Your website is the representation of your company for the whole Internet. This means that people all over the world could view it. Just think about how many more chances for building your business up that gives you. This makes it paramount that the site be designed with the most effective features a Fort Myers Web Design firm can offer your company.

As far as web visitors are concerned, a website has to be navigated without a bunch of confusion. It needs to be clearly marked as to how to access all the information contained throughout the various pages. This is one design feature that must be done right for your company’s website to be successful. It should not be a cluttered mess of loud colors and a bunch of flash-run graphics. A site like this is too hard on the eyes for visitors to stay and enjoy the site with all it has to offer them. It should be well-organized and designed with colors that are easy to look at along with being easy to read.

The main purpose of any business website is to inform visitors about the services or products that business is promoting. It is also supposed to entice the visitors into making a purchase. This is how the site can build up the customer base and make it stronger. A Fort Myers Web Design firm will be able to give you such a website. This definitely makes it worth the cost of hiring a firm like this.

As you look for the best firm to design your website for your business, you will come across many different ones. Some will be reputable and produce top-quality work and others will not be. So carefully check these companies out to make sure you will get what your company needs in a website for the money they will get paid. After all, you do not want to throw precious money away.

Also know what to look for on your company’s website. Understand there needs to a site map on the main page, showing the visitors what is included in the website, links to other pages involved in the website and there should be a page with some history about the company. This way you will be an educated client. When you know something about how a website should be set up you can better choose the right Fort Myers Web Design firm to meet the needs of your business.

The Impact of a Professional, Unique Website for Your Business

As a business located in Ft Myers, Florida, your website is one of your most powerful sales tools. What, you say? It does not make calls or sign clients or schedule meetings (although it may have functionalities that support those activities). Yet, your website has the power to work for you constantly. Nothing can replace human capital, but neglecting your online capital can deeply hurt your business.

A professionally, uniquely designed website sells your business in a way that does not replace a human sales person, but rather, one that supports your sales person. A website should contain information that is driven by the target market, and it should be client-focused. Your website is a tool that has the ability to work for you, reinforcing a positive perception and saying the exact same things graphically/visually that your sales people say verbally.

Why We Design Websites: Branding

At Fort Myers web design, we help businesses all around Southwest Florida create, support and reinforce a positive perception about their business through uniquely-designed websites. Your website should be an accurate reflection of your brand – in the same way that all of your other assets represent your brand (including your employees). If any portion of your business does not reinforce or support exactly who you are, you need to either revise it or cut it. For example, if your website does not support your level of quality of professionalism, it needs to be revised. You might be the highest quality roofer in the Ft. Myers area, but your website may not communicate those values or that particular brand. If you want to set yourself apart as a boutique wedding florist, your website’s graphics, design, and text must communicate that brand, or you will lose out on business.

As you look to set yourself apart and communicate who you are, one of the most effective ways to start implementing your marketing plan is through a professionally designed website. Every other marketing activity stems from your business’ website.

In a large number of such cases, a dead mobile phone battery is to blame. To ensure that this never happens to you again, you could always purchase a solar-powered backpack. It will let you store your stuff, your gadgets,all while charging them at the same time.

Design

From a design perspective, most solar backpacks look like any other. Most manufacturers offer different designs and colors and the bags boast plenty of pockets to carry all your stuff. The solar panels are usually stitched across the back to achieve maximum exposure to the sun. Good quality backpacks will almost always have a concealed wiring that isn’t noticeable on the outside, and also stays out of the way when stashing stuff inside the bag.

The downside to most solar-powered backpacks is that they do not let you charge multiple devices simultaneously. This is probably one feature that we will see in later models down the line. What’s good is that most backpacks feature a car charger output as well as battery output making sure that almost all kinds of devices can be charged.

Display

Solar panels on the backpack are usually quite sturdy and provide a decent charging time. Almost all solar backpacks feature a battery meter that displays the level of charge the battery is carrying. Most bags also have an indicator that indicates whether there is enough sunlight available to trigger a charge.

Performance

On most solar backpacks, the panels generate about 3-5 watts of charge, which is sufficient enough to charge most mobile phones, cameras and mp3 players. The battery usually charges in a few hours at full sunlight and carries enough charge to power up a couple of devices at least, although multiple devices cannot be charged simultaneously.

