With over 500 members of the Anopi Nation Indian Guides, it gets expensive to print and mail a monthly newsletter. So last year they transitioned to a PDF version of the newsletter to help save on those costs. But this year they’ve taken the Smoke Signal to the next level by transitioning their newsletter to an HTML email. The benefits are huge. First when writing about an upcoming event, they can have links to the Anopi website where that event is described in great detail. Secondly, since each issue is sent to the Anopi Nation’s twitter page, they are archived and any issue is available to read at any time. Mailchimp also gives the Anopi’s the benefit of tracking who clicks where on the email and how many people are opening it. These tools can be very valuable in optimizing the emails design.

crispelements designed the newsletter and two more templates for the Nation Chief and Director to use when sending out targeted messages.

After years of talking about it, The Westchester Anopi Nation has a new website anopination.com to share stories and pass along Indian wisdom. The site is built on Drupal which is an open source content management system (CMS) platform. The new site allows individual tribes to write articles about their adventures on their tribal page. New members can learn about tribal customs and watch how-to videos and potential members can see if the Anopi Nation is right for them.

The new site was designed by crispelements and coded by asifproductions using Drupal.

Legacy Sober living is launching it’s newly redesigned website legacysoberliving.com today. This was a total makeover from the last edition. The previous version wasn’t optimized for search engines like Google. With the new website, the whole site is searchable which will improve their monthly optimization program. The new site now has lots of images online of their three facilities so potential clients can get a feel of what they have to offer. The new look is also more accessible to both genders where the previous one felt more feminine.

But the best advantage of the new website is that Legacy can edit their site themselves. These changes include adding or removing pictures on any page, adding new resources and testimonials when they become available and the ability to edit any written content anywhere on the site. This is thanks to the custom-built content management system (CMS) site building tool called AxisCMS developed by asifproductions. This tool allows a small business like Legacy to get a robust CMS product at an extremely affordable price.

asifproductions has been working with crispelements for years to provide high quality code for an affordable price.

Today Open School launched their new and improved school website. The new site opencharter.org is built on the Drupal platform which is a content management system (CMS) web building tool. It allows for multiple registered users, who have permission, to add content to a website. The school is fortunate to have many volunteers who run different projects at the school. The challenge was to develop a website that allows these volunteers to add content but still maintain control of that content. Drupal was the perfect solution because it manages all these users and gives access to only those parts of the site that the user is assigned to. The net result is a website that has constant fresh content coming from lots of different contributors.

The site was designed by cripelements and built by asifproductions. asifproductions has been working with crispelements for years developing CMS based websites that deliver lots of functionality for an affordable price.

Open School launches a new way to communicate to the parents and teachers at Open Magnet Charter School in Westchester, CA. Open school was looking for an easy way to reach as many parents as possible in an efficient way. The challenge was to find a tool that non-technical people could use to create attractive HTML emails. That’s where Mailchimp shines. It has a very graphical oriented interface that makes it easy for non-computer people to navigate.

crispelements designed a series of templates that individual users could choose and then add their content to. The resulting HTML emails look professional and increased the recipients open rate. crispelements designed emails for a weekly newsletter, individual classroom emails, one for the PTA, and even one that the principal uses when he needs to reach the whole school community quickly.

Mailchimp has many tools that the school benefits from. They can track how many emails have been opened and when. They can also track what links where clicked on so they can monitor the success of their emails. One of the challenges that the school has is they have a large Korean and Spanish population where the parents don’t speak English. So built into every email is an automatic language translation link to numerous different languages. That way no matter what language the parent speaks, they can read it.

After doing a lot of research for a client who needed a way to email over 400 people at once, I found a really cool online bulk email service. It’s called MailChimp and if you can just get past the somewhat goofy name they really have some great features. First and foremost is if your list is under 500 people and you won’t be sending more than 3000 total email addresses per month then it’s totally free. Their email creation portion is by far the easiest to use even if you have zero HTML skills. This is great if you need to turn over the use of the website to non technical users. Mailchimp also has more editing capabilities of the email designs than any other service I tried. So now that I’ve gotten to know the service really well, I find myself seeing how it can be a great solution for lots of people I know. I guess I’m officially a desciple.

I just flipped on the virtual “open” sign on my virtual door to officially say that I’m open for business. And what could be better than opening day of your new company? The knock on your real door from the UPS guy whose come to deliver your brand new business cards.

So why have I started a design company specializing in websites? Because the Internet is the future. My past has been filled with memorable work I’ve done for many Fortune 500 companies. But all of it was for print or TV. The million dollar budgets that used to be spent to create those advertisements just aren’t there anymore and I believe that they aren’t coming back even after the economy gets back on it’s feet. Those reduced budgets are going to be moving to the world wide web and crispelements will be there ready to help bring our clients message to the people.

I’m currently putting a lot of energy into learning how WordPress works and here’s why. WordPress is blogging software that was designed with the intent for it to be as easy as humanly possible for non technologically savvy people to create and run a blog site. And they succeeded so much so that’s it’s the number one most popular open source blogging software in use today. This success is because they created an interface that even my mother could use. Make it easy for someone to use and they’ll use it. You can go to www.wordpress.com and in 5 minutes set up and begin blogging on your new blog site. But of course doing it that way means you’re limited to the look of a “theme” that they provide and you’re limited to 3GB of data on the database in their server. That’s fine for most people but I believe that it’s potential goes way beyond that.

What if you could use that same functionality but integrate it into an existing website. And do it in a way that the viewer doesn’t know (or better doesn’t care) that they’re looking at a page that’s generated by a whole different technology. A technology that allows the website owner to add fresh content as often as they want and do it themselves. That’s the power of WordPress. I can design a site that gives my clients the ability to manage some of the content themselves in an easy to use way and do it for far less money than if they had to have me update the website.

Today I’m excited because I set up a testing server on my local machine. Now I can design and work on custom WordPress themes without having to set up hosting somewhere first and then have all my half built designs available for the world to so before I’m ready. With the local server set up I can do all that faster and only I can see all my mistakes.

I was doing an advertising assignment for my client J.D. Edwards and I came up with the idea of using a robot as a metaphor for a process the client uses to examine their clients business model. So in my search for the perfect robot I came across the Mighty Zeroids. Zintar, Zemo, Zerak, Zobor and Zogg. In my mind they are the perfect representation of a 1950’s robot. Before Star Wars in 1977 changed everything. Want to know more about Zeroids? Then read on:

“Moving across the landscape, overrunning all obstacles as inexorably as the Future itself, these amazing, efficient and powerful automatons have but one purpose -- to serve their masters at work and play!” This was the sales pitch for Zeroids, released in 1967.

The initial release featured four different robots: Zerak, Zobor, and Zintar could be bought separately or packaged with either a Solar Cycle or in an Action Set. These three Zeroids came packaged in plastic containers which became a vehicle or mini-playset for use by the robot.

The fourth Zeroid, Zogg (the Commander-in-Chief) could initially be bought in an Action Set only (he could later be found carded or boxed. In 1970, Ideal added the Alien Zeroid with Exploding Chest. At this time Ideal changed packaging to a header card format (the new packaging featured updated “hip” graphics and colors, and many more could be shipped in a smaller case), and offered the accessories as separate boxed items: the Sensor Station and the Zeroid Missile Defense Pad. The Zem XXI Zeroid Explorer Module was also added as an accompanying vehicle to the Zeroid line. Shortly after this (probably when sales began to flag), Ideal marketed the separate Zeroids simply as “Robots” in small, white window boxes or as “Zerak Robots” (these were found in Kreske’s department stores).

At some point, Zogg was offered in the same boxed format as the original three robots (with the addition of the Lazer). Towards the end to the line, Ideal kit-bashed the three robots to produce the Zemo robot, now found in Red or Turquoise (the rarest of the Zeroids and not part of their initial development).

“Each Zeroid has a unique pair of special purpose hands, interchangeable magnetic and throwing hands, and a battery-powered motor with forward and reverse drive. In operation, Zeroids are capable of grabbing, pinching, carrying, clawing, attracting, throwing, pushing, pulling or hauling functions.”

From “turret to track” each Zeroid simulates a marvelous mechanic-electronic complex, molded in awesome detail, and the sparkling Zeroid packages double as functional play units!”

Zogg with Lazer Beam
At some point, Ideal released Zogg in his own tall-case packaging. This figure is perhaps the rarest of the Zeroid packaging variations (Zemo is usually found in the “Zeroid with w/Solar Cycle” packaging or in one of the plain “Robots” or “Zerak” boxes).

Zerak -- The Blue Destroyer
“Turn him on” while he’s still in his control station package and lookout! His brute strength unhinges the transparent plastic cover which drops to provide an exit ramp for Zerak. Employs unique hooks for hands plus magnetic and throwing hands.

Zobor -- The Bronze Transporter
A kindly carrier with special duty gripper claws. Like magic, his empty plastic package becomes a roomy Cosmobile for hauling loads. Also has magnetic and throwing hands.