Creative Web Solutions: Mobile Website and Mobile Tagging

Creative web solutions were utilized for client Mueller® Company of Decatur, IL to help market a water hydrant product at a tradeshow recently. First, a product-specific mobile website incorporating the Mueller identity was created, then Microsoft tags custom-designed by Mueller were added to posters, flyers and product packaging distributed at the tradeshow. When these Microsoft tags were scanned with a free Microsoft Tag application, interested tradeshow attendees were immediately directed to the mobile website for further product information, including diagrams, marketing materials and video links. This web solution provided an innovative way to engage prospects with their smartphones while delivering additional product information using mobile technology in a cost effective manner for Mueller.

Do you have a marketing need that might benefit from a similar use of mobile tagging technology?

Web Design Links: Stock Photos, HTML5 Markup, Bookmark Tool, Dummy Text

Take a look at these great web design resources the team has discovered this week!

Tom Z: Here's a resource for finding stock photos

Dan: 7 lovely things about HTML5 Markup

Alexis: fun dummy text generators

Tom M: Instapaper is a nice little site where you can create an account, then basically bookmark items you find online that you want to read later (for those times, you see a good tweet or a link in an email, but you really don’t have time to read it).  With Instapaper, you easily bookmark the item using your browser, then you can pull up the link later in your browser or on your mobile device.  And it not only brings up the text of the page you wanted to read, it also strips a lot of the other junk (ads) from the display.

What useful and fun online tools have you found recently to help with your own work? We'd love to hear about them, so please share.

Meet the Team | Sharon Hewitt

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Curious about just who that person is that designs & programs your website? Well, wonder no more! We hope our "Meet the Team" series will help you feel more comfortable and friendly when you walk through the Web Solutions' doors. We are a fun team with lots of talent and conversation to share... and not just about websites!

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Sharon is a designer for our group.  She has also been designated the "Boss's Proxy"

Fun facts about Sharon:

• She's always up for trying a new restaurant, new activity or group event.
• Her husband, Ron, is a walking encyclopedia of movie trivia.
• Sharon rhymes with Darren (who also works at LRS Web Solutions)
• Cassandra is jealous of Sharon's lamp in her office.
• Sharon and Eddie both LOVE french vanilla coffee
• She's kind of our group cheerleader, always there to make us smile when we want to punch another employee in the face.  umm...  there's never actually been a punch thrown here, so Sharon's doing a great job!
• Sharon has the 2nd most twitter followers in our office.  Tracy has more, but we're not talking about him, so who cares.  Follow Sharon.

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Related Websites:

Dan and Eddie we're messing around with this:

1. Open Google Maps and click Get Directions
2. Type Japan as your starting point
3. Type China as your destination
4. Read step #42 – the folks at Google are hilarious

If you thought that was fun, try Japan and then USA (#40).

Are you using the +1 button?  Did you know it can be integrated into your site and your visitors can help you improve your relevancy? Find out more about the +1 button  Note: we now have one on our blog, feel free +1 our blog! 

We are getting super excited about the opening of the Legacy Theater, can you tell?

I know we already showed some great uses of jQuery this month, but this photo gallery from RA Sushi is awesome! We also noticed RA is still using Flash on the homepage with graceful degradation for iOS.  What's graceful degradation you say? Read more about here.

While we're on the subject, just some web design best practices.

Because many of us here have experience working with computers that somehow qualifies us as Customer Support for all our friends and family.  Alexis has found the solution... LifeHacker's How To For Beginners.  Priceless!

If you think computer geeks only know computers, you're wrong!

• Check out Tracy's blog post about how a sandwich turned into a pizza.
• Check out the site Alexis uses to stay on top of her gardening.  Yes, she found it on LifeHacker

Our manager, Jeff Enlow shared an incredible mega menu from Sandals.com.  Hover (don't click) over The Resorts button in the main nav bar, then hover (don't click) over any of the names of the resorts and watch the photo and description of that resort scroll like the wheel on Wheel of Fortune. Awesomeness!

If you have kids and like taking video of them with your iPhone this app is a must have!

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Eddie Ebeling is not the main contributor for the LRS Web Solutions blog. Can you tell? Email Cassandra with feedback!

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OH MY! 404 Errors

A potential client finds a link to a page on your site, but unfortunately it is old, and the page no longer exists. He opens the link to find the dreaded 404 error (page not found). What now? Does he hit the back button, or do you engage the customer with a custom 404 error page, and put him on the path to website nirvana?

Custom 404 error pages are easy to create, and help make your site user friendly. Here are a few ideas:

• Let the user know why they've landed on the error page:
  
  1. User mistyped url
  2. The page was moved or deleted
  3. The link was broken
• Create useful links to other areas of your site . . . homepage, contact us, etc.
• Have a search box available for users to find other content on your site
• Add a site map
• Make the 404 page look consistent with the rest of the site
• Be creative. Let users know there's a little personality behind your site
• Use your site analytics to track information about 404 hits. We can help redirect bad links to newer content.

Click on some of our 404 pages below:

Coming in the fall of 2011

Top 5 Reasons We Use JQuery

by Cassandra Pence

1. Photo Galleries.  The possibilities are endless!  Check out Smashing Apps for some incredible ideas and implementations.
2. Menus.  Eddie used JQuery to create the menus on the Nudo website build.  Very cool and clean.  1WD.co has a list of 38 menu solutions you must look through!
3. Fancybox.  Everyone chuckles when we say "Let's use a Fancybox!"  For a funny name, this tool is priceless!  Enterprise Output Management uses this to display info about their various solutions.
4. Accordians.  Displaying lots of information in a small space has never been easier.  Dan used the JQuery accordians for Prairie State Bank & Trust.  Love the color fade-in!
5. Tooltips.  Cassandra displayed images in the tooltips for Precision Planting.  When hovering over a link with a dashed border, you might be surprised about all the information you can view.

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Related Websites:

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Cassandra Pence is a Site Construction Specialist for LRS Web Solutions. She's super excited about the next photo gallery she's using JQuery to create. Actually, she's excited about all things JQuery.

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Happy Friday friends! We have a few things to share before we all head off for a long weekend.  Ok, the truth is, most of us are gone already...



Love your flash movie but are depressed it won't display on your iPad?  Swiffy could be the answer you are looking for!

Jedd says he can't live without the ESPN mobile website.  What mobile sites to you visit most?

Beau has been singing the praise for Evernote lately.  Some might say it's his new obsession...  "It’s a great way to organize your work, your life, anything and everything you need to organize. It’s a developers dream for keeping track of things. It’s a combo Mac / Windos app and works with iPhone / iPad (just about everything) and you can access your notes via the website as well."

All LRS departments just started using Gone For Good Document Destruction and we are super excited about it!!  Does your company recycle?

And lastly, words cannot describe our amazement and interest in this!



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Cassandra Pence is the main contributor for the LRS Web Solutions blog. Have a link suggestion? Email her!

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July Desktop Wallpaper

Need something to challenge your imagination and provide inspiration to a rather tedious work-day? The darling Sharon Hewitt, from the design team at LRS Web Solutions, has created just the fix for you. For the time-conscience bunch, rest assured, we have a calendar included!

Here's what Sharon has to say about her design:

"I have always been inspired by Marxfield Parrish, an American painter and illustrator from the first half of the twentieth century. This in combination with a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow about an evening sunset, resulted in a digitally manipulated image created from a combination of photos that I have taken from my front door.

I love the magical feeling that occurs when our world is illuminated at sunset."

Not sure which size to download? Click here to check your monitor resolution.

Widescreen 16:10	High Definition 16:9
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Full Screen 4:3	1280x1024
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1600x1200	Smart Phones
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