Isaac’s Way Restaurant
Comments Off
Located in the heart of Fredericton, Isaac's Way Restaurant wanted their website to do more than promote their menu, they wanted to help the community.
Posts Tagged ‘fredericton’
18
Apr
2009
Apr
2009
What the hell is wrong with young people today?
OK so a few days ago I posted an ad on Kijiji, a free online classified ad tool (very similar to craigslist.org) for an Online Marketing Assistant, here’s the ad:
Our dynamic online marketing company seeks a part time marketing assistant to help make a great website even greater. With over 30 years in our selected industry we’re looking for people who are passionate about working with services such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
Your task will be to help optimize and organize over 30 years of television for the online market, build online profiles for industry leaders, create content on leading websites and help build the best site possible.
Hours are flexible, this is an ideal position for students or working parents with important schedules to keep. Pay is $10 per hour.
http://fredericton.kijiji.ca/c-jobs-part-time-students-Online-Marketing-Assistant-W0QQAdIdZ120586983
In my defense
Now, I know the pay isn’t much but I figured at $10 per hour I would be able to find a couple qualified students, possibly some stay-at-home parents or even a few people who are willing to take this on as an “earn while you learn” situation. After all, $10 isn’t great but it’s a lot better than the $7.50 you’ll earn flipping burgers so …
I purposely crafted the ad (which is actually for a client) to be appealing to part time workers and reinforced the notion that this wasn’t for a startup, so I was hoping to see a bit of effort put forth from some of the applicants (after all this was an online ad for an online marketing person right?) but here’s what I got:
Hi,
I saw you ad and thought that it would be something I would be interested in.
thank you,
P–– really? You thought that you might be interested in me giving you money? That’s really nice P.
I am currently the marketing communications officer of a software and consulting company and I would like the opportunity to work part-time for you. I would really like to hear more about the position. Thank you, L–
- Yep, nothing says hire me like promoting the fact that you’re already in a job, mmmmm …. loyalty.
Hello,
My name is A–, and I’m a University student [edit]. I am currently looking for a summer job, and I saw your ad.
I would like to know more information on this job please. What are the duties? Where is it located?
Thank you.
A–
– OK, in truth this kid’s at least got a chance of me being nice to him.
What does the job entail?
– I kid you not, that’s all she wrote
I would be interested in this type of part time work. Roughly how many hours per week would be required? Please reply with this and any other pertinent information. Thanks.
– Again, this wasn’t so bad.
Hi
Where can i get more information on this job?
Thanks
L–– Not too painful but pretty dull.
Notice a trend? Not one of them sent me a link to their resume, their qualifications or why I should care. Actually, what really kind of pissed me off was that almost all of the responses felt like a cut-and-paste response.
How should you respond to a job ad?
OK I can’t believe that I’m writing this but … I make a lot of money responding to people on websites, especially when I see a posting like the one above for something that I can easily do (ie fix WordPress) so how do I respond to these people?
- I assess what they need
- I determine if I can assist
- I write a three to five sentence summary
- I paste a standard two paragraph response complete with links
So for example, if I was going to apply for my own online marketing position (and keeping in mind that the space to reply is fairly limited) my response would look something like this:
I came across your posting today and believe that I’d be perfect for your marketing position. I have over 15 years experience on the web, have published content YouTube and created Facebook ad campaigns. My experience with Twitter is limited but I’m eager to learn and my schedule allows to me work when needed.
I’m a self starter, hard working and passionate about online marketing. My resume is online at http://thisismyurl.com where I blog about WordPress and online marketing daily.
Thank you, I hope we can talk about your opportunity and how I can help. – Christopher
Was that really so hard?
30
Mar
2009
Mar
2009
Saturday was Skirt Day!
Today I’m going to take a break from writing about building better websites or HTML shortcuts and celebrate with a certain amount of awe and relief the greatest day in the Canadian calendar, Skirt Day.
Now for those of you who don’t know about Skirt Day (and I am sure there are millions of you) it’s a little like Easter in the sense that it doesn’t have a set day. In fact it comes to different parts of the country on different days but this year in my sleepy little town of Fredericton New Brunswick it came on Saturday, March 28th. Also like Easter, Skirt Day is the celebration of new beginnings and fresh hopes.
Skirt Day in New York City (photo by bnittoli)
Skirt day is, simply put the first day of spring that you step out of your local coffee shop and notice all the women are wearing skirts for the first time since Thanksgiving.
