An important market for any full-service interactive media agency like DBS is the mobile application marketplace. With smart phone usage steadily increasing it will not be long before standard cell phones (or as we like to call them, dumb phones) are in the minority and Internet-enabled smart phones will rule the airwaves. It is important to provide clients with the option of a total package: online marketing, web application development, and more recently mobile phone application development.

There are several questions that clients often ask when they want to take the leap and be represented on the mobile marketplace:

• Which market is best for me?
• What program features can I afford?
• Are several markets an option?
• What hardware on the device can I take advantage of to create the
“wow” factor for users?

Traditionally the answers all depend on a client’s budget. In an ideal world, we would advise they be represented on every platform to maximize the potential user base, but developing the same application for 3 different major platforms (Android, Blackberry, & iPhone) can be a time-consuming and expensive task. Each of these platforms has a unique way to develop an application, meaning that the exact same application needs to be completely re-coded for each platform. Android and Blackberry base their applications on the Java programming language, but use different API’s and have a completely different way to go about manipulating the user interface and hardware. The iPhone uses a language called Objective C which is proprietary to Apple hardware and an API called Coca Touch. These differences in hardware and programming create a major hindrance to creating a mobile app that spans all platforms.

But what if developing on multiple platforms wasn’t a roadblock for clients? What if a single application could be created using a single code base that worked on multiple platforms? After doing research and testing out various products, DBS has found that the Titanium Appcelerator platform has the potential to bridge the gaps between the various platforms and enable our developers to offer the maximum amount of services to our clients without the expense of developing on multiple platforms.

Currently the Appcelerator mobile platform supports iPhone, iPad, and Android development. The Blackberry platform will be supported in an upcoming release and is in beta development right now. Appcelerator is not a 3rd party compiler for the various mobile platforms; this would not be allowed under Apple’s Terms of Service. What Appcelerator does is allow developers to code in one language (Javascript) and then the API translates the Javascript into native platform code. This means that after your project is compiled you have a completely native application written in Java or Objective C depending on your desired platform. Once compiled it is ready to ship off to the marketplace of your choice and into the hands of your potential users.

Microsoft has generally dominated the business market with products like Microsoft Office and Outlook. Outlook has been a particularly successful product for Microsoft, giving users an all-in-one package for managing email, contacts, and appointments, with the added benefit of integrating seamlessly with other Microsoft products.

Long-time Outlook users love the features built in, and consequently are reluctant to switch to any competitive products, including G-mail.

We at DBS>Interactive, however feel the opposite is true. Here’s why and exactly how we’ve made the switch to Google.

Why:

1. Significant cost savings
2. Google Apps integrates painlessly with other platforms of YOUR choice
3. Data sharing makes collaborating less complicated
4. Fewer headaches – we don’t have to deal with all those mysterious Microsoft errors.

The savings includes the obvious; the license cost for the full version of Outlook ($100+ ea), the monthly fee for Exchange server ($15 ea), and the monthly Blackberry Enterprise server plan (another $15 ea).  Add all of those fees up and you are left an annual fee of $360.

A Premiere Google Apps account is $50 per year, and includes perks Outlook can’t offer. The mailboxes are remarkably larger and email can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection. The freedom to access your data how you want and where you want, without worrying about licenses and installation issues, is itself, a great value.

One continuous irritation for us has been scheduling and sharing of calendars. Not all employees have Outlook, which obviously complicates things. Microsoft creates needless hurdles for calendar sharing in Outlook, and it is impossible to do with Outlook Express.  Before we made the transition to Google, we were able to only share calendars effectively among a few, and for very limited items. Now, we have company calendars, department calendars, and personal calendars.  All of which can be shared effortlessly. Even nicer, no special software is required. A huge productivity enhancement for us!

Not only is calendar information easier to share, we have also put much of our internal business forms and documents in the Google “cloud”.  Again, easy sharing of this information has made us more efficient and saved us time and effort.  We can collaborate in real time on documents no matter where we are physically.

There are other savings that aren’t as easy to quantify. For example, the inevitable tech support issues that come part and parcel with Microsoft products, or lost productivity due to having to reboot because “something weird keeps happening”, or applying security updates, or re-installing…shall I continue? Moving to the Google cloud has largely eliminated all these nuisances.

