3… 2… 1… 1/2…. 1/4… 1/8… Just Launch Already!

Just read a  great blog from Matt Wullenweg, initial developer of WordPress, talking about launching products.

Matt brought up some important points following the announcement of Steve Jobs stepping down.

The article spoke about the importance of launching products, and how versions improve quickly and the only real way to test gadgets (such as Apple’s Ipod) is to get it in the hands of the public.

It’s a great article, and you can read it here: Matt’s Blog.

Websites, like gadgets, need to see the light of day!

Pull the trigger! Launch the site! The whole idea behind our Content Management Systems is that you can – and should! – update your site often.

So, make sure you have accurate information on your site. Make sure it’s not half-baked. Do not launch with a bunch of “coming soon” pages – but DO go live.
You can adjust the content anyway! And you should be! When you launch your site suddenly people from all over the world are going to see it – and they are going to react differently than you may have anticipated.

Perfect!

We can show you how to hide pages, create drafts, change images, and move menu items around. So please. If you love your website, set it free. Put it on the web and water it daily, prune it occasionally, and watch it grow.

You can no longer think of your website as a shiny sign you’re hanging on the front of your building to bring business in.

It’s more like an employee, out in the world shaking hands, inviting people to do business with you, welcoming people to your business, explaining what you do, asking questions and providing answers to your guests.

So keep an eye on it. But let it get out there and do it’s work.

Speaking of, you may want to check out these new sites:
First Stop Family Law
Town of Allan

Community, E-commerce, and Charity

So we attended a conference down in San Fran and one of the developers who also attended was in an accident shortly after.
We wish him well and hope he has a full recovery although he’s in bad shape and has a long way to go. You can read his story and make a donation at http://getwellptah.com/ 

What brings this story to the Omnilogic blog is the e-commerce side of things. You can see how a simple. single transaction paypal button can be added to a website with relative ease. With each addition to e-commerce you’re getting exponentially more difficult, which is why it’s so difficult to find an inexpensive solution – but keep in mind we’re talking about transferring funds ANYWHERE in the world, securely, instantly, and safely.

We can assist you with a simple integration like this – adding a paypal button to a site to collect funds; we can help you start a simple online store with an item or two and a variety of integrations with paypal; and we can help you with a full blown e-commerce store, like we’ve done at www.theriderstore.com

Get well soon, Ptah. And please, folks, wear a helmet when you’re on a motorcycle.

#WCSF – Outstanding Time!

Well the crew from Omnilogic headed down in waves to San Francisco for the 5th and largest San Fran WordPress Word Camp yet. http://2011.sf.wordcamp.org/

We were treated to the sites (pun intended) and sounds San Fran had to offer (as well as the smells but I wont get into that here) and I speak for us all when I say I was impressed.
It’s always interesting when you go to new cities to compare it to home, and you don’t get much different between San Fran and Regina – one smack in the middle of the prairie, built on a nice, municipal grid system of streets and with a 360 degree view of the surrounding prairie from any skyscraper, the other, grown up around a harbour and scaling the walls and hills of California in a mish-mash of concrete and glass.

The conference itself began Friday with two channels, and Chad Frentz was on the scene to catch some interesting information. Jeff and I were in the air while day one of the conference was going on, but when we landed we met up with Chad, Jon, Jon’s wife Amanda, and the boys from www.binarym.com

We sampled some of the culture that San Fran had to offer, while swapping the web-developer equivalent of fishing stories, and the friendly competition and collusion these events brings out really energized the Omnilogic team.

We had some excellent experiences while down there, and met a lot of great people. It’s always entertaining to see how people are using the same technology we are, what they’re doing with it we didn’t think to try, and how they’ve solved some of the problems we’ve been running into when working with this ever expanding technology. In particular we spent some great time talking with Social Media Experts, SEO Specialists, E-Commerce Developers, and Security Experts – learning great ways to get your site out there, make it easier for people to find it, make purchasing on the web simple to use, and ensure that you don’t damage your companies reputation with security blips.

Now is a great time to call us and discuss your website – we’re back to full staffing starting next week (we’ve all been taking turns enjoying the summer!) and we’d love to look at ways to make your website out perform your competition!

