some sort of web page programmer,” you say. “I don’t have the time to always be redoing my web page, I’ve got a business to run!”

If there was only some way to keep your web page current and interesting and attractive without interfering with all the other “gotta be done yesterday!” concerns you have running your company.

We’ll, you’re in luck! Fast Armadillo has just the solution you need. Content Curation! We work with you to make you web site sleek and attractive. Then we maintain it for you with our regular, periodic maintenance as well as updates to match changes in your business offerings as well as changes in your business climate.  We keep your site cutting edge without cutting into what you do best – running your business!

Content Curation at Fast Armadillo. We keep you looking good on the web. Don’t let your site loaf - contact us today! 
 

Fast Armadillo Employee Handbook

1. Don't be a jerk / KG (we know what KG means, but we're not saying...let's just say it's a bit redundant). 
2. Don't divert attention away from the mission or vision statement of FA. 
3. Don't cause problems that are bigger than the problems we are trying to solve. 
4. Don't mess with the coffee maker. 
5. Stir the tanks...
6. No dev work on Sunday's - only emergencies....Emergencies are defined as outages...i.e. website or server is unreachable.  If God needed a day to rest then that is good enough for us.
7. If you don't like any of the above, then leave.  

I hope everyone understand Rule 6.  We need some time to clear the cobwebs and recharge the batteries (our wives and kids need it too).

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to....well, you know....!"

I'm not much for serenity.  To me serenity is at the heart of a bunch of problems in business and well, in peoples lives in general.  Serenity....the being happy with the way things generally are.  A lot of what we do is for people who are tired of serenity when it comes to their web initiatives.  

We are hell bent on delivering nothing short of greatness to our customers on a daily basis. That will never change.  Yet, delivering greatness comes with it's own toll, it's own price and there is one that I am not willing to pay.  Sunday's are now pretty well off limits for anything short of an emergency (i.e. your website is down).  

This isn't rude, it's not bad customer service, it's not bad form.  I've had a ton of respect for Chick-Fil-A since the first Sunday I went to their drive-thru for some chicken mini's on the way to church.  S. Truett Cathy is quoted as saying the following:

"Our decision to close on Sunday was our way of honoring God and directing our attention to things more important than our business.  If it took seven days to make a living with a restaurant, then we needed to be in some other line of work....."

Well we can't take quite the same stance but we're following close to it.  

The hosting side of our business is 24/7/365 and that doesn't change so if you have a problem on Sunday you can still call or click on the support tab on the website.  You'll get our on-call and if you're hosed we'll fix it get right on it. 

Outside of that we're going to going to go take time out to worship, to spend time with our spouse's and kiddos and to recharge our creative batteries so we can come in fresh on Monday and get back to making you truly remarkable web stuff.

If you're one of our church customers (we know you are working most Sunday's), give us a heads up if you've got something new and important tee'd up for this Sunday so we can help you out ahead of time.

This is me throwing serenity out the window and changing something important to us.  If you need a deeper explanation give me a call - even on Sunday and I'll be happy to discuss it with you.

If your website is down and it's Sunday we probably know about it before you with our super fancy monitoring systems and are looking into but just in case click on the support link or call 866-9Burrow.

Wishing all of you 'dillaheads the best!

JD

PS - anyone from Chic-Fil-A that reads this your cross browser support isn't altogether that great and having a Flash based website alienates a good share of browsers out there.  Call me.

New plugs. New points. New paint.

More than simple maintenance. You need high performance content mechanics. Obsessed with tuning your content until it purrs, ready to smoke your competition. That’s the performance you paid for when you bought your site. In today’s competitive market, that’s the performance you need to stay ahead.

Look around the web - tons of company sites, beautiful to behold the day they rolled out of development. But now their content - the message they deliver to potentially millions of customers every day - seems a little dusty. A little stale. Not firing on all cylinders.

That’s not you. That’s not your site. Not if you want to protect this important investment you’ve made to feature you before every potential customer looking for your company, your products and services. But how do you keep your site’s important, essential, vital edge?

