Chicago's Finest: 2011

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

The politics of withdrawal

Thursday June 15th 2006, 3:01 pm - list your home for rent for free

During the 2004 election, then-presidential challenger John Kerry said he would keep the troops in Iraq for the foreseeable future. Recently, Kerry stepped up and backed up some of his colleagues’ call for bringing American troops out of Iraq.

Kerry’s arguement is in a bad position right now. Zarqawi’s death has certainly make the Iraq streets less murderous, John Burn of the Times told Charlie Rose last night. This might be a small sign of positive progress. Having come this far, should the US not willing to see through the foreseeable end?

What Kerry and his colleagues should bring to the debate table are incremental goals to achieve the withdrawal. Constructive criticism win long-term political points. Scoring cheap, red-meat soundbites will only provide short-term gain.

Kerry and his colleagues should layout reasonable objectives and reasonable dates. For instance, Notebook would like to see the US meet certain level of security by certain date. How about securing a specific town within the next 3 months? Then another town 3 months after that?

Victory in Iraq would prompt the return of the troops, but at the same time repair some of the damages that US caused by going in. Kerry voted for the war. His vote partially got the country into war. The oil addiction is here to stay and will stay for another decade or two. No doubt the US will get off this addiction, but it cannot happen overnight. The oil Iraq provide for the near future will cushion thethe US economy and eventually the global economy.

Success in Iraq will also trigger some pressure on Iran. The US’s credibility right now rises and sinks with the events in Baghdad. A lot of money already invested, a lot of political chips already spent, staying just a bit longer might prove rewarding in multitude.

Notebook realizes that the Republican is not doing very well at the moment. But if the Democratic party want to fully capture the House and Senate, it must act like a reponsible party and not renegades with splinter cells. John Kerry wants to run in 2008, fine, but until his announcement for the rematch, his constituents deserve a senator looking out for them and not to his future plan.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

It’s your property and up to you to choose wisely what happens to it, even after you’re gone.

“Cheap land, cheap survey,” we used to say… but a lot of rural land ain’t so cheap any more! This means that if you have owned a cherished piece of rural land for rural-land.jpgyears, you have a responsibility now to deal with it as carefully as you would deal with any other big asset… and as wisely as you would deal with your most difficult child.

First, let’s answer some important questions. Do you intend to retire on this land? Do you hope to spend all your remaining days there, or do you expect to sell at some point? Will you need to sell it to fund your retirement, or is it important to keep the land in the family? How will you protect it from nursing home costs? Which child do you hope will get the land, or will you break it up, or will you leave it to all of them? … And that’s just for starters! Ignoring these and other big questions is not going to make them go away, but instead it will likely lead you and your family to risk suffering some avoidable tragedies. Denver corporate rentals are another good option for certain types of people.

Everyone’s situation is so unique that we can’t cover every possible issue here, but we can give you a starter checklist. Once you and your family have made your decisions, then you can start to go down this list; you will need the help of lawyers and other professionals, but they can’t help you unless you have thought it through enough to be able to tell them what you want:

• If you will need to sell the land to fund your retirement lifestyle, or if it is simply becoming too much to care for, then here are the steps that you should take:

- Consult at least three real estate professionals. You want a good idea of what the land is worth, what the market is like, and whether you should first subdivide the road frontage or get a zoning variance or do something else to make your land more attractive. Don’t get just one opinion… get many!
- Make sure that your title is clean. If you have owned the land for a very long time, and especially if you inherited it, then you ought to know right off the bat whether there are any clouds on your title. A title search is a few hundred dollars well spent.
- Check with your municipal or county planning department. Try to find out what is coming up for your area in terms of zoning changes, future roads, and future subdivisions or municipal facilities. What you learn might make you decide to hold out for a few years more as things develop, or it might convince you to get out as soon as possible.
- Consider buying an up-to-date survey. Remember our “cheap land, cheap survey” quote above! Most rural land is so poorly surveyed that it is impossible to know for certain what you own or even just where it is, and all of that is important if you are planning for the future of your land. But surveying is expensive. Get competitive firm quotes, and if you can’t afford it then hold off and let your eventual buyer pay for it.
- Consider subdividing. In some areas, population pressures are forcing highly punitive changes in zoning and in building regulations – big lot sizes, excessive slope restrictions, ridiculous frontage requirements, and so on. Even if you don’t want to sell right away, for you to do whatever is necessary to grandfather your land under former law might be just common sense.