And this is how we made the switch:

1. Migrated mailboxes from hosted Exchange environment to Gmail
2. Migrated calendar data from Outlook to Google Calendar
3. Moved various forms and internal business documents from an internal server to the Google cloud
4. Traded in our Blackberries for Androids

Google has various tools for migrating mailboxes and calendars, and moving documents from a local file server to Google Docs. This took a little time, but overall, was relatively painless. And the move from Blackberry to Android was a no-brainer. Android being a Google product, integrates with all Google services out of the box.

As much as we crow about our Google transition, we must admit the steepness of the learning curve. Some details definitely work differently and we’ve had to adjust here and there. We still have yet to eliminate Microsoft altogether, though we have immensely reduced the dependency, saved a handful of dollars, and improved our business systems.

In a recent blog, Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior Vice President, Product Management at Google had this to say:

At Google we believe that open systems win. They lead to more innovation, value, and freedom of choice for consumers, and a vibrant, profitable, and competitive ecosystem for businesses. Many companies will claim roughly the same thing since they know that declaring themselves to be open is both good for their brand and completely without risk. After all, in our industry there is no clear definition of what open really means. It is a Rashomon-like term: highly subjective and vitally important. The Meaning of Open

This commitment to openness is one thing that sets Google apart from the other major players in the tech industry.  And perhaps helps explain how they have come to be such a dominant player.

Its also one reason we at DBS watch Google’s every move. They are pushing the technologies that drive the online world more than anyone else.

The other giants in the industry are Apple and Microsoft. Apple has a long history of innovation and producing game changing products. The iPhone, iPad and iPod are all really cool products that changed the industry in a very positive direction. They pushed their respective envelopes.

But Apple is just as well known for their “walled garden” philosophy, where they control the user’s access to content and technologies that the power brokers within Apple don’t like. They are benevolent dictators. Apple users typically have but one way to play the game — it’s Apple’s way or the highway. Most Apple users probably don’t care since their view of the world from within those high walls, is pretty nice.

And then we have the other giant, Microsoft. Nobody would ever confuse Microsoft as an innovator or of doing much that could be called “game changing”.  Or “open” for that matter. In fact, if there is anti-thesis to Google’s openness, its Microsoft’s closed, proprietary protocols, their partial acceptance of standards, and their apparent reluctance to support the openness of the Internet beyond that which supports their self-interests in the Desktop and Server markets. “Free” and “open” are four letter words in the Microsoft dictionary. Try imagining anything like the following coming from Microsoft:

Open technology includes open source, meaning we release and actively support code that helps grow the Internet, and open standards, meaning we adhere to accepted standards and, if none exist, work to create standards that improve the entire Internet (and not just benefit Google). The Meaning of Open

Of course, this isn’t pure altruism on Google’s part. A bigger, more pervasive Internet is just good business for them.  Google’s technical know-how and seemingly limitless resources allows them to take on challenges that most companies would deem too great.  Google has stayed true to their goal and has without a doubt become essential to the growth of the Internet and the acceptance of open-standards.  Just take a look, at literally, a small fraction of the many products Google has developed and then made open for the world to build upon, customize, and improve:

• Android – Operating system for phones and handheld devices
• Google Analytics – Traffic statistics generator for websites
• Chrome – Open source web browser for Mac, Windows, and Linux
• Gmail – Free email system that offers many times the amount of storage space than other services
• Wave – Communications platform and collaboration tool

Each of these products has somehow helped transform the industry that they service.  Google is often attacked for being too big, too powerful, and yet without Google’s size and their backing of open source, the many tools and products we use daily to improve and simplify our lives would not exist.

I’d like to leave you with one final quote from The Meaning of Open that may be especially telling of the future, as seen by Google.

Open will win. It will win on the Internet and will then cascade across many walks of life: The future of government is transparency. The future of commerce is information symmetry. The future of culture is freedom. The future of science and medicine is collaboration. The future of entertainment is participation. Each of these futures depends on an open Internet.

We’ll just have to wait to see what the future holds, but I for one, wouldn’t bet against them!

