Helibo

I would just like to let you know that there might not be a new post for the next couple of days, but if you can wait, just hold on that little longer, we will have something for everyone.

I myself am working on getting a competition together, without saying what the prize will be, it will be great for designers and programmers or anyone that would like to get learn on either of the subjects.

And to top that, I am also working on something for all wordpress bloggers, a free theme. Yeah, you read right! We will be releasing a new wordpress theme that will be freely available to download right here on Helibo.com. So check back every day, or subscribe to the RSS Feed so you can hear about it first!

And to finish off, I thank everyone for their support so far.

When it comes to Content Management there is bound to be a system that is right for you and your site. It’s just a case of searching for the perfect system. Each CMS has good points and bad points, and I am yet to come across one that is perfect in every way. While Wordpress is good for some sites, Joomla, or e107 is better for others.

A great site to find Open Source Content Management Systems is OpenSourceCMS, you are able to view different systems and read comments from other users that have tried that CMS. The best feature by far allows you to actually login to the system and try it out from an administartor perspective, allowing you to look around and see what features are built in from the word Go! By using this site you can easily browse through system after system to find the one that is right for you.

When choosing a CMS you also need to take into consideration what the system offers in terms of support, updates and documentation. There is little point of choosing a system that hasn’t been updated for years as there is a higher risk of security issues arising.

Another thing to take into consideration is the amount of skins and plugins that you can use on your site to add as much functionality to your site as you need. If the system doesn’t have many plugins then you will have a harder time adding the functionality you want your site to have. If you have the knowledge you can of course create your own plugins and create the functionality yourself.

The choice is yours, make sure you make the right decision to make your site successful.

There has been many people who have a great portfolio and do their work great but they have one thing lacking, their lacking communication skills.

Professional Manner 

When you are talking to your clients, you must speak in a professional manner.   What a professional manner means is to talk fluent english (e.g. Hello. How may I help you? and not like yo wAts ^).  This is a very important element while communicating with your clients so they know what you mean, so they can understand you, and they know you are professional and not a immature kid.  Emoticons Another thing I see when people talk to their clients is emoticons being overly used. I am not telling you not to use emoticons at all but not many.  Maybe like one or two a chat and not 1 - 2 every couple sentences.

What was that?

A client doesn’t like it when you don’t know what they are talking about. Read it the first time, if you don’t know what they mean the first time then read it a couple more times.  After reading it a few times and you still don’t know what they said then it is alright to ask what they said. When you ask what they said say something like “I’m sorry, what do you mean” or “I’m sorry, I do not understand, can you please repeat that.” and this also relates back to the Professional Manner section because the last thing a clients wants to hear is “Watcha mean?” or “I can’t understand you bye.”

Can you wait? 

Clients love it when they don’t have to hold on or wait. You will lose clients if you always make them hold on and wait for a response. There are reasons they could wait (e.g. If you have to find something to provide them with to answer their question).  To prevent yourself from telling your clients to hold on, know what your talking about and study what you know.

Be nice!

Another aspect in keeping your clients is to be nice. Don’t curse, don’t say racial slurs, and don’t joke around about stuff that can be taken the wrong way. Don’t argue with your clients because it will turn them away. Remember this statement, “Your clients are always right.”   If you follow this article then you will keep more of your clients. I hope you enjoyed reading it. 

From something I read a while ago, “Shiny and Glossy elements are now officially outdated!”, I see it now as a fact. However as a designer myself, I must admit I still do create these shiny and glossy elements, but one way you could look at it, is that this old web 2.0 (Shiny and Glossy) trend, has become a smoking addiction to many players of Adobe Photoshop.

In event to this, I took action only weeks ago where I made my final glossy design. Many people commented that it was nice, but those comments were only from other designers of this shiny and glossy web 2.0 trend. In result, I asked some of my old clients what they thought of it, amongst other designs that I had done to this style, and they’re comments were negative.

I didn’t ask why, I already knew the answer. The answer, is that the clients I did ask were corporate companies, meaning professionalism and usability was the key to there type of websites. So web 2.0 is not the way to go, for any professional sort.

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Regarding a previous post of mine about 3D becoming unpopular, I looked through my bookmarks earlier today and found this amazing website that I almost had forgotten about.

Gnomonology is a fantastic website that provides a tremendous amount of tutorials. The tutorials are done by video, which the only downside is that you have to pay for them. But looking at the quality, they’re quite reasonable.

So if your looking to get into creating 3D models, sculptures or scenery, I would highly recommend Gnomonology for tutorials. They don’t base the tutorial around one type of software either, there’s many. From Maya, Photoshop, 3D Studio Max to After Effects, Headus, Lightwave and more!

I’m definitely going to be sitting down and going through them sometime soon.

A great way to keep your website up to date, is by shedding some light in different areas. By maintaining the corresponding elements but manipulating the way it draws attention, you should see a significant change. Let me show you.

A great example I found today, was the re-brand of Eden.

