UC Santa Cruz’s world-famous Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems apprenticeship program is helping change agri-business. The www.growafarmer.org website helps alumni, along with the growing community of beginning farmers, with resources, event information, and a beginning farmer forum. A shovel might not be as sexy as a guitar, but the results sure taste good!

Some site highlights:

• Job listings
• Land listings
• Alumni current and past project and business descriptions
• Farmer Forum
• Google map integration
• Member messaging system
• Online and alumni member management system

The Life Sciences Foundation’s website (www.lifesciencesfoundation.org – recently built and launched by Workbox) showcases important events, people, discoveries and organizations in the life sciences from the 18th century to the present. One of LSF’s goals was to create a dynamic, scrolling timeline feature that would give users an idea of the site’s subject matter, emphasize the presentation of “years and events” and help users quickly click into content.

We were all originally inspired by Google’s corporate timeline and all the great, free stuff they provide, but we needed to add a bit more functionality and design grooviness – and every bit of content, from the images to dropdown menus, had to be managed through our PHP-based content management system.

Ultimately, we decided to build the basic functionality using the jQuery Draggable plugin and jQuery UI animation plugin. Workbox’s technical architect, Kirill Egorov, decided not to use Sencha Touch and jQuery Mobile solutions as they he felt that were too complicated and cumbersome for our purposes. So, a simpler solution was found. We’re going to show the code that specifically handles dragging/listing.

Identifying the device (function IsTouch):

We also used the jQuery Touch plugin, but it had to be modified because the start position of the “timeline” layer didn’t work correctly for our “move” event. Originally in the plugin, the start position of the layer to drag was defined as follows:

In the “touch” method we rewrote the piece that has to do with calculating the shift for “left” position:
Replacing this line:

with these

_startPos[0] — position of the pointer at “touchstart” event
_startData[0] —shift of the left position for the dragged layer at “touchstart”

Finally, this is how we initialize the component:

As a result, the timeline scrollbar works on IOS and Android mobile browsers!
Please feel free to use this stuff, give us feedback and send us links to stuff you’re built using it!

Cheers, Kirill Egorov, Gleb Aksyutchenko

Most small business owners design and build their websites like this:

First, hire a designer and start with a great-looking logo. Then, design a homepage that has all the stuff they want in it. Next, start building the website. Finally, write all the content.

This is the exact opposite of what you should do if you want to build your site as cheaply and efficiently as possible.

Instead, to save money and move quickly, here are the proper steps to follow to build your website:

1. Outline all the pages you want in your website and write as much content as possible (preferably, all of it).

2. Create a sitemap and architecture (I’ve attached a simple web architecture done in PowerPoint that you might find useful, but you can simply sketch it out on paper, use Word or whatever you’re comfortable with).

3. Hire a web designer and developer to design the logo and homepage simultaneously – show logo designs within homepage designs so you are sure the logo will work in context.

4. Finalize content while the site is being built.

Essentially, I am suggesting you do the most difficult task first: write content.

I’ll explain why later, but let’s back up and talk about what is involved in building your website.

Your small business website consists of three basic elements: content, design and technology.

The content is the words, images and videos contained in the website – you create this yourself or hire writers, photographers (or purchase images) and videographers.

The design is how your website looks and how the content is arranged within the pages – this is typically done by a professional web designer.

The technology is the actual pages that show content on the Web and get found by people through search engines, and it runs the various bits of functionality and features contained within the site – this is typically handled by a professional web designer or developer.

The goal, ultimately, is for your small business website to present your company in a compelling way. To build a compelling website, you need a solid site architecture, which is determined by the content. Then you need a great design, which is determined by your industry, brand, architecture and content. Finally, you need handy technology which will be used to manage the content within the design and architecture. It starts and ends with content.

Now, I’ll give you three reasons why you should write your website’s content before you do anything else: money, money and money.

Reason 1: Money & Efficiency

Let’s start with a question. Can you know how many pages your site will contain if you haven’t written the content?

No, you can’t. You may have an outline and think you know how many pages your website will contain, but until you put finger to keyboard, you only have an estimate. Once you start putting the words and pictures together, the number of pages will change. And since many inexpensive web designers charge by the page, the page count could affect your budget.

And, hey –want to drive your web designer crazy and spend more money at the same time? It’s easy! Just say this: “Oops. I just found out we need another page in the top navigation bar.”

Time comes to a standstill, and your designer’s blood pressure rises along with your bill.

