Poster for the El Paso Museum of History

We recently worked closely with the El Paso Museum of History to create a Poster for the event “A Night with Da Vinci”

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1. Independent’s Week

Marketing consist of many, many things like branding, advertisement, publicity, website, word-of-mouth referrals, even your how you handle your customer service! All of them are important, but the most important thing is how they interact and complement each other to deliver your customer a unique and delightful experience.[This is the first of 3 articles highlighting the importance of marketing and advertisement in new businesses]

First of all, we hope that before you opened the doors of your new business you researched a little bit, and have a clear idea of who your ideal client is. If you have not done this already I urge you to go grab a piece of paper, turn off your computer and your phone and think about how is your ideal client, and why is that this ideal client will buy from you. (and how).

This is were you want to get, right?

I talk to new business owners very often. and I am always surprised by how, unless they started their business with a huge capital, new businesses owners think they cannot afford any kind of advertisement/marketing.  They think they should not  spend a lot of money in having a professional designer do their new business logo and website, or in things like getting a clear brand. This is a huge mistake. New businesses lack the steady stream of income that a customer base provides, also, unless they open in a great, but I mean great location, they will remain unknown to their target market unless they go out there and get the word out (a.k.a do some marketing). This is an essential task for any new business: to attract and maintain new customers until a sustainable customer base is obtained.

However, very often I hear things like “I just started, so I cannot advertise” or “I just opened my new business, money is scarce, so I cannot do any marketing, but when things get better I will.”

In my point of view this is complete madness! Yes, I understand that you have to be careful with cash and that a good accountant and book keeping will definitely help but imagine for a second that you have a leg injury that prevents you from walking unless you go to rehab. One day you wake up and think to yourself “I don’t go to rehab because I cannot walk, but once I can walk I will go to rehab.” Now, if you are lucky, you will let time pass and maybe your leg will get better so you could walk but if you are not, then you will stay in that position for a very, very long time, if not, ever.

Very often people will see advertisements and/or marketing as an expense rather than as an investment. They don’t see advertisement as a way of attracting new business, or they simply don’t want to take the risk of spending money and never see it back. Think about, yes money is scarce but if you spend $500 on a marketing campaign that will eventually bring $1,500 back, wouldn’t that be a worthy risk to take?

It is very important that if you decide to do some kind of advertisement you must try to find ways to measure the effectiveness of different marketing mediums, such as giving coupons or discounts for specific marketing campaigns, creating specific landing pages for the online ad with your local newspaper, and so on. This will help you identify which efforts are really paying out and which ones are not.

A voice of warning; there are some marketing campaigns and mediums that work, and others that do not work for your market. Very often you learn this by experience, by learning from your customers, by listening to them, what is that they like, where is that they learn about the things they need (your products/services). It may be worth it to spend a bit more, and get help from a professional who will do two things for you: Will work with you to understand your market better, and maximize the odds of your marketing campaign, and second, will do the work for you, so you can focus on other aspects of your business to continue growing your business.

Now don’t think that just because you published an ad on the newspaper or you bought the biggest banner on the highway that your phone will not stop ringing or people will flock your office/store. It is unlikely to be the case, but you will start to position your business and to have some presence. (We will talk more about this in the second part of this series. Stay tuned!)

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1. Why you should get a professional logo and website design

We just got a new workstation in the office. After getting it out of the box we were happy to realize that it already comes with a much better configuration for php 5.3 than the old 5.2 of OS X Leopard. Leopard only came with a very few and basic configuration and libraries, that were only fit to new web designer. Apparently they noticed this at Apple and this new version comes with a much better library set.

In general we have more than once person developing a site. So we use mysql databases that are hosted in a server that anyone can access, that way when someone makes a change to the databases it is immediately propagated to all developers, since we use something similar to a “networked drive.”

However, MySQL is still not included, but the folks at mysql have created a dmg that allows you to easily install mysql into your computer. You just need to download it, double click, and follow the prompt. The problem is that php comes with a strange version of mysqli. We were all exited and ready to go when:

Warning: mysqli::mysqli() [mysqli.mysqli] OK packet 6 bytes shorter than expected in /path/to/file on line…

mysqlidev won't let you connect to remote servers

This happens because the mysqli API library that php is using is the one that comes by default, not the one from the mysql version we just installed. Shoots, we need to recompile, and since we are at it, we will also recomplile with the new version of jpeglib.

