If you use Excel for data manipulation, here's a handy-dandy free app that has saved me a lot of time: ASAP Utilities.

"ASAP Utilities is a powerful Excel add-in that fills the gaps in Excel and automates frequently used tasks. Since 1999 it has grown to become probably one of the world's most popular add-ins for MS Excel."

Transparency is the new buzz word describing new marketing practices. It’s one of the quintessential aspects of successful brand building today and is the mantra of modern culture.

Transparency, honesty, sincerity or whatever you call it should govern the decision making process when creating any campaign or marketing exercise. Companies like Southwest Airlines, Apple and Ben & Jerry’s have been very successful with their portrayal of transparency, but the bar has been raised. It’s no longer good enough to seem to be personable or honest. One must prove it and continue to practice it to gain consumer trust and acceptance.

At BIG WHEEL, we constantly try to infuse our strategies with this concept. How can we soften the message to make it more palatable? What specific activities can be included to exemplify a company’s desire to communicate on a candid, one-to-one level with consumers? What features or content on a web site will facilitate this dialog, whether implied, virtual or otherwise.

Companies have tried to concoct transparency with disastrous results. It’s pretty easy for thousands, or millions of people, to spot a charlatan. If you think you can pull one over – think again. Just ask Sony or Wal-Mart.

Run with the new approach. Spend marketing dollars on adding value to your community (people you touch), not trying to steal from it. Share your stories, both good and bad. Reality isn’t perfect and it’s good to show some vulnerability. People can relate. Explore new avenues. For example, why pay for branded coffee mugs or other premiums when adding value to society is better use of your money. Maybe a TV spot isn’t the best way to reach your audience. A grassroots effort may be more cost effective and say something different about a business’ philosophy. Appeal to people’s likes and values. Help make life better. Didn’t someone once say something about giving like; you’ll get back far more than you give. And being transparent often involves the giving of something that is not traditionally considered in old school advertising.

I realize this sounds all warm and fuzzy, but when coupled with a strategic initiative based on real business goals, it can result in the creative execution of ideas and pretty surprising results.

Josh Spear of Undercurrent gives a good 20 minute talk on digital youth culture. He notes several IMPORTANT aspects of communicating with people and creating value on the web.

Notice the nice presentation visuals. Not your Daddy's PPT.

I want to like IE 7 and I like Microsoft. I think as a web developer one needs to browse using the most popular browser on the planet so he/she knows how sites display on it. I like the new tabs feature and the "improved" CSS rendering. But why did Microsoft change the JavaScript engine?

All I see are JavaScript error prompts. All kinds of sites that were fine, are now "done with errors". This latest version has been out for quite awhile. Why hasn't there been a fix? Am I missing something? Have you been experiencing the same?

Not to mention the loss of compatiblity to thousands of apps that rely on Active X and require IE that won't work with IE 7- like a little known product like QuickBooks. Maybe I'm stupid but I can't event download updates for my other PC without having to install IE7 first. (Maybe I could, but it's not easy) This is rediculous.

I'm working on a ecommerce project and we're using the  AspDotNetStorefront shopping cart. It's a robust, customizable .NET app. So far I'm very impressed. Worth a look.

We're also using the T-Hub app to connect the store with QuickBooks. AspDotNetStorefront has code integrated into the default install for the T-Hub. In minuted I was able to install, configure and use the T-Hub. Also worth a look if you need to marry a web store with QuickBooks.

I've been studying and participating in Web 2.0 social activities for the past 3 years or so to some degree. Most of the time I see the benefits of this movement, but I have to say, Who gives a shit what people are doing in micro-snippets of information. Why are trivial activities interesting? Is it voyeuristic? Do people rank their coolness by what others, whom they admire or emulate, are up to? Twitter is ridiculous and to me signifies virtual, social activities have jumped the shark.

Top 50 Web Sites of 2006 as chosen by Rob Ford of the Favorite Website Awards.

What’s the best way to show design comps? Do you use FPO images and Latin text? Do you try to make the comp look as close to the final web page as possible?
 
Using FPO images and placeholder text can eliminate the need to have real content prepared for an initial design review, but the question here is, can your design be effectively communicated missing content? And does FPO content mislead or prohibit the client from seeing the final results?

There are times when FPO content is better (at least for the designer) than final content. A designer can pick an image that looks a certain way to strengthen the design or insert just the right amount of text to fill a space. When real content becomes available it may not fit in an allotted space or clash when juxtaposed with other content or the design itself. When this happens a seemingly solid design becomes useless.

Real content gives the client something to recognize, relate to, and judge. A design can be approved because of good content or tarnished in an instant by a typo. People know how to read words and most know how to interpret a photograph, but graphic design is a language few understand and content helps bridge the gap.

I like to have real content. It doesn’t have to be final, but it does have to represent the intended message in the amount of text and types images used. If you put in anything that can be interpreted as real content is must be error free. This is not my rule; it’s reality. No one ever found a typo in Latin, but clients love to point them out in real copy and they’ll dwell on these errors while the design suffers.

Sometimes FPO content is the only option available and other times real content is essential to validate a design and get it approved. Each client and project is different. However, it seems to work best when real content is present in layouts. Regardless of the situation, one needs to assess the client’s ability to visualize and present the design accordingly – easier said than done.

I am pleased to announce my employment with a newly formed interactive marketing firm, BIG WHEEL, located in St. Louis, Missouri. 

As Project Manager, I manage our portfolio of projects, traffic, operations and provide technical direction. Because we're a small shop, we all wear many hats - just the way I like it.

Need a good web partner? Call us. We deliver projects with the discipline of a hard-core IT company blended with the innovative strategy of a "now" media advertising agency.

Need to create image maps (hotspots) on images uploaded via a web-beased content management system? 

CuteSoft.net  Classic ASP and ASP.NET

Free ASP Upload is an ASP class that allows file uploading without the need to install a binary component. Great for shared hosting environments.

Managing emails are a problem. In the outside world, the volume of spam is taxing the system and spam filters have become a major hassle. In a corporate environment, unsolicited emails may not get in, but spam created by co-workers and business associates carbon copying a half-a-dozen people for each intended recipient creates internal spam.

Is has become common practice to abuse using Cc. People use Cc for CYA, I did my job, or look what he/she wrote. Granted, an email is hard evidence an effort to communicate was attempted, but how did we survive before this ability to be so transparent existed? It blows my mind who gets Cc’d on some emails I receive. Most of these sub-recipients couldn’t care less. So people, have some self-control and take responsibility for your communiqués. If you need to share your email, fine, but if it isn’t necessary to inform someone of your actions, don’t.

Another peeve of mine is attachments. I recently set up mailboxes for a client and within a week someone was complaining that a 10Mb limit was too low. When I asked why, they said they needed to send large attachments in excess of 20Mb.

Email is not, nor ever was, intended as a file transport system; File Transport Protocol (FTP) was. Everyone who moves files should know how to use FTP and if 10Mb of mailbox space isn’t enough, you’re not using the system correctly. Use Gmail they give you a whopping 2418 Mb. Party!

Please don’t email anything over 2Mb. Use FTP or another web service. There are dozens of services available today that allow you to move large files using your browser. Some are free for occasional use and others charge a reasonable fee.

Here’s the rub: People Cc too many people with too large of attachments. This creates an enormous amount of unnecessary traffic. Stop the madness. The administrators, mail servers and network will thank you.