JAK MEDIA Archives (15 posts)
Lifford Wine Agency
Lifford is the largest wine importer in Toronto. They supply wine to restaurants and hotels but they also sell wine to consumers. With their new site you can order the wine online and have it shipped to your door if you live in Ontario.
Why would you want to buy wine from Lifford? Because they carry wines that the LCBO does not and they only carry the best. If you’re feeling thirsty or your wine cellar is getting low then visit www.liffordwine.com and view their selection of wines.
Posted in JAK MEDIA and Web Design at 5:41 PM | Comments (0)
Coming up for air
It feels like I’ve been working 80 hours/week since last June. My JAK MEDIA clients have kept me insanely busy. I’m grateful for all the work but I need a break!
I’m close to finishing a major website redesign that began 5 months ago. I think it’s one of the finest sites I’ve designed and developed and I can’t wait to launch it. Prion Interactive has done a fabulous job of developing the back-end — content management system, ecommerce and more.
Yesterday another site I designed and developed was launched — Safety Smart DVDs for Disney Educational Productions. I’ve done a few projects for The Mickey but this is one of the few that people can actually see.
In the past five months I’ve also:- completed a couple of BrandSaver microsites
- redesigned Save.ca (in development and coming soon)
- redesigned a website for a Toronto ad agency
- designed and developed The Merchant Vintner Ltd.
- developed MissionExpo TO8
- designed and developed The Union of Canadian Transportation Employees
- developed Life’s Next Steps
- designed and developed Commissionaires
- designed and developed HOUSE OF COMPASSION of Toronto
Somewhere in there I managed to have my house torn down, rebuilt and move my office. I still have pictures to hang, boxes to unpack and my desk is covered in inches of paper and unopened mail.
So, if it feels like I’ve been ignoring you, or if my photoblog hasn’t been updated in a while, you know why. My apologies.
I’d love to be spending my evenings doing what normal people do — watch TV, rent a movie, read a book play hockey, sleep 8 hours.
I’ve been dying to get out and take some photos with my Canon 5D since I got it last June. Hasn’t happened. But soon, very soon I’ll have a life again and I’ll be in touch.
Posted in JAK MEDIA and Personal at 10:43 PM | Comments (2)
Getting things done with Tasks in Entourage
There is so much choice when it comes to Getting Things Done (GTD) applications and to-do list managers these days. Here is a sample of some of the better GTD apps that are out there:
- Things — Task management on the Mac
- Anxiety — Lightweight To-do Management
- Midnight Inbox
- Taskpaper
- iGTD
- Backpack
I just received an invite to try the alpha version of Things — a great looking app that runs only on Macintosh. I downloaded the alpha, installed it and stopped using the program after 5 minutes. I don’t have time to learn another piece of software right now. I don’t have time to create projects and prioritize lists, even if the software is a work of art.
I need a to-do list manager that is really simple and really fast. Tasks in Microsoft Entourage 2004 for Mac is something I’ve completely overlooked and does exactly what I need it to.
I use Entourage for email which means that Tasks is always available to me (Command-5). I don’t have to load up another app or fork out $20 - $50 to stay organized. The feature list in Tasks is weak compared to Things or Anxiety but the more time I spend playing around with features, the less time I spend getting things done.
I was using Backpack to stay on top of things. It’s web-based, simple and cheap. If you’re sharing your to-do list with others then this is a great solution. I was paying $5/month for a Basic account but found I wasn’t using it all of the time. I never travel in my job so I don’t need a mobile GTD solution. That’s $60/year that I can put back in my pocket or in Microsoft’s for the next Office upgrade.
If you’re looking for a fast, simple, no-frills to-do list manager then it might be right under your nose.
Posted in JAK MEDIA and OS X Software at 11:42 PM | Comments (1)
Inbox Zero
Process to zero, advanced common sense, convert to actions — things you need to know if you want to become more productive when it comes to email. Merlin Mann’s talk at Google is very informative and worth watching if your email is constantly checking for new messages and always on.
Here are some highlights:
- Not every email needs a response. That, is so 1993. Don’t do it!
- Respond quickly to email but don’t write a book. Keep it short.
- Your Inbox should only have unread email.
- Don’t use your Inbox as a to do list.
Check Email Less
Mann suggests turning off your email program for periods of time so that you can actually get some work completed without interruptions. How many times have you received new mail, stopped what you were doing to check it, only to find that it was SPAM or something really lame?
One of the reasons I like to work at 2 AM is that my phone isn’t ringing and I’m not getting client requests. I’m going to try checking my email less to increase my productivity.
My Inbox is down to 143 messages from 1,645 an hour ago.
Posted in JAK MEDIA and Web at 5:44 PM | Comments (0)
The Renovation Update
Our renovation is heading into the home stretch. There are (hopefully) only five weeks to go. At this point I just want to be in my new home office.
There are 14 new photos of the reno on my Flickr page.
Posted in JAK MEDIA at 11:20 PM | Comments (3)
Rob Nickerson Improv
After three months of branding, designing and developing, JAK MEDIA launched the Rob Nickerson Improv website.
The Reviews section is a new take on the traditional client testimonial page. It’s designed to look a little like a movie poster with quotes from movie reviews. Phase II of the site will have video clips of keynote speaker, Rob Nickerson.
