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Vermont Web Design and
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From:
Jeremy Ryan
Burlington, Vermont

Friday 4:22 pm

Hello and welcome to our website! We recently made some changes to the web site. First, we added a company blog, which is below this message. The blog is meant to provide educational information on web design and internet marketing as well as a way for us to share our current developments with you. We encourage your feedback and participation by clicking the comments link after each blog entry.

If you are new to our web site and wish to learn more about us, click here. To view more information about our services please click the links to the left which list our services. Click here to send us a comment or question.

Respectfully,

Jeremy Ryan
Advantage Creations

Our company blog...

	Google Voice Review
	For several months now we have been testing Google Voice with our businesses.  Overall it's worked out quite well.    The phone call quality is quite good and the extra services are great such all your voice mails being stored in a similar manner as gmail.    It makes it much easier to sort them, file them and search them when needed later.  When you miss a call, the message is saved and you are notified by email when a new one arrives.  Google Voice also attempts to transcribe all messages for you.  It's usually quite good, at least enough where you can figure out who and what the call is about before even playing the message. You can then tag the message with your own notes to further clarify or to remember things you want to say when calling back.   Another great feature is the call fowarding. Simply add any phone number to your Google Voice account and all calls are fowarded to that new number.   Then, there's the Do Not Disturb feature, which allows you to turn off phone calls and route them directly to voice mail if you are out or are finished work for the day.   Making calls is also so much easier. If you call the same person over and over, simply start typing their name or number and Google Voice will attempt to find the contact as you type then hit enter and Google Voice makes the call for you.   The BEST part is that all calls within the US are FREE.  How Google Voice does this is when you make a call, Google calls you and then calls your recipient and connects you to, so no charge for either party.  The calls are free, the local phone number is free... you only pay very low fees for international calls at this time.   Below is a quick list of some of the best features of Google Voice:   - Google voicemail: voicemail like email - Voicemail transcription: read what your voicemail says - Custom greetings: vary voicemail greetings by caller - International calling: low cost calls to the world - Notifications: read voicemail messages via email or SMS - Share voicemails: forward, embed, or download voicemails - One number: a single phone number that rings all your phones - Free SMS: send, receive & store text messages online - Block calls: send unwanted callers straight to voicemail - Record calls: record phone calls and store them online - Conference calls: join several people into a single call - Screen callers: hear who is calling before you pick up   The only drawback is that on a rare occasion making calls won't work, but this is very rare and if this happens simply make the calls the old way until you can make phone calls on Google Voice again.  I assume that this is most likely due to large numbers of people signing up.   Definately worth a try for your business... it will boost productivity and slash your phone bills.
	Posted by: Jeremy Ryan Date/Time: 3/21/2010 12:36:16 PM Comments: 0

	New Hotel Reservation System for Swanton Motel
	We recently completed a major upgrade to our client's motel website.  The client wanted to be able to accept Motel booking reservations through their website.  The system needed to be able to sort through the rooms available, allow the user to select one that's available, book it and then pay for the room.   Then, notifications needed to be sent to both the motel manager and the customer.   The system also required some special features such as different rates by season, which are automatically calculated by date.    The system also needed the ability to apply discounts based on different memberships they are such as AAA, AARP, miliatry discount, boker club, etc.   And finally, the system needed to allow the addition of extra services that are to be billed per night, per room such as extra people, pets, and extra cots.   We were able to do all this and the system has been running for a couple months now taking reservations and freeing up more time for the client while the website works in the background making sales!   Below is a quick list of the features of the Hotel Reservation System:   - Real time bookings - Easy to administrate - Front end & Back end - Multilanguage - Unlimited rooms type - Assign room numbers - Easy availability manager - Minimum and maximum night stay - Google Maps integrated - Hotel photogallery - Cancellation Area - Booking Statistics - Credit card encryption - Could connect to a payment gateway - Booking rate discounts - Extra services   Check it out for yourself: www.swantonmotel.com.   Feel free to let me know what you think.  If you think a your site could use a hotel reservation system or something similar, contact me and we can discuss your options.
	Posted by: Jeremy Ryan Date/Time: 3/21/2010 12:33:54 PM Comments: 0

