Website Development

TKG Project Wins Award with Name Too Long for this Post Title

Phil — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 20:03:19 +0000

I’d like to take this moment (and this incredibly long sentence) to announce that Buckle Down Publishing’s website has won The Association of Educational Publisher’s 2008 Beacon Award for Excellence in Website / E-Commerce. The name kinda lost me there at the end, but I’m pretty sure that this means that we, as the developers of this site, did something good. Good for Buckle Down Publishing as well for conceiving (and constantly revewing and improving) a clear and strong vision for how their site should look and function to best serve their customers. And for giving us money. Definately never a bad idea to give us money.

Applying semantics the “old school” way?

james — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:45:16 +0000

I was having an interesting conversation today regarding POSH with a colleague during the development of a back-end system. Over the years, we have both detached ourselves from the mind-set/methodology of using tables for layout in our markup (generally speaking - properly separating content from presentation). Although, towards the end of the conversation, we delved into the use of Microformats to further semantically markup items such as contact information and mailing addresses, and my colleague brought up an interesting assumption that he made regarding use of the class=”" on HTML markup to Microformat it. Essentially with this assumption, he concluded that applying CSS was the sole purpose of the class attribute and therefore applying classes to the markup only to get the data microformatted was the same as using the “table” tag to layout a page.

Now, I voluntarily teach a class covering semantic markup of HTML and applied CSS. A good number of the students traditionally in attendance are those that are still familiar with the “old school” markup techniques (and fresh out of college, no less). I have yet to have a student or another colleague have the same assumption, but I can clearly see now how that could be concluded without a proper education, so I am putting this out there educationally to help others with a similar assumption.

Here is what I quickly found on the topic to help him understand the “old school” way is not being duplicated again by “presentationally” applying classes to markup to solely “format” it. The first two seem a little light in their description though, so this has spurred my colleague to seek out what those “other” straight-forward uses of the class attribute are. What do you know of? Drop me a line and let me know.

W3C - says For general purpose processing by user agents
Web Design Group says An author could use when giving Java code - so use for self-identification in programming or further development


Tantek’s Blog - some other things to note



TKG Accepted as Judge for 2008 WebAwards
Phil — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:28:48 +0000
The Web Marketing Association’s WebAwards have added something new for 2008 – the critical eye of our own James Golden. Since 1997, these annual awards have recognized websites in 96 different industries for achievement and excellence in original design, technical development, functionality, SEO efforts and marketing campaigns. We figured we should get involved due to the organization’s goals of encouraging standards and rewarding innovation in the web industry (causes whose banners we have been known to raise from time to time). We gave them James as he is our own personal project critic. Once James is okay with it, it is certain that the client - being a mere mortal - will most assuredly approve.
We first became involved with the awards last year with the most positive of possible introductions - we won one (Outstanding Achievement in Website Development for Schumacher Homes). So this year James will join judges from 37 different countries and countless organizations (seriously, I tried) in determining who this year’s winners will be. This of course means that our projects are no longer eligible to win, but that’s a price we’re willing to pay to have James scrutinize someone else’s work for a few weeks.
If you have a site that you would like to nominate, click here , and hurry as the nomination process wraps up this Friday, June 13th.




A Blank Canvas
David — Wed, 28 May 2008 13:47:27 +0000
It’s fitting that I should choose to begin this (my first design blog) where all design projects begin…with “a blank canvas”.  I would like to emphasize how blank space can be a useful design element if used properly. I’ve noticed that many designers rush to fill in  the canvas with anything, and everything they can, as though the canvas were something to be ashamed of (even to the extent of placing animated flame gifs on their sites). Sometimes we are afraid to show a design-in-progress for fear that others will see our designs half dressed. Well I’m taking a stand to liberate the web. Don’t cover it up, learn to love your canvas. Now obviously you can’t always control the amount of content, or imagery that is required for every site, but a well spaced layout is far more appealing than you may have realized. When you clutter a design you lose symmetry quickly, and symmetry is one of the primary principles of good design. Large fonts, and big logos are the most common violations in this regard. These are usually the first elements used in the design, and thus their size is often increased to fill that shameful canvas. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not promoting minimalism on the web, I’m just hoping to reduce some needless clutter and maybe increase the symmetry.




TKG Invited to Participate in ITT Tech’s Advisory Committee
Phil — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:37:12 +0000
I wasn’t sure how to go about trying to make this interesting or exciting, but now that I see the headline written out I can tell that I needn’t have worried - the thing practically jumps right off the page. Being invited to ITT Technical Institute’s next Advisory Committee board meeting might not sound like alot of fun to you, but our own Mr. Golden is pretty excited about it. This invitation will allow The Karcher Group the chance to help guide the ever-evolving corriculum for the School of Information Technology - an opportunity that a) gives us the ear of the people teaching our future employees (regarding issues such as having pop-ups on your homepage and building your site in Cold Fusion…), and b) furthers our work with the movement to keep technology-minded young people living and working in Northeast Ohio. Fun indeed people, fun indeed.




