Mindfly Web Design Studio Blog

Boogaloo - Mindfly Web Design Studio's Open Source Debut

blogger.nospam@nospam.mindfly.com (Rusty Swayne) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:00:00 -1200

A little more than three years ago I began outlining a Content Management System (CMS) based on the needs of my business, Mindfly Web Design Studio. I spent the first two years and quite a few weekends , coding nearly every night and came up with an initial version. Once completed, the studio began doing some internal and external usability studies and has spent the better part of a year completely reworking the interface. The studio staff overwhelmingly decided to name it Boogaloo and I am very pleased to announce its open source debut on Codeplex.

My motivation to write Boogaloo was not without hesitation. In 2006, I had decided to attempt a transition from a "shop", mainly known locally for its server side and database programming, into a "studio" that placed a much heavier emphasis on Web Design and seriously focused on producing web sites that validate and conform to Web Standards. Even in retrospect, this maneuver turned out to be one of the best decisions I have ever made.

Mindfly's clientele mainly consists of small businesses and we often deal with people who find themselves too busy to learn how a website functions and frankly many of them, rightfully, don't care. We hear the phrase "I don't care how it works, I just want it to work" so often we could consider it a mantra.

In addition, aside from a small percentage of small business owners, there is very little inherent appreciation to the amount of work and often how much technical expertise is actually required to create certain site functionality. When defining a project scope, "That's pretty easy, right?" is another phrase we hear nine out of ten times and is a literal testament of that fact.

Therefore, the change in emphasis was simply having a better understanding of our current and potential customers. However, the transition, was fraught with challenges and it quickly became obvious that we needed to either spend a great deal of time updating our in house CMS or select an open source (or inexpensive)CMS written in ASP.NET, which three years ago relative to php systems, were in short supply.

In 2006, I personally found it impossible to find an ASP.NET CMS that met the following criteria:

Quick for the front end designer to learn
Capable of producing non table based designs
Gives the visual designer the freedom to literally conceptualize and create any design
Provides the front end designer with absolute control over the underlying HTML in order implement the design with semantic markup.

Initially I reviewed DotNetNuke, Community Server and Umbraco and made a pros and cons list. I played with DNN the most, and I did not care much for Community Server albeit many people love it. I probably did not spend enough time looking through the ins and outs of Umbraco but quickly came to the notably incorrect conclusion that repetitive customer service calls from non technical customers would increase significantly and admit I was extremely nervy about that possibility after discontinuing our hosting services.

That being said, I would say that each of these projects were extremely influential. Other project muses include BlogEngine.NET and Argotic, both written by insanely talented programmers.

Ironically, I do not think of what we produced as a traditional content management system, rather I consider it to be more of a "site creation framework"; Something more analogous to a server side JQuery if there were such a category. After all, a successful installation simply renders a blank page.

There has been quite a bit of discussion as to whether or not "a blank page" was the appropriate way to debut our project, but our conclusion has thus far been that once one gets used to using the application, having to delete the default website for every single installation would really become more of an obstacle rather than a feature.

The studio is currently moving full steam ahead with its efforts to better document Boogaloo via wiki, articles, and videos. We look forward to the discussions, comments and constructive criticisms.

How Do You Know Your Site Needs A Redesign

blogger.nospam@nospam.mindfly.com (Erica Quessenberry) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:25:00 -1200

I find that many people don’t know their site needs a little love unless someone else tells them. And even then, they might not agree. But websites should be viewed in the same manner as fashion. Things go in and out of style, new trends sprout up, new materials are created, and the processes of creation are streamlined. I would venture to guess that nearly everyone buys new clothes at least once a year. Even if it’s only to add an item or two of the year’s latest trend to their collection, whilst moving away from an item of two of past years.

So if you are unsure whether or not to redesign here are a couple quick and easy points to help you identify if a little love is needed where your site is concerned.