Content Curation.

That’s what we do at Fast Armadillo. Our Content Strategy experts specialize in Content Curation, a term we coined to describe how we maintain your content for you, making sure your site is representing you with the most timely, most attractive, most compelling message and graphics possible. Our Content Curators take care of that so you can take care of what your do best. Running your business.

Fast Armadillo Content Curation keeps your message current, updates your site with each new product and service and innovation you bring to your market, making sure each potential web customer understands immediately why you are the right choice – why you leave all of your competitors behind in the dust.

Fast Armadillo Content Curation. We keep your content tuned and ready to smoke your competition.

I recently came across an auto collision and repair website that a decent layout and design and the lead in on the home page was how long they've been in business.  The local auto repair shop has been there for 40 plus years and owned by the same couple the since it's inception.  Certainly something to be proud of and I hope someday we here at 'Dillo World Headquarters will be able to brag about how long we've been in business. When that day comes - someone shoot me if that is on our home page.

Forgive me, it is our job to be critical of how websites look and not only what they say but where and how they say it (including our own and especially the sites we build...we are much more critical of our stuff).

The point in this musing is if I am looking for an auto collision repair company for myself I am probably looking for something a little more pertinent to my circumstances at the time than the owners of the car repair company.  

I'm concerned about how quick can you get my car fixed and will it look like it did when I drove it off the lot.  

I'm concerned about how much of pain it's going to be if in dealing with the insurance company and the rental car company and I'm hoping you can help....please tell me you can help.

If your most distinct competency is that you've been in business a good while then you've got problems and you really don't have much to say.  

If you are just telling folks that the most compelling reason you have for them to choose YOU to help them out is that you've been here a while....we can help

But it came with a downside. Skype forcefully installs an extension on the browser that adds their own special "highlighting" to any phone number on any web page you visit from that computer. Seems harmless enough.

Unfortunately it breaks the visual layout of every page. And the kindest thing I can say is that it introduces another company's brand into my brand experience I've (hopefully) carefully crafted. They should pay me for the advertising space.

There's plenty of hate out there on the Skype community forums - but their staff, while apologetic, isn't really interested in undoing the mess they make. The fixes they post don't work and waste people's time. Even more infuriating is the markup they introduce isn't compliant to any W3C standards and they seem fairly clueless on that.

Where the web creates a problem the web often creates a solution. I want to thank "Oliver" for posting a cleanly written javascript and saving me the hassle of doing the scut work myself. Here's a link to the posted solution.

http://www.microsoftstartupzone.com/websitespark/Pages/Home.aspx

If you haven't guessed it - her name was "Bunny" and she's become our poster child for everything that is challenging about the content management experience. Bunny radically changed how we do business.

Giving a truly unsavvy user content management unbridled editing rights was like turning giving a 16 year old a Porche and telling them to drive 35mph. The temptation to do things you shouldn't was just overpowering and the outcome was predictable chaos of pink text and high resolution photos.

So here are some guiding principles we live by:

1 - Only expose as much complexity as the user needs.

This means true content editors can only do that - select a piece of content and type. They shouldn't be allowed to add pages or modules or any other more complex functionality.

For a simple DNN site this means creation of a "Content Editor" user role. Then we take the time to set that edit priviledge at the module level, not the page level (yes - clicking and changing the settings on every single module). This exposes the least amount of complexity possible.

We give page level edit rights to "Website Administrators" - and they are provided more training (usually 3 - 5 hours total).

2 - Content Editors have their own sense of style - and it's usually bad.

The client just spent tens of thousands of dollars to design a website that matches and enhances the company brand. Content editors come along and within 2 seconds are trying to apply "comic sans" to almost everything. I love you - but school teachers are the worst at this.

Despite training, branding and style guidelines, and even near threats of bodily harm the content editor thinks they are absolutely right when they apply bold, italics, and underline to the same section of text as they color it lime green.

So again - we are left with restricting rights. You cannot deploy the rich html editors with their defaults left intact. Almost every content management system available allows significant customization of the editor.  When we're done the editors have Bold, Italics, and H1 - H4 available to them and that's it. They cannot change colors or size except by assigning an "H" tag to the text.