Search engine optimization is a particularly challenging concept for businesses to comprehend. SEO’s inherent nature can contribute to the confusion. Search engine optimization is an ever changing science with best and worst practices being based somewhat on speculation. The search engines go to extreme lengths to protect the significance of variables used in their page rank algorithms. It is only through shared knowledge and combined experience that we as Internet Marketers can attempt to decipher the importance of ranking factors. Local search optimization best practices are continually changing, but I think it is fairly safe to assume that worst practices will remain fairly constant. So without further adieu, I present the 7 factors SEO experts agree are most detrimental to your local search ranking (1 being least harmful…7 being most harmful).

1) Multiple Locations on Company’s Contact Webpage

This practice has the potential to seriously confuse the search engines. Search engines use your company’s contact page on your website and compares it to their local business listing, as well as other web pages crawled from across the Internet. Multiple addresses on one contact page will prevent the spyders from creating a correct business profile. Best practices would indicate that businesses should create an individual landing page for each location on their own website. Each location’s unique local business listing should then link to the specific landing page that it is associated with.

2) Negative Ratings

I’d have to disagree with the experts on this one. Negative ratings give local business listings a hint of credibility. I become suspicious when browsing business or product reviews with no apparent negative reviews. No matter how well the product is made or how stellar your business’s service is, chances are someone has had a bad experience. I would argue that reviews, regardless of being positive or negative, are beneficial and help your listing stand out over listings without any reviews. In the end, there doesn’t appear to be any harmful effect of negative ratings on local rankings, but an abundance could certainly hurt your conversion rates.

3) Local Business Listing without Local Phone Number

Local phone numbers should always be included in local business listings. (800) or toll-free numbers don’t hurt, in fact, there is actually some indication that they may benefit you as the primary phone number in the local business center, but there should always be a local phone number listed. Without one, you will likely not rank as high as your potential.

4) Multiple Listings with Same Business Name

This is a factor that will cause the search engines to identify you as a spammer. As a spam listing, the search engines will merge the individual listings into one. In the event the search engines overlook the duplicate business names, you will likely experience a negative effect where the strength of your business ranking is spread between multiple listings, effectively chopping your local search optimization efforts down at the knees.

5) P.O. Box without Local Address

A P.O. Box in and of itself is not harmful to local rankings, but a P.O. BOX without a local address can be detrimental. Think about the purpose of local search. The idea is to provide local solutions to individuals searching for information. A listing without a physical location does little to help these individuals resolve their needs. If you are not of any help to these individuals, than why should you be included in the top local listings?

6) Multiple Local Business Listings with Same Phone Number

This is similar to #7 and may even rival it for potential harm to your local search optimization efforts. Imagine you are managing the local search optimization for a restaurant chain that happens to have 5 locations around the Louisville Metropolitan area. You create a listing for each restaurant, but use one common phone number for all 5 listings. The search engines will likely at some point become aware of the duplicate phone numbers (either through a competitor reporting you as spam or just by routine database pruning) and will attempt to merge all 5 listings. After merging, customers who seek information about your business will only see the 1 listing in the local search results, meaning the chance of someone finding your business has in an instant decreased by 500%.

7) Multiple Local Business Listings with Same Address

If the search engines discover two records with the same address your listing(s) are at risk of being deleted. Duplicate listings are defined by Google as spam and go directly against their guidelines. Spammers commonly abuse this feature, associating their business’s name with SEO friendly keywords. Spammers know that having a popular search term in their business name will get them top priority in the local directories for that term. Google, as of recently, has been on a mission to rid their listings of duplicate content. It is likely Google may simply merge the listings, but the possibility exists that they may delete both listings entirely, leaving your business high and dry in local search.

Original Study found at http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml

In the beginning …

The web was a very simple place. A “web page” was most likely to be a “static” page, meaning what we saw was the result of just the HTML code in a single file. Modern “web pages” are dynamically generated from data stored in a database server. They are displayed using templating engines and other more advanced techniques, all the while being accentuated with liberal doses of JavaScript and CSS.

Back in the day, on the rare occasion when a web page needed to talk to a web server, a “CGI” program (Common Gateway Interface) would do the talking. In all likelihood, this was written in the ubiquitous language of the day, “Perl”. If you knew some simple HTML and some Perl, you could really do it all, man.

And just as the web itself was simple, so were the tools we used to build web pages and web sites. A simple HTML file could be written with a basic text editor (like Notepad), or maybe if we got fancy, we would use Composer from Netscape Communicator Suite of Internet tools. You couldn’t use web-specific Microsoft products then, because they didn’t exist.

