centre{source}
INTERACTIVE AGENCY
If you bill time & materials, you deserve to hear this…
History has proven to me that it is very difficult for clients to understand time & knowledge as an actual currency. If you’re in the time & materials industry, you’ll appreciate what I’m talking about. My wife, who’s a lawyer, was kind enough to send me a song that really helps me bridge the gap with my clients :) [Remember, this is meant to be funny - don't get your feelings hurt!]
Yahoo using Drupal/Symfony
Nothing will make you more nervous than switching your entire business model to support a new technology :) Particularly when that technology is ONLY supported by the Open Source community. Regardless, it looks like we were right again - or at least not way off the beaten path.
Over a year ago, our team of super geniuses recommended we use Symfony/Doctrine as our MVC Framework & ORM. They also recommended we switch to Drupal for our CMS platform. After 3-6 months, we learned that Yahoo had been quietly using Symfony for their internal PHP app framework!!! Now, we have more good news :) Dries Buytaert had a good post letting us know that Yahoo is using Drupal to create some of their retail sites. Check out Yahoo Research to see Drupal in action.
Website Grabber | Offline Browser
Today, we had a client call us and ask if we can ’save’ their website from an aggressive website designer that is holding their site hostage. I told them yes and thought an easy solution would be to find a utility that allowed us to easily clone/grab their website. I must say, I was surprised at the difficulty in finding a free utility to do this.
Part of the problem came from the search terms I started with. I thought this would be called a ’site grabber’ - and many paid utilities thought the same :) I then switched to Website Clone, but to no avail. Finally, I that download.com called these utilities “Offline Browsers”. Doing a quick search for Offline Browser struck gold!
Phone Prison - Google best, MSN the worst
In the course of doing research for a client, I’m now experiencing what I’ve heard so many others complain about: Phone Prison. I used to believe that ‘phone prison’ was simply an older person’s way of saying that working through a phone system took too much effort. Now I realize that there really are Phone Prisons - systems designed to keep you locked out from actually talking to a person!!!
Digital Copywriter Kerry Woo Joins CentreSource
CentreSource Inc. is pleased to announce that Kerry Woo has joined the custom web design firm as Digital Copywriter.
“We are very happy to have Kerry join our family,” said Nicholas Holland, CEO / President of CentreSource Inc. “His experience in print and online marketing, paired with his reputation for relationship management, is a welcomed resource to our firm. Our expansion of Search Engine Optimization and Marketing allows us to deliver not only pleasing, but profitable web design solutions for our enterprise clients.”
PayPal: A thousand curses on your name…
Nutshell: After having a terrible experience with them during my campaign (read more) & spending weeks to get it fixed, they decided to come back and harass me one last time - for old time’s sake. Since I’m out of the race, I decided to close my campaign-related paypal account. Upon emailing them, they send me directions on how to close the account - which I perform successfully. A few weeks later, I learn that my business-related paypal account is disabled and none of my linked credit cards even work when trying to pay someone else that uses PayPal. Last, I tried to follow the steps listed in my account but they were ‘blank’ and even confused the customer care rep - who was also nice enough to let me know that she really couldn’t help me… only an email to compliance@paypal.com.
CentreSource: Name change?
So, we’ve decided that its probably time to change our name :) After 3+ years in business, its become very clear that CentreSource is a case study in how NOT to name your company or create a logo. In the beginning, CS was envisioned (by me) to be a global outsourcing provider for a variety of services - kinda like LBMC. After 1.5 years, we decided to become a web design firm and the name became less of a fit. Moreover, we constantly have to explain the spelling since we pronouce it “Centersource” and when people read it they say “Centrasource”. The best kicker is that we designed the logo so that the first part of the word is separated from the second part - and we even capitalized the ’s’! This leads everyone to write it out as ‘Centre Source’. Whew, talk about trouble.
Bad PayPal! - When security becomes ridiculous
Want to know the perfect formula on how to create a frustrating system, provide terrible customer service, and manage to drive a loyal customer to hate? Just take lessons from PayPal - they are doing a great Job at really screwing up.
Here’s the magic combo:
First, PayPal created some security restrictions that ‘automatically’ triggered on my account. While they won’t say, I’m guessing its because I accepted 20-30 payments before I attempted to make a full-withdrawal. Regardless, this sparked their security system and it asked that I certify my account (this is different than verify). To do this, I have to ADD MY PERSONAL CREDIT CARD to the account ?@?#$@#$# I also have to verify my SS#. The first step takes 1 week for the transaction to show on my personal CC#… The second step fails because they say that I’ve used my SS# at some point in the past.
Great USB Backup App / Utility
I just found a great backup app (utility) for my USB drive. The app that comes with PortableApps isn’t very flexible and it drove me to finding something better. Luckily, I found Freebyte Backup through PortableFreeware.com. They even told me how to ‘make it more portable’ by avoiding the installation and simply running the .EXE & creating my own profiles. Hope this helps others looking for a stable, feature-rich USB backup utility.
Dangers of a Bad Website
In the early years, some could argue that having a website, albeit bad, was still superior to not having one at all. Websites were not the ‘norm’ and having one proved that your firm was unique and cutting edge. Fast forward 10 years and this is no longer the case – every business and organization is expected to have a website. But times are changing again! It is no longer acceptable to simply have a website. Now organizations are at risk to the dangers of a bad website.