Benefits

If you want to save on electricity bills or charge your device during a power outage, then a solar backpack is just what you need. It can charge any device under the sun, and since sunlight is a free and renewable source of energy, there are no costs associated with charging.

Solar backpacks are also very eco-friendly. They reduce our reliance on conventionally produced electricity and do not produce any harmful emissions during use. It certainly lets us play our part in environmental protection and sustainable development.

Price

Good quality solar backpacks can set you back a couple of hundred dollars. But if you are a gadget enthusiast then you probably won’t mind shelling out that kind of money. There are plenty of cheaper varieties available in the market, but as with anything, you get what you pay for.

Solar backpacks aren’t going to change the world, but they are going to help. If you want to do your bit, or just keep charged on the move, a solar backpack is just the thing.

In order to facilitate real time information exchange, an environment which accommodates seamless data transfer is needed. This data could be in the form of audio, video or text files often coming from different sources. This whole concept is termed as digital convergence. A truly collaborative AV environment is possible, thanks to the proper technology.

To truly harness the potential of this no barrier environment, it is essential to apply collaborative AV technology in a useful and user-friendly way. Thorough knowledge of designers and integrators in building and implementing a collaborative AV system plays an important role in this. For building a collaborative AV system, it requires –

• A powerful video wall controller
• Interactive technologies
• A well-designed interface
• An experienced integrator to bring it all together

Video Wall Controller and AV Collaboration

Video wall controller acts as a focal point in a collaborative AV environment. It accepts inputs of various video formats, and provides output to different displays devices like LCD, plasma or front end rear projectors. The advantage of a video wall controller is that one single video controller, concurrently can operate with various devices located at different location. It can also cover the devices of an entire building. High definition video capture is also possible (up to 60 frames per second). In addition, a video wall controller displays standard Windows applications on any of the device thereby making it possible the convergence between Windows applications and the video wall.

Video and Audio Distribution

Once the video wall controller is configured and set, the video system needs to be designed so as to converge onto the video wall controller. It is important that all video content be sent to the video wall controller. Matrix switches and signal repeaters are used for this purpose. Once this operation is perfected, it’s easy to derive the video signal as a whole or in parts to any other device connected to the video wall controller.

Audio is to be sent via an audio matrix switch or a zoned audio system so that any audio source can be selected as per the requirement.

Interactive Technologies for AV Collaboration

A truly collaborative AV environment requires a variety of devices to share the information between users.  This is what lends flexibility of a video wall controller that truly drives any AV collaboration.

Systems and Platforms

Video wall controllers are not bound by any particular system or platform. They can accommodate a variety of technologies running on different operating systems to render the display anywhere in the building.

Teleconferencing

Teleconferencing is one of the prime usages of collaborative AV environments. New generation video wall controllers are able to handle multiple MPEG4 video streams (a codec commonly used by video conferencing devices) to be streamed simultaneously. Latest video wall controllers can handle this, including feeds in DVI and VGA formats.

Digital Whiteboards

Another great addition to collaborative AV environment is a digital whiteboard and large touch panel display. Routing signals from these devices to a video wall controller ensures that the video rendered on them is also available on other displays. Basic IT setup comprising of Microsoft Exchange Server or other applications (Google Apps) that allow multiple users to work on the same file are very useful here.

AV and IT Convergence

An ideal AV collaborative environment is one where all components like vide, audio and text files, converge and run seamlessly together. This ensures that the data is available for all end users in an abstract manner. In short, the users will experience easy real time sharing of all data and displays simultaneously, no matter how many types of them are needed. Such a collaborative environment requires a single and simple interface which has access to all the components of the system, namely video wall controller, display devices and audio system, teleconferencing platform, and even shared-file systems on individual PCs.

One way to creating a converged AV interface is to build a single touch panel control panel that is connected to a serial processor or a basic micro-controller capable of commanding all the hardware. Programmed to send multiple commands to multiple devices at the push of a single button, such control panels allows preconceived scenarios to be built into the collaborative AV system.

