You learn something new every day!

Within the past week I've had 2 projects that required resizing over 100 photos for a photogallery. The originals were all high-quality digital photographs, thus rendered at over 1000 pixels wide. My image area was only 450 pixels wide. I envisioned DAYS of resizing, until I discoverd this new trick. Actually, its not "new" but it is new to me.

Photoshop Image Processor Is My New Best Friend!
Adobe Photoshop is the program I use for most of my image work and within that program, there is a wonderful tool called image processor. I use CS3 and this is how it works (for anyone who might need to use it and didn't know it exists):

1. Open Photoshop and click File > Scripts > Image Processor
2. In the Image Processor window, select the current folder in which you have your images
3. I suggest you save the resized images to a different folder - so choose that folder (or create it if you haven't already). Even if you choose to have the resized photos in the same folder, photoshop will place them all into a new folder called "JPEG" so it doesn't overwrite what you have.
   
4. File type is JPEG and quality of your choice (5 good, 10 is best).
   
5. Since I am resizing my images for website use, select "Resize to Fit" and enter the desired dimensions. My photos were all different heights, so I used a set width of 450 pixels and an arbitrary height that I knew would cover any photo I had. The nice thing is the aspect ratio is kept if the photo is shorter than the dimension entered.
6. Click Run and Photoshop will start the processor. In a matter of seconds the photos are all resized!

GOTTA LOVE IT!

"How did you do it" asks L.L.Bean

After reading my last blog about the SEO success of Hola Amigos, an employee and friend from L.L.Bean, Inc. - who runs a large part of the L.L.Bean website - asked "how did you do it". My response:

"... basic techniques – using the right wording, <title> codes, using the <h1>, <h2>, etc, linking keywords to other parts of the site, and keeping it NICE AND CLEAN in the coding overall."

Basic search engine optimization doesn't have to be complicated - unless you have a complicated site like L.L.Bean and other large corporations. Working with small business websites typically has a much more focused target audience, so even a small tweek can bring big success.

Read more about SEO with these articles:

Your New Website - Getting Started with Keywords
SEO Basics: Beyond the Keywords

Small Business SEO Success

When I first started Flying Change Webs & Graphics, it was to help get small businesses online at an affordable price. Many of my clients don't have the budget to pay for large-scale SEO. Most of the clients want to be found on a local basis.

There are so many small yet significant steps that I can help them take so the search engines, like Google, will find them on the web. One such business is Hola Amigos!

Hola Amigos! is owned by my friend, Suzanne Rouhana. Suzanne was one of my first clients. Her target audience were parent's of pre-school children, so the website was designed with primary colors and with the feeling of having "fun". We were both excited about the results.

Today I checked the ranking on Google - as I do with on a regular basis with all the websites I design. Hola Amigos! came up on the FIRST PAGE in the FIRST POSITION!

It doesn't get any better than that!

I love the Apple Store!

These days, with the economy thrashing around like a fish out of water, customer service has come to be a big part of "making it" - whether you are a small website design company in Maine or a big corporation like Apple. Let me share with you my great experience today at the Apple Store.

As you may have read in this blog - last May I traded in Asus laptop PC for a MacBook Pro. It wasn't "true love" at first, but the transition was quite smooth (like a "Flying Change") and I soon came to love and depend on it.

In recent weeks I had started to experience some troubles: the technicolor ball show up with nearly every application; fonts were rendering very strangely, and the base was warped. Yes - I said the base was warped. So into the Apple store at the Maine Mall I went. The Genius took one look at it, said he didn't want to fix it and within seconds handed me a box with a BRAND NEW MacBrook Pro.

That was justification enough to me that this little baby of mine is worth every penny. Customer Service will win - and keep - clients better than anything else. Try it!

Work & Play while on our way to LA!

As I type this blog I am in the car heading out of Arizona and to LA, CA to ride as many roller coasters as we can cram in to 4 days.

My son is a roller coaster enthusiast (you can see the little roller coaster website I set up for him) and since the relatives we are visiting in Scottsdale, AZ do not have the week off, we are taking the kids further west to hit 3 coaster parks in 4 days.

OFF TO LA, CA! That's about a 5-6 hour drive just to ride roller coasters. Yes, we are A BIT NUTS. But we love to have fun!

And what does this have to do with website design, you ask?

As a small business owner, going on vacation 10 days doesn't really mean total vacation. But with mobile technology, I have the best of both worlds! I can work (or play) in the car with my mobile broadband card and my laptop. The 5-6 hour drive from Scottsdale, AZ to LA, CA used to be boring as h*ll. But now I can do this:


As the kids are listening to ipods, hubby driving, I can take a break from updating a website and snap a family photo! I took the above photo using photo booth on my MacBook Pro.

Mobile Technology is just the coolest thing to me. I can catch up on projects, check my facebook, show photos of our trip immediately. It's amazing and allows me to keep my clients and my family happy. Using this otherwise useless time in the car as time well spent.

My family loves this new technology too. The teen can use video chat to keep in touch with friends at home so she doesn't feel she's missing anything. And my son has been checking the park maps to plot our strategy as we enter the parks. Speaking of which .... My son says these are THE coasters we are going to ride:

Six Flags Magic Mountain
Viper
X and X2
Superman the Escape
Goliath (shown in the video at the end of this blog)
Revolution
Batman
Scream
Déjà vu
Riddler's Revenge
Tatsu

Knotts Berry Farm:
Ghost Rider
Pony Express

California Adventure:
California Screamin

So work a little work and a lot of play ... it's working! BRING ON THE COASTERS!

An Adventure Into The New Year

I can't believe that 2009 is here! It came upon me so fast. And already, two new websites have launched in 2009.

First was 30 Day Marriage. It launched just days into the new year. It is a the start of a series of books being written by Susan Gentile-Hackett of Falmouth, Maine. The book is an interactive diary that helps couples explore their relationship. This site has a FABULOUS new feature ... an online marriage test that calculates your score online. Go ahead, take the test!

The second site of 2009 was a total redesign for Equine Veterinary Service. Dr. Tom Judd, Dr. Lila Solomon, and LVT Vicki Coffin now have a site that meets their goal of providing education to their clients on equine health as well as promoting their services.

There are many others coming up for 2009. It's the perfect time for small businesses to take hold of their business and find their home on the web.

Inviting You ...

Wow - I didn't realize how long it's been since I blogged. The Holidays and almost a full month of being ill put quite a bind on my time. But it didn't keep us from meeting our December 22, 2008 deadline for the launch of Katie McAuliffe's Joyful Invitations Website!


Katie and I worked through several ideas on this large site and decided on a method using inline frames so that visitors never leave the joyful invitation website, even though all orders are placed through the companies she represents. The results were GORGEOUS, functional, and catered toward SEO. After less than a week, Google has already indexed her pages.

Congratulations, Katie and Joyful Invitations on having the most beautiful invitation website on the world wide web.