L&S Unscripted

I rely on technology everyday for work. If you look at the arsenal of hardware on my desk at home, you will see four computers (both Mac and PC), a smartphone, an IP phone, an iPod, a webcam, a wireless router as well as my most recent toy, the iPad. All of these gadgets keep me connected and let me do my job, and I’ve totally convinced my husband that they are a necessity. (ahem)

About three years ago, I realized that my children will grow up in a very different world then I did, both for work and play. This is the age of information, where amazing amounts of knowledge are at your fingertips. Today, words like “apps”, “tweeting” and “friending” are commonly used and part of my daily vocabulary. And when I need to learn something new, I go directly to the internet.

As I type this, I have a three-year-old clone sitting next to me learning her shapes, tracing, matching and coloring, not on paper mind you, but rather on my iPad. She is absorbing and learning at an alarming rate and our iPad, in my opinion, is helping. This is the same girl that mastered the Nintendo DS stylus at age 2 and would beg her older cousin to play with the iPod Touch on a long family trip to Canada, so a touch screen is nothing new. It is only natural that she would steal the iPad from me.

When we bought the iPad, it was supposed to be MY toy. I’m in that “mom demographic” Apple was gunning for! I had visions of using the iPad to surf, check Facebook, read books and watch movies. But that’s not quite what it’s being used for now that my daughter has got a hold of it.

Since I didn’t want her surfing around my Tweetdeck app and replying to my followers with nonsense, I found myself searching for “age appropriate” apps that SHE could enjoy. First, I searched for “Toy Story”, since she is in love with that movie, and low and behold, I find a free Read-A-Long book to download. Boom, installed! She loves to draw, so I find a Doodle app. Boom, installed again! After that, it all went downhill. Now before bed, I find myself searching apps for HER to play with and less for ME! (I also suggest keeping a password prompt on your iTunes account so your child isn’t “auto” buying apps! I might elaborate on that story in another blog post…)

8 Apps My Three-Year-Old Loves:

1. Tangrams

I myself liked tangrams as a kid with the “real” blocks, making shapes and simple pictures. It took her one trip in the car to master this app. Dragging and dropping blocks onto shadowed outlines allowed her to make fun designs with the apps’ easy user interface.

2. Fruit Memory

This recent purchase is a well-designed matching game. If I had a dollar for every time she asks “Mom? Where’s the lemon?? I can’t find it!!” I’d have… well maybe only 40 bucks, but still. This is the game that we can play together since it supports up to four players.

3. Doodle Buddy 

Since I myself am an artist, I found it necessary to have an app where she could draw. I use Sketchbook Pro but I needed something a little less robust for her. And although my daughter likes the drawing part with all the colors, she like the stamps that make funny sounds better. (Especially the smiley face that makes the “sick” sound. Thanks for that.)

4. Disney Movies

Disney Movies lets you preview movie trailers and then takes you to the iTunes store to purchase. (clever and sneaky) But the reason that I put this in my post was because Disney Movies was the app where my daughter REALLY learned the “pinch and grow” sizing technique and the “moving and sliding” of information. It blew me away how quickly she picked this up.

5. Alphabet Tracing

Again, learning disguised as fun. She doesn’t get very far into the letters but understands that she needs to follow the dotted lines. This is my attempt at being a “responsible” mom and telling myself: She WILL learn something playing with this thing!

6. Virtuoso – Piano 

I actually first saw this app being used by the 3-month-old son of Miles, an interactive programmer at L&S. My daughter plays it much like she plays a regular piano, sliding her hands across the keys or poking them one by one. She isn’t a Mozart yet but enjoys the sounds and I find myself looking for more instrument type apps.

7. Toy Story Read-Along

This was one of the first apps I downloaded and installed because of her love of the movie (and my love as well). Basically it’s an e-book with puzzles and coloring pages in between story pages that can be read out loud as the words are highlighted. I’m hoping this one will help her with words and reading. It even has quick video clips that play as you are reading.

