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When It's time to Update – Things have changed
by Ross Lasley
Let's face the facts – updating your website sucks. Always has.
Option A: Do it yourself and struggle with the software, mess up the graphics, and generally try not to pull your hair out.
Option B: Have a pro do it and swallow hard when the bill comes, never get it quite correct and certainly not fast enough. (trust me on this one - the only acceptable time frame for website update completion is yesterday, true for all of our clients) |
This results in the reality today – the vast majority of the universe does not update their site as often as they should or as often as they'd like.
A bit more than half a decade ago my mother asked me to lunch, we needed to have a “serious chat.” She wanted to discuss this “website business” and be sure that I understood the “universal facts”. For those of you who never met my mother – she was a Harvard MBA (first class of women through the school actually), the controller at SmithKline Beckman, and the CFO at Nutri-System that arranged the LBO financing that at the time was breaking new ground. Think serious serious businesswoman. Mom was a smart cookie.
Mom said: “It is important you know that this business of yours is going to fail eventually.”
Ross said: “[gulp], Really? Please explain”.
Mom said: “You perform services which will obviously be replaced by software, apparently there is even a page front thing people can use now. These systems are sure to just get better and better, and then you'll be out of business”
Ross says: “[laugh] Oh Mom, don't worry about that – the technology will always move faster than the software, the best do-it-yourself software can do today is several years behind, always will be.”
So – turns out we are both right. The technology has moved much faster than the software – the gap today in fact is even bigger than it was then. The updates problem I speak about above – has been solved.
Let's say that again so you are sure to grasp the significance.
The updates problem has been solved.
A major leap forward – as significant as ink jet printers or cheap scanners - has been made in web update software. Strangely enough, this breakthrough software is from the same people who produce the dominant professional tool – Macromedia. My guess is lots and lots of pro web developers moaning about how updates are such a pain may have been inspirational.
This software product is now in its third version – all the kinks are out and the features are stunning. It takes fifteen minutes to learn... no, that is not a typo, 15 minutes. It updates text and images, covering the vast majority of what you'll want to do to your site. It lets your web developer 'lock' that stuff you might mess up (like mouseover navigations) that you never want to touch anyway. It lets you drag and drop content from Microsoft Office. It allows you to setup simpler users in your organization - so that Sue from marketing can only edit the marketing page of the site. It does document check-in/check-out, it will let you 'rollback' the page to the previous version if there is a problem, it lets you insert anything into a website that you can print by creating a virtual printer called “FlashPaper”, and – sure it works on the Mac platform.
Now all of this stuff is good, but here is the really stunning part - $149.
So what does this mean for you?
It is time to shake out the bitterness we all have about updates and return to those heady days when you first got a website going – remember when you promised yourself you'd do an update twice each week? Notice how laughable that seems now? It doesn't need to be. Making updates today is as simple as sending email or adding an entry to your electronic calendar.
You need to change your thinking about web updates, the same way inkjet printers changed your thinking about color being impossibly expensive.
And mom – you were right, I am out of the updates business now, but I was right, too – we are proudly building custom functionality and stunning designs I couldn't have imagined half a decade ago.
Check it out: http://www.macromedia.com/software/contribute/
It even has a free 30 day trial just in case you are sure my review is overblown but won't spend $149 to try proving me wrong ;-)
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 Tech Tip |
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by Michael
McGrath
My work at KISS of late has been heavy on copywriting. As
a consequence, I've spent a lot of time at my screen, with
lots of words and lots of proofreading. Often times, I would
develop a headache late in the day, and attributed it to
an old bifocle prescription. However, I've recently upgraded
my computer system with a high-end graphics card (ATI
Radeon 9200, 128 MB memory), and a really cool 19” LCD monitor
from AOC with a screen resolution setting at 1280 x 1024
and a DPI setting optimal for resolution and screen size.
What difference could this make in my regular afternoon
headaches? When the rendering and displaying of characters
on your monitor is not crisp and clean (for instance, the
edges of the characters are a little fuzzy and not sharply
defined) your eyes work harder to sharpen them for you to
read. The combination of new graphics card, new monitor and
screen resolution/DPI optimization have sharpened the characters
and lessened the eye strain.
While my eyes, presently 55 years old, may have slipped
a little in performance since my last prescription, I might
be able to squeeze a little more time out of it before spending
a few hundred dollars on new glasses. I always make sure
I get lenses that have anti-reflective coating applied, also,
the necessary protection against visual distractions caused
by unwanted light reflections.
A new graphics card ($50-$90) and a 19” LCD monitor
(starting at around $400, although mine was $449) may be
outside your budget, but then again what would you be willing
to pay to avoid those daily late afternoon headaches? Short
of that, though, and if you wear eye glasses, make sure they're
coated to protect you from light reflections. |
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