However, it is design and implementation that is the most crucial aspect of the custom interface whether it is, or it is not a touch panel.  Proper design allows easy access to all functions even for the first time users; a hallmark of a truly successful AV collaborative system.

Conclusion

Numerous AV collaboration systems exist in the market today, and singling each one of them is an exhaustive task. Any environment that requires real time information sharing from more than a single source can benefit from this collaborative technology. A few of the areas, where such technology is used include NOCs (network operation centers) command and control centers, traffic surveillance and corporate board rooms.

Advances in technology, particularly in the realms of digital convergence over the last few years, have further broken all barriers to AV collaboration. Designers and integrators now are burdened with the task of applying this collaborative technology in the most useful ways possible. However, to do and to achieve this, a clear understanding of the above concepts is required. In addition, they also require a thorough understanding of the requirements for the implementation of a collaborative AV system.

Don’t you wish that while working on a multi-monitor display, a single taskbar extends across all the monitors? Conventional multi-monitor software shows a taskbar only on the primary or base terminal. This simply means, there is no sure shot way of knowing on which display unit a particular application/window is being displayed. An extended taskbar, which is displayed across all the units of a multi-monitor display setup, is the only solution in such cases. Mediachance’s TaskBar utility proves to be extremely useful under such circumstances. This extended taskbar shows you the application/window that is currently being displayed on a specific unit at that point of time. Though the utility of this software seems quite simple, its usefulness can only be realized once you start working on multi-monitor displays.

Specifications

Once installed on your multi-monitor system, TaskBar adds a button to every application window you are currently running. This enables you to quickly transfer an application window from one monitor to another in a single click. However, TaskBar is best suited for your multi-monitor system only if all the monitors are arranged horizontally. Any other kind of arrangement fails to yield desired results.

No doubt TaskBar is an excellent piece of software; but the extendable taskbar feature of CineMastery is much more versatile than that of TaskBar. The extendable taskbar feature of CineMastery enables you to do the entire things that one can do with Window’s taskbar, something which cannot be done with the TaskBar.

TaskBar is available in two versions – the free version and the pro version. The pro version (paid version) has its own set of benefits, which includes – windows themed taskbar, and ability to span one application across multiple monitors. However, the latter again works ideally only if all the display units are placed horizontally.

Pros -

• Freely available
• Ability to span applications across multiple display units

Cons –

• Supports a maximum of three multi-monitor setup
• Display units should be placed horizontally.

The immense popularity of the iPhone, BlackBerry and Android based phones along with other mobile devices which can access the World Wide Web has taken mobile web design from a relative rarity to something which businesses and web designers can no longer afford to ignore except at the peril of losing precious market share. Every website project now has to be considered in light of how it will work on mobile devices. There is a maxim in marketing and advertising to the effect that if you want to reach consumers, you have to go where the consumers are. For some time now, businesses have known that being online is a necessity and now, being mobile friendly has as well.

Like any kind of web design, designing sites for mobile devices is all about creating a user experience which will meet or exceed the expectations of consumers. There are a lot of different things to be considered as a site building project progresses, but the following three points are a good place to start and will help lay the foundation for a new mobile friendly site to have a successful launch.

1)    Why do you need a mobile site?

This may sound like a question with too obvious of an answer to be worth asking, but give it some thought. Other than the fact that you want to attract your share of the mobile web browsing public, there are a few things which are commonly cited as reasons for needing a mobile friendly site.

You may need a new website and want to ensure that your site will have as wide of a reach as possible by making it accessible to the traditional desktop market as well as to mobile device users.

It may also be the case that you’re having an existing site redesigned and want to integrate a new mobile friendly website as part of the project and corresponding launch. This also makes it easier to offer visitors a more unified brand experience, since both the desktop and mobile sites will be built simultaneously, likely by the same team of designers and developers.

You may also have a site which is doing perfectly well as is, but want to have a mobile site built in order to give your business a better chance of getting the attention (and business) of mobile users.

In each of these cases, there are different approaches to take and a different set of considerations which will affect the planning and execution of your mobile web design project.

2)    What’s the goal of the project?

