UNIQUE Advertising Solutions + Graphic Design

Web Design, Marketing, and the aimless thoughts of an entrepreneur

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Category Archives: Tech

New Press Release

With Google logging more than 2 billion searches per day the web has become an integral part of most businesses, even businesses that have been around for many years are having to build a presence on the web to continue to grow their business. Growing a web presence as many know is not an easy process and finding the correct company to design and manage a program is probably more complicated than ever. With what seems to be an endless supply of so called web designers how does one pick the right one?

Well UNIQUE Advertising Solutions + Graphic Design makes that choice a little bit easier. They have broken the traditional web design company mold with in-house financing. With a partial payment to start and payments as low as $100 per month it has never been more affordable to have a professionally built website. UNIQUE does a lot of things differently, with roots as a marketing company there is a solid understanding of advertising works. Building a successful website is far more than simply making a cool design.

A website is nothing more than a sales tool, sometimes that tool drives customers to a physical store or restaurant and sometimes it closes the sale before the user leaves the website. These variables are extremely important. A website should drive it’s users to the website owners ultimate goal, whatever that may be. To make that happen the web designer needs to have a solid grasp on marketing to specific demographics, and this is something UNIQUE thrives at.
With UNIQUE’s in-house financing programs and their unique out of the box style they are an affordable and solid web design solution for any business that is trying to build a web presence

Visit UNIQUE today at UNIQUE Advertising Solutions

http://www.uniqueadvertisingsolutions.com

See the Full PR Here

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UNIQUE Advertising Solutions Commercial with Morgan Freeman….

UNIQUE is a North Carolina Web Design company.

Why choose UNIQUE for your website project?

• We provide our clients with first rate design and website building services. We are ranked a top ten design firm by http://top10designer.com/
• We are a marketing company so we understand that there is more to a website than simply the design itself.
• We provide you with the cost beforehand and there are never any hidden charges down the road.
• We make our deadlines.
• Our prices for a fully custom information site begin at $600 and the average turnaround time is 10 days.
• We work very closely with our clients throughout the design process to make sure that we build exactly what you want.
• We do it RIGHT the FIRST time.
• We also can provide hosting, quad core servers, 100 mbit connections speeds, GUARANTEED 99.9% uptime $16.99 per month.
• A few other services that we provide, business card design and printing, brochures, promotional items, screen printing, direct to garment, we are a one stop shop for all of your advertising needs.

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Lunar Eclipse Dec 10, 2011

As most everyone already knows we had a Lunar Eclipse this morning, unfortunately it was not visible to us on the east coast but thanks to www.slooh.com I was able to watch it real time this morning at 8am. With the slooh feed I was able to take screen shots of the eclipse and then put them into a video stream to take the entire 3 hour eclipse and turn it into a couple minute long video. I did switch from the Singapore observatory to the Eastern Australiann observatory during totallity, as it was a better view than the Singapore observatory. I did not get the second half as it is the same as the first half just reversed. This will be the last Lunar Eclipse till 2014, so enjoy.

 

FYI www.slooh.com has almost weekly events that they feature on their site, for example in 5 days they have a meteor hunt show. Might be worth checking out if you are into astronomy.

 

 

 

There was even a UFO sighting during the Eclipse, I can’t speak for it’s validity but it does look odd.

 

 

 

Horsepower has changed a lot over the past years…

As a kid I read nearly every car magazine or book I could get my hands on, and memorized every car spec I could.  As a grown up, nothing has really changed except it’s not magazines and books, now its YouTube and automotive blogs but that’s not all that’s changed.  When I was a kid my dream car was a Lamborghini Countach, which had a 5.1 liter v-12 that cranked out 455 HP which at the time was huge.  The US did not have a viable counterpart but the closest thing was the Corvette, which had a 5.7 liter v8 that put out a pitiful 245 HP.  But in the US 245 HP was a sports car. 

If you take the muscle cars of the past and look at the horsepower ratings they are a bit disappointing by today’s standards:

1969 camaro
Camaro Z/28 – 290 HP
340 mopar
Mopar 340 – 275 HP
boss 302
Mustang Boss 302 – 290 HP

Now let’s take a look at a few modern day “family cars”

maxima
Nissan Maxima -290 HP
taurus
Ford Taurus – 400 HP
genesis
Hyundai Genesis – 429 HP

 

 

As you can see the Horsepower of yesterday’s muscle cars is the same as the family sedan of today. That of course is understandable with technology advancements.