	Lifenaut.com Meeting Center in Secondlife
	Recently we re-developed a meeting/ Secondlife presence for our client Lifenaut.com. We have been doing some "in world" Secondlife marketing to get the word out about the Lifenaut's free service with some success. We decided that it may be a good idea to start hosting presentations of the service and how to use it within Secondlife to interested inhabitants. We created this meeting center for Lifenaut for this purpose. Below you will the outside view of the building where the meetings are held... When you enter the building you are in the seating/presentation area. This is where you would sit and watch a movie, slide presentation or interact with others and the presenters. We customized the building to suit the client's needs, landscaped the surrounding land and installed the presenter screen and computer to run it. We also trained the clients to run the system and to be able to present to their users. Below is a photo of the seating/presentation area... Here we have an area set aside for small meetings/presentations, or for people that may run the slides while the presenter talks or chats with the audience... Most recently the client used this area to hold their annual board of directors meeting as this can be a very affordable and easy way for members that live far from each other to collaborate, hold discussions and present to each other. Below is a snapshot of me (or at least an avatar of me) in Secondlife outside the Lifenaut meeting area sitting on a fountain I setup. This is area is open to the public to view. If you have the Secondlife software installed, click here: Lifenaut New User Center. If you don't have the software, download it here: Secondlife Download. If you would like me to help you out getting started, let me know and I can give you a tour! If you are interested in using Secondlife to interact with your clients/customers, contact us and we can help you setup a presence in Secondlife and train you and/or your employees and how to hold meetings, presentations or advertise to Secondlife residents.
	Posted by: Jeremy Ryan Date/Time: 1/6/2010 3:50:04 PM Comments: 0

	Google Apps for Email Hosting
	I've been testing Google Apps Standard Edition for email management of our own email and it seems to work great.   One thing I like a lot about Google Apps Email is the significantly reduced spam that you receive. Google Apps Email filters do a great job of eliminating the majority of the spam without the false positives that some other email filters have.  It's like using Gmail, but you can use your own domain.  For example instead of having yourname@gmail.com, you can have yourname@yourdomain.com, but be able to login using a similar interface as gmail as well as sending/receiving email through your regular desktop software such as MS Outlook. Also, the service is quite fast, easy to use and reliable. The best part is that the service is free.   I highly recommend that you give this service a try. It's not very difficult to switch over.  I am able to handle the bulk of the setup for you if you are a client of ours.  For your part a few minor changes would be needed for your Outlook settings and then you should be good to go.   Also, I suggest giving the Google Calendar a try for managing your schedule... again, this is included with Google Apps. I think this is a very usefull tool for keeping track of events.  You can create multiple calendars for different types of events and activate/deactivate the calendars from your view.  Also, you can adjust the settings to share specific calendars with family, coworkers or make them public.  You can make a public calendar of business related events for clients/customers and then embed the calendar directly on your website.   If your website is hosted with us and you are interested in giving Google Apps a try, contact me and we can convert your email over to Google Apps right away.  Again, it's fairly easy and would require very little effort on your part.
	Posted by: Jeremy Ryan Date/Time: 10/22/2009 11:59:32 AM Comments: 0

	Wall Street Analyst Forum Web Site Relaunches!
	Gerald Scott of Wall Street Analyst Forum approached us to redevelop his firm's web site offering information and registration serivices for analyst conferences for NYSE/NASDAQ/AMEX corporations in New York, Boston and London. We just relaunched the web site about a week or so ago. We strived to create a web site design that fits what Gerald had in mind for the redesign. He provided us samples of work that we were to emulate for his new design. He wanted a simple design that acts as a marketing site for the analyst conferences they hold. The site also needed to make it easy for both companies signing up to present and people planning to attend to get the information they needed and/or registered. Check out the web site at Analyst-Conference.com and let me know what you think so far. Feel free to make any suggestions for improvement. Gerlad and I would really appreciate it! Please contact us if you would like more information regarding our web design services.
	Posted by: Jeremy Ryan Date/Time: 9/20/2009 11:35:43 AM Comments: 0

