Yes, Border7 employees may start stalking the 37Signals company. I know, its not the best trait ever, but we really love their product offerings. What’s really awesome is what we read on their blog. Sadly, I do not own an iPhone and don’t intend on owning one. Hopefully they’ll make something to work for the Blackberry. But at any rate, I still love the fact that they are making their offerings available in a to go format.

We use a lot of their features here as well. If you access our My Account, you will see that it Basecamp (their flagship product). On the inside, we use Campfire to keep our chats in one location and we also utilize HighRise for our CRM needs. So yes, we definately do love them. And we’ll try to keep the stalking to a minimum.

We just signed a new client, Limitless MMA, and have begun working for them. We are doing an e-commerce site for them utilizing the Volusion software. We created a design to make them stand apart from other stores and also made an appealing logo. You can see a nifty flash header navigation for the various brand offerings they sell. Check them out and if you see something you like, let them know that Border7 sent you.

I believe as it stands that 80% of the world uses Internet Explorer 6. I don’t recall exactly how long it has been, but Internet Explorer 7 has been out for a while as well. Firefox is an amazing browser as it follows standards, and they will be releasing a new version later this year. Internet Explorer is also working on their next version. One mustn’t forget that Opera and Safari also exists too.

There is a sea of browsers and I’ve only mentioned the mainstream ones. For all I know there are numerous others that a small niche group are using. The problem with all these browsers is that each browser has its own set of rules and with that, webpages display different in each. As a design firm, all I can say is, it is one of the most aggravating things to deal with. You can have something that displays perfectly in IE and FF but when you open it up in Safari it looks like you threw up the design on the page.

Unfortunately, the only solutions are that everyone start using the same browser or the companies developing the browsers get their butts in gear and start following the same standards. Sorry for the rant, but I just needed to vent that I am not looking forward to a new IE, unless they standardize it with Firefox. By the way, if you are tired of IE like most people are, Firefox is amazing.

I read Copyblogger almost religiously and I recently stumbled on his “10 Effective Ways to Get More Blog Subscribers” post. I agree with everything has there but there are 3 that really hit a base with me

1. Make it Easy and Obvious

The easiest way to keep people from subscribing is to make it difficult. When I finally decided to subscribe to all the sites I would read, it was a tad frustrating. Each page had the RSS link in multiple locations. It could be the word RSS on the top of the site, or on the bottom. Some had the actual image at the top of their navigation or at the end of each post. The fact that it wasn’t consistent bothered me. But all in all, I decided the RSS image in the navigation and then the word RSS at the bottom called out to me. If you only do the image, and its not in an obvious place, you just made it impossible for me to subscribe. No one wants to spend time looking for something that should be painfully obvious. You want people to subscribe to you, make it easy for them.

2. Networking

Networking is always important. Not only in blogging, but in business, and even in life. People do not realize it, but when you speak to a new person and you start talking about your interests, you are networking. Everyone has interests, and other people may have the same interests that you have. In the blog world, it is the same. You don’t want to sell yourself to everyone, but you want to show that you are a valuable resource. The best way to do that is to assist others in whatever haphazard they need assistance with. By showing that you are helpful and give value, they will want to see what else you have to offer. Networking builds communities and groups that allow you to spread the word easily and quickly. And remember, each person you network with, has their own network to spread the word.

3. Give them something

People are more inclined to do something if you are giving them something for it. If you want more people to come to your site, or more people to subscribe, give them a reason to. You can offer them a free e-book, a free subscription to somewhere else that you are affiliated to, or even a gas card (if you end up offering this, let me know because I want in). By offering a reward, people are more inclined to do something. But make sure its something that you can keep track of, in regards to the reward and what needs to be attained to achieve the reward.

As it stands, all of Border7’s monetary records are held in Paypal statements, Bank statements, and an Excel spreadsheet.

Part of being a start up is getting your act together. We have a copy of Quickbooks, but so far it just seems like a complicated piece of software that has lots of bells and whistles. So far, it seems a little too much for what we need: a simple invoicing software that lets us track the funds we receive and also track our own expenses to compare our spending versus income.

Any suggestions?

Resolutions are brushed off and rarely accomplished. Goals, on the other hand, are something you can monitor and track. A few goals that Border7 has for this year:

• Finally finish our website! Granted, working for clients is a lot better than getting our site done, but eventually our own site would be nice to have.
• Redesign and FINALIZE the site plan. We keep coming up with new ideas which postpone its completion.
• Come up with a few offerings beyond web & graphic design

Notice that we only have a few goals for the year? That’s because they’re actually pretty big goals that may take a long time. Another thing about goals is that, you can have a lot, but in the end, you’ll just have a few things never done. Its best to keep the list short that way when one is completed, you really feel joyous. If, by some shear luck or a miracle happens, we manage to complete these three goals before the year’s end, we can come up with an end of the year goal plan. Wish us luck, and may all your goals be acheived!

When I was in middle school, I use to want to be an Animator and it was my dream to work for Pixar. I loved what they stood for and the work they did. Every movie they had made to that point was amazing, and since then, all movies have proven to be able to stand the test of time.

In Fast Company, they showed some early looks of Buzz Lightyear and a little history of the company. I will admit I felt a little sad that they became part of the Disney corporation (instead of just having Disney distribute), but the fact that Pixar has managed to maintain their culture while being part of the Big Disney is really exciting and proves that a company that truly believes in its core values and vision can not only provide amazing products, but can holdfast against anything and still provide those amazing products.