Reason 2: Money & Design

Homepage designs are probably the most expensive element of the design process. You save money and time when you know exactly what content and images go onto your homepage. Remember, every edit or tweak could cost money and waste time.

Reason3: Money & Time

Small business websites are almost always delayed because the content is not finished. People never believe me when I say this, but it’s true. Whether it’s a team member bio that needs editing or a product description that needs updating, content is usually the problem.

The truth is that most people don’t like writing and will put it off as long as possible. But dive in and bang it out – you’ll be glad you did.

With best wishes, Eric Weidner

Workbox is delighted to announce the launch of SurgLine.com. SurgLine is a key part of our growing portfolio of healthcare, pharma and biotech clients.

SurgLine sells high-quality surgical products at a significant discount. They work directly with distributors so the distributors can pass the savings onto hospitals. We’re excited to be part of their online marketing team and know they’ll do well.

Also, as many of you know, Workbox works with select companies on an expenses & equity basis. SurgLine is one of those, and we’re happy to see that they have agreed to have their private stock acquired by a publicly traded company, CNUV. The press release is here:

http://www.surgline.com/news/china-nuvo-solar-announces-definitive-agreement-signed-to-acquire-medical-products-company-surgline-inc/

As of today, the stock is trading at .003 or so.

Again, we’re excited about SurgLine and look forward to helping them dominate online!

Cheers, Eric

LAS VEGAS, NV– Constellation Asset Advisors, Inc. (CAA) today announced that it has launched its new corporate site, www.ConstellationAA.com, developed by its web designer and partner, Workbox, Inc. of San Francisco, CA. The website provides a comprehensive overview of CAA including News, Services, Partners, and Testimonials.

“The website launch is the next step in our development,” said Jens Dalsgaard, President of CAA. “We’ve assembled a formidable team of experienced professionals as well as expert service providers such as our partner, Workbox. The site provides clear insights into the Workbox team’s talent and ability.”

One of CAA’s core beliefs is that all publically traded companies should have a professionally-produced website that clearly and transparently communicates up-to-the-minute information such as press releases and company updates. Workbox websites enable a corporation to efficiently manage the enormous daily flow of investor and shareholder requests that a result from effective and consistent communication. Small companies should aspire to look their best and using Workbox as their web developers will help build recognition and respect on Wall Street and among existing and prospective investors.

“We have worked with Jens and the dynamic team at Constellation for nearly a decade. They take their business very, very seriously and demand nothing short of the best for their clients,” said Eric Weidner, President of Workbox, Inc. “‘Second Best’ does not exist in Constellation’s vocabulary. We are honored that they continue to work with us and that they carte blanche know we are the ultimate solution to make sure their clients look their best in today’s ever-changing high tech world.”

About Constellation Asset Advisors, Inc.:

Constellation Asset Advisors, Inc. (”CAA”) is a multi-faceted equity markets consulting firm. The senior principals of CAA have been engaged in private equity since 1985, and have collectively over 50 years of Wall Street experience. CAA provides advisory services to dynamic small and mid-sized companies, as well as services to clients in the energy, specialty chemicals, high technology and health care sectors. CAA seeks to partner with publicly traded, fully reporting entities. It provides advisory services on acquisition and merger management, capital investment, turnarounds, and a myriad of other business transactions. CAA brings further value by using its multi-market experience and top-level strategic alliances to bring together unique, undervalued assets and the groups that can most efficiently capitalize on them. CAA maintains a strong emphasis on established, long term partnerships and business arrangements with the best companies and partners in their respective markets.

Safe Harbor Statement
This report includes forward-looking statements covered by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Because such statements deal with future events, they are subject to various risks and uncertainties and actual results for fiscal year 2011 and beyond could differ materially from the Company’s current expectations. Forward-looking statements are identified by words such as “anticipates,” “projects,” “expects,” “plans,” “intends,” “believes,” “estimates,” “targets,” and other similar expressions that indicate trends and future events. Factors that could cause the Company’s results to differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements include, without limitation, variation in demand and acceptance of the Company’s products and services, the frequency, magnitude and timing of paper and other raw-material-price changes, general business and economic conditions beyond the Company’s control, timing of the completion and integration of acquisitions, the consequences of competitive factors in the marketplace including the ability to attract and retain customers, and the Company’s success in attracting and retaining key personnel. The Company undertakes no obligation to revise or update forward-looking statements as a result of new information since these statements may no longer be accurate or timely.

