Sometimes a little kernel of truth cuts through the marketing.. I was reading Slashdot tonight and noticed an advert for Canada: Get Your Business Online, a 'free web site' promotion by Google, Rogers and a number of other large media and internet corporations here in Canada.

..and I had a nice laugh when I clicked on 'Success Stories' and got a blank 500 error page (pictured above, slightly altered).  True enough.

I wrote the post below titled "Keeping it Simple (and Smart) for Solar Hot Water" for our blog at Renewable Energy World but I thought I'd share it here as well.  In almost every industry (web design, especially) there is desire for simple, efficient solutions to common problems.

December has been a tough month for Internet security. The passwords and personal data of 1.3 million Gawker Media readers was compromised over the weekend, followed up by hacks of DeviantArt data (email marketing lists) and McDonalds. If you have a login for McDonalds (Monopoly?), Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Gawker, Jezebel, io9, Jalopnik, Kotaku, Deadspin, or Fleshbot (NSFW) you should change your passwords. Right now.

Accounting is one of the toughest challenges for new small businesses - we asked our accountant Michael Williamson to share his advice.  Michael maintains the Tax Link Blog - with regular financial advice for small businesses in Ontario and beyond.

Marketing is the way your people answer the phone. - Seth Godin

Effective communication – in email, web writing, phone conversations, face-to-face meetings – is one of the underpinnings of good business practice. While you might assume that good communication skills are intuitive, not everyone presents their ideas in the same way.

As a design business we're often asked how much a simple web site costs.

How much should a car cost?  A cup of coffee?  Like most things, the price of web design is determined by value.  Read on for our thoughts on the subject.

One of the toughest things about the web for small businesses is its uncertainty.  In 2007, Visionary technologist Kevin Kelley shared his thoughts on the future in 'The Next 5,000 Days of the Web'. [video] The short of it: The internet of web pages is becoming the internet of things.

If you are someone who has migrated from Microsoft Outlook to Mozilla Thunderbird, you may have noticed that one of the apparent missing features is a calendar. A built-in calendar application with an email client is quite useful for those who work collaboratively online or within a small office as it makes events easier to schedule.