• If you hope to stay on the land for the rest of your life, you should first do everything laid out above! Then in addition you ought to do the following:

- Plan to pay your living expenses for the rest of your life so you won’t have to give up and sell the land when you are 87 and into a depressed market for Denver corporate rentals.
- Plan to pay for nursing home costs. This means that you will need long-term-care insurance, and it may also mean that you will want to hold title to the land in an irrevocable trust.
- Plan your estate. Estate tax laws vary by state, and even on the federal level any individual estate worth more than two million dollars is going to be taxed this year. How much is your whole likely estate worth? Have you and your spouse planned around estate taxes so they won’t hit you until the second death, and have you planned to pay taxes at that second death so your heirs won’t be faced with a forced land sale?

• If you want your heirs to inherit the land, you should first do everything laid out above! Then in addition you ought to do the following:

- Make sure that all your heirs really want the land. Don’t assume it! Instead have some good, frank talks. If one or more of your children would rather have their inheritance in cash, then forcing everyone to share the land is only going to guarantee some legal wars for Denver corporate rentals.
- Make sure that they can afford to keep the land. Some parents leave funds in trust for taxes and maintenance, while others provide for a way for some of their children to pay costs that will be repaid to them in additional use privileges or in eventual repayment when the land is sold.
- Provide for a stable form of ownership. Depending upon the jurisdiction, this might mean a limited partnership, a limited liability company, or a trust. Take the time to make certain that whatever you do is drafted carefully to meet your family’s specific needs.
- Provide for a clean way to end the partnership. Nothing goes on forever. Your trust or other arrangement should provide for a neat and obvious way that it can end amicably.

Owning rural land can be a source of family joy for years or decades more, but to ensure that there are no bumps in the road it just makes sense that you plan for the land’s future. We can’t offer you legal advice. What we can do, though, is to point out all the ways in which you can plan to do things right!

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

The Many Benefits of Using Solar Panels

Solar panels can be used in so many different applications that it would take volumes to talk about all of them. In the same token, the benefits of using them are also just as numerous. Solar power as a form of electricity has been around for a few hundred years, but using solar to heat homes, cook food and make water hot has been around for centuries. This article focuses more on the electrical applications, however.

In the last few decades, with the demand for solar power increasing, solar panels and the technology behind them has grown by leaps and bounds. They are smaller, lighter, and can be used for just about anything these days, from charging and powering laptops, small appliances, even to power homes and businesses. Output efficiency has also grown, and now even on a cloudy day your solar panel can absorb at least half of its normal capacity. There are flexible solar panels, which can be used for marine applications. They can also be used for back packers. There are small panels that are integrated into things like backpacks, identification tags, and many others.

Here are some of the many different benefits of using solar panels in your every day life. One of the major ones is the solar power is free, and even on a cloudy day, you have to be happy that you are using free power. Solar power is abundant, and totally renewable energy. Because of this, it is also clean energy, not emitting any toxins into our atmosphere like a lot of forms of electrical power do, say power plants and gas generators.

Solar panels are versatile. There are more different kinds of solar panels than you can shake stick at, and can be used for many applications. You can take a solar panel with you wherever you go, and have electrical power to run your laptop, play video games, or keep your cell phone charged at all times, especially when needed in an emergency.

You will save a lot of money, on energy costs, batteries for your flashlights and other electronics. Using solar power for outdoor lights can save you hundreds on you power bill every year. Having solar panels can help you save money on batteries, because many of your electronics, even those without rechargeable batteries, can be recharged or powered by solar energy.

Solar panels, lighting, charging systems, generators and the like are easy to install and usually don't require any extra wiring. This means that you can set up a solar panel for pumps that are way out on your property, or take a panel with you to a remote campsite, use them on the beach, just to name a few.

Now there are some disadvantages of solar panels, but not many. One of them is that they are affected by the sun. The sun goes down at night, but the batteries store this energy during the day and release it's power at night, like solar lighting for patios and walkway. These systems can be a little more expensive initially, but they can pay for themselves in just a short period of time.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

AMV IM

Exclusive Internet Marketing

AMV Internet Marketing realizes the importance of the search engine optimization planning and thought process that goes into website development. One of the more difficult realities of website ownership is that the hosting company (who most often doubles as the marketing company) also hosts/markets your competitors…. in the same market, to the same clients! We have had many customers ask us to help them realize a competitive advantage over this pool of websites.