But now you can’t think about building anything on the web without a box full of serious programming tools. The good news is that there are plenty of tools to choose from. There’s a variety of languages to choose from, frameworks to support those languages, different IDE’s (Integrated Development Environment), editors that are available specifically for your language of choice, and a choice of database server implementations.

In many cases, a given project can be done with any set of tools. The finished product we deliver will be a mix of standardized open technologies, such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. These are the true languages of the web and the only languages a web browser is capable of utilizing.

For the most part, no matter what choices we make on the development path, we will all wind up at the same place technologically. A typical user will never know whether we used Java, Ruby, or .NET to generate all that HTML their browser is displaying, so how we choose to deliver the finished product is often up to us. However, there are occasional exceptions when the project requirements limit what tools we can use.

When starting a new project, we want to use the best tool for the job. Although there are a variety of choices, not all choices are equal. So how do we decide which tool is best?

Factors to consider include:

• Adaptability: How much of the heavy lifting of the project can be done by the language and framework, and how much functionality do we have to create from whole cloth?
• Extensibility: How easy is it to extend and modify the built-in features to help us with the task at hand?
• Scalability: Does our toolset help or hinder us if we have to start sharing the load amongst multiple systems? Or datacenters?
• Maintainability: As the project we are creating evolves over its lifetime, and perhaps takes unexpected turns, how well will the given toolset be able to grow and expand with us? Or will it get in the way of unseen future requirements?
• Documentation: Do we have good developer level documentation?
• Support: Where and how do we get support, and how good is it? For paid software, most support comes from the provider. From open source and free projects, this is either the developers or other users (which is not necessarily a bad thing).
• And last but not least, Familiarity: If we are hiring outside developers, we obviously want to choose those that are intimate with the tools we have chosen. If we are using in-house developers, how well do they know the language and framework? The devil you know is often better than the devil you don’t, which translates directly into increased productivity.

Some tools may be better suited to certain projects than others, in that they bring something to the table that significantly reduces development time. For instance, using Eclipse as an IDE for Android app development would be a good choice. Google has made specific extensions available for Eclipse that helps push the development process.

The bottom line is to find which set of tools will meet all of the project requirements and get the job done in the least amount of time.

To be continued …

@author Hal

One of the most common questions that still seems to be floating around the web development community is, “Which program should I use for Flash development?”

The answer ultimately depends on the goal of your project. Deciding between which platform to utilize for your project’s goals is not an easy conclusion to reach. Each project has its own different requirements and limitations that influence your final decision. The answer is ultimately reached by carefully considering the scope of the project you are building. If it is for a web based application or fully-functional website, then the answer is almost unanimously Flex. If the website requires a medium to large amount of functionality, then again, Flex is most often the best program to choose for deployment. But if your project’s scope is smaller in complexity and nature, Flash may be a better choice. However, do not disqualify Flex from consideration. One specific condition where Flash is the best option is any project that consist of animations almost exclusively.

In the end, both programs are designed to meet certain programming needs. However, as with any programming language, the Flex-Flash debate can be narrowed down to the Pros and Cons of each. From that point, it’s up to the developer’s level of comfort and what his/her individual preferences may be.

However, we wanted to outline many of the important pros and cons that affect our decisions on every Flash based project we do. In our experience, we almost always use Flex as the primary program for website and application development. This is because we have full time developers, so Flex better suits our needs when trying to build a website and/or application both quickly and efficiently. Still, review the lists below and choose for yourself!

Flex Pros
• More efficient for programming oriented projects
• More efficient for fast user interface layout and skinning
• Fluid layout abilities are built in and on by default
• Ability to use simple and complex assets from a compiled SWF
• For programmers, the environment is more optimized with nice code hinting and XML based component definition.
• Built in support for i18 internationalization and runtime localization
• Visual layout editor for easier user interface design
• Program built on the Eclipse platform which allows further extension of the IDE
• ActionScript framework can be cached by a browser’s flash player for later use among multiple sites
• Compile time is faster since the entire SWF does not have to be recompiled for every change
• Built in support for modular based application architecture

Flex Cons
• No timeline available for drawing objects and animations (solved by using SWF based assets)
• Program built on the Eclipse platform which can sometimes (but not often) cause system performance issues such as CPU load
• More programmer oriented IDE instead of designer oriented
• Compiled SWF files can be at least 300 KB when the framework isn’t exported as Runtime Shared Libraries
• Full understanding of Actionscript 3.0 required to fully utilize Flex

Flash Pros
• More designer efficient for drawing and animation
• Program usability is higher for non-programming related tasks
• Compiled SWF file sizes are optimized since they do not have to include an extra ActionScript library
• Little to no Actionscript 3.0 knoweldege is required to utilize the basic Flash IDE.

Flash Cons
• Poor support for ActionScript programming such as no custom code hinting, only the built in libraries
• Compiler not as fast since it has to recompile the entire SWF for any changes
• No built in support for modular based application architecture

Here’s the question …. with the free browser engines out there that are clearly superior to Internet Explorer, why does Microsoft spend a small fortune to continue to develop their clearly inferior competing product, Internet Explorer?
It’s obvious that they are not interested in really fixing or improving Internet Explorer. At least not to the point where it is competitive with Opera, Safari, Firefox or Google Chrome. So why spend money just to make it a dog by comparison?

Why not follow Apple and Google’s leads and use Webkit as your core engine? Rebrand it, and maybe cobble on some additional functionality. Most MS users wouldn’t know, wouldn’t care, or who knows, might even be appreciative. No brainer, right?

This would do three things:

1. Result in a superior product, which translates into an improved user experience. *sniff*
2. Save a boatload of development money.
3. Help advance the web, by promoting standards and new technologies.

So again, why? Well, the problem is #3. Microsoft does not really want to advance the web, and Internet Explorer is their weapon of choice in that battle. They of course can’t say that, so they do the doublespeak thing.

It’s highly likely that Internet Explorer is a failed attempt of the classic Microsoft tactic of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, which had served them well in the past. It didn’t work this time and instead of Microsoft being able to write their own rules, we have this mix of implementations that is holding back the inevitable.

The web is a threat to their core business — the joined at the hip cash cows of the Windows operating system monopoly, and the Microsoft Office monopoly. While they certainly have other revenue streams, they also have competition in those areas, and don’t have the freedom that the twin monopolies give them. Or the profit margins.

Now they can’t ignore the web completely. That’s suicide. They tried that back in the early 90’s. They eventually licensed software that included the BSD (Unix) TCP/IP networking stack (see Microsoft, TCP/IP, Open Source, and Licensing) so they could ”talk” internet talk, and “walk” the internet walk. And they rebranded the Mosaic browser (the same engine used by Netscape) as guess what? Yep. This got them in the game, and allowed them quickly to make up for the past sins of ignoring what everybody else except Microsoft was embracing: the Internet.

The Internet was a threat then, just as it is now. Free and open access to information does not put money in the Microsoft bank accounts. Desktops and Office suites do. While the Internet has the potential to make buggy whips out of both.

So now they profit from a confused, fragmented and inferior Internet landscape. Their customers are dependent on their products to travel the Internet. That master/slave type dependency is critical to preserving their business model and the twin cash cows. So their profit becomes our loss.

Now for those of us that see the web as leading to a better world, and Internet Explorer as one of the barriers, we say … “Mr Ballmer, tear down that steenkin’ wall NOW, and kill that misbegotten *BLEEP*, please!”

You might have a billion or two less in the bank, but we’ll all be better off for it. Even you.

@author Hal

Not a word was spoke between us, there was little risk involved
Everything up to that point had been left unresolved.
Try imagining a place where it’s always safe and warm.
“Come in,” she said,
“I’ll give you … shelter from the storm.”

No doubt about it, the Internet is not kind to the innocent. There’s mischief lurking at every fork in the road.

Many of the common online dangers have a physical presence. They wind up as something on our systems that we can find and remove to regain a warm and fuzzy sense of safety—like a virus or spyware.

But there are stealthier threats out there that can sneak past even the best preventatives. It is highly likely that we have all been victimized without ever knowing it.

These stealthy threats lurk in friendly looking web pages. It can either be a legitimate page with hidden, malicious code planted surreptitiously within, or a totally phony page that is dressed up to look just like a legitimate page.

