Affordable web sites for Wilmington NC

If you are operating on a low budget and need a decent website, we can help. We have a program in place to help small business begin their web presence with a fairly inexpensive website.

- Up to 5 pages
- Static website
- Simple web design
- Hosting and email provided
- Domain registration
- Contact form
- CMS

Starting at $999.99

Call or email today for more information.

Hire a web designer

Looking for a web designer? Looking for a web developer? Looking for someone who can help you update your existing site?

Look no further! We can help! Call us today for a free consultation and quote - 1.910.538.6731

Link: Web Designer Portfolio

Impulse launches www.lmmed.com of Wilmington NC

We just launched the new website for Lifestyle Mobility and Med Supply of Wilmington NC.

They specialize in mobility devices for the elderly and disabled; a large segment of their business is dedicated to US Veterans.

Link: Check out the website!

DISCLAIMER: THE SITE CONTENT IS NOT COMPLETE, BUT THE DESIGN IS. CONTENT DEVLOPMENT IS NOW IN THE HANDS OF THE OWNER. PLEASE DISREGARD ANY LATIN OR DUMMY TEXT.

New website for Mann's Creative Designs of Wilmington

We just launched the new website for Mann's Creative Designs - they specialize in countertops, interior and exterior concrete and synthetic rocks. They are vary talented and have done projects all over the country. Be sure to check out their Project Gallery.

Link: Mann's Creative Designs

Impulse designs The Eshelman Foundation website

We just launched the brand new website for The Eshelman Foundation:

"Started in 2008, the Eshelman Foundation is a private family foundation that aims to help children in need. Based in Wilmington, NC the Eshelman Foundation focuses on children's healthcare and educational causes in the United States."

Link: Check out their new site

Wordpress design and mods in Wilmington NC

Are you looking for someone to help you with Wordpress? Then look no further! 

Impulse can help you setup a Wordpress blog on your website so you can keep your users up to date on what's going on. 

Or, we can integrate Wordpress into the entire site and create a CMS system so you can manage your own content. You can make changes whenever you want via Wordpress' easy to use web interface. You can add text, pictures and even video!

For more information about letting us help you with your next Wordpress  installation, give us  a call at 910.538.6731.

For businesses with a smaller budget in mind, you can purchase a Wordpress theme at Templatemonster.com and we will install it for you. That way you do not have to pay for a custom web design.

For a comprehensive list of our services, please check out our web services page.

Or you can use our contact form to send us an email.

Impulse featured on webdesignfinders.net

We're a featured Wilmington web design services firm in North Carolina web design directory at Finders Web Design Directory

Impulse featured on Top Design Firms in Wilmington NC

Wilmington, NC Design Firms

Evolution gets Recognition

The new re-design for Evolution Mixed Martial Arts made it to the gallery of www.screenalicious.com
www.cssmania.com
www.cssflash.com

Link: Evolution Mixed Martial Arts

Impulse launches Evolution web re-design

We just completed the re-design of Evolution Mixed Martial Arts in Wrightsville Beach NC.

Check out the new site at:
http://www.evolutionmixedmartialarts.com

Evolution Mixed Martial Arts Academy

38 North Lumina Ave.

Wrightsville Beach, N.C. 28480

Phone: (910) 509-0701

Fax: (910) 509-0702

Office hours are from 5:30PM-9:30PM Monday - Friday

You can also contact Dave on his cell phone @ (910) 233-7999

Website ReDesign

Does your website look like a 3rd grader did it? If you are looking to get a face lift for your outdated website, let us re-design your site and develop something you can be proud of that will:

- be XHTML and CSS standards compliant
- cross-browser compatible
- have a new, fresh, modern design that you can be proud to show off
- incorporate Web 2.0 technologies
- be search engine friendly for Google, Yahoo and MSN
- look professional and established

I want to know more about getting a web site re design

Sticky Footer - Footer stays at the bottom

Saw this on Richard's blog over at Akiramedia. I know I've needed this in the past - haven't tried this technique yet though. If you get it to work please leave a comment on this post.

