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If you are in the customer service industry, then you’ve had to handle an irate or down-right rude customer or two in your time. These encounters can be draining, frustrating, and annoying experiences for both parties — the customer and you. Getting through the conversation, or monologue, can be a challenge all of its own.
But you have an opportunity at this point to make a difference for someone. Besides salvaging a customer and preventing a potential outbreak of negativity, it can be a wonderful feeling when you can help someone fix a problem or even simply make the experience positive despite the customer’s bad attitude. So here are some tips to get you through a conversation with an angry or rude customer. And while most customers only get livid behind the safety of a phone call, the following pointers can also help with face-to-face encounters.
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Designing a website requires attention to detail and the knowledge of a few dos and don’ts. While there are many techniques to ensure a well designed and effective website, designers are still prone to making mistakes, some more common than others. Here are some of the most common mistakes that often make a huge difference.
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Most companies do not have a problem finding web designers these days with graphic and web design becoming one of the more popular college degrees. The trouble arises with finding a web designer who knows their stuff and also who can keep your information secure. Let’s face it — more and more firms are in-sourcing the development of their websites. This has lots of important benefits, with improved security being a big reason more companies are keeping web developers (and source code) in-house. Whether you want a temporary designer or one to add to your list of employees,, there are a few critical questions to be sure to table so you don’t end up with 3 months of wasted time…or worse.
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The featured image was NOT created in MS Paint (Photoshop, of course!), although, with enough patience it could have been. MS Paint. Seriously?! Well, sometimes you don’t have your fancy Mac with all your downloaded versions of Photoshop and the like handy. In fact, you might be in one of those rare situations where you have to use a PC (gasp!). What ever shall you do?!
Well, fortunately for you, the dear folks at Microsoft have a built in bitmap editor that is absolutely terrible and almost useless. But, there is hope and a couple ‘o tricks are available to you if you find yourself in a pinch.
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On June 28th, 2011, Google introduced to the world their new, aggressive approach to connecting Google search with social media. In an attempt, it seems, to rival Facebook again, Google has launched its own social networking project. Just as with other social media, Google+ allows you to share information with friends and family through the Stream (similar to Facebook’s newsfeed) and four different features: Circles, Hangouts, Huddle, and Sparks. In short, Circles is a way of creating groups, Hangouts allows you to video chat with more than one friend at once, Huddle includes the option to text with several friends at once such as with a chat room, and Sparks is a personalized sharing feature. Google also has placed a “Recommend this page” button (also known as +1) next to search engine results for easier sharing.
Since Google+ has emerged, the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) world has been all amok with speculation about how shares and +1 will impact the search engine results page (SERP) of various URLs. The short answer: Google+ does have an impact, but early indicators show that standard SEO strategies are still the key.
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Anyone that has researches basic SEO has learned that a website’s ranking on the old SERPS (search engine results page) are based on the links to your site. Anyone involved in SEO will also tell you that “the quality” of these links is absolutely essential for effective search engine optimization. However, it has been possible, in the past, to “hoodwink” search engines with shadowy “black hat” tactics to lift your website appear near the top of the pile. Here, we’ll expose some of those tactics and highlight the correct and natural methods you should use in increase your site’s visibility. |
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Regular visitors of BoxedArt will have noticed the recent jQuery section on the site. If you’re still a little green to jQuery, the best way to explain it is that it is a client side scripting language (meaning that all activity occurs in your web browser, and not on the web server), and it creates an interaction between simple HTML and Javascript. What this means, is that there can be dynamic and interactive action on a website without using a scripting resource that requires a browser plug-in, such as Flash or Swish. It also lets you use simple HTML text within the content, so it doesn’t require additional software to manage a site.
Anyway, for those of you that don’t need the lesson and are here for the eye candy, below you’ll find a list of our 7 favorite jQuery scripts and effects that we have used in our new jQuery template category so far: |
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The BoxedArt affiliate program is offering a special increased commission rate of 35% (usually 25%) through Halloween (October 31, 2010). We’re also giving high performing affiliates (affiliates that provide a dozen or so sales per month and/or 75+ hits or so a day), the opportunity to permanently retain their rate. To help in promoting your affiliate links, we’ve assembled a large group of our banners, and have composed a list of promotion ideas to the tune of Paul Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.” |
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I recently came across an old copy of a “Video Review” magazine from December, 1982, a publication that now seems to be out of print. This issue contained an editorial column called “VIEWPOINTS” with the subtitle “New Ideas for 1983”, which featured guesses at what might be developed in the near future. While the technology did not show up the following year, the predictions were freakishly ahead of their time, and nearly each one now appears in our modern lives.
In this post, you’ll be amazed, astonished, flabbergasted, and drunkened by the accuracy of these technology predictions from Video Review’s David Hadju back in ’82. If by the end of this post you still don’t feel drunkened, don’t worry, I’ve drankened enough for the both of us. |
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Web design styles have been evolving rapidly in recent years, and the design industry has sprouted up like an over watered Chia Pet, incubated in an industrial green house, and crammed full of Miracle Grow laced with crystal meth. I clearly remember the time (circa 1990′s) when the only sites available to help you put up your website were along the lines of cgi-resources.com and htmlgoodies.com. You got a basic script that did mostly what you wanted, hacked away at it, and tried to figure out how to make some sort of basic layout nesting and re-nesting tables until finally a family of birds moved in. |
Themes? Templates? Skins? There were a few “free template” sites around back then, but they were fairly obscure, and commercial templates were virtually non-existent. A script came with one look – plain, and if you wanted to change it, you spent a few weeks in Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop pasting together graphics and inserting rotating gifs. If you have no idea what I’m talking about then you haven’t been webmastering until sometime in the 2000′s when starting up a site had become easier and prettier.
Since commercial template design entered the scene in the 2000′s, the styles on the market have been constantly changing, especially over the last few years. Below, we’ve compiled a comparative sampling from 2001 through 2010 showcasing the evolution of designs. You’ll be shocked at where we started with our layouts and just how far we’ve come.
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