With our Exclusive Internet Marketing program, we will only work with one business owner in any competitive setting. This means that we will only market one bed and breakfast in a given region, one realtor, one airline, etc. for the term of the contract. Our complete focus and attention will be on making sure your website is performing optimally.

The search engine industry is constantly changing. Our continued vigilance in keeping up with the latest trends helps us provide our clients with a competitive advantage in achieving ongoing dominant results.

If you've thought about hiring an internet marketing expert to join your team, consider our Exclusive Internet Marketing Services first.

Need Internet Marketing Help?

Comprehensive IM Evaluation - $1495

Most companies operate in a highly competitive marketplace. It’s not only important to evaluate your websites performance as a stand-alone entity, but to benchmark it against your competitors. A Comprehensive Internet Marketing Evaluation will include the Initial Website Evaluation’s features in addition to:

• A website performance review of your competitive set, including
o Website content and navigation
o Search engine results on relevant keyword and search terms
o Referring link and 3rd party advertising placement
• Your competitors’ PPC (pay-per-click) advertising presence and projected expenditures

We’ll provide you with a complete review of both your website individually and it’s performance relative to your competitive set as well as a targeted plan to improve your websites traffic and visibility.

Who is AMV?

About AMV

Ami Paschal, company owner, has spent 11 years working exclusively in the internet marketing field. Before starting AMV Internet Marketing in December 2003, she served as Director of Operations for the Cobalt Group, a 400-employee software and internet marketing company based in Seattle, WA.

AMV Internet Marketing employs professionally trained search engine optimization and website design specialists. We also contract with many different industry professionals from hosting companies to software development firms, so whatever your website construction and management needs might be, AMV can help provide solutions. We have experience working with all types of clients: real estate, bed and breakfasts, vacation rentals, airlines, non-profit organizations, marketing agencies, online store/e-commerce sites, etc.

New Links

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Chicago Profiles

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Rio Rancho Web Design Service Listing

Website Design/Re-Design

We focus on building high-quality websites that are fully web 2.0 compliant and are built to be search engine friendly.

hostFLEX Website Hosting by Rio Rancho Web Design

hostFLEX is the perfect web hosting plan for any sized business. With our 100% uptime guarantee, you never again have to worry about your website going down - period! hostFLEX gives you everything you need for your website to work properly without any set limits (requires site review and approval) and is Guaranteed to fit your needs if we built your website!

Content Management Systems (CMS)

Every website we build is built around a Content Management System (CMS). This allows you to make changes to your own website without any special software by simply logging into your website using a user name and password and making text and image changes using a visual editor that is similar to Microsoft Word.

Web-based Applications

We can build custom web-based applications that can automate various parts of your business process and help save you money!

Community Forums

Community forums allow you to connect your community to itself. If you have a website that draws a lot of attention and you want the people who come to your website to help each other out, a forum is a great way to make that happen.

Public and Private Blogs

Blogs are a great way to add a personal touch to your website. Blogs also help you keep a written journal of how your business is doing while attracting and helping customers at the same time.

Newsletter / Mass-email Services

Email newsletters can be an excellent way to promote your business if used properly. Many people will open emails that are sent from a local company or organization simply because they recognize the name.

blueFROG Email Spam Protection by Rio Rancho Web

blueFROG Spam Protection by Rio Rancho Web utilizes some of the best known spam fighting technology available... With all of the time it takes for you (and possibly your staff) to sift through hundreds of junk email, blueFROG is bound to save you money and lost productivity!

Shopping Cart and E-commerce

We can help you get your store setup online quickly, securely, and ensure you are processing transactions in compliance with the PCI Security Standards

Photo Gallery

If you have pictures or images that you want to display online, we will build a photo gallery that will be customizable, attractive, and easy to navigate. We can install pre-built gallery systems that include robust administrative features or build a custom solution from a basic setup to a highly customized advanced photo gallery system.

Fav Icons (bookmark icons)

Fav Icons are the little icon you see in the URL bar or in the upper-left corner of your browser window that change when you go to some websites. They also show up in the bookmarks and help to identify your site and make it stand out further.

SSL Certificates

SSL Certificates are used to encrypt sensitive information when processing credit/debit cards over the internet. If you plan to take payments online, you will need one of these.

Unlimited Email Accounts

We provide unlimited custom email accounts with our hostFLEX plan. We can setup individual email boxes or set it up to forward your email to an existing personal email account.