8. Default iPod App 

(preinstalled with the iPad/iTunes)

Listening to music is a given and she has her own playlist with “girl” songs. Usually I will find her jamming out to some hippity hop song in the living room with the iPad cranked up to 11. Yesterday I walked in to check on her as she is getting her groove on and she turns around, points at the door and says, “Mom, you go back to work, I’m dancing.” Le sigh.

Don’t worry, she still likes drawing with REAL crayons, running around outside, NOT cleaning her room and playing with toys. But on a side note, I’ve had to limit her time on the iPad since she is so addicted and we’ve even had to take it away during timeout.

Rather than “No TV young lady!”, it’s “No iPad young lady!!!”

If you have any favorite iPad/iPod apps you’d like to share, post them in our comments. 

April Johnston is the Senior Interactive Art Director at Lawrence and Schiller and an awesome mom according to her daughter. And yes, there is an insurance plan on her iPad.

Consumers are constantly connected – being plugged in online and tuned into the television, myself included. It is not enough to just watch television or only surf the web, as most viewers are now consuming both simultaneously.

A new study by Nielsen uncovers that three out of four Americans use TV and the web at the same, with about half of those doing so daily. So, if you are not one of the dual users, you are surprisingly in the minority.

Interestingly, women tend to multitask more often than men, with 77 percent utilizing both TV and web versus men at 73 percent. On average, about 2.5 hours a week are spent consuming the two mediums together.

Many television shows and commercials encourage viewers to go online and access additional content, whether it’s extra footage, background information, games, etc., but only about 7 percent are using the web for that purpose. Most Americans using both are checking email or Facebook, rather than content related to their television viewing.

Primetime shows are not the ones taking the biggest hit, as viewers tend to stick to just television during original programming. News and sports shows are the common television programming being viewed while using the Internet as well.

And these stats are probably even greater if you were to take smartphone usage into account. My usual television watching routine is often riddled with web-surfing and BlackBerry checking. Mobile marketing is also being thrown into the mix and gaining momentum, making marketing channels farther reaching and more accessible.

For marketers, this may be viewed as an added opportunity. The concurrent consumption is a true testament to the fact that marketers should not rely on or limit themselves to just one medium.

The opportunities to get messaging to consumers are only going to continue to evolve and grow. Staying on the cusp of those opportunities is what will set marketers apart from the rest in this ever-changing world.

So, you have a throbbing headache, a strange rash or a distinctive muscle twitch – what is the first thing you do?

If you are like me and many other people, you’re likely to head directly to your computer and do a little searching to see what could be the cause. Sometimes, the information can be very valuable and educational. Other times, it can shock, scare and leave you questioning even more.

Cyberchondria, a condition stemming from online medical-related searching, is becoming a somewhat common ailment. Those who do their own medical research are finding alarming, anxiety-causing information, leading them to believe they have illnesses that are way beyond the common ache or pain.

The internet is a great tool and has certainly changed the way we gather information and make decisions. However, we always have to remember that everything that we see online should not be taken for absolute canon. Anyone can set up a site and put information on it. So, credibility of the source always needs to be taken into account.

My suggestion is that if something does seem wrong relating to your health leave it to those who work in medicine for a living. Go see a medical professional; they have the educational backing, expertise and experience to properly diagnose what may be wrong.

And along those same lines, if those same medical professionals are keeping a strong presence online through social media, blogs and other channels, they will hopefully be able to rein those cyberchondriacs back into the doctor’s office.

Let’s face it – money is being watched with a much more vigilant eye these days. And with the hectic lives we lead, it can often be stressful and tedious to be as heedful as we should be. However, with the technologies available today, there are no excuses.

Online banking is great, simply put. With many online services, consumers can set up automatic, recurring payments, so a payment should never be late or missed. Some online banking services allow users to set up email and text alerts to inform when balances are dipping, so the dreadful overdraft can be easily avoided. And just the simple ability to watch account activity is a great tool in itself.

The ability to do your banking via a mobile device is another revolutionary tool that should certainly aid in the fight to be more financially attentive. The on-the-go convenience comes in quite handy when you are on the road or remember you need to pay a bill while sitting through a four-hour meeting.

