Blog entries tagged 4web news

Promoting 4Web

Jen Kramer — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:36:35 +0100

We've been very fortunate to have two great articles come out on 4Web in the last month or so.

The first was posted at the Joomla Community site, and it covers running a web development business in a rural environment.

The second article is at Jeanne Yocum's blog on Small Business Success. It covers the lessons we've learned in running a business over the last 10 years.

Remember there is so much more to running a web development firm than just knowing how to code. There's...

Growing The Business

Jen Kramer — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 05:00:00 +0100

Five years ago, I went back to work for someone else briefly. It was a small web development shop in my local area. I was employee #4, after the owner, his wife, and the chief developer. I took over many of the smaller websites that needed to be built, completely freeing my boss from having to worry about them. I talked to clients, gathered specs, and built the website while learning Mambo and Joomla.

During the year I worked there, my boss grew the company from 4 people to 12.

...

Best Business Decision Made: Attending CMS Expo

Jen Kramer — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 23:28:36 +0100

I have been designing and developing websites for 10 years now, but my company, 4Web Inc., has only been around for 2 years. (Prior to that, I ran a freelance company, Focused Consulting LLC.)

Back in 4Web's infancy, my colleagues attended the very first CMS Expo in May 2008. (I was at Adobe headquarters for an Adobe User Group Manager summit and could not attend.) Back then it was a Joomla conference mostly. The networking was great, though, and my colleagues got to meet a lot o...

Come see me at CMS Expo!

Jen Kramer — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:48:50 +0100

I'm the Joomla Track Leader at the CMS Expo conference, happening May 3-5, 2010, in Evanston, IL (outside of Chicago). I am so excited to be back for my 3rd Expo conference!

This time, I'll be presenting the Joomla SiteBuilder sessions, where you'll learn secrets about putting Joomla sites together and styling them.

Ex...

Preparing CMS Web Graphics Using Open Source Tools

Jen Kramer — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:22:40 +0100

My video is now available at Lynda.com. Check out this free clip at YouTube!

Two new titles for Lynda.com in the can, and other news

Jen Kramer — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:12:18 +0100

I just got back from a great week at Lynda.com, recording two more titles, hopefully out soon.

The first title is "CMS Website Strategy and Planning", and it covers all of the things you should think about and talk about with your client before building your website.

The second title is "Preparing CMS Web Graphics Using Open Source Tools". It covers how to think about a good design for a CMS as well as create an HTML page using GIMP for graphics and KompoZer for writing th...

Working on a book!

Jen Kramer — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:02:55 +0100

It's been way too long since I've posted, but that's because I'm spending many hours each day writing a book. Joomla! Start to Finish: How to Plan, Execute, and Maintain Your Web Site is due to be published in January next year by Wrox Press.

Writing a book has definitely been the most challengi...

OK, it's a vanity post...

Jen Kramer — Sat, 16 May 2009 05:00:00 +0100

... but I am all excited about this past week on Joomla.org.

First, Amy Stephen wrote a very nice article about me, in response to my post about those who can't do, teach. I was really surprised but am really grateful to Amy for the nice article.

Then, Neri Valentin-Macias wrote a terrific article about the Lynda.com movies that Joe LeBlanc and I create...

Lynda.com Joomla basics videos in planning!

Jen Kramer — Wed, 06 May 2009 05:00:00 +0100

Lynda Weinman and I are scheduled to chat next week about some new movies for Lynda.com. She has a great description on her new blog of what we're discussing. It's the same thing I've been discussing with many of you. When I created the Joomla templates movies, my assumption was that people knew how to make a static HTML web page with an external stylesheet. Since then, I've heard from some of you at the user groups, and others at conferences and online, that this wasn...

CMS Expo Time Again!

Jen Kramer — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 05:00:00 +0100

Heidi and I are here in Evanston, IL, at the Hotel Orrington for CMS Expo, now through May 1. It's a very cute town, with lots of stuff within walking distance.

If you're here for Expo, be sure to drop by our booth for Joomla template cheat sheet cards and a brochure describing Marlboro College Grad School's new Certificate in Open Source Web Development.

We've also got a sale on Lynda.com DVD training! You can buy Jen's "Joomla! Creating and Editing Custom Templates" o...

Launched! New England Vegetable Management Guide

Jen Kramer — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 06:00:00 +0100

Today we launched the New England Vegetable Management Guide website.

This site was a challenge because we were tasked with putting a whole book on the web.