Website Statistics

Our hostFLEX package includes website statistics which will show you how many visitors are coming to your site, which pages they are viewing, when they are visiting, and other details of this nature.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

When we build a new website, one of our biggest concerns is Search Engine Optimization. We take the time to make sure our code is clean and bug-free so search engines can crawl your entire site and we submit your website to the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. Talk to us about our advanced Search Engine Optimization package.

Chicago Website Design

MDTDESIGNS helps increase operational efficiency and brand awareness to maximize profits.
Operational Efficiency? but how? Very simple. By designing and developing functional websites, companies have the ability to automate processes such as customer service, employment applications, and distributed data collection.

When using W3C Standards compliant codes, accessibility and useability goes into play. Websites are more friendly to people with disability, more friendly to the many different browsers in the market today. On top of that, developing with standards in itself is creating search engine optimization. Search engine can crawl through and picks up specific keywords easier, therefore your website gets better ranking on top search engines like Google and Yahoo!.

By saving operational time, and creating webpages that are more accessible to your customers, it's a two way benefit for your company. You're saving money, and you're earning more money. This amounts to higher profitability and higher revenue.
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SERVICES

What We Offer...

• Website Development
• Flash Development
• Logo Design
• Print Design
• Application and Database

MDTDESIGNS was established in 2003 to assist businesses, big and small, achieve a web presence that is affordable, attractive, and effective.

The Web is an essential part of today's business world, and is the number one medium for exchanging information. According to Internet World Stats, in 2006, approximately 6.5 billion people worldwide are using the internet as a resource for collecting and exchanging information, selling and trading, and doing business altogether. The internet usage has doubled since the year 2000 and is growing at an increasing rate. Although the usage of the internet is very high, the Web is still young. With the technology still in its infancy, the sky is the limit and the possibilities are boundless.

So, are you ready to make the Web work for you? If so, please contact me and we can get started!

Graphic Design

EyeFly Design is a graphic and web design corporation dedicated to providing complete design service capable of handling any communication challenge and marketing solution for your business

We are not just graphic and web designers. We are painters, musicians, programmers, and marketing professionals. We all come from different backgrounds and have different strengths that we apply to your project ensuring the most successful result. Whatever your industry is, we do extensive market research to see what your competitors are up to, and then we work as a team to give you the strongest professional products you will need to gain the edge over your competition in your chosen market

We provide professional design services to a wide range of clients nationally including record labels, musicians, business owners, massage therapists, skate companies, restaurants, schools and video game companies, just to name a few.
To expand your client base, you need to market your brand for people to become familiar with and gain trust in your company. EyeFly will work with you to develop your professional corporate identity and then help you market your brand with a website and printed collateral designs to expand your client base and help your business grow.
Our goal is simple. We'll help make you successful through our wonderous powers of design! Really though, we're here to be creative, produce excellent quality artwork, and deliver to you a final product that you are not only happy with, but that will also drive you to succeed in whatever you do.

Design is a collaborative process between ourselves and the client that takes patience, and communication. We involve our clients every step of the design process, insuring that the final product is successful and artwork that we are both proud of.
At Eyefly Design, we have outlined the design process of your project's overall creation into four important phases.

1. Initial Consultation - We begin the design process of your project by understanding your business, your customers, and your message that we need to communicate successfully to help your business grow. Before we can brainstorm successful designs for your business, we need to understand your unique company inside and out to ensure designs that communicate the right messages.

2. Rough Drafts - After we have gotten familiar with your business and unique company, we can begin the actual process of designing your project. As a team, we will explore multiple concepts and solutions for your individual design project, then share our multiple approaches with you to choose one and move forward to the revision phase.

3. Revisions - Now that we fully understand your business and unique company, and have settled with a design approach of your choice, we can begin the actual process of production. During the production of your project, we will include you every step of the way, ensuring your satisfaction with the final product and an opportunity to give us feedback to refine details throughout the entire production process.

4. Final Product - Once we have finished refining your design project to your complete satisfaction, then your product is finished! After you have made your payment, you may choose to have us email you a package with all your files in it, or we can mail you a CD-ROM with the completed files on it. If you require the service of printing materials with the completed design then we will gladly assist you with that project as well.

Choose which section of our portfolio you would like to view:

One of the most important services that we offer is helping businesses create strong brands for your clients to become familiar with and trust. We will focus on creating designs that communicate positive messages about your business. Graphic Design plays a crucial role in defining corporate identities, enhancing customer experiences with your business, and evoking specific feelings about specific services and products. We will work with you to create successful design and marketing solutions for any branding campaign.