You can the rest of the above image on their homepage, and it shows they’ve even manipulated the logo as well. And doing this can give your website another boost in freshness. What I would suggest is don’t do this continuously, but perhaps every 6 months or so. Keep your website the same from a very long period of time can start to turn peoples heads away. It’s true!

Design and the web itself is changing on a daily basis, so by keeping your websites design clean and fresh, you should be able to keep up with standards of that time.

I believe people could save a lot of money by doing this, instead of after 2 or more years, having a complete re-design of ones website. Wouldn’t you say so?

9 years in the web industry and I have seen the web separate into 4 sections. The most popular section now is the use of vector illustration, and flat based websites with gradients, points and blended shapes. Many websites being somewhat glossy, also known as the web 2.0 design trend. In the beginning of 2008, being a CSS gallery watcher, I had started to recognise that a lot of these websites are becoming more popular by the day. And the way these websites are being built design wise, is improving dramatically. Question is, “How far is web 2.0 going to go, will there be an end?”

The second section would have to be flash. There are thousands of websites being built in flash every year, but are not widely recognised compared to web 2.0. A question that I ask myself all the time is, “Why is flash not the best way to build your website?”

Many people will argue at the fact that Flash should be used depending on the websites type. For example, Ford. Ford could have been done in either plain html/css, using a content management system, however they chose to give the user, that wow factor when visiting the website. So why do designers, tend to ignore the use of flash today?

Now for the third section, I decided to give this to very informative websites, one’s which are built with no styling, or no design at all. These are still widely popular when searching in Google. We have all seen these, and I doubt there will be a day when we can discard them.

I decided to put the 3D section at 4th, because we are not seeing many websites at all with the use of this. Ignoring the use of 3D in flash websites, just 3D alone is becoming unpopular. The only genre I have seen 3D being used very well, is in the gaming industry. A very great example of 3D being used, would have to be at High Fidelity, which was designed and built by the guys at 9dots. I believe that this sort of website immediately attracts the users attention, where the great use of detail is immense.

So here’s the question for you readers, “Do you think the use of 3D should come back?“

Below I have put together a list of 7 great web applications to help you with your business. From Project Management, Cash Flow Management to Creating Invoices. So let’s begin..

5pm - Project Management

5pm™ is a next generation web-based project management tool.
It’s flexible and simple to use. The powerful features are accessed through a smart customizable interface. Everything is within a click or two.

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We are now providing a Web Consultation service which will consist of providing you with a highly detailed and unique review of your website, from the overall design and structure and its code, to SEO and marketing techniques that will help you get more out of your website.

All you are required to do to start is simply head over to the right hand side and click on the “Web Consultation” banner in the sidebar, and fill out the form briefly, providing some details of your website.

As an introductory offer, we will be providing this service at a one time fee of $50.00, that’s over a 60% discount from what the initial price will be. Cheap as chips for a quality service! And once payment has been authorised, a member of the team will be in touch with you to receive some details about your website, and then to give your review to you.

With our review we will be providing help and tips on how to lift your website off the ground. We won’t do this for you, but it will give you the correct information and roots to go down in order to get the best out of your website.

So what are you waiting for? Start your consultation today!

Months ago I had the idea to start Helibo as a personal blog. It wasn’t until recently when I decided to take Helibo to another level, where many articles about the web industry would be written by myself and 2 other people. So before I go on, I would first like to introduce, Xavier and Andy who will be writing articles for Helibo.

So today is the day where I announce the launch of Helibo, and how I will start this is by telling you where the name ‘Helibo’ came from. To answer, I was using a great tool called Tabeze to brainstorm my domain ideas really quickly. Roughly guessing, I would have made over a 100 attempts to come up with something short and decent. So there it is, and if you struggle to pronounce the name, this may help you - “Hair-Lee-Bow”.

I would also like to explain that this site was NOT created to be flipped, nor have I got the intentions of selling Helibo. With that being said, Helibo isn’t about making any money, it’s about providing thorough information about the web today which will give you as the user, a better understanding of it. Even if some articles are very detailed about different topics, we wouldn’t like you to turn your head away.

So if you know of a topic that you do not understand about the Internet, please feel free to contact us and we can add it in our topic box. Yes, we have one!

We have big plans for Helibo, and one way for us to succeed is by you giving us help. Give us honest feedback, interact with other members, and possibly submit your own articles and get paid. Helibo will be about sharing knowledge, and building an efficient blog about the web today.

If you a personal interested in any of the following:

• Learning about Identity, and strengthening your brand.
• How to interact with clients properly
• How to get yourself above your competition
• Dominating you or your business in the industry
• Making money online
• How to generate a buzz
• How to make your design a non 20 second look
• Learn more from programming
• Learning from industry leaders through interviews and articles
• And much more!

Then keep coming back or contribute to Helibo by grabbing an RSS feed, we know you love them!

So to finish off today’s introductory phase, I would like to Thank everyone for helping me launch Helibo. There is much more to come, so we suggest you be back very soon!