What exactly do these terms mean? The M and W stand for your working platform by way of Macintosh or Windows and the AMP stands for Apache, MySQL and PHP. These simple apps can start and stop the full suite of hosting tools at a moments notice without you having to muck around in your system and install all sorts of tools that require more in depth configuration. I’ve found that overall this can speed up programming and testing because you will not need to constantly upload files to an FTP server and check them that way, instead you would just save and refresh your browser.

And it would be sort of open-source blasphemy if I didn’t mention XAMPP mainly used for Linux, but also containing flavors of Mac OS X, Windows and even Solaris.

All of these software packages are free, or have a free (lite) version available for you to use in your programming endeavors so have at it!

*Windows & WAMP makes the assumption that you are developing a PHP/MySQL Web site and not a .NET Solution

media|extranet

Local Development using MAMP

I came up with a quick down and dirty little trick to help overcome such an instance and I think you may find this useful.

Fire up your favorite text editor and open up create a .htaccess file (or modify the file that may be sitting in your root directory) and paste these lines in. Feel free to tweak them a bit to suit your needs, maybe you’ll even find a better use for this method.

And that’s it! Pretty URL’s on the easy.

media|extranet

Quick trick for Pretty URLs

Devaluing the Boob Tube

There was a day, when you may not have had cable or satellite television. Now you rely on this luxury as the main form of entertainment in your home. Have you forgotten you could be just as happy playing a game of cards with friends and family or by dusting off those old board games? Stage a fun scavenger hunt or a mystery for your family to solve (think fun, not suspense). Many have forgotten the joy of reading a book. If you still want to get a fix for reality, create your own show with that miniDV you bought a few years back and haven’t used!

Saving the Planet While Saving Money

When I was a kid, you could drink water from a hose in the backyard or even the kitchen sink, but for years people have been brainwashed into believing that bottled water is really better for them. Now I don’t want to start an eco-rant about plastic bottles, but it does bear mentioning that people do not think about the benefits of slight impurities in our water. Germs can actually be beneficial in helping us keep and build a stronger immune system. If you’re like me, you can always fill an old milk jug with water and keep it in the refrigerator; the illusion of cold water may help you believe that it’s better just because it’s colder! Speaking of temperature, growing up it was like a holiday at my house when dad turned on the air conditioner. Now we do it when the temperature gets up around 75 degrees. Today too many people go from heating to cooling with the changing seasons and neglect to open their windows to let fresh air indoors.

Reducing Trips to Increase Cash

Gone are the days of the gas-guzzlers. Of course commuting is a big deal with the high cost of petroleum in the world market. Some common sense could be planning your daily route to include other activities and stops so you aren’t making needless trips. Let’s say that tomorrow you have to go to the office and the grocery store, oh and pick up a gift for the Jones’ anniversary. That used to be three separate trips before the gas prices went completely haywire. Now it’s basically heading into the office and on the ride home pick up that DVD boxed set for the Jones’ before your trip to the grocery store, finally you’re heading to your doorstep with your hands full and a feeling that you may have saved a few bucks. Instead of driving down the block to grab that candy bar you’ve been craving, take a walk or ride a bike. This of course has a two-pronged set of results, you’re saving some money on gas and burning a couple calories to help burn off that candy bar you just picked up.

Technically Speaking

So what about our technical devices, can we save money while keeping our home office running smoothly? A lot of my friends have beefed up home offices, from the laptop to multiple displays to printers and backup drives, and don’t forget that desk lamp. I try to follow simple logic in my home office, if I’m on the computer, I should be doing something productive that leads to profit. When I’m not, the Powermac is asleep and monitors are not only off, but unplugged along with my printer. A few years ago I started reading up on how to live more green and I was astonished to learn that even if my devices were turned off, they were still drawing a slight current. Now day-to-day or week-to-week these tricks may not appear to put a dent in costs, but if worked up on the yearly budget it can make a difference.

Home Office Can Be Less Taxing

In addition to these changes, take advantage of tax write-offs that can net in a slightly better return at tax time. If you check your work email or have to get those copy changes to your PM, you can write off a portion of your broadband or even some of that electrical bill. You just have to remember not to get greedy about it, or your friendly representative of the Internal Revenue Service may pay you a visit. Other logical write-offs can come in form of printing supplies, and that new MacBook or whatnot you’ve had your eye on.

With that said, this is still a very small tip of the iceberg. I’m hoping to open a dialog for people to share ideas so that we all might live a little better. Be sure to comment and see what others may have shared.

media|extranet

You, too, can weather the economic storm

Please Note: This is only an effective way if you want to utilize a web-based presentation or application.