When I was younger I built many very fast cars, most notable were a few Toyota Supra twin turbos.  Taking a stock 276 HP Supra and removing the twin turbo setup, then adding a single big turbo we could get 900 HP which at the time was insane.  This was early 2000’s and today just a mere 10 years later a 1500 HP turbo car is not unusual.   Underground Racing in Charlotte is cranking out 1500 HP Lamborghini Gallardos left and right, and they are reliable cars that are driven on the street. I just saw a video yesterday about a new Nissan GTR that broke into the 8 sec realm, with more than 1500 HP, again a street car which is mind blowing. 

900 HP Supra
1500 HP gallardo
2000
2011

 

So 20 years ago a 500 HP Lambo was the holy grail, then a 900 HP supra, and now 1500 HP lambos, and GTRs.  I’m just curious where are we going to be in 10 more years, will the family minivan be loaded with a 500 hp motor and the sports cars cranking out 2000+ on the street? I sure hope so….

 

What is Responsive Design and Why Use It?

In the recent years with the number of people that access the web via smartphones and tablets we are having to develop websites with those devices in mind.  In the past we had to create multiple versions of the same website for each device and use media queries to dictate which was used, this is an extensive process and takes 4-5 times longer than just building your typical website.  Now we have responsive and adaptive design, distinguishing the 2 is a bit complicated and not being a “programmer” myself I don’t completely grasp it myself, but thats why I have kickass programmers like Dave.

The basics of responsive design, and I mean very basic:  typically when we build a website we build the page using pixels to indicate the size of each element on the page.  Most websites that are built to today have a large banner that spans the top of the age which looks good and displays prominent information above the fold.  This banner for example will be set at 960 pixels wide this means that no matter what device accesses that page that it will attempt to render that image at 960 pixels, well with responsive design that 960 will be set at say, 75% which means that if you are on a 32″ screen then it will render the banner at 24 inches, if you are using a 3.2″ phone then that same banner will render at 2.4 inches.  This process basically allows a single website to show up properly on any sized screen and when 75% of the world accesses the web from something other than a computer that is critical.

Now responsive design is literally brand new, the first book just came out on it 2 months ago, that book is A Book Apart by Ethan Marcotte and if you are attempting to learn responsive design is a must have resource, you can get it at any online book store for 18 bucks.

Of course I jumped on this immediately and began to have my programmers/developers work with it and learn it which is still an ongoing process, because as with anything no one has the full capabilities figured out yet, everyday we learn something new, but we still do that with basic html and css and that has been around for 10+ years.

Responsive Design may seem like a relatively simple technique that requires just a little extra work. However, if you have tried the technique on a production website (not just as an experiment) you will know that things aren’t as simple as they seem.

At UNIQUE  we have experimented with responsive design for some time and have already launched our own new site that incorporates responsive design techniques.  While working on our site and other ongoing sites we have discovered how much thought needs to go into the process and how important it is to think ‘responsive’ from day one.

 

OpenCart vs Miva Merchant

As a web designer and business owner I like open source software as much as the next guy because its free.  However I am not willing to sacrifice features and ease of use to save a few bucks.  Recently we have been cranking out a lot of ecommerce sites and I have had the chance to test out numerous platforms, some were ok, some were great and some were terrible.

Ill start with Miva, basically everything with Miva was done in a proprietary format.  I personally spent well over an hour attempting to create a theme for a miva cart, after that I tried to do a few more things unsuccessfully.  Basically every single thing that I attempted was exceptionally difficult.  On top of the difficulty level of design and operation there is the cost for a little more than $50 bucks a month you can have an ecommerce setup that requires a degree from MIT to use.

Now we have OpenCart which is a free open source software.  Again I spent a little over an hour with OpenCart, in that same hour I had the entire cart configured and was about 80% done with a custom theme.  Needless to say after screwing around with Miva, OpenCart was a huge relief.  Everything with OpenCart is done in basic CSS and PHP making it very easy to customize the site.

I have  recently converted a couple of my clients from Miva to OpenCart and they all love the admin section because it is so much easier to use and add products to than Miva.  I still have not figured out why one of the most expensive ecommerce solutions is so difficult to use and a free one is so easy, that somewhat defies logic.

I know this may sound like a Miva bash but if I had started this post under the principle of  “if you cant say anything nice don’t say anything at all” this post would have been very short, at least the Miva section would be.

When you take all the factors into consideration ease of use, no monthly fees, vs extreme difficult to use and fairly expensive monthly fees, choosing OpenCart over Miva is a No Brainer.

opencart vs miva

 

 

How to Repair a Broken Battery Cover

Im sure everyone has had a broken battery cover on a remote at some point, well the remote for my fairly new Samsung Blu Ray player recently broke.   I am not the type that will just wrap a bunch of tape around it and call it quits, you spend thousands of dollars on a home theater setup and have a remote wrapped in tape, come on now we can do better than that.

