1. Watch the wind

This is a good time to survey the field. Take a look around and try to spot the current trends. Things such as flash introductions, music on home pages, and video introductions were all the rage in the 90’s, but a true website should avoid these if they will distract from the message you are trying to promote.

2. Be still

Now is when you watch your competitors. It is important that your website be planned out an methodical. Building a website is a lot like painting a room. The final result is highly dependent on the prep work you do.

3. Be quiet

It’s important that you don’t tell too many people your intentions. Many times, a business owner will tell people that they will be launching a new website “by the end of the year” without consulting a web developer. It is very difficult for someone that has no formal training in web development to anticipate project duration. Something that seems very simple could take months to develop. It’s also a nice surprise to launch shortly after announcing the redesign.

4. Learn all you can about the animal you are hunting

At this stage you are probably hunting the developer you will choose to work with. This is a good time to call business acquaintances for referrals, pull out the phone book (do people still use these?), and check Google for a healthy list of designers. Most designers will have a portfolio that will allow you to check their work and determine if you feel it would fit your business.

5. Don’t be afraid to ask people more knowledgable than you questions

Start scheduling meetings with the professionals that catch your eye. Most will meet with you for free. Pick brains and enjoy a little bit of friendly conversation. Often, the web professional will offer ideas that you hadn’t even considered. Don’t forget to contact us!

6. Learn to use your firearm or bow (or website) effectively

Just because you now have a website, does not mean that you can rest. If your developer was kind enough to give you a Content Management System, learn how to use it. Make a plan that will keep your content fresh and accurate. Continuously think about ways you could improve small things on your website.

7. Attend a hunter safety (or website related) course

Often times, your local chamber of commerce or web development companies will host training sessions that will help you to get the most out of your website. Take advantage of these courses, they can offer a wealth of information.

8. Spend as much time as you can out hunting

Don’t rush yourself. Meet with many developers, and determine which one you are more confidant in. Once your website has been built, spend as much time perfecting it as you can. A website is an ever evolving being.

9. Expect mistakes, and learn from them

Not everybody is perfect. The important thing here is to remember this and catch mistakes early. If you allow your web developer to make a mistake, and you do not correct it, how can you expect them to learn from it. If a mistake is too severe, move on to a new developer and express this mistake to the new person.

10. Wear a safety harness each and every time you climb a tree

If you have signed on with a web developer, you should be allowed to have another web developer review their work. This can put two sets of eyes on the same project, and point out vulnerabilities or inefficiencies.

We hope this article will help you when you are starting the hunt for a new website. Please don’t forget to add us to your list of candidates, we would love to hear from you!

Instant Messaging/Social Networking

Digsby

In addition to connecting to AIM, MSN, and Yahoo, Digsby allows you to connect to Facebook Chat, MySpace IM, and Google Talk. If that’s not enough, it also shows your social network notifications as well as new mail for GMail/POP3 accounts.

Download: http://www.digsby.com/

Pidgin

Before being revamped, Pidgin used to be titled GAIM. Pidgin has grown into quite an impressive piece of software. It’s easy to use, customizable, and fast.

Download: http://www.pidgin.im/

Media Players

VLC Media Player

VLC is a versatile media player capable of playing anything from audio and video files to DVDs, CDs, and much more.

Download: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Winamp

As an avid music fan, I’ve always needed a simple and fast media player for audio. Winamp is just that.

Download: http://www.winamp.com/

Office Suites

OpenOffice

OpenOffice is one of the leading examples of how open-source software can thrive. If you’re looking for a good alternative to Microsoft Office, check out OpenOffice.

Download: http://www.openoffice.org/

Web Browsers

Mozilla Firefox

Firefox has been growing in popularity since it’s release. It’s fast, secure, and extremely customizable. If you’re still using Internet Explorer, make the switch to Firefox.

Download: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Google Chrome

If you’re looking for an easy-to-use, simple, and extremely fast browser, check out Google Chrome.

Download: http://www.google.com/chrome

Anti-Virus

AVG Anti-Virus

AVG is often the first software package I install upon reformatting. It is a great alternative to packages such as Norton Anti-Virus, which is often slow (and not free).

Download: http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage

Photo Editing/Graphic Design

GIMP

GIMP is an excellent alternative to Adobe Photoshop. With some tweaks, it’s very easy to use GIMP as a replacement to Photoshop if you’re unable to obtain the latter due to it’s hefty price tag.

Download: http://www.gimp.org/

FTP

FileZilla

When I quickly need to transfer files via FTP, I almost always use FileZilla.

Download: http://filezilla-project.org/

Password Management

KeePass

Can’t remember your passwords? Using the same password for everything? KeePass allows you to store all of your passwords and information encrypted behind a single password.

Download: http://keepass.info/

File-Syncing

Dropbox

Dropbox allows you to sync files between multiple computers automatically via the internet. In addition, it allows you to setup automatic file syncing with other users.

Download: https://www.dropbox.com/

Anti-Spyware

Spybot S&D

Download: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

Lavasoft Ad-aware Personal

Download: http://www.lavasoft.com/

Feel free to comment and let us know if I’ve missed anything, as well as your favorite free software picks.

What do I look for?

Any place considered on this list will have at a minimum:

• Free Wireless Internet — As a web professional, my life pretty much revolves around having a reliable internet connection. I constantly have to monitor email for outages, and connecting to the various web servers makes developing much easier. When working on a project, the internet is invaluable for it’s research capabilities.
• Good Vibes — The places I tend to gravitate toward have very cool environments. They tend to focus heavily on interesting architecture, cool music, and have art on the walls.
• Convenient Hours — I tend to be a bit of a night owl. It’s important to me that the places I choose to work at are available after hours as well as on weekends.

