Website designers

Make money by having fun

Earlier in the week, I wrote about “Hot for Words“, a Russian woman named Marina who is smart, pretty, talented, and resourceful. She has created herself as a YouTube phenomenon. Well, now I’d like to talk about Matt, another “semi-famous” guy who was discovered online through his funny YouTube videos and now he has picked up a sponsor (Stride Gum) who pays him to travel the world, do a funny dance, and in a small way, is bringing the world together and tearing down cultural barriers through his silly dance routine.

You’ve got to watch it and visit Matt’s website.

iPhone incompatible with Adobe Flash

With iPhone sales expected to top 45 million by next year, Flash web designers should note that of of this date, the Apple iPhone continues to be incompatible with Adobe Macromedia Flash player. Perhaps it is because Steve Jobs of Apple prefers to promote his own movie player, Quicktime 7, or perhaps it is some other reason. Whatever the reason, people should know that the iPhone has significant penetration and if you want your website to be seen and used over the iPhone, you should avoid embedding Adobe Macromedia Flash into any mission critical functionality within your website.

For example, do not use Flash as part of your navigation, calls to action, or anything that is absolutely essential to conveying your message across your website. I’ve been saying for many years that Flash is over-rated, that people overuse Flash for the sake of “coolness.” Now is the time to really think about what is absolutely critical to your website and ensure that Flash is not the vehicle for that mission critical functionality. Enough said.

Service Roles

• designer
• developer
• programmer
• programming
• maintenance
• geek
• webmaster
• webdesigner
• design
• developer/designer
• construction
• creation
  

Service Prefix

• web
• website
• graphic
• web 2.0
• Flash
• e-commerce
• ecommerce
• CSS
• AJAX
• X-cart
• OS Cart
• Zen Cart
• Wordpress

Entity Type

• Firm
• Company
• Business
• Agency
• Organization

Level of Skill

• expert
• experienced
• professional
• creative
• freelance

Geographical service areas:

• Northern Virginia
• Arlington
• Tysons Corner
• Washington DC
• Los Angeles
• Santa Monica
• Venice
• Southern California
• West Coast
• East Coast

The thing about America, is that websites are a given, a necessity, as common as a business card. Think about it. Every real estate agent has a website. Heck, almost every house for sale has its own website. Every actor needs a website, every movie needs a website, everybody, every business, every project, and every relationship needs a website.

Movie Websites

Website: The Illusionist
IMDB: The Illusionist
The Illusionist director: Neil Burger
The Illusionist screenwriter: Steven Millhauser & Neil Burger
Eisenheim: Edward Norton (The Incredible Hulk, Fight Club, The Italian Job)
Inspector Uhl: Paul Giamatti (John Adams, Sideways, Cinderella Man, Saving Private Ryan)
Sophie: Jessica Biel

Looking for a website that will get you noticed? Look no further. inQbation™ specializes in actor websites.

For $40 we can get your website launched with a blog and content management system so that you can update your resume, biography, photography portfolio and filmography. For another $40, we’ll create a dazzling bio on the IMDB (Internet Movie Data Base). For another $40, we’ll create your biography on Wikipedia.

Hurry! Your career cannot wait.

Call us NOW at 310.990.5257 and ask about the “Actor Special“.

Cheap Actor Websites

Affordable Actors Websites

Sexy Russina Linguist

It only takes a creative, intelligent, beautiful, and sexy Russian immigrant to inspire us all to discover the origin of words. Marina, of Hot for Words, a YouTube phenomenon, Philologist, and Etymologist uses YouTube as a vehicle to entertain, educate, and earn a few bucks here and there. Goes to show, the American dream is still alive.

Check out Marina’s website and YouTube channel.

LOS ANGELES - 21 Jun 2008 - When New York City based Financial Training Company, Enstruct, needed to bring their website to 2008 web standards, they turned to Los Angeles based inQbation™ to take on that task.

Enstruct Corp, was founded by Keith Allman, a former Citigroup investment banker with over seven years experience in investment banking, with a particular emphasis in valuation and financial modeling. Mr. Allman’s experience has primarily been in structured finance for nearly every asset class in countries spanning the globe. He is currently a Managing Director at NSM Capital Management valuing distressed sub-prime RMBS and structured finance CDOs.

Enstruct (before inQbation™)

Enstruct (after inQbation™)

What’s up with the Flash?

I’m not talking about the flash on your cameras, although I admit, photographers are the worst violators of overusing Flash.  Don’t get me wrong, Flash has its purpose.  Heck, I use it on my own website.  But, people do need to know that Flash does have its disadvantages, namely:

• Not all computers have the latest Flash reader, and your website may not work properly
• Many new computers, fresh out of the box, do not have any Flash reader installed
• Vista, Microsoft’s new operating system, often makes it difficult to install new programs
• Flash is often heavy and slow to load, which encourages website abandonment
  
• Google will often penalize websites which are heavy and slow to load
• Google often has difficulty reading the words embedded within a Flash program
• Flash is expensive to build and expensive to maintain
• If you don’t have the original, pre-compiled source code, you cannot modify your Flash
• Flash developers can hold you hostage and force you to use them to maintenance
• Flash often hinders your organic, natural, search engine optimization efforts
• Flash can be annoying, if not done well
• As of this writing, because a dispute between Apple and Adobe, the iPhone cannot view Flash

Other than that, I love Flash.

In my opinion, Flash should be used when it has a distinct purpose.  You should not use Flash for the sake of Flash.  Unless you are a Flash designer, you won’t impress anybody with cool Flash.  You need to impress people with your work, your products, your accomplishments, and your potential - not your Flash.

Flash should be small nuggets of hard-working code strategically embedded throughout the website to achieve special effects - key words: special effects!  Flash should not be used as the rule or as the platform.

In order for a website to be considered, “Search Engine Friendly,” it should have these basic elements:

1. Clean, validated code
2. Effective use of CSS to control style, layout, and font
3. Unique TITLE tags that describe  the page subject
4. Unique DESCRIPTIONS that describe page contents
5. Images appropriately named after subject matter
6. File names and directory naming convention that describes content
7. Text-based site maps
8. Text anchored links
9. Fast loading pages
10. Content rich pages

In order for a website to be considered, “Search Engine Hostile,” it usually contains these elements:

1. Heavy and extensive use of Flash
2. Images instead of Header tags
3. Words and text embedded in JPG and GIF files
4. Splash pages
5. Valuable content hidden behind login and passwords
6. Missing title, alt, and description tags
7. Meaningless file and directory names
8. Slow-loading web pages

Website Construction

Building a website is not unlike building a house. I can’t imagine a house builder showing up to his job site on the first day with sleeves rolled up, construction equipment everywhere, laborers standing around, and no blueprints or engineering plans. Indeed, every website should have some sort of blueprints, engineering plans, or a site map laid out prior to design or development.

In fact, the most sophisticated, functional, and complex a web application, the more crucial it is for a detailed blueprint that lays out every single page, call to action, page element, and navigational element clearly annotated.

The 6 P’s of Project Management

1. Prior
2. Planning
3. Prevents
4. Piss
5. Poor
6. Performance

inQbation™ is a website design and development firm with offices in Los Angeles, the Washington DC metropolitan area, and Bogotá, Colombia. We believe in the Holy Trinity of Website Development:

1. Strong Design
2. Search Engine Friendly (SEF) Technology
3. Easy-to-use Content Management Systems (CMS)