I normally don’t like to rant on my blog, I feel like it is just bad form, but today I am just plain pissed off. I have a new client, nice guy, made a few mistakes at the beginning of his web development journey, but these things happen and he is on his way to fixing those mistakes.

For a while now I have been going on about how important it is to control your domain name. And here is a prime example as to why you need to get on top of that control if you don’t already have it.

My client, the nice guy…made the mistake of letting a “friend” design his web site. So why is this a mistake? Well unless his friend was a professional web developer, then the chances of getting a professional website falls into the realm of “Not Going To Happen”, but the worst thing is now that the client has realized that he needs professional development help, his so called buddy has chosen to take his original site and domain name hostage. So much for working with friends.

I come into the situation at a very bad time for this project. The client comes to me and says that his “designer” has basically left the planet, leaving the client with a semi finished and badly developed website. So I try to pick up the slack. We are going to have to start from scratch. Should not be an issue except his original designer will not get back to us with any information about the domain name etc… It is always a touchy situation when you arrive on the scene of a  web development project gone wrong. Tempers are flaring on both sides. One the client is not happy with the situation, and two the designer is probably feeling rejected, and might not have been paid for the tail end of service. No one likes rejection, and no one likes to not be paid…

Too often designers let their egos get out of control. I have come across the odd designer who, when put in this situation, will get defensive and vengeful. Much like a bad divorce, the jilted party’s first thought is, “How do I screw this guy?”. Unfortunately, if the client has made the first fatal mistake of not taking control of his domain name, that is usually the first blow across the bow for the jilted designer.

In this situation, the original designer has removed the old site from his server, closed access to the FTP, and is now holding the domain name hostage. So now the client has invested several hundred dollars in business cards and branding that is completely useless and his site is completely down.

So why am I pissed off? I am so tired of developers and designers pulling these tricks. I am sorry you and the client have not worked out, these things happen, get over it and move on in a professional manner. This petty little ego trip you are having is not solving anything. Making life difficult out of spite is not going to get you ahead in this little game.

Any way, Rant Complete!

Stay tuned for future developments….

I wish people would ask me this question more often. There are lots of important things to consider when it comes to your web site, reliable hosting, a reliable developer, but the most important thing is your domain name.

Far too often clients come to me lacking control of their domain name. Either they let their original designer buy the domain name for them along with their hosting, or the took advantage of the “Free” domain name included with many hosting plans. Either way, they don’t have any idea where their domain information is or how to access it.

It is easy to see how it can happen, you just don’t want to worry about it. Let your designer take care of it, all part of the service right? When we begin the process of having our website developed, we get into it with the thought that our relationship with our new designer is going to last a lifetime. Sad but true, that just may not be the case. Our industry is filled with less then desirable companies, and those that fly in the night. Or maybe the fit just doesn’t quite fit. It happens, and as website owners we are left holding the bag so to speak.

When and if the time comes that you need a new designer he or she is going to ask you for a few things before they get started. The first is going to be about hosting, Do you have hosting? Where is it? And are you willing to change hosting if the old hosting company does not meet the requirements of your new site?

The next thing they will ask for is your domain name registration information. Ideally you have bought your own name at an independent domain name register such as godaddy, and you would just give over the requested information. But lately it seems more and more of my new clients do not have this information. At some point in the process they allowed their former designer to “Take Care” of it for them, or maybe they developed their site themselves and got their domain name for free with their hosting, either way they are unsure of their domain name information. And in an extreme case, their domain name was not even bought under their name, instead it was bought under the designer’s name. So now they don’t even actually own their own domain name.

So let’s get to the bottom line here…why is it important to control your domain name? Well would you let your interior designer register your Business Name? No? I thought not…why would you let your web designer register your Domain Name?

You register your own Domain Name for all the same reasons you register your own Business Name. Your domain name is one of the most important pieces of your branding, as important as your logo, and your business name. It is something that will remain part of your business identity as long as that business is operating. Web designers may come and go, but your name will remain the same.

Sorting out the Situation

If you already have a website and a current website designer and you know you did not register your own name you need to find out where it is registered and who is the administrative contact associated with your domain name. Just email your designer and get him or her to send you this information to keep in your records. Sometimes designers will register names through their hosting companies, if this is the case, you will probably want to move the domain name to a secure account you have control over such as godaddy. Depending on the register the hosting company uses, this can be as simple as going to godaddy and setting up an account and asking the designer to transfer the domain name to your account. You may have to step through an extra hoop or two to transfer the domain to your control, but they are relatively easy hoops. I highly recommend you do this while you are on good terms with your designer to make the transition less stressful. Most reputable designers will have no problem working with you to make this happen. If your designer is reluctant to help you out here, you might want to rethink your designer.