If you’re looking for an interactive, entertaining, keynote speaker for your next corporate event, then check out Rob Nickerson Improv. Make a booking! Impress your boss! Get a raise!
Posted in JAK MEDIA at 3:52 PM | Comments (1)
Mitchell Hatt & Associates Inc.
Oh, oh. One of my clients seems to be a little jealous. On Monday, JAK MEDIA launched another website but I didn’t mention it here on Bombippy. Here is the email I received:
This week, JAK MEDIA launched Mitchell, Hatt & Associates Inc., a website for a dynamic engineering company. The site has been a work in progress for nearly two years but now that it’s launched I must say that I’m impressed. I’m really pleased with the design of the site and working with Gary was great!I never knew there was so much to know about sewers and watermains. These guys really know their stuff. So if you happen to have some land in need of development or simply want to upgrade Highway 401 look no further: Mitchell, Hatt & Associates Inc..
Some of you may want to send me an email and ask why the Mitchell, Hatt & Associates Inc. website took so long to develop, that it doesn’t look as impressive as say, the Trind website. Let me clarify.
The Mitchell, Hatt site was designed and developed in 2003 but a few nagging copy changes needed to be completed. This delayed the highly anticipated launch of the site. Mitchell, Hatt is a very busy company and very much in demand. Regrettably, marketing wasn’t a priority back then.
Posted in JAK MEDIA at 10:53 PM | Comments (2)
Trind
Last week, JAK MEDIA launched Trind.ca, a hand and nail care website/online store. It took a lot of work to get this site launched in time but it was worth it. I’m really pleased with the design and and the ecommerce part of the site (thanks Ryan).
Almost everything is valid XHTML and CSS. PHP, MySQL and a few other goodies used to power the back-end. And now for the shameless plug… if you have terrible nails and you’ve tried everything then Trind has the solution for you.
Posted in JAK MEDIA at 12:08 PM | Comments (0)
JointXL
I just finished a quick redesign of a homepage for JointXL. They make a natural joint supplement that reduces pain and inflammation.
If you’re an athlete or in your prime, and your knee’s aren’t what they used to be then you might want to give JointXL a try.
Posted in JAK MEDIA at 5:33 PM | Comments (0)
JAK MEDIA projects
I finally updated the JAK MEDIA website to include some of the recent projects that have been completed.
We did a complete rebranding for Venchiarutti Gagliardi Architect Inc. (VGA)—new logo, new cards, new letterhead, new website. Back in the fall we redesigned a website for MotivatedMinds. A few weeks ago we completed an online course registration for another client, Bay3000.
For more details and to see some of this work, visit JAK MEDIA.
Posted in JAK MEDIA at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)
MotivatedMinds
JAK MEDIA launched a new website today for MotivatedMinds Inc.
This was another redesign project. The new site is XHTML/CSS with a little bit of PHP thrown in. As usual, Microsoft Internet Explorer caused me a great deal of grief in rendering bugs.
It seems that IE6 has a hard time right-justifying italic text. The layout of the site would randomly break depending how the right-justified text flowed. Solution? Change the style sheet to normal text and left-justify the text.
Posted in JAK MEDIA at 4:02 PM | Comments (1)
Six Apart Comments on YPBC redesign
Six Apart (makers of Movable Type and TypePad) posted a news item on their ProNet Weblog about the Yorkminster Park Baptist Church website redesign that JAK MEDIA just completed. It’s always nice to get some recognition for the work you do. Thanks to Anil for his comments on the redesign.
Posted in JAK MEDIA at 10:33 AM
YPBC website
JAK MEDIA launched a new site today for Yorkminster Park Baptist Church in Toronto.
This is a redesign of their old site. The entire redesign, development and testing has taken over 10 months to complete. Everything was coded using XHTML/CSS and validates.
I used Movable Type 3.15 for the content management system (CMS) to publish news on the homepage and other pages throughout the site. It’s taken a long time to get this one off the ground but the client is very pleased with the new look. Using the new CMS they can update the news related content, quickly and easily.
Posted in JAK MEDIA at 12:06 PM | Comments (5)
Bay3000 website makes CSS Beauty
A website I redesigned last spring was selected as an entry into CSS Beauty—a CSS design showcase. I redesigned the Bay3000 Corporate Education website using XHTML and CSS instead of the “old way” of using HTML tables for the layout.
It’s nice to be recognized for design work, even if I don’t recognize it until 6 months later! By the way, I take no credit for the Bay3000 Corporate Education logo.
Posted in JAK MEDIA at 10:30 AM | Comments (1)
JAK MEDIA has moved!
After being robbed twice, pleading my with my landlord to get out of my lease, a miracle occured. Last Friday I was officialy released from my office lease in Markham. On Saturday I moved out of my old office and into a new one in Toronto. Thanksgiving? You bet!
The new office is at 577 Kingston Road in the Upper Beaches. Instead of a 45 minute rush-hour commute, I’ll be at the office in 10 minutes. Downtown Toronto is 15-20 minutes away.
The new office is a lot smaller than the old one. I used to have 724 sq.ft. of space. I’ve down-sized to a mere 200 sq.ft. which is actually plenty of room. The difficult part is figuring out what to put into storage, what to sell, and what I should just give away.
I get my phones and DSL service tomorrow. Once the lines are put in I’ll make an official announcement and publish the new numbers.
Posted in JAK MEDIA at 5:05 PM
