New Products: Web Studio Template Collections!
Out of all the things we get requests for, Page Templates is now the number one request. We've listen to our customers, you, and fold your needs into our product plans. Our major upgrades and service packs show that. Our new template collections now answer another need you've told us about.
You want professionally designed pages you can easily customize for your own use. Many Web Studio users are "design challenged", many are not. For the challenged group, making a great looking website is tough. With our template collections it becomes easy.
For the non-design-challenged, many of our customers have created their own web design businesses with Web Studio. The templates we have will give you a head start when making a presentation to a customer. Have the customer pick a design from your group of templates and your that much ahead, time and productivity-wise. And you still have Web Studio's legendary productivity to help speed you towards your deadlines. In short, you can produce, over a given time-span, more sites with Web Studio and now even more with the template collections.
The templates were designed by a team of professional web designers. We engineered them to be as easy to use as Web Studio is. First,they are already in Web Studio format, and they install themselves in the Templates gallery. The overall mechanical design is such that you can remove the Web Studio branded graphics and others without losing the overall design of the graphic. It is quite clever even if we do say so:) The templates are delivered with a width and height of 800 x 600. But, knowing that many will want to expand their templates to wider and deeper dimensions, they are engineered to enable you to quickly resize them with a simple drag and drop. Again, without losing the overall design of the template itself.
The templates are grouped in to three collections. Each collection contains 25 templates. There are a variety of topics. This brings us to what is usually the most asked question: "Do you have any for an XYZ business?".
Great question. The answer is, don't look for templates that reflect your business, look for templates whose visual design is something you like. You can then use the features built into the templates to quickly customize them to suit your particular business or organization.
The template collection also includes an 18mb video tutorial illustrating how to customize them for your use; how to quickly create additional pages from your initial template; how to make the template wider and/or deeper; and finally a ton of techniques for using Web Studio demonstrated by the ultimate Web Studio power-users,the program's authors and designers.
Priced at $49.95 per collection, each costs less than an hour's consulting time with a web design agency! Click here to visit the Template and Photo store on our website and view thumbnails of each collections templates.
These also make a great gift for the Web Studio user! Bundled with the Photo Collection, you'll make someone very excited this holiday season.
Wow, do we have a lot of new stuff this month! We released our new Template Collections this week. It took quite a long time to get them designed and crafted to the ease-of-use level of Web Studio, but we did it. Read about it in our main article.
We have also added two new "stores' to our site: the Template & Photo store and the Site License store. Previously we pretty much had everything in the Web Studio store. Look at the Product Line menu on our BuyNow page for links.
The holiday season is upon us, yes, even in October. If we may suggest some gifts; the templates, photos, CDs, Video Tutorial, and upgrade to the Deluxe version are all great gifts for that special Web Studio user you know!
Web Studio Template Collection
Exciting, professionally designed Page Templates, ready to use in Web Studio. Three collections of 25 templates each. Check it out in our new Template & Photo store!
More Tips:
IHostStudio and Project Names
It is important to NOT change the name of your project with Web Studio if you are using iHostStudio as your host. What will happen is it will appear that your site is uploading fine, but when you go to look at it on the net, no changes will have been made. Here's why. iHostStudio "connects" itself to the website you were using when you created your iHostStudio account. It "connects" via the name of the Project. If you try to upload a project with a different name, iHostStudio's Instant Publisher will go find the file for the original project and upload them. Resulting in no changes to your site.
Deluxe Envy
We have had quite a few customers ask if there is a way to upgrade from the Retail version of Web Studio 4.0 to the Deluxe version. We heard you and have created the Upgrade from Retail to Deluxe. It is priced at $50 and available now. The Deluxe includes the Web Studio Program CD with program and complete content collection; the printed, bound documentation; and the Video Tutorial CD illustrating all Web Studio's features. It's a great gift idea for that special Web-Studio-someone who already owns the Retail version.
DSL Problems
Prior to the release of Web Studio 3.0 (yes, 3.0) we used DSL for our internet broadband connection. We had tons of problems with it, all of them intermittent. We found we couldn't use FTP at times, we couldn't upload from Web Studio, we couldn't upload using iHostStudio. That last one took the cake, iHostStudio can upload thru anything and it couldn't with our connection. It took some time to diagnose, but it ended up being the DSL. They, SBC Communications, had us on the "home" plan. It seems that plan is designed to keep you from "stealing" their higher end services like hosting your own site. So, they route you through a computer designed to stop your from doing various things. The side effects of this were that their service was unreliable. Their "solution" was for us to turn off the DSL modem, leave it off for 2 minutes, then turn it back on. That usually worked. But, having to do that 3,4,5 times a day got old. So, we bought their "office" plan and have had no trouble since. What this means to you is, if you have DSL (from any vendor), try turning off your modem for a couple of minutes to see if that helps you upload. You may want to get their office plan and do away with the problems forever. The big difference is "home" has "dynamic IP addresses", office has "static IP addresses". Static is better than dynamic.
The iHostStudio Story
Our goal is for you to have your website up and running, period. That includes providing you the tools to create your site, the content to populate it, the means to upload it, and hosting.
When we were in the process of buying Web Studio back from Vivendi-Universal/Sierra we learned that the #1 technical support problem they had was uploading problems. When we looked at the cost to them, and the number of support calls/emails due to this we knew we needed a solution.
The problem was that hosting companies gave incomplete info, wrong info, used different terminology, got the domain names hooked up to the wrong website, and more. In addition, firewalls and other software blocked uploading of websites. We looked high and low, across the US, to find a solution. We talked with many hosts about a "fool-proof" method of uploading, no one could meet our needs. Then we were contacted by the iHostStudio guys. It seems Sierra told them we were buying Web Studio back. They had been trying to convince Sierra that they should use iHostStudio as an option for their customers, but Sierra...well Sierra is Sierra and they didn't do it.
We discussed what we wanted with iHostStudio and they had already completed everything we wanted...smart guys! Their hosting doesn't require you to know FTP addresses or folder names; it gets thru firewalls and other "protection" software;
We then integrated it into Web Studio along with the innovative Trial Hosting feature. Our techsupport for hosting is still high, but not as high as Sierra's, and not because of iHostStudio problems. The iHostStudio solution eliminates all of the problems that we, and you, have with other hosting solutions. It is also twice as fast as FTP and is bullet proof relative to all of the problems one can have uploading. We strongly encourage you to use iHostStudio as your host, it will simplify your Web Studio life, and help us as well. :)
Give Trial Hosting a try if you haven't. You'll see how easy iHostStudio is....because Trial Hosting is iHostStudio! That is the way it always is. You'll have your site up and running without trouble and our goal for you will be met. Like we tell everyone we can, "if you know your name, address and credit card number, you know everything you need to use iHostStudio". That's why we have iHostStudio!