Doing this forces the proper semantic markup. It also makes training a breeze and typically a content editor has the whole experience figured out in about 15 minutes. Even the "Bunnies" in the group.

Do they complain about the restrictions? Oh yes, and it's music to our ears because we know that six months from now their site has a fighting chance of looking as good as it did when we turned it over. 

 3 - Automate the image resizing process during the upload

Like it or not - resizing an image is too complicated for the average content manager. Unfortunately DNN doesn't support this out of the box so we are creating our own FCK Editor Provider to do the heavy lifting.  

This are just a few of the details we work on when building content management into a website. We care about the content manager's experience and believe it's absolutely essential they find content easy to update. Most of them are really pushed for time and simply won't take more than 5 minutes to learn a new system.

One funny thing that shook the core of my being happened on this trip.  My cousin DeeAnn had a pool party with a bunch of her girlfriends. I was 12, she is 16 at the time and so far as I was concerned DeeAnn's friends were smoking hot. My dear cousin introduced me to her friends and I thought I was atop the world.  Little did Iknow I was about to be the butt of some good jokes.

See, I couldn't annunciate all that well, especially anything that included the letter "X" in it. DeeAnn proceeded to have me say words like "Texas, boxes, x-ray, etc.." for the amusement of her and her friends. I eventually recovered from this tramatic experience and am now glad to have provided some joy to their afternoon pool party.

How does this glimpse into my formative years relate to Fast Armadillo? It's quite simple - we speak a bit differently than the other web companies out there. Though I've learned how to pronounce words with the letter "X" our accent tells you more about who we are and where we are from (and we're not embarrased).

We know you don't want to build a website and spend time online just because other people are speaking differently.  You're customers have moved, your prospects don't find you the same as they used to or they are looking for you where you're not or they simply don't hear you.

The other guys can easily bore us all to tears with how great their developers are - we can too but we choose not to.  We choose to speak a little differently.  We concentrate on the business problem that brought you here and that drives the solution you need to be heard...clearly.

Thanks to everyone who came out and had lunch with us and helped us mark the rising of Fast Armadillo.

So as we sat there watching the play and Wendy asks Peter how to get to Neverland he simply replies "...second to the right and straight on till morning"  Your not going to find those directions in your Garmin but for me it created an accurate road map for SEO.  

Many times we are asked "how long will it take for us to get to first page on Google?"

The answer I often give is that it's a never ending journey.  You start with your site construction, get the right keywords for your industry into the text, metatags, titles and measure effectiveness.  At the same time you start submitting your site to directories and start measuring.  Next you may add some Social Networking or a pay per click campaign and you measure and refine the message again....and again.  Take interative steps to measure effectiveness for each element of your campaign and apply more pressure then measure again.  

You may have noticed the road that seemingly goes on forever as the background to our homepage at fastarmadillo.com  That road illustrates this journey isn't just a quick two to three month fix and your going to stay there.  You've got to constantly apply pressure to your SEO efforts not only to get to that coveted first page of search rankings but to stay visible.

The directions to SEO Neverland?  Second to the right and straight on till morning.

There is just something about having 43 cars go fast and turn left for a couple hours that overwhelms your senses.  Even if your not a 'gear head' which I'm not - it is still just really cool to see those billboards zoom around at 190 mph within inches of one another.  I was hooked.

10 years later I still go to the races, now twice a year since Texas has a spring and fall race.  

Earlier this year, Toyota, created a contest for people to be able to 'design' cars for Toyota Sprint Cup drivers through a website found at Sponsafier.com  At this site they give you a blank canvas to design the car for one of either Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Joey Lagono, David Reutimann, Michael Waltrip or Martin Truex Jr.  After seeing the commercials for a few months I decided to check it out last week and now have a fantasy about sponsoring a car if for just one race.  

I built what I lovingly refer to as Armadillo One.  Sweet isn't it?  Unfortunately, my car didn't make the contest because of trademarks and logo's for a company are against the rules but still - talk about fun with your logo!