For further information, contact:

For further contact:
Constellation Asset Advisors, Inc.
3753 Howard Hughes Parkway, Suite 200
Las Vegas, NV. 89169
(702) 784-7628

For Media and Public Relations:
Propheta Communications, Inc
www.propheta.com
Kevin Mercuri, President
(212)901-6914

Workbox is very pleased to announce the launch of Viant Group’s new website at http://www.viantgroup.com.

As with all custom design implementations we build in WordPress, it’s the little details that get us excited. Here are some of them:

Transactions

Our “transactions” user interface in WordPress lets Viant add a single image (a “tombstone,” as it is called in the financial world) that will automatically appear:

1. In the homepage “scroller” (Jquery!).

2. On appropriate team member pages:
http://www.viantgroup.com/our-team/scott-smith/

3. On appropriate services pages:
http://www.viantgroup.com/services/mergers-acquisitions/sell-a-company/

4. On appropriate industry pages (about the various industries they serve):
http://www.viantgroup.com/industries/internet-online-advertising/

5. On the page listing all transactions (sortable by industry categories):
http://www.viantgroup.com/transactions/

In support of this, we also helped Viant build an open-source “tombstone” template that they can use to create their own image files in OpenOffice Draw.

News & Events

We integrated our standard News & Events widget along with the sidebar feature that shows the three latest news items automatically. Check it out:
http://www.viantgroup.com/services/raising-capital/

A Bright, Friendly, Professional Design

Our design director, Stephanie Heald, did a great job capturing the look the Viant team wanted, and Viant is delighted with Trish Tunney’s photography (www.trishtunney.com).

WordPress Plugins

We built 11 special plugins that make the admin UI easier for the Viant folks (and all of our WordPress clients) to use. These plugins help them manage or automate the neat bits of functionality utilized in Viant’s custom WordPress theme – all built by Artemy Kudryavtsev, our technical director.

In any event …

We hope you find Viant’s new site to be easy to understand, easy to navigate and easy on the eyes. If you or anyone you know needs help with website consulting, marketing, design or development, please let us know!

With best wishes,

Eric Weidner

Note: this is not a comment on Flash’s quality, usability or usefulness. And this post is not about app development or sites purposely built entirely in Flash.

This is a comment on current perceptions about Flash and how it relates to online marketing websites.

B2B folks specifically don’t want Flash for their homepage animations anymore. And here are the top four reasons I’m hearing in my conversations with business owners and online marketers:

Reason #1 – iPad. Browser compatibility on the iPad and smartphones is top of mind of B2B marketers.

Reason #2 – “Flashiness.” Clients have seen too many “flashy” or excessively long, elaborate and slow animations.

Reason #3 – SEO. Google doesn’t index content inside Flash files.

Reason #4 – HTML 5, AJAX/Jquery are “cool,” Flash is “old” and “uncool.” When middle-aged executives of mention HTML 5 and say “no Flash,” you know there’s change in the wind.

Homepage Animations

Animations on marketing website homepages are the real issue here. For years, designers have been building, and clients have been asking for, some sort of animation on homepages. These animations, and the content in them, are designed to quickly show a viewer what the company or product is all about, since they grab viewers’ attention.

And since the functionality within these animations is very limited (usually just movement, linking and maybe CMS integration), Flash is no longer required to make them work.

The 4 Reasons and What They Mean

#1 – Flash doesn’t play on the iPad.

The iPad is incredibly popular among folks in the high-tech business-to-business marketplace, so the people I talk to might be more concerned about the iPad than people in other industries. And really, they’re only concerned about the main animation on homepages. Video and other Flash-based page elements are not as big a concern – yet (maybe because there are so many site-specific apps … which defeats the whole purpose of browsers … don’t get me started).

#2 – “Flashiness.”

This reason has nothing to do with Flash itself, but is rather the result of design and content issues. Some companies love having long, elaborate animations on their homepages. Some people hate them. In any event, the messenger (Flash in this case) is blamed.

#3 – SEO.

It’s true that Google does index the content in Flash files that appear embedded in homepages. But, it doesn’t do a great job at it and you can’t get the same value as you would with HTML text, for various reasons. However, pages with Flash embedded really aren’t penalized unless the Flash slows down the page load time (which is a good reason to keep any homepage animation short and sweet – see #2 above). On the other hand, unless non-Flash homepage animations use the alt-tag (which many don’t for design reasons – some people don’t like how it looks when the text appears on mouseover) or include real HTML text, they aren’t gaining any benefit by not using Flash.