Link: Sticky Footer

How to use an image to prevent comment spam - Captcha

I recently designed and developed a website for AValive/Triangle Visual Interactive and the owner of the site was getting frustrated with all the comment spam he was receiving. The website has several forms and people were either wasting their time, visiting the site and putting in junk, or the site was being hit by a spam bot. Spam bots crawl the internet looking for sign up forms, comment forms, blogs, etc., and put in junk data and submit them. Junk data is usually in the form of some advertisement for Viagra, Real Estate deals and porn.

So I did some research on the net to try and find out how to prevent comment spam. I've often signed up for things on the net and been required to type in a text field some numbers or letters that I see in an image. So I wanted to implement that idea for AValive.biz

Luckily, I came across a great site that described how to implement this Captcha image in like 10 minutes. It also shows you how to do an audio clip so that site users could listen to a recording and then they would type in what they hear.

To use this technique, you need at least PHP 4 compiled with GD 1 or 2 (Image Generation) and FreeType text support. It should work fine with Linux, Mac OS X or Windows based systems although you will need to change the default temporary file storage directory specified when using with Windows. PHP session support is also required. The audio CAPTCHA requires the Flite text to speech synthesis engine - more details on set up below.

Some other features of this technique:

• Multiple random TrueType fonts
• Character rotation
• Optional chararacter shadow support
• Optional site owner display text
• Random custom background images
• Font size selection
• Greyscale or colour lines and characters
• Character set selection
• Integration of validation function for checking the user entered code with the generated code

Hope this helps somone else.

Link: Instructions on how to install Captcha image

Impulse Web Solutions inks deal with Relevant Revolution/Sermon Jams

I will be redesigning the website to give it a more professional look but will be keeping the same type of theme.

I will be redoing the homepage, creating an interior page template and also redoing the navigation. Someone else will be responsible for popping in the content.

Purpose statement according to the site:

This ministry is designed to provide a medium which tactfully delivers biblical sermons that are relevant for the current generation. Our desire is to promote a reverence and passion for the supremacy of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom and our focus is on the foundational truths of the Christian faith. We emphasize unity on the essentials truths, liberty on the non-essentials and love in everything. We also believe strongly in the idea that unity does not equal uniformity because there is diversity in the Kingdom of Christ. The verse we have picked to represent this ministry is Romans 10:14 which states "But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?"

Relevant Revolution is run by John Mahshie of The Body of Asheville, a local church there in Asheville NC.

Look for the new site to be live hopefully by the end of March.

Link: Site URL

Link: The Body of Asheville

Wilmington NC Web Design and Website Development

My name is Jonathan Richey and I own Impulse Web Solutions here in Wilmington, NC.

I offer web design and website development services for all types of industries ranging from small mom-and-pop shopts to large corporations.

Wilmington NC has a vast array of industries and business types and I service them all. As a local surfer, lately most of my jobs seem to be surf related such as Aussie Island Surf Shop, Surfchex.com, WBLivesurf.com, Greenroom Board Sports, Blue Ridge Surfboards and Surfrider - I have contribuited to all of these sites in some form or fashion. Some of them I designed, some of them I work behind the scenes.

To find out more info about me and my company please visit my website, Impulse Web Solutions - a Wilmington NC based web design firm.

Impulse Launches Greenroom Board Sports

New site with an additional site - Greenroom Board Co.

Link: New site

Link: Board Co site

How to make a tool tip in HTML using CSS and JS

I found a really nice tool tip maker for a website I'm currently finishing up.

The client wanted a nice map of the US with Flash like effects. Flash is expensive and takes forever so I wanted to try it with something else.

At first, I tried using the ever popular Bubble Tooltips that seems to be number one on Google right now. http://www.web-graphics.com/mtarchive/001717.php

It looks like this:

But, I needed the tooltip to be more customizable, so then I luckily found this one at

http://www.walterzorn.com/tooltip/tooltip_e.htm entitled "JavaScript, DHTML Tooltips"

I found this very easy to use - all i had to do was insert one piece of javascript at the bottom of the page and then use a mouseover effect. The mouse effect also has a ton of custom options so that I could change what I needed like: the font size, background color, border size and color, dropshadow color and size, width, textalignment, etc.