Budgeting is yet another area that has taken a turn for the better. With free online services such as Mint, you have the ability to track and record expenses and payments right at your fingertips. Knowing where you are spending and the frequency of those expenditures can really open up your eyes, allowing you to use your resources wisely.

And lastly, my new favorite service, BillMonk, masks the slight awkwardness of having to ask friends and roommates for money they owe. This free online service allows users to track, calculate and split expenses for a recent trip or monthly living. It also lets you keep track of non-monetary items, such as books and clothing you have loaned out. Furthermore, BillMonk also ties into Obopay, which is a mobile payment service that allows you to settle payments with friends via cellular devices for a small fee.

Online and mobile banking, email and text message alerts, budgeting tools and payment services are drastically improving our financial capabilities. Excuses are becoming harder to come by for missing a payment or losing track of expenses as services continue to evolve. With these services, our wallets should be getting a little heftier every day.

I love, love, love Fourth of July fireworks. As a little teaser for this weekend’s festivities, I decided to see what was out there for online build-your-own display games, and how easy they were to use. Here are some of the top Google results, and how they rate …

Bored.com

All you have to do it click! Only gives you the traditional umbrella-kind of fireworks, but you can choose from some exciting backgrounds like “Grand Finale at the Carnival” and “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”. Also filed in the “Dumb” section of bored.com, so maybe there’s no coolness bonus points.

Maylin.net

Another click to shoot. Again,there’s only one kind of firework, but the response time (click to boom) is very quick. Especially considering the game was posted in July of 2002, like, pretty much dinosaur times for the internet.

Throughout history, we have enjoyed being entertained by media. Whether attending old opera house productions, cozying up at a drive-in theater or viewing our favorite movie at home via On Demand, we have always been good at consuming media. It should come to no surprise, then, that the internet has only fueled this common human behavior.

Certainly we have all logged into Facebook to be delighted by our friends posting new photos. Or perhaps we received an e-mail forward with a link to a hilarious YouTube video.  These are all great ways to share and experience multimedia, which in today’s digital world is an important part of having an online presence.

Video, in particular, has become somewhat of a phenomenon online. In fact, in a recent research study conducted by Metacafe, 50 percent of all respondents surveyed (ages 8-64) said they watch video online at least once a week. This statistic has increased from 43 percent in the same survey conducted last year.

And according to most, this trend is not going to change in the near future. Men are currently viewing more videos online than women; however, online video viewership for women aged 18-24 jumped 27 percent in the past year.

While the amount of content being distributed online continues to snowball, it’s safe to say that these percentages will only continue to climb as people have more to view. To date, short-form videos are the most popular videos to view. More and more people are flocking to sites like YouTube to view not only homemade silly productions, but informative pieces as well.

Among the respondents who watch online video, 75 percent said they regularly watch professionally produced short-form videos. These users also stated they believe this type of video is similar to what they would watch on TV, like commercials or a television program.

Looking at these statistics, video is undeniably an important part of being heard online for businesses. Internet users are seeking a specific benefit, whether it’s to be informed or simply entertained, and there is a significant need to consume. Whether you are building a social media presence online or perhaps building a web site, video components should definitely be an element included in any digital project.

Remember the days when you would go to the grocery store and the customer in front of you took about 45 minutes to check out due to their endless supply of coupons? Although that bit of nostalgia is a scarce occurrence today, coupons certainly have not gone by the wayside.

The availability and use of online coupons is a lucrative offering for those in e-commerce. According to data from Compete’s recent “Online Shopper Intelligence” survey, 35 million consumers visited a coupon site while shopping online in April 2010 – a trend that will more than likely continue to rise.

Coupons are beneficial for a number of reasons, even beyond the blatantly obvious dollar savings.

Coupons drive sales. About 57% of consumers using a coupon code during their last online purchase stated that they would not have made the purchase without the discount.

More money is spent by coupon users. Although the consumer is concerned with saving money, the notion of saving a few dollars typically prompts them to spend more. Average expenditures of those utilizing coupons is $216, while those not using coupons typically spend $122.