If you are not on good terms with your current designer, then things might get a bit touchy. But don’t let that deter you! If you run into problems, feel free to give us a shout, we will see what we can do to get things worked out.

New Business New Domain Name

Registering your domain name is very simple. Go to a domain name register such as godaddy.com and follow the steps. A domain name will cost about 10-15 dollars per year, so make sure you check the the shopping cart at the end to be sure you did not order any extras you don’t need.

Now you have control of your domain name…

As always, if you have questions feel free to ask…

Hard to believe it has been almost one years since Crazy Chameleon went live!

When we decided to change our business model from just template design to full service development we never expected the amazing results. We also never expected to make so many great friends of our clients.

Wait a minute! Yes we did! It is in our nature to make friends, well in the nature of our founder Lynne Robson. So let’s just do this in the first person shall we?

I love my job! I have been at it for over 10 years now and it just gets better and better everyday! Over the last year I have been privileged to meet some wonderful people, and to have been honored to help them get their businesses online, or to update and refresh old sites.

I would love to thank each of them personally, but  the Oscar people may be watching and tell me to leave the stage any time now. So you know who you are.

After a year I thought it was time to update the look of the site, and I hope you like it! If you have any constructive feedback or find any spelling mistakes, please feel free to let me know.

i look forward to meeting more of you wonderful people as we move forward. Thanks again to everyone who has made our first year a resounding success!

Many hosting companies will offer a free domain name when you sign up for hosting with them. How convenient you might say! The reality is it is neither free, nor convenient…and it will likely cost you in the end.

In the past is was not unheard of for a few unscrupulous hosting companies and, it is sad to say more then a few nefarious (cool word) web developers, to buy domain names for clients under their own names. This is supposed to never happen anymore, but it still does sad but true. Especially with some of those nefarious developers. But that is something for another blog. This is all about the “Free” domain name most hosting companies offer on sign up.

Remember back in the old days when your grandma told you you never get anything for free…she was right! The truth is those free domain names are not really free, some one pays for them and in this case it is your hosting company. But don’t be fooled, in most cases they will pass on the cost to you in some other way. And don’t forget the small print, that domain name is usually only free the first year, in year 2 you will pay for the domain name. And as a rule, you will pay more then if you had bought the name through an indipendant register.

So why use an independent domain register? Each domain name has 4 “contacts” associated with it. The owner or Register, the Administrative, the Technical and the Billing. Each one plays a different part in the functioning of your domain name. The Register is all about who legally has the right to use the domain name, this is important, because you don’t want someone else to actually own your name. Many people however do not understand the importance of the second contact. This one is all about who actually controls the domain name.

So lets go through each Contact and what parts they play.

Register: This is the person that actually owns the rights to the name.

Administrative: The administrative contact usually has the highest level of control over a domain. Management functions delegated to the administrative contacts may include management of all business information, such as name of record, postal address, and contact information of the official registrant of the domain and the obligation to conform to the requirements of the domain registry in order to retain the right to use a domain name. Furthermore the administrative contact installs additional contact information for technical and billing functions. In short, they have complete control of the name.

Technical: The technical contact manages the name servers of a domain name. The functions of a technical contact include assuring conformance of the configurations of the domain name with the requirements of the domain registry, maintaining the domain zone records, and providing continuous functionality of the name servers (that leads to the accessibility of the domain name).

Billing: This is who gets the bill each year.

As you can see the person that has Administrative rights to your domain name actually has more control over your name then you do as the owner. So why is it imporant to have the administrative rights to your  name? Here is a quick case study of one of my clients.

Client has decided to re do his site. Several years earlier they had a site designed by another design company who has since gone out of business. Luckily the client was informed enough to get all the hosting information and retain it for the future. We have access then to their hosting server, great…let’s move on. Unfortunately, even though the hosting company has been very good over the years, they do not have the necessary support for the new sites functions. We are going to have to change hosts. Not a big deal, or is it?  It turns out the client registered their domain name with the hosting company and the hosting company is listed as the Administrative and Technical contacts.

When you transfer a domain name, the person that is contacted is the Administrator, not the Register. The administrator authorizes the transfer. So if you have a client that is planning on pulling their account from your company, are you going to be quick to authorize that move?

