Blog Archives
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Syndication
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June 24, 2010
New Signature Presents Two New DIA Salsa Apps: WP Jalapeno and C2C Jalapeno
New Signature has released WP Jalapeno–a free WordPress plugin–that allows you to directly embed DIA Salsa action forms into WordPress websites (we will be releasing a Drupal module shortly). This plugin provides nonprofit organizations with the ability to embed attractive DIA Salsa Action forms directly on their websites. This provides great control, greater relevancy and increased response rates. For the first time you can easily connect WordPress and Salsa, control the look and feel of your Actions through your WordPress theme, and enable custom validation and error styling using JavaScript. Distributed under the GNU General Public License. You can learn more about the plugin and download it at www.wpjalapeno.com. You can also see it in action on the homepage of Food & Water Watch’s Spill the Truth website.
New Signature has also released the DIA Salsa app C2C Jalapeno. This commercial click-to-call app is natively integrated with Salsa and makes it easy for your supporters to use the power of their voice to advocate for change. You can connect your supporters directly to their legislators via phone and each action is stored in Salsa. Features include: Works with all Salsa target types and district types. Create custom call scripts, set maximum budgets and more. Use attractive default theme or create your own. Supporters can leave voicemail for targets instead of getting a busy signal, and the vm can be transcribed. Reporting–collect call status and notes from supporters. View real time usage and measure ROI. You can learn more about C2C Jalapeno and sign up at www.c2cjalapeno.com.
You can also learn more about these at our booth at the Salsa Conference!
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June 21, 2010
Join New Signature at the Salsa Community Conference 2010
The 2010 Salsa Community Conference is this week (June 24 and 25) in Washington, DC at the Woolly Mammoth Theater. New Signature is excited to be attending the conference (and co-sponsoring the Conference After-party). We can’t wait to spend two days collaborating with our fellow Salsa enthusiasts! Register today if you haven’t already. If you are planning on attending, please stop by the New Signature booth. We will be launching two new Salsa-related apps at the conference!For those not familiar with Salsa. Salsa is the Software as a Service communications and advocacy platform made available to nonprofits by DemocracyInAction. DemocracyInAction is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization itself, and believes technology can be a decisive force for social change. DemocracyInAction’s Salsa platform offers small and medium-sized 501(c)3 organizations access to the same online organizing engine trusted by brand-name nonprofits like Oceana, True Majority, and the NAACP.
The conference is being held at the Woolly Mammoth Theater (641 D Street NW). The theater is located in the District’s Chinatown neighborhood, accessible to the Red, Green and Yellow Metro lines.
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June 17, 2010
New Signature Labs Releases WordPress Easy Post Types Plugin
New Signature Labs released the WordPress Easy Post Types plugin today. This plugin allows publishers to easily build complex websites using WordPress 3.0. The Easy Post Types plugin extends WordPress and provides a GUI interface that combines and leverages the power of custom post types, custom taxonomies, and meta tags. Publishers don’t have to hack code to take advantage of the new powerful features of WP 3.0. Easy Post Types is distributed under the GNU General Public License.Features
- Ready to Use. Use standard WordPress query rules to quickly list content in your page templates, no need for any custom PHP coding.
- Pre-Packaged. Create custom content types on the fly through the WordPress backend.
- Themable. Available out of the box with the base theme or quickly override using your own.
- Robust. Add unlimited fields to your content types.
- Extensible. Many out of the box field types available, or create your own through the plugin API.
- Customizable. Fields can be ordered in the template to allow better input workflow for the user.
- Pluggable. Simply create a field and it’s plugged into your content type automatically.
- Simple. One single call to display any field in an output.
- Advanced Users. Access to the plugin object for advanced users at the post level.
Features
Ready to Use. Use standard WordPress query rules to quickly list content in your page templates, no need for any custom PHP coding.
Pre-Packaged. Create custom content types on the fly through the WordPress backend.
Themable. Available out of the box with the base theme or quickly override using your own.
Robust. Add unlimited fields to your content types.
Extensible. Many out of the box field types available, or create your own through the plugin API.
Customizable. Fields can be ordered in the template to allow better input workflow for the user.
Pluggable. Simply create a field and it’s plugged into your content type automatically.
Simple. One single call to display any field in an output.
Advanced Users. Access to the plugin object for advanced users at the post level. -
June 1, 2010
New Signature Wins Five 2010 Communicator Awards
New Signature’s visually stunning, innovative websites earned three Gold Communicator Awards and two Silver Communicator awards in the 2010 Communicator Awards. The International Academy of the Visual Arts announced the winners and four websites that New Signature designed and developed won five awards. New Signature’s winning websites are Working America’s I Am Not Your ATM (Gold in the Activism category and Gold in the specialty category of Best Homepage), Crystal Pools (Gold in the Construction category), InsideIRAN (Silver in the Activism category), and the Dodging Diabetes Charity Dodgeball Tournament (Silver in the Events category). (more…) -
April 29, 2010
Hip Restaurants Get Hip Websites Courtesy of New Signature
New Signature launched websites for sister restaurants Bar Pilar and Cafe Saint-Ex. There is no denying that both neighborhood restaurants are popular Washington, D.C. establishments. In fact, Bar Pilar is nominated for the best Neighborhood Gathering Place of the Year in the 2010 RAMMYS. Cafe Saint-Ex has been described on Yelp as “France to Bar Pilar’s Spain–Cafe Saint-Ex is bigger, more sophisticated, louder and brasher. Bar Pilar is a wee bit rougher around the edges, more rustic, more intimate.”New Signature created the visual design for both websites and focused on extending the culture and energy of each restaurant online. The visual design for the Bar Pilar website has a strong Hemingway theme to complement the restaurant’s Hemmingway name and motif (the Pilar was Hemingway’s boat). The visual design for the Cafe Saint-Ex website extends the restaurant’s aviation-themed art and a laid back atmosphere. Both restaurants act as a meeting place for locals and as such it made sense to reflect this on the websites through the incorporation of social media features. For example, both websites broadcast and promote customer generated content aggregated from Twitter and Facebook on their homepages and community pages.