Around a year ago, a client of ours sent two brand spankin’ new 24” iMac’s and wanted to use them as secure browsers. So, we got to work on figuring out how to implement this sort of thing on the Mac platform. Our company before used to build .NET applications specific to an event and windows based machine; this process wasn’t the most streamlined, seeing as how a simple web app for data capture would work just as well. So after some searching, I found a method that would work out perfectly for this and it’s even cross platform compatible!

Step 1:
Download Opera’s latest and greatest. (opens in a new window)

Step 2:
Open up Opera and get into the settings preferences.

Under the General Tab set your Starting Preference (Start with home page). Then set the home page appropriate to your event; I chose a local file to accomplish this.

Then click the Wand Tab and uncheck the “Let the Wand remember passwords” box.

Now head over to the Advanced Tab and find Security (highlighted) and click Set Master Password …
This will ensure that you can get the computer out of Kiosk mode in order to utilize it later on as a computer again. So this step is fairly important!

Under the same Advanced Tab you need to locate Shortcuts and uncheck the Enable mouse gestures. This will prevent anyone who may know Opera mouse gestures from being able to try any funny business.

Step 3:
Now that those settings are out of the way, we can move into the more nitty gritty stuff. As we are using Mac as an example, go ahead and fire up Script Editor.app from your Applications/Applescript folder. This will be a very basic script, one line of code.

do shell script "/Applications/Opera.app/Contents/MacOS/Opera -kioskmode -noexit"

Of course if you stuck Opera.app into another folder, the part in between the ” may slightly differ.

Save that script somewhere in case you want to edit it sometime, then do a Save As … You will select Application as the File Format. I usually save something like that onto the Desktop so an Event Staffer can locate it easily.

So is that it? Not quite, but we’re close. For it to actually be secure, you still need to filter out sites, or in a better case, only allow certain ones blocking all others.

Step 4:
Since Opera has been run, there will now be an urlfilter.ini file that should be edited. On the Mac you can find this at: /Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences/Opera Preferences/ if the urlfilter.ini file is NOT in there, you need to create it (sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t, no rhyme or reason to it). Okay, so you have the file, let’s open it up in a text editor and fill it with something similar to below.

Opera Preferences version 2.1
; Do not edit this file while Opera is running
; This file is stored in UTF-8 encoding

[prefs]
prioritize excludelist=0

[include]
file://localhost/Users/user/Sites/kiosk*
*.somewhereelse.com*
*.thatsite.net*

[exclude]
*

The *.domain.com* are sites that you will allow the browser to visit and the * are there as wildcards, in case one of those sites sends the user to a different subdomain or folder.

Step 5:
You just have to set up the computer at that point to automatically log in as the Kiosk User (or whatever user you just set this up for) and ensure that they have the Applescript Application in their Login Items path.

There are a lot more rules that can be applied; however, these should take care of most needs for most circumstances. If you are doing something for the military or another government branch, you may want to write an actual application.

media|extranet

How to Build a Kiosk using Free Tools

A few tips to consider:

• When someone enters a meeting room, stand and greet them
• When in a room of strangers, extend a warm handshake and introduce yourself, especially to those standing solo
• When dining, don’t chew with your mouth open
• Don’t chew gum during meetings
• Never put your bags on the conference room table; sit them next to your chair or on your chair and unload from there
• Always bring paper, writing utensil and your calendar to ANY meeting
• Always arrive a few minutes prior to a meeting - don’t make everyone wait on you
• Hold the door for others - male or female
• Clean up after yourself; don’t expect someone else to pick up your dirtied glass or trash
• Send a handwritten thank you note after meeting a new person and enclose your business card … not only good etiquette, but also good networking!

For more great tips, check out Emily Post.

media|extranet

Etiquette in Business

PR isn’t just about picking up the phone and calling a reporter. There is a ton of strategy involved in what we do. So before you pick up the phone or send out a “PR release,” listen to what I have to say

But STOP! Before we go any further, IT IS NOT CALLED A PR RELEASE. I repeat. It is not called a “PR Release.”  We send out news releases

Now, on to the good stuff

DO NOT MASS DISTRIBUTE. Don’t blast emails or faxes. Don’t do a generic pitch that blankets a ton of reporters.  It’s important that you do your homework and get to know each reporter you’re planning to pitch. There is nothing more embarrassing than sending a pitch to a reporter that doesn’t cover your topic. Example: my client is launching an exercise video. Over my dead body will I pitch the financial editor on this topic. UNLESS there is a financial angle

Further, mass distributing your news releases is just like spam. You know how annoyed you get when you receive those Australian lottery winner emails or the African prince that is looking for his soul mate. DON’T SPAM

Customize your outreach. Refer to previous coverage by that particular reporter. Open up with a brief remark that gets the conversation going … and personalize it.