So what does the client do now? Well it is a bit of an uphill battle, and it will cause delays, but we will get it sorted out. But it should not have come to this. If the client had complete control of the domain name in the first place the change would have been seamless.

So how do you find out who has control of your domain name?

• If you bought your domain name through an independent company like godaddy in the first place, the likelihood is you have administrative rights already, just to be sure, go log into your registers domain management account and double check.
• If at anytime you had a designer or development company working on your site and had access to your domain account, go in and make sure they have not changed anything. But you are safe for the most part.
• If you did not actually register the name yourself and had someone else do it for you, log into the account and make sure you are set as the administrator. If you don’t have the username and password to log in…GET IT! You need to have that in your records for the future.
• If you registered your domain name through your hosting company at sign up…go to http://whois.com and look up your domain name. If you are not the administrator then you need to take steps to become the administrator right away. Some hosting companies will make it difficult, some not as much.

This is not about changing hosting companies, it is about taking control of your domain name. If the hosting company will not allow you to be set as the administrator, the take the steps to transfer your domain name to an independent register. You can still use the same hosting, but you will have the freedom to move at any time in the future should the need arise.

It is your name…you need to control it!

If you think you may not have control of you domain name and need help to figure out what to do, please fell free to fly me an email, I will help if I can, or point you in the right direction.

Recently I was asked to be in an article for a local magazine about unique Christmas gifts. My first thought was that is was a silly idea. After all it is a pricey gift. But I was told to not think about it in terms of spending my money, but that of the gift giver.

I have to admit in a pinch I have given away websites as a gift. For me giving it away acts twofold, one it allows me to give a personal gift to someone I care about, and all it costs me is my time, and two it allows me to build my portfolio. But it never really occurred to me that someone else might just want to give away the some gift. Or that someone else might just find this to be the perfect gift for the one on their list that has everything.

I sat down and pondered a bit about all the different people that would love or appreciate the gift of a website…and below are some of the thoughts I came up with.

The New Business

So your spouse or someone you care about has just opened a new business. One of the most important gifts you can give them is a new website. With so much going on in the early part of our new business we often overlook one of the most important marketing tools available to us, a website. I often hear from new business owners that they know how important it is, but they will worry about it later, or that it is an expense that they can’t justify at the beginning. The truth is, it is the time when a website is most important, especially if that new business is home based.

The Old Business

Established businesses who are not already online need to get online. Often when a business is well established owners think  they don’t require a website to promote themselves. They will usually say to me that they have a large clientele base who already knows everything they need to know. I ask them how they are going to get new clients, if their competition is getting their new clients via the internet? In fact over 60% of small business in North America do not have a website. And statistically more and more people are shopping or researching online for new purchases. If you have a loved one with a business that does not have a website, the gift of a website will give them a kick into the new millennium, and they will thank you for it later.

The Real Estate Mogul

Like any other business a real estate agents needs to have a website. Many agents rely on the “page” that their company gives them, and they say they are online, but the truth is, they are just another name in a list among many. Today more then ever Real estate agents need to stand out amongst their fellow agents. A website allows them to showcase their listings and utilize social media to its full potential. A gift of a website to the favorite real estate agent in your life will be a gift that will keep on giving, long after December 25th.

The Traveler

If someone in your life is a world traveler the perfect gift is a website or travel log. From anywhere in the world as long as they have access to the internet they can blog about where they are, add pictures and keep everyone up to date.

The Artist or Musician

We have all heard of the starving artist. If you have a starving artist on your gift list a website or online portfolio is a gift they will love. Most artist know they need to be online, but often a professional portfolio is to pricey. An online portfolio allows the artist to showcase his or her art, photography, or other medium, and to sell it online to a global audience. It also make it easier for gallery owners to see their work.

And the rest…

When sitting here thinking about who would love or benefit from the gift of a website, the thoughts are endless. There are very few people that would not love to have a site or blog of their very own. We often hear the term “Mommy Blogger”…this is a really widely used term used to describe people that just like to talk about themselves and the things they love. yes that is usually their kids and cooking, but it also includes the Fashioniesta, the Foodie, the Homebody, the Hobbyist, the Bedridden, the new collage student, or just about anyone that has an interest, or something to say to the world.

In conclusion…

Take a good look at your gift list and think about who would be a perfect recipient for a website. A website really is one great gift that will keep going long after the day you give it. We offer several great packages for web and blog development that will fit most budgets. If you don’t want to pay for the whole thing, gift certificates are available. Just give us a call, and let us help you work out the perfect gift for the person with everything on your list.

