2004 November | flyte blog: small business web marketing blog

Archive for November, 2004

Everybody Get Firefox

Wednesday, November 10th, 2004

I’m already impressed.

I’ve only been playing around with Firefox 1.0, the new browser from Mozilla for a few minutes and already it’s my new favorite. It’s so much faster than Safari, which was so much faster than Internet Explorer (IE). Don’t wait! Download it now!

On top of that, it’s much safer than using IE according to experts much smarter and nerdier than me. Here’s an article on the dangers of IE at BBC online. Of course, this only affects Windows users. Mac users are generally safer, due to the security of the mac…and it’s low market share. (We don’t make as attractive a target.)

Plus, it’s got one feature that us mac users have never had in a browser before: the ability to format text in blog-like environments. Basically, I can create bold and italicized text, even links without knowing any HTML. It works like a stripped-down Word. (Admittedly, this is not a big problem for me, but is helpful for others.) In the past mac users had to type out the html code just to get this to happen in blogs.

At flyte, for a while we’ve been contemplating upgrading our pre-designed "ProSites" into more of a turnkey solution where clients could update their own sites through browsers. However, up until now we’ve held off because the technology was only available to 97% of the population. Maybe in 2005…

Rich Brooks
Firefox Enthusiast

Posted in Off Topic, Web Design & Development | No Comments »

Good article on the Red Sox and their fans

Tuesday, November 9th, 2004

Not much going on today…been building out an e-commerce store for a site we hope to launch this week. Trying to clear as much work as possible off my desk today so I can work from home tomorrow and prepare for my upcoming Email Marketing seminar here in Portland, Maine.

My dad, Dr. Robert Brooks, writes a monthly column on different issues. I’ll be honest, I don’t read it very often because I can’t read everything that our clients post anymore, and besides, his articles are like a billion pages long…single spaced.

However, this article caught my eye because it was entitled: The Boston Red Sox of 2004: Connections to the Past and to the Future. Although the rest of the country (those of you outside Red Sox Nation) may be sick of the story, here in New England it’s still pretty huge. Although I’m more of a Patriots fan, I was psyched (wicked psyched, if you must know) that our Red Sox finally won. I saw it as a win for the fans more than the players, as how could they understand years of futility unless they grew up as BoSox fans?

I found myself more relieved than anything else. (Actually, I also found myself reveling in Yankee fan’s angst, but that’s a blog for another day.) The articles after the World Series win that I found interesting were not the play-by-plays, or even how Curt Schilling worked through his pain, but rather the profound effect it had on people’s lives, and what memories it brought back about throwing the ball around in back yards across New England. It really transcended sports…or maybe this is truly what sports is all about.

In any case, my dad had some nice things to say about it all. Plus, he mentions me and my family. Wonder if he does this a lot? Maybe I’ll have to start reading his articles. You should, too.

Rich Brooks,
Son of Dr. Robert Brooks

Posted in Off Topic | No Comments »

3 for 3

Friday, November 5th, 2004

Trust me, it’s not usually like this. We’re not launching a site a day…we’ve just been very busy lately.

This was a redesign of a site we developed in conjunction with SmartCatalog a while back. Anne Valentine, the owner of SmartCatalog, (a very smart cookie indeed,) is also a graphic designer. She designed the new layout of the site and flyte developed it into a working Web site.

SmartCatalog offers content management software for academic catalogs published by schools and universities. If you’re in charge of your school’s academic catalog or curriculum, you should check out their site.

Rich Brooks,
Promoter-Of-All-That-Is-Good

Posted in Web Site Launches | No Comments »

Another day, another Web site…

Thursday, November 4th, 2004

Yesterday, shortly after I put up my first post, we launched a Web site for Glendale Adventist Medical Center’s Medical Staff Office. Sounds dry, I know, but it was actually pretty cool. We got to do a lot of backend programming to automate what the office staff does on a daily basis.

The office staff can create meetings and invite physicians by name or speciality through an admin we created. The nursing staff can quickly look up a physician’s privileges to make sure they are permitted to perform a surgery. ("Doctor! Put down that scalpel! That patient requires a quadruple-bypass surgery and you’re only cleared for double-bypass. Slowly walk away from the table…") Or something like that.

In addition, other hospitals can ask for "affiliation letters:" documentation proving that a physician is in good standing at Glendale. In the "old" days hospitals would mail the request and wait up to a month while the office staff spent countless hours putting together the info for these requests. Now, hospitals get the info instantaneously and there’s no work on the office staff’s part. Now that’s pretty cool!

This is the kind of site flyte wants to be doing more of: creating the self-service Web site. People visit sites to get information and take care of things. Sites that don’t allow for this level of interactivity are going the way of the dinosaur. (That means they’re going away.)

Rich Brooks,
Internet-Know-It-All

Posted in Web Site Launches | No Comments »

Genesis

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2004

Well, after a few aborted starts, here we go…

Since I’ve recently been recommending starting a blog to a number of my clients, I felt I should bite the bullet and write one of my own.

Although I plan on digressing often, I’m hoping that this blog will be a good soapbox for talking about entrepreneurial issues, specifically related to the Web. We try a lot of different things at flyte new media, my Web company, trying to help clients succeed. What works–and what doesn’t–will be discussed here.

While I’m on the subject, if you happen to be in Portland, Maine on Wednesday, November 17th, please come by for our free Email Marketing Seminar. It’s held at the Resource Hub here in town. You can learn more at our Web site.

Also, from a self-promotional standpoint I’m hoping that the links from this blog to our own site, and to our clients’ sites, will help raise their profile and search engine ranking.

BTW, yesterday we launched a new home page design for Hewins Travel. We didn’t design any of the internal pages, so don’t look past the home page…unless of course you want to book a trip.