Again, this sounds like a no-brainer, but there is far more to this than simply having a mobile friendly presence on the web. You need to have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish and a well defined set of priorities so that you can communicate exactly what you need to your web designer (or if you’re designing the site yourself, to give yourself a road map for the project). Setting priorities is important if you’re trying to translate an existing site to the mobile web, since it’s not usually possible to include every single feature of a traditional site in a mobile site due to space restraints and hardware limitations.

3)    Look back before you leap forwards

If you’re redesigning your existing site along with having a new mobile site built or if you’re adding a mobile site to an existing one, then your web design plans should take into account how your customers currently access your content – if you’re using Google Analytics or other metrics trackers (which you should be), gathering this data and putting it to use to make a more closely integrated pair of websites should be relatively easy.

Make sure to note which web browsers and which mobile devices predominate in your traffic statistics, since designing your new mobile site to support the hardware and software which your visitors prefer helps you to prioritize design elements as well as design more effective pre-launch testing and fine tuning processes.

Despite all that, an email backup strategy is all too often ignored by many companies. Email has a remarkably low profile on the radar of many businesses despite its importance in the running of it. It’s often viewed as a tool that’s “just there,” and used accordingly.

Roughly two-thirds of American workers use email as part of their job function. They average between 60 and 200 work related emails each day. Add non-work related ones to the mix and you have a lot of traffic.

Despite the importance of the part played by email, the messaging systems alone do very little to help business manage data. The latest email systems have archives, and the ability to interact with archive servers, but still offer little in the way of comprehensive email backup.

For that we need a complete email backup strategy. One that incorporates external storage, effective archiving, indexing, security, compliance and resilience. Most of us are aware of the importance of resilience and server backups, but what about security?

Ask any corporate lawyer what their top business fears are, and they will inevitably mention email. It’s a terrific medium for communication, but can easily be used for other purposes. Any email backups need to be stored securely, and free from tampering. With the amount of proprietary knowledge contained in email, it’s a valuable commodity that would soon find a paying audience if it escaped into the wild.

Not only does business have to abide by statutory retention regulations, they have to be able to retain all that information for their own use. With the amount of business conducted via email, contracts passed and agreed, deals done and prices set, there needs to be a secure but accessible record of every single one.

So the imperative is to have a logical, organized and secure email backup system to preserve the functioning of the business. With email serving as the corporate memory and knowledge, it’s too important a resource to be casual about. When email works, its invaluable, when it doesn’t, it can be disastrous.

Not only can business grind to a halt, but important knowledge, contractual information and proprietary data can be lost. For those in regulated industries, it can also mean sanctions from the authorities if email isn’t available for inspection.

Imagine losing your own memory and how it would affect your daily life. Not knowing how to do aspects of your job, or what appointments you have for the next week. Now multiply that by however many employees your company has. How do you think that would affect how you do business?

“It was always going to be a tough race. I had a tough fight two years ago. I defeated a Republican incumbent, and I have no illusions that it wasn’t going to be a tough race this year,” she said.

The 4th District of Colorado is traditionally a comfortable spot for Republicans. Markey is the first Democrat to hold the seat since the early 1970s, and then-GOP presidential candidate John McCain took the district last time around. Republicans hope to reclaim the seat on their way to a majority in the house.

Her Republican opponent is Cory Gardner, a state legislator and part-time farm implement dealer from rural Yuma, Colorado. He is widely seen as the current favorite in the race.

“The philosophy over the next 30 days is: Kick hard — we’re entering the last legs of the race and nobody is going to work harder,” he said.

Gardner seemed happy to be out flesh-pressing and back-slapping at a homecoming game at the University of Northern Colorado. He has the easy confidence of a front-runner, and he doesn’t have to defend two years of votes during a terrible recession.

“I’m focusing my campaign on the economy. Getting the country back to work, creating jobs and cutting spending,” he said.

But in this election, Markey’s biggest enemy might not be her Republican opponent, but her own party and her own voting record.

“Betsy Markey has voted 94 percent of the time with Nancy Pelosi. She’s voted for the four horseman of liberal politics: health care, the stimulus, cap and trade and she co-sponsored card check,” Gardner said.

“That’s not in line with this district. You can’t get anymore out of step with the 4th District than those votes.”

