The new website has a lot of features, many of which we custom built to work in our platform of choice, WordPress. I will highlight those features and show a few images but I encourage you to visit the site itself to see all it has to offer. Because of the names and information involved on their site, I’m hesitant to post too many images as these images won’t be updated in keeping with their website updates. You’ll note that I have blurred out names and photos of individuals in these screenshots, for that reason.

Home page:

Perhaps the most complex part of the website was building the database and infrastructure for the “Most Wanted” section. This section presents information on individuals who are wanted for a variety of reasons. We needed to create an interface for the staff at the sheriff’s office to keep that information up to date, as well as give the website visitor a way to view and sort through that information. We supplied a number of filters to allow users to sort or narrow down the database. I’m not going to show you a screen shot of that page as it contains photos and names of many individuals but you can visit that page on your own to see how it works.

The Sheriff’s Office also issues frequent press releases so we included a Press Release section so that those press releases could be posted directly on the website. They also have a list of email subscribers who wish to receive those press releases. To accommodate this, we built a custom subscription system to manage those email subscribers. There are two lists; Press Release Subscribers and Emergency Alert Subscribers. The Sheriff’s Office can filter both lists by zip code and by residential or business subscribers and then export those lists to be sure that their email is going to the appropriate audience.

We also created an Emergency Alert bar at the top of the page which appears whenever they issue an emergency alert (it is otherwise hidden):

There are several other ways that the Sheriff’s Office can communicate with the public through the website including:

• A Notices/Sheriff’s Sales page
• Photo Galleries
• Video
• Events Calendar

Here is an image of the Events Calendar:

This website is a perfect example of how one’s website can really become a tool. Leverage the power of WordPress and some custom code writing, we were able to create a site that will help keep the community safer and put criminals behind bars.

Visit queenannessheriff.org

According the Firefox website, changes include:

• Drastically improved memory handling for certain use cases
• Added a new rendering backend to speed up Canvas operations on Windows systems
• Bookmark and password changes now sync almost instantly when using Firefox Sync
• The ‘http://’ URL prefix is now hidden by default
• Added support for text-overflow: ellipsis
• Added support for the Web Timing specification
• Enhanced support for MathML
• The WebSocket protocol has been updated from version 7 to version 8
• Added an opt-in system for users to send performance data back to Mozilla to improve future versions of Firefox
• Fixed several stability issues
• Fixed several security issues

That first note – Drastically improved memory handing – is the one receiving all the press. Reports are that memory has been improved at between 20% – 30% and up to 50% at times. Quite an improvement!

There aren’t many visible new features in this release but a lot of speed and performance improvements have been made including giving users the ability to determine their own preference for the loading of tabs and groups.

They have also give users the ability to set site specific permissions for cookies, permissions, and saved passwords and the like.

In redesigning their website, we wanted to capture the rustic and seafaring motif that one finds at Cantler’s:

Apart from re-designing the site from the ground up, we were tasked with adding some new features to the website. First, we built the site in WordPress which will allow the staff to keep it up to date on their own. They will now have a news feed using the blogging feature of WordPress to post news, press releases, photos, and event announcements.

Secondly, we were asked to incorporate the ability to sell gift cards and t-shirts on the website also.

Payments for both items are being handled by Paypal. Completed orders are stored in a database accessible from the WordPress admin as well as being emailed to the restaurant and the purchaser.

One of the challenges with the t-shirt order component is that Cantler’s does not have a regular set of t-shirt colors that they inventory. Their available shirt colors change all the time. So we had to create a way for the staff to easily manage the available shirt colors through the admin.

Creating a new color is easy:

In this past week that the site has been up and running, Cantler’s has sold gift cards to people all over the country. I’m not going to tell you how much they have sold, but I can tell you that in one week, their sales paid for 1/3 of their new website. Now, I can’t say whether these sales would have been made without the order form on the website, but I am certain that not all of them would have been. The addition of the simple, easy ordering process has certainly created a new revenue stream for the restaurant and certainly made the investment in a better web presence worthwhile.

Through our meetings with the client, it became evident that their products could be categorized to serve four markets: Residential, Commercial, Government, and Marine. Categorizing in this way gives the end user the opportunity to immediately find the information that is relative to their application.