Coupons solidify customer loyalty. When making an online purchase with a coupon, customers are more likely to buy from the same retailer again, about 5% more likely than those who opted not to use coupons.

Customer satisfaction correlates to coupons. Consumers are always looking for a deal or perk from retailers, so when coupons are offered, they tend to be more satisfied in their shopping experience, about 4% more satisfied than those not using coupons.

So, not only are coupons great for the consumer, but the retailer as well. Both parties reap the rewards.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to spend…errr, save some money shopping online.

From Beiber Fever to Miley and the Jo Bros, teens are showing the rest of the world just how powerful and influential they really are. While we recognize this power, Socialwise is paving the way for financial literacy. This publicly traded company has started offering a few different services aimed at capturing the buying power of this young, potent group, while also instilling responsible spending habits.

Socialwise also aims to facilitate communication between tweens and teens and their parents. The first offering is BillMyParents™, an online service that teens can use when making purchases via the web. This service gives teens the ability to shop online, all the while allowing parents flexible control of the accounts and available funds.

Secondly, the BillMyParents™ Debit Card offers yet another payment option for those under 21. Again, this service still allows for parents to have control of the funds, but provides a little more freedom to the younger demographic for in person and online purchases.

Furthermore, Socialwise has partnered with social networking giants, Facebook and MySpace, to reach more of the market and allow for more eCommerce.

This is a genius idea and offering for this relatively unscathed market. Banking institutions have a great opportunity to expand into this market and harness the potential it possesses.

Thinking back to my adolescent buying days, I really could have used one or both of these services. And I am sure my parents would have appreciated it as well.

Black Hills Vacations has launched its new updated online presence. Black Hills Vacations is the official booking agency for South Dakota and the Black Hills and Badlands. They do everything from booking your tee time to booking your hotel room. You can view pictures, post and read reviews, print maps, and even watch some video tours. BlackHillsVacations.com is the full package (no pun intended). The features are endless.

I have to admit this site was no small feat. Programmer Minh Lee – yes that is his full name – used some nice jQuery on this site to make any transitions you see move with ease. I love when our programmers surprise me with neat tricks! We are also pulling in a lot of dynamic content into several niches that our client can control from our custom maintenance area.

I can honestly say this is one of my favorite sites I have had the opportunity to work on because of the challenge of making it clean and simple but still keeping all the information there for the user.  The site went live after a lot of hard work and dedication by not only the L&S team but Susan, Keri and Kenny at Black Hills Cen Res too. Thanks everyone!

Enough said. Take a moment to check out all the great features that blackhillsvacations.com has to offer! You can also check out our new LS site and all the related information we have in our Travel and Tourism section.

In just one month, the South Dakota Office of Tourism’s online sales increased 257 percent. The triple-digit increase in February can be attributed to the Office’s newest Web-based program, Digital Revolution.

Gov. Mike Rounds unveiled plans last year for the Digital Revolution – a new travel Web site with opportunities for everyone in the visitor industry, both large and small, to control their own content and gain valuable exposure on the home page of South Dakota’s official tourism Web site.

“Photos, videos and an online booking mechanism help to make our online visitors’ experiences even better,” says Gov. Rounds. “This is cutting edge. There’s nothing else like it.  No other state in the union is doing what we have done this past year.”

February 2010 was the first full month of operation for Digital Revolution. Compared with the same time period in 2009, the new TravelSD.com has seen dramatic increases in online sales and visitor engagement.

Every city, attraction, activity, lodging, dining, shopping and traveler service can become a Digital Revolution partner. By paying a one-time fee of $250, businesses can add and edit their own descriptions (hours, features, contact information, etc.) and upload photos and videos. Related destinations, activities, vacation packages, events and news stories are automatically connected to businesses and displayed on their Web pages. For an additional $250, a partner can add a booking widget, which allows visitors to book their vacation directly from TravelSD.com.

“There are nearly 300 partners signed up to be a part of the program, but there’s always room for more,” the Governor says. “Our vision is to have every destination, hotel, motel, hunting lodge, campground, restaurant, gift shop and attraction be a part of Digital Revolution.” 