Now it makes sense just to grab the configure options shown by phpinfo, but for some reason it references some locations that do not exists for jpeglib and libpng. So we will need to compile those too. Also make sure to remove your dir path from pcre otherwise it will also trow you and error.

Okay, let’s do this. First we download our source for PHP, LibJPEG, LibPNG

Lets compile libjpeg first: Once you have uncompressed the source, just go into the directory and type in the following

export MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.6
 
CFLAGS="-arch x86_64 -Os -pipe -m64" CXXFLAGS="-arch x86_64 -Os -pipe -m64" LDFLAGS="-arch x86_64 -Os -pipe -m64" ./configure --enable-shared

That should finish without problems, now go to your libpng folder and type the following

./configure --enable-shared

Again, it should finish without problems. Do the same for libPNG, and

Now, it would make sense to compile php now, but there are some know bugs in php when compiling on a mac so lets get those corrected first, before we continue.

Fist you will need to modify the file ext/gd/libgd/gd_png.c, so open it with your favorite text editor and look for the following string:



if (!png_check_sig (sig, 8)) { /* bad signature */

and replace it for this other line:



if (!png_sig_cmp (sig, 0, 8) == 0) { /* bad signature */

Now, using your favorite text editor go to the following file within your php source code ext/libiconv/libiconv.c
and look for



#ifdef HAVE_LIBICONV
#define iconv libiconv
#endif

and replace the libconv of the second line for just iconv

Okay, now we are ready to compile php, so go to the the root of your php source code and type in (copy & paste) the following

CGLAGS="-arch x86_64 -Os -pipe -m64" CXXFLAGS="-arch x86_64 -Os -pipe -m64" LDFLAGS="-arch x86_64 -Os -pipe -m64" ./configure '--prefix=/usr' '--mandir=/usr/share/man' '--infodir=/usr/share/info' '--disable-dependency-tracking' '--sysconfdir=/private/etc' '--with-apxs2=/usr/sbin/apxs' '--enable-cli' '--with-config-file-path=/etc' '--with-libxml-dir=/usr' '--with-openssl=/usr' '--with-kerberos=/usr' '--with-zlib=/usr' '--enable-bcmath' '--with-bz2=/usr' '--enable-calendar' '--with-curl=/usr' '--enable-exif' '--enable-ftp' '--with-gd' '--with-jpeg-dir=/user/local' '--with-png-dir=/usr/local' '--enable-gd-native-ttf' '--with-ldap=/usr' '--with-ldap-sasl=/usr' '--enable-mbstring' '--enable-mbregex' '--with-mysql=mysqlnd' '--with-mysqli=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config' '--with-pdo-mysql=mysqlnd' '--with-mysql-sock=/var/mysql/mysql.sock' '--with-iodbc=/usr' '--enable-shmop' '--with-snmp=/usr' '--enable-soap' '--enable-sockets' '--enable-sysvmsg' '--enable-sysvsem' '--enable-sysvshm' '--with-xmlrpc' '--with-iconv-dir=/usr' '--with-xsl=/usr' '--with-pcre-regex'

Life is good

Now, go and grab yourself a cup of coffee, this is going to take a while. After that you should be able to connect to any remote mysql server that you have access to.

If you share your workstation with someone else, then it may be a good idea to secure your mysql installation.

Now, in order to make your .htaccess files to work, you need to change your apache user settings. For that you need to go to /etc/apache2/users/USERNAME.conf and make sure it reads something like this
Options Indexes -MultiViews FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all

You will also need to change the second AllowOverride that you find in your /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

Well, that should do it. So good luck and let us know if you run into any problem.

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Comicmercial - Phrustrations

This fall we are trying to do more advertising in different publications. We have come up with an idea, and we are calling it phrustrations. Phrustrations is just a way for us to share some of the stories that we have heard from our customers over the years about what their situation was, and the frustrations they suffered while running their business regarding web design, graphic design, marketing, advertising, and other services we offer.

So we are taking those stories, adding some humor to it, and running them as what I would call a “comicmercial” . Our idea is to run at least 6 of them and see how their work. I am not saying this comicmercials are new, but they are certainly a different way to advertise, but as usual in marketing “different” often implies risk. The risks that I can see right off the bat are the following:

• People who are not interested in comics won’t even glance at your ad.
• Even with a strong/clear call to action, people may still confuse them with a regular comic strip.
• People may think you and your company are childish or foolish.