You can view what I did here: http://home.n2pub.com/contact.new.php or in the future it might just be http://home.n2pub.com/contact.php

How long should I wait to get paid for web design?

I recently did a project and have waited a month to get paid. How long is too long?

I normally do 50% up front and 50% when it's done. However, this was a special rush case so I went ahead and did the work.

What other guidelines do other web designers/developers out there use for pricing and getting paid?

Impulse Web Solutions turns 1 yrs old!

This February marks the one year anniversary for Impulse Web Solutions!

I just want to say thanks to all my clients for a great first year and I look forward to serving the Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach community in 2007.

I have made some upgrades to the site this month - enjoy!

Link: Wilmington NC Web Design

Impulse Web Solutions hired to redesign n2pub

Recently started a project for neighborhood networks publishing to redesign their website and make it more professional looking.

Link: Their current site

Look for the new site in a couple weeks.

Impulse Web Solutions to redo Aussie Island Site

I managed to work out a deal with Aussie Island Surf Shop today and will be redoing their current website to give it a more professional look. Functionally, the site will also be useful as they will be able to put current news and special products on the homepage.

The site will also have pics of the Aussie Island team riders, a photo gallery, a links page and a contact page.

They have recently moved from the Landfall shopping center to a new location right across from Target.

Here's their current site: http://www.aussieisland.com/

Check back in a couple weeks to see the new Aussie Island site.

Keeping site footer at the bottom

I recently ran into a CSS issue that I could not figure out. I wound up contacting Richard over at Akira Media about it and he sent me to this site:

http://www.themaninblue.com/writing/perspective/2005/08/29/

It describes a technique using CSS that will keep a footer at the bottom of a browser window no matter how big the browser gets or how big the content gets.

Note: you must know the height of the footer for it to work and I wound up having to use some line breaks (
) inside the div tag right before the #footer div to make it work. I tested it on IE7 and the latest Mozilla and it seemed to work ok.

Bubble tooltips

I was looking on the web the other day trying to find something. When I roll over an image on my company's website, I wanted a nice little image or something to appear with some instructions or something.

Here's what I did with AValive. Roll your mouse over the large image on the homepage.

I wasn't sure what they were called but now I know they are called 'tool tips'.

But, I didn't want just any tool tip, I wanted the trendy bubbly kind, and I wanted the code to be handed to me on a silver platter so I didn't have to write anything myself.

Lo and behold I found the ultimate bubbly tool tip site:

http://www.web-graphics.com/mtarchive/001717.php

Validate your css

Here is a link to a site where you can validate your website's css.

http://validator.w3.org/

You simply type in the url of the page you want to check and click 'Check'. This will validate your site's markup and return a page that will either congratulate you on your excellent coding skills or tell you all the bad things about your css.

Having valid css and html is important for good SEO because.....well, I'm not really sure why but I would think the cleaner your site and the less errors and bugs you have the better.

The cleaner your code is, the easier it is for spiders to search your site. There...I think that's probably the reason why - I guess. :)

Photoshop Resources

Like many people, I started out using Macromedia Fireworks and eventually took the plunge and migrated to Photoshop. Although the switch was difficult at first, I quickly became accustomed to the differences between the two programs and now rely on Photoshop for about 95% of my design now.

I thought I would share some of the links I frequent on a regular basis looking for new tutorials, ideas, trends, etc. Enjoy!

http://www.templatemonster.com (mainly for ideas)

http://www.photoshoplab.com/

http://www.photoshoplab.com/

http://www.cameronmoll.com/

SEO friendly sub navs made easy - Infinite Menus

I found a very nice tool today (it's free by the way) that gives you a GUI interface so you can make subnavs.

So for example, a lot of sites have a main nav element called Products. This tool will help you create a subnav so that when you put your mouse over Products, another menu opens up giving you more options.

http://www.opencube.com/imenus.asp

The tool is free and does not use Flash or Javascript so everything is SEO friendly.

Client deadlines

I spoke with a guy at church today who said he got a website done but it has never gone live because he just hasn't gotten around to writing the copy. In fact, he said it's been about a year and a half since the site's been done!

