Email and More

Email Options

Or Why Your iPhone Loves IMAP

Email is an essential part of life. Most of us use it without wondering much about how it works. There is a server that receives the email. Most hosting accounts (including HTN accounts) offer a web-based interface you can use to read your email from any device with a browser. And most of us also have an email client loaded on our computer where we do most of our email-related activity. Many people use Outlook. There are excellent free alternatives as well, such as Thunderbird, Eudora, and the Mac email client.

One of the basic options that gets set is whether your email server will use POP (Post Office Protocol) or IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) for how the incoming messages are handled.

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A Look Ahead: Some Interesting Deadlines

Red Flag Policy
Do you need one?

Identity theft and credit account abuse are large problems. They are one reason PCI compliance is such a big issue in the e-commerce world (see following story). The FTC has passed a Red Flag Rule (enforceable June 1, 2010) that is also meant to add protection and control for securing sensitive personal information.

If your company collects or manages personal information about your customers, you may need to have a Red Flag Policy in place by June 1, 2010. What this policy does is identify ways you would be alerted to potential fraudulent use of an account or identity and what you would do about any such alerting situations. The Federal Trade Commission set up these rules primarily for financial institutions and creditors. But any company that deals with personal information, even if it is at low risk for identity theft, may be considered covered by the rules.

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Overcoming Limitations: Obstacle or Opportunity?

Getting What You Want
Even When It Isn’t In What You Bought
How often have you been frustrated because what you want to do – and it seems easy – is either difficult or impossible in the software you are using?

All software packages have limitations, no matter how extensive and robust they are. All have basic assumptions on how tasks will be accomplished. Those assumptions may not hit you until you want to report on the data or display the data in different ways. For instance, is everything about a person stored in their “record” or is some of it linked to other “records” like subscriptions or orders or status? Is that “link” a field you don’t even want to populate? Are you able to get order information directly from the product ordered or is it scattered in transactions in a sequential transaction file? Sometimes those limitations cause annoyances or inconvenient workflow for the software users. Sometimes there is no workaround available. Read the rest of this entry »

Designer Role

Web Design
Working With a Designer

In fulfilling the gamut of services HTN provides, we often work with web or graphic designers. And, just as often, the job at hand does not need a web designer to be involved.

When do you need a web designer? If you already have a website with an appearance (or theme or skin) that you like and you are working with HTN to enhance some feature of the site or to update it in some way or to add e-commerce to it, you probably do not require a web designer to get involved.

But if you are looking for a new theme or a facelift or a reinvention of the site or if you are working on your first web site, you almost certainly will benefit from working with a web designer. Such folks are creative (and practical) artists. They will be able to translate your corporate mission, your preferences, your personal style, your preferred colors, and your logo into a concrete picture that we can use to build your site. From that point on, it is HTN’s job to make the site function as you want it to.

What you can expect when working with a web designer is that you will have one or more conversations in which you talk about your site, what role it is meant to play, your industry, and your intentions for the site and for your company. You will be asked to name some sites you like or don’t like (and why). You should be able to point out competitor sites in your industry. You should also be able to talk about your budget for the design. Like many parts of life, from new cars to restaurant meals, anything is possible but recognizing budget realities will let you get the best for what you are able to spend.

After initial discussions, the designer will most likely produce some “pictures” of possible themes. S/he will take your feedback to adjust the approach until you are happy with one theme. The pictures you will be looking at will most likely show the proposed home page design and a secondary page demonstrating how design elements are carried down into the subsidiary pages. If you have a special section or feature that is different from the overall theme, a mockup of that section is also important so that we can see how the design elements will be applied.

When you are happy with one theme, HTN needs to turn that winning “picture” into code so that the web site itself can be built and can function under the “skin” of that theme – using the chosen layout, fonts, colors, buttons, logo, and other graphics elements. Ideally, the theme should be expressed in CSS and HTML at this point. If your web designer does not deliver themes in this form, then HTN will do that step. Be aware that some features that look good in a picture-only format may not translate well into code. If your web designer has already fought that battle and produced a codable theme, you can rest assured that it will end up looking the way you saw it when you approved it.

HTN works with several graphic designers. With some, we have ongoing relationships. Some other relationships are single-purpose encounters with the designer a particular customer uses. We are happy to work together to make your mental image of your site a reality.

Be Ready for the Holiday Shopping Season

Just a quick request that you bring any site changes you might want HTN to do before the upcoming holiday shopping season to us as soon as you can. The schedule books up quickly as fall approaches.

Customer Site News
Saint Charles Flying Service is a nice example of a WordPress-based site. HTN set up the site but Dennis Bampton, the owner, has made it his own, expanding and maintaining it continually. Dennis takes full advantage of his ability to change content frequently, to upload pictures of both planes and folks having fun at the airport, and to use informational pages effectively. Who would not want to learn to fly – or take a test ride? If you are in the St. Louis metro area, stop on by.

Another site we recently launched is 3Bsupply.com. Look at the online catalog. This site has 600,000 products, and is growing the inventory steadily. The magic here is the order form. How could one effectively and simply find what they need in an inventory that large? Enter something like “lag bolt” in the keywords field and a size like ” 3/8 ” ” in the size field. The index is working both on the PDG Commerce database fields and on other data brought in from an external application. Complications had to be overcome, like the fact that common punctuation used in sizes is stripped from web searches (/, “, etc.)

Web Designers

HTN is looking for a web designer interested in joining the HTN team. If someone you know has an interest, please ask him/her to contact Art at art@hens-teeth.net.