Use of outdated technology. You might counter with, “But technology changes by the minute!” And it does seem to change rather quickly, however, there are many sites out there using really really old technology such as, but not limited to:
- Frames – a few are ok, but if your whole site is in frames, time for a redesign
- Tables – they’re really meant for formatting data not laying out a website
- Exclusive use of flash – you’re just hurting yourself in the usability and SEO departments
- Intro pages (flash or otherwise – that’s so 2000)
These are the outdated technologies I am talking about, and for the sanity of whoever is in charge of keeping you site updated, please be kind and redesign.
Your site is largely unchanged from 2 years ago. If you’re thinking, “Man, I feel like I just paid for a redesign … I can’t afford that again!” Grand. You don’t have to. Maybe just get a tiny facelift done. Make sure your content is up-to-date, swap out your trendy design elements with today’s trends, or tweak the colors a bit. It doesn’t have to be major, just breathe a little bit of new life into it. For example, look at Firefox 2.0 vs 3.0.
Same colors and same branding, but an updated look and feel.
You’re not using a CMS. CMS stands for content management system. It’s where it’s at, really. Once you switch over to a CMS, you’ll never look back. Content management systems are designed with the site owner in mind. Meaning they are set up, so you, the site owner, can have complete control. Well, nearly complete control. It’ll allow you to get in there and keep your content updated yourself, whenever you want from adding new pages, images to changing themes if you want. No need for any (or possibly minimal) knowledge of HTML or other web languages. Woo hoo!
You’re having limited luck with the search engines. Search engines are becoming more and more savvy these days making search engine optimization (SEO) very important. Even if you’ve recently put the effort into optimizing it, if your site is poorly designed, poorly laid out, and using old code, you might still experience problems and underperformance. If your site is done in tables, today’s search engines have a hard time wading through all the code to find your content and overwhelm them affecting the site’s performance.
One of your competitors just redesigned their site. Everyone knows that books get judged by their covers despite the age-old adage not to. A well-designed book cover seems to speak of what’s to come when you open the pages. It evokes a pre-conceived notion (however subconscious it may be) of whether or not the book is worth reading. (Come on, you know you do it.) And if your site is on par with all your competitors, it’s easy to put off that big redesign. The playing field is level. But if one of them launches a gorgeous new design, you might think about doing the same. It’s a visual representation of your company that can garner new attention or reinvigorate current users, not to mention a chance to implement new features and improve on usability.
Your users are grumbling. ‘Nuf said on this one. If you notice your users grumbling, do something about or they’ll leave and not come back.

If you find your site falling into any of these categories, then this is me tell you your site needs a little love – it’s time for that redesign.

Some Things to Celebrate in October

blogger.nospam@nospam.mindfly.com (Theresa Carpine) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:24:00 -1200

October is one of my favorite months of the year in Bellingham. I always look forward to watching the leaves of deciduous trees on Sehome Hill change from green to gold, and the days of rain interrupted by unpredictable bouts of sunshine. A trip to a different Whatcom County pumpkin patch has become a tradition with a good friend, and I am constantly in search for the perfect cup of hot apple cider at downtown Bellingham’s many cafés.

And now that I work at Mindfly, the first full month of fall is also a time of firsts and fun celebrations.

Last October, I went on my first business trip to Las Vegas. While I was there, I got to see my first Cirque du Soleil performance for my job. Not a bad deal.

Also in October of 2008, Mindfly celebrated Christmas early with a trip to the AT&T store to stock up on iPhones to reinforce our company’s dedication to design for mobile and the use of social media in online marketing and image branding. And decorating for downtown Bellingham’s Halloween Trick-or-Treat is always big day at Mindfly. In fact, John Raasch even asked me if I had a Halloween costume ready at my interview two years ago.

Yep. October 29, 2009 marks my second anniversary as Mindfly’s resident journalist and go-to grammarian (it’s also the 40th anniversary of the first communication sent over a host-to host connection via the ARPANET, a precursor of the Internet, which is certainly something to celebrate at Mindfly Web Studio).

Two years might not seem like a long time, but it’s a big achievement for a twenty-something Millennial in her first real post-college position. I’ve learned much more about websites than I ever thought I would, and I’ve also learned a lot about online journalism through trial and error. It’s been a unique experience to help start a local website from scratch and watch it grow.

Although we’re missing out on some of the Halloween fun in 2009 (don’t get me wrong; I’m not complaining that the studio won’t be open on Saturday), Mindfly still has a reason to celebrate as October comes to an end.

I’m not at liberty to divulge too much information just yet, so allow me to paraphrase Mr. McGuire and his famous advice from The Graduate; I just want to say one word to you – just one word. Boogaloo. Think about it.