Visitors to the Web site can add items to a personalized Trip Planner or click to book online. Other opportunities for engagement include requesting vacation guides, signing up for monthly e-mails targeted to individual interests, and uploading travel photos.

Links

• Digital Revolution Case Study 
• Digital Revolution Promotion Video
• TravelSD on Twitter
• SD Tourism on Facebook
• SD Tourism’s YouTube Channel

Font embedding has long been a hot topic amongst all parties involved. I’ve gone from ignorant to interested to indignant. That journey has culminated in a major evaluation of the resources available to me for use in actual projects for actual clients. Are embeddable fonts ready for client websites? Do the costs make it worth it? Is there a Holy Grail, a surefire technology, destined to save us?

Hint: refer back to the title.

Read the rest of this entry »

Five thousand two hundred and eighty is the number of feet in a mile. It also represents the commitment Lawrence & Schiller makes to go the extra mile for its clients.

Each quarter L&S honors an employee who embodies the spirit of 5280. Someone who has gone above and beyond to deliver significant results for a client. Not just someone who has put in long hours, but someone who has been strategic, insightful and relentless. To this person the Marketing and Advertising  (MAP) Award is presented.

Read the rest of this entry »

One of my favorite courses in the Computer Science program at DSU was titled “Programming Languages”. As the title suggests, this class was devoted to learning about not just different programming languages but the differences between programming languages. The class was just a semester long, and it only covered a basic overview of what there is to know about programming languages. (For more on programming languages, visit your local library.)

Knowing that there are multiple programming languages (I just told you so, remember?), one reasonably wonders, “Why not just one programming language?” My brother wondered the very same thing in an email to me, which inspired this post. As children often do, his question revealed to me a greater query that I hadn’t stopped to think about before: why NOT just one programming language? (The joke here is that my brother is in his mid-twenties.)

One reason why there isn’t just one computer language is that there isn’t just one type of computer; there are thousands of different types of computers. Computers all speak a language called “machine language“. This, essentially, is the 1s and 0s of binary. Jotting down 1s and 0s would be a terribly ineffective way of communicating with a computer, so programming languages were devised.

The different programming languages came to solve different problems. The C language, for instance, was created as a systems language. It’s goal, as a language, was to build servers and operating systems. Prolog, on the other hand, is a logic language, designed for use in artificial intelligence. SQL makes it easy to manage data in a database management system. None of these languages are useful for creating webpages easily. That’s why we have Ruby, Java, PHP, ASP.Net, and CFML (ColdFusion).

Sometimes, a programmer will like the concepts of one language, but they’ll want the syntax of another. So, they create a new language. Some languages only exist as proof that a concept is possible. Some languages are specific to the platform for which they are written. For instance, a mobile phone might have it’s own simple operating system with a special programming language used to write the cell phone’s applications, or a social networking site might develop a language in their API for developers to use to get data from that social networking site.

Perhaps an analogy is in order. Programming languages are like tools. When you’re trying to hang a painting, a hammer is better for driving a nail than a mallet. A mallet will do the job, but that’s not quite what it’s supposed to be used for. And, most importantly, you couldn’t do everything you needed to do with just a hammer. You could do a lot, and get close to almost all of it, but in the end it’s nice to have other tools in the box.

Another analogy is out of order, but I’m just that crazy. Programming languages are not like natural languages. People hear PHP, Ruby and ColdFusion, and they think of German, French, and English. RESIST THAT URGE. Programming languages are not at all equivalent to natural languages. The main reason for this is that natural languages sprang up from a human need to express the scope of intellectual thought and the breadth of expression capable in their speakers; computer languages just make computers do stuff and junk.

Using the programming language criteria above, are a French-speaking person and an English-speaking person so fundamentally different that they require different languages? Of course not. A French-speaking person is just as capable of learning English as an English-speaking person. Similarly, French doesn’t solve any problem that English can’t solve. You might be inclined to say that French poetry is much easier on the ears, or that English is a much better business language, but these aren’t properties of the language per se. English might be considered a better business tool because of its wide adoption, and French… well, I guess it IS easier on the ears, but that’s not the reason French was created.