June SEO Seminar and Workshop in Columbus – So Close, You Can Already Smell the Dry-Erase Markers
Phil — Fri, 23 May 2008 19:56:40 +0000
Just a quick reminder that our next SEO seminar and workshop is rapidly approaching. This one will be in Columbus on June 13th (special “early bird” pricing is available until June 1st), and will continue the theme of our 2008 series of SEO seminars – giving people information and techniques that they can actually go back to their job and use. This latest seminar and workshop will also include this year’s goal of limited class size to encourage questions and interaction with the presenters. Dates, times, pricing and location are as follows:
Friday, June 13, 2008

9:00 AM-2:00 PM (Seminar) 

2:00 PM-4:00 PM (Workshop) 

Doors open at 8:30 AM, lunch is provided 

Business Technology Center (by OSU) 

1275 Kinnear Rd.

Columbus, Ohio 43212 

Seminar $249.00 

Seminar + Workshop $399.00
I could write out the details for the activities and stuff here, but someone was already forced to do that for our site so I’ll direct you there instead. Want to see some less-than-flattering head shots of people who will be speaking there? Bam, there you go. Wondering if the seminar is right for you? Wonder no longer. How about a map and some directions? Wanna see a baby chipmunk? What’s up now? Don’t even try to test me today - I’ve got the text links code on my clipboard and I can hit Ctrl V without even looking down at my hands.




The Karcher Group is one of “Ten Most Dependable” of 2008
Phil — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:55:28 +0000
That’s right, The Karcher Group has been selected as one of the Ten Most Dependable Web Designers of the Central U.S. for 2008 by Entrepreneur Magazine. Speaking as the sole company from Ohio included this year, we would like to say “sweet”, and “thanks for noticing”. So what criteria was met to make the cut?

5+ Years of Industry Experience: They seemed to find our doubling of that sufficient
15+ Web Sites Per Year: Check
50+ Clients: How does 500 grab ya?

Though we of course remain humble, we would like to take this opportunity to say “go us”. So check out our award-winningly-dependable Web design, and remember that our custom programming, hosting, colocation, marketing and SEO services are pretty darn stalwart as well.




It’s Official - The Karcher Group is now at TKG.com
Phil — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:35:02 +0000
As promised last week, we now have officially taken over the domain tkg.com. Is has already proven to be easier to remember and fits better on a pen their our previous address, and as such I am willing to declare this a good thing. So check it out as soon as you have a chance - it looks exactly the same, but now the address bar has a lot less letters in it.




And it is at this time, with a heavy heart…
james — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 19:01:48 +0000
Greetings friends, family and distinguished colleagues,
As most all of you know, I stand gainfully employed as the VP/Development with The Karcher Group, Inc. in the Canton area. You may also know that I have grown with “my” company nearly a decade and we’ve been through many ups and downs along the way. Regardless of the times, The Karcher Group has flourished and is now celebrating a 10 year anniversary. And it is at this time, with a heavy heart, that I must disclose to you that The Karcher Group is about to go and do something completely irrational to all of it’s faithful employees?
No, it is not what you’re thinking - “I’m being fired” or “We’re closing our doors” - it’s even worse! The Karcher Group, Inc. will be changing it’s web address to a 3-letter domain!
We’ve been working for 10 d$%n years to gain the best SEO ranking, client and industry credibility building the best standards-based, accessible websites possible and then we have to go and be “fortunate” enough to obtain a 3-letter domain (tkg.com). I guess you can consider it our birthday present to ourselves. This, no doubt, is a major undertaking that will put TKG’s skills to the test to maintain all we have established in the last decade. So, in traditional TKG style, we plan on making this experience a comprehensive social case-study that we hope to share with the industry (being that this may the first instance of it’s kind). We hope that all of you will watch and become an active part of this venture.
Should you choose to accept, this is a start to where your efforts would be most beneficial?
On any media outlet you can get your hands on, promote either this message or a simple mention of the event taking place along with a link back to tkg.com. Please let us know you are becoming involved so we can personally thank you, give you a mention in the case-study and keep you in the loop as to what and when things are happening. Oh, if you have other ideas, by all means, pass them along too! If we choose to implement them, we’ll reward you handsomely for it.
So long thekarchergroup.com and hello tkg!
Thanks in advance for any and all efforts from myself and the rest of your friends here at TKG.



TheKarcherGroup.com has Acquired the Rarest of Online Commodities – the 3 Letter Domain
Phil — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:45:06 +0000
That’s right, starting early next week, we are moving to TKG.com. It’s the Web industry equivalent of moving to a new office. I have no idea where to go with that… okay, it’s nothing like changing offices at all whatsoever, except suddenly you are handing out pens with the wrong address on them. This is still pretty exciting though as three letter domains do have one key feature in common with prime real estate; it’s not like they can make any more of them.
So after ten years of pursuit (the last three of which have been outright courtship), we all have new email addresses and the lives of the poor souls in SEO are now over for the foreseeable future. For a better explanation of these recent exciting events and the (dire) consequences for our SEO personnel, feel free to go over my head and read what our owner had to say about the pending domain switch to TKG.com.