Art & Copy: It's not about Social Media

blogger.nospam@nospam.mindfly.com (Maya Belka) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:44:00 -1200

Thanks to FLIR Creative, I won two passes to Art & Copy at the Pickford here in Bellingham, WA. Art & Copy is a documentary about advertising that covers the brilliant campaigns of advertising giants like George Lois, Mary Wells, Dan Wieden, Lee Clow and Hal Riney. Folks that are responsible for catch phrases like “I Love NY,” “Got Milk,” Nike’s “Just Do It,” and Apple’s “Think Different.” The film discusses the monumental occurance of combining copywriters and designers, using great words along with great photos to achieve ultimate campaign success. The film is packed with informational tidbits about the advertising industry (like: 80% of advertising is controlled by 4 global advertising agencies) that astounds the viewer and gets you thinking.

Working in the social media marketing end of Mindfly, I had no idea what to expect from Art & Copy. Therefore, I was surprised when Director Doug Pray focused on “good advertising.” It is admitted that most advertising is terrible and Pray is quoted as saying:

I didn’t want to make a doc that just trashes trashy advertising. Too easy, too obvious, and why bother? Instead, granted access to a handful of the greatest advertising minds of the last fifty years, I felt it could be a more powerful statement to focus the film only on those rare few who actually moved and inspired our culture with their work.

And I have to agree. Per Art & Copy, 65% of Americans believe they’re bombarded with advertising, yet I remember the good ones; Budweiser’s 1994 Super Bowl commercial and Michael Jordan’s “Failure” Nike commercial to name a few.

For me, the most memorable campaign discussed in Art & Copy related to milk. Goodby Silverstein & Partners talk about how difficult it can be to revitalize an ad campaign for an everyday “boring” commodity like milk. Packaging is stagnant, colors are traditional and when consumers are asked “what brand of milk do you drink?” they answer “2%” vs. “Darigold.” By tapping into their creative teams, Goodby Silverstein transitioned from the slightly less truthful campaign “Milk: It Does a Body Good” to the much catchier, more applicable, though admittedly less grammatically correct, “got milk?” And a breath of life was given to an ordinary, everyday product.

When comparing social media marketing to traditional advertising, I can’t seem to recall one catchy or memorable ad despite being on the web all day, 5 days a week. I am left with the feeling that social media marketing has a lot to learn from traditional advertising. Perhaps, in the end, there really is no competition.

P.S. Ever wonder where slogans come from? Art & Copy admits that Nike’s “Just Do It” catch phrase was inspired by convicted killer Gary Gilmore’s last words before his execution: “Let’s do it.” Hmmmm.

Wrox is a good place to start

blogger.nospam@nospam.mindfly.com (Rusty Swayne) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 05:16:00 -1200

I was going through my programming reference books the other day and it surprised me how many books I own published by Wrox. As I thumbed through several of the older ASP books, now commonly referred to as Classic ASP, and progressed through the most recent addition to my collection Professional ASP.NET MVC 1.0 it became obvious how influential Wrox has been in my career. I have books with subjects ranging from Search Engine Optimization with ASP.NET (SEO) to Professional DotNetNuke ASP.NET Portals. I even have A Preview of Active Server Pages+ (which was the name for ASP.NET before it was ASP.NET).

In my opinion, Wrox's books give the reader a nice overview of their respective subjects with just enough detail to convey a clear understanding. And they are full of examples. Better yet, many times ASP.NET examples have both VB.NET and C# snippets. Entire applications, snippets, you name it.

The stack of books is a real testament to how much things have changed since I began programming websites more than a decade ago. Through incessant cyclical of client to server side programming emphasis-es this publisher has altered their subject matter in like fashion and if you are even remotely interested in web programming, I think Wrox is a great place to start.

Oh, and my personal favorite is: ASP.NET 2.0 Website Programming - Problem - Design - Solution, by Marco Bellinsaso.

The New Kid on the Block

blogger.nospam@nospam.mindfly.com (Erica Quessenberry) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 10:39:00 -1200

My options for the last wee bit of the day were 1) new task or 2) write a blog for the Mindfly website. Naturally I picked option one, because honestly, writing on a company website just intimidates me. But here I am. Writing on the blog. Trying to make sure I use proper grammar, punctuation and spelling: three things I've gotten extremely lazy about in the last few years. And seeing how the last post was about 'its' versus 'it's' I thought I should make an extra special effort.

While being subjected to this this special torture (I mean great honor) I thought I'd take this time to introduce myself as the newest member of the Mindfly team.

Hello. My name is Erica.

