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INTERACTIVE AGENCY
Company News
Miscellaneous
Spinning Beach Ball? 8 Ways to Speed Up Your Mac
If you own a Mac, you know what the “Spinning Beach Ball” cursor means: it is going to be a while before you get to use your computer again. At our June Interactive Mixer, we handed out sheets of paper with a few tips for keeping your Mac as fast as the first day you bought it. Several people have asked to have an extra copy of it, so here it is for your reference.
8 Ways To Optimize Your Mac’s Performance
- Clean Out Startup Items
- Apple Menu > System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items
Symfony 2 Conference Hub at the Castle
When the Symfony Live Online conference was first announced, Brandon came up with the great idea to get the entire Nashville Symfony/PHP community to watch it together at centresource. “It’ll be an amazing gathering of nerds the likes of which have never been seen!” he says.
Well, Sensio decided to steal our thunder by suggesting Symfony 2 Conference Hubs a few days later. Hey Sensio, we still take credit for the idea. We thought of it first. And now that’s off my chest, the sales pitch:
My favorite iPad Apps
After a few months with the iPad, I’ve settled upon my favorite apps (thus far). I could go into deep detail as to WHY I like each of these, but I decided to save you the preaching. However, you should always remember that the value of many apps is how well you learn them & incorporate their value into your work flow. The best example: Evernote. You either get it (and love it) or you don’t - kinda simple. So, without further adieu, here’s my list:
More Cool Finds on the Interwebz
Here are some of the cool things we’ve found online recently:
- Contxts.com
Business cards are so 2007. What with the environment in shambles do you really want to be that guy who is handing out chopped up pieces of bleached trees? Contxts.com lets you share your information via SMS! - Mozy.com
An online backup service for consumers and small businesses. Back up all of your personal files, photos, music, etc. automatically online. Worry free! - SnapaBug.com
Help widget for customer service chat on web sites. - RealTime Inline Validation article on GetElastic
Realtime in-line form validation to improve conversions and avoid shopping cart abandonment.
iPad: The first 72 hours
I decided to purchase the iPad as my travel companion in anticipation of a conference I had to attend in Chicago. I don’t own an iPhone (still love my Blackberry Curve), but I do own an iPod Touch and a Mac (converted from Windows 2 years ago). Thus, I’m not an Apple Zealot but I do appreciate gadgets and technology.
After HEAVY usage over the past 72 hours, here are my thoughts:
Most awesome spam ever!
As the owner of an Interactive Agency, I feel like I’ve seen everything on the internet. Well, today I realized that I can still find myself surprised :) While checking my email, I saw a piece of spam & in the short time it took for me to go for the ’spam’ button, it actually caught my attention.
Instead of explaining why, let me just post the message below and say for the record: I want to encourage Spammers to add more ’stories’ to their messages. Its not like I can get you to stop, so you might as well entertain me if you’re going to pollute my inbox. Plus, it makes me feel like I actually got a little ‘personal reading’ in for the day :)
Backups and the Web
Backup solutions and disaster recovery are a mainstay of technology, and they have been well-analyzed in the past — typically from an IT angle. But choosing a solid backup for a website is just as important, and it’s an oft-overlooked final step in the successful deployment of any web site or application. Backup technology has changed a lot over the years, and it can be a daunting task to figure out which solution works for you. This is not a technical guide — there are countless technical solutions to any given backup need. The intent of this guide is to help you understand the nature of your own website and data, and to narrow down the solution that is ideal for your needs. Without a proper understanding of what data your website has and where it’s stored, any backup solution has the potential to languish or be unrestoreable when the worst happens. Read on:
Clean East Nashville with Pepsi’s help!
As an Operations Manager at CS, I spend most of my time trying to figure out how to make our internal processes smoother, so we can spend more time creating amazing applications. All that to say I don’t get to explore the web too often. However, sometimes our developers will tell me about cool new technology or web ‘initiatives’ that I have to check out. Such was the case with the Pepsi Refresh Project.
ShopItToMe: Strategies for Reducing Your Unsubscribes
It’s happened to most all of us. We see some site that has great deals on products or services, and we sign up for an email list. But then, after receiving an email a month/week/day/hour, it gets to be too much noise and we hit that all-too-familiar “unsubscribe” link in the footer of the email.
Dive In! New Ocean Futures Society site launches
We just wrapped up work on a site that we did for Ocean Futures Society, a non-profit marine conservation and education organization. The group’s chairman and spokesman is Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of the legendary ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau. OFS serves as a “Voice for the Ocean” by communicating in all media the critical bond between people and the sea and the importance of wise environmental policy.
