Online Content Management Systems allow you to consolidate the entire back-end of a website into a single secure yet easy to access location.

Traditionally any time you wanted to make an alteration to a website you needed to contact your Webmaster, who would in turn render your changes into code and and then use specialized programs to upload this code onto the servers which shared your information with the rest of the world.

No matter how responsive or dedicated your webmaster, the need to work through an additional person would build in a lag - one which would only be exacerbated by …

In medical terminology, a stress test (or exercise test) can be any of a series of tests designed to measure how your your heart and lungs hold up as you put greater and greater demands upon your body.  As a result of the Wall Street bailout, it has been increasingly common to hear of such tests being applied to various corporations.  Mostly we hear about outside agencies performing these tests, but it is possible to conduct them upon your own organization regardless of its size.

For example, if someone takes a day off or is sick, either some tasks go undone, …

Play ball! I took an afternoon off last month, and spent the afternoon at the Oakland Coliseum watching the Oakland Athletics take on the Minnesota Twins.

The fun of going to the ballpark starts on the BART train, feeling a kinship with the other A’s fans on board. And, at the ballpark, there’s the ritual purchase of hotdogs, fries and soda. For this game, I indulged myself with pricey tickets; I got to sit three rows behind the visitors’ on-deck circle.

Being at the game is quite different that watching it on TV. The whole field was before me! …

Watching baseball teaches me about business.

I love running my own business and being my own boss. I also love baseball.  Oh, I hate to play it (“Don’t hit it to me, please don’t hit it to me…”) but I truly love to watch the game.

From baseball, I’ve learned some excellent business practices:

Barry Zito taught me to consider one batter at a time. Barry’s doing well this year: I read that he’s taking a batter-by-batter approach,  rather than letting his mind wander to how badly the game is going, …

We do a lot of maintenance work for our clients at MB/I. Maintenance is key in keeping a site fresh and up-to-date. Depending on the site and the client, maintenance costs can become substantial. Here are a few tips for keeping these costs down:

• Group your requests so you’re not sending several separate emails during the same day or even week. Each time your web developer gets one email from you, he has to locate your project, open the right file, make the edits, upload the revised file to the server, test his work, and move on to his next task. …
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Ten ways to be a more effective sender and receiver