New Signature built the websites on the Drupal publishing platform. The use of the Drupal content management system means the restaurants’ staff have full control over the websites’ content, including the menus (which can change daily). Both websites also have mobile versions for patrons visiting the site on their mobile phones. These mobile sites are specifically crafted to provide quick access to the pertinent details about the restaurants including addresses and phone numbers.
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April 28, 2010
Campaign For Consumer Rights Taps New Signature to Urge Californians to Vote No on Proposition 17
The Campaign For Consumer Rights turned to New Signature to design and build their Stop Prop 17 campaign website. This website will serve as the online platform for the organization’s ballot initiative campaign urging Californians to vote no to Proposition 17.The website is built using the WordPress Content Management System to provide Campaign For Consumer Rights’ staff with total control over adding, editing and deleting new content, including multimedia content. The site provides visitors with access to a wealth of information and compelling evidence as to why Proposition 17 is bad for residents of the state of California. The website also acts as a social media hub, and provides visitors with the opportunity to take direct action to help in the campaign.
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April 21, 2010
New Signature Launches CMS Defend, Website Safe Deposit, and Website Watch Tower
New Signature officially unveiled three new services that help organizations keep their websites safe, secure and running optimally.
CMS Defend. New Signature regularly updates your website’s Drupal or WordPress Content Management System software. Patches for the Drupal and WordPress CMS software are regularly released by the open-source community. These patches contain features, performance, security and bug fix updates. Subscribing to New Signature’s CMS Defend service ensures that these patches are installed and that your website’s Content Management System is kept secure and performs optimally.
Website Safe Deposit. New Signature provides maximum protection by automatically backing up your website to a highly secure and redundant storage infrastructure. With the Website Safe Deposit service, you can recover from unintended user actions, hosting failures, or application failures. Having backups stored off your server provides an easy and affordable disaster recovery solution.
Website Watch Tower. New Signature monitors your websites and servers to minimize downtime and keep your website running. Website Watch Tower instantly alerts at the first sign of failure or downtime, allowing New Signature to address the problem.Contact New Signature to take advantage of all the benefits of these services have to offer!
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April 19, 2010
Ning Ending Free Service Won’t End Your Social Cloud
Ning is a popular social networking platform that is available through a software as a service (SaaS) model. On April 15th, 2010 Ning announced that they will be phasing out their free service. New Signature works with many of our clients to build social networks using SaaS platforms (including Ning) and open source software platforms Drupal and Elgg. Today, Nick Judd drew on New Signature CEO Christopher Hertz’s expertise for his “Ning Ending Free Service Won’t End Your Social Cloud” post on techPresident. In the post, Nick helps make sense of how Ning’s change will impact nonprofits and political organizations. Below is an excerpt from the post:
Chris Hertz, a technology consultant whose firm, New Signature, has done work for the Center for American Progress, Center for New American Security and CREW, says Ning could have avoided a lot of the hang-wringing he’s seeing if the company just announced price points already.
“If you have a whole bunch of people who are relying on your product and you say, ‘hey, you’ve got to wait until May 4 to find out pricing information on these products,’ it puts people in an uncomfortable position,” Hertz said.
Until pricing information comes out, it would be unwise to switch from Ning, even if there are a lot of services out there looking to court restless current Ning clients, he added.
“Generally, I’ve been advising people to be in a holding pattern. We don’t know what the price points are, we don’t know what the features are.”
“A lot of people have made a big deal out of it,” he said, “but it’s possible that they come out in a few weeks and say, ‘well it’s going to be $20 a month for nonprofits.’”
Read Judd’s full post here. Contact New Signature if you need help building a social network for your organization.
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April 14, 2010
InsideIRAN.org Wins Top Honors at 2010 Interactive Media Awards
InsideIRAN.org earned an IMA Outstanding Achievement Award under the category “Advocacy”. New Signature designed and produced InsideIRAN.org for The Century Foundation. This award demonstrates that the InsideIRAN.org website excelled in all areas of IMA’s judging criteria and represents a very high standard of planning, execution and overall professionalism.The Interactive Media Awards recognize the highest standards of excellence in website design and development and honor individuals and organizations for their outstanding achievement. This award is further validation that New Signature is a leader in the industry, able to effectively and efficiently develop powerful and appealing websites for our valuable clients.
insideIRAN.org is the ground breaking website that New Signature designed and built for The Century Foundation’s Iran program. insideIRAN.org provides a new, and highly relevant, source for the latest news and information from inside Iran. New Signature designed and built the website in only a few weeks using the WordPress publishing platform. Our experts worked with the Century Foundation through New Signature’s development process. {analysis, wireframing, user experience design, programming, training, testing, and launch}.
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April 12, 2010
New Signature Labs Releases “jCoverflip” Widget
New Signature Labs is pleased to announce the release of the jCoverflip widget. jCoverflip is a jQuery cover flow widget that allows website administrators to present featured website content in a visually appealing manner. The widget is quick setup and is highly configurable, and can run as a Drupal Module or standalone. jCoverflip enables quick, easy and granular customization to the look and feel and feature set. Out of the box features include:- Drag or click functionality to showcase featured content items on demand by the user.
- Ability to showcase both images and content associated with an item.
- Ability to show 3 to 10 items in the widget.
- Ability to change the colors, fonts, style.
- Ability to change the behavior of the widget including the speed at which items are animated.
- Module integration with Drupal or Standalone version. (more…)