At L&S, I usually find myself playing in ColdFusion (CFML), HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, but I’ve also played with PHP, Java, Python, and Classic ASP. On a recent project, I found myself using ASP.Net and C# for one half and CFML for the second half. In my personal time, I’ve played with Rubyand Google’s Go, among others. I’m not listing this all out to impress you, but let’s be honest; some of you are really impressed. I’m listing these languages to show just how varied the Internet landscape is right now. In fact, looking at this list, I think my list of languages might be light for a web programmer these days. No Perl? No Clojure? No Scala? No Processing?

As servers get better at deploying (and virtualizing) the ability to utilize these languages in an integrated environment, web developers are getting more interested in picking the right tool for the job. Better server performance means giving developers more tools to play with and utilize. That, in turn, means faster, more efficient websites and, regrettably, a whole lot of developer ego.

Those guys can get pretty insufferable. Trust me.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:41 — 1.3MB)

The best practices for designing, developing and deploying next-generation web, mobile and enterprise solutions were on display recently at Adobe Max in Los Angeles, CA. Among those attending was Eric Cross, Senior Interactive Developer at Lawrence & Schiller.

What were the biggest surprises? The biggest takeaways? And how can a conference like Max help L&S clients? Eric shares his thoughts in this episode of The Extra Minute.

Three days learning about new products, sneak peeks of emerging technologies and networking with over 5000 of your peers and industry experts. The annual event, held last week in Los Angeles, brings all of these elements together to give attendees an unparalleled conference experience. From the general sessions to the workshops and labs attendees are exposed to the tools that they need to get the job done.

To start the conference off on the right note Adobe released ColdFusion 9 the night before the first general session. This release contains new features and enhancements that make developing, maintaining and managing CF apps easier than ever. More on the features and benefits of ColdFusion 9, and ColdFusion in general, will be coming in a future post.

General Session #1

“Our goal is to help you and all of your clients reinvent their businesses in this digital age. To be more effective, more profitable and more agile.” Shantanu Narayen, President and CEO – Adobe Systems Inc.

The kickoff session was about using all of the available tools to create a uniform experience across multiple platforms and mediums. Development is no longer just about making sure your application works on a PC and a MAC, but that it looks and functions the same on all web enabled devices (web browsers, desktops, smart phones, web enabled TVs)

Flash 10.1 which will start rolling out on computers, netbooks and mobile devices in early 2010 will eliminate the need to build different versions for multiple devices and allow developers to build and maintain one codebase. The notable exception is the iPhone (and iTouch) which will support pre-compiled flash apps, but not web based flash through the built in Safari browser.

With Adobe’s pending acquisition of Omniture, it will become easier than ever to allow developers to gain access to analytics for rich internet applications.

The first session was closed out with a exclusive sneak peak of the upcoming film Avatar introduced by producer Jon Landau. He explained how they used Adobe products to solve real life production issues and throughout the entire production process. 3D technology has definitely come a long way!

General Session #2

The second general session focused on real life applications built using Adobe technologies. 

FedEx has developed a real-time tracking application with Flex and LiveCycle Data Services that allows them to monitor the location and status of their delivery vehicles. It can also track trending and send alerts when it detects problems with equipment or delivery delays. History is also stored and can be used to replay the route for review.

