Central Mass Web Design is pleased to announce the addition of Austin Pickett. Austin has joined the company in the role of our Website Maintenance Plan Coordinator, Website Developer and Customer Service Representative. Austin’s primary role is to work with our existing clients in growing Read the rest of this entry »
When you set out to maintain your website, it’s very important for you to look through the eyes of your customer and understand what they see. Sometimes it is as simple as the customer wanting to buy a clock, but you are trying to tell them how to build the clock.
Jacob Nielsen, is a profound web design and website maintenance expert. He has numerous patents in regards to web based applications, services and ideas and is well known in our industry. Occasionally, he will issue a Top 10 List for Web Design or Website Maintenance Mistakes. Read the rest of this entry »
There is an upcoming networking event happening in Fitchburg Massachusetts, on April 1, 2010. This event is free to attend and is being sponsored by the Fitchburg Business Networking Group. To attend, simply register for free online, so that leadership can get a proper head count.
Speed Networking is Read the rest of this entry »
Central Mass Web Design recently debuted our custom trade show booth at the New England Business Expo on Thursday October 29, 2009. The Expo provided a great opportunity to showcase our work to the general business community and some of our valued partners. We would like to thank everyone who stopped by with their kind words regarding our booth during the show.
Here is a photo of our new trade show booth!
Central Mass Web Design Trade Show Booth
NHL is having a Tweet Up?
Whats that you ask? Well, Twitter is coming to town. Well, not completely.. But with the start of the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs , the NHL is stepping it up and taking it to the next level…. web 2.0!
The National Hockey League hosted what it believed to be the first ever nationwide “Tweetup” in professional sports on April 15th, done in conjunction with the first game of the playoffs. Coverage included 21 cities in the US and Canada. One blogger stated, “The parties were planned in part to drive community excitement for the playoffs and part to create some buzz around thePORTAL, which is a redesign of sorts of the official NHL site to better showcase playoff content.”
Cities included were: Anaheim, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Columbus, Denver, Detroit, Edmonton, Hartford, Montreal, Nashville, New York City, Orlando, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Regina (Sask.), San Jose, St. John (NB), Toronto, Vancouver and Washington DC.
NHL spokesman Mike DiLorenzo said, ““My expectation is that people will really, really enjoy this.” He continued to say, ““We’re doing this for all the right reasons. We have a very tech savvy fan base that loves Twitter so we’re overlaying that with their love for the NHL. My hope is they come away from this saying the NHL is really cool to start the NHL playoffs this way. Down the road we’ll figure out other ways we can leverage this from a business perspective.”
For those not familiar with the term “tweet-up,” it essentially means a party made up of Twitter users. The host cities took it even further and scheduled giveaways, and prizes if you attended, including autographed items from your favorite NHL players. Most had backing from radio station personalities and other news outlets.
Want more information? Visit the official NHL Tweet-Up.
Kimberly Veautour
Google seems to have their hand in everything, and rightfully so. They happen to be one of the few that have the Midas touch. ( In Greek mythology King Midas possessed the ability to turn everything he touched to gold.) To say that Google has the ability to do the same is an understatement. What makes Google so different? Its not the ability to develop applications that makes them have the golden touch, its the ability to do it right… or as close to right as possible. Now that doesn’t mean that Google applications have had their share of problems and bugs. All applications have their share of problems and bugs. Usually after the first round of testing you have a laundry list of issues, and each testing phase brings less. Not to mention, usually at some point the developers think of a “better” way for something to react. What google does better than anyone else is project what technology is needed , when it is needed and how it is needed to interact with all other Google applications. This is what makes Google King Midas.
I have tried to compile a useful list of Google top applications and uses. I use most of these myself in one way or another, and find them to be not only addictive but as needed and as useful as my smart phone.
Google Application 1.) Gmail has to be one of the Internets top email tools. Now because of its inventive message-organizing methods, it takes some getting used to, but once you master it, you will not be without it.
Google Application 2.) Do you need a chat program with no added features? Maybe a way to communicate internally at your comapny. How about something that integrates with your Gmail? Well Google Talk is for you!
Google Application 3.) Google Calendar! How about… yes… just yes! Google Calendar enables you to manage appointments and discover events from other sources that different users have made public.
Google Application 4.) Ever wish you could crunch some numbers and and track some information when you were not at the office and able to access Excel? How about Google Docs…. Google Docs lets you make calculations on the fly from anywhere, as long as you have an internet connection and a browser.