The List

Coffee Shops

View Larger Map
My primary place of choice is Brewtopia Coffee on Saginaw Street.  Brewtopia Coffee (formerly Harvest Coffee House & Beanery) has been my location of choice for the past few months. Their exposed brick walls, local art hung on the walls, and ambiance fit well with almost any mood I’m in. Although the live music is sometimes irritating, it’s no competition for my ear buds and library of music in iTunes.

Public Libraries

View Larger Map
If I need uninterrupted silence, you can bet you’ll find me at Alice and Jack Wirt Public Library (but don’t come find me there, I need uninterrupted silence). If available, I will hop into one of A&J’s study rooms. If not, I’ll settle for the research section on the second floor, looking out over downtown Bay City.

Sandwich Shops

View Larger Map
Although the last time I was there the internet was a bit shaky, Souper Cafe has phenomenal soups and sandwiches. If I need to stay on the other side of the river, while unplugging for a bit of refreshing downtime, I’ll stop in and have myself a helping of Baja Chicken Enchilada soup with a sammich. Yum!

A few months back, we had the opportunity to sign up for one of Google’s newest services, Google Voice. While we were unsure what to expect at first, we quickly became impressed with the features and functionality it provided.

A Google Voice account consists of a U.S. phone number, provided free of charge, which is selected when creating an account. This number can be changed at anytime for a small fee. The interface of Google Voice is very similar to GMail; it is simple, clean, and  extremely fast. The service has an impressive list of features including call forwarding to multiple phones, voicemail, call recording, voicemail transcribing, SMS messaging, and much more.

We now use Google Voice as our main number for a variety of reasons. Incoming calls are forwarded to multiple phones, allowing someone who is readily available to pick up the call first. If no one is able to take the call, voicemails are transcribed and forwarded to our mobile phones via SMS, as well as our e-mail addresses. If there’s an urgent matter that needs attention, we become aware of it almost instantly.

We believe this will help us continue to improve communication with our clients. We’re always looking for ways to improve our business. If you have any suggestions or honest feedback, please contact us.

That evening, I had mentioned that I was going to post links of use on our website for others to peruse. Below you’ll find links to some of the tools, as well as tips that I hope will guide you into finding the way that you can use Twitter to build your professional network.

I’d first like to share a story with you that I had not shared the day of the luncheon. I began using Twitter nearly a year ago in October of 2008. I was attending a web design conference, and I was looking for something to eat after the first day’s sessions. Using Twitter, I was able to follow the speakers and a few other attendees using the #WJS08 hash tag. I found out that a bunch of them were heading out to eat at a Thai restaurant.

I moseyed my way down to the lobby where they were meeting and asked if I could join. The group was very kind and allowed me to tag along. Below is a shot that was taken by D. Keith Robinson. From left front and around to right front you have: Jeff Croft, Shara Kilarski, Rob Jones, James Craig, Ethan Marcotte, Steven Ray, Myself, Rob Weychert, Jina Bolton, Martine Natasha. If you visit the sites of the others captured in this photo, you’ll begin to see that if I’m not out of their league now, I was then. I enjoyed my meal, even if Rob got the chance to enjoy my hot, while I was stuck with his mild chicken curry.

And now… the tools.

Finding People

• Twitter Search
• WeFollow
• Mr. Tweet

Controlling your feed

• TweetDeck
• Hootsuite

People to follow

• mjmedia
• energizebayarea
• michaelweiss
• Terry_King_

In a partnership with Innovative Media Design, MJ Media was contracted to provide custom e-commerce development for the Franks Great Outdoors website overhaul. The client’s existing site had an import functionality that allowed the staff at franks to sync their online offerings with those in the store database. We chose to implement a Magento e-commerce system, customizing the product import process to batch import and remove their product offerings.

We also provided a few other features such as custom product attributes and a user generated trophy room. Customers now have the ability to upload photos of their catch and see them listed on their favorite outdoors store.

Check out their website, if you like how things wiggle, please get a hold of us.

We provided the client with an administration section that allows them to upload before and after photos to show the dramatic improvements that are possible with this technique.

We also embedded the clients commercial on their homepage to give an introduction of the product to the uninformed.

I’ve you’ve got some droopy concrete… we’re sure that Michigan Mudjacking can help. If you have a droopy website… we can help.

Shawn is a leading graphic designer in the tri-city area. His clients include the Great Lakes Loons, Saginaw Spirit, and Bay Regional Medical Center. We teamed up with Shawn to build a website that reflects his personality.

When working with creatives, we usually take their vision and introduce it to the internet. One caveat that comes with print designers is an unfamiliarity of the flexabilities and constraints of the internet. Things like font selection, display resolutions, scalability, and dynamic content are sometimes hard to grasp for first timers. Shawn was willing to let us take the lead with the digitization of his design. With the skill of a culinary artist, we sliced and diced Shawn’s graphics and explained the limitations that he was unfamiliar with.

Take a look at his website and please contact him to see if he can help with your next design project. He’s great with tight deadlines and has quite an impressive list of clients. His site lives at 989design.com.

Looks Unlimited is a salon in Bay City, Michigan. MJ Media was enlisted to develop an online presence that represented the quality and showcased the personal attention that they provide to their clients.

Francis, one of the owners, shared with us a story about a bridal party, comprised of a few out-of-state women, that chose to have their hair styled by Looks Unlimited after finding their website.

What we gave them

We developed their website with this in mind and gave them a few unique features:

• Custom Content Management System
• External Link Management System
• Newsletter Archive
• Product Offering System
• Sales System
• Stylist System
• Vacation System

We also provided assistance in setting up a newsletter subscription system that allows the owners to send out a monthly(ish) update to all of their regular customers to notify them of current specials and other news.

If you are looking for great hairstyles stop by Looks Unlimited, if you’re looking for great web styles, contact us.