One of the things we test extensively on our sites is cross-browser compatibility. We try to make sure that your site looks the same (or as close as we can come) on all major browsers. One would think that all browsers are standards-compliant and would render web pages the same. Not so, especially with Microsoft's Internet Explorer. It's getting better with each release. Speaking of new IE releases, this story says that Microsoft will be rolling out IE9 automatic upgrades to all XP, Vista and Windows 7 users. Hopefully this will mean that the percentage of users who are on...

One of our favorite things about redesigning a site is not only what happens on the outside, but on the inside as well. Refacing or restyling a site so that it appears different to the viewer can spike enthusiasm and renew site interest. Adding new tools for customers or that allow you to make your internal processes more efficient can spike your profit!  These facts are what make us continue to promote ourselves as middle of the road. Think that's not very complimentary? In our experience, there are two basic types of web design teams found in smaller firms--those focused...

What makes your business or organization unique? What should people deal with you, rather than any of the other similar outfits? What makes you stand out from the crowd? This is the sort of information the home page of your site should convey. Some call this the unique value proposition. Another way of thinking about this is the answer to your prospect's question "Who are you and why should I care?" I thought about this again the other week when we lost a client. Yes, that does happen on occasion. This was a client who never updated their site, never wanted the site to a hub of business activity, wouldn't listen to any of our suggestions or proposals. They moved to a different service provider. I asked them the obvious question: "why?" This was his reply:

Probably half of our clients rarely, if ever, update their sites. We don't update our home page often, but we do blog semi-regularly. It's just become more important to all of us to update our web site's content regularly. Why? A post just appeared ont the official Google Blog (you didn't know they had one, did you?) entitled Giving you fresher, more recent search results, Google will now more heavily weight freshness of content. How heavily? They're rather vague about that, but the article seems to indicate that this will be a major shift for Google. My take-away from this is

Early next year, the next major release of Joomla will be released. It's currently slated to be called Joomla! 2.5. Don't ask me why, I didn't number it. Joomla 1.5 will thereafter hit end-of-live. Joomla 2.5 is scheduled to be supported for at least 18 months. Some of our client sites are Joomla 1.0, most are 1.5. We often get asked 'why should I have to upgrade my site? After all, it's working just fine.' And it may be, for the moment, but the sea is changing around it. When a piece of software reaches end-of-life, the developers quit maintaining it. This includes bug-fixes and security patches. Unfortunately, the bad guys don't lose interest in end-of-life software. In fact they actively start looking for vulnerabilities in older software, because they know the security holes won't be fixed. Along with this is