Don Carmody Productions - Custom Web Design Project - Silentblast Interactive

Hello and welcome to the Silentblast Blog. It has been some time since we have last updated our blog, which is ironically something we preach to our clients about keeping on top of their blogs and News and Events CMS systems to help them in their SEO efforts. That said, we’re back in our blog and going to discuss some of the projects we have been working on through a series of posts.

One of our more recent exciting projects was Executive Movie Producer Don Carmody’s website. The Silentblast team was very excited in re-designing and developing a web presence for the award winning movie producer who spends a lot of his time in Canada working on movies.

For the older crowd out there; you probably will remember Porky’s. Porky’s is a 1981 comedy film about the escapades of teenagers at the fictional Angel Beach high school in Florida in 1954. It was released in the United States in 1982, and spawned two sequels: Porky’s II: The Next Day (1983) and Porky’s Revenge (1985) and influenced many writers in the teen film genre. It is the highest grossing Canadian-produced film in history.

Don’s Academy Award Winning Chicago. Chicago is a 2002 American musical film adapted from the satirical stage musical Chicago, the film explores the themes of ‘celebrity’, ‘scandal’, and ‘corruption’ in Jazz age Chicago.

More recently Don’s production of Polytechnique won 9 Genie awards. “Polytechnique,” a French-language movie that relives a 1989 Montreal college massacre of 14 women by a crazed gunman, dominated the Genies, Canada’s film awards, with nine trophies, including best film.

With Don’s website obviously focusing on his previous film’s and current projects it was imperative that he utilize our Streaming Videos CMS module. This allows Don to update his movie profile’s pages with trailers from movies he has worked on or are in production. Don also required a categorized Photo Gallery CMS, which allows him to add photos of previous film shoots and current projects he is working on.

To visit Don Carmody’s website please go to www.doncarmody.com

Silentblast Interactive - Toronto Web Design and Development

Canadian owned and operated, Silentblast is a professional web design and development company in Toronto serving small and mid-sized companies in the GTA, Brampton, Vaughan, North York, Markham, Mississauga, Oakville, Richmond Hill, Scarborough and Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Silentblast also develops mobile web site design and development and mobile applications for the iPhone and other mobile phone platforms.

Website – www.silentblast.com

Silentblast Blog – www.silentblast.com/blog

Twitter – http://twitter.com/silentblast

Patrick Ogilvie CPP, PSP presents Antonio of Silentblast an Appreciation Award

On October 15th, 2009; the ASIS Toronto Chapter recognized Silentblast during the ASIS Toronto Chapter Annual Law Enforcement and Security Practitioner Awards Dinner at the Panemonte Centre. The award is the same as awards given to ASIS Toronto Chapter Sponsors who contribute both financially to the Chapter and with members who volunteer towards ASIS Toronto Chapter programs and initiatives.

Silentblast; the website design and development firm for the ASIS Toronto Chapter was given the award in recognition of the superlative efforts put forth since 2008 on the Chapter’s website. The ASIS Toronto website has changed in many ways how both the visiting public and its members and guests view ASIS International, ASIS Toronto Chapter and the security industry and profession as a whole. Compliments for the website have come from many including ASIS International members from other countries.

Presenting the ASIS Toronto Chapter Appreciation Award to Antonio of Silentblast is Patrick Ogilvie CPP, PSP; Chair of the ASIS Toronto Chapter.

Silentblast Interactive - Toronto Website Design and Development

Canadian owned and operated, Silentblast is a professional web design and development company in Toronto serving small and mid-sized companies in the GTA, Brampton, Vaughan, North York, Markham, Mississauga, Oakville, Richmond Hill, Scarborough and Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Silentblast also develops mobile web site design and development and mobile applications for the iPhone and other mobile phone platforms.

Website – www.silentblast.com

Silentblast Blog – www.silentblast.com/blog

Twitter – http://twitter.com/silentblast

Greenstream Environmental Inc - Custom Web Design and Development - Silentblast Interactive

Silentblast is pleased to announce the launch of GreenStream Environmental website.

You can visit their website at

http://greenstreamenvironmental.ca/

GreenStream Environmental Inc. provides Emergency Service 24/7/36 for Residential, Commercial and Industrial clients. Silentblast was selected to produce a logo design and also design and develop the website. The site features an integrated WordPress blog engine to keep content up to date.

Silentblast Interactive - Toronto Website Design and Development

Canadian owned and operated, Silentblast is a professional web design and development company in Toronto serving small and mid-sized companies in the GTA, Brampton, Vaughan, North York, Markham, Mississauga, Oakville, Richmond Hill, Scarborough and Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Silentblast also develops mobile web site design and development and mobile applications for the iPhone and other mobile phone platforms.

