Monthly Archives: January 2011
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Syndication
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January 31, 2011
Always Remember to Build a Custom 404 Error Website Page
By New SignatureWeb developers worry about the layout of home pages and inner pages. One overlooked component is building a custom 404 error page. A 404 error is returned by a web server when a visitor tries to browse to a page that does not exist, or has been moved or deleted. A site without a polished and integrated 404 page is unhelpful and jarring to site users.
Adding a custom 404 error page to your web development checklist is an easy quick win that greatly improves user experience! Adding the custom page also gives you a chance to exercise some creativity. If you need help setting up a great custom 404 error page, give New Signature a call!
Here are some examples of 404 pages that are sure to elicit a smile from the wayward website visitor.
Dodging Diabetes
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January 20, 2011
New Signature: Proud Sponsor of DrupalCon Chicago
By New Signature
New Signature is proud to sponsor DrupalCon Chicago (March 7-10, 2011). We provide professional Drupal development and support services, including custom module development, and have used Drupal to power a diverse set of sites including community web portals, news aggregation sites, corporate websites, intranet applications, blogs, multimedia sites, and social networking sites. You can see some examples of our recent Drupal projects here.New Signature is an active active member of the Drupal community. We lend financial support to the Drupal Association through conference sponsorships and membership dues. We also invest our time and expertise in the form of of bug fixes, feature improvement, and contributed module development.
Drupal is the industry-leading open source content management platform used to power millions of websites. It’s also a robust community of Web developers, designers, businesspeople, and everyday citizens around the world.
DrupalCon is an international event that brings together the people who use, develop, design, and support the Drupal platform. DrupalCon Chicago will be held March 7-10, 2011, and will feature dozens of curated sessions and panels from some of the most influential people and brightest minds within the Drupal community and beyond, as well as countless opportunities for networking, sprints, informal conversations, and more.
We look forward to seeing you in Chicago and give us a call if you have a project where our Drupal development expertise can be of assistance!
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January 17, 2011
Book Review: Deploying Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010
By New Signature
Forefront Threat Management gateway has come a long way since the days of “Proxy Server 2.0″. With the recent crop of “Next Generation Firewalls” performing deep packet inspection on the application level, Microsoft needed to bolster their argument that a software-based firewall could perform at the level of their hardware-based competitors.In “Deploying Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010“, Authors Yuri Diogenes and Dr. Thomas W. Shinder lay out the required steps to getting this newly updated software installed in either a single server or highly available array setup. The tone of the book isn’t super-breezy, but it’s light enough to encourage would-be administrators from spinning up virtual machines to test TMG2010 out. All the major features and negatives of the product are reviewed, including some of the fierce comments from network admins reluctant to place a Windows domain-joined machine on the edge of a network.
The book doesn’t muddy the distinction between TMG and sister product Forefront UAG, but the fact that there are still two distinct software firewall products Microsoft recommends (one for publishing internal applications and DirectAccess, the other for securing internal network resources) is a tough sell for many environments, especially those that already have a hardware based firewall that is performing well.
Because the book is narrowly scoped to deployment, it doesn’t include much in the way of day-to-day administration guidance. Although I’d like to see that guidance, I found its exclusion fine, so long as MS Press releases a follow up covering that information. (The previous administrator’s companion book for Forefront TMG clocked in at over 1000 pages, which was barely manageable to read on a Kindle, let alone in print version). Overall, for new system admins looking to test out Microsoft’s latest firewall, the book was short but solidly researched and well written.
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January 15, 2011
Food & Water Watch Unveils New Website
By New Signature
New Signature partnered with Food & Water Watch to create a new visual design, improve the information architecture and expand the functionality of their website. Through the new website Food & Water Watch can more effectively engage visitors, organize supporters, raise money, disseminate research, and influence policy. The site provides access to the information and tools that supporters need to help Food & Water Watch ensure the food, water and fish we consume is safe, accessible and sustainably produced.New Signature worked with Food & Water Watch from concept to launch on this important redesign. We started by working with stakeholders to define the requirements for the website, including providing strategic direction on how best to engage target audiences and meet the organization’s online goals.
We utilized the open source WordPress 3 platform as the foundation for the Food & Water Watch website. The website integrates with the Salsa advocacy and communications platform. Salsa has a robust set of features that Food & Water Watch uses to build awareness, mobilize their supporters, and keep them engaged. New Signature implemented the Apache Solr platform to provide faceted browsing and powerful full-text faceted search that includes hit highlighting.
The website also uses New Signature’s WordPress plugins WP Easy Post Types and WP Jalapeno. The use of WP Easy Post Types allows Food & Water Watch staff to create WordPress custom post types on the fly with and managed these through an easy to use interface–including custom fields and categories. WP Jalapeno tightly integrates Salsa into WordPress and allows the embedding of attractive Salsa Action forms directly on the website to increase response rates.
New Signature is seeking a Web Project Manager and Strategist to join our team of experts at our downtown DC office.As a member of New Signature’s award-winning team you will work collaboratively with New Signature’s clients to build their Internet presence and develop our own commercial and open source apps. You will serve as the primary project lead for a wide range of Web-centric projects, will be responsible for managing cross-functional teams, and help develop creative solutions to overcome the challenges our clients face.
