Many people in the web design community know how to design a beautiful website for their customers.  They know exactly what their customers need for whatever type of business their customers are engaged in, sometimes simply by looking over their brochure or other media PR info.  However when it comes to writing a web design proposal to get the ball rolling, several web designers are left sitting in front of a blank computer screen wondering what to type that will ‘wow’ their perspective customers and take them to that first step, calling the web designer...

A few months ago, I replaced my aging IBM laptop with a brand new Toshiba model. Having done a fair share of complaining about Vista after using it on another PC, I actually attempted to buy a laptop without Vista – I thought it was THAT bad! After realizing that a custom build laptop would cost me twice as many clams, I gave it up and gave into Vista. I have to admit, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. I haven’t had any of the compatibility issues that I’ve heard others reporting, and if anything, Vista and the way it works to organize...

Remember my mini-rant about my Adobe Professional 9 not playing nice with my Word doc forms? The folks over at Adobe must be using Google alerts to keep tabs on their customers, because I got 2 comments from Adobe employees on that post and several emails. The team took the time to investigate my issue and even fixed one of the forms I couldn’t get to work. It turns out, the issue was unrelated to Adobe and probably caused by a hidden field in the Word doc I was converting. Two observations: Blogging can get you attention, good and bad. In this...

All this week, I’ve been working on getting annual training ready to present at work. Our vendor has been…shall we say, less than satisfactory. Part of the issue is that our company, and the level of service we expect, is too much for this small local mom and pop shop to handle. Next year, we’ll either be doing the program in house, or getting a new vendor entirely. This one has had too many hassles and headaches. One of the things that will be changed next year are three videos contained in the program. The problem with using video...

Earlier this week my boss gave me a present in the form of Adobe Acrobat Professional 9. It’s mine, ALL mine so that I can convert existing Word docs into “type-able” PDF forms. Basically, by extending certain rights in Pro, you can enable the form to be “type-able” in Adobe Reader, which almost everyone has. After sending one of the forms to a coworker, we discovered a big issue. She was able to input data and save the form – once. She is unable to edit any of the data she saved or add to any of the fields she didn’t...

Jim, like most men, will watch or play any sport. Lately the big sport around our house has been baseball, which probably has something to do with our 8 year old joining a local league. I’ve been to pro games before, and I get bored very quickly. When it’s your own son up at bat, the game is more interesting. Another way that you can take baseball up a notch is by joining a fantasy baseball league. I imagine this would be right up Jim’s alley. He’s participated in a fantasy football league for several years, and has won his league...

The 2008 budget hasn’t been approved for my department yet, so until it is, no one is traveling anywhere. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, right? Well, I just completed my annual review, and one of my goals was to attend a certain training by 4/1/2008. Our budget should be approved sometime in February, but if it’s not, I need to figure out another way to get that training in, without the expense of airfare and a hotel in another city. We’ve done web conferencing a few times for various meetings, but I’ve never set up my own...

Alltel Cellular is testing out a new feature that I wish At&T had! Alltel users will now be able to have their voicemail messages turned into text messages, using voice recognition software. Instead of calling your voicemail, entering a password, pressing 1 for new messages, pressing 7 to delete messages…you can just read a text message. I love it! I can see how this will have issues though – if you don’t speak clearly, or have an accent, your voice mail to text may not come out as intended. “Meeting at 5″ turns into...

My company recently decided to give our salespeople another CRM software to use, and one of the names mentioned was that of AIMpromote. As the person who ends being the first level support person for whatever software we end up using, I like to keep tabs on the options and upgrades available for each. AIMpromote has recently made some big changes to their CRM offering: Traverse City, MI October 19th 2007 — AIMpromote, provider of lead management and customer relationship management software, has launched a significant upgrade to their CRM offering....

Each month, I get comments and emails from bloggers and blogger wannabes asking me for advice on how to set up websites or new blogs. I can set up a new Wordpress blog in my sleep, but it’s been a long time since I’ve set up a non-blog website. Try ten years! And back then, I used FrontPage or hand coded my HTML pages. My, how times have changed! Now there are site building programs that work with a PC or a MAC that allow you to set up your own website in a matter of minutes, for less than $25. StirSite, for example, gives you a free website...