It’s fine to follow up with a reporter, but please don’t call and ask if they’ve received your news release. Chances are their desk is just as cluttered as yours.  Instead, lead with “Am I calling at a good time” and give them a couple of juicy facts to gauge their interest. They may ask you to send them a release; don’t be offended. Just keep your mouth shut and send it again. Be respectful of their time and courteous with your follow up.

Most importantly, develop relationships with reporters so that you become a resource for them.  A few reporters I work with contact me needing sources for stories that don’t apply to any of my clients. I don’t mind helping them because I know that when I really need them, they’ll be there.

media|extranet

How to work with reporters

I came across a great article last week in Ad Age, How Agencies Are Helping Their Clients Help The Environment. It really puts things in perspective … as individuals, it’s important to make wise decisions concerning the environment (recycling, buying locally-grown produce, etc.). As a corporation, it’s important to take a look at how we can eliminate waste during the manufacturing process, etc. But as a marketer what can we do? We can encourage our clients to create earth-friendly campaigns.

Example: Snackbox is working with a major consumer packaged good brand that has practiced earth-friendly production since the early 1900s. Before it was “cool” to be “green.”  We’re working with said company to create a public relations campaign that educates consumers about their practices in producing disposable tableware.  Most don’t automatically think paper plates = good for the environment. I’m sure demand for their product will increase once our campaign is complete, but more importantly, as consumers, we will know that we have choices. Choices that are actually good for the environment.

We’re also taking the environment into account in other practices: Doing away with paper press kits, emailing our invoices and presenting brand identity systems electronically rather than pasting to presentation boards.

Protecting the environment isn’t another fad. Let’s all do our part to protect and preserve.

media|extranet

Going Green for More Green

But why stop with one project?

One of the more difficult things we encounter as business owners is the art of cold calling to expand our business. But why go through all of the effort when you have clients from your past who are perfectly capable of being your clients of the future?

I encourage you to dive deep into your Rolodex and remain in contact with ALL of your clients. Build conversation with them, create a database you can reference for years to come.

For example, I make note in my address book regarding important answers to my questions: does my client contact have kids, what is their favorite food, do they have pets, etc.  Those notes allow me to pick up dialog right away without missing a beat.  It doesn’t mean that I don’t value each of the people in my Rolodex … it just means that my Rolodex is too large to remember all of the details. My database allows me to keep up.

As you build your Rolodex, you can watch for patterns and have the opportunity to connect those in your network. Build Karma points by connecting a favorite package designer with an inventor looking to gain shelf space in local grocery stores. More than likely, those who have been helped by you are happy to return the favor down the road.

It’s all about who you know, but also what you know about them.

media|extranet

Building Business by Asking Questions

Okay, let’s take a step through this method. First off is the if(isset($_POST[‘submit’])), all that really does it tell the page to run the mail and spam checking functions if the user submitted the form. Then it gets the POST methods from the submission and we set the variables.

The if ($human != “123”) { business checks that the user is not a spambot.

In this case ABC is easy as 123, so if the user doesn’t type in 123 it will alert them and send them back to the previous page (I hate to click a back button, so I took that step out). If they do answer 123 the script will hit the next block, which is a basic PHP mail function. If they did not it alerts them and sends a history.back(1) script so they can take another whack at it.

If the user did answer the secret question correctly, the script can move onto the next step. In this step the users comments will be sent to you. So I set a variable for your email (in this example you@yourdomain.com, pretty basic I know). Then the subject and message body. Tip, you can inject the variables from the first step into your subject and message, in fact you need to somewhere or you won’t get any info. You do this by using the $name, $email, etc.

Cool, the form was sent and the user was informed of their success, and then sent to the site root. The } else { is fairly important, without this nothing will show up for the user to fill out.

Lastly, do not forget to put your } before the end of the script, I say that because I sometimes forget that.

So that’s it, if you want to download this script for reference click here If you just copy and paste the highlighted code you’ll have to replace all ’ with the proper single ticks.

media|extranet

Easy PHP contact form, with gotcha!

One type of client may want to have their website up by the end of the week so that they can be ready to “make money” over the weekend. But I have found that if you sacrifice your time in testing and ensuring proper usability the website will initially flop. It is best to have a good plan of action and stick to it. The client like this I have found will normally want a large project done and wait until two days before their desired deadline to get you essential project information.

Say your job is print related, staring at the MAR+APR 2008 Create magazine sitting beside me I can see a ton of work going into some of the ads placed in here. So if I was designing for something like this; where obviously deadline is an issue. I may have to steer the client out of the target issue if their overall brand or idea wasn’t properly portrayed, suggesting the following issues print deadline for a more successful campaign.

How do others handle clients like these?

media|extranet

Forgoing quality for timelines