Some of us blog about gadgets. Others blog about politics, world news, or celeb antics. Some even blog about blogging! Is it me, or is this blogging phenomenon maddening?

As a web developer, I respect bloggers and their influence. I respect the technology on which the blogs reside. As a wannabe blogger, I respect your time to not bore you with the mundane details of my everyday life. (I am even sorry for this blog entry about the woes of blogging

A year ago, I began programming systems such as these (though not as elaborate) and I am now, one year later, ready to continue my route to becoming a Certified Crestron Programmer. Designing touchpanels and writing programs to do all that cool stuff (and so much more) is really what technology is all about.

Unfortunately I do not have my digital camera with me (or one built into my laptop), otherwise I’d share some of the incredible sights here at the training center. Last year, the hallways were painted a solid color with posters everywhere. This year, they’ve totally revamped and have installed incredible plasma screens, wall mounted touch panels, and decorative lighting everywhere imaginable.

Day one has started off great - we’ll be programming audio/video matrix switchers. SWEET! Can’t wait to see what day two holds…

powered by performancing firefox

In her post, she completely rips clients who think web designers should give their work away for free. And why the hell should we? There’s no such thing as free; mockups, RFP’s, designs, layouts, even color scheme selection takes time and thought. There’s nothing wrong with charging a pre-design or consultation fee. Unless your a web designer, and I use that term loosely, who cranks out 10 designs a day - maybe a free consultation is worth it. The cost for the consultation is made up in selling quantity. But, if your a designer such as myself, who cranks out a site every 1-3 months (depending on complexity of course), You can’t possibly make up the time tomorrow by selling another design. What we sell is time, and time is limited.

Check it out her post!

Background

Last week I was approached to do some custom programming of a webform by a national bedding company. The basic idea of the form was quite simple; it is to supplement a direct mail marketing piece (which targets dealers only) to collect basic contact information, marketing information, and whether the user would like to enroll in a sweepstakes being offered by the company. Ok, no big deal. The form is then supposed to email the data to an employee at the company (again, big whoop) and write the data to a plain text file or database. Once again, not a brain buster.

Denial

Since this project was being subcontracted to me through another graphic designer (who’s main business is print design), I sent them a basic rough estimate with a not-to-exceed cost. Come Monday morning, I recieved an email stating that the project has been killed because my cost was “too high”. The project was then given to the bedding company’s internal IT department to undertake.

Anger and Frustration

My quoted price included graphical layout and design of the form (which, as specified by the client, was to incorporate branding and imagery), and the programming to perform the necessary tasks. Now keep in mind, this project was to be completed in approximately four days. I could have easily done the job for under $600 with a very bland (read: ugly), plain looking HTML form but I was shooting for something with a bit more visual zap.

Confusion

Has providing quality designed interfaces fallen by the wayside? Is there something I am missing? The estimate for the not-to-exceed price was around $1,200, without getting into detail, and as any designer or programmer knows, projects change! No matter how “simple” or “straight-forward” a project may be, there is always someone who will want something revised and that has a cost. Am I to assume that not being up-front about those costs should be hidden and revealed as a surprise at a later point? I tend to think not, but maybe I’m wrong.

I look at businesses with disgust sometimes because they are trying so hard to be penny wise, yet are dollar foolish. Better to have the IT department do it because its “free”. Sorry to burst your bubble Big Company, its not free - every minute they spend on your side project is one minute less they are maintaining your system as they should be.

Things right now are still on the down-low, so I can’t say very much. We are hoping to go to print sometime next week so hopefully things will work out just in time to make the O.A.R concerts at PNC Bank Arts Center and Jones Beach. Should be a good crowd, hopefully in need of a shirt or two.

• Clean and fast XHTML/CSS code - It is built for search engine friendliness and accessibility. For some reason, Safari 2.0.3 running under Mac OSX 10.4.6 renders the content pages differently than Firefox 1.5.0.4 of the same OS. Strange, I say! IE 5.0+ and Firefox seem to function as expected.
• Enhanced search engine optimization and increased keyword density built into every page
• Newly designed graphical interface and integrated Product catalog
• Custom web inquiry forms for job and duplication services prospects
• Redesigned hierachichal nav structure (search engine friendly, of course)
• Fresh, crisp graphics and redesigned color scheme - get it, Color scheme…
• AJAX powered photo gallery - courtesy and special thanks to Lokesh Dhakar for Lightbox 2.0
  

Future projects will include a monthly HTML newsletter and possible CMS upgrade. The principals at Colortone are extremely happy with the results and have gotten many compliments from new and existing customers.

I’m still waiting for that written testimonial…

The last few months have seen quite an upsurge in business which have resulted in limited time to finish our long awaited redesign. As you can see, we have now moved to the world famous Wordpress blogging platform.

We are currently using a theme called Hemingway, but only as a temporary solution. I absolutely love this design for its sheer simplicity, but alas - it is only a temporary solution (read: until I have the motivation to change). Things are quite busy and so free time is both rare and precious.

We appreciate your patience over the last few months during our transition, so we thank you.