December 14, 2009 - Chadwick Meyer — We recently completed a simple but powerful upgrade to Gutensite that will allow much greater flexibility for page layouts. Traditionally when creating a basic html page ("my pages") you had the ability to work from a blank canvas, using the WYSIWYG editor to create anything you wanted. This is powerful, but good design is really beyond the capabilities of 99% of our users. And the entire purpose of the CMS is to allow anyone to edit the content, with the expectation that Gutensite will handle the design. So we've introduced a few extra ...

December 09, 2009 - Chadwick Meyer — We work on Macs here at Gutensite (although we also have some PCs for cross platform testing). On monday, one of our iMacs did a standard software update for the wireless airport card. The update froze in the middle and in the process trashed the kernel irreparably. We tried disk utilities, purchased DiskWarrior for $100, ran these utilities multiple times, but to no avail. So we zeroed out the disk, and tried to reinstall, but it fails install every time. Evidently the Kernel (which is separate from the regular hard drive) has some major ...

November 09, 2009 - Chadwick Meyer — Where did october go? I remember having a birthday at some point, but the rest is a blur. The good news, I suppose, is that the economy has finally picked up (for us at least) and we have more work than we can handle. We need to hire another designer and programmer, immediately. The bad news is, due to the sudden influx of work over the past couple months, I have been sucked back into the vortex of project management and programming, which means I have had no time to do any pro-active business development, partnership development, or s ...

September 18, 2009 - Chadwick Meyer — It's alive! After many years of wishing, and several weeks of actual work, our new image uploader is now available for use. This simple tool totally revolutionizes content management workflow. Previously you had to either upload the images to the library first, before adding some content (e.g. write a blog, sell a home, add a product, etc), or you had to add the images later (because you forgot) then go back and edit the record. Very cumbersome and annoying. Well now that has all changed. We have created a great new image uploader that is ...

September 07, 2009 - Chadwick Meyer — Now it is easier than ever to upgrade to a professional package, or manage additional upgrades for advanced functionality. We've just finished our upgrade interface, and we hope that it gives our clients more control over this simple but important process. It's very interactive and fun to use. Choosing different packages shows what features are included in the package, and the upgrades are totaled on the right. If you know your domain name, the system will upgrade you instantly and create a private hosting account instantaneously.

August 13, 2009 - Chadwick Meyer — Did you know that only 49% of small businesses have a website (and most of those are terribly inadequate)? Only a few savvy businesses are taking full advantage of the power of the internet. If you don't have a comprehensive web strategy and a professional internet presence, you are losing clients to your competitors, you are losing credibility, you are frustrating your existing clients, and you are missing your potential for long term growth. In short you are losing a lot of money. Gain the competitive edge now. Distinguish yourself from ...

August 11, 2009 - Chadwick Meyer — Last week we invited CMS Critic (www.cmscritic.com) to review our Gutensite CMS and let us know what they thought. Today they published a quick introduction to Gutensite and we expect they will provide a more full CMS review in the future. But we're overjoyed to learn that their initial reaction has been extremely positive. Of usability, they said, "It’s extremely easy to use... It is very well laid out with a very attractive and intuitive interface." And regarding the design they said, "the design and beauty of this system are second to ...

August 10, 2009 - Chadwick Meyer — We're cleaning house and slowly giving a makeover to all the designs for default specialty content pages. Most recently, we just redesigned the property list and details pages in keeping with the clean, modern theme that characterizes all the new default content. All our clients who didn't customize their property pages, will benefit from this free upgrade, giving their sites an instant refresh.

August 06, 2009 - Chadwick Meyer — As I reported previously, we've been in the process of overhauling all our designs templates for different default content type pages. Well, we just went live today with an updated version of the Communities home page. If you have communities listed on your site, you may want to check out your communities page or this sample. It's a vast improvement to the old default template, and it gives visitors a visual look at all the communities (rather than a tiny drop down menu). If you haven't selected an image for that community (in your Admin ...

August 03, 2009 - Chadwick Meyer — We just created a great budget Mini Property Website for a home for sale in Livermore California, check it out: http://www.yourvineyardhome.com. For $500 we utilized one of our Free Design Skins (the San Vito) added some content and photos, and provided a little bit of custom design on a page by page basis. The results are amazing, all thanks to the perfect starting design in our Free Design Skin library.

July 23, 2009 - Chadwick Meyer — Several versions of the Librarian design skin are now public. Like most templates we offer automatic design elements or features that are relevant to the organizational type. It's a nice addition to our library and a good contrast with some of the more modern, techy designs we've done recently. We've already had several people choose it for their site, as well as others launch off on customized versions of their own.

July 21, 2009 - Chadwick Meyer — We have 3 new free design skins to add to our Free Design library (follow the link to see which are still pending). The San Vito was named after a small town where the designer spent a week with good friends drinking cappuccino in the piazza del popolo, waking to the chimes of the ancient bell tower and enjoying the slow life of Northern Italy. The template is now installed and ready for public use, the others should be live shortly. Like all three new designs, the San Vito is warm, textured, with a feeling of history. We hope it will appeal ...

July 17, 2009 - Chadwick Meyer — I recently had a frustrating (and learning) experience with DMOZ, the open directory project. This is a directory listings service that feeds information to major search engines. It is staffed by a group of fifty thousand volunteers that review website submissions to specific categories, and when approved they provide a link to your site in that category. It's recommended to list your site with DMOZ, but it can take months or years to be approved because of the inefficient nature of this volunteer project. In fact your site can be rejected a ...

July 11, 2009 - Chadwick Meyer — Quick tip, look up your business on yelp.com and see what your customers are saying about you. This can be a great source of free feedback, and will enlighten you to some of your strengths and weaknesses. If you aren't listed yet, create an account and add your business. You shouldn't review your own business, but you should definitely invite your loyal customers to give you some reviews. As a matter of practice, after you finish interacting with a customer, suggest that they leave you some feedback on Yelp.

July 10, 2009 - Chadwick Meyer — Over the years we have developed a very capable product and have consistently offered high end personal service and support for our clients. We have a very loyal client base because we make it a point to go above and beyond all the time. We are in this for the long run and our goal in business is not to make money but to provide an excellent product to our clients, knowing that this approach will be profitable. But despite these things, we have learned the hard way that you can have the best product or service in the world, at the best price, ...

July 08, 2009 - Chadwick Meyer — Congratulations to City Church of San Francisco on their new website. Credit goes to Steven (who added all the content and I presume also took all the beautiful photos). Gutensite provided a nice home page design and secondary page "shell" that allowed them to add unique images to each page (or select a random one from a default set if no specific image has been set) in order to give each page a unique feeling. They added their own content and we "massaged" their pages when they were done. Most of the dynamic content (e.g. non "Basic Pages" ...

June 29, 2009 - Chadwick Meyer — As mentioned in the previous post, we made some significant design upgrades to our default content pages. The multimedia library (as well as the regular file library) now sport a sleek new skin that let you show off your video and audio files in style. Small icons indicate whether the file is Video or Audio, a sample thumbnail attracts your visitors' attention, and you can provide a witty title and short description about the video. Then whatever stats you enter about the video will show up on the right, e.g. date, size, time length, c ...

June 26, 2009 - Chadwick Meyer — We've been busy overhauling the look and feel of many of the advanced functionality pages that you may be using on your site. You may have noticed some marked improvement, if you happen to be using the default design (most people are). We recently mentioned the design and functionality upgrades to the calendar, but we've also improved the look of other pages: Blog Contact Page Profiles Portfolio Testimonials Resources Files Multimedia Communities If you considered using one of these pages in the past, but weren't happy with how ...

June 24, 2009 - Chadwick Meyer — The month of June brings three more new templates in the modern strain of design: Metro, White on White, and Wodka (light and dark). Be sure to checkout each of these new free design skins, they may fit your site personality better than anything you are currently using. We believe these will be perfect for professional organizations that want a very clean, simple look. They may also work well for portfolio sites that want to feature large images. These templates present a simple home page, with limited options for custom "modules" or text ...

June 21, 2009 - Chadwick Meyer — We recently completed a whole slew of functionality upgrades, including some great new features for our calendar. Some of the upgrades include: Advanced Repetition Options: now you can get crazy with custom repeating events, until your brain explodes with the possibilities. Popup Details: now clicking on an event in the calendar brings up a simple popup box that lists the important details for an event (plus an option to view the full event details). List View: now you can view your events in a long list (instead of a month based ...