Wednesday, March 10, 2010

I think the discussion has come up at least twice on every mailing list I'm on: Why don't we move this discussion to a web-based forum? When it came up for the umpteenth time on the Seattle Tech Startup list earlier this week, I jumped in with this comment:

Monday, March 08, 2010

Mel asks:

Why would I use Drupal instead of Microsoft Expression Web to create a website?

I actually had to look to find out what Expression Web is--I hadn't heard of it before. It looks like a successor to FrontPage, something similar to DreamWeaver for creating static web sites.

So to rephrase, why should I build a site on a content management system, instead of using a tool that lets me build a site directly?

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Your privacy is critically important to us. At Freelock Computing we have a few fundamental principles:

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

We regularly import content from old web sites and systems. One recent client had thousands of documents that we needed to copy from the old site, so we wrote a scraping system to import the ones that fit a certain template into Drupal, and just copy the existing documents into sites/default/files.

Using the Filefield_sources module, you can associate an existing file with a filefield, using IMCE or other files uploaded through the file system. However, we hit a problem: if you try to browse to an existing file, Filefield returns an error when you try to refer to it:

Monday, February 22, 2010

URLs are a critical part of all web sites, not just Drupal. However, in Drupal, the URL of a page determines a lot about how the page is built.

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

By purchasing a service from Freelock Computing, you agree to the following conditions and terms: (Click here to open in separate window for printing)

Monday, February 08, 2010

Damon Cortesi ( @dacort ) over at Untitled Startup recently wrote up a summary of recurring payment services provided for startups. It's a decent analysis of current payment services that offer a hosted recurring billing solution, if you don't have a merchant account or want to handle your own e-commerce. If you're writing a software-as-a-service platform from the ground up, and would like to outsource the payment side of things, these are good options.

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Did you notice? The world's a different place. Rules for doing business have changed—there's new ways of getting hired, finding employees, reaching new customers, and (shudder) for them to reach you. Economies of scale have flipped—it's getting more expensive to do things on a huge scale, and far cheaper to do them at a micro scale. Mass market items have lost their appeal, and people yearn for authentic, individual connections in a world of franchise same-ness.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Well, we finally put the foot down with some of our clients who are clinging to their aging Zen Cart sites this past month, and convinced several to pack their bags for the bigger and brighter lights of Ubercart. There were a couple of reasons for us to open up this can of worms, but as I would come to find out, it definetely pays off in the end.

Sunday, January 03, 2010

I have a confession to make. I'm absolutely terrible at making estimates. No matter how long I think something is going to take, it always takes longer. Even if I double, triple, or even quadruple my original guess.

And it's hurting my business. Why? Because I do everything I can to deliver what I promised. And I end up losing money, instead of making money. Instead of renegotiating with the client, I work nights, weekends, and pay my employees out of my own pocket to deliver. I go months without a paycheck, rarely get a day off. Does that sound like any way to run a business?

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Customer Feedback

As the coordinator for the Olympic Peninsula Tourism Commission, I direct staff and contractors in projects for the OPTC, including the contractor selection, design and build of the new website. Freelock was chosen and did the work as expected with great results. I heartily recommend them for other work of this nature. Their customer service and personal approach sets them apart from the crowd.

Diane Shostak
Olympic Peninsula Tourism Commission

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