It’s a magical day and before anybody gets all high-and-mighty that it’s a sexist holiday, Skirt Day can be celebrated by women too. Every woman knows the day I’m talking about … you look out of your office window and men simply look better, they’re jackets are off and suddenly for the first time in months you can see hope again … that’s what Skirt Day is all about.
Now, as wonderful as Skirt Day is … today we have freezing rain so I’m not going to celebrate too much but, here’s hoping that pretty soon all the snow will be gone, bikes will be out and we can all enjoy a BBQ in the summer heat.
16
Jan
2009
Jan
2009
Getaway Graphics
After a long hiatus from operation, I’ve recently decided to resurrect my graphic design business and relaunch Getaway Graphics, a company that I’ve been running here in Fredericton for the past few years.
Getaway Graphics focusses on delivering quality websites and web marketing support to businesses in the hospitality industry, specifically hotels and inns but as far reaching as restaurants and tour operators.
Putting this website together was an interesting challenge for me, I’m not a huge fan of Flash websites but I wanted it to have some pizzaz, so I’ve incorporated a lot of very subtle CSS tricks, some features found only on Apple Safari such as text glows and a lot of deep, rich photographs.
The site has three basic template files, the home page shown on the right has a blue welcome box and features the inset menu at the top of the page for easy access.
The five menu items result in pages, each sporting a quality photograph designed to set the mood for the page. Most photos are my own but a few I managed to find on Flickr, following my own advice. In fact, some of the photos are available for free download from my article Ten Free Photos From Mactaquac Canada.
Below the photo, I choose to use a nice simple font, clear text and short paragraphs to introduce the page content. On three of the five main pages, I list a series of articles or free tools for people to download.
Each article page is stored as a post in the website, a feature image is set using special fields in the post settings and the excerpt is recycled as a pull out introduction at the top of each posting.
As with the pages, a smaller version of the menu has been placed at the top of the page while a larger version resides at the bottom for easy navigation.
I have to admit, the footer is something that I’m really pretty proud of on this site. It’s created using three over lapping PNG files with alpha channels, something I’ll most likely write an article about later in the year.
02
Jan
2009
Jan
2009
Eight More Free Fall Photos from New Brunswick Canada
Last fall I uploaded a series of free photos of Ten Free Photos from Mactaquac Canada, I was just coasting through my hard drive today and found a few more that I’d like to post here for people to download and use for free. These images are taken at the Mactaquac provincial park just outside Fredericton in the sleepy little province of New Brunswick.
28
Sep
2008
Sep
2008
Ruin My Date
While I was teaching at the Center for Arts and Technology here in Fredericton, I kept walking into local coffee shops at just the wrong moment for students which caused awkward silences with their dates. Eventually one girl in particular suggested that I put up a website so that I could sell my services. :)
22
Jan
2008
Jan
2008
Web Sites for Artists
We had a great meeting of the Fredericton Designers Group in which I promised a number of the new members to post a little more details about web hosting, websites and web marketing. This tutorial is meant as a high level introduction to the concepts of hosting a website for artists.
Web Domains
First off, a successful website needs a domain name. In my case, my domain is thisismyurl.com and it’s broken into two parts. The actual name “thisismyurl” and the Top Level Domain (TLD) which is the “com” portion of my name. Many people confuse the “www” as part of the domain, but really it’s what is called a sub-domain and can be literally anything that I want it to be.
A TLD can be .com, .net, .org or literally dozens of other options including country specific such as .ca or .co.uk. Many people also like to use country specific domains for special purposes such as the .tv domain which is really for the country of Tuvalu but can be used (for a fee) by anybody. Selecting the right TLD is important for artists as it says a lot about your business for example, if you are located in Toronto Canada you may like to use the .to TLD but the .la TLD makes little sense unless you’re in LA. Whenever possible, the .com TLD is still the best to purchase.
The next step in picking your domain name is to pick the name itself. Most common names are taken, as are a lot of combinations that you’d love to have so you have to be creative when coming up with domain names but be careful some companies take part in what’s called Front-Running which is basically a scam where they register domain names that are searched for and then hold the names for random. I use GoDaddy for my searches, to the best of my knowledge they’re legit.
Once you’ve picked your domain name and your TLD it’s time to register your domain. As I said, I use GoDaddy but there are hundreds of options out there, price should be a deciding factor for you as there’s very little else to judge the services based upon.