I wanted to post a question: what should be an acceptable deadline to receive copy for a website? 2 weeks, 1 month, etc. What is the norm in the industry?

I've always found that this is the biggest slow down to site development - waiting on copy from the client.

Anyone else have this issue? How did you resolve it? Is there an industry standard for dealing with this?

Flash photo gallery in minutes

1. Download Simpleviewer - http://www.airtightinteractive.com/simpleviewer/
2. Download Picasa2 - http://picasa.google.com/download/index.html
3. Create a folder on your desktop to hold the gallery.
4. Open Picasa
5. Create a new web album, select the folder that contains your pics, select the Simpleviewer template, select the destination as the folder on your desktop and voila - you're done.

One of my clients, Ryan Curtis uses this method on his website:

http://www.curtis-photo.com/

Just click on one of his gallery links to see an example.

Christian Surfers Jaco, Costa Rica site in progress

Another project for a non-profit organization is in the works.

Last May a couple of buddies and I went to Jaco, Costa Rica for a surf trip and stayed with the local Christian Surfers in Jaco.

Upon returning from the trip, Daniel Looman, the local chapter director, asked me to help redesign their new site.

The design phase is complete and now we are busy integrating all the content and pics into the site pages.

This site will probably be done before 2007 so check back soon for the release date.

New Surfrider Site to Launch in 2007

We have been busy redesigning the local Surfrider chapter's website that is set to be completed in early 2007.

Check back around January to get a final release date.

You can view their current site at:

http://www.surfrider.org/capefear/

Impulse Web Solutions Launches New Site: Propapa

Last year I was doing some computer work on the side for a gentlemen named William Casey here in Wilmington NC.

He is part of a non-profit organization called Propapa which sends different types of teams to Honduras to minister to the people who need help. The types of teams they send there are:
dental teams, eyecare teams, construction teams and medical teams.

Casey asked me if I would help out with the site which in the end will help the people of Honduras by creating an informative sight that is easy to use and bursting with different opportunities for people to help, volunteer and donate.

http://www.propapa.org/

Impulse Web Solutions Launches New Site: Blue Ridge Surfboards

I met 'Bob' on the wblivesurf forum when I saw his current site - man was it ugly.

Anyways, at the time I was trying to build up my portfolio and I was also looking to progress in my surfing by moving down from a huge 6'8 king fish to something smaller.

'Bob' and I worked it out where I could do the entire site in exchange for a new custom made board.

His main concern was that he wanted the ability to upload/mange his board inventory whenever he wanted. So I built him a backdoor where he has the opportunity to upload pics of his boards and load information about those boards such as price, dimensions, fin setup, etc.

I also wound up using some Lightbox/Javascript technology so that when you view a larger image of the board thumbnails, the larger image expands and adjusts to the size of the original image. Also, the rest of the page sort of fades to black and the larger image sort of jumps out at you. If you have no idea what I'm talking about you can see an example here:

http://www.blueridgesurfboards.com/boardPics.php?boardType=shortboards

Just click on the board pic and you'll see what I mean.

Anyways, if you're looking to support a local shaper and get something custom made, 'Bob' is your man over at Blue Ridge Surfboards.

To see the board he made me, go here:

http://www.blueridgesurfboards.com/boardArt.php

Mine is the Blue Rising Sun, top line, far right. He did a sick job - I love this board!

Impulse Web Solutions Launches New Site: Ryan Curtis Photo

My friend Heath over at http://www.mtgotraders.com/ referred Ryan to me a couple months ago. Ryan and I eventually made contact through http://wblivesurf.com 's forum and we discussed developing a site for his photography business.

I believe Ryan is still in high school but already he is producing high-quality work both on land and in the water.

Here is his homepage: http://www.curtis-photo.com/

And here is his gallery page: http://www.curtis-photo.com/gallery.html

I tried to create something a little more professional for him and once I figured out how to use the splash coconut pic on the bottom, everything else just flowed from that.

For the Flash galleries I used a free program called SimpleViewer in conjunction with Picasa2.

Here's a snapshot of his homepage: