Please Don’t Hurt the Web
Friday, December 28th, 2007
Archive for December, 2007
Ode To The Snow
Friday, December 28th, 2007Snow has been falling quite heavily in Colorado over the past few days. We were surprised and many of us joyous upon Christmas day to see huge snow flakes falling to the ground. Snow is a beautiful and an intricate detail during the winter season. It provides us with many wonderful things as well as instigates many disastrous events. Read the rest of this entry »
ActiveX in Firefox? You’re crazy!
Friday, December 28th, 2007Not that long ago a friend of mine and I were talking about the insecurities of Internet Explorer. Eventually the conservation turned to Firefox and how it is more secure. My friend stated the fact that ActiveX doesn’t work in Firefox, which makes it more secure. I laughed at this statement and my friend proceeded to rail me for smirking. He was so sure that ActiveX does not work in Firefox that he insulted me for saying otherwise. What my friend didn’t know is that awhile back I had figured out a way to make ActiveX work with Firefox.
Boltboy Labs Launches First Facebook Application
Thursday, December 27th, 2007Heaven & Hell is an exciting new Facebook application developed by the team at Indigio on behalf of Boltboy Labs LLC. For those of you who have been living under a rock for the last year, Facebook is a social networking site that helps users communicate effortlessly with their friends, family and co-workers. Facebook reports that more than 50 percent of users return to the Facebook site each day, providing unmatched distribution for applications and the opportunity to build brand awareness that is highly relevant to people’s lives.
So what exactly is Heaven & Hell and why would you want to install it?
Heaven & Hell is an interactive application that empowers you to dictate whether your friends deserve your praise or if they should be damned to hell. Vote as many times as you like, but in doing so don’t forget to reveal to your friends why they are on their way to meet with the head honcho or if they should be sharpening the prongs on their pitchfork. Log on daily to see how your friends react to your votes, but be prepared as they may be happy with you today…but damning you for something tomorrow!
Sounds like fun doesn’t it? Well, that’s the point. To access the Heaven & Hell application, visit http://apps.facebook.com/heavenorhell.
Heaven & Hell is the first of a series of Facebook applications that Boltboy Labs plans to release before the end of 2008, so stay tuned…
The Google Gadget API
Thursday, December 27th, 2007What it offers:
- Save state
- External content (RSS, XML, existing websites)
- Tabs
- Localized settings (internationalization)
- Drag and drop content
Why we chose the gadget API:
- Needed a way to deliver the content with out having to install software
- Didn’t want to deal with different operating systems, firewalls, etc…
- Makes rolling out versions much easier
Scope of the project:
Budget wanted a program similar to the Southwest Airlines ‘Ding’ application to deliver special deals on car rentals to customers. Users would choose their preferred rental locations (up to 3 locations max) and specials at those locations would be displayed (3 specials for each location). The user could select a particular special and choose their pick up and drop off dates. The Budget Google gadget would take them into the reservation booking flow on budget.com to complete their car rental. If there aren’t any specials for a chosen location, a message of no specials available will be displayed. If there are no specials for all chosen locations, then the user will be taken to a page where they can enter one of the following three options: city & state, zip code, or airport that they wish to rent from. They can also choose their pickup and drop off dates & times for their rental location. The users are then taken to budget.com where they can choose their rate and complete their car rental.
All of this meant that we would need 4 pages: A preferences page for the user to select their rental locations, a specials page to display the specials for the locations, a chosen deal page where the user can select their pickup and drop off dates/times, and finally a no specials page for users to enter the city & state, zip code , or airport and pickup/drop off date and time. We also needed an RSS feed for users to add their chosen locations to a feed reader.
Issues with the Google Gadget API:
This is not meant to be a bashing of the Google Gadget API. It is simply my experience with using it. There maybe ways to get the API functions to work but since I was on a truncated time schedule, I had to make the project work. Perhaps we were pushing the technology beyond what it was intended to do? All of the Google gadgets that I have seen thus far have been very simple in what they do. Our Budget Google gadget seemed so simple at its inception…
Another Great Indigio Holiday Party
Saturday, December 22nd, 2007
It was another great Holiday Party for Indigio this past Thursday. This year was at Mattie’s House of Mirrors located in LoDo. It was a wonderful evening and everyone (I know I did) had a great time. The evening featured cocktails, dinner, awards, dancing, lots of drinking, more dancing, more drinking,more dancing and finally wrapped up about 1 AM. It was a great send off before everyone headed off for a few days to celebrate the holidays with friends and family. Check out some photos from the party.