Challenge number two was to take stacks of scientific data and present the efficacy of the products in a manner that was readable and user-friendly. We used a “layered” approach to allow the end user the ability to determine just how much technical information they want to encounter. The layers were organized like this: overview > technical specifications > scientific theory and data. Organizing the site in this manner means that users not interested in the science do not have to sort through it. But for you engineer types out there, the science is still available and right at your fingertips.

Home page:

Inside Page:

Visit the Nautic Air™ website

This is an important step forward in that it should help to push forward the evolving technologies of the web that simply do not work in older browsers. When a company as big and powerful as Google draws a line in the sand, it creates a standard for others for establishing browser support policies.

It will always be important to understand one’s target audience when developing browser support policies. Companies targeting U.S. web users will find that far fewer users rely on older browsers than companies targeting Asian web users. More than 1/3 of all Chinese web users are still using Internet Explorer version 6 and similar statistics are true for other Asian countries.

It will take moves like the one announced by Google to encourage users to upgrade their browsers and move the web forward in keeping with available technologies and standards.

Mr. Madden is a skilled designer himself, so he had a lot of input on the design as we progressed. The website serves as both a gallery and as a medium for fans and friends to follow along with Mr. Madden’s busy schedule.

Home Page:

Gallery Page:

Each image in the gallery can be purchased using a custom e-commerce solution that we developed:

We also included a WordPress based blog so Mr. Madden could post of his travels, workshops, and assignments:

Link to site: bobmadden.com

In purchasing hosting, you are essentially renting disk space on a server and paying for the bandwidth (the data transmissions to and from your website) that your website utilizes. Depending on the amount of traffic and the nature of your website, you generally have several options to consider for hosting your site.

Shared Hosting

By far the most popular hosting available is called shared hosting. In a shared hosting environment, your website resides on a server with several other websites each sharing the resources of that server. The biggest advantage of this set up is cost…shared hosting is the most affordable option. The downside is that if another website on your server eats up the processing power of that server, it could cause a lag in the performance of your website. Hosts typically monitor for abnormal usage, however, so hopefully the problem would be short-lived.

With shared hosting plans you are also limited to the server configuration set forth by the host company. If your website needs a special configuration to operate that extends beyond those limitations, you won’t be able to take advantage of shared hosting.

All that said, shared hosting is a viable option for the majority of websites.

Private Server

Private server hosting gives your website its own dedicated server that you can configure to your liking. All of the processing power of the server is dedicated for your usage. You have complete control and all the resources of that server at your disposal. Private servers are generally priced based on the processor type and power, the amount of RAM, and the disk space size and configuration. Typical plans have a monthly charge and include a set amount of bandwidth…exceeding that bandwidth leads to additional costs. Usually your monthly fee includes some level of server maintenance and data backup but plans vary by provider.

Since private servers give you the most control, they also are the most expensive option. There is, however, an added level of assurance and security that comes to having your own dedicated resources.

Cloud Hosting and Virtual Private Servers

The newest kid on the block in the world of hosting. Although they go by a variety of names, plans utilizing Cloud Hosting or Virtual Private Servers refer to utilizing the resources of several connected servers to provide you with the processing power and storage to serve your website. Because your website has access to the power of multiple servers, the resources are scalable. VPS plans allow you purchase (on a monthly basis) a dedicated amount of disk space and bandwidth and be guaranteed the processing power you need. Additionally, most of these plans allow you to establish your own server configuration without the cost of having your own private server. You also do not need to worry about hardware issues creating downtime since your site is being served by multiple servers.

Cloud Hosting and VPS hosting is typically metered for usage and you pay as you go. The uncertain pricing can be a disadvantage, but rest assured that your monthly bill will certainly be less that if you had your own private server. It is a great option for those who need the configuration flexibility that they cannot get from shared hosting without the expense of a private server.

Password Security

Follow-up Article

Design: The goal of the design was to create a new website presence that would present their varied services, service areas, and specials and promotions. Secondarily, it would provide valuable information in the form of helpful articles.

Home Page:

We also created a simple content management system so the client could update their specials and promotions:

Visit allbritecarpetcleaningmd.com