BigBlueHat

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 24/06/2007

Contact Information:
Benjamin Young
107 East Park Ave.
Greenville, SC 29601
Tel: 864.232.9553
Website: http://www.bigbluehat.com/

Greenville, SC —This week Tyler Minard of Duncan, SC joined BigBlueHat for his 3 month internship. Tyler is a recent high school graduate with an interest in web development and computer networking. For the first several weeks, Tyler will be adding to his knowledge about HTTP, HTML, and other web technologies.

While at BigBlueHat Tyler will have the opportunity to work on the BlueInk Content Management System and several client projects. His work will include adding new features written in PHP, working with the front-end interface of BlueInk, and helping BigBlueHat migrate much of its code to the REST-based architectural style.

“It was good to find that Tyler already knew so much about HTTP and Web Technology,” said Benjamin Young, President of BigBlueHat. “The initial survey showed he’s very capable of getting involved with our projects quickly.”

Tyler’s internship will last for approximately three months, after which he’ll begin his first term at Spartanburg Community College. From there, he plans to transfer to the University of South Carolina Upstate where he will pursue a degree in the Information Technology field.

BigBlueHat is a web-manufacturing company that creates custom web sites and web-based software for clients around the world. Its chief product is the BlueInk CMS, a proprietary content management system that accommodates both the designer and the end user with an easy-to-use interface.

Remember these guys? BigBlueHat circa 2003

Designers love to design. Web manufacturers love to… build designs for designers!… among other things.

Over the past 4+ years we’ve found that XHTML and CSS have become second nature. Browser bugs and inconsistencies are much smaller bumps in the road these days. We know not everyone enjoys writing code as much as we do, so we thought we’d pitch in and help.

In the last few weeks we have done four sites for three different design firms. They sent us Adobe PhotoShop or Adobe Illustrator files and we sent them back working web sites—and averaged less than 5 days on the turnaround time!

We enjoyed the pilot program so much, we decided to set this up as a full service for web designers the world over.

If you’re a web designer who prefers designing to coding, or who would rather not be up late weeknights because “certain browsers” aren’t cooperating, or if you’re just plain tired of angle brackets, we’d love to help out.

We’ve posted the basic pricing information and instructions over at our Web Development page. We’ve also got an online order form to simplify the purchase process.

To see the outcome of the pilot program mentioned earlier, check out the screenshots below—you can click them to visit the finished sites:

SlopeSuds.com designed by Good Egg Studios

TheMidTownProject designed by Brannon McAllister

MarickMarketing.com designed by Liquid Inc. Marketing

Looking to build a new web site? or migrate an old one to a content management system? As of today, you can sign-up for a web site powered by our BlueInk Content Management System.

BlueInk provides a usable, focused interface for managing your web site’s content. Check out the feature list, screenshots, and demo for more information.

BlueInk comes in four different sizes, all available for instant setup on the BlueInk pricing page.

Yesterday, we pledged our support for saving developers over at SaveTheDevelopers.org. If you’re a fellow web designer or developer, you’ve likely lost hours of sleep, gained or dropped several pounds, and may have even damaged furniture because of an all too commonly used piece of software known as Internet Explorer 6.

SaveTheDevelopers.org has put together a site and a widget for promoting the planet’s migration from this wayward browser. We’ve added the widget to our front site, so if you’re using IE 6, you may have noticed it.

Thanks for doing what you can to keep your local development community alive, well, and sane.

Firefox 3.0 is the upcoming version (currently in beta) of the most flexible browser on earth (very little bias, promise ). I recently installed the latest version available to Ubuntu 7.10 users (Firefox 3.0 beta 3, I believe), and so far it’s been a joy.

Overall Firefox 3.0 beta 3 seems faster and looks better with the rest of my operating system. In the past, Firefox had its own set of user interface (UI) widgets (the buttons, menus, tabs, checkboxes, etc). While perfectly usable and even attractive, they were inconsistent with the surrounding interface.The Firefox team has done a great job of using the native widgets that your operating
system uses. This means that when I restyle my desktop theme (which you can do easily in Ubuntu by the way), I’ll see those changes reflected in my browser.

Beyond just a more consistent UI, Firefox 3.0 now passes the infamous Acid 2 Test. Acid 2 tests how well your browser implemented standard web technologies. The Internet Explorers have been notoriously bad at getting Acid 2 to work. IE 8 will, but only if you “opt-in” to use the standards. A List Apart, Issue 253, has more on that coming apocalypse.

As Firefox 3.0 continues to work through the beta process, many extensions are getting an upgrade. Many of mine worked when I installed Firefox 3.0 late last week. Others, like Firebug, didn’t initially, but it turns out there’s a beta for that as well (1.1) that gets things running again. Firebug really deserves its own post, but if you’re a web developer and you’ve not snagged a copy of this free (BSD-licensed) powerhouse, you should. It’ll change the way you build sites and web-based applications. If you use AJAX or other “Web 2.0″ technologies, the JavaScript and DOM inspector will remove much of your need for coffee, but I’ll save the specifics for another day.

In any case, if you’re into what’s next for the web, get a copy of Firefox 3.0. Do be warned, though, that just like other cutting edge technology, your mileage may vary.