For now, this is just fantasy - sponsoring a car for a single race runs about 250k so I'm toning down my logo fun enthusiasm for a couple years.  To satiate my desire of doing something more than the simple golf shirt I think the crew needs a hockey jersey.

Still cool, but about $249,500 less and fits the budget a bit better.  

If I just hide the submit button it may hide when the form fails validation. So I tried using the Form.Submit behavior. That same delay in form submission meant the button stayed active too long (and it's the wrong idea anyway).

So I must use the button's onclick event and test the form validation. Typically (outside of DNN) I would validate the form using JQuery and manage the submit button that way. In this case, Form Master was already validating the form using Microsoft's .NET validation controls.

.NET provides access to several client side functions you can call from JQuery. One of those is the "Page_ClientValidate" function which tests the .NET validation and returns true or false as appropriate. 

To make it work in FormMaster I used a "Submit Button" control in the form, set it as a linkbutton, and applied a style "SubmitButton" to the control.

In the end the solution looked like this:

$(document).ready(function() {	
	$('.SubmitButton').click(function () {
								   
		if (Page_ClientValidate()) { 
                // 'Page_ClientValidate()' calls the asp.net validators
				//Hide Submit Button
				$('.SubmitButton').hide('fast');
		} //Close isvalid	
	});//Close Submit Click
});//Close document.ready

 Make sure JQuery is registered on the page to make all this work. We insert this into the skin (notice the "_" new lines to make it work in the blog post - you can remove those and put it on one line ):

<script runat="server">
Private Sub Page_Load _
(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) _
Handles MyBase.Load
        DotNetNuke.Framework.jQuery.RequestRegistration()	
End Sub
</script>

Wow!  Three of us had the special which was a slice of thin crust pizza that was simply awesome!  Fresh veggies, fresh meats, good cheese - fantastic pizza.  Will had a roast beef sandwich on a toasted sesame seed roll that he raved about but the best was the cheesecake.  A slice of New York Cheesecake topped with blueberries that we all agreed should be illegal due to the addictive nature.

So Isabella's get's two thumbs up and makes the top 5 list of lunch spots.  To recap the top 5:

1.  Fuzzy's Taco Shop in Arlington - anchor nachos, fish tacos, habanero salsa, beer beans.  Everyday is a good day for Fuzzy's.

2.  Prince - Lebanese joint that is in what was once a Sonic and featured on Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives last year.  

3.  Isabella's - one slice of pizza and a slice of cheesecake put you on the verge of a food coma.

4.  Aqua Azul - close to the office, food is pretty good and great for a quick team meeting.  They also put shrimp in the Mexican rice and have good hot sauce.

5.  "                  " - we know where it is but we can't tell you yet.  Great food, great service, great atmosphere and nearby.

Fast Armadillo Employee Handbook

1. Don't be an a-hole / KG (we know what KG means, but we're not saying...let's just say it's a bit redundant). 
2. Don't divert attention away from the mission or vision statement of FA. 
3. Don't cause problems that are bigger than the problems we are trying to solve. 
4. Don't #%$* with the coffee maker. 
5. Stir the tanks...
6. If you don't like any of the above, then leave.  

We feel that covers the bases, and makes it clear going forward for all of current and future Dillos.  

Are you for more regulation?  Is there too much as it is?  Do the operating companies have the right to charge more for specific traffic types or not allow them at all?

Would the market itself dissuade Comcast, Verizon, ATT, Cox, etc.. from filtering too much traffic or would they all work together with other private industry to protect copyright and trademarks?

Did Comcast draw a line in the sand or did they pick the wrong fight?  How will this affect Voice over Internet?

Who is John Galt?

http://digg.com/d31Nf5e

The most important piece of this article is really about managing customer perceptions with what you are getting from experienced web development/web solution teams.  Your not just buying what they are building from you but the experience, training, credibility and even the mistakes they have had to suffer through to the point they sign a deal with you.

