Software | PortableApps.com
PortableApps is a portable application platform. I use it everyday. There are a lot of applications out there, many of them free and capable of running from a USB memory stick. Three years ago I set out to make the ultimate USB drive, not just with applications, but full servers and other useful tools and methods of organization. Today, I use free portable applications for pretty much everything I do from browsing the web to running a full web server. PortableApps.com has made this much easier. Although I have some applications that they don’t yet, I look forward to when they do. It’s nice to have a central place to find portable applications, rather than trying to make them all portable on your own. It’s also extremely stable, I’ve been running this platform for well over a year, and haven’t had to rebuild it at all.
Logo | Valley IT Services
For my own identity, I was looking for something that felt local yet modern. There are a lot of other “Valley” companies in this small town, and we are proud of living in our valley in the mountains. Also, the blue crescent is meant to attract attention and add a bit of modern design.
Meeker Chamber’s Marketing Seminar
Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend the Marketing Resource Seminar (Click here) held by the Meeker Chamber at Mountain Valley Bank.
The Print Shop / Craig Daily Press had some tips and statistics on mailing ads to customers, apparently more people open ad mail than I thought.
KRAI/55country had some very interesting points about incorporating repetition and image into your ads. Obviously radio reaches a lot of people all day long. What I really gleaned from them, is that you should tell a story about what you do to generate interest in your business. So don’t be surprised if you see some site changes in the near future reflecting that philosophy. I think it is a little bit more difficult for me to describe my business, than most others. For example,
For Valley IT it is much more complicated. What does an IT Services company do? Well, a little bit of everything: aquire, setup, manage, and maintain servers, computers, and other technology equipment, manage digital security, design networks and applications, answer any and all computer questions, develop websites, and much more. IT Services really manages Information Technology, in all of its various forms.
The newspaper also had some good points about marketing. The ones that stick out in my mind are: “We need to work together with each other, even competitors, to improve everyone’s businesses”, and secondly, “You really do need to advertise, and people really do see your ads in the paper”.
I really appreciate the Meeker Chamber helping us out, everyone who is willing to learn can benefit greatly from these seminars.
- Official Launch -
After finally getting a chance to work on my own website, I finally feel comfortable announcing that it’s ready for launch. I’ve gone through several iterations, everything from a basic brochure style to many different CMS solutions. I’ve finally settled on WordPress. The main reason for this is that I’ve recently discovered that WordPress is very manageable, even though I know how to develop a site from scratch it is much easier to use a CMS that pools the talents of developers worldwide. I’ve become comfortable editing templates to fit the needs of the site, and managing plugins for the best user experience. Of course as always, I welcome and encourage feedback.
Valley IT is taking off, and although it’s a little scary I look forward to growing it into the business that I know it can be. It looks like there may be more demand for web design in Meeker than I originally thought. Although I feel more comfortable doing technology management, web design will add a bit of a face-lift to Meeker’s online presence.
Please peruse the site and take a look at what it has to offer.
In the future I hope to start blogging about technology, making it useful to those that I serve. I’ll probably start with write-ups on the software that I recommend, and maybe some open-source philosophy.