As I said is something we are trying to see if it works. If they don’t make the phone ring at least we hope we would have made some people smile.

You can pick up a copy of this week’s El Paso Inc and see it by yourself on the 5th page.

What do you think? Will they work?

Related posts:

1. Just started a new business? Read this! (Part 1)
2. Why you should get a professional logo and website design

L and J. The old place by the graveyard

If you are an El Pasoan you probably know about L & J Cafe. The restaurant by the graveyard. It is a must-visit place not just for tourist but for everybody. Great food, great ambience, what else do you need?

It was a pleasure working with them, and coming out with a design that would represent the fact that they are a “classic” in El Paso, and also that they are one of the oldest restaurants in Town.

Let us know what you think about the design, and don’t forget to visit L & J for a great mexican lunch.

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1. Magazine Ad for The Pink Store
2. Ranchers Grill Web Design

Think twice before you ask your cousin to do your logo

The image of your business is very important and, as the saying goes “First impressions always count”, the same is true for your logo and business image. People will make assumptions about your business just by looking at your logo, website, brochure, etc. Remember that a logo is more than just a pretty picture. It is a message you are sending to your prospective clients about how the world is set to see your business, and it should make your company memorable and recognizable. An amateur logo design may cost you way more than you feared so: here are some reasons why.

1. Your business may look unstable and not professional. As a result, clients may feel insecure and unconfident about doing business with you. Would you do business with some company if you were not sure whether they would still be doing business by the end of the week?
2. Your amateur logo/image may confuse people about who you are as a business. Unprofessional and incoherent marketing materials send mixed signals to your prospective clients, and even make them think they are getting marketing materials from different companies. They may also think that you don’t care about the way your business looks and therefore the quality of your work.
3. It can make you look as a very small business. What do you think about those free VistaPrint or template-based business cards? If your business cannot afford its own business cards and/or marketing materials and it has to go for the free or cheap ones, it may be understood that you are not getting business through the door, and that you cannot perform or meet what it is required.
4. It may just go completely wrong. We’ve all seen logos go just completely wrong. Just type “Logos gone wrong” into your favorite internet search engine. If something like this happens to your business reputation, the amount of time and money that you will spend “fixing” your image will be way more than it would have been to get a professional logo design in first place.

These are just a few reasons why you should get a professional to create a custom logo for your business. Instead of spending hours thinking about what to do and figuring out how to do it, you should spend your time running your business and creating your more important asset: a client base.

If you have never designed a logo, a website, business cards, or other marketing material, and it is not part of the services your business will be offering, please don’t start now. It would be like pulling your own wisdom teeth without being a dentist, or trying to repair your car without being a mechanic. Statistics show that half of new businesses fail in the five first years. Experts say that a common reason is sloppy and ineffective marketing. You will spend an awful amount of time learning how to do it and getting it right, instead of getting more clients.

Not convinced about your current logo? or do you need a new logo and marketing materials? Contact us so we can help you grow your business.

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1. Just started a new business? Read this! (Part 1)
2. Borderpak Logo Design
3. Starcity Sealants Logo Design

So you decided to start blogging, you already have a wordpress template ready for your new blog, so you upload the files try to install and realize that the “famous 5 min installation” doesn’t work because of your Plesk settings.

Keep in mind that you can always manually create the conf.php file that wordpress needs to access the database, The first thing you need to do is to upload all the wordpress files into your preferred installation directory. Then log into your plesk account and select the domain under which you want to install wordpress. Then go to “File Manager”. Inside file manager browse until you get to the installation folder, in this case httpdocs. Now selected it and click on the “permissions” link on the forth column. This should take you to the permissions page, in here you need to add the option “write” to group. So they should like something like this.

Add write permissions to group in Plesk v9

This tells the server that you should let other people from the owners group to write. This other “people” is the php module.

Now, this should take care of the configuration file. However there are still a few adjustments that you need to do. First, if you control the domain and trust your users,  then you need to make php NOT to run on safe mode. Running php on safe mode “secures” your files by not letting other people (php users) to write your files. So this somehow poses a security thread, so WHEN YOU ARE DONE MAKE SURE TO SET IT BACK TO SECURE MODE.