#4 – Flash “uncool;” AJAX/HTML 5/Jquery “cool.”

When you have Google, Firefox and Apple all behind HTML 5, it’s hard for Adobe to fight back (although Google still supports Flash rather impressively on YouTube, and most pro designers use Adobe products on their Mac PCs – go figure).

Also, I think there are deeper and more profound reasons behind how quickly people started reacting negatively to Flash. First, I believe that most people don’t like the idea of plugins, and don’t want to have to rely on one to make their marketing site work properly. And I believe there is a basic understanding by online marketers that the content in homepage animations is not worth the trouble of downloading a plugin. (A video of a dog playing a piano, however, is a different story! People will do anything to see that.)

Second, online marketers and developers don’t like proprietary software and players, and the idea of an “open source” video codec and support is very appealing, especially if it promises to play across all browsers and operating systems.

Well, we’ll see if that ever comes to pass.

Whatever the real reason, professional online marketers and consultants are dissing Flash and praising Jquery – probably without understanding the underlying issues around video codecs and < video > support at all.

Final Thoughts About Flash & iPad

Is Apple trying to kill Flash? Is Flash as awful as Apple says? I’m staying out of that argument. But, for better or worse, Flash has an image problem that might never go away.

Note: Yes, yes, I know – the Workbox site still has Flash on its homepage … cobbler’s shoes.

Yours, Eric Weidner

WordPress has become a standard content management system for many corporate websites, and for good reason – it’s powerful, easy to use and it’s free! However, since it was built to be a blogging system, rather than a “real” CMS, WordPress lacks some features that many organizations require to be able to manage their content properly.

Specifically, WordPress out-of-the-box lacks:
• A revision system – Functionality that allows editors to view previous versions of pages, and roll back to one of them instantly.
• Preview/draft features for “pages” – Most people use the “pages” functionality in WP-ADMIN to create the content pages that establish the main site structure (About Us, Products, Services, etc.). Unfortunately, you can’t make a change to a page that’s already live without publishing this change, or making the page “dead” when you have it in preview mode (ugh!).

We’re sure we’re not alone in tackling these issues, but we thought our readers would like to see our solution.

Revisions & Version Control

Here’s a screenshot of the version control section of the page editor UI:

So, this system allows editors to do the following things:
• Store all previous versions of page/record.
• Compare any 2 versions, which is facilitated by color-coding the differences.
• Restore any version.

Preview Feature

For the pages preview feature, here’s our solution architecture:
• In wp-config.php disable the autosave (set autosave time to 10,000 seconds) and WordPress’ versioning default
  define(’WP_POST_REVISIONS’, 0);
  define( ‘AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL’, 10000 );
• Replace the standard WP block that contains the save/publish buttons with our own block.
• Create a table where we will store versions of pages. Only title and content fields are versioned.
• At the bottom of the page users will see a large form & table supporting roll-backs, version comparison, etc. (see screenshot above).
• When users hit the Save Draft button, the page does not get updated. Instead this new revision gets stored in our table with a special flag. The next time a user goes to edit the page, the system checks if this page has a draft. If it does, the system serves the draft and allows the user to edit/preview/publish it.
• With our solution, when you hit Preview, the record does not get saved into the database (as was the case with Wordpress’ default implementation). Instead the title and content gets submitted into a form, and passed to a new window (with the address of the page on the frontend). A special function then replaces the actual values of title and content with the values from the form (i.e. the draft values).

We hope you find this useful! Also, we would love to get any feedback or other ideas you may have for this particular WordPress content management issue.

Yours, Gleb Aksyutchenko

My good friend Steve Muller just launched a new web design & dev company that focuses on helping digital and ad agencies with sophisticated online work. They do very, very cool stuff.

Here’s what Steve says:

“We have just launched our new company, Fortified. Our goal is to provide web and mobile development, technology and expertise to digital and advertising agencies.

http://fortifiedstudio.com

We’re a proven team of seasoned pros with decades of experience in interactive software development for top-tier brands and agencies. Chris Brant (Technology Director), Steve Muller (Executive Producer), Dave Cole (Interactive Director).

By operating as a fully project-managed team, we deliver efficiency and a single point of contact for agency producers. From Requirements Gathering to Quality Assurance and everything in between, Fortified Studio delivers the software components that allow brilliant digital creative to perform brilliantly.”

