Company Profile

Noticed today when I was on Google Maps that clicking the "Link to this page" link there was another field to copy from... embed code for easily integrating Google Maps content into your own Web site.

Now, you could always send a link around to a specific map location, but some technical knowledge was required to actually embed a map into a page on your site. Now, it just requires a couple of clicks and a little copying and pasting.

Not only has Google made it easy, they give you total flexibility when it comes to how big you need your map to be. Need it to go in a margin instead of the main body of your page? Just select "Custom size" and make your map 150px wide. Nice.

Below is an example of an embedded map. Location is the Plexus office on Timothy Road.

It seems like everyone is talking about viral these days. It's quite the buzzword. With the emergence of social sites like YouTube, Digg, mySpace & Flickr it seems like everyone is either chasing, or trying to start the next viral phenom. Lazy Sunday, Star Wars kid and multitudes of other media snippets have been elevated to icon status by the viral power of the new social Internet.

Agencies now boast of being able to create "viral marketing" campaigns to tap into the power of this strange new phenomenon. While there is no denying that some savvy use of the aforementioned sites can generate some traffic to your site, spending valuable resources hoping to generate viral buzz is for the most part folly. The name itself defines unpredictable nature with which it gains momentum and spreads. The best thing to do would be to just sit back and enjoy the ebb and flow of the viral tide.

A better course of action for a small to medium sized business would be to grow their own site into something that is updated frequently, reflecting industry trends and the dynamic growth of the business in an ever-changing 21st century marketplace. The more updated your site is, the more pages it has. The more pages it has, the more content you present to Google. The more content you present to Google, the higher your search engine ranking, the higher your search engine ranking, the more Web site visitors you get, and by the time you're getting all of that shade grown traffic you'll have a content rich site that will encourage reading and exploration, adding precious time to a visitor's stay.

At Plexus we develop Web sites and applications built on an exciting new framework called Ruby On Rails. Thus, one of our target search phrases is "Ruby On Rails Georgia" so that we can get in front of anyone in our geographic area that is interested in Rails Web development. If you do the search you'll see that we generally show up between the fifth and tenth position. This is excellent first page presence. Look closer and you'll notice that it's not the Plexus home page that garners this result. It's the page that lists all of our blog posts about Ruby On Rails. Our site's organic growth strengthened our search engine position. Yours could too.

On our site we use the same tools that are available to our customers. These tools allow anyone, even the non web savvy, to add dynamic, content-rich pages to your site as often as you like. In essence, we provide you the seed, you grow the tree. Now, we are expert gardeners and we care dearly about every seed we sell, so we'll be with you every step of the way to make sure your site is experiencing healthy growth.

Every content management tool we offer will easily enable you to add content to your site, contact us today for a face to face meeting to help you decide what is best for your site and your business.

Interesting tidbit at Ars Technica quotes Internet Explorer's platform architect Chris Wilson as saying that "Compatability is crucial to us."

While IE7 has made some strides with regards to standards compliance, Microsoft is hard at work on a new multimedia development platform called Silverlight, which competes directly with the W3C SVG standard. SVG is basically a vector-based motion graphics standard that has been developed so that no matter what browser anyone uses they can experience rich animations and presentations without the need for proprietary software or plug-ins.

So, will IE8 support Silverlight and SVG? That will be a test to determine if Microsoft is indeed serious about coming into compliance with web standards.

In the meantime, download Firefox to experience a standards-compliant, user-extendable 21st century browser.

If you are a resident of Athens-Clarke County this is a chance for your voice to be heard in regards to the updated Athens-Clarke County Comprehensive Plan. The ACC Planning Department will take the results of the survey into consideration when laying out the new plan.

• Athens-Clarke County Comprehensive Plan Online Survey

"What do you want for Christmas?" my Mom starts asking in October.

Being that I'm in my 30's with two small children, I never seem to have a good answer anymore. Things that I really need I pick up over the course of the year. Christmas is all about my daughters now, so when the holidays roll around my thoughts are geared towards them.

Of course, I am my mother's child so she keeps asking and asking... and asking and asking. If only there was a way to easily capture the items that I come across that would make good gifts. This is where Kaboodle comes in. Unlike traditional wish list sites where you have to go to the site, log-in and make lists through traditional forms, Kaboodle lets you strike while the proverbial iron is hot; a simple click of a button while on a product page instantly adds that product to a wish list. Perfect for Mom.

Once you click the Kaboodle button in your browser the page automatically advances to a Kaboodle page that enables you to verify the information (photo, description, price) captured to your list. A quick save of that information quickly sends you back to the product page and allows you to continue shopping right where you left off. No pop-ups, no new windows, the subtlest of disruption to your shopping experience.

Once you have your lists, you can then partake in all of the standard Web 2.0 social fare; share your lists, publish RSS feeds of your lists, view related lists so that if you share an interest in the same product as someone else, you can peruse their list to see similar items they like but you're not aware of, add contacts, view popular items, etc, etc...

The key ingredient to the stellar user experience Kaboodle offers is, in my opinion, the browser toolbar buttons. With the click of a button you can add Kaboodle buttons to your Firefox browser toolbar. This ensures that no matter what site you're on, adding an item to Kaboodle is just a click away.

Give it a try!