Tag - chicago

Our Stock Images of Chicago

We took a trip to Chicago this past week to meet with Dr Yahav at the Water Tower.  While on the way, we thought it would be cool to bring the camera and take what images we could.  Since we'd just purchased $250.00 worth of images for the doctor, we thought we should at least grab a couple to through on istock.  As a result, we ended the day with 10 really good istock quality images, and a lot of very useful stock to offer for free.  Here are the Images of Chicago from our first trip of September. -Enjoy-
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PrestaShop Devlopment for e-Commerce in Chicago

We are pleased to announce that Naper Design will be developing our first major PrestaShop Template and Website.  While we've enjoyed playing with it for some time now, we will finally have the opportunity to develop a major site with this highly versatile E-Commerce solution. Here's a description of PrestaShop from the core site: "PrestaShop e-Commerce Solution was built to take advantage of essential Web 2.0 innovations such as dynamic AJAX-powered features and next-generation ergonomy. PrestaShop guides users through your product catalog intelligently and effortlessly, turning intrigued visitors into paying customers" PrestaShop began as a network and community maintained e-Commerce Software. The script is maintained in much the same way Wordpress is.  The most up to date version of PrestaShop can be downloaded here. It offers the Following:

Front-office

  • Featured products on homepage
  • Top sellers on homepage
  • New items on homepage
  • 'Free shipping' offers
  • Cross-selling (Accessories)
  • Product image zoom
  • Order out-of-stock items
  • Customer subscription & user accounts
  • Payment by bank wire
  • Google Checkout module
  • Cash-On-Delivery (COD)
  • Preconfigured for Paypal

Back-office

  • Unlimited categories & subcategories, product attribute combinations, product specs, images, currencies, tax settings, carriers & destinations
  • Real-time currency exchange rates
  • Inventory management
  • Unlimited languages & dialects
  • 100% modifiable graphic themes
  • Newsletter contact export
  • Alias search
  • SSL encryption
  • Visitors online
  • Customer groups
Our first site built in the platform (fr mainstream anyway) will be Malloys Finest. - the site that we are preparing for them can be found here-
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Template Monster Releases New PrestaShop Themes

Brooklyn, New York, July 7th 2010 - TemplateMonster.com, the Internets largest templates provider, introduces brand new PrestaShop Themes which are basically a brand new eCommerce solution designed specifically to provide the customers with the speedy and very lightweight tool in setting up their own PrestaShop stores. PrestaShop is a new feature-rich and open-source eCommerce software which has a very powerful back-end for its size. Combined with decent and affordable designs PrestaShop is an efficient eCommerce shopping cart solution available for small and medium-sized online businesses. PrestaShop multilingual eCommerce system is fully customizable, quick and simple to install. And the site owners will appreciate its flexibility as it supports unlimited categories, sub-categories and image pictures. Besides, the store admins can manage the inventory, customers, orders, and payments easily. According to companys authorities, PrestaShop themes provided by TemplateMonster are developed to take advantages of this new shopping cart system. The themes are HTML/CSS Validated and optimized for fast page loading, plus they support all major browsers and have built-in jQuery elements for even more spectacular design. David Braun, CEO of the Template Monster, said, "Our customers have been asking us to launch PrestaShop themes for many months now. And today we can proudly claim that TemplateMonster now offers innovative PrestaShop themes brushed and polished by our website design pros. Dedicated to providing unbeatable functionality for customers online eCommerce presence, our PrestaShop design solutions ensure youll fully enjoy fantastic functionality of PrestaShop. Not to mention that the themes are extremely easy to modify. And of course we are eager to extend our PrestaShop selection by adding more and more new designs into this product type. So be sure to check back for more premium quality PrestaShop templates!" Previously the company has launched the Free PrestaShop Theme for cell phone store. This template is still available for download at Free PrestaShop Theme download page.
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“Map Spam” Revisited

Many have responded and commented since the last posting on "Map Spamming by Lead Generation Services".  Some of you have asked me to go into further detail about the structure that such a group would have, and why Google doesn't chop them off at the knees for all of the spam There is no easy answer to this question.  The best answer is that Google is getting to big to police itself even though it continues to change tactics. The average location can search the term "Flood Damage" on their map right now and you'll encounter a group of fake "24 Hr Response groups" that have the same pictures and the same coupons on all of their listing pages.  Worse yet, they only exist(and I use the term "exist" lightly) on the map at locations that have never heard of them.  This specific group has fake "flood damage cleanup" companies across the entire country. In Naperville alone, we can find at least 15 such locations that are completely fake.  In the Chicago area, there are over 1,000 different map locations that are complete Spam.  Again, while it is important to report them to Google, don't be surprised if it takes a while for anything to be done about them.  Google sells ad space to some of them and doesn't seem to want them to go away to quickly. You may ask, why is this such a big deal to Naper Design?  It is a good question, and one that deserves a proper answer.  This group was formally asked to remove their fake listings from one City area in Norther Illinois.  A client of our was having issues with being seen on the map.  Rather than immediately go to Google with the complaint,we called the company and made a simple request to have them pull just these 4 fake locations.  Instead of being ok with our request, they began harassing us with unlisted numbers, and would call in the middle of the night with claims that the were from the mob(as if a mob member would ever make that claim).  It was pathetic, but should show you just how much they value this business.  They make quite a fortune off of the small businesses who have to purchase the leads back from the people who stole from them. In the case of these Carpet Cleaning and 24 Hour Flood Damage Cleanup Companies, they like to take their scam to an even higher level.  Having been caught by Google before, they leave fake identifying logos on their site.  They claim to be members of The Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC), but the fuzzed picture is an obvious fake.  This is a common tactic of those who are wishing to Scam the consumer, "claim you're certified in something". While Google has been made aware of their fake sites, this can take some time.  There are still several sites within this thread of Google's support blog that pay mention to companies that have yet to be removed. The frustration is there because Google is still slow in responding to people who are playing by the rules.  The fakes and spammers out there have caused for contractors here in Naperville, Chicago, Michigan, California and New York to completely go out of business.  Worse still is the upcharge that these lead generation services add to the price of the work to be performed.  The mark-up can be hundreds of Dollars just to reach the guys you wanted to contact to begin with. While it may not be to kosher, I do support Re-Spamming.  Several of us have begun looking up these fake companies and leaving negative comments to let people know they are Scammers and Spammers.   We don't see this as negative or even spam since we are leaving legitimate feedback on these profiles... Unlike the fake ones they leave for themselves. With hope, this will clear the map in the Naperville and Chicago area and allow for local contractors to conduct business more effectively.  The last thing we need during a recession are all of the lead groups steeling business from local contractors hidden links
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Chicago Free Stock Images- Skyline

The Chicago Skyline is forever changing yet timelessly beautiful. Through the years it has been inspiration to the Batman's city of Gotham, and glass towers around the globe. We've added a group of free stock images of the Chicago Skyline for use and enjoyment.hidden links More will follow as we offer space for photographers to offer their stock images here.
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