December 15, 2010 - Chadwick Meyer — We now have a default "Coming Soon" page that lists your basic contact information and a message to visitors that the site is under development. This page can be customized if a client needs it to be more branded. It's useful for clients that have an extensive development cycle and don't want their new site to be found by the public. When the site is in development, it will automatically redirect all page requests to this coming soon page, unless the site is being viewed in our secure development mode. The site is also set to turn away ...

December 15, 2010 - Chadwick Meyer — We've had requests from several clients for a simple way to add effects to their pages, e.g. to allow a button to toggle open or close additional paragraphs of information. So we've created a simple Javascript Library called Gutensite FX, based on the Mootools Library that is already running on every site. If Gutensite FX is enabled, you can add a CSS class to any element, and it becomes a toggle button. Add another CSS class to any other element, and that becomes the area that opens or closes. It's that simple. We only have a couple ...

December 13, 2010 - Chadwick Meyer — We have added additional module areas throughout the site, so you can now add modules to any sidebar, and any header or footer of a page. Plus on any basic page, you can put a module in the main column (above or below content) or in a side column (with the content to the side and the module in a small column). Basic pages already allow you to add a lot of extra specialty information under the "Extras" tab, such as pull-out quotes, headings, sub headings, info lists, etc. These show up in a beautiful 3/4 column layout which adds a lot of ...

December 10, 2010 - Chadwick Meyer — We have upgraded the default calendar functionality so that when an event is clicked in the Calendar or List view, it opens up a nicely designed "lightbox" with all the details for the event. This can be closed and the visitor is still on the original calendar page. This makes viewing calendar events more convenient. Previously we had a details preview that popped up and the visitor had to then go to another details page, then return to the calendar, etc. Our upgrade provides a much more streamlined workflow. We also took the time to u ...

December 08, 2010 - Chadwick Meyer — We've added a new setting (accessible on the Admin > Site Info) page, to allow you to disable the Search Engine Sitemap. By default all our sites are SEO optimized, but in some cases, a client may not want the search engines to index the site (until they are ready). So this option will turn off the sitemap.xml data, which search engines use to provide a map of what pages to index. It will also add a meta tag that tells the search engine to go away for now and not index the site.

November 09, 2010 - Chadwick Meyer — Theoretically any access to Admin pages or Admin functionality should be initiated from the gutensite.com domain, e.g. http://www.gutensite.com/admin This has always been enforced for regular admin pages. But there were cases where this was not strictly enforced, e.g. the API used to be able to be accessed through yourdomain.com/admin/api/admin, however we are now strictly enforcing it to ensure that the administrative functionality is protected and necessarily secured by an SSL connection that we maintain. So the API URL for the ...

November 05, 2010 - Chadwick Meyer — We deprecated several old URL formats for accessing core pages (this does not affect Friendly URLs). The old formats included: (1) www.domain.com/index.php?ct=site.contact, (2) www.domain.com/?ct=site.contact or (3) www.domain.com/site.contact all of these methods were very old and should not be used anymore. The correct format is www.domain.com/site/contact, and so we updated all the instances where the old method was used. Our CMS will still correctly recognize the old formats 1 & 2, but not 3, until the next upgrade. But any pages using ...

November 01, 2010 - Chadwick Meyer — Check out our New Promo that runs through November 14th (early birds have better chance of winning so hurry). We're giving away one Free Pro Webmaster Package website for a year (after that if you like it you can keep it and become a regular customer). This has a $420 value, and there will be a winner in every city! See the Promo Page for more information.

November 01, 2010 - Chadwick Meyer — After several years of unstable builds with our current JavaScript classes and functionality, the amazing Mootools team has released the latest version, 1.3 which includes great backwards-compatibility with all of our scripts: old and new. All of the functionality added recently including the TimezonePicker, newest Uploader, and several others heavily depend on the newest builds of Mootools in order to function at top speed and reliability. Though long overdue, this update will provide an excellent boost in all areas possible to ...

November 01, 2010 - Chadwick Meyer — We just redid the structure of our website and wanted to make sure that all the friendly URLs matched the new structure. But when you change your friendly URL, any hard coded links to that page (on your site or from another site or in a search engine) will stop working and your visitors won't find that page that used to be located there. So we've implemented a great automatic system that archives the old friendly URL, so that people are automatically redirected to the new URL. Whenever you change a friendly URL on a page, Gutensite creates a ...