You may be wondering why I’m giving Fortified Studios a shout-out when they seem like competitors to Workbox. But, we’re actually pretty different.

1. What we build is different. Workbox mostly builds marketing websites that are like a platform for online marketing – marketing sites, blogs, lead gen stuff, content management systems, basic
analytics & SEO. These sites often stay useful and alive for 3-5 years. Fortified, however, is more campaign-focused: micro-sites, landing pages, online initiatives that are usually part of a specific
campaign.

2. Our markets are different. Workbox works with small to mid-sized businesses, start-ups, biotech, small-caps and the team members who are tasked with online marketing. Fortified usually works with digital or ad agencies to provide a unique level of expertise that the agencies don’t have in-house.

Also, Fortified’s practice is complimentary to Workbox’s sister company, MarketFlare. MarketFlare (http://www.marketflare.com) runs aggressive, sophisticated search engine marketing campaigns that
dramatically improve return on ad spend. I’ll be talking more about MarketFlare in the future.

In any event, Steve’s team does great stuff and I hope the digital and ad agencies take advantage of their expertise!

Cheers, Eric

Web design and development is a dynamic and unpredictable industry. To stay up-to-date, meet interesting business folks, and get inspired, I go to a bunch of tech and marketing events and conferences every year.

Recently, I ran across some cool startups and web services, so I thought I’d share some that you might find interesting. These companies caught my eye for some technical, design-related, user interface or (honestly) arbitrary reason – this isn’t a “you should use ‘em” list so much as a “huh, that’s pretty cool” list – they’re services that can provoke you to think about your business in new ways, or come up with something completely new of your own (I think of them as “brain food”). I met the founders of all and, naturally, they were all passionate about their ideas – which is infectious and inspirational, too.

My Next Customer – http://www.mynextcustomer.com

My Next Customer’s service lets you track data from all your marketing channels in one place: SEO, Social, Offline, Paid Search (including calls, etc.). They’re just out of the gate, their founders are great guys (George Revutsky, Dustin Kittelson) and they won 2^nd place at Failcon2010’s “Most Likely to Succeed” contest. If you’ve ever run reporting for large campaigns and multiple channels, you will instantly see the value. And if it works well, marketers will love it and it could disrupt this growing industry. Oh, and it’s priced to move.

LunchTree – http://www.lunchtree.com

Here’s what Jesse Spaulding, the founder, says: “LunchTree is a fun way to automatically schedule lunches with colleagues or people who share your interests. You simply indicate when you’re free for lunch and the site will find you a match in the same area.”

I scheduled a lunch with Jesse recently (through LunchTree, of course). The system sent notifications via SMS. Worked like a charm. Like many social mashup/startups, it will be fascinating to see how this service morphs, how users will perceive it and how, ultimately, it might make money. It’s very, very early days for this service, and only available in San Francisco for now.

ParetoCentral – http://www.paretocentral.com

Clients ask for advice and consultants give advice on this website. Here’s how it works: Clients post questions/issues. Consultants post answers/advice. If the client likes a consultant’s online advice, they can set up a one-hour consultation. If the client is satisfied, they pay $50. Consultants must pay $50 per posted answer/advice after their first one. Ultimately, this could be a lead-gen service for consultants. Joju Michael Mangalam is very smart and a great guy. I’m very interested to see if this idea can work, how they refine it and how they generate users – showing its value and differentiating itself from a service like Quora.

SurfMark – www.surfmark.com

O.K., you can already bookmark and categorize websites, so what’s the big deal? SurfMark lets you track your online research path, add notes to the sites you save, share searches and categories and other groovy stuff. This is a great tool for people who do serious online research. Vivek Agarwal is another one of those smart, passionate folks you meet when you work with new ventures. He’s launched a pretty nifty service.

Near2there – http://www.near2there.com

Personally, I love this service. Here’s the situation: my wife emails me a link to a restaurant review. I read the review, we talk about it and say “hey, let’s check the restaurant out.” A week later, we are walking in our neighborhood, looking for a place to eat and I say, “Wasn’t there some restaurant we wanted to check out?” We’re baffled. But with Near2there, when you get within a certain distance of the restaurant, you get a message on your phone that tells you you’re “near to there!”

You can set the near to there distance, notification distance can change based on your speed, it can be event-driven, work with any type of business … well, it’s pretty cool. Only available on Android so far. Co-founder Peter Olfe assures me they’re working on the other platforms. Coming to Yelp soon?

Check ‘em out and let me know what you think!

Cheers, Eric