Change this back one you are done installing WordPress

In order to make php run on secure mode, go back to your domain panel and go to Web Hosting Settings under “Web Site”, you will be presented a list of options. Towards the end of the list you will php under services. Uncheck the box that says “Run in safe mode” Then save your changes.

Once you have done this you will be able to install WordPress without any problems in Plesk V9.

However if you want to be able to upload files through the Flash uploader sometimes (depending on your Plesk configuration) you will need to change something else. For this you will need to login as root via ssh to your server and change the file /var/www/vhosts/your.domain.tld/conf/http.include. In this file make sure that all your open_base dir argument is correct. Meaning that you can access your temporary upload folder, and that you can access wherever is that you are going to save those images.

Let us know if you find this useful, and remember if you are looking for a great wordpress template let us know, we can sure help you with that.

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1. Hiding, Securing & Changing WP-Admin

Your wordpress installation may not be secure

Once an open source system becomes so popular as wordpress very often it becomes vulnerable to attacks. I wonder why the folks at wordpress have not done anything to enhance the security of the admin site, which, by default, you can access by going to /wp-admin.

The problem is that if you rename the directory then your wordpress installation becomes broken. I’ve looked and I could not find a plug-in that would let you change the wp-admin folder to something else, or at least conceal it. The only result that I found about how to do this is by Michi Kono. However the solution proposed has a few drawbacks like some links no longer working. Of course you have the option of restricting access to selected IP addresses via .htaccess but if you are like most non-commercial internet subscribers you don’t have a static IP, which makes things more complicated.

So here is another solution to make wordpress more secure while keeping all wordpress functionality.

The first thing we need to do is to pick what “name” we want for your admin section. For purposes of this “tutorial” we will call it “secure-login”.

Note: You are about to modify crucial files in your wordpress installation. So do this at your own risk, and please, please backup your files before you do this.

Now, open your .htaccess file and add the following line after the “RewriteBase ” line.

RewriteRule ^secure-login$     wp-admin.php [L,NC,QSA]

so your .htaccess should look something like this.

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^secure-login$ wp-login.php [L,NC,QSA]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

</IfModule>

# END WordPress

This tells your server that when you ask for “secure-login” you should be taken to wp-login.php

Now we need to edit wp-login.php which is located at the root of your installation. Add this before anything else.

 session_start();
 
//See what file is being requested by the web client, also store the arguments just in case.
list($file,$arguments) = explode("?", $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);
 
//if the user just logged out, destroy this session and redirect them to root
if("/wp-login.php?loggedout=true" == $file ."?" .$arguments || "action=logout" == substr($arguments, 0, 13))
{ session_destroy(); header("location: /"); }
 
//If our sentinel variable is set and true do nothing, allow normal script execution
if(isset($_SESSION['valid_entrance']) && $_SESSION['valid_entrance'] == true) { /* As they say, "Silence is golden" */ }
 
//Now if the user is requesting wp-login.php and our sentinel is not true, redirect the "attacker" to root.
elseif($file == "/wp-login.php" && !isset($_SESSION['valid_entrance']))
{  header("Location: /"); exit(); }
 
//If the user is requesting the right login entrance set the sentinel to true
elseif ($file == "/secure-login")
{  $_SESSION['valid_entrance'] = true; }

That’s all you need to do. Your wordpress installation just became more secure. Don’t forget to upload your updated files to your server.

I may do a plug-in whenever I find the time.

I would also recommend using Login Lockdown by Michael VanDeMar.

Let me know if you have any questions or recommendations for this

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1. Installing WordPress in Plesk 9

Pat's Olchefski site lauch

Pat Olchefski-Winston, aka Lady Pearl, is a multi-disiplinary artist, and yoga instructor.

She began her career over 20 years ago, and has shown her work through the US, Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean, and now thanks to his new web design and revamped site, she is able to show, and manage her digital gallery very easy online with the help of our services in web application development.

Click on the image to the right to preview the site, keep clicking and you will be able to see some of her beautiful work.

Do you think that her new design fits her as an artist? Let us know.

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1. Web site design for VP Sports
2. New Web Design for François Modave

At the same time, we are unveiling the Phidev Inc blog, we will be writing about design in general, marketing, and business, and every so often technical things regarding web design.

We would love to hear your comments about it, if it shows correctly in your browser, and suggestions that you may have for it.

Hope you enjoy it.

Related posts:

1. Phrustrations