A Dual Purpose Marketing Tool-The A-Sharp network web site is a "tour de force" of current application technology. An online repository for musical instruments (new and used), music related services, sheet music, etc., it offers a wide (and differing) number of features to every visitor, depending on network-membership status.
Members (usually instrument dealers and instructors) may either access the database to find valuable "dealer proprietary" information from vendors worldwide (including wholesale prices), or enter their own listings for marketable products and services. Non-members may search the database by a wide range of criteria, and view instruments or services available from network members along with contact information and retail prices.
Other features include client recognition (the system "knows who you are" when you sign in, so user names and passwords are not required), data-entry cross referencing (a member needs only enter a "for sale" item's description, and that description is automatically linked with her contact information), and a complete set of administrative tools for use by the systems parent company.
As with all of our commercial sites, every financial transaction is secure.
Business to Business Customer Support - Pioneers in the "checks by phone" industry, APS is able to develop the right solution for any business. Their site was created to convey a highly corporate profile, while maintaining enough personality to accentuate the "human factor" essential to good business. The site features an online support center, and includes complete users manuals (in a secured area) for current versions of their software.
Putting our technological expertise to the task-Osborne Publications produces 9 "area specific" real estate listing magazines each month, and a 10th magazine published in Spanish. They wanted the publications on-line and were considering hiring personnel to write HTML. Instead, we created a software package (called WebWrite) that takes all of their publications on-line automatically. It produces individual formatted web pages for each listing from their multi-listing text files, finds the right image for each listing and converts it to jpeg format, and then files each HTML or jpeg file in it's appropriate subdirectory (out of 32 available) on the site. It creates "meta-text" for each page it produces, and then uses that meta-text to pre-index the site into a database, making the site's search engines capable of searching, in less than a second, the more than 7000 pages it produces each month! It even translates the "special characters" (diphthong, accent, grave accent, etc.) used in their Spanish publication into their web-readable numeric equivalents. Working with their art department we designed the main home page graphic, and they designed the rest of the site.
Interactive and informative-This site for BGE is intended to teach children about both electrical and natural gas utilities, and to avoid playing in their vicinity. A mix of educational games, we created the concept of using two "cats" who will teach the children how to recognize possible danger. The graphics contributed largely to the development of the interactive games you and your child can play (you must have the "shockwave" plug-in installed in your browser to play, and can download the newest version directly from the site).