The Vegetable Guide is published bi-annually. It is composed by some of the most respected experts from all over New England.

Formerly, this group of professors used to exchange Word documents through email as they revised the Guide for the next year. Eventually, someone would put these Word documents together and ...

Launched! Malcolm Pirnie!

Jen Kramer — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 06:00:00 +0100

We are very pleased to announce the re-launch of Malcolm Pirnie's website. They are an environmental consulting firm based in White Plains, NY.

We originally built Pirnie's site back in 2006 in Joomla 1.0. At that point in time, we made heavy use of exmenu -- an extension that allowed menus to be broken into a main top nav and a left side nav. I think I had about 8 templates on the site as well, including one for the home page, one blank page, and about 6 variations on the i...

Happy birthday to us...

Jen Kramer — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 06:00:00 +0100

Happy New Year, dear readers, and Happy Birthday to 4Web! Today we are 1 year old. And what a year it's been.

After setting up our company, we've landed a bunch of new business as well as building on old business from clients from our former freelance companies.

Our biggest highlights of 2008 were winning the Best E-Commerce Site award at the CMS Expo conference, launching the Brew Your Own and WineMaker sites, and all of our presentations at CMS Expo.

On tap in ...

We Win! Best Joomla E-Commerce Site!

Jen Kramer — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 06:00:00 +0100

Last night at the CMS Expo awards, we won Best Joomla E-Commerce site for our work on WineMaker Magazine. Yay us; yay WineMaker! Bill is going to get our certificate scanned in so we can put it up on the site and we'll share it with you then.

Lynda.com Joomla templates videos released!

Jen Kramer — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:00:00 +0100

I'm tickled to announce that my new videos, "Joomla! Creating and Editing Custom Templates" was released at Lynda.com today. Check them out! Starting tomorrow, there will be a live action shot of me doing the introduction. There are a few free videos, so please go click all over them and check them out. Better yet, subscribe! Lynda.com is a great resource for learning all kinds of great skills.

My second set of videos, "Joomla! Advanced CSS" will be out later, ...

Launched! Concord Group Insurance!

Jen Kramer — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 06:00:00 +0100

In conjunction with Church & Main, we've launched the new Concord Group Insurance site.

CGI is a longtime client of Church & Main. Their previous site was static HTML. While it looked great, it wasn't possible for CGI to make their own edits.

Church & Main provided us with all graphic design direction as well as strategy for the site. We built the site based on their requirements.

Most people all want to know about "the little guy down in the corner&qu...

Launched! Brew Your Own Magazine!

Jen Kramer — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 06:00:00 +0100

Finally, after months of work, we are thrilled to announce we've launched Brew Your Own: The How-To Homebrew Beer Magazine.

This is a companion site to WineMaker Magazine, which was released earlier, in September.

BYO has been around for years, and puts out all kinds of interesting articles and resources for home beer brewers. We used a ton of extensions to make this site go, including JoomSuite Content, RS Gallery 2, MyBlog, VirtueMart, the Joomla poll and the Joomla banner mod...

In the can: Joomla template and CSS videos via Lynda.com

Jen Kramer — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 05:00:00 +0100

I just got back from a week in Ventura, CA, working for Lynda.com. If you don't know them, they are one of the best training resources out there for most things related to web development. Way back at Dreamweaver 3 and Photoshop 5.5, I learned these programs via Lynda.com Hands-On Training books. They've since put a huge emphasis on their online training video library. The videos are fantastic and very helpful for explaining how to do just about anything in the Adobe or web ...

Denver Expo

Samantha Bovat — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 05:00:00 +0100

I'll tell you what, the excitement is sure building for this team of 4Web to attend the conference in December. We are all looking forward to meeting all sorts of experts and to sharing our insights on how we are using Joomla to enhance our clients' reputations!

Joomla is just fabulous and this conference will be an excellent opportunity to connect with others who are using such a flexible and powerful CMS. Jen, Bill and I will be in Denver on Wednesday to lead the Joomla Basics Boot ...

4Web Update: Why are we so busy in this economy?

Jen Kramer — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 05:00:00 +0100

For our fans, we haven't been posting much because... well, we've been awfully busy. We are thrilled with our first 9 months in business. We established a new company, just as the economy was tanking and gas and oil prices were going sky-high. Yet we've had plenty of leads, and plenty of work to keep us very busy.

Watch this blog over the next 3 months. We anticipate launching 4 large, substantial sites by the end of the year, all with various custom-coded components and modules, and of...