One of the threats posed here is completely silent—theft. The ruse is to make you think you are in a place that is safe and warm. Nothing gets installed on your computer, no signature, no calling card, no apparent risk, nothing to clean up. The malicious code in this case just wants to take information stored in your browser. It wants your cookies and the cookies could contain anything, including a password that protects sensitive information, like from a bank.

So, the real threat is the trust we have mistakenly placed in forged content. Treat all sites as untrustworthy, unless you know the site well and know that you are really on that site.

Here’s the short list of basic self-defense axioms:

· Never go on the Internet when logged on as an administrator. Many malware programs require administrative privileges to be installed. This is a very simple, but effective, precaution.

· Keep your system updated with the latest patches for the system itself and any applications you use while online.

· If using Windows, have firewall, anti-virus and similar products installed and set to update automatically.

· Never open suspicious looking email and never click on any link in an email or web posting that originates from someone you do not fully trust.

· Even if it is someone you trust, be suspicious of forwarded emails. People pass on all kinds of stuff with good intentions, not knowing what it really is.

· Treat unknown websites with the same level of suspiciousness that you do unknown email. Never heard of the site? Anything unusual about what they do or where they are? Are they offering some kind of super deal? Tread softly.

That last one is important and something we are not as tuned in to.

I’ve heard newborn babies wailin’ like a mournin’ dove
And old men with broken teeth stranded without love.
Do I understand your question, man, is it hopeless and forlorn?
“Come in,” she said,
“I’ll give you … shelter from the storm.”

In a little hilltop village, they gambled for my clothes
I bargained for salvation an’ they gave me a lethal dose.
I offered up my innocence and got repaid with scorn.
“Come in,” she said,
“I’ll give you … shelter from the storm.”

]]> http://www.dbswebsite.com/blog/2009/05/04/shelter-from-the-storm/feed/ 0 http://www.dbswebsite.com/blog/2008/12/30/open-source-matters/ http://www.dbswebsite.com/blog/2008/12/30/open-source-matters/#comments Tue, 30 Dec 2008 20:34:12 +0000 Hal http://www.dbswebsite.com/blog/?p=58

Open Source is one of those buzzwords that probably does not matter much to most people, but it is our bread and butter. Here at DBS, we use Open Source products to run our servers. We use it to build and manage websites. We use it for hosting, marketing campaigns and internal business applications. It isn’t just us, though. Much of the Internet is built with Open Source products. Google, for instance, is built on an Open Source operating system called Linux and it seems it has worked out OK for those guys (understatement of the year). And an Open Source web server called Apache has been the #1 web server on the planet since 1996 (based on Netcraft web surveys) despite Microsoft’s effort to flex its muscles in the server realm. Firefox, the web browser, is something that possibly resonates with more people and it is also Open Source.

Okay…so Open Source matters to us, but why should it matter to our clients? Well, because there are a number of benefits to Open Source development that trickle down and benefit our clients, and ultimately, our client’s users. Using Open Source tools will allow us to produce quality products that:

· Often save us from having to re-invent the wheel, time and time again. Shorter Development Time matters.

· Allow for fast adoption of new web-based technologies. Because open source projects tend to be reflection of the latest web technologies, they tend to foster those technologies. Technology matters.

· Offer better support for web standards. By their nature, Open Source products are the opposite of vendors that try to circumvent standards with proprietary protocols. Standards matter too.

· Cost less. As crass as it may sound, saving money always matters.

These are meat and potato reasons our customers receive tangible benefits from our participation in the Open Source software community. They are more likely to get a quality product, faster, and cheaper than if the same project were built solely with proprietary, closed source products.

There is one last, philosophical reason why Open Source matters: because it is open and because it is “free”. We, in the United States, live in a free and open society. At least, we aspire to those lofty ideals. We preach and foster their acceptance around the globe and find it hard to apply any kind of negative connotation. We have free speech, a free press, freedom to worship as we please (or not), freedom of choice, free assembly and so on. Free is good, no?

Yes, free access to the code we use to build servers, sites and applications is a good thing. It allows us to share and improve a global codebase that is open to all of us, not just the few. It is not held in proprietary hands and licensed to us temporarily as the masters of that codebase see fit. It belongs to us, we, the people. Yes, freedom matters too.

Open Source matters.