You may have heard about the recent launch of Cuil. com (pronouced "cool") which is a new search engine contender. The buzz surrounding this new search engine has been intense. It's launch was on the home page of CNN. com and just about everyone on the. . . Continue Reading »

First off let's not assume everyone knows what SEO and CMS means. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Basically this means optimizing your website so that search engines love you and your content. CMS stands for Content Management System. A CMS. . . Continue Reading »

I went to see Kung Fu Panda last night with my 4 year old daughter Georgia. The core message of the movie was that there is no "secret ingredient" to life (and the noodle soup), it's all in you to begin with. Somehow this nice little morale got me th. . . Continue Reading »

Ask any developer you know what's the one thing they don't like about their job and I guarantee 4 out of 5 times the answer would be "developing for IE 6. " We've spent many a day creating smoothly functional and well-designed web sites only to have t. . . Continue Reading »

I recently attended Web Content 2008 in Chicago. The goal of this conference is to connect web content management specialists to discuss the latest trends in web development and content management. It always surprises me how there is a blur of insi. . . Continue Reading »

I attended the Voices That Matter Web Design conference in Nashville a few weeks ago and while I had a lot of fun, I also learned a lot too. The conference is sponsored by New Riders, an imprint of Peachpit publishing, which features some great autho. . . Continue Reading »

For quite some time, it's been a well accepted tennet of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that Flash websites perform poorly in the search engines and should be avoided. The reasoning went like this: the search engine spiders that crawl our web page. . . Continue Reading »

Why does Google think "web design" means "car insurance"? You might not believe they do which is why I took this screen shot to prove it:Why would Google place Pay Per Click (PPC) text ads for Geico next to organic listings of my two favorite web des. . . Continue Reading »

Sometimes we can lose the forest for the trees so I thought it might make sense to get back to basics. What is a Content Management System (CMS)? Simply put a CMS allows you (yes you!) to easily update content on your website. It means that you don't. . . Continue Reading »

Google's APIs allow nearly complete integration of their services (Search, Maps, Earth, Blogger, etc) into your website. They went over the methods and how to authenticate, plus showcased many of the features they enable. They also offered up sessions. . . Continue Reading »

"AJAX & Javascript" was definitely the area of most interest to me at Google's I/O Web Developer Conference. Here at Small Box we utilize AJAX and Javascript to the best of our ability because it makes sites faster and can really make a great des. . . Continue Reading »

Last week I had a great learning and networking opportunity as part of my job here at Small Box. The Google I/O Web Developer Conference, Google's largest developer event, was held for the first time ever last week in San Francisco, bringing the nerd. . . Continue Reading »

It's easy to forget about your site's users when you are trying to court Google. It's tempting to only think about title tags, keywords, etc. as if Google was your only audience. But we are learning that if you focus your efforts on designing and bui. . . Continue Reading »

Far too many websites "Rick Roll" visitors to their homepage and the SEO consequences can be disastrous. Not only does "Rick Rolling" choke a website's overall traffic to a virtual trickle, but it also reduces the value of each visitor as well as und. . . Continue Reading »

In building several online communities, both for personal and professional purposes, I have been ruminating about how to effectively build an online community. Here are 10 tips that I have complied from my experiences that I think might be of value to. . . Continue Reading »

"You’ve got to run this government, you can’t leave it to others. "-Hillary Clinton"I’m not an operating officer. Some in this debate around experience seem to think the job of the president is to go in and run some bureaucracy. Well, that’s n. . . Continue Reading »

Engadget just posted information about the next generation of iPhones. Word is that it will have plastic back (not metal), 3G (which is close to broadband internet access), real GPS, a headphone jack that isn't recessed (which makes most normal headp. . . Continue Reading »

This is my first blog using the Firefox plug-in Scribe Fire. Here is what it looks like as I type. I took a screen shot of this interface and uploaded it using this plug-in that interfaced with the Blogspot API. Pretty cool, no? This plug in allows me. . . Continue Reading »

The 5. 4 magnitude Indiana earthquake woke me up this morning around 5:30. I've lived in L. A. for three years, so I'm used to the sensation. I always think at first that an earthquake is a bus, dumptruck, garbage truck or other large desisel vehicle d. . . Continue Reading »

I have fallen in love with Ning. com! What is Ning? For the uninitiated, it is a very easy to set up and use online social community that allows users to upload all forms of media, share it with their friends, create groups, post blogs, etc. I've blogg. . . Continue Reading »

The other day Jeb sent me a link to this article in Popular Mechanics related to Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It's an interview with Udi Manber who, as Google's VP in charge of search quality, is one of their top search engine gurus. I was struc. . . Continue Reading »

We're all very honored that Small Box Web Design & Consulting was featured in the small business profile for the March 29, 2008 issue of the Indianapolis Business Journal. The IBJ's small business profile chronicles our growth from a two-man web. . . Continue Reading »

Just saw this post on Wired. com and it concerned me since I was hoping that WiMax might help the web, and all the applications being developed for portable web driven devices, take it's next big leap. In particular there appear to be serious latency . . . Continue Reading »

I just read that Adobe is planning on launching Flash for the iPhone. This is big news, at least for iPhone addicts like me, why?Post on EngadgetWithout Flash many websites are pretty much worthless on the iPhone or most other cell phones. Also, as F. . . Continue Reading »

I ran across an article on AdAge on web trends for 2008 and it reminded me of a blog I had posted a couple months ago on this blog which I will link to at the bottom along with the AdAge post. They asked technology bloggers to weigh in on what trends . . . Continue Reading »