I happened across your site through marketingtool.com. Your site is straightforward yet professional and informative. I was quite impressed by your extensive portfolio. I especially like the design work you did for the Asheville Business Leaders Association website. It is simple yet, clear and effective. P

Move over Google, Microsoft is making a big splash into the search business. Results are fresh, complete and relevant. Lately the search engine kings have, in my opinion, become complacent and arrogant.
Google’s index was months old for quite a while, now that it’s more up-to-date it is still far from complete. Pages seem to get dropped for no apparent reason, making their directory quite useless.
DMOZ, The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors. Many of these editors are dedicated and devoted individuals; some of them are also arrogant and complacent. How they decide if your site is “worthy” of being added to the directory I don’t know. I waited several months to get our site added to the local Asheville directory for Web Designers. I still have not been added to the general Web Design directory and have never heard a word from any of the editors to acknowledge my submission or give any reason for not including it, it just doesn’t show up. It seems the volunteers doing the Asheville section of the directory are far more responsive to submissions than some of the other sections.
Yahoo. Here is arrogance at its highest level. From Yahoo’s own submission page: “Your payment and participation mean that within 7 business days Yahoo! will review your site and consider it for inclusion in the Yahoo! Directory… Important note: Use of the Yahoo! Express program does not ensure that your submission will be accepted for inclusion in the Yahoo! Directory or that it will receive the site placement or description that you request.” What is the cost for this review, with no guarantee of inclusion? $299.00! … Per year!!! Sorry, but I don’t give $299.00 to anybody for (very possibly) nothing. Because Yahoo charges so much for mostly nothing their directory is also very old and very incomplete.
Enter Microsoft. This is the behemoth that many seem to hate for its arrogance. But wait! Their directory seems really complete and includes a site that I just created less than a week ago! And I didn’t even submit it to MSN or anyone else because it is really not complete yet. This is awesome! Given a choice, I would have never chosen Microsoft to put these other search engines in their place. But, I have to admit that, they have done an awesome job of producing results that are fresh, complete and relevant. Isn’t that what we are all looking for in a search engine?
I can usually bash Microsoft with the best of them but, this time, I have to sing their praises instead. Hopefully, by the time they get arrogant and complacent (in this area), one of the others will get the message and give them a run for their money. Competition is good, wherever it comes from, if it helps to create new and better products for us all to use.

Palmer Wahl Instruments goes live with SPOCweb
The redesign of the Palmer Wahl Instruments website is complete and the site went live on Monday. There have been rave reviews. The SPOCweb site features trade show schedule, contact list, calibration eMinder, RMA, RFQ, corporate profiles on 4 companies, catalog request or download, shopping cart and many other features.
There are thousands of thermal imaging products, process thermometers, pressure gauges, recorders and data loggers, testing and calibration, sensors and other industrial instrumentation. The products span 25 different catalogs from 4 different companies. Catalogs are divided into product lines and can be listed by category or by company. Users can easily find the products that they need with 3 - 5 clicks. Users can also use Model Number Search or Advanced Search to find the products that they are interested in.
Some products can be purchased directly from the factory online using the shopping cart. A Request For Quote (RFQ) option is available on all products. Product details can include a product highlights, description, picture, specification, drawing, applications, catalog, instruction manual, calibration instructions, features, benefits, how it works, related or accessory product lists, certifications, warranty information and much more.
Management of all this information is handled easily and efficiently with SPOCweb, a custom database maintenance program that updates a local network database. This local database updates the website database which is used to automatically create the thousands of pages that are available on the site.

Help Center Live added to 4yourwebsite support services.
Help Center Live is being implemented on 4yourwebsite.com to facilitate better customer service. Clients can enter service tickets and/or initiate online chat directly with sales and support specialists.

To see our Live Help system in action use the "Click Here for Online Support Status" button, Service Ticket entry is also available from the Support Status page and on the Client Tools page.

4yourwebsite Moves Downtown
As of August 1st, 2005 4yourwebsite´s Asheville Web Design Office is now at 263 Haywood Street in downtown Asheville. Still plenty of convenient parking and hours by appointment. A full-time receptionist is available for pick-up and drop-off of your Web Design materials.
Please be sure to note this change of address in your records. Website, eMail Address and Phone Numbers remain the same.

Dell Computer Deals :: Dell Deal of the Week :: Offers valid 09/30/05 through 10/06/05...

FREE Double Memory on ALL Desktops!
Up to $400 off Select Desktops and Workstations! (Offer excludes Dimension 2400 desktops and n series systems.)
FREE Double Memory on ALL Desktops!

Up to $1,000 off Select PowerEdge Servers! (Excludes PowerEdge 1855 and 7250 servers.)

FREE Quadruple Memory and RAID Card on PowerEdge 1800, 1850, 2800 and 2850 Servers!
FREE Double Memory and Processor Upgrade on PowerEdge 750 and 800 Servers!
FREE Double Memory and FREE Double Hard Drive on PowerEdge 750 and 800 Servers!

Up to 25% off Select Notebooks!
These are limited time offers, if you missed them Click Here for Current Specials

Crucial Memory Holiday Special - 10% Off

Offer expires December 26th, 2005

Patch Your Windows System Now to Avoid Sober Worm Attack
The next Sober Worm hits tomorrow, patch your system now! Since there is no official patch available from Microsoft we are strongly urging all of our clients to patch their system manually and immediately. Be aware that this patch will prevent you from being able to double-click a picture and viewing it with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer (there is a work-around for this if you have Firefox installed). Here are the instructions:
Click Start -> Run then enter CMD into the dialog box and click OK
At the command prompt type the following exactly and then press ENTER:
regsvr32 -u %windir%system32shimgvw.dll
You should then see a dialog box that says "DllUnregisterServer in C:...shimgvw.dll succeeded."
Click OK and your system is patched.



Next Click Start -> Control Panel and then Double-Click Folder Options. Then Click the File Types tab and find GIF, JPE, JPEG and JPG - change the "Opens with:" program for all of these to Firefox.
Now you are done and safe from the impending Sober attack.

Of course you should also make sure that your Antivirus program is installed properly and up-to-date. We strongly recommend a manual virus signature download to be sure that you have the very latest signatures.

Note: Microsoft has finally issued Windows XP Security Update for Windows XP (KB912919) that resolves this issue, Once you have installed this update successfully you can safely reinstate the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer by following the above instructions to open a command prompt window and then type this command:
regsvr32 %windir%system32shimgvw.dll
You should then see a dialog box that says "DllRegisterServer in C:...shimgvw.dll succeeded." Click OK and your system is all back to normal.
If you also changed the "Opens with:" follow the same instructions as above but click the "Restore" button for each of the file types.

And P-L-E-A-S-E make sure that your Antivirus program is installed properly and up-to-date.

Quotes of the day

Banner Therapy Products
This online therapy superstore is the best place to shop for all of your therapy needs at Guaranteed Lowest Prices. Best prices on over 5,000 professional-quality spa, massage, physical fitness, rehabilitation, homeopathic, and occupational therapy products.