It sometime seems surreal when I think about where I've ended up in my life. If you would have asked me five or so years ago where I thought I'd be now, I would never in a million years say designing websites in my hometown of Bellingham, WA. Five years ago I was a year out of college with a degree in international studies recently back from living in Turkey and traveling Europe. Shortly after that it was Scotland for a masters in economic development never wanting to living in Bellingham again (however cool this town is). Clearly not on track for graphics or even a location change. And while I love economics and my favorite magazine is The Economist, web design is by far the best 'thing' I've ever fallen into, making the move back to the Northwest a better decision that I originally thought (though we are coming off of an amazing summer. I might change my mind again come January).

My trip in to web design really began because of an amazing web designer I had the privilege of working with a few years back. Just by working along side of her I saw that it was more than computers. It was art and creativity as well. So after Scotland and the unrelated masters degree I began my study of all things graphics related. While I did take some classes at the local community college, I owe a lot of my education to the many many design blogs I subscribe to and follow. For those I've found especially useful, I thought I'd give a wee shout out and pass along access to a wealth of knowledge for other aspiring web or graphic designers.

Smashing Magazine | The only site I let clutter my twitter feed. Yes, they're that good.
Noupe | Who were actually just invested in by Smashing Magazine. That just goes to show how fantastic they are.
Six Revisions | Useful information for web designers and developers
Web Designer Wall | A plethera of design ideas web trends and tutorials
Web Designer Depot | A bit of everything really
1stwebdesigner | Another lovely blog of tips, tricks, and resources

I have now been with Mindfly for about a month and I am super excited about what I'm doing and who I'm doing it with (hazing including ). So far it's been a great experience and I have high hopes that it will continue to be (is that considered brown nosing?)

Pre-publishing check list:

Grammar: check
Proper capitalization: check
Punctuation: check
Spellcheck: check
Witty banter: check

Good to go.

National Punctuation Day

blogger.nospam@nospam.mindfly.com (Theresa Carpine) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:01:00 -1200

Today is National Punctuation Day. I know that this means very little to non-grammar nerds. It’s like March 14th for mathletes or October 23rd for chemistry geeks. Although I don’t think the number 9/24 has any significance to punctuation itself, I’m still glad that there is at least one day a year that reminds us about the importance of proper punctuation.

In honor of National Punctuation Day, I’ve decided to highlight a punctuation mistake that sends me through the roof.

Its and the Apostrophe

You probably use the apostrophe most often in contractions or to show possession. For example:

I can’t go to John’s birthday party.

Can not becomes can’t, and it’s a birthday party that belongs to John. Seems simple enough, right? Not for everyone.

One of my biggest pet peeves is the misuse of an apostrophe in its. And I understand the confusion because an apostrophe shows possession for nouns. But, unfortunately, it’s and its are two different words. It’s is a contraction of two words (it is), whereas its indicates that something belongs to it.

Have I lost you yet? Here’s another example:

Have you seen the birthday cake? It’s huge and its bottom layer covers my whole desk!

The next time you come across some its/it’s confusion in your writing, just ask yourself, “Possessive or Contraction?” Possessive is its; contraction is it's.

You can also substitute it is to see if the sentence makes sense still. Make sure you say it out loud too, so you can really hear how it sounds. “It is huge.” Yep. “It is bottom layer covers my whole desk.” No.

And if you’re still not sure, take it out. Changing a vague, nondescript pronoun like it back to the original noun will bring clarity to your writing and you won't have to worry about making an apostrophe mistake.

So go out into the world, properly prepared to punctuate like a pro! And celebrate with some cake, if you can.

Importing Data with SQL Server 2005

blogger.nospam@nospam.mindfly.com (Sydney Cole) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 05:32:00 -1200

Janae and I recently did a particularly tricky data import into SQL Server, utilizing the SQL Server Import and Export wizard. The originating data was a text file that originated on a Mac, exported from a FilemakerPro database on a Mac. The simple data import from the text file into a table in SQL Server 2005 took us more than an entire day, so I thought I'd share a few tips we learned from our experience:

Import From Excel
After experimenting with importing CSV files, tab-delimited files and Excel files, I found that if you first import the data into Excel you will avoid several common problems.

We ran into difficulties with fields that had existing commas, tabs or quotation marks in the actual data. They caused problems because CSV or tab-delimited files use these characters as delimiters - so the fields didn't break out properly.

Massage Data in Excel
Do as much of your data clean-up as possible directly in Excel.

We performed search and replace on funky Macintosh characters that we didn't want. We updated column names to match the destination SQL Server table. We did as many bad-data checks as possible, such as numeric columns not having non-numeric characters, and removing words such as "n/a" or "no data." We removed columns we wouldn't need.