The crowd was shown a demonstration about a truck with a failing refrigeration unit and a package that needed to remain between a  certain temperature range. When a sensor started showing a rise in temperature over a relatively short period of time staff was alerted and immediately began to look for a service location on the current route. The truck was re-routed and the delivery times were updated to display the new delivery time. Within 20 minutes the vehicle was fixed and the driver back on to the destination. Once the vehicle was within 30 minutes of the destination a delivery alert was sent to the recipient and the package was delivered on time. In this case, the application helped FedEx prevent delivery of a spoiled product and the liability of replacing the item as well as meeting the customers’ expectations. (http://www.youtube.com/?v=Tqn2iXsqQ44)

The U.S. Postal Service Augmented Reality demo was by far the most practical AR application that I have seen to date. The premise is o place the item you would like to ship in front of the camera and a virtual box appears around it. This allows the user to select the correct size box for shipping. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpS3LeCiCtc)

John Mayer Augmented Reality demo – http://max.adobe.com/johnmayer/

Sneak Peeks – These live demonstrations showcase features that Adobe is working on to make their products better.  Among the fan favorites were Hierarchical Undo, Content Aware filling, ROME, server side actionscript and the Flash CS5 physics engine. These features, while still in early beta, are impressive to say the least and promise to help designers and developers to spend less time working and more time on innovation.

The conference provided valuable information about all of Adobe’s products. While I tailored my sessions to focus mainly to Cold Fusion, most of them also detailed how the different products work together seamlessly to provide the best solution for the end user.

Additional information and links to the general and individual sessions can be found at http://max.adobe.com

Given the rainy temperament of Mother Nature lately, it’s only fitting that Lawrence & Schiller is now sharing its website umbrella with our friends at L&S TeleServices. Our offices may be across town, but our philosophies are the same—go 5280 for our clients every day. The new section is modeled after our travel industry segment and highlights L&S’s expertise in call center services.

Learn more about the customer care for which L&S TeleServices famous.

The best problem a website can have is too much success. Visitors flocking to your site in record numbers, orders coming in faster than you can process them, and advertising revenue is soaring. So why is this a problem?

With increased traffic comes greater  resource usage and higher hosting costs. In most dynamic applications, each requested page goes through a series of actions before the content is returned to the browser. Without getting into too much detail here are the steps of a basic request.

• A URL is entered into the web browser. (www.cnn.com)
• A DNS lookup is performed to locate the IP address of the server and the HTTP request is made
• The web server sees the request and begins processing the request.
  • If it is a static page the HTML content is returned to the browser
  • If the page is dynamic, processed at the time of request, the server calls the appropriate processor to generate the HTML to return to the browser.
• Once the browser has the HTML for the page it begins to render the content. More requests are made to the server to download the required page assets such as images, style sheets, Javascript, XML, videos, etc.

So what can be done to make sure your site is as lean as possible?

There are at least a hundred steps to planning, designing and developing a great looking, fully functional website and none of them should be overlooked. Unfortunately , this article is only going cover some of the best practices for development, but if you have questions about your site feel free to contact us.

HTML/CSS

HTML and CSS design are the building blocks of your website, they should be well planned before coding begins. The site should be well structured and allow for simple changes. Make sure to follow web standards, use a valid doctype, XHTML valid code is preferred (lowercase tags and attributes, close tags, etc.) and don’t forget about accessibility guidelines for disabled users. These options don’t do much for page weight, but a well formatted (X)HTML document will render better and faster in the browser than an invalid one will.

CSS should be used as much as possible and should be in an external file included in the <head> tag of your HTML. This allows the browser to cache the .css file and you can reuse the rules across the entire site without having them hard-coded in every page.

For example <p><strong><u>this text is bold and underlined</u></strong></p> should be re-written as <p class=”bold underline”> this text is bold and underlined </p> . This way if you want to change the color of the bold text to red you can update your .css rule in one place and it will update the entire site. .bold {font-weight:bold; color:#f00;}

CSS is not just used to control text size, color and decoration, it controls the look and feel of the entire site. (margins, padding, spacing, positioning, fonts, colors, sizes, backgrounds)

NOTE: Don’t forget to validate your HTML/CSS files. Failure to do so could lead to hours of wasted time debugging issues that could be nothing more than a typo.

Javascript

Javascript can be one of the simplest things to add to a site to increase user experience, it can also easily double the size of your document in a hurry.

If you are using a Javascript library (jQuery, YUI and MooTools come to mind) don’t just include it to look cool. If you are not going to use it, don’t include it. Also, if you are only going to use 1 feature of the entire library then maybe it is not your best option. All of the great functionality of a Javascript library and its associated plugins can come with a hefty download price, but the good news is javascript files are cached by the browser and should only need to be downloaded once.

