Communiqué

The IE Tab extension for Firefox is simple fantastic. It lets you view both IE and Firefox all from the comfort of your Firefox window.

If you're still using 1.0.x, read the directions carefully as there is something extra you'll need to download first.

IE Tab for Firefox

Nils Menten started iMarc eight years ago today.

A lot has changed since 1997. Over the past eight years, we have...

• launched over 180 web sites
• worked with some very smart people
• worked for some very smart clients
• redesigned our own website about seven times

Thanks to all our valued clients and our amazing employees. We look forward to working with you for many years to come.

I've done a great deal of reading, studying, and discussing usability for the Web, and while I've adapted a lot of my design and code practices to accommodate what people tell me is best, I have to draw the line somewhere.

This is the beginning of the resistance.
Welcome to the Fred Rebellion. Read More

Walk with us down memory lane, at http://old.imarc.net

We set up this site to "showcase" all the old versions of iMarc.net. No, we're not necessarily proud of that 1997 site design, but it's worth showing for a couple reasons:

1. We've been around for a long time - The sites from 1997 and 1998 are about 85 years old in "web years"
2. We've been making websites for a long time
3. It's interesting to see how styles have changed
4. This proves our backups work!

We've removed dynamic content from the archived sites, and I'm sure there are some broken links, but still, they're fun to see.

Visit http://old.imarc.net

iMarc LLC (http://www.imarc.net) recently completed a large-scale web site for Springfield Museums (http://www.springfieldmuseums.org). The site encompasses the museum association, as well as four distinct subsites, one for each museum.

Springfield Museums' new sites have increased educational value with features specifically for educators, while the stylish, interactive design engages youth audiences. The sites enable the Museums to increase member interaction and retention by improving the quality of member communication. The new content management tools dramatically lower site maintenance costs, and the sites are also Section 508-compliant for disabled users.

"The new site that iMarc developed went above and beyond our expectations," said Chrystina Geagan, Director, Marketing & Membership, Springfield Museums and the Dr. Seuss National Memorial. "iMarc's professionalism, dedication, clear and insightful suggestions and productivity will no doubt enhance every online visitor's experience and encourage visitation at the Museums. The level of positive feedback we receive about the site only supports our decision to make iMarc the company who steers our online efforts towards success."

iMarc created an extensive database-driven content management system to enable Museum staff to directly control and update the web site.

Features include:

• Online Store
• Museum Calendars
• Museum News
• Exhibit Listings
• Image Galleries
• Member Management

The site architecture is built on a dynamic, database-driven framework that makes it easy to add, edit, and remove pages from the site. At the same time, the architecture preserves branding and navigation across all pages, so that all contributions to the site contain appropriate branding and formatting. This means that the site can grow, without redesign costs, to satisfy the needs of the museums for years to come.

About the Springfield Museums
The Springfield Museums (http://www.springfieldmuseums.org) is comprised of four world-class museums — the Museum of Fine Arts, the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum, the Springfield Science Museum, and the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum. The Museums Association is also the proud to be home to the Dr. Seuss Sculpture Garden, a series of full-scale bronze sculptures of Dr. Seuss's whimsical creations, honoring the birthplace of Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss.

About iMarc
iMarc is a skilled team of designers, programmers, and business development experts, focused on building user-focused web sites and online applications. Since its founding in 1997, iMarc has created digital asset management applications; ecommerce, social networking, intranets and member association websites, and literally hunders of other websites and branding solutions for clients world-wide. iMarc's portfolio is available online at http://www.imarc.net/portfolio/.

According to Edward Tufte, professor, artist, and information designer, sparklines are intense, simple, word-sized graphics. Because Mr. Tufte invented sparklines, I won't argue the definition. I will, however, make an argument for more people, myself included, to implement these tiny information graphics.

Incorporating inline graphics in content allows readers to seamlessly gather information. Many financial sites link a company's name to another page for it's stock quote. Showing that information as a sparkline hardly takes up any space and save the user a click. For example...

Cisco (5-yr, Close: 19.55, High: 80.06, Low: 8.60) isn't doing too well this year.

This tiny graphic and text shows Cisco's performance over the past five years, while marking the five-year high, low, and last close. Even though, it's not explicitly stated, I can figure out that the red dot, corresponds to the red, low number. Since the entire sparkline's range represents five years, I also surmise, that this low point probably happened about two years ago. Read More

Can we be serious here for a minute?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and tell you that design is more important than the code behind the design. I don't actually believe that, but I have to because I know that the average website visitor isn't visiting your site to see how it was made, but why it was made. Let's face it, your visitors are there because they want something from you.

