Sentry Equipment Launches New Website
Sentry Equipment Launches New Website
Sentry Equipment Online Presence
Waterford has partnered with Sentry Equipment (www.SentryEquipment.com) to build a new online presence for their businesses, create a secure sales workflow system for submitting online quotes, and build and manage social media campaigns. Sentry Equipment, incorporated in August of 1980, has risen to the top of its profession by offering a complete line of conveying equipment and machinery and Waterford is excited to help them reflect their business on the web and in social media!
“After years of getting by with a homemade website, we finally made the decision to take our online presence to the next level. We researched local website designers and went through a lengthy interview process. Since the beginning we’ve felt like it was a collaborative effort rather than a customer / vendor transaction. The result is something that our whole company can take pride in. We have other projects coming up in the near future, and we are looking forward to working with Waterford and Steve once again.”
- Les Womack/Vice President Sales
Solution
- New website design
- Custom Online Quote System
- Content Management solution for easy updates
- Social Media setup/integration
- Branded email
- Site management and hosting services
Sharepoint for Small Business
- Sharepoint for Small Business Collaboration
Many of our small business clients are moving to SharePoint these day and more of them are finding Sharepoint really helps them address specific business problems with measurable results. In most cases hosted Sharepoint Windows Services (WSS) is sufficient to deliver huge value, and the cost is consequently very reasonable for the tightest of budgets.
We always tell our clients, “Crawl before you walk”, and that applies here. Start with one or two pressing business problems that Sharepoint can solve and start there. Over hte next week we’ll go over some typical small business SharePoint solutions, starting with
Information
The good ‘ole Intranet site. This is a common site for all employees, or groups of some kind.
- HR Policies/Documents – employee manuals, vacation request forms, employee contact lists, emergency contact lists etc.
- Client files – current contracts, contact information, meeting notes, expense forms etc. Sometimes these may be their own workspace.
- Operations files – reports, accounting files, procedures, vendor contact lists etc.
- Links to partner sites or common information sources
Beyond the common Intranet team workspace you may have others for specific clients, divisions, or other purposes. We’ll throw some more out there next time.
Read MoreBlue Ridge Soccer Launches New Website
- Blue Ridge Store Online Store
“We wanted to be more than just a place to buy soccer equipment and apparel. Our goal was to become THE destination for local soccer, whether it is equipment, information, league and camp signups, or anything else. I believe the Waterford Technologies team got us there! With over 12,000 products available to our customers online, camp information, local club information, and more we now have a great resource to serve our existing customers better and reach new ones throughout the entire Central Virginia area.”
- Ryan Bullock
Solution
- New website design
- E-Commerce solution with online payment processing
- Content Management solution for easy updates
- Social Media setup/integration
- Branded email
- Site management and hosting services
Read More
Responsive Web Design: Part III (Images)
While this concept of “one design serves all” sounds great there are still challenges to overcome. Some have already pointed out several issues that need to be addressed before it can scale perfectly from handheld to desktop. For one desktop-optimized images are often too heavy for mobile connections, and mobile-optimized images are too low quality for desktop viewers.
The solution being put forth is a design technique called “Context-Aware Images“. The goal of this technique is to deliver optimized, contextual image sizes for responsive layouts that utilize different image sizes at different resolutions. Ideally, this approach will allow developers to start with mobile-optimized images in their HTML and specify a larger size to be used for users with larger screen resolutions without having to request both image sizes. The scaled images appear to change fluidly with the help of updated developer tools and coding languages, allowing designs to look sharp in every context. Responsive web designing is remarkably different from traditional designing in terms of technical and creative issues, and a careful use of this can do wonders while designing.
Read MoreResponsive Web Design: Part II (Website Design)
As more and more devices continues to expand, the variety of screen sizes, resolutions, and capabilities of all devices, including mobile phones and tablets is becoming more and more diverse. Handling this in the past depended upon putting together multiple versions of the site for different platforms. You would build to the 80/20 rule. 80 percent of people are on desktops or laptops using IE so there’s your main site. 80% of mobile users are using an iPhone or Droid. So you come up with different stylesheets or in some cases even entirely different websites to reach the largest groups and hope the ones left out are still served ok. Well when you do that the costs for design and development costs go way up and you have duplicate content to maintain.
It’s now becoming possible to make sure your site offers the same high level experience for whatever device your audience is using. Responsive Web Design is a means of designing websites so that they adapt to the many possible devices people are viewing them on with the ultimate goal of building a single website that provides the same user experience on any device. This approach allows your site to seamlessly adjust and fit the screen its viewed on.
How? Well we’ll start to look in to that next.
Read MoreResponsive Web Design: Part I (Introduction)
Responsive Web Design has recently become a hot topic. It’s a means of designing websites so that they adapt to the many possible devices people are viewing them on. Desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, and all the different browsers within each of those. Even though the concept is fairly new widespread adoption is forthecoming and the concept is quickly being accepted as industry standard. We’ll spend some time looking this over and discussing it with you over the next few weeks and will release some samples along the way. Today I saw that the latest statistic for mobile web users is 1.2 billion spanning the globe. Just another reason why Responsive Web Design is going to be so important!
Read MoreLUO Launching its New Student Information System
Forest, VA — September 10, 2012
Light University Online Launching its New Student Information System
Light University Online of Virginia (www.lightuonline.com) is set to launch its new, state-of-the-art student information system on October 1st. Working with partner Waterford Technologies Inc. (www.waterfordtech.com), our in-house development team helped design a new Light University Online that will feature such benefits as simple navigation, a graphically pleasing interface, and easy to use course registration modules…just to name a few!
Shaun Redgate, Vice President for Enrollment Management, says this new student information system was necessary because of the growth of the university and the need to provide a more customized solution to better serve its students. “I’m thrilled to see the end result of months of hard work and development. And better yet, I know our students’ will appreciate the user-friendly features as they register for courses, check their academic progress, and interact with the university support staff.”
Steve Horton, President of Waterford Technologies says it was time for a change. “This time through we’ve designed a solution that meets the unique needs of Light University Online. By taking advantage of the latest technologies we ensured that the system can grow to meet the demands of their growing university AND offer the best experience to their students.”
Light University Online, a distinctively Christian institution, offers world-renowned faculty, a robust and interactive online learning experience, proactive student support, and a relevant curriculum to help ensure students’ success. Students enjoy interacting with peers around the world, flexibility in time and place of study, achievable five-week terms, and small, tight-knit “virtual” classes. As a result of these “best-in-class” features, Light University Online has experienced a 300% year over year growth rate and has already graduated close to 400 students who are now better trained in the helping ministries.
Read More