	Windows Plesk Hosting Update - Upgraded to Plesk 8.6.0
	Our Windows Plesk Hosting accounts have been upgraded to the latest Plesk 8 version. This will help ensure a more stable control in the future. More on Parallels Plesk: Parallels Plesk Panel is the leading hosting automation control panel on the market. User-friendly and with multiple login roles that cater to all users, the Parallels Plesk Panel can have your web site up and running in no time. The following tools are available at Parallels Plesk Control panel: Create A Domain. Management of domain names. Create Mailname. Management of email accounts. Create a Web User Account. Here user can create accounts for website users. Create a Database. Create or remove a Microsoft SQL or MySQL database. Install a Site Application. 55 installable application on chosen user domain; web library to management tools for business entities. Manage Files on Domain. Users can access and manage files with a web based file manager. Plesk hosting with us is only $99/year or $10/month. If you have any questions regarding Parallels Plesk or Plesk hosting, please contact us.
	Posted by: Jeremy Ryan Date/Time: 9/20/2009 11:14:04 AM Comments: 0

	Cart32 V7.0 is Available - Cart32 Hosting Only $120/yr or $15/mo
	Advantage Creations is proud to announce that we have upgraded Cart32 to Cart32 V7.0! Below are just some of the new features in this new version: Integrated Payment Gateway (Cart32 Gateway) Virtual Terminal & Virtual POS Integrated Store Builder (Beta) Checkout By Amazon & Amazon Simple Pay PayPal's Payflow Pro update Add your own admin users with custom restrictions New customization options Stronger encryption Support for split knowledge dual control key management (required by PCI DSS) Improved user interface AJAX features to improve speed and usability Many performance improvements, tweaks and minor changes For all customers currently using Cart32 V6.4 with us... you are all automatically upgraded to Cart32 V7.0! You don't have to do a thing and there is no additional cost to you. Login to the new administration panel and enjoy! I've been looking at the new system and some of the new features that stick out to me as being really usefull are the following.. The integration of Store32 is really cool. This will enable you to generate and maintain your entire retail store within Cart32. Just enter your ftp information and generate your store pages within Cart32.  Store pages are uploaded to your domain, while the Cart32 checkout pages are located on Cart32's own secure server to ensure a safe and secure checkout for you and your customers. Ability to modify Cart32 templates within Cart32. In previous versions, you needed to modify the pages and upload them outside of Cart32. Now you can do all this within Cart32 itself. Amazon Payments - With Cart32 V7.0, Amazon Payments is integrated into your installation free of charge (Google Checkout still requires an extra module to be purchased). I don't currently accept Amazon Payments for my own retail websites, but I will be checking this out as I think it's a good idea to provide as many payment options to your customers as reasonably possible. Cart32Gateway is also included and they have some decent rates. Currently set at 2.17% plus .27 per transaction. The 2.17% is lower than my current rate but the transaction fee of .27 is higher than my current rate. It looks like I would do better with Cart32Gateway on orders over $20, but better with my current provider with orders under $20. However, the difference for orders under $20 is fairly small and it be more convenient to be able to do all my order credit card processing within Cart32. A really nice option to have. When I heard about the new version of Cart32, I was first hesitant to upgrade as I was worried about any disruption or incompatibilities with existing store data, but everything went very smooth and everything seems to be running great with the new version. Cart32 hosting with us is only $120/year or $15/month (or $99/year or $10/month without Cart32). If you have any questions regarding Cart32 V7.0 or regarding Cart32 hosting, please contact us.
	Posted by: Jeremy Ryan Date/Time: 8/27/2009 10:58:46 AM Comments: 0