This position will lead a diverse set of projects, including the development and support of CMS-driven websites, modules and extensions, user interface components, and custom Rich Internet Applications.
We are looking for a candidate with experience as a project manager or team lead on Internet-related projects. Additionally you should have the ability and desire to provide consulting, analysis, problem solving and innovative thinking to projects that help clients determine how the Internet can play a role in fulfilling their missions.
About New Signature
We like to introduce New Signature not by discussing what we can do, but by discussing our culture and what drives us. Providing great customer service is what gets us out of bed in the morning. We use this passion to provide services and build websites that use technology creatively, are beautifully designed, have a positive social impact, and are always backed by passionate, friendly support. You can browse some of our recent work here.
New Signature combines strategic thinking, distinctive design, and emerging technologies to create and deliver innovative websites that consistently break new ground. We blend stunning visual design, practical usability, and robust functionality to create compelling websites that engage visitors and provide an exceptional user experience. New Signature designed websites have won top honors at the Webby Awards, W3 Awards, Communicator Awards, Interactive Media Awards, Web Marketing Association Web Awards, and Davey Awards.
New Signature’s success is driven by our values and we were honored to receive the 2010 National Capital Business Ethics Award. The Awards recognize companies that exemplify a strong commitment to business excellence and to the highest standards of civic and social responsibility, integrity and ethical conduct in the Greater Washington region.
Specifically, New Signature seeks qualified professionals who can:
· lead interactive, new media strategy and online marketing projects
· work strategically with clients to problem solve and recommend new ideas and solutions
· manage software development life cycle, teams, resources, project scope, timeline and budgets
· create, review and communicate functional requirements
· identify, document and explore client needs and requirements
· conduct research and analyze Web statistics and stakeholder surveys
· develop information architectures and wireframes
· ensure the adherence to Web development best practices
· lead quality assurance efforts to test, debug, deploy software applications
· provide client training and produce documentation
· identify opportunities for follow-on consulting work from satisfied clients
· apply a working knowledge of Web technologies, concepts and tools including:
o HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Flash, etc.
o CMS platforms, such as Drupal or WordPress.
o CRM products such as Salesforce, Salsa, ActionKit, Convio, Raiser’s Edge,etc.
o email marketing and other digital communications channels
o social media, online advertising and SEO
Specifically, New Signature seeks qualified professionals who:
· are smart and intellectually curious,
· enjoy providing the highest level of customer service,
· seek a challenging work experience,
· want to learn and gain greater expertise in their field,
· enjoy working at a growth company with lots of advancement opportunities,
· can work hard while having fun, and
· act in an honest and ethical manner.
Education
BA/BS degree or equivalent desired.
Compensation and Benefits
We offer an excellent compensation and benefits package (including: 2 weeks of vacation; sick/personal leave; medical; dental; life insurance; 401k; and short and long term disability insurance), advancement opportunities and a fun and exciting office environment.
U.S. Employment Eligibility
New Signature requires the candidate to prove eligibility to work in the United States within three days of being employed.
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January 13, 2011
Drupal 7 – Get Started
By New Signature
On January 7, Drupal 7 was released. Drupal 7 is the latest version of the friendly and powerful content management platform for building nearly any kind of website: from blogs and micro-sites to collaborative social communities. This new version promises to be easier to use, more flexible, more scalable and highly extensible. New Signature was an early adopter of Drupal 7 and has been testing it throughout its development. Our testing has shown that Drupal core as well as many contributed modules are highly stable (there are more than 800 modules available for Drupal 7 at present). We are already using Drupal 7 for most new Drupal-based websites we are developing at this time.Many of the enhancements in Drupal 7 come from moving functionality from over 50 very popular and established modules into the core of Drupal 7. This helps people building Drupal sites to spend more time creating higher level features than installing various contributed modules to address fundamental features such as custom fields and file and image handling.
At the architecture level, there is a new database abstraction layer using PHP 5’s PDO API, which paves the way to use a wider range of databases such as MariaDB, Microsoft SQL Server, MongoDB, Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, or SQLite. Additionally, there is a new content abstraction layer which combined with the new field API, allows for the addition of custom fields to any entity, such as nodes, taxonomy, comments, users, and custom entities.
Themes (the look of the site) have for more control than before, allowing for easier development to accomplish creative and engaging designs. As well, the interactivity of your Drupal 7 site has more help from the inclusion of jQuery UI and other UI libraries.
The Drupal team had an initiative to address what many considered to be a poor out-of-the-box user experience in Drupal 6 for managing content. With Drupal 6, a considerable amount of work was required to create a good user experience for the editors and writers of the site. Now, many of those very adjustments are built in. This means that more time can now be spent on creating a great user experience by fine-tuning the details to improve the workflow for the editors and writers.
Here at New Signature we can’t wait to push the envelope with Drupal 7 and use this innovative new platform to benefit our clients.
