Recent Articles
Blog Action Day Tackles Global Poverty
Oct 15, 2008 Uncategorized 5 Comments
You may or may not be familiar with Blog Action Day. It’s a concept dreamt up by our friends over at Envato. This year they’re tackling the topic of poverty, a serious problem around the globe. Personally, I fast for 24-hours each month and then donate what I would have spent on food to a charity that serves people who cannot provide for themselves. What ideas do you have for tackling poverty?
Your Home Page Is Ugly
Oct 9, 2008 Uncategorized Leave a comment
Here’s a little food for thought
You make sure to dress up nicely for work every day. If you’re a retail business, you probably make sure there is a dress code that ensures your employees look presentable. Your store is probably cleaner than your bedroom at home, and you pay good money for letterhead and business cards so your company looks professional.
So why oh why do so many businesses scrimp on their websites? Why do you spend heaps of money trying to make your company appear professional, and but you only want to spend $400 on a web site? Don’t you realize that’s where many of your potential customers will get their first impression of you.
Is your home page ugly? If so, clean it up… for the company’s sake.
The Framing Shop on the Corner
Sep 27, 2008 Uncategorized Leave a comment
Some good friends own a framing shop in Idaho Falls, Idaho called Forever Stitching and Framing. They are friendly people and have done a beautiful job with several pictures we needed framed.
Yesterday, they got a very threatening letter from another local framing shop called The Framing Corner (link). Apparently, they think they have a trademark on the word “corner” and said that if Forever Stitching and Framing use the phrase “on the corner” in any of their advertisements, they’ll get sued. This makes it difficult since Forever Stitching and Framing is on the corner. A very prominent corner in fact.
The letter also stated that if any of the pictures in the front window at Forever Stitching and Framing are tilted they’ll get sued. (Evidently they believe they have trademarked a tilted frame as well.) Come on geniuses, everyone knows that you can’t trademark something that’s obvious or generic.
I have never understood why businesses think they have to take these predatory measures in order to succeed. If they just spent more time improving their product and less time visiting with their lawyer, they might actually succeed of their own merit (not to mention, they wouldn’t have to charge as much). And yes, I know people who have gotten their pictures framed at the Framing Corner and the quality was… less than optimal.
While we’re on the subject of “intellectual property”, it’s also interesting to note that the Framing Corner’s logo itself includes what appears to be an arm taken from Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. (rolls eyes)
Starpointe Gets a New Logo
Aug 12, 2008 Uncategorized 1 Comment
It’s just a small change, but hopefully you’ll all appreciate it. I finally came up with a logo that I’m pleased with. I think it’s pleasant to look at and subtly reflects the trifecta of services that Starpointe Marketing offers. Feel free to tell me your thoughts.
Hostware Hosting Outage
Aug 6, 2008 system status Leave a comment
Several of Starpointe’s hosting clients have contacted me today about their websites/email not working. We are aware of the situation.
Problem Description
Several of our clients’ websites are hosted with a third party company called EZ-NetTools. Twice this week EZ-NetTools has been the target of a denial of service attack (a what?). They were able to successfully defend themselves against the first attack; however the second one has disabled both their servers and their Internet Service Provider (ISP).
Status
EZ-NetTools’ servers are now back up and running, but their ISP is still having problems. Everyone involved is working feverishly to get the connection back up and running and are working to find both short-term and long-term solutions to this issue. They hope to have the connection repaired this evening.
I will continue to post updates here so check back frequently.
Consideration
I understand that having your website and email down for any amount of time can be very painful to your company. I appreciate your patience while we try to get this issue corrected.
Once the issue has been repaired I will credit your account for the downtime. I know it’s not much, but it’s the least I can do to try to compensate you for your troubles.
FYI
I plan on migrating all EZ-NetTools hosted websites over to a new, more reliable (and easier-to-use) system over the next months.
Update (8/7/2008 8:00 am): The email servers have been restored temporarily. In an hour or so, email service will be shut down again and then all services will be brought online slowly.
Update (8/7/2008 10:30 am): The issue has now been resolved.
North Temple is Down
Jul 29, 2008 Uncategorized Leave a comment
One of my favorite blogs about design and usability has been down for several days and I’m starting to go through withdrawls.
Now they know a lot more about usability and design than I do, so I’m not one to criticize, but couldn’t they have gotten the new design ready and then switched it over in one fell swoop? (Isn’t that usability 101?)
Worst Idea Ever… .anything Domain Names
Jul 22, 2008 Uncategorized Leave a comment
I just read that ICANN is considering opening the floodgates to webmasters so they can register any top-level-domain with at least three characters.
Not good.
The only people who will benefit from this are spammers, phishers, domain-squatters, and fraudsters. Imagine getting an email asking you to download document.doc. You’ll assume it’s a Word file. Wrong… it could be a link to a phishing website located at http://www.document.doc.
Do we need more TLDs? Yes. But there should be a thorough vetting process before releasing them into the wild.
How well do you know your fonts?
Jun 24, 2008 Uncategorized Leave a comment
Play this tricky little game to find out how well you know your typefaces. (I got 14/34 
)
Mozilla Fixed the Browser and Broke the Web
Jun 17, 2008 Uncategorized Leave a comment
June 17th, 2008 will go down in history as the day Mozilla fixed the browser and broke the web. You would think a company that had millions of people pledge to download their software, would be able to predict a little more accurately how much traffic they’d need to sustain.
Anyway, I’ve downloaded my Firefox 3 and it’s pretty awesome. Click the image to get yours.
Starpointe CMS … Easy Content Management for Small Businesses
Jun 11, 2008 Uncategorized Leave a comment
Announcing “Starpointe CMS“, an easy-to-use content management tool for small businesses.
It’s quick to learn and very simple to use. Anyone is welcome to use it. If you can use a word processor, you can do this (but it’s specifically helpful for managing small business websites).
Don’t worry, you don’t have to move your website to a new host or anything. If you’re interested in learning more, just let me now. I can demonstrate it for you and even install it temporarily onto your site so you can see what you think.
If you’re interested in taking it for a spin, leave a comment below and I’ll waive your setup fee.