Congratulations to this year’s award winners:
Employee of the Year - Dale Gloude
Rookie of the Year - Wayne Rodgers
Recognition for Outstanding Management - Becki Dilworth & Tom Whittaker
Recognition for Driving New Revenue - Jim Halligan
Recognition for Biggest Impact in Shortest Time - Sara Pacheco
Recognition for Behind the Scenes Support - Rob Wilburn
Recognition for Making Indigio A Great Place to Work - Dale Gloude, Brandon Hess & Sara Pacheco
Web Type Just Got Easier
Friday, December 21st, 2007
The amazingly talented folks at Suprb have developed an incredibly handy CSS generator for web type. It saves heaps of time and is fun to use.
Downtown Denver Cheap Eats Continued
Friday, December 21st, 2007In the in spirit of cheap eats here are a couple of more places in the downtown area to find an inexpensive bite to eat. Here are my initial entries for Ryan Hadley’s Cheap Eats list:
- Meyer’s & Wolfe
- In my opinion, the best burgers in Denver are located at Meyer’s & Wolf on the third floor of the Tabor Center on 16th & Larimer. Meyer’s & Wolfe is a hot dog and hamburger place that’s owned by an Asian family. They have excellent cheese fries and onion rings not to mention good Italian beef sandwiches and cheeseburgers. The best cheap eat here is that you can get a cheeseburger for around $3.60 before tax. Their burgers are made to order so you always get a fresh hot sandwich!
- Wolfe’s Barbeque
- Wolfe’s Barbeque is located at 333 E Colfax Ave., Denver, CO 80203. This one man barbeque operation serves meats smoked with hickory over a charcoal fire. Patrons don’t have to fumble with a litany of choices at Wolfe’s just pick your meat or veggie, and wait for it to be charred to perfection. Lunch meals without a drink usually cost just under $5. Great place for fast, quality barbeque. The customer service however is questionable as Wayne Rodgers can attest to.
Why Indigio Loves Dave Higgins
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007
Dave Higgins is a ray of sunshine!
I should just stop there because that pretty much conveys what I want to say but for those that don’t know Dave, let me take a moment and tell you a little about him.
I am not going to try and cover his varied background and what companies he has worked at and how he ended up starting Indigio and what he is doing today outside of Indigio. Now I may ask Dave to do a separate post to cover all this but for now I will simply tell you that Dave is the founder and current Chairman of the Board of Indigio (previously known as Telsoft). He is also the father of Tim Higgins (Indigio CEO) and Mike Higgins (Executive Vice President of Media News Group Interactive). And I will add that Dave is an idea guy. He always has the most interesting ideas for new products and services. But this is not why we love Dave.
We love Dave because of his personality. He is the friendliest, most optimistic, honest person I have ever met. He simply brings a warm fuzzy feeling to any room he walks into. For me personally, being around Dave makes me want to be a better person. I will also mention that he has a bit of a sweet tooth and tends to show up at the office on Cake Day and Donut/Bagel Day;.>
Denver Botanic Gardens Embrace Technology
Monday, December 17th, 2007It is always thrilling for me when I meet new clients and see the excitement, pride and dedication they have to their company, product or project. It is one of the things I love most about my job.
Today, Becki Dilworth and I met with Robin Doerr and Doris Boardman from the Denver Botantic Gardens. Becki and I will be providing our assistance to their organization throughout 2008 as they develop and implement a roadmap that includes a site redesign, a new content management system and the most exciting part for me, increased social media and community interaction on-line. It is wonderful to see how Robin and Doris have embraced the fact that technology will help improve everyone’s experience at the Denver Botanic Gardens, not just through a website redesign, but throughout the Gardens with thoughts of things such as WiFi thoughout the Gardens, virtual classrooms, blogs and even the ability to see a plant at the Gardens and then go online to find a local retailer, so you can buy the plant for youself. I think that often we do not think of technology when it comes to horticultural or the Denver Botanic Gardens, but thanks to these two woman and leaders such as their CEO, Brian Vogt, you soon will. They are moving the Gardens to becoming a state-of-art facility and proving that technology is just a way of life. I am honored to be a part of something that I know will prove to be history in the making.
Best of all, the changes to do not stop with technology. In the months and years to come, you will see changes throughout the entire Denver Botanic Gardens as they are planning on updating parking, visitor services, the entrances and overall facilties, thanks to the passage of Bond Issue G this past November. It will truly make one of the most beautiful places in Denver, even better.
If you have not been to the Denver Botanic Garden lately or ever, do not feel like you have to wait until Spring - Blossoms of Light is going on right now and continues until January 20th. Dale and I are planning on going in early January, as we have never been, but if you want a recommendation talk to our own Sara Pacheco. She goes ever year and has convinced me that it is well worth the trip.
