Pica Design is proud to announce the release of a new website for French & Webb boat builders in Belfast, ME. Todd French and Peter Webb started French & Webb, Inc. in 1996. Since then their company has gained a reputation for high standards and precision joinery. Located on the waterfront in Belfast, Maine, French & Webb, Inc. builds wooden boats using modern methods in combination with traditional craftsmanship. The result is unparalleled workmanship and boats of the highest quality.

Todd and Peter came to us with a desire to update their web presence with a content-rich and stylized design which they can edit themselves. Are you looking to give your website a face lift? Contact Pica Design by email web@picadesign.com or phone 207-338-1740 to find out what we can do for you!

Check out the new site!

http://www.frenchwebb.com

We are very excited about Google’s recent choice to phase out support for older web browsers. As web developers we pride ourselves in following modern coding standards set forth by the W3C. In order for developers to make sites look and work as desired in these older browsers we have to write in several coding ‘hacks’. They are ugly and force us to not always follow the W3C standards. Google’s role in this evolution for web development is quite critical. As industry leaders, their stance in forward thinking makes the world a better place… Thanks Google! At Pica Design we have already phased out IE6 support, and greatly encourage web users to keep their web browsers upgraded. It’s free, keeps you secure, and makes sites look as their designers planned for you to see them. – Team Pica

“In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology.  This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5.  As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010.  After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Starting this week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser.  We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.”  – The Google App Team

Read the Full Article

Pica Design will participate in a panel discussion at CMCA to demonstrate Websites (that work!) for Artists at the CMCA Event: Making Connections: Monthly Marketing Series for Artists this Thursday. Join us from 7:00 – 8:30 PM for Websites, Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, e-marketing, organizational websites for artists, and more. Contact CMCA for registration or questions: 207-236-2875 x303.

Cedarholm Garden Bay Inn launched their new blog in late July and they have been blogging ever since. Read their detailed posts on gardening and places to visit in the Camden area here.

We frequently re-design or update existing websites that no longer serve their purpose. From upgrading a website with a new CMS (content management system) to quick image and text updates, we can spiff up a site in short order. We just finished two such updates: Mainely Pottery (an upgrade from a brochure-type site to a more functional, manageable site) and Bluestreak (a straightforward update). Visit www.mainelypottery.com or www.bluestreakme.com.

TxtResponsibly.org (the idea and the website) was created by the staff at Pica Design. Hearing news stories about the dangers of texting while driving, the statistics started to sink in: a distracted driver is 23 times more likely to cause a car accident than an undistracted driver, according to the recent VirginiaTech Transportation Institute Study. To put this into a more familiar context, drunk drivers are 7 times more likely to cause a car accident than sober drivers. The mission of the organization is to raise awareness of the dangers of texting while driving and to prevent harmful injury or death caused by the act of texting recklessly. Would you take the oath? Visit www.txtresponsibly.org.

Hey, my name is Zak and I’m a summer intern here at Pica Design. While reading a blog today, I saw a rumor that Google Voice is supposedly opening to the public soon, and I decided to write this blog post to elucidate this great service for our readers. While many of you may not know what Google Voice is, I urge everyone with a Google Account (and who doesn’t have one, these days) to pick up their own number.

Google Voice was originally called Grand Central, a company founded in 2005 which Google bought in 2007 for 97 million. Even years ago it was a promising business opportunity, and it remains a great service.

But what does Google Voice actually do? Well, it’s essentially a new phone number that allows a number of features that most phone services don’t offer.

The Google Voice Inbox (Credit: Google)

First, it offers a unified number that you’ll never lose when you move, get a new cell phone, or change phone service. This number can ring any other number of phones that you own, for example, when somebody calls my Google Voice number, both my cell phone and my home phone ring, which means I almost never miss a call.

Google Voice also features a robust voicemail system. When somebody leaves a voicemail on your Google Voice account, it notifies you via text message and even email, transcribing the voicemail into text and delivering it to your inbox.

Finally, there are a host of other features  Google Voice offers. You can send and receive text messages for free online, screen calls, set different voicemail greetings to different contacts and groups, and more.

Google Voice is free, and a great service. I have been using it since 2008 and its unification makes life easier, which everybody deserves. I urge everyone to pick up a number and at least try it out.

Here is a short clip from the question and answer session at our recent seminar at Unity Center for the Performing Arts.

We held a seminar for businesses last Thursday at Unity Centre for Performing Arts. Our attentive, inquisitive audience of business owners absorbed all sorts of information in a short 1.5-hour timeframe. It was a please-ask-questions-as-we-go format, and each of us (there were five Pica Design panelists) added in demonstrations and stories to activate the content with real-life examples of web stuff.

To begin, we covered how websites work (hosts, files, domain names, links, browsers), searching the web, and ways people use the web. We demonstrated the anatomy of a basic website, steps for building a website, and then delved into functionality and content management systems (CMS). We touched on elements of design, testing, maintenance, pre-launch marketing, and launch marketing. And, as we concluded, we talked about social networking. Once we started talking about Facebook and Twitter, we could have gone on and on…

With the support of UniTel and Unity College, we passed on some of the knowledge we have been gathering over the few years. We are already looking forward to our next seminar (we’re hoping to conduct one in the fall). If you think of topics that would appeal and enlighten either business owners or individuals, please comment here. And, as always, thank you for listening!

Matt O’Malia, principal of G•O Logic, LLC, has a fantastic editorial on Roll Call this week, in which he calls for a stronger energy standard in the upcoming American Clean Energy and Security Act.

“Buildings consume 40 percent of the energy produced in the United States, more energy than all of the cars on the roads today. And while automobile fuel efficiency is seriously debated as a path to save energy and money, building energy performance has not received as much scrutiny, even though we have the tools and technology to create super-efficient buildings today. A strong renewable electricity standard will mean these tools get used and these jobs created to make our buildings more efficient and begin to build the foundation of an American new energy economy.”

Read the whole editorial here: http://www.rollcall.com/news/36132-1.html

For more on Matt and G•O Logic’s houses, check out their website at www.gologichomes.com