	Bing and Yahoo: What it Means for Search Engine Marketing
	Bing.com is Microsoft's new version of their search engine that replaced Live.com and MSN.com. Recently, Microsoft made a deal with Yahoo.com to merge some of their operations to better compete against Google. Personally, I'm not sure how much the deal will help Yahoo get more traffic as I'm not sure why people would switch to Yahoo just to use Bing? Why wouldn't they just go directly to Bing instead? It appears that Yahoo is just giving up on trying to compete in search like they did year's ago when they made a similar deal with Google, which I believe contributed to making Google the powerhouse they are today. Yahoo essentially told the public "Google can handle search better than we can, but please come to Yahoo to do your Google searches" and the public asked why should I and just started going Google.com instead. Here's the breakdown of the deal... First, Bing will take over management of Yahoo.com's paid search ads. This most likely means that once the transition is made you will go to your Adcenter account to manage paid search ads for both Yahoo and Bing, which should save time. That's the good news. The bad news is that this will most likely result in higher ad costs for ad clicks on Bing.com as Yahoo's network is larger than Bing's network and this means the average per click cost is likely to be higher as the competition for bids will be much higher for clicks on Bing.com's website. That is if both users are consolidated together, which isn't clear yet if that is what they intend to do, but it would definately make sense to that from Yahoo and Microsoft's viewpoint to generate more revenue. Second, Bing will take over management of Yahoo's search. This most likely means that if you are ranking well in Yahoo's natural search results now, it may not matter once the transition goes through. You will need to make sure that you are ranking well on Bing.com. Fortunately for us most of our clients web sites and our own web sites are actually ranking better on Bing than Yahoo, so this change will be a great benefit to us. However, the transition is not expected to go through for up to 24 months AFTER the deal gets regulatory approval. Click here for a full press release: Bing/ Yahoo Search Deal Action Steps to take: 1. If you don't have a Microsoft Adcenter account, set one up (or have your internet marketing person do it) so that you can have ads ready and take part in the current cheap ad rates. However, I imagine that if the deal goes through and Yahoo and Microsoft will provide an easy way to merge the two accounts. 2. Check your Bing.com search rankings. If they are higher than your Yahoo.com rankings, congrats! You are in great shape for the transition. If they are significantly lower, have your SEO person look into why and take steps to fix this. However, it's possible that your rankings may fluctuate as Bing.com is new an may still be tweaking their search algorithm. Also, there is plenty of time until the transition goes into affect. If you would like help with your internet marketing, please contact us regarding our internet marketing services such as pay-per-click and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
	Posted by: Jeremy Ryan Date/Time: 8/12/2009 2:13:31 PM Comments: 0

	Q/A: Should I Switch from Bing to Yahoo?
	Question: Just wondering what you think of Bing - new search engine from Microsoft. Any thoughts about switching from Yahoo to Bing? Answer: You shouldn't remove yahoo paid search in favor of Bing, both are working independently for the time being. The deal between Yahoo and Bing is not certain yet as they are awaiting regulatory approval and then after that it could be up to 24 months before the merging of their natural and paid search systems. At this time, I would suggest setting up a Microsoft Adcenter account and copying your existing ad information from your Yahoo/Google accounts to Microsoft Adcenter (since you don't have an existing Microsoft Adcenter account). Then, having all three accounts (Google, Yahoo and Adcenter) running concurrently bringing in the maximum amount of traffic. When (and if) the deal goes through, I'm sure they will provide more details about whether they plan to merge the accounts or not and how to proceed, but again, we have some time before you need to worry about that.
	Posted by: Jeremy Ryan Date/Time: 8/12/2009 10:10:50 AM Comments: 0

	Hotchkiss Construction Services Web Site Launches!
	Stuart Hotchkiss of Hotchkiss Construction Services approached us to create a web site offering woodworking services and a full line of building and building restoration services in the northern New Hampshire area. We just launched the web site this week. We strived to create a web site design that fits Hotchkiss Construction Services' existing marketing materials for branding purposes. We are now in the process of working with Stuart on formulating a search engine promotion strategy. We suggested a strategy involving both pay-per-click advertising and search engine optimization. Marketing for the site will use a more local focus.  For example, we may target terms such as "new building construction", "high lift" or "building restoration", but for our pay-per-click campaigns we would limit ads to only the New Hampshire area, which is the area they intend to serve, and for search engine optimization we would target terms such as "building restoration new hampshire" or "building restoration nh" instead of just "building restoration". Check out the web site at HotchkissConstructionServices.com and let me know what you think so far. Feel free to make any suggestions for improvement. Stuart and I would really appreciate it! Please contact us if you would like more information regarding our web design services or if you need help with internet marketing.
	Posted by: Jeremy Ryan Date/Time: 2/11/2009 3:48:26 PM Comments: 0

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