We were also importing fields that would be ultimately displayed in HTML, so we added as much HTML markup directly in Excel as possible. This can be done using concatenation and other Excel functions. One simple example would be to replace all line breaks with </p><p> and adding <p> to the beginning and </p> to the end of the field. We also replaced all dashes with </li><li> and added <ul class="listClass"> to the beginning and </ul> to the end of some fields, creating HTML unordered lists with only minor cleanup needed after the fact.

Data Types and Lengths
This was one of the lessons that took me over an hour to learn, so perk up and listen to this excellent advice: move any of your exceptional data into the first 8 rows.

When you do an import into a new table in SQL Server 2005, it does not inspect all of your data before it decides on column data types - it bases each column's data type on those first 8 rows. So if you have some rows with particularly long values, put those at the top. Similarly, if you have a numeric field - make sure that the first 8 rows don't happen to have null values. Read Microsoft's article on the details of how data types are determined.

Hopefully these simple tricks will save you from the many hours of troubleshooting we've already been through. Best of luck with your import!

Social Media does what?

blogger.nospam@nospam.mindfly.com (Maya Belka) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:19:00 -1200

Social Media comes in all shapes and sizes, but the best part is that social media is free. It is the viral spread of information through fans, partners, friends, tweeps, video, blogs..the list is long. Social media has taken on a whole new meaning since its inception in 1997. What began as a way to meet people online and stay in touch with old friends has grown to include business marketing, customer service, and reputation management. So why should you care?

The blogosphere is becoming the land of opportunity for businesses across the web. Social media is opening up doors where traditional media could not. Social media allows for businesses to actively communicate with, interact, and market to clients. Although I’m actively involved with social media on a daily basis, I’m always amazed by the creative ways people use the blogosphere. One of my favorites is from Pizza’zza. A follower reports an #epicfail (she forgets to turn the crockpot full of meat ON before leaving). Pizza’zza responds with a direct message. Now, granted, I’m unsure as to what the DM included…but my guess was a coupon or a meal. Now tell me that’s not smart! Not only does said follower get a bonus, Pizza’zza gets a client AND the rest of their followers believe that if they had ruined a meal, perhaps they too might enjoy a little perk from their favorite Bellingham pizza shop. Pure genius if I do say so myself.

So why use social media? Uh, the first reason is that it’s FREE! Did you catch that? F.R.E.E. Naturally, I assume your next question will be “what’s the catch?” And, of course, there is a catch. But it’s not terrible! Gaining the most out of social media requires a bit of finesse, a bit of knowledge and a lot of time. That’s where Mindfly comes in. There are many people boasting about their social media prowess and their ability to market you to the world, but seriously folks it boils down to effort and energy. The ability to maneuver around the blogosphere and tap into all of the available social media networks can take your business to new heights and Mindfly is here to help.

Come Fly with Me

blogger.nospam@nospam.mindfly.com (Theresa Carpine) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 06:27:00 -1200

I don’t say it nearly enough. I love my job. I think it’s a phrase that most Mindfly employees think on a regular basis. As far as I know, there is no one here who doesn’t want to be here doing what they do.

With only ten full-time employees, we’re each delegated tasks that allow us to spend time working on projects that we really enjoy, from coding to designing to meeting with clients. And while it may seem a tedious to someone else, I love researching and writing content for websites, whether I’m optimizing keywords for a new website or keeping Neighborhood-Kids.com updated every day.

An opportunity on Friday, August 14, reminded me again how lucky I am to do what I do. Kate Simmons of the Heritage Flight Museum invited me to join local media for a flight on a visiting B-17 Flying Fortress.

I was happy to spread the word about the visit of Sentimental Journey in Bellingham and the great learning opportunity for local kids and grown-ups at the museum. Plus, I was simply excited to take a flight over Whatcom County and Bellingham Bay in a fully-restored World War II era aircraft.

On a personal note, the ride made me think of my grandfather, who passed away nearly a year ago. A WWII veteran and 25-year member of the Air National Guard, I know that he would have been proud of me and impressed that I had opportunity to fly in a B-17 for my job. He might have been a little bit envious too.

Read my article about the flight (“Once in a Lifetime Flight”), watch a video on YouTube (“Heritage Flight Museum”), and see photos on Flickr (“Heritage Flight Museum – Sentimental Journey”). I was even able to update my Twitter mid-fight!

Thanks to Kate for inviting me on the flight, and to Mindfly for creating a unique position that affords such exceptional opportunities.