I recently met for coffee with several felow web designers. The meeting lasted about two hours while we got to know each other a little better and discussed new techniques. The plan is to meet like this about once a month, and I hope our busy schedules will allow us to do so.

Okay, so some of you are wondering why I would agree to meet with my competition on a regular basis. Business should be ruthless, right? They might after all steal away some valuable clients.

It seems there is a fundamental, almost universally accepted idea that competing for customers is the best way to do business. But the web design industry is different and other businesses should take note.

More Spices Make a Better Stew

If all you added to your stew was a bit of salt and pepper your stew would be pretty bland. The same can be said for business, if the only thing you can add to the pot is salt and pepper then it stands to reason you need to find more spice. That spice may be a different skill set, or a different approach to an idea. Working together with a different company gives you that ability. At the meeting I found out that one of the local design firms specializes in flash development. It stands to reason then that if I have a client that must have Flash in their project, I don’t have to pass on the project because it is a skill set that I don’t excel at, but I now have an alliance with another firm that does. I can either pass the project their way, or work together with them to give my client a perfect finished project. I also found out that one of my “Competitors” does not take on small projects., but they are happy to pass on projects to a smaller firm they trust. Well I am a very trust worthy smaller firm, so more work for me from a client that may have never even considered me if they had not been referred to me.

Sure, most people would find that scenario reasonable, but would it ever come about if I had not chosen to attend that coffee meeting in the first place?

Learning from Experience

Each of us brings to the table different experiences and abilities.As I mentioned before some of us have different skill sets, and this is also true of business experience. How we handle problem clients, better coding and standards, bookkeeping, and using new applications.

Protecting Trade Secrets is one thing, hoarding Secrets of the Trade is another

I wouldn’t expect Coke to give up their formula to Pepsi, that’s a trade secret. New website coding techniques on the other hand are secrets of the trade, available for anyone to learn and apply. In a field like website design, there is no real competitive advantage to knowing or not knowing some of these techniques. The only advantage I may have lies in the creative process, and that’s a trade secret that simply cannot be taken away.

I realize that there are many industries that survive on competition. But there are many more that can benefit from collaboration.

Hours of design time…

Highs and lows of trouble shooting…

And finally having to redo the whole stinking thing…

Big frustration!

So I an designing a new Child Theme for Hybrid…happy as a clam, because it is coming along in a way that even I am amazed. I have discovered hooks and actions that I never thought I would. I am very proud of myself.I have figured out how to add javascript to the function page…look at me go!

And then the bomb drops…it really was my mistake…I didn’t read all the information in the comments section of the particular javascript comments. Seems there is an issue with IE 7…IE7! Okay I will give you IE6…it is time we put that one to bed…but IE7…it just never occurred to me that there would be a problem…testing away in Firefox with firebug…I pop on over to IE to make sure it looks okay…and the bomb drops…it does not work in IE7! Works like stink in IE8…but crashes like the Gimmli Glider in 7….I am not impressed.

Okay…so what is this rant all about? I understand that there are some people out there that don’t like IE…that is fine…even I have my moments…but the facts remain that a huge amount of people use it. As a designer I have to take into account that many of my visitors are going to be on my site in IE. What fries my goat is the developers out there that will not trouble shoot for IE out of principal…IT IS NOT GOING AWAY ANY TIME SOON BOZO! And you call yourself a professional…!

Why would you release a plugin or software and not let everyone know the KNOWN ISSUES? Maybe then I would not have spent hours using your stupid script.

So what have I learned? I made to many assumptions…and didn’t get all the facts…what is it they say about “assume”? It makes and ass out of you and me…

Okay…so back to the old script that does work…and about 3 hours of retro fitting…groan…………

Being prepared for anything is always a good thing. The boy scouts have been extolling its virtues for years. The same is important when shopping for a web designer. In our Choosing a Web Designer series we will try to demystify the process so you don’t get lost in the process.

1. One of the first things you should know is your budget. You don’t need to have it written in stone, but it is a good idea to have a ball park number written down so you can make the best choices from the 1000s of web designers out there. Be honest about your budget. If you only have $1000 then that is what you have. Most good firms will work with you on your budget so you can get a great site that can expand as you have more money to spend, yet still give you the essential functionality that your site needs.
2. Have a list of the pages you know you will want in your site. Every site should include the basics like a home page, about page and a contact page.
3. Make a list of the functionality your site needs. Do you want e-commerce, a blog, newsletter, etc. Is it important that you be able to update the site yourself? All of these components add to the cost of your site, so knowing what you want before hand will help your designer work within your budget and get the most important things on your site.
4. Be prepared to give up a few bells and whistles. Smaller budgets mean less bells and whistles, but it does not mean you will not have a great site. It just means that you may have to put on hold some of the functionality till later in the year. We often suggest that clients give a bit in the “Look and Feel” of the site to meet their budgets since it is often the “Custom Design” that eats up lots of budget hours.