Markey did indeed vote for those bills, but she seems to distance herself from some of the signature programs of the Obama administration in a recent TV ad.

“Bailout is just another word for cop-out,” she said in the ad.

Markey lives in the college town of Fort Collins and got into politics after a running a tech company and an ice cream parlor. She looked at ease on a sunny Saturday morning in the old town square near where her ice cream parlor once was. She’s glad to be back home and glad to be far from the president and her fellow Democrats in Congress.

“I didn’t come to Congress just to necessarily represent my party. I came here to be an independent voice for the people of the district, and I don’t answer to Republicans or Democrats. I represent the people of the 4th District of Colorado, and I think my voting reflects that,” she said.

But the message is a bit mixed. She also defends the stimulus plan, saying it helped save millions of jobs.

“When I took office two years ago the economy was on the verge of collapse,” she said. “We had to do something, and I’m proud of the work we’ve done.”

To keep her seat, she’ll need her base to get off the sidelines and start getting pumped up. It won’t be easy.

Hayley Hull is vice president of the college Democrats of Northern Colorado. She said the enthusiasm among young voters that helped propel Barack Obama to the presidency is lacking this year. She aims to change that over the next month.

“A lot of that has fallen off so we’re trying to get people to be more involved,” she said.

“It’s been a little slow so far but were going to do our best.”

Democrat Joe Perez is proud of what his party has accomplished, pointing to the health care bill, financial reform and the stimulus program. At a Betsy Markey picnic he worries that Democrats haven’t done enough to promote these accomplishments, forcing candidates like Markey to distance themselves from the programs.

“Maybe we should pound our chests and say yes, in 21 months we have accomplished a lot,” Perez said.

“Maybe we should, but Dems ain’t that way,” he said with a laugh.

Freshman Democrat’s job on the line

At Task is the 800 LB gorilla of hosted project management systems, in part because, well – it’s not simply a project management system. It’s more of a complete, software as a service based, run-your-business application.

Nearly everything you need to run the core of your business is on @Task. How big is it? Well… here’s a sample of some of their clients:

• Apple
• Adobe
• CBS
• HBO

Unfortunately, @Task has a matching price tag (and feature list). Here’s a list of the major features:

Features:

• Project Management – much like many others in our list of apps, At Task, allows you to manage projects, assign tasks/todos. But, it also includes a nice Gantt Chart for birds-eye views of projects (perfect for larger, multi-step projects).
• Resource Management – What resources do you have available at your company? How can you best utilize them? What resources are under utilized, or who/what department is being stressed to its limits. Not only can managers see this information, but so can executives.
• Help Desk - Again, differentiating At Task, from the herds of other PM software out there is their help desk functionality. Although other software can handle these kinds of requests, At Task specifically targets this group, helping your support team track, manage, fix your customers and clients’ problems.
• Reports & Dashboards – Fancy reports can be found in @task, helping you reveal and uncover actionable information about your business and the way you do business.
• Much More…

I personally researched @task many years ago while heading an Internet marketing department at a national marketing agency. What interested us in particular was the help desk management – we were fielding many calls/questions, etc. and tracking it’s affects on the business was a nightmare. Clearly we were losing money, but it was hard to tell just how much we needed to increase our prices, or charge for service. Unfortunately, I didn’t stay on long enough to see @Task implemented, although I know it was – and it’s use has since spread throughout the organization. It’s now used as a tool for the entire organization.

@Task from what I recall is price prohibitive. Unfortunately, as of this writing, they STILL don’t publish pricing information on their website (a pet-peeve). However, if your business is running okay, making a lot of money, @Task can be a huge resource. But remember… project management system should always be evaluated by time (time to implement, time saved, etc) and not just on price alone.

Why I Hate AtTask

Okay… i don’t REALLY hate At Task (@task), but I do have some major problems with their site, and the way they do business online… although, with offices all over the world, it doesn’t seem to have affected or slowed their business much. Here’s the list:

• no online pricing – It’s about to be 2011, ANY company that doesn’t put pricing on their website rings the caution bell of their potential customers.

