July 2010
3 posts
3 tags
Building A Web App From Scratch: Day 1
I’ve been building web applications since 1996. Today, fourteen years later, I’m creating another web app, from the ground up, posting daily step-by-step how it’s done as I work. I’ll be developing a web app to easily handle group t-shirt orders for a screen printing company here in Indianapolis, near Fishers.
In June 2009, The Art Press approached Think Say Do about...
3 tags
Website for Ingold Sound Systems, LLC
A few months ago Ernie Ingold, founder and expert sound engineer at Ingold Sound Systems in Shelby, Ohio, contacted me for assistance with designing and developing a new website. Late last week, after a month of working on the project, we launched the new site.
Check Out IngoldSoundSystems.com
One of the things I am passionate about is accessibility. All of my sites allow a visitor to turn off...
Tracking SEO Conversions by Phone (via... →
Last week Doug Karr of DK New Media contacted me with a request to develop a small JavaScript function to modify a web page based off the referring search engine keywords. For example, if you search for “php development noblesville,” my site will be the first link in Google. If you click on that link, Google sends me information about the keywords you used to find me. Using that...
March 2010
1 post
Business Plan 2010: Part 2
This evening I will be attending the Rainmakers Techmakers session at Scotty’s downtown Indianapolis.
As part of Think Say Do’s ongoing business focusing plan for 2010, I will be out at more networking events talking with people to see how we can help. We’ve also launched a new introduction page about Think Say Do. We’ll be launching a new, more robust site once the dust...
February 2010
1 post
2 tags
Business Plan 2010: Part 1
Ok, so last week on Twitter I mentioned that I would be talking about Think Say Do’s new business plan. Here is the first quick service overview and how it can benefit your business or organization:
Web Application Strategy & Management
Web applications are web sites that help you run something in your business more efficiently. For example, The Art Press in Indianapolis uses an iPhone...
January 2010
1 post
2 tags
The Secret to A Maintainable, Growing Site!
Everyone wants a successful web site or web project. Success can of course be defined in so many ways. It is subjective at times. But, there are certainly objective measures of success too.
One aspect of a successful project is maintainability. Maintainability is the ability to update and grow a project long after it completes. It’s the hundreds of changes made after a site goes live....
December 2009
1 post
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The 2010 Plan
Things have been so busy the past few months with year-end projects. Here’s what I’ve been up to, and what to expect in 2010…
Online Donation System training in Fort Myers, Florida, with an inspiring non-profit, New Mission Systems International
Machinery inventory system updates for Peterson Machinery in Casa Grande, Arizona
Automatic SEO page generation system for The Art...
October 2009
1 post
Apples & Chicken
I just returned from the Apple Store. As always, a great experience. Why don’t more businesses follow this model? The store was jammed with paying customers. I was greeted by two Apple staff… greeted with a smile, a handshake, a name, and an eagerness to serve. As a business customer, that impresses me. I rarely get that treatment even from other small businesses that could afford to...
September 2009
1 post
1 tag
“You can not make it as a wandering generality. You must become a meaningful...”
– Zig Ziglar
August 2009
1 post
Web Based Database Builder for Research Studies
Over the past several months, Think Say Do has been working with online marketing company e-Media Resources to deliver a visual query builder for Chamberlain Research Consultants in Madison, Wisconsin. It has been very well received with thousands of sign-ups since launch.
To start the project, we wrote the front-end for participants to sign up for research studies, completely integrated into...
July 2009
1 post
“Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated...”
– Charlie Mingus
June 2009
1 post
2 tags
What A Year Brings
Amazing how quickly time goes by isn’t it. I’ve heard so many people say that, but it’s SO true! In May we celebrated our son’s first birthday with about 50 guests. Lots of fun!
And, in July, Think Say Do is preparing to celebrate the first year in business. Thank you to all of our great customers! What a year!
Lately, we’ve been hard at work on a few new projects....
April 2009
12 posts
1 tag
Tuitive: User Experience Designers →
Interested in this local User Experience firm. Perhaps we’ll be able to work together in the future. People are king in my world. Not technology. Not politics. Not subjective conjecture. It’s people that matter most when developing software. If it doesn’t work for people, then it doesn’t work.
4 tags
After Thirteen Years: Blog, Twitter, Gmail......
Believe it or not, after thirteen years of resisting, I have started to blog, twitter, and gmail. That’s amazing, because I’ve worked as a web consultant for thirteen years! And, I’m young — a prime target for all things social and online. Yet, my life is too real to interface conveniently with the online social scene. I’ve never had the desire, need, or time to...
3 tags
Thirteen Years In The Internet Industry
This year I am celebrating 13 years in the Internet Industry. I can hardly believe that I’ve been building online experiences for 13 years! So much has changed since 1996… the “information superhighway” was young and untested. In fact, most businesses that I dealt with back then saw no real value in the Internet. It was a toy. Kind of like blogs were a few years ago, or...
“Progress is the great human ambition—it binds us together, it connects us...”
– Quote from Stone Yamashita Partners in AIGA’s “Why Do You Design?”
(Collin Schneider: In other words, we are always working toward Perfection in our work and in our life. Odd that we would pursue such a lofty goal in such a driven manner throughout history. Perhaps there is more...
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jQuery & jQuery UI: JavaScript RIA Made Simple
I’ve been using the jQuery javascript library almost since its inception. It’s amazing to see how it’s progressed into a mature, robust rich internet application (RIA) tool. In addition to a powerful and elegant toolkit, the jQuery UI project adds beautiful widgets to the collection - each customizable and skinnable. The community behind jQuery is active and verbal — they...
7 tags
A Quick List Of What We've Been Doing
For those of you not familiar with Think Say Do, LLC, here’s a quick list of what we’ve been working on in 2008 and early 2009:
Training Application System for Associated Training Services Allows applicants to apply for classes online and apply for financial aid. Ties in tightly with legacy applications in MS SQL Server. Applicants can save their progress and return later for...
You can now follow me on Twitter! Just follow: thinksaydo
~ Collin Schneider, Founder / Systems Designer
3 tags
User Experience Week 2008 Videos →
One of my top priorities in any project is to make sure the people involved enjoy the experience. That experience extends not just to the end product, but the entire journey to that product. People are what matter most.
Scroll about half way down the UX Week page to find great video lectures about the importance of User Experience in product design.
~ Collin Schneider, Founder / Systems Designer
3 tags
Platform as a Service
Ran across an interesting article about Software as a Service (SaaS), explaining the tiers involved, and how the approach to SaaS (and Platform as a Service - PaaS) is progressing.
SaaS: All PaaS are not created equal.
This article is relevant to us because one of the core pieces of our business as we grow will be SaaS. Although I cannot say much about our offerings yet, I can say that we are...
4 tags
Contact Management for Small Businesses →
I’m thinking about signing up for the BatchBlue CRM service to manage sales leads and contacts. Our network of partners and friends here at Think Say Do is growing. Having all that information in the “cloud” will allow us to get to that information at a moment’s notice via our laptops, iPhones, etc. We’re already big Freshbooks fans, using it for all of our invoicing...
3 tags
Online Payment System
Online donations to non-profits have been steadily growing as people look for more convenient donation methods that offer more control over giving. According to the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, in 2007, Americans donated $306 billion, three-percent of that was given online. That’s more $9 billion dollars donated online! If you’re working for a non-profit, are you...
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“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
– Mohandas Gandhi