While this was my first WordCamp, I will give a shout out to the organizers, as it was fantastic. Starting the day with a fresh, hot coffee, eating a delicious lunch, and then having an event each evening that encouraged socializing – what more could you ask for to bookend three days of informative and energizing talks from some of the industries experts! So, while I can’t call myself an expert on WordCamp – I am confident saying that this one was great!

Just Because You’re Paranoid Doesn’t Mean They’re Not After You

I received another phone call from a client today with a question about their domain name. They’d been approached by a company via snail mail, and warned that their domain name was coming up for renewal and that if they didn’t want to lose their domain name then they had to renew it. The company offered to renew the domain name for them and had what looked similar to an invoice in the envelope.

I received a similar letter a short while ago.

Nothing in this letter is exactly untrue.

1. You do have to renew your domain name on a regular basis. That timeline is different for many customers but generally ranges from 1 – 10 years.
2. If you don’t renew your domain name you will lose the right to use it, and someone else may buy it. This is a major concern, with domain squatters jumping in at the right time, stealing a domain name and then selling it back to the original owner for profit.
3. There are many options to renew your domain name – and the company that sent this letter could be considered among them.

The client did the right thing – and called us. Part of the reason we’re here is to help you feel good about your Website. If you’re not sure about something – how to update it, when to change the pictures and layout, how SSL certificates affect your site or when your domain name is up for renewal – then don’t hesitate to call or email.

It didn’t take us long to reassure this customer that her domain name was in no peril. With the recent changes to our policies, we now renew domain names automatically for our hosting customers – giving them one less thing to worry about.

With the company we use to renew domain names there are several safeguards in place to ensure the right people get their domain name. When a domain name is due for renewal there are email reminders sent to us. For our hosting customers, renewal is automatic. If a domain isn’t renewed there is a 30 day holding period where only the prior owner can renew it. After that there is an additional holding period, ensuring that no ‘domain squatters’ can ‘steal’ a domain name that is in use.

So, thanks to our client for bringing this concern to us, and we remind people that if in doubt – feel free to call or email us. We love to chat with our clients, both current and prospective!

An article of interest:

http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=59307

The Town of Redvers

It’s always exciting when you can see hard evidence of online success. We get a lot of requests from people to bring their visions to the World Wide Web. With tools like our statistics package we can always tell how a website is doing for traffic. We can even analyze the sales data and say – “Hey! The new site went online and your brick and mortar sales increased 150% in a single year.” (The actual number was 400% for the client I have in mind, but you wouldn’t believe that number would you?) But one thing that is always great to say is: “You had a goal. You built the website. The goal was achieved and the website helped.”

There are a lot of factors to the success of a website – how you promote it, how you update it, and sometimes it seems the alignment of the moon… But when you have a specific goal in mind and that goal is achieved then it makes us feel great!

So I wanted to take a moment and brag for the Town of Redvers. This beautiful little community two and a half hours out of Regina towards the Manitoba border had a very specific goal. They wanted to protect their town. How? They badly needed medical personnel to come to the state-of-the-art facilities they had created using the Town’s vision, cohesion, and willingness to work together.

They had everything that a Doctor would need to set up a thriving practice – except the Doctors. Many of the members of the town got together and decided a critical step would be to showcase the town to Doctors all over the world. It wasn’t enough to talk about the facilities in Redvers – the pools, the curling rinks, the spacious affordable housing – they wanted to show people what it’s like to live in a small town community in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Like any progressive Saskatchewan town they were already using the Internet to share information such as community activities, local news, and articles of interest to the people that lived in the town. But what they wanted was something that said to Doctors all over the world – this is a place to call home.

Check out www.townofredvers.org and see for yourself. The Town has recently announced the signing of two (yes, TWO) Doctors and is working with the Sun Country Health Region to re-open the hospital that had closed due to a lack of medical personnel. For now, Dr. Lettie Kgobisa is seeing patients in the clinic while Dr. Hlatshwayo finishes up the paperwork necessary to settle in Redvers from South Africa.

The Town of Redvers have now turned their attention to attracting Nurses to support the Doctors – which shouldn’t be a problem… there’s no shortage of Nurses in Saskatchewan… right? Well – the Town has never shied away from a little hard work, and as you can see – hard work pays off.

Congratulations, Town of Redvers!