October 28, 2010 - Chadwick Meyer — Selecting your timezone can oftentimes be a daunting task because of all the options with cryptic-sounding GMT offsets and no real visual representation. We have taken the time to create a completely visually-oriented Timezone Picker with the following features: Map View of the World: Upon hovering over each section of the world, it will highlight the segment of timezone area associated with it. City Markers: Clicking a portion of the map will insert a marker (red dot) to the closest city of your clicked point. There are 397 cities m ...

October 27, 2010 - Chadwick Meyer — In order to support international language foreign characters, we've converted to support UTF-8. This should be a seamless transition for all, but it required quite a lot of changes to our code. POSSIBLE BUGS If you notice some strange looking characters on your website, or RSS feeds, or API interactions, this would be the cause. Tell us immediately. TECHNICAL CHANGES Changed php.ini default_charset=utf-8 Databases Converted to Charset=utf_8 and Collation=utf8_unicode_ci (should have been lossless and not messed up any ...

October 13, 2010 - Chadwick Meyer — We've added a new feature that is super helpful for allowing your organization to provide better customer service to your customers. Now any Gutensite Administrative account can be enabled as a Master Password account. Once enabled, that Admin account can login to any Customer account on your site. This option is particularly helpful for Customer Service personnel when helping a customer troubleshoot a problem, or to verify that a customer actually has the items in the cart that they claim, or to try to reproduce a complaint that the client ...

October 12, 2010 - Chadwick Meyer — We've launched a Community Support Forum for all Gutensiters to talk to one another, ask for help, offer help, share ideas, etc. All our Professional clients have direct access to our dedicated support staff, but Free Lite users, Personal, and Webmaster accounts do not have this dedicated support. So now we're excited that there are more support options for everyone. The Forums are a great way to share knowledge with the whole group, or look for answers to questions that have already been asked. Initially, the Forums are going to be e ...

September 21, 2010 - Chadwick Meyer — We all know the old phrase "two wrongs don't make a right" and in a moral sense this is true. But in a broader problem solving sense that's not always the case. Sometimes two problems can compliment one another and one problem can become a great solution for the other. I ride my bicycle to and from work every day. Part of my commute is along the Iron Horse and the Canal Trails which run along public land that has been protected from residential development because it hosts power lines and drainage canals. So these right of ways conveniently ...

September 20, 2010 - Chadwick Meyer — I'm working on a "top-secret", personal, side project which we hope to launch in a few months. The project is called "Comrade Share", and through our service we will provide new solutions to several common entrenched problems. In the process, I've come to some interesting conclusions about finding solutions to common problems. This isn't a roadmap to solving all problems, but it is one great way to rethink outside the box. And if the problem is big enough, your solution can change the world. Four simple steps can help us think through the ...

September 10, 2010 - Chadwick Meyer — One of our biggest problems is finding enough time to promote ourselves. We are adding powerful new features to Gutensite all the time, which meet client needs or wishes, but we don't have time to brag about them because we're off to the next project. But over the years we've created a very powerful eCommerce Store with loads of options for customization. We have some companies with highly complex product requirements that stretch us to innovate features that meet their demands. This week we added some brand new features and revamped some ...

August 27, 2010 - Chadwick Meyer — We're hiring. See our "Openings" page for for information. We need a really great web designer that can deliver. Is that you? Or do you know someone? Please check it out.

August 25, 2010 - Chadwick Meyer — For Realtors that use our built in MLS (Multiple Listing Service) property feeds, we offer free Email Alerts for their visitors who want to be notified of new properties that match specific search criteria. There are professional services that offer this product exclusively, but Realtors prefer our version because it's free, visitors can create an email alert easily and instantly from any listing page on their site, the email designs can be customized, and more importantly, the properties in the email can link directly back to their own ...

August 18, 2010 - Chadwick Meyer — Occasionally we have to perform server maintenance that makes your website temporarily unavailable (for example, tomorrow night at 8pm PST). When the server is down for maintenance, visitors are given a nice message to help them understand what is happening (so they don't think your site is broken). However, before the server goes down, they may be performing critical tasks, writing a comment, purchasing a product, etc. And so it's important to let them know that things are about to stop working. We have implemented a new alert message that ...