Collateral is simply printed material that describes a business or organization. Collateral materials should be very important to your business because it is often how clients are introduced to your business. From business cards and flyers to annual reports and corporate brochures, we will work with you to develop professional communication materials that reflect your business's personality.

Just about everyone has access to the internet, so your website may be the main way your clients find out information about your business. That is why Eyefly Design takes pride in developing highly navigational and functional websites that will attract new customers and provide them with the information they need to rely on your business.

Ecommerce Development Policy

Advanced Websites and Ecommerce Store Development

Give Your Business the Ultimate Competitive Edge

Vision Media Corporation is a leading pioneer in the research and development of innovative software technology for businesses. The development of VisionKart™, a comprehensive online website development and content management and administration tool fueled the companies success developing websites for names like Sedona Labs, Aladdin Formula, and The NLP Skills Training Institute.

Visionkart™ Product Detail

Installation

The Installation Portion of your Website Development Program Consists of:

VisionKart™ Application Setup and Integration
Database Configuration
Testing
Backup and Recovery Strategy (Disaster Recovery)
Populating the Database
Database Connectivity Testing
Database Optimization

General Shopping Cart Information

“Define Languages” provides the ability to define the languages you would like your website to be displayed specific to 181 definable zones worldwide.

Multiple currencies and currency-conversions available.

An unlimited number of tax zones and editable tax classes may be created for taxing different products and different rates.

Customer grouping feature allows you to define specific account types to your user accounts and customize the way they see the site after logging in.

Customizable elements by user account types include: ability to show prices without tax, tax exemption, methods of payment, and shipping methods displayed.

Order tracking allows you to view and edit all current orders and order status.

Order Total Modules provides a graphical interface for profit-loss summary based on coupon discounts, gift vouchers, low-order fees, shipping charges, and taxes.

“Maximum Values” section in admin panel provides a way to control such things as search results listed per page, links to items to be displayed, product specials, products expected, list of manufacturers, number of product reviews, new products displayed, categories to list per row, best sellers, “also purchased”, and order history.

“Minimum values” allows you to specify minimum values for such things as the items listed above.

“Product Listing” lets you control what items are to be displayed on product pages.

“Fraud Screen Zone” screens customers and ip connections.

HTTPS fraud reports automatically retrieved and regularly updated via SSL connection to prevent fraudulent activity

“Requests remaining” prevents multiple attempts at account login or checkout.

Multiple levels of administrators: multiple administrator accounts may be setup with specific assigned permissions.
Easily backup and restore the database.

Print invoices and packaging lists from the order screen.

Parent-child left navigation for content pages automatically updates itself and inserts links to new content pages in a designated area on the left-hand side of the website.

RSS news feed interface allowing for automated display of new articles and news feeds that are updated every hour.

Product attributes and downloadable products

“One-click” purchasing allows you to build custom forms on product pages to collect customer information without forcing the customer to setup an account

Custom form builder allows you to place editable interactive and selectable devices on product pages (Ideal for product customization and product up-selling on checkout)

Downloadable electronic product utility and interface allows you to upload your e-products from within the admin section and define prices, download availability in number of days, and number of downloads allowed per purchase (for e-books, audio books, videos, software, and other multi-media products)

Customer Center

“Customer Center” displays the entire customer account information database and lets you edit customer information through a logical and simple interface.

Customer grouping feature allows you to groups customers into separate categories (ex. Supplier, retailer, manufacturer, wholesaler, customer, administrator, employee, etc.)

Customer accounts may be sorted by last name, first name, email address, group, account creation date, and activity

Search engine utility allows you to search for customers by first name, last name, email address, or group

“Instant Email” function provides the ability to instantly send customer emails by clicking a customer name, then clicking on the “email” button, which displays the online email interface with html graphic interface (like Yahoo, Hotmail, or MSN, for example)

Category administrator

View and edit category names and upload category images

Input Category descriptions for different languages in associated text boxes

Input title, keyword, and separate description Meta tags for each language

Product administrator

The product administrator interface allows you to input, edit, and customize the following information:

Product status: in stock, out of stock

Date available allows you to select the date the system will automatically make a product available using a unique calendar drop down with selectable days for up to 10 years.