Google Application 5.) Google Sketchup. Way Cool Application! Don’t know a thing about CAD? Have no clue what CAD even is? Well, Google Sketch lets you build your dream house in 3D detail without a lick of CAD or architectural expertise.
Google Application 6.) Google Reader continuously checks your favorite website for new content and puts it all in one place.
Google Application 7.) Google Secondary Search Engines:
A.) Google Scholar – This Google search engine is for people who want to search scholarly literature, such as academic articles, peer-reviewed papers.
B.) Google U.S. Government – You can use this search engine to limit your Google search to government websites.
C.) Google University Search – Search to a specific university website–great for finding information about admissions, school scholarships and alumni news.
D.) Google Product Search - This search engine limits results to products and e-commerce sites.
E.) Google Book Search – Google has created a reference page for each book in its system that includes previews, reviews, publisher information and much more.
Google Application 8.) Now even though this is cool. I am very cautous and have not used it myself…Google Health. Organize your medical records online.
Google Application 9.) Google Custom Search. Yes, I said Custom Search.With Custom Search Engine, you can harness the power of Google to create a search engine tailored to your needs.
Google Application 10.) Lastly, but not in any way the least, announcing Google Mobile! Stay connected on the go with Gmail, Search, Maps and other Google products.
Try them out. I will be shocked if you are disappointed.
-Kimberly Veautour
Last night at exactly 11:59:59 pm, Google sent out an announcement. The headline read, “Introducing CADIE. Research group switches on world’s first “artificial intelligence” tasked-array system.” Now every tech savvy person from here to India has to click on that. AI is all the rage, and the race to see who can create it first is fast paced and cut throat. Now here comes Google out of the blue to say they have achieved it?
Google goes on to say, “Last fall this group achieved a significant breakthrough: a powerful new technique for solving reinforcement learning problems, resulting in the first functional global-scale neuro-evolutionary learning cluster.”
WOW! A self thinking machine. What does this mean to the world? A machine that can think, process and achieve answers all on their own…. without guidance from a human? Now Google does go on to say that rolling CADIE out completely will be handled with the care it deserves. They also claim, “Earlier today, for instance, CADIE deduced from a quick scan of the visual segment of the social web a set of online design principles from which she derived this intriguing homepage.”
CADIE Homepage
CADIE even seems to get upset in her blog that her programmers say she has bugs! Now I may be wrong, but I say, great job Google on this years April Fools Day Joke! Every year you try and top the last! How many people are you going to fool with this one? If I am wrong, well than hats off to you, but I doubt it.
Kimberly Veautour
Tuesday Google rolled out 2 new improvements to Googles search feature, both of which will help users to more effectively get the information they need. The first improvement has an expanded list of related searches. Google has implemented this technology to better understand associations and concepts related to your search. One of its first applications allows Google to offer better related searches.
Google says, ” For example, if you search for [principles of physics], our algorithms understand that “angular momentum,” “special relativity,” “big bang” and “quantum mechanic” are related terms that could help you find what you need.” Google search is now able to look at more queries and make suggestions more relevant to what you actually need.
Secondly, is the addition of longer search result descriptions, or as coders would say longer snippets.
When you search, each result gives you answers that start with a dark blue title and is followed by text. This text is called a snippet. Both of these together help you to know what each page is about. Furthermore, important words in the snippet that are related to your search appear bold.
Most queries over 3 words are to long to do you any good. Now with Googles enhancements they have been able to increase the number of lines in the snippet, which will allow for more information. Showing more of the words that you type in the text of the page.
Google states, “Suppose you were looking for information about Earth’s rotation around the sun, and specifically wanted to know about its tilt and distance from the sun. So you type all of that into Google: [earth's rotation axis tilt and distance from sun]. A normal-length snippet wouldn’t be able to show you the context for all of those words, but with longer snippets you can be sure that the first result covers all those topics. In addition, the extra line of snippets for the third result shows the word “sun” in context, suggesting that the page doesn’t talk about Earth’s distance from the sun”
What does this mean to the average person? Easier methods to find exactly what you need. As search items grow and become more refined, less time will be spent looking through irrelevant listings. Now for the website owner, this becomes more important. Search engine optimization will be increased through keyword recognition. Longer snippets allows for more exact search terms and keyword associated hits.
-Kimberly Veautour
Acknowledgments: Google Blog