• I’m Roger, I represent Business

  what is the product? – as more than the casual surfer (remember, I design websites as my day job) I’ve looked at this site in depth – for this review, as well as in evaluating the software in the past. My gripe is… what is your product @task. It’s two things: ONLINE SOFTWARE & CONSULTING! They sell subscriptions to their online software, and they consult with your business on it’s use, and ways to better your business. Both valuable, but horribly presented on the site. It seems each is an after thought to 1) getting your contact information 2) showing you pictures of random “business man.”

But for decades even Etchberger’s own children didn’t know about his heroism.

Cory Etchberger was in third grade in 1968, when he was told that his father had died in a helicopter accident in Southeast Asia. At age 29 he learned the truth, when the U.S. Air Force declassified his father’s story.

“I was stunned,” he told CNN during a visit to his hometown of Hamburg, Pennsylvania.

During the Vietnam War, U.S. troops weren’t supposed to be in neutral Laos, so Richard Etchberger and a handful of colleagues shed their uniforms and posed as civilians to run a top-secret radar installation high on a Laotian cliff. Called Lima Site 85, it guided U.S. bombers to sites in North Vietnam and parts of Laos under communist control.

The North Vietnamese wanted to eliminate the installation, and early on the morning of March 11, 1968, its soldiers succeeded in scaling the 3,000-foot precipice and launching an attack.

Timothy Castle, of the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence, wrote the book “One Day Too Long: Top Secret Site 85 and the Bombing of North Vietnam.” He calls Etchberger “a hero.”

Castle said Etchberger, a technician, picked up an M16 rifle, which he barely knew how to use, and ferociously protected his colleagues. One of them was Stanley Sliz. “I got hit in both legs,” Sliz remembered, “and everybody was screaming and hollering, but they weren’t able to get close because of Etch firing at them.”

Video: Medal of Honor hero

Video: Son tells dad’s story of heroism

John Daniel still has scars from the shrapnel wounds he got that day. “He was the only one that didn’t get injured in the firefight,” he recalled. “They kept throwing grenades and shooting, and we kept picking up hand grenades and throwing them, or kicking them to the other side of the mountain.”

When a helicopter flown by CIA-affiliated Air America arrived to evacuate them, Etchberger braved enemy fire to load three wounded comrades, including Daniel and Sliz, onto hoists.

“Thank God for Dick Etchberger. If it wasn’t for him, I would not be alive today,” Daniel told CNN.

Etchberger made it onto the chopper unwounded. But as it began to pull away, enemy shots rang out.

Sliz said he saw a splotch of red, and realized the man who had saved his life had lost his own. One round had hit Etchberger and killed him.

“I live it every day,” said Sliz. “I live it every day. It haunts me.”

Shortly after Etchberger’s death, he was secretly awarded the Air Force Cross for bravery. He was recommended for the Medal of Honor, but then-President Lyndon Johnson rejected the idea, fearing it would expose the U.S. military’s activities in Laos.

In his hometown of Hamburg, American flags fly from the light poles and men congregate on the steps of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Since Etchberger’s story became public, a memorial has been erected commemorating his heroism, and his name is proudly displayed on the town’s sign. But now there is an addition: a hand-drawn banner reading “Medal of Honor winner.”

Though the battle of Lima Site 85 took place more than four decades ago, Castle believes it is important to recognize the heroism of the men who were there.

“We have these extraordinary folks in the U.S. military who are willing to accept these types of missions and to go to these very remote places in very dangerous conditions,” he said. “The men that went to Site 85 had every reason to believe that no one in the public would ever know anything about what they were doing or what they had done, but they went anyway.”

Etchberger’s three sons will be at the White House Medal of Honor ceremony Tuesday. So will John Daniel, whose life he saved. “There might be some tears there. Carpet in that White House may be wet. But we’ll make it,” said Daniel.

But Castle noted that the full story of Lima Site 85 still isn’t known. Ten technicians who were on the Laotian mountaintop with Etchberger, Daniel, and Sliz that March morning in 1968 have never been accounted for.

CNN’s Jim Spellman, Sara Weisfeldt and Floyd Yarmuth contributed to this report.

Medal of Honor recipient’s valor hidden for decades