Expiry date provides the same unique calendar drop-down with selectable days for up to 10 years that the system will automatically remove the specified product

“Select Customer” provides a drop-down menu of customers if you would like to only make the product available to a specific customer (ideal for re-orders of customized company-specific or personalized products)

Product name input displays the product title and automatically inserts it into the “title” meta tag header

“Tax class” allows you to define the type of tax to place on the item

“Product Price NET” input field allows you to insert your profit on the item for accounting purposes

“Product Price Gross” is the price of the product that is displayed on the product page of the site and is also automatically tracked by the accounting system and QuickBooks file export option

Tiered pricing structure allows you to create up to 8 price break levels, which reduces the per-item cost of the product based on the quantity of items purchased (great for up-selling)

Separate pricing structure availability for each of the customer groups that are created in the customers section of the admin panel (great for separating wholesale pricing for retailers from general online customer sales pricing for example, or for separating accounts for marketing purposes, such as “VIP” members for example)

Quantity blocks provides the ability to specify a minimum number of items purchased

Reduced item fee allows you to specify a fee assessed for not meeting minimum order requirements (good for wholesalers)

HTML “What you see is what you get” graphic user interface allows you to create html pages for your products without having to know or use any html code (separate editors for each language that is made available)

“Product Quantity” displays the number of items for the product (500 sheets if the product is a ream of printer paper for example)

“Product Model” allows you to specify a model number or code for product tracking purposes and invoicing

Image upload utility: multiple product images may be uploaded from your computers hard drive. The first image is displayed in the list of products within the related category with “click to enlarge”, which opens a separate window and displays the full size image when clicked

Additional images that are uploaded are displayed on the product page with the “click to enlarge” and when any of the images are clicked, a second window opens as a slideshow with which the user can navigate through the images using ‘forward' and ‘back' buttons.

Video file upload: allows a .flv (flash media streaming video file) to be located and uploaded from your computers hard drive, which displays a video player with video navigator on the product page. When the user clicks play, the specified video or advertisement immediately begins playing in real-time.

“Product URL” allows you to define a special html url for the product page so that search engine can easily find and index the page.

“Product Weight” field provides the ability to input the weight of the product for automatic pricing of shipping charges at checkout.

information manager

Content Management interface with integrated What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor provides for quick and easy creation and editing of content for information pages.

“Page status” defines whether the page should be made active or inactive while it is in development

Parent-child link navigation system allows you to select a “parent” page for the you're your are creating which will display the link only when the page's parent page is clicked, for which it will then drop the navigation links on the left hand side of the page down to display the parent's “children” links.

If a parent page is not selected for the content page you are creating, then a link to your new page will automatically be inserted in the left navigation upon selecting the page's “activate” radio button.

Dedicated fields for defining page title, keywords, and description Meta tags for search engine optimization.

HTML page generator creates html pages from the information page database (normally loaded as PHP pages) and allocated hyphenated html page names so that they may be easily searchable and indexed by search engines (search engines are only able to separate words by hyphens, not underscores or words that are combined and jumbled up together)

Custom image manager

Automatically resizes images to matching thumbnail sizes.

Multiple images may be uploaded per product.

“Click to enlarge” feature displays full-size image in external window and functions as a slideshow when multiple images are uploaded for the product.

Image optimization feature automatically resamples image when resizing to minimize degradation.

Text input or image upload functions as a watermark for specified images; may be resized and moved to a specified location of the images (ideal for professional photography or copyrighted images, logos, etc.).

Image filename encryption.

“TrueColor” image encoding can be enabled for any one or all of the following: brightness, contrast, and/or color balance; auto-adjusts image for optimal display.

Image quality can be altered by % to reduce file sizes for faster downloading.

Thumbnail images on products and category pages may be resized to preference.

Auto-bevel and shadow feature bevels the specified image to look like a button and drops a shadow underneath to enhance on page… highlight and shadow color may be altered.

Cache auto-cleaner removes automatically removes unneeded processed images to save disk space.

Browser auto-cache features tells user's browser to cache thumbnails for quicker page loading and reduced bandwidth usage.

file manager utility

The File Manager utility is a simple FTP user interface that allows you to view files and folders through the online graphic interface, easily upload files, create and delete files and folders, set read/write permissions to files and folders, and view file transfer history and information.

faq section

The FAQ section is an easy-to-use interface that allows for quick entry of customer questions and responses as they occur.

Instant contributions to the FAQ section may be made by multiple employees and customer service reps to reduce the amount of customer inquiries.