Think about a consultant that you already share with hundred of people; your doctor.  Embedded in the fee's that your doctor is charging you is everything it took for them to get to the point that they can provide that service to you whether it is diagnosing a cold, delivering a baby, prescribing the right blood pressure medicine, etc...It took her years of training and cost her a lot along the way to put herself in a position to provide you the best medical care she could possibly give you.

Good web developer's and web development firms have gone through similar battles, struggles, training to diagnose what graphic design, content management system, security, e-commerce solution and ongoing care you need for your company's website.

Couldn't agree more.  But it does have me thinking about perceptions and comparisons on the B2B landscape.

When your up North and you want a soft drink it is generally referred to as a "pop".  I grew up in Texas and the first time I heard that phrase I thought that kid was nuts - a "pop" is what you got when you were in trouble.

In Texas we say we want a Coke.  Doesn't necessarily mean we want a Coca-Cola, it just means we want a coke and 'coke' is shorthand for we want a 'soda' and more specific direction is coming shortly thereafter. We might want a Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper, Big Red, Sprite, Pepsi or if the mood strikes maybe even a Tahitian Treat!

This has me thinking that when B2B folks do not think Facebook will work for them it's because all social media has become 'Facebook' to them because that's what they use at home when they are playing the role of a real person with hobbies, interests and high-school buddies to connect with.  Their perception is skewed to the Big 3 of social networking (Facebook, Twitter and Linked In) based on their own experiences and its a little uncomfortable letting the professional world mix with their private lives.

But if you could take that level of transparency that you have in your personal life on your Facebook account transfer that level of intimacy to your company's message...Wow, there's a potential recipe for making that B2B social media stuff do some good.

The point is why I remember where I lost my first tooth. Since Mom had something going on that my Dad, sister and me weren't allowed to attend so Dad took us to a Houston Astros baseball game. On the way in we stopped for candy and I had a Butterfinger which is still my favorite. I bit into the Butterfinger on the walk up to the Astrodome and started to feel this warm liquid in my mouth and realized I was bleeding. Then I realized I lost my first tooth!

Baseball, Butterfinger and the tooth fairy brought a dollar! I was stoked!

Like so many others in the US over the last 100 years I developed such an affinity for baseball; the Great American Past time. I played some growing up, I played for four years as a grown up in adult leagues like the NABA (National Adult Baseball Association). Heck, I even got to play a weekend national tournament in 2004 at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, New York.  (that's me rounding first on July 3, 2004 at Doubleday Field)

So about a little over a year ago I was at a charity fundraising meeting and talking to some other guys letting them know that our little company was looking for new office space.  One of the guys I was talking to at the time was Dave Burke, the GM of the Grand Prairie Airhogs.  Good ole Dave says to me "Why don't you move into the ballpark?"  At first I kind of dismissed it then a few days go by and I get a phone call from Drew Holder, the Airhogs center fielder inviting us out for a tour.  So I tell the rest of the gang about it and we went up there for lunch one day in February '09.

Short story, long - we worked out a deal with good old Dave that benefits all of us and we have turned Suite 1 and a couple other rooms into the home of Fast Armadillo!  

There are a bunch of model planes all over the stadium representing the Airhogs and Grand Prairie's rich history of aviation and my partner Will Ballard is a licensed pilot so couple that with the enthusiasm that is shared for baseball by boys and girls of all ages and it's pretty easy to see why we love our offices.

So if your ever in the neighborhood and want to check it out please do.  If you want to go to a ballgame, give us a call.

_{JD Claybrook (played by Christopher Walken): Sure, baby! Just say it!}

_{Chase Wilson: I'm standing here next JD Claybrook!}

_{Chase Wilson: And if JD Claybrook wants more cowbell, we should probably give him more cowbell!}

_{JD Claybrook: Guess what?  I got a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell!}

What does more cowbell mean at Fast Armadillo?  

It means we got a new customer and we celebrate the opportunity to build something spectacular for our customers, helping folks solve complex problems with reverant irreverance.

We need more cowbell...we gotta have more cowbell baby!