Who, What, Why and How

Here's a brief rundown on who we are, what we do, why we got into this crazy business in the first place, and how we do it.

Who

Principal: Karen Williams, 20 years experience programming, 14 of those in a university information systems shop setting, the remainder as an independent.

What

Web site design - for those smaller businesses that don't have a large computing budget but feel that a web "presence" would help their business to thrive. We specialize in smaller sites with e-commerce.

Graphics - unique graphics designed specifically for your company: logos, animations, etc.

Typesetting - Do you put out publications, either printed or electronic? We can typeset those for you.

Flyer and advertisement design - unified web site, graphics, flyers and advertisement look and feel - your company's signature.

Video - would you like one or more short video clips on your web site? Or perhaps a DVD to distribute, or to advertise your services? Blue Mountains Productions can create these with you!

Office systems - small to medium systems to track information critical to your business, to save you time and money, to give you new capabilities. Love those databases!

Fashion advice - comfortable, colorful and unique.

Why

Smaller businesses fill the gaps left by large businesses.

Smaller businesses often can benefit significantly from selective automation or marketing.

Small businesses work differently from large businesses, and benefit from close attention to their specific needs and desires.

Smaller businesses frequently are beautifully fascinating.

How

Web site design and creation

Macromedia products: Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash.

Programming: We've used Perl, PHP and Javascript. Moreover, we've been known in the past to use Cobol, Fortran, Mantis, a variety of SQL (mostly MS SQL Server), PowerBuilder, and more. Whatever is needed.

Graphics

Macromedia products: Fireworks, Flash.

Adobe products: InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop.

Typesetting and other print work

Adobe products: InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop.

Other: Macromedia Fireworks; SmartDraw.

Video: Adobe Premiere.

Office/DB: Microsoft Windows, Access, Office; QuickBooks.

Other web site functionality

Membership sites: aMember, iBill, ccBill.

Other: photo gallery (e.g., Gallery), guestbooks (e.g., Active Guestbook), bulletin boards, and more.

Audio/Video player: Wimpy. Provides streaming functionality and a nice interface very inexpensively!

E-commerce

CubeCart

Marketer's Choice Shopping Cart: an amazing piece of work which includes many useful business functions. It's very easy to integrate into your existing site. For more information, you can contact me () or check out their web site.

MonsterCommerce: If you want to build a site around your store, rather than insert your store into your site, then MonsterCommerce may be better for you. For more information, you can contact me () or check out their web site.

PayPal: if you want to be able to accept credit cards online but don't yet have the sales volume to make the merchant account/shopping cart combination pay, PayPal is a good place to start. No start-up fees, and quite low per-transaction fees.