Optimized for search engine indexing (FAQ pages are hot items for search engines, so we want to make sure the page is as “search-engine-friendly” as possible).

Built-in Marketing and Search Engine Optimization

Customer Birthdays page displays your customer's birthdays, which can be input by users when setting up their accounts, and instant “Happy Birthday” emails may be sent with special birthday coupons with the click of a button for personalized marketing and customer relations

Custom pop-up advertisement may be created for featured items; generated in separate window when the homepage loads

“Keyword Show” utility allows for you to see the keywords used by visitors to find your site, and organizes the information by the referring search engine. This data can be very valuable to those looking for how to improve your site by watching how customers actually find it.

Visits by the Googlebot robots are also tracked by time and day to measure the frequency of their visits (increasing frequency of visits means your SEO is working)

Newsletter Manager

Newsletter manager allows you to create your own html custom newsletters from within the administration panel of your website without using any code via the “what you see is what you get” html newsletter builder.

Newsletter feature can be used to send product notifications, advertising of events, general marketing, and daily, weekly, and monthly articles, news, and educational information to visitors that sign-up from the website.

Banner Ad System and Tracking Wizard

Feature-rich Banner Ad system allows you to create a “banner” as a text ad, which may be formatted in the included html editor, or as an image which may be uploaded through the specified user interface in the admin panel.

Banners may be assigned to specific pages on your own site or simply uploaded to the server so that it may be referenced and displayed on the pages of other websites and affiliate pages.

Banners may be grouped according to size, campaign, affiliate, or other custom category

Banners may be scheduled to activate and expire automatically on specified dates that are selected via specialized drop-down calendars that appear when you click on the designated fields

The automated scheduling feature allows you to set-up your web marketing campaigns for up to 10 years in advance, allowing you to focus on other important aspects of the business

Tracking wizard provides instant graphic displays of banner views and clicks by day

Artificial Intelligence for User Personalization and Product Up-sale

Intelligent category box and “we recommend” boxes display store categories and recommended products and links based on navigational “click-tracks” taken by the visitor, also retaining data from past visits to the website and displaying links according to pages the visitor has viewed during past visits to the site (please note that this program is currently in development and will be available in a future release/update)

Virtual Coupon System

Coupon system allows users to enter a specified coupon code for sales, discounts, and buyer tracking

Unlimited number of coupons may be created

Coupons may be customized to only be valid above a specified purchase amount or for select items

Gift vouchers and coupons may be sent through an email interface inside coupon manager section of the admin panel

Coupon tracking system tracks emailed coupons and vouchers

Unsold Carts

“Unsold Carts” feature is a sales tool and a separate report utility to see how well you have done in converting sales. It tracks and displays abandoned shopping carts (people that place items in their shopping cart and then leave), the items that were placed in the cart, time, date, account info, etc, so that you may send an email or place a phone call to find out why the user left and what you could do better to prevent future occurances.

Sitemap Wizard

The Sitemap Wizard is a program that allows you to easily create an editable online sitemap for search engine submission and include/exclude pages through the user interface. The utility auto-updates itself whenever new pages are created.

Products Expected

Allows you to input products for the system to automatically make available on a specified day.

Includes the ability to have a box automatically displayed on the website for “up-coming products”

Product Specials

Input “product specials” to be automatically displayed in a prominent section of the shopping cart

User interface allows you to select product from a drop-down menu, define a specific group, the special price or a percentage off the retail price of the product

Expiration drop-down calendar allows you to quickly and easily enter the day that the special is to automatically be removed by the system using a user friendly monthly/yearly drop-down calendar

Customer Review System

Customers can create product reviews to be displayed on product pages (think amazon.com or ebay)

This feature gets your customers working for you by adding content to your website, bringing search engines back more often and increasing your page-rankings

Reviews may be edited and removed through the admin panel

Shopping Portal and Affiliate Program Utilities

Allows for the ability to import and export product catalogs in TAB delimited format

Customizable by model, price, quantity, category, manufacturer, or other custom product attributes

May be exported in specialized “FROOGLE” format for uploading to Froogle online shopping mall

Ideal for affiliate programs and submission to shopping portals

“Product Extra Fields” provides the ability to add custom fields to product database for importing to shopping portals and affiliate programs

“Define Mainpages” allows you to specify custom product “landing pages” for shopping portals and affiliates

Custom reports and site analytics

“Sales Reports 2.0” program generates sales reports by product, manufacturer, date, number of orders, items purchased, Revenue, and shipping charges.

