In the past two and a half years, we’ve built and launched many websites and web-applications for our clients, all of which we’re quite proud of. We gained a lot of experience and learned a lot about project management, scheduling, client relationships, and all of that fun stuff. We worked diligently and put in a lot of long days and nights to meet deadlines and keep our clients happy.

All the while we’ve been consulting, Dusty and myself have poured countless hours into our products: Tripleseat.com and SiliconPrairieNews.com. We’ve been splitting our time and focus between consulting and our products, which has been nothing short of difficult, stressful, and time consuming. (If we focus on the consulting side of our business, the product side suffers and vice versa.) Nonetheless, both SPN and Tripleseat have gained considerable traction and momentum over the last year, and, as founders, the need for us to dedicate ourselves fully to these endeavors has become paramount. As a result, we’ve decided that we will be halting consulting work and focusing 100% of our efforts on our products. It’s something that we’ve always wanted to do and there’s no better time to act on it than now.

Note to all of our current clients: We will honor all outstanding projects to which we’ve committed. Additionally, we will continue to support and maintain all projects we’ve built.

However, we will want to transition ourselves out of any and all support and maintenance roles as quickly and realistically as possible. We will be touching base with all of our current clients over the next week to determine the best plan of action moving forward.

Lastly, suffice to say, we will not be accepting any new projects going forward.

Ideally, our transition from a consulting shop to a product shop would be seamless, and we’d be able to find a home for all current employees in our reorganized company. Unfortunately, in the short term, sans consulting revenue, we would not be able to financially support either of the Erins so we’ve had to let them go. It’s one of the hardest business decisions we’ve faced; they’re two of the best employees one could hope for. So, any of you out there who are looking for a talented developer or designer, let us know and we’ll be happy to get you in contact with them.. or you can simply email Erin Hawkins or Erin Standley directly (click on their names for their email addresses) or find them on twitter: @erinhawkins, @tinyxl.

What Lies Ahead

We’re very excited for what lays ahead for both Tripleseat.com and SiliconPrairieNews.com. We’re aiming to grow these companies to the point where they are wildly successful. Both of these products will almost certainly grow to the point where we will need to hire on people, need more or additional space, take on funding, etc. For the time being, both SPN and Tripleseat will continue to operate out of our current office in mid-town Omaha. We’ll be bunking down, working hard, and knocking these products out of the park.

More to follow in the specifics of each of our software / company endeavors. For now, thanks to everyone who has been a supporter, client, friend and follower of BrightMix over the past two and a half years. It has been a fantastic run up to this point, and we’re more excited than ever for what’s in store.

BrightMix Founders,
Dusty & Kevin

It’s that time again that never was before:

BrightMix’s Friday the 13th “Amazing” Party Party at 5pm

Join us after work for cupcakes, a Valentine’s Day pre-party, and multiple birthday celebrations (Erin #1, Dusty, Sarah Palin, Chuck Yeager, Peter Tork, Jerry Springer, Peter Gabriel, Henry Rollins, AND Mena Suvari). Or, you could choose to celebrate the 28th anniversary of the Louisville sewer explosions…or maybe you’re more into those Jason films…whatever you feel like celebrating, do it at BrightMix.

We’ll have the basics: cupcakes, drinks, napkins, and probably some sort of music. Bringing cupcakes is encouraged; even more highly encouraged is eating cupcakes.

p.s. please leave us a comment if you plan on stopping by…

Congrats to Dusty and to all of the winners! Check out Silicon Prairie News for a complete list of all of the 40 Under 40 award recipients

As one of the co-founders of a growing Web development company BrightMix, Dusty Davidson launched a product called TripleSeat during the first year in business; TripleSeat is a service providing a new option for businesses in the restaurant industry and is meeting goals of steady, organic growth.

Davidson and BrightMix co-founder Kevin Zink sought to bring their vision of business to fruition, and their company took shape from origins in consulting from a home office, leading to a move this year into a midtown office.

BrightMix has provided internships for students and has grown in employees and revenue since it got off the ground in 2007. Not only is Davidson an entrepreneur, he is involved in the promotion of other Omaha entrepreneurs via several projects: He helps run the Web site Silicon Prairie News, which spotlights Nebraska entrepreneurs and innovators with goals of pushing forward ideas that encourage Omaha’s viability as a city for creativity and innovation. Aiming for weekly interviews, the Web site’s founders promote news items that might otherwise be flying under the radar.

This year Davidson was involved in creating Omaha’s first BarCamp, a gathering to bring together entrepreneurs, innovators, technologists and others.

Davidson is an original member of the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce’s Cornstalks group for entrepreneurs and inventors. Davidson has been involved in helping to organize networking and informal educational events through Cornstalks.

Davidson has a bachelor’s in computer science from Iowa State University and has five years experience in his field.

Erin H.

ErinFight

Technically, the site isn’t up yet but I love it anyway. I’ve never helped to inspire a website before. More importantly, I can’t wait to start kicking some Erin booty!!!!!11

TripAdvisor

Oh TripAdvisor, my vacations would surely suck with out you.

Hulu

I don’t have cable (no, not even basic) so hulu really saves my sanity.

GMail

I don’t know how anyone can have a bad day with ninjas all over their email. I giggle every time I see them.

Erin G.

Yelp

Because without it, I would have never found the best ribs in the world, Smoki O’s in Saint Louis.

Vimeo

Because it looks super nice and it’s super functional and they have lots of good, creative videos and film, not just a bunch of old boys ranting about braces

Patterntap.com

Because it’s been a really good resource of quality design on the web.

Couchsurfing.com

Lastly, couchsurfing.com because I like to travel and I like supporting people who travel. I like travelers and think staying with locals is way better than staying at a hotel.

Dusty

Google Reader

I’m thankful for Google Reader, because without it, I would spend ALL my time reading blogs, and with it I only spend about HALF my time. Thanks Google.

Freshbooks

Hands down, the best time tracking and invoicing web app around! Without this, we probably wouldn’t be able to even afford turkey today. Truly the cadillac of web-based invoicing! (I’m not even being paid to say that!)

Omaha.com

Sometimes, when I’m feeling down, I go to Omaha.com and click around a bit. There’s just something about popups, blinking ads, and peel-down-pages that cheers me up!

Twitter

Despite what WOW-T says, we here at BrightMix loooOOooOooove Twitter. The people we’ve been able to connect with, a mere 140 characters at a time, have forged some lasting friendships, and we’re definitely thankful for that.

Kevin

Amazon Webservices

For their cloud computing and mass-storage network, EC2 and S3, not to mention their great services, without which our web apps would be homeless. Oh, and the Amazon Webservices guys were cool enough to post comments on Dusty’s cloud computing talk he gave last week.

LetMeGoogleThatForYou

Just when you got tired of browsing the web, a group of guys comes along and build this little gem to make our lives easier.

Flickr

For the most blingy and cheap, javascripty photo organization and storing application. Me Gusta!

Campfire

Despite the fact that it’s just online chat, it’s just really good… and sometimes addictive. Also, a lot of BrightMix’s conception occurred in Campfire chat, of all places!

Ruby on Rails

Aright, so maybe this isn’t technically an app, but it can build great web apps. Seriously though, best web-based programming framework ever. I will throw down with anyone who disagrees. Bring it!

We currently host both of our production web apps with Amazon EC2: Tripleseat and BetterOmaha.com, and really have high hopes and much love for cloud computing in general. Though nothing we have requires the dynamic scaling that you can achieve with EC2, its just a matter of time, and we’re excited for the possibilities.

The talk went really well, and I think the group really was intrigued by the opportunities that EC2 opens. We ended with a pretty good Q&A, which is also capture on the video. Enjoy!

You can also view the slides here, or download the PDF.

Update! RenderPartial to String has become much easier in ASP.NET MVC, see the new post here!

We usually don’t post much about hardcore programming-related things here, but this is an exception to the rule.

We’re primarily a Ruby on Rails shop, but we still do ASP.NET development fairly regularly. Our overall interest in ASP.NET was waning until the new ASP.NET MVC framework was released. ASP.NET MVC brings a number of the concepts we love from Rails into the ASP.NET arena.

However, one limitation we’ve come across with ASP.NET MVC is the lack of ability to render a partial to a string. This is really handy if you’re doing Ajax things; it also happens to be one of the things we really love about Rails. Additionally, it’s a feature others have been wanting, too, see here and here.

Well, the good news is I have a solution for at least some of you out there. I’ve cobbled together a few concepts from various sources and forum posts to make it all happen. Here is how you can render a view into a string.

First, you need to include these files in your project, both are from the MvcContrib project.

Download BlockRender.cs – from MvcContrib

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Web;
using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace MvcContrib.UI
{
    /// <summary>Renders an Action delegate and captures all output to a string. </summary>
    public class BlockRenderer
    {
        private readonly HttpContextBase _httpContext;

        public BlockRenderer(HttpContextBase httpContext)
        {
            _httpContext = httpContext;
        }

        public partial class HttpResponse
        {
            public bool UsingHttpWriter { get { return true; } }
        }

        /// <summary>Renders the action and returns a string.</summary>
        /// <param name="viewRenderer">The delegate to render.</param>
        /// <returns>The rendered text.</returns>
        public string Capture(Action viewRenderer)
        {
            HttpResponseBase resp = _httpContext.Response;
            Stream originalFilter = null;
            CapturingResponseFilter innerFilter;
            string capturedHtml = "";

            if (viewRenderer != null)
            {
                try
                {
                    resp.Flush();
                    originalFilter = resp.Filter;
                    innerFilter = new CapturingResponseFilter(resp.Filter);
                    resp.Filter = innerFilter;
                    viewRenderer();

                    resp.Flush();
                    capturedHtml = innerFilter.GetContents(resp.ContentEncoding);
                }
                finally
                {
                    if (originalFilter != null)
                    {
                        resp.Filter = originalFilter;
                    }
                }
            }
            return capturedHtml;
        }
    }
}

Download CapturingResponseFilter.cs – from MvcContrib

using System.IO;
using System.Text;

namespace MvcContrib.UI
{
    public class CapturingResponseFilter : Stream
    {
        private Stream _sink;
        private MemoryStream mem;

        public CapturingResponseFilter(Stream sink)
        {
            _sink = sink;
            mem = new MemoryStream();
        }

        // The following members of Stream must be overriden.
        public override bool CanRead
        {
            get { return true; }
        }

        public override bool CanSeek
        {
            get { return false; }
        }

        public override bool CanWrite
        {
            get { return false; }
        }

        public override long Length
        {
            get { return 0; }
        }

        public override long Position { get; set; }

        public override long Seek(long offset, SeekOrigin direction)
        {
            return 0;
        }

        public override void SetLength(long length)
        {
            _sink.SetLength(length);
        }

        public override void Close()
        {
            _sink.Close();
            mem.Close();
        }

        public override void Flush()
        {
            _sink.Flush();
        }

        public override int Read(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count)
        {
            return _sink.Read(buffer, offset, count);
        }

        // Override the Write method to filter Response to a file. 
        public override void Write(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count)
        {
            //Here we will not write to the sink b/c we want to capture

            //Write out the response to the file.
            mem.Write(buffer, 0, count);
        }

        public string GetContents(Encoding enc)
        {
            var buffer = new byte[mem.Length];
            mem.Position = 0;
            mem.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
            return enc.GetString(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);

        }
    }
}

With the above two files included in your project, you’re almost ready to go. Now you just need to include a method that makes all the magic happen (more easily). As seen in the example below, define the RenderPartialToString() and then call it from your controller:

/// Static Method to render string - put somewhere of your choosing
public static string RenderPartialToString(string userControl, object viewData, ControllerContext controllerContext)
{
    HtmlHelper h = new HtmlHelper(new ViewContext(controllerContext, new WebFormView("omg"), null, null), new ViewPage());
    var blockRenderer = new BlockRenderer(controllerContext.HttpContext);

    string s = blockRenderer.Capture(
        () => RenderPartialExtensions.RenderPartial(h, userControl, viewData)
    );

    return s;
}

/// Your Controller method...  
public ActionResult MakeStringForMe()
{
    var objectViewData = new objectViewData { SomeString = "Dude", SomeNumber = 1 };

    string s = RenderPartialToString("~/Views/Controls/UserControl.ascx", objectViewData, this.ControllerContext);

    View();
}

With a little bit of luck and good fortune, it should work and you’ll be rendering partials to strings like a machine!

How It All Works

Basically, it’s using the Response object to render a usercontrol and capture the output into a string. Then, it filters that rendered content out of the response with some fancy trickery. All in all, it’s definitely a hack, but it gets the job done—at least until the Microsoft team can address this issue at its core (hint hint).

A Few Limitiations and/or Questions

I read somewhere that this might not work if you need to retrieve things out of the session. I have not verified this.

Additionally, I have no idea what effects using this approach will have on the large-scale performance of an app. It hasn’t caused any problems for the application I’m using it on.

Lastly, you cannot specify the ContentType on the response. If you do, you’ll get an exception:

Server cannot set content type after HTTP headers have been sent

This seems to be a limitation that results from rendering a usercontrol. This will be problematic if you want your controller to return data with a ContenType of, say, “text/javascript.” I ran into this problem while building a Rails-like RJS framework (see below), but managed to deal with it fairly elegantly.

Rails-like RJS for ASP.NET MVC

In line with the ability to RenderPartial to string, I’ve also put together a Rails-like RJS framework for ASP.NET MVC. Simply put, RJS is a framework that renders and builds dynamic javascript on the server. Similar to Rails’ RJS, it’s specific to the Prototype framework – sorry JQuery guys (for what it’s worth, it could probably be easily ported to JQuery!).

Here’s a quick snippet of what this allows you to do from your Controller:

// Example Usage in your Controller:
public ActionResult HideElement(string elementId)
{
    RjsResult r = new RjsResult();
    r.Effect(elementId, RjsResult.EffectTypes.Hide);

    return r;
}

// A more complicated but powerful example of returning the contents of two UserControls and inserting them into two different <div>'s
public ActionResult InsertUserControl()
{
    ObjectViewData viewData = new ObjectViewData { SomeString = "dude", SomeNumber = 1 };

    var r = new RjsResult();
    r.Insert("div_one", RjsResult.Positions.Top, "~/Views/Controls/UserControl1.ascx", ObjectViewData, ControllerContext);
    r.Insert("div_two", RjsResult.Positions.Bottom, "~/Views/Controls/UserControl2.ascx", ObjectViewData, ControllerContext);

    return r;
}

In both of the above examples, I’m calling a few different methods on the RjsResult object. Behind the scenes, the RjsResult object is building up a string of javascript commands that make all the magic happen in the user’s browser. If you’re still confused, I suggest you read this page from the Rails documentation, which might explain the concept better.

With that said, here is the code for my ASP.NET MVC RJS framework!

Download RjsResult.cs

namespace System.Web.Mvc
{
    using System;
    using System.Text;
    using System.Web;
    using System.Collections.Generic;
    using System.Security.Policy;
    using System.Web.Script.Serialization;
    using MvcContrib.UI;
    using System.Web.Mvc.Html;

    [AspNetHostingPermission(System.Security.Permissions.SecurityAction.LinkDemand, Level = AspNetHostingPermissionLevel.Minimal)]
    [AspNetHostingPermission(System.Security.Permissions.SecurityAction.InheritanceDemand, Level = AspNetHostingPermissionLevel.Minimal)]
    public