| First of all, we've got the experience and longevity. Second,
we have the on-staff expertise and,
when we don't, we know how to get it. Third, and most
importantly, we
care. The proof of that starts with how
we started.
Our history: how we started.
Years ago, we "discovered" the internet and thought,
"oh, what a great way for us to share our way with friends,
students, and relatives -- 'what we are and what we do.' "
That very first old webpage is still up, with one link that works, the
shaolin kung fu link, upper left ball. That was 1997, and we kept
all of those various balls, seven of them, each which led to a different site, (hosted
variously on fortunecity, xoom, and old "pre-Yahoo!"
geocities) filled and refreshed, which kept us very busy in our
"free time."
A friend of ours, desperate and despondent, bumped into me downtown
one day. Over lunch, she broke down and started speaking her business woes.
She had a "webmaster." But she didn't have a working
website. What she had was a half-baked, mushy set of pages that,
aside from loading, didn't go anywhere, do anything, present
anything other than broken images and links. It didn't work for
her business, yet she was paying someone quite well to create and
maintain a satisfactory presentation that would move visitors to
pick up the phone, use a form, or email her for service. She also
wanted a shopping cart that "worked," which, in those
days, was a nightmare of issues...and still is, by the way...but
more about that on another page.
What she had and what she wanted were miles apart. Her forms
didn't work and her website was one sad page with a couple of
lines on it. I listened and thought to myself, that's really sad.
Then she asked the question: "Don't you guys have a website?"
Uh-oh. I knew what was coming. "Er...we have a home page, yes."
"Who built it?"
Now I was shuffling. I didn't want the project. I just didn't have the time. But there was no avoiding it unless I
lied. "Um...we do it ourselves."
Her eyes lit up. "What would you charge me to..."
What she had was someone who was taking her money but not
delivering...because he didn't know how to build it or how to
find and comprehend the information necessary to build it. What
she desperately needed was some savvy help from someone honest
who would build her a successful set of pages and some forms that
worked, providing a secure payment gateway, this last being quite
a trick oh so many years ago. And we did it, hand-writing a small
piece of code that split the customer's information, excluding
credit card number, into an email, while the credit card number
was shattered into tiny bits and pieces, scattered into different
files on an encrypted server, then, upon a secure login using a
pass-phrase, with the push of a button, reassembled with the time-date
stamp that identified who that number set belonged to. We also got her listed,
first page, top ten, in the top search engines of the day, infoseek, AltaVista,
and the like.
That's how we got started doing this for others. While
neither of us really had the time, we took on her project.
When we were done, the net end of her business was successfully up and running. She was on her
way...and so were we, though we didn't know it at the time.
Over the months and years, repeatedly someone would seek us out wanting
their website rescued from some "webmaster" they had
trusted to create something viable for them, only to have that
webmaster fail due to lack of knowledge, frustration, or
downright laziness.
We're still rescuing hostages from "degreed" "IT
experts" and self-proclaimed webmasters who don't care and
don't "do," and, over the years, our client-pool has
developed into an interesting potpourri, ranging from huge multi-national
corporations with names you'd instantly recognize to the retired
hobbiest who has a home page about birds in his backyard.
We care.
We care about other people and their problems. Second, we
believe in the internet and what it can do for industrious
people, both businesses and individuals, pulling them from debt,
bankruptcy, poverty or bad employment situations by giving them a
viable means to make a living doing what they like to do --
their hobbies, their crafts, their art, their chosen professions,
businesses and services. Because we care, we do our very best.
© Copyright
2005 zentao.com, DLKeur and FW Lineberry. All
rights reserved.
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