In Part 1 of this series we try to answer a few of your questions.

I get asked this question often actually. What web designer do I choose?

Well of course we would love for you to choose us, but we would prefer you do your research first and then come back to us.

Choosing a design firm is kinda like finding a new love, it can be frustrating, exciting, and it can be a heartache. Hopefully this article can help you avoid the heartache part.

Basically, like any other service provider, web designers position their business model by choosing 2 of the following things:

• Fast 
• Quality
• Cheap

You can only choose 2 and never all 3 and in some cases you might only chose 1. We can give you a few examples.

Firm A offers high quality website development, they are not cheap and they likely spend a fair amount of time working on the site. Firm A has a large robust portfolio, an office with a high exposure store front and lots of staff to meet your needs. While the average small business would love to work with this company, the truth is most small or new businesses do not have the budget this company works with.

Firm B offers cheap websites fast. They will get you online with a website quick, and it will not cost much. Usually the term “Get what you paid for”, best describes them. In order for them to be both fast and cheap you can expect that they don’t spend much time on design, it is likely they use a basic cookie cutter to create the site. These site normally don’t offer much in the way of functionality.

Firm C offers Low quality websites masquerading as high quality, and they are not cheap. Sad but true these are the guys that you really need to keep an eye out for. This is the firm with the fast talking salesman who sells you functionality you don’t need and then charges you through the nose for it. I am going to talk more about Firm C in another post. It is not easy to avoid Firm C, as in any industry there are those that ruin it for everyone. Best advice on these guys…do your home work and shop around.

Firm D offers great quality at an affordable cost. Okay, we have to admit, we could not wait to get to this one. Crazy Chameleon is a Firm D. Like Firm A we offer high quality site design and development, but because we focus our service toward the small business budget we offer or service at a lower rate. Okay shameless plug over. We are not alone there are lots of great developers out there that offer the same service as we do. If you are not able to work with us, we encourage you to shop around and find a Firm D. Most Firm D’s will work with a small business’s budget so they get the best bang for their buck.

To help you choose what Firm you should be looking for here is a bit of an expanded explanation of the Fast, Quality, Cheap list:

• Fast- Time is relative. Some firms will actually charge more to have a site up fast. If a company needs to take their resources away form another client to get you online faster, they may need to charge you more. It is like FedEX, the quicker you want it the more you are going to have to pay. The other side of the coin is if a designer is using a basic cookie cutter to build your site then they can get it online fast since they don’t have to spend much time developing the site. And often they don’t have the expertise or time to develop functionality that you may need in your site.
• Quality-Again there is good quality and bad quality. If you are new to the website stuff, it may be hard to figure out the difference. But as a rule, it is easy to pick out the good quality from the bad just by listening and asking questions. A good quality design firm should be able to explain their product to you in a way that you can understand it. That is to say, a good quality firm should talk to you in a way that educates you, not leaves you gasping for air. Bad quality firms will often try to sell you rather then educate you.
• Cheap-The rule that you get what you pay for is almost always true. Cheap “almost” never means good quality. I say “almost” because like everything else cheap is relative to your budget. If I say that a small business should expect to pay no less then $2000.00 for a good quality website, and your budget is $10,000.00 then $2000.00 is darn cheap. So saying the same thing, as small business should expect to pay no less then $2000.00 for a good quality website and a firm offers you a site for $200.00, then they are offering a cheap site, and it will likely not be very good quality and you will get what you pay for. Keep in mind that many good quality firms can offer packages to fit your budget, so don’t run to a cheap firm because you don’t think only they can fit your budget

So here are a few things you should be asking when looking for a design firm:

• Does the firm have a portfolio I can look at?
• Can I talk to past clients?
• What is my budget?
• Does the firm offer sites that can be expanded to fit my budget?
• Do they offer WEB 2.0 sites?
• Am I comfortable with the way the firm or developer talks to me?

These are just a few things you should ask…in part 2 of this series we will look at what you should have put together before you go shopping for your web designer.