“Products Viewed” keeps track of your most popular items and can be optionally displayed in an editable self-updating “featured products” box on the website to push your popular products without any manual labor.

“Order Tracking” tracks orders by country or zone and allows you to easily archive past order information.

“Sales Summaries” provides instant feedback on daily number of orders, income generated, average revenue generated per sale, number of repeat customer sales, and provides monthly projections based on this data.

“Monthly Totals” gives an overview of revenue generated, average revenue per sale, number of sales, repeat customer sales, and year-to-date totals.

“Orders Status” allows you to instantly see how many orders you have pending, processing, and delivered for the month or year.

“Grand Totals” provides year-to-date total sales and instantly calculates gross profit.

“Products Purchased” allows you to quickly generate product sales reports, sort by detailed product information, and run search queries by date.

“Manufacturer Sales” allows you to generate sales reports by manufacturer and run search queries by date.

“Export Customers” provides the ability to export your website member database to CSV files and edit from within excel or other similar program.

“Customer Registrations Report” lets you generate instant daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly reports of accounts created on the website.

“Status Tracking” is an instant summary of all of your current pending, processing, and delivered orders.

“Ad Results” is a tracking system that will track advertising results by referring websites to keep track of top performers.

“Search Keyword Statistics and Replacements” is a tracking utility for queries made by visitors through the internal search engine to allow for heightened “search engine friendliness” and usability. The interface will displace keyword phrases that have been searched and allow you to define keywords that should be used as replacements for misspelled words. For example, “mispelt = misspelled”.

“Who's Online” feature allows you to display current visitors to your website and “follow” them through the site in realtime by displaying their click-tracks, entry time, ip address, and account information if they have created one.

PDF Catalog Generator allows you to export a pdf file of your entire website catalog for mailing updated print version of your latest catalog to your customers.

accounting

QuickBooks® integration for import/export of all E-commerce financials for streamlined business processes

VisionCash™ internal accounting and integrated online financial management system soon to be available (requires purchase of upgrade)

Inventory Management

Inventory manager allows you to enter number of items in stock and tracks items sold, warning you if you are low on stock for certain items

“Check Stock Level” tells the system to check the inventory of a product before allowing checkout.

“Allow Checkout” can be enabled to prevent the user from purchasing items that are low or out of stock
“Mark Product out of Stock” informs the user if a product is out of stock and to allow extra time for delivery

“Stock re-order level” tells the system when it should tell you to re-order an item

Payment Modules

Many methods of payment available to customers including:

Authorize.Net

All major credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express)

Cash on Delivery (C.O.D.)

iPayment

Check or Money order

NOCHEX

PayPal

2CheckOut

PSIgate

SECpay

Shipping Modules and Features

Many shipping methods available, including:

Flat rate: assesses a flat rate shipping charge for all products

Per item flat rate: charges a flat rate specific to each product

Table rate: allows you to define shipping charges to be assessed based on product weight in an easy-to-use table input format

UPS: xml feed automatically assesses shipping charges to products for each customer on checkout based on customer location and size and weight of the product or products

United States Postal Service: USPS module automatically defines shipping charges to customers based on customer location and product dimensions

FedEx: as with USPS module, the Federal Express shipping module automatically defines shipping charges to customers based on customer location and product dimensions

Zone rates: zone rates shipping utility provides the ability to define shipping rates based on 181 different zones worldwide

Packaging option allows you to define an additional price per product to be added for packaging

Customized shipping utility provides the ability to specify a maximum package weight that you will ship to certain countries and/or postal codes

Add-ons and Customization

Separate “Members Only” subscription based functionality

Automated payment drafting allows for Payments drafted automatically on a monthly basis

If the payment is declined a second time, the account has permissions reset, and an email is automatically sent to the user requesting that they manually renew their subscription.

Streaming Server storage for streaming of online videos of up to 2 hours per video inside member's section (see below for more info)

Streaming video functionality and administrative functions for browsing and uploading of video files to server

:30 sec to 2 minute Welcome video on homepage

Custom dynamic Java-based head navigation

Custom “Contact Us” email application linking directly to a specified email account

RSS Channel creator: quickly and easily create your own RSS channels

Flash Banners and Intros

Custom Rich Internet Applications: create a rich and interactive customer experience with Rich Internet Application Architecture (RIAA)