Web Hosting
Once you have a domain name, you need to start looking at web hosting. Web hosting is basically renting a small part of another computer that’s always connected to the Internet. Really there’s a lot more to it than that but basically … it’s a place for your website to live on the Internet.
For the past few years I have used BlueHost as my web host of choice. There’s a lot of reasons for this but basically, they’re fast, they’re friendly and they’re reliable. As an artist you should be focussed on your craft, not your hosting and BlueHost takes care of all the little problems for you.
Once you’ve signed up with BlueHost or your host of choice, you’ll have to tell GoDaddy where your website is located … think of it as forwarding your mail. Log into GoDaddy and click on the Domains option. Under “My Domains” you’ll find an option for Name Servers. You need to click the option for Custom Name Servers and replace the existing with “ns1.bluehost.com” and “ns2.bluehost.com”. This will tell GoDaddy that anybody coming to your domain should really go to BlueHost who will figure out what to do with you.
Websites
So now that you have a domain and hosting, you’re ready to have a website. There are literally thousands of ways to have a website and no one method is better than any other. In my opinion, the easiest way for a young artist to get on the website bandwagon is to install something called WordPress from the BlueHost control panel. Click Fantastico in your control panel to access the installer and walk though the steps to add WordPress to your base directory. In about a minute, you’ll have a world class, professional blog.
If you want something more custom, there are literally thousands of WordPress themes on the internet, you can hire a great (and local) web designer or you can learn to code your own. There are even companies who will turn your Photoshop artwork into WordPress themes for a small fee.
Summary
We’ve covered the technical matters of adding your website to the Internet in this post from the basics of registering a domain name to setting up a simple hosting and website account. Next time, I’ll introduce you to the secret art of self promotion on the web and how you can turn your simple website into easy cash.
28
Sep
2007
Sep
2007
DNA Studios
DNA Game Studios came to us in the fall of 2007 for a new gaming logo.
I have to thank James Kirkland for helping me on this logo, he’s a brilliant artist here in Fredericton who studied Adobe Illustrator for days until he was able to get this just right for me.
30
May
2006
May
2006
Gallant: It’s level one compliant!
Mr. Gallant, the cities IT guru has reviewed the debacle know as frederictontourism.com and have given our local newspaper, the Daily Gleaner the definitive answer as to why the site is as broken as it is … it was never meant to be compliant with all browsers, only those which meet the W3C’s “level one” testing.
It’s possible that Mr. Gallant, being a public servant has information that I simply don’t have, or that he’s reached a pinnacle of web excellence that I have failed to reach because while I explored the W3C’s online validation service at http://validator.w3.org/, I don’t see levels of compliance, only a pass or fail.
It appears that Mr. Gallant knows something that the rest of the Internet does not.
On another note, the accessibility of the website which as reviewed in depth last week, it’s interesting to note the front page story of the Gleaner this week in which the city is found to be less accessible for the disabled citizens of Fredericton as it could be.
When it comes to accessibility, and the lack of effort put forward by the city to accommodate those who need a little bit of extra support, it is refreshing to see that their inability to create a website capable of being viewed in browsers for the blind is at least consistent with their general attitude towards the citizens of Fredericton with disabilities.
I agree with Peter Haggert in his editorial today, its bad enough that the city choose to over look the highly qualified and cost competitive firms here in Fredericton, but to continue allowing the mess of a site to stay online is ridiculous. The city should take it down until it can be fixed and dress down those responsible for this mistake.
25
May
2006
May
2006
Tourism Fredericton
Thursday’s front page of the Gleaner featured two articles of note, the first that New Brunswick jobs are at risk and immediately below it, an article in which the city is attempting to defend sending our tax dollars to an Ontario firm to build a website. The tourismfredericton.com website is a prime example of what is wrong in New Brunswick and the sickness that is rampant in our municipal offices.
Local businesses are the heart of our community and account for 80% of the jobs in Fredericton yet our tax dollars are sent to Ontario web design firms because as Mr. Jellinek erroneously points out, the city is looking for the “bang for the buck”.
Personally, I don’t build the type of website the city needed for tourismfredericton.com and as such, would not have bid on the project but I am offended by the thought that our municipal tax dollars are routinely sent out of the city to firms in Moncton, Nova Scotia and Ontario when qualified, talented and affordable firms are here in the city.
In the future, I hope that city hall will take the time to survey local companies before simply sending my hard earned dollars away from my community.