I proceeded to consult Google and searched for “broken battery cover” “repair broken battery cover””repair battery cover””battery door repair” to find nothing.  So I tackled it, heres what I came up with (im going to to keep it simple, as it is a very simple repair)

 

Things you will need:

Scissors

Small piece of automotive vacuum tubing

Super glue

Baking soda

A  few heavy objects to hold things in place as you work

 

  • Cut a small sliver of tube off, to make a small o-ring
  • Break the little part that was broken completely off
  • Take the o-ring and glue to the cover to act as a small spring and let it setup for 15 mins or so
  • Cut the O-ring in halfish, try to replicate the original thickness of the gap
  • Now take the piece you broke off and glue back to the cover and let setup for a few
  • Check the gap that you have and make sure it is close to the original, if its too much cut a little of the o-ring down if its not enough start back at step 1
  • Once you have verified that the gap is correct glue the now C shaped o-ring to the piece that was originally broken off and let setup
  • Final step is to reapply glue to the location of the break and sprinkle and ample amount of baking soda on the wet glue and let the whole thing cure for an hour or so.  (the baking soda acts as a binder making the glue stronger than it is by itself)

Now you should have a repaired battery cover.
See pics below if you have any questions.  The pics were taken with my HTC Pr0 7 (new WP7 Phone)  they are good but not great.

 

battery cover repair This is what you need, plus some baking soda (I forgot that initially)
battery cover repair This is the sliver
battery cover repair This is the sliver glued to the cover
battery cover repair Sliver cut down and glued to cover, not a great shot
battery cover repair Sliver cut down and glued to cover, better shot
battery cover repair The broken piece reattached
battery cover repair Cover is in and secure
battery cover repair Here you can see why this works
battery cover repair Glue and baking soda is ugly but strong
battery cover repair Another shot to show how this all works
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Mango Update for WP7 Turns WP7 Into Super Phone?

I have had Blackberries for years, back when the screen was monochrome and that little clicky scrolling button was on the side.  Well a few months back I left Blackberry land in lieu of something better.  After 5+ years with Verizon and Blackberry I left and went to US Cellular and got a Windows 7 Phone.  I know what you are thinking you left reliable Verizon for little ole US Cellular? Absolutely, and I do not regret it for a minute.  Their customer service is awesome, there cheaper and they work on Verizon towers as well as their own, yep that’s right, more coverage, better service, lower cost. There’s a glitch somewhere I’m sure I just have not found it in the past 5 months.

But this is not a US Cellular promo.  When I first began using the HTC Pro I loved everything about it, even the weight of it felt like you were holding onto something that was real.  The functionality was great, it nearly did everything I wanted, I said nearly, some things I was not crazy about.   At the time of its release the QR Code scanning ability was nil, and there were a few other little things that were annoying but not detrimental  by any means: the camera always defaulted back to flash on, no screen touch to take a picture, you had to push the button, which is not always optimal, the marketplace was limited.  But I’m a business guy and it handled business flawlessly, I can’t say anything more it was perfect.  Then Mango came out.

Mango was released about a week ago and I delayed a few days to install because I was busy as hell but the other night I finally installed the update which took forever but I then spent the next 3 hours playing with my damn phone.  It has so many new gizmos and gadgets that I still don’t know what it is capable of. All I do know is its awesome, phenomenal.   The qr code scanning ability blows any device I have seen yet out of the water.   I can go to Google Images and search for QR Code and literally scan the codes as fast as they hit screen, it’s astounding how fast it is.  They included a task manager screen flipper thing that allows you to hold the back for second and access the most 5 recent apps you had open,  I’m not using this much yet but as I get used to it I can see it being a benefit.  We now have custom ringtones, which I don’t care about really, I’m a grown up and I don’t need my phone to play song every time someone calls me but many people do so that’s fixed.  Bluetooth, my SMS messages are now read to me over my Bluetooth headset and you actually have the option to reply to a text with voice and it will transcribe it to text.  It reads great but I’m a southern guy with a bit of accent and therefore it doesn’t understand me very well.  But a simple yes, ok, be right there works fine.  I have never been a fan Bing but I am now, the features just within Bing are great.   Oh yea by the way there are 500 new features and changes within the Mango update so I can’t even begin to address them all as I don’t even know them all.  So has Mango turned the WP7 into a super phone Hell Yes, 1000 percent.  It totally obliterates droids and iphones, and this was just the FIRST update for WP7.

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