Use external Javascript files – If you are not building your script on the fly, there is no reason to put the code directly in your page. Include it in the <head> and pay attention to load order. Again, combine files whenever possible. (Yes, there is debate over loading at the top of the page versus the bottom due to parallel download issues, but that also depends on what your script does and I’m a creature of habit)

Minify your files – The minification process removes comments and whitespace from Javascript files and can reduce the size by half.

NOTE: Don’t assume that everyone has Javascript enabled. Make use of the <noscript> tag.

Images

Watch your file sizes (Save for web is your friend) – I have seen many examples of users just hitting save on a file and including it in their code without ever looking at the size. Right click on an image and click properties. If the image is over 20KB it is too large.

File type is important – jpg, gif, png are not all the same, a 30KB jpg file might be a 5KB gif or vice-versa.

Use CSS whenever possible in place of images. Strategic use of Javascript and CSS can reduce the number of images your page uses.

Don’t use width and height to resize a large image. If you would like to display an 800×600 image as 80×60 create a new image. The thumbnail will download quicker and you are less likely to have image distortion.

Video

Video can be a real catch-22, you want your users to watch it, but when they do your bandwidth usage goes through the roof. Video codecs are getting better all the time so make sure you are using the right one. Finding the right with the right settings will give you high quality video at the best bit rate possible.

The other option is to use a Content Delivery Network (CDN). They will host your video and stream it using their bandwidth for a monthly fee.

Server/Application

Minimize HTTP requests – The fewer connections you need to make to the server the faster your page will load.

Cache settings – Use Expires or Cache-Control to keep objects in the local users cache. Not only does this reduce bandwidth usage, it will increase the users perceived speed of the site because it only needs to download new or changed items.

Use http compression on the server – it will decrease your HTML, CSS and Javascript files by up to 75%

Best Practices

Do your best to combine resources. You don’t need 5 different CSS files loaded into one page. You are only slowing down the page by creating more connections to the server.

Monitor files created and uploaded by 3^rd party processes – there are usually settings to control image quality and that could mean the difference between 100K images and 300K files. Believe me, on a high demand website this makes a world of difference in bandwidth usage.

Monitor your site statistics. They provide valuable information that can be vital to the success of your business.

Review your site frequently, technology changes quickly and it is quite possible that there are now better ways to accomplish something that was done months ago.

And last but not least, test your site in all major browsers. (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari)

Tools

Here are a few tools at your disposal to help evaluate your page validity and weight.

http://validator.w3.org/ – HTML Validation

http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ – CSS Validation

http://www.netmechanic.com  – slightly outdated, but nice to see image sizes and load time

Firefox Plugins – FireBug, YSlow

Of course none of this makes any difference if your server side code and database isn’t optimized to handle the heavy traffic, but that is a post for another time.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB)

If you live in the small communities that make up Middle America, you are used to hearing about new technology… and not having it available in your area.  It’s the ultimate dangling carrot. The technology tease.

But not this time! Midcontinent Communications is bringing DOCSIS 3.0 to the heartland. In fact, West Fargo, ND is getting the high speed Internet network before Manhattan!

In this issue of The Extra Minute, hear how Midcontinent Communications is using digital public relations and social media tospread the word of this exciting technology advance.

Related Links
MidcoNews blog
Midcontinent Communications

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Which browsers are your website visitors using? Are they upgrading as new versions are released? And why should you care?

If you are responsible for your company’s website you should be able to quickly answer all three of these questions. The answers  tell you how visitors see your site and literally view your brand.

This edition of The Extra Minute discusses the marketing value of staying on top of the latest web browsers.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:19 — 1.6MB)

As the number of cell phones capable of surfing the Internet grows, so does the need to deliver content that is optimized for mobile devices.

What does it take to develop a site that plays nice with mobile web? What should it include and what are some of the obstacles you make encounter along the way?

The Extra Minute has the story of Sanford Health and its move into mobile web.