Input/Output: Effective Website

Written by Josh Martin 

An effective website can literally make or break your business. Design and color choice go a long way. According to Forbes magazine, an effective website can even make people forget wrong doings (Source: http://www.forbes.com/2011/05/12/companies-with-most-effective-best-websites.html). Their research suggests BP changing their website and logo helped them regain consumer confidence. This kind of data suggests it is worth the cost and effort to have a well put together website. Today I will highlight some of the characteristics of the best websites and why they appeal to consumers.

Color Choice:

The best website on the internet have several things in common regarding color choice. Commonalties include using a light color that will primarily dominate your website. Black also works, but most choose white. Facebook, Intel, Microsoft, Apple- all use white as the dominate color on their websites.  Blues and greys are also effective when applied properly.

Layout and navigation:

When someone visits your website, can they easily find your latest news, contact page, career page, and “about us” page? Everyone is coming for a different reason, making sure they can find what they need easily will really push your website to the top. People have a more positive reaction about websites they can easily navigate.

The small details:

HTML will only take you so far. There are many great websites that are built on HTML, but it is hard to keep up with HTML5, Flash, and Java based websites. Using these programming languages can make your page look smoother, and allow you to have different pages on your website load in highly stylized ways. Facebook’s “Theater Mode” is built on HTML5.

K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid)

Don’t overload your page with big fancy words or long, drawn out explanations. Just give the most direct information, and use links for more information. This allows people to choose how much information they receive.

Properly using this information on your website can help put your company on the map, and also help appeal to what people want to see. 

Discuss what changes you want to make on your website in the comments below, or discuss what you have implemented on your website to make it more effective.

Input/Output: Rules for the Digital Age

Written by Josh Martin

There have always been rules regarding business and personal use of technology. These rules generally agree you should keep them separate. But with all these new technologies and services, it can be hard to know what is acceptable, and what isn’t. Is it ok to add your co-workers on Facebook as friends?  What about on Twitter or Google+? Is it acceptable to hand out your personal email or cell number? Today we will discuss what is generally accepted, and a few good choices you can make.

Ever since Facebook went public, it has been an unstoppable force. Everyone and their mother have a Facebook profile, even my own mother. Chances are high that most, if not all, of your co-workers are on Facebook. It’s inevitable; you are going to get a friend request from a co-worker at some point. How should you respond to this? It is usually a good Idea to deny these requests, simply for the fact of keeping your personal life separate. You can of course accept these friend requests, but do so at your own risk. When you add co-workers on Facebook, they can see and participate in conversations with your friends and family. You may not want this sort of interaction. This rule applies to most social network sites, including MySpace and Twitter. The only unknown here is Google+; it’s so new it is hard to tell. It is probably safe to apply the same rule for the time being.

If you have a work email, is it safe to hand out your personal email to your co-workers? This is probably less dangerous than adding them on Facebook, but it still may not be the best idea. Your inbox may get flooded by junk that your co-worker likes to forward. Nobody likes the guy who forwards 80 emails a day, and everyone has a friend or co-worker who does it. You can avoid the junk by keeping your email private.

Here is the big one: your personal cell phone or home phone. If you have a work cell phone, then your boss probably expects you to have it on you most of the time. Your co-workers can reach you this way. If you don’t have a work cell number, it can be hard to avoid handing out a personal number. There is an alternate though: Google Voice. Google will give you a free phone number to attach to your personal phone. You can hand out the Google voice number and it will ring to any phone you choose. This makes life much easier. Google Voice:  https://www.google.com/voice

 

You don’t have to shut your co-workers out of your personal life, but you can definitely control the amount of room they have in it. Use the comments below to discuss ways you can keep work and personal life separate and safe in the technology age.

We’ve added a new class! - Photo Editing Basics

Photo Editing Basics

The Photo Editing Basics course is for students who want a basic understanding of picture editing and an overview of using Photoshop.  This class will cover the following.

• Understanding digital images and making changes to size, resolution, and color. 
•  How to navigate the Photoshop interface and an introduction to the Toolbox, palettes, option bar, presets, and shortcut keys.
• How to make selections and use selections to edit an image, using the Crop tool and Extract command.
• How to retouch images using multiple tools and changing the settings for hue, saturation, brightness, and contrast.
• How to create, use, manage, hide, and show layers.
• Using the Brush and Type tool
• How to use masks and channels when editing an image.

Prerequisite Comments:

Students should be familiar with using computers and have used a mouse and keyboard. Students should be comfortable in the Windows environment and be able to use Windows to manage information on their computer. Specifically, students should be able to launch and close programs; navigate to information stored on the computer; and manage files and folders.

This class will be offered:

Friday, July 22^nd, 1:00pm – 4:00pm

or

Friday, July 29^th, 1:00pm – 4:00pm

TecMarc Technology Training Institute

737 W. Guadalupe, Suite 120, Mesa

Please Sign Up via Email or Phone to confirm your spot in this or any class.

James.Plotnik@marccenter.com or 480.694.9457

Interested in Other Classes?

Check the Schedule Here for Dates and Times

Training Calendar

*Note:  Calendar is subject to change, please check back often for updates

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

Summer 2011 TecMarc Nonprofit Technology Forum

Written by James Plotnik

Last Thursday, July 7^th, we held our third, quarterly Nonprofit Technology Forum at the TecMarc Technical Training Institute and it was a huge success! There was a great mix of individuals from both the nonprofit and for profit sectors, and from all different levels within the organizations including C-level management. Some of the organizations represented were Arizona Community Foundation, Community Services of Arizona, Cox Business, Sprint Business Solutions, Toshiba Business Solutions, Auction and Event Solutions, Mogollon Health Alliance, Greater Phoenix Urban League, Phoenix Business Journal, ProMarc, MME Consulting Services, Leadership Industries, Sechler CPA, Marc Center of Mesa and Grant Thornton. Our goal is to make these events collaborative in nature where we bring people together to share expertise and build connections and having a diverse group like this did just that.

                                               

Norm Duve’ from TecMarc Technology Services was the first speaker who discussed Managing Technology Change in Your Organization. He brought up the importance of gaining executive and management support as well as getting the right people on the bus to make changes come to fruition. Here is Norm’s list of Must Do’s:

- Always be getting buy-in from upper-management

- Always be selling your initiatives

- Accept that change is inevitable and prepare

- Use ten carrots and then a stick

- Keep looking at your environment

- Get the right people on the bus

- Involve the key people, keep everyone else informed

Our second speaker was Mark Villari from Toshiba Business Solutions who spoke about Managed Print Services – Saving Trees. His presentation was very informational and eye opening.  He spoke about the importance of knowing how documents are being produced and on what machines because you could be printing to a more costly machine and not know it. Through managing your printing you can manage your costs. Did you know how much of a negative impact old ink and toner cartridges have on the environment? I sure didn’t! Some parts of the cartridges can take 1,000 years to decompose and inks leak into soil and water supplies. Toshiba actually recycles old ink and toner cartridges. They can even turn them into eLumber that has many applications and can be used in construction, landscape and other projects!

eLumber Edging

eLumber Bench

From all of us at TecMarc, thank you everyone for attending our Summer 2011 Nonprofit Technology Forum and a special thank you to both Norm Duve’ and Mark Villari for speaking! You two did an excellent job!

Stay tuned for more information on our next forum. You won’t want to miss it!

Input/Output: The Green Revolution

Written by Josh Martin

 

 

Behold! The green revolution is upon us! Going green is the popular thing to do these days, but there is more to it than following the popular crowd to being green; going green is good for the environment, and can keep your wallet full of green cash. Using green products in not a fad, it’s a life style. The term “green” comes from the fact that the color green covers a majority of our planet, and from Green Politics which was popularized in the 1970s. The term “green” today refers to products made from more natural sources, that use less energy, or rely on their own source of energy.

Almost every major corporation is greening their company and image. Coke is using bottles made of plant materials for their Dasani line. Frito Lay is currently using compostable bags for their Sun Chips Brand, meaning you can throw your Sun Chips bags in your compost pile and it will be completely gone in 4-6 weeks. Encore Software uses recycled paper and cardboard for all their packaging, and partners with game developers to release games in encore recycled packaging. GE is selling LED light bulbs, which use 1/15 the amount of electricity compared to conventional light bulbs, and have a 15-30 year life span depending on the quality of bulb you purchase. This a very small list of what corporate America is doing to help. Today we will look at technologies that will help your company reduce your operating costs, and help the environment at the same time.

First let’s look at technologies that will help lower your operating cost. LEDs have been around since the 1970s, and each LED cost around $10,000 at the time. Now you can pick up an LED flashlight with 3 LEDs for around 10 dollars. LEDs are great due to the fact they use a very small amount of electricity, and are much bright than typical bulbs. The average CFL (Compact Fluorescent Light bulb) costs around 5 USD, and has a life expectancy of 3-5 years.  A top of the line LED light bulb cost $20 and lasts 30 years. The cost to lifetime difference is only .22 cents per bulb a year, but the electrical savings is where it counts. In Arizona, it costs approximately $3.83 a month to run a CFL bulb, so four CFL bulbs will cost you $15.32 a month on average. LED bulbs cost approximately $ 1.14 a month to run in Arizona, four LED bulbs will cost you $4.56 a month. In a 30 year period, a CLF bulb will cost you $1,378.80 and 5 bulb replacements after the initial purchase. An LED bulb will cost you $410.40 and no bulb replacements after the initial purchase. If you multiply that by the number of bulbs your company has, the numbers get big.

Every business has computers. And if you want work completed efficiently, chances are your company has a lot of them. Computers draw approximately $40 to $60 dollars every month, that’s up to $700 dollars a year. That number is calculated just for the desktop and does not include the monitor, speaker, printers, and any other devices connected to your computer. Moneual started manufacturing a power supply this year that saves 35% of energy on desktops. This new power supply also allows you to plug a 6 port power strip right into the computer power supply. This way you can run all your computer components off one unit. This is called a switched power supply. Moneual did a study, the results showed that most computers still draw .20 watts while powered down. Their switched power supply only draws .1 watts while powered down. That small amount adds quickly, even on a 15 computer network. These changes can reduce your energy costs, in most cases more than $10,000 a year.

Now let’s look at ways you can not only reduce cost, but reclaim some profit back as well. This is called “Zero Net Energy” or “ZNE” for short. ZNE is a term used when referring to a home or facility that uses alternate energy sources, and doesn’t require an outside power company for energy. ZNE facilities also may produce enough energy to sell back to the power company. ZNE homes are not affected by rolling black outs and loss of power on grids. This is not only efficient, it’s profitable and convenient. How is this achieved? Through technologies like Solar Panels and Wind Energy, your business can reduce cost, and possibly reclaim profit by investing in ZNE. Solar technology has been around since 1876, and has been much improved in the last 125 years. Wind Mills were invented somewhere around 500 A.D., and were used to pump water, process grain, and performed various farming tasks. Today both of these technologies are used to produce cleaner electricity. Most facilities incorporate both technologies to gain the ZNE advantage.

These Technologies are only getting better, and you can expect to see them everywhere in the coming years. The advantages already make it worth the capital involved. Your company can also claim a tax deduction for greening your workplace, in addition to saving on operating cost and it makes for good public relations.

Discuss the ways your company saves energy, and the technologies you want to use in the comments below.