| SiteKreator is “Webware 100” Awards finalist! | 
We are excited to share with you that SiteKreator has been selected as a finalist in the prestigious “Webware 100” Awards by CNET Webware Editors and the Web 2.0 User Community from more than 4,000 user-submitted product nominations. The “Webware 100” Awards recognize the best Web 2.0 sites, services, and applications leading the next wave of innovation. In the Web Publishing category SiteKreator is competing with products such as Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, WordPress, TypePad, Blogger, SquareSpace and more. The 100 winners are selected by public voting on CNET's Webware.com from May 23 through June 11 , with winners to be announced on Monday, June 18. The top 10 voted products in each of the 10 categories will comprise the list of the 100 best products. Vote for SiteKreator here! | 
New business design released
Chromia joins Aurora, Cocoa, Futuretech and Charcoal in the set of business designs
|  After the wrap up of the major SiteKreator 2.2 release, we are now shifting focus towards a new set of highly customizable business designs modeled as enhanced versions of the most popular designs in our personal series. The newcomer to follow the successful launch of Aurora is Chromia - an elegant concept combining the lightness of the personal designs with the advanced capabilities of the business-oriented ones.
Chromia inherits the styling of the personal Mild Chrome design and comes in 4 site color themes. It features all advanced business capabilities for corporate branding and structuring of content through the use of multiple navigation panels and sections. Chromia is now available to all Business and Power package subscribers. Subscribers to other packages may try the new design for free within the next 2 weeks. | More business designs on their way – Pasta and Freemona 
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 Two more business designs are currently in the final stages of development. Pasta is the business version of the very popular Pastelle design. It comes in 8 site color themes and will rival Chromia in terms of content flexibility and business functions.
Freemona is based on the personal Blank design and, as the name suggests, will give you unprecedented freedom for creating fully custom websites. You'll be able to control the position of the menu, logo, slogan, use your own navigation images and choose from a great number of menu styling options to produce unique websites. You can see snapshots of sample sites implemented with Freemona here, here and here.
 Pasta and Freemona will soon be available on stage server for beta testing. If you wish to be among first to try them out and share your feedback with us can sign up as a beta tester now.
| Aurora educational videos are now available 
Make the most of your website Talk to a Web Expert 
Take advantage of our new Web Consultation service and learn how to use SiteKreator in a matter of minutes, receive advice on driving traffic to your site or get help with specific features, directly from the creators of SiteKreator. Delivered as a scheduled phone call and WebEx session, this option is a great way to save time learning SiteKreator and get answers to questions as they arise. Web Consultation time is included with each Business and Power package. For everyone else the service is available for $20 for a 0.5-hour session.
Learn more or request a consultation here.
Get help with the design of your site 
Through a network of leading Web designers SiteKreator now offers professional assistance with the creation of your website. From minor layout and style modifications, through setup of your branding and information structure, to implementing your own custom designs, the new "Let us design your site" service covers it all. You can trust your web project into the hands of professionals, specifically trained to deliver web design services for SiteKreator. Based on your needs, location and budget, we can recommend a designer who will work with you on creating a unique, professionally styled website concept. Prices start from $300. View samples and learn more about the program here. |  | | Featured Member Frederick H. Schuchardt is the CEO and founder of Bridgeway Systems - a provider of leading technologies and products for the communications industry. We talk to Mr. Schuchardt about how SiteKreator and the Aurora design platform in particular helped their business. SiteKreator: Were you a SiteKreator user before Aurora? Frederick Schuchard: Yes, I have been a user for about 3 years. But up until Aurora, I was a casual user. The SiteKreator team contacted me to test the Beta version of Aurora and I love it. (not a casual user anymore!) SiteKreator: What do you see as the new advantages in Aurora? Frederick Schuchard: There are many! I normally don’t use templates because they look so "cookie cutter" so one of the biggest advantages is that although Aurora is a design template it doesn’t look like one. It’s a really powerful tool that allows you to do your own branding, but it looks professionally done. Usually such powerful tools are difficult to use, but Aurora is not. You don’t have to be a programmer or web designer to use it; it’s very intuitive. It also prevents you from making errors by coordinating things such as the style and colors of your site. SiteKreator: What do you like better about Aurora? Frederick Schuchard: Everything! I wouldn’t use anything but Aurora now. I love the new features such as the "tabs". In fact, Microsoft contacted me and asked me to try their new Office Live website design program. I did, but I never considered switching. Although it is not exactly a fair comparison to Aurora, it does compare to regular SiteKreator and I was not impressed with the basic version. SiteKreator: How has SiteKreator helped you? Frederick Schuchard: It really makes site design Web 2.0 based. I used to use Front Page and I changed to SiteKreator because I wanted an interactive website. I wanted to enable customers and prospects to get everything that they needed without us having to do a lot of work and SiteKreator allows me to do that. I also wanted to be able to distribute private items to my members and SiteKreator allows me to do that easily. It’s a really well-rounded program; it’s simple to use, yet extremely powerful. SiteKreator: Would you recommend SiteKreator to other businesses needing a website? Frederick Schuchard: Yes, absolutely! I say this, and I do not say it lightly, I think it’s the best in the industry.
Advanced tip Adding flash headers in business designs SiteKreator business designs include an option for adding a page header image. You can choose an image from a hand-picked selection made by SiteKreator designers for each particular color scheme, or add your own image as a header. With the upcoming releases we will add the option to upload flash movies in the page header area as well. But, as many customers have already requested the option, we've implemented a simple work-around that will allow you to add flash headers with a simple chunk of code placed in an html snippet. Here is how to do that step by step:
- Prepare the .swf flash movie file for your page header area. The flash dimensions should be exactly the same as the dimensions of the page header area so it fits perfectly in it. To check the required dimensions open Page Properties for your page, choose ‘Custom Image’ from the dropdown and the recommended size will be displayed below.
- Upload the flash file on some static URL outside SiteKreator. E.g somesite.com/flash.swf
- In Admin view of your site, enable the HTML snippet from Advance Elements. Then go to the page where you want to place the header and add an html snippet with the following code at the top of the main content area :
<style type="text/css">#pageImageBar { background-image: none; }</style> <script type="text/javascript"> var oHeaderImageContainer = document.getElementById('pageImageBar'); oHeaderImageContainer.style.backgroundImage = 'none'; var so = new SWFObject("paste_your_flash_URL_here", "flashmovie", "100%", "100%", "7", "#000000"); so.addParam("quality", "high"); so.addParam("wmode", "transparent"); so.addVariable("encoding", SK__PAGE_INFO.Get('Encoding')); so.write("pageImageBar"); </script> After you update and publish the change the flash movie will be displayed in the page header area of your site. You can see a sample flash header prepared with this approach here. |