The internet is an archive to a world of social satire. It's true, just like television and radio- a false perception of reality is key to engaging people to:

• Buy a product or service
• Buy into an idea
• Allow a product or service to give you ideas.

My semi-pessimistic analysis stops here, because although it sounds harsh, we're all capable of accepting or ignoring it.

Moving on, we now know the goal in developing and designing your site; to show people what you do and why you do it better than anyone else. Whether you are a shoe manufacturer looking to sell your soles or a Fish & Game shop looking to make an extra buck - you need to be able to sell your visitors on your service or product IMMEDIATELY or, I assure you, you've lost them. In fact, I'm suggesting that all of you consider your website a one page service center for your future. It's THAT important. If I'm coming to your site to get a phone number or to buy a product, I need to know how to do it immediately.

Now before you call up your design firm and ask them to move all your interior pages to the homepage, let me clarify: Your visitors dont need to be able to access all of your information from the homepage, they just need to know HOW to access all of your information from the homepage. Thus a clear, concise and functional navigation system that leaves no stones unturned.

Now let's talk about your image. There are about 253 good marketing and design firms in the United States today. At the same time, there are about 442 million beer-bellies that will do your site for you in their basement at a fraction of the cost any actual company would quote you. When it comes to your website, you absolutely pay for what you get. Shopping around is the number one piece of advice I can give you (why not start here?).

Here, let me make this easy for you. When you go for your first meeting with a design firm, bring along this handy checklist:

[_] - Does this company have a solid background and track record?

[_] - Will this company use my existing branding/collateral and implement it onto my new site?

[_] - Can this company provide me with ideas that will better my online presence?

[_] - Will I be kept informed throughout my site's development? What role will I play in managing the site?

[_] - Where will my site be hosted? Who do I call if my site ever goes down?

[_] - Where's the coffee?

The list could go on for about 5 pages, but I strongly suggest you start there.

Getting back to your image. Your company's image is very important. If I need to find a good lawyer online chances are I'll Google a lawyer in my area. If the first few sites come up looking like the classic "Dewey, Cheatum, & Howe" I might give up really fast. Let's say, though, that the next one comes up as a professional, clean, informational megaplex of lawyer goodness. I'm so in. I pick up the phone and make the call.

So how can a bad website affect my company? Easy! Listen, there are probably thousands of other companies that do what you do. I dont need to go into a lengthy paragraph about how clean beats sloppy, or how clear and consistent navigation beats navigation that moves around depending on what page you're on. I also don't need to tell you that any company that's at the top of their industry's game didnt get there through poor marketing and branding. The importance of your image is non-negotiable when it comes to appealing to an audience. If you know your audience and know your brand, (and you hire a quality design firm that understands them too), then you'll stay out of that hole that has brought more company's to their knees than bad management and financial instability combined. It's called bad image.

Don't kill your business.


[/end part 1]

I saw our first 'non-iMarcian' comment yesterday, and it was asking about RSS. Not only have I never really built anything RSS related, I've never even looked into using it. Sounding like a fun challenge, at 6:30pm on Sunday I made my first Google search and within an hour and a half, I had an RSS feed for our blog ready to go.

Since things were so simple, I thought I'd share how I went about building things to maybe help those that are interested in it.

Read More

I really want a webmail that works for me. I have spent alot of time looking, but I still can't find it. Email is supposed to make my life easier, not harder. I don't want my email downloaded to a computer at home so I can't access it at work or vice versa. I want to be able to check all five of my email accounts in once place with one click. I want the basic functionality of Thunderbird in a webmail. Why is this so hard to find?

I have tried Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Verio-based webmail, plus about 15 different php-based webmail systems and none of them do what I need. Features I need include:

• Check multiple POP3 accounts with one click
• Folders that can contain subfolders
• Send email from any of my five accounts
• Spam filter
• Message filters

In addition to this I would love to be able to check POP3 over SSL, but that is not a requirement. I will rejoice the day that I can find a webmail that works for me. Until then, I will continue using paid Yahoo mail ($20 a year) that does almost everything I need (each POP3 account has to be checked seperately and you can not have subfolders). And yes, I am willing to pay a reasonable fee to make my life simpler.