Website – www.silentblast.com

Silentblast Blog – www.silentblast.com/blog

Twitter – http://twitter.com/silentblast

ASIS Toronto Chapter - Custom Content Management System CMS - Silentblast - Toronto Web Design

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Silentblast Blog. We have been busy at Silentblast the last few weeks doing work with certain clients on vertical improvements to their website as well as new clients to our portfolio. Recently launched for the ASIS Toronto Chapter were Content Management System adjustments in their Employment opportunities areas. We streamlined the process for the webmaster whereby before if a company wanted to post an employment opportunity they would submit all the information to the webmaster and it would be reviewed and then posted.

Now what is done, is the employer representative creates a profile by registering, submits their own employment opportunity into the back-end of the Content Management System and an email is sent to the webmaster of the site for review and approval.

Silentblast also added a completely new area to the website called Ontario Colleges. ASIS Toronto Chapter is promoting their organization to students in the various law and security related programs by promoting membership in ASIS International. Also incorporated was a Content Management System similar to the Employment area whereby College representatives register and they can now post college placement opportunities for students.

Silentblast also changes some of the key graphics in the website design to freshen up the website as the original graphic selections had been in place for a little over a year. Its a simple solution to face-lift the website design somewhat at a minimum of cost using stock photography.

Greenstream Environmental Inc - Custom Web Design and Development - Silentblast Interactive

Also in develeopment currently is GreenStream Environmental Inc. which provides Emergency Service 24/7/36 for Residential, Commercial and Industrial clients. Silentblast was selected to produce a logo design and also design and develop the website. The site features an integrated wordpress blog engine to keep content up to date.

Site features currently in development:

• Content Management
• Custom Web Design
• eCommerce
• Search Engine Optimization
• Web Hosting

Silentblast Interactive - Toronto Web Design and Development

Canadian owned and operated, Silentblast is a professional web design and development company in Toronto serving small and mid-sized companies in the GTA, Brampton, Vaughan, North York, Markham, Mississauga, Oakville, Richmond Hill, Scarborough and Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Silentblast also develops mobile web site design and development and mobile applications for the iPhone and other mobile phone platforms.

Website – www.silentblast.com

Silentblast Blog – www.silentblast.com/blog

Twitter – http://twitter.com/silentblast

Silentblast Interactive - Toronto Web Design and Development

Hello readers and welcome back to the Silentblast Blog. This article is more or less a follow up to the blog article I did on Blogs– To Allow or Not Allow Comments but more specifically to the issue of responding to commentary on your own blog posts should you have made the decision to allow comments on your blog.

What most of you should and will have to understand about commentary on blogs is like all things in life there will be good and there will be bad. There is a saying so to speak that is more or less an equation; Internet + Anonymity = ***hole. There is a lot of truth actually in that equation. I have been across various blogs and forums and you will be sure to read commentary to an article or forum post that has been hijacked in some shape or form by an individual or group of individuals who post way off the topic in usually the most vulgar form of way to their commentary.

With a blog, you can set the commentary permissions so that you have to go into the “Dashboard� using WordPress as your blogging engine as an example and approve the commentary. Free speech purists view this more or less as censorship and while there is no argument to the context of the meaning of the word censorship as they apply it; I think they fail in understanding sometimes that speech or the written word comes with responsibility.

So where is the line in a commentary you may receive on your blog that will determine whether you approve it or not; let alone as well you have the ability to edit them? The line so to speak is up to the individual or business that is operating the blog in my view. For example I control the blog for Silentblast and decide what commentary is approved or not. I have been pretty transparent in my approving in that I have allowed comments that were not entirely favorable; mainly to me or what I have written about. As long as they didn’t cross over into outright attacks or vulgarity; I have allowed them and then commented on them.

In my responses I have endeavored to not attack back because it is not professional from a business perspective. This I would highly recommend because all that is going to happen is a back and forth match that just makes your blog look bad, your business and the person writing the articles. Now if you answer with some tongue and cheek type humor to me that is fair game as long as you’re generally nice. In my view, nothing is wrong with a bid of a scolding because at the end of the day everyone should play nice in the sandbox.

Do you have to respond to each and every comment? I don’t thinks so. But if for example you receive 6 comments on a particular blog posting and they are all generally commenting in the same fashion or asking possibly the same line of questions; you should respond at least once in that thread of comments and absolutely answer the questions.
If the substance of the questions are significant enough you should create another blog post specific to the questions as a follow up blog article. It is positive to your blog obviously but it also shows you are actively responding to those who do comment on your blog. You should as part of your business blogging strategy set aside time to review comments to your blog and answer the questions or comments that other leave.

Doing so will begin slowly a culture or commentary on your blog which is good in the development of your blog. It takes time to get responses to articles. I will be the first to readily admit that I love seeing comments to articles I have written. I don’t think there is a blogger on the planet that doesn’t like some type of positive commentary obviously. Bloggers just understand that sometimes the comments will not be nice and you just have to deal with it professionally.

Silentblast Interactive - Toronto Web Design and Development

Canadian owned and operated, Silentblast is a professional web design and development company in Toronto serving small and mid-sized companies in the GTA, Brampton, Vaughan, North York, Markham, Mississauga, Oakville, Richmond Hill, Scarborough and Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Silentblast also develops mobile web site design and development and mobile applications for the iPhone and other mobile phone platforms.

Website – www.silentblast.com

Silentblast Blog – www.silentblast.com/blog

Twitter – http://twitter.com/silentblast

Silentblast Interactive - Toronto Web Design and Development

Hello readers and welcome back to the Silentblast Blog. Today I am going to speak generally about business blogging. I know I have talked about blogs and blogging in general and why businesses should consider having a blog but I never really discussed business blogs from the perspective as part of a business plan.

As everyone should be generally aware a “business plan� is essentially a formal statement of planned business goals. The web design and development of a web presence for example can be included in a business plan. Even more important if the business tends to derive most of its revenue and deliverables from the internet; than the business plan will certainly have significant areas of the overall business plan where there is focus on internet, website development, search engine optimization or SEO as it’s commonly referred to and content development.

Somewhere definitely in the mix of will be most likely as well social media sites such as Twitter, FaceBook or LinkedIn and of course blogs. One of the things that have to be clear for business decision makers will be what is the focus, direction, goals and objectives for the business blog. What are the expectations of the blog as it pertains to the focus, direction, goals and objectives and then of course how the message is delivered and who delivers it?

From a business standpoint unless your business is comedy per say, the blog will tend to be more of an informative, editorial, press release sort of tone. While there are blogs that are satirical in nature or adult themed in both content and language that tends to not be the approach of business if they wish to incorporate a blog.
So for business the focus, direction, goals and objectives for a business blog can be some of the following if not more:

• Public Relations – mission statement, company vision, new developments

• Education and Product Information – giving your customers information on your products and services and even information on how to use them

• Development and Research – garnering feedback and suggestions from your clientele

• Community Development – developing a client community around your products and services, charitable efforts of your company

• Marketing and Sales – announcing new products and services to your customers

Blogging for business ultimately will take time and if there is no inherent commitment to invest time into the development of a business blog than it should not be high on the list of business priorities. All stakeholders within a business have to believe in the process. If you wish to establish yourself or are already established as a professional business, your blog has to reflect that.

Silentblast Interactive - Toronto Web Design and Development

Canadian owned and operated, Silentblast is a professional web design and development company in Toronto serving small and mid-sized companies in the GTA, Brampton, Vaughan, North York, Markham, Mississauga, Oakville, Richmond Hill, Scarborough and Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Silentblast also develops mobile web site design and development and mobile applications for the iPhone and other mobile phone platforms.

Website – www.silentblast.com

Silentblast Blog – www.silentblast.com/blog

Twitter – http://twitter.com/silentblast

Silentblast Interactive - Custom Web Design and Development Toronto - Styles Model Management

Silentblast is pleased to announce the web design and development of the Styles Model Management Inc. website. Currently there is a teaser/microsite up that Silentblast designed that you can visit below.

Styles Model Management Inc.

Current Site Features

• CSS/XHTML
• Custom Web Design
• Web Standards Compliant
• Teaser/Micro Site

Silentblast Interactive - Toronto Website Design and Development

Canadian owned and operated, Silentblast is a professional web design and development company in Toronto serving small and mid-sized companies in the GTA, Brampton, Vaughan, North York, Markham, Mississauga, Oakville, Richmond Hill, Scarborough and Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Silentblast also develops mobile web site design and development and mobile applications for the iPhone and other mobile phone platforms.

Website – www.silentblast.com

Silentblast Blog – www.silentblast.com/blog

Twitter – http://twitter.com/silentblast

Silentblast Interactive - Toronto Web Design and Development

Hello readers and welcome back to the Silentblast Blog. Interesting news article I read some days ago about a couple from the US, Mellisa and Jackson Brandts were hiking in Banff Alberta and decided to take a photo of themselves for keepsakes. They had set up their camera to auto-shoot some pictures when they were noticing this little squirrel scurrying all around them checking them and the camera out. When their camera snapped a shot of them sitting down the squirrel at that moment decided to stand up and look directly into the camera.

It didn’t take long for the power of the internet and of course some encouragement from friends to submit their photo to National Geographic and then CNN also did a news story on the couple and their camera adventure with the squirrel. From that moment, the squirrel, now more affectionately known as “Crasher Squirrel� has taken the internet somewhat by storm.

The picture of Crasher Squirrel seems to be popping up everywhere; including Silentblast. Here we have a photo of him popping up in front of a billboard with the Silentblast logo.

To read the original “Crasher Squirrel� news article you can find it here; “Web Goes Nuts for Crasher Squirrel�

There is also a website where they have the Top Ten Crasher Squirrel Pics

To modify your own pictures to include the Crasher Squirrel visit The Squirrelizer

Have some fun with it; bring Crasher Squirrel into some of your family photos, wedding pictures and your travels.

Silentblast Interactive - Toronto Web Design and Development

Canadian owned and operated, Silentblast is a professional web design and development company in Toronto serving small and mid-sized companies in the GTA, Brampton, Vaughan, North York, Markham, Mississauga, Oakville, Richmond Hill, Scarborough and Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Silentblast also develops mobile web site design and development and mobile applications for the iPhone and other mobile phone platforms.

Website – www.silentblast.com

Silentblast Blog – www.silentblast.com/blog

Twitter – http://twitter.com/silentblast

Silentblast is pleased to announce the deployment of ASISCanada.org ASISCanada.org is the future gateway for Canadian ASIS International members and visitors to visit in order to learn more about the Canadian ASIS International Chapters as well as ASIS International membership and certifications. Silentblast was chosen to web design and develop a Teaser/Micro site to bring awareness of this new website while it is still in the planning and development stages.

The site can be currently viewed at www.asiscanada.org

Current Site Features

• CCS/XHTML
• Custom Web Design
• Search Engine Optimization
• Web Hosting
• Web Standards Compliant

Silentblast Interactive - Toronto Web Design and Development

Canadian owned and operated, Silentblast is a professional web design and development company in Toronto serving small and mid-sized companies in the GTA, Brampton, Vaughan, North York, Markham, Mississauga, Oakville, Richmond Hill, Scarborough and Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Silentblast also develops mobile web site design and development and mobile applications for the iPhone and other mobile phone platforms.

Website – www.silentblast.com

Silentblast Blog – www.silentblast.com/blog

Twitter – http://twitter.com/silentblast

Hello readers and welcome to the Silentblast Blog. One of the questions I get asked from time to time is whether blogging is for the person, or the right thing to do as part of a business’s web development, content management system or web design.

Well there are some easy and difficult answers coupled with some easy and difficult choices. From a web development perspective implementing a blog as part of a strategy to increase web traffic and awareness should be one of the features you should consider.

Blogging for business is more or less a do it yourself public relations strategy. Every company or organization considering some form of public relations strategy should consider a blog. It is especially something to consider if your company cannot afford to implement specific content management modules that are often highly customized, but come at a greater cost than a blog.

Blogging can help your company in the following areas:

• promote your company and services to a wider audience
• place the human factor to your business
• help establish your company services, products and brand
• reaching out to potential customers or current customers
• increase your visibility on the search engines
• over time, increase your profit potential
  

As a company and the individuals charged with the responsibility of the blogging strategy and providing content to the blog you have to be committed to the blog and its ongoing development in order for it to be successful. In other words, if you implement a blog as part of your business strategy you have to treat it as part of your business processes. You have to set a pace or schedule for regular development; meaning articles added to the blog. In doing so, you have to thus maintain the blog by continually providing information.

I will be discussing more about blogging for business in articles in the future as part of the strategy of Silentblast in not only promoting the web design and content management systems we can implement for business; but also to assist our clients in developing their web development strategies.

Silentblast Interactive - Toronto Web Design and Development

Canadian owned and operated, Silentblast is a professional web design and development company in Toronto serving small and mid-sized companies in the GTA, Brampton, Vaughan, North York, Markham, Mississauga, Oakville, Richmond Hill, Scarborough and Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Silentblast also develops mobile web site design and development and mobile applications for the iPhone and other mobile phone platforms.

Website – www.silentblast.com

Silentblast Blog – www.silentblast.com/blog

Twitter – http://twitter.com/silentblast