Who?
I am 34, from Chapin, South Carolina and have lived in Charleston for the last 15 years. I enjoy art, visual communications, and technology. I started in young with an Apple IIc and took up photography in my teens, left to art school in Savannah, had fun, took off across this country, graduated from College of Charleston (studio art), worked some really cool jobs along the way, finally settled in McClellanville, got three dogs and a great girl, decided that i would succeed doing what i do best.
What?
I guess it can best be described as crossing the digital divide because what I've realized after several years of doing it professionally is that essentially I help folks take advantage of internet technologies. I come up with ideas and plans for your internet approach to marketing and IT, consult, review, produce, and maintain. Including, but not limited to: business applications, document processing, intranet, storyboard, design, logos, print graphics, audio, imagery, video, web, email, marketing, web/radio/print ad placement/production, databases, payment processing, publishing, work flow automation, syndication, customer relations management, file sharing, collaboration, video conferencing, and hardware (although i'm likely to try to get new macs and an Xserve), I provide consulting, training, and support and then maintain and administrate it all for as long as you want. Click here for all of the details.
How?
I do it all with my feeble mind and computers. The proper tools, knowledge and experience go a long way. The first step is creating a mutual workspace for us to launch your internet technologies. This means a remote server for a small company or an intranet server at your facilities and a business class service provider with fixed IP addresses for larger company.
Why?
Because we live in a digital world and it effects your business. I can make you money because having good imagery and media distribution means reaching and creating customers. I can save you money in the associated cost of advertising and IT.
When?
Whenever you are ready. My calendar is right here.. see if i have the time. It takes from a week to two months depending on the size of your company and the scope of the project.
Where?
I will need to schedule a sit down to get a good feel of what you want to accomplish and advise you on cost and timeline before we can do anything else. After that I am almost always available via teleconference, chat, phone, email.
This form is the best way to contact me.
Hosting: Media Temple
Media Temple is my choice for servers for reasons like these.. (clients) A small to midsize company is best served by this plan. When you're ready to begin please use this link to sign up for service with media temple and include my contact information as your server administrator. Here is a tutorial on doing so.
Outsource your IT: Google
Google applications (here is an overview) are all you need to handle any size organization. You will need to set up an account with google so that we can coadministrate the domain applications. Click on the logo for an overview. Google apps will save you time and money.
Domains: Godaddy.com
Aside from the tasteless commercials, i have found godaddy to be primo for managing dns and domain registration with ucann. You can watch this tutorial to set up domains or have them transferred. Once this is done, you will need to add my contact information so that i may access your dns records to set them up.
Customer Relations Manager: Saleforce.com
Provided that you are lucky enough to have enough customers to need a way to streamline a facilitate management online... salesforce is the way to go.. can easily integrate with Quickbooks, Paypal, Google Docs, and Microsoft Office. Endless reports and customer/time management tools.
Open Source: LAMP
I prefer an open source setup.. Apache, Linux, PHP, SQL. Sure.. coldfusion is cool, oracle is awesome, Novell group wise, Microsoft's .NET, .miva, nortell, Sun Microsystems, etc.. they're all good, but open source is better because the community of programmers and availability of documentation is better.
Content Management: Wordpress
By using customized installations of wordpress and wordpress MU, i am able to create easy to use content management around any design and you get the valuable community of plugins, instruction, free upgrades, security features that is robust to handle any number of users and pages.
eCommerce: Magento
Magento is a new professional open-source eCommerce solution offering unprecedented flexibility and control. With Magento, never feel trapped in your eCommerce solution again. try it out for yourself..here are some online demos. It makes handling an online store easy for anyone.
Payment Processing: Paypal
Paypal recently bought out Verisign secure payments.. good move. In general you're looking at processing fees similar to terminal and processing companies. I've been very satisfied with paypal over the years.. yes they do have some pitfalls, but i know my way around them.
1)Getting started...Information
The first thing i will need is a detailed summary of your needs and wants... this includes everything provided in my contact form, possible future needs such as third party software vendors for b2b applications, marketing approach, market strategy, online strategy, business needs, ideas... etc.. No matter if your starting from scratch or have a well established presence that your giving an online overhaul, I can help.
2) Register/Modify DNS
You'll need to provide me access to your domain registrar to modify your domain name server records to point to the new server
3) Set up Hosting Account
The advantages of having your own hosting account are too numerous to mention vs using a prefab configuration from Yahoo, Godaddy, Enom.. or using shared hosting provided by a web development company.. or any of the other various After my confirmation email, follow this link and register for the appropriate service. Put my name as the server administrator and email me the login information
4) Setup a Google Account
add my contact info and set me as an administrator...i will set up the apps and admin and we will use it for communications and to share documents.. this will familiarize you with the adminstrative controls in google apps to handle creating new email address, shared presentations/documents for your domain.
5) Upload all existing media,
.....graphics, and copy. And that way we can colaborate on the layout, design, graphics and copy...
6) Create a mockup/storyboard of your content
Log in Here and create a site in minutes....mark the site as private to keep the search engines from discovering your work in progress. this will give me a place to begin to customize the page layout, navigation, design, and content before we publish to you domain.. just follow the instructions on the emails and the documentation to customize is readily available..
8) Review and Approve Site
i'll publish and you're off and running across the digital divide.
8) Finish / Followup
I am almost always available to give support via email. Most of the time and can resolve anything in a couple minutes.. or provide video instruction on how to use administrative controls for the domain or server
8) Periodic Review for Upgrades
you're free to roam with any web development company of internet enabled application from most all vendors and the more you use your applications.. you'll begin to see little things that we can tweak, install or upgrade to customize a more streamlined or efficient workflow for your online needs.
Other things you may need from me...
Check My Calendar
Accounts:
Coming Soon....
I'm setting up an account center that will easily allow you to make adjustments to your account/billing information and access your service request and past invoices
Upload files:
Coming Soon....
Create a dummy site:
by going ahead and creating a dummy site, you will familiarize yourself with the content management and you can begin to formulate a mockup of your final site
Tutorials
Demiurgic Design: (dêm'ê-ûrjîk)
[Late Latin dmiurgus, from Greek dmiourgos, artisan : dmios, public (from dmos, people; see d- in Indo-European roots) + ergos, worker (from ergon, work; see werg- in Indo-European roots).] (wikipedia)
v. design [di-zahyn]
[Middle English designen, from Latin dêsignãre, to designate;] (wikipedia)
1. To conceive or fashion in the mind; invent.
2. To formulate a plan for; devise. To have as a goal or purpose; intend.
3. To create or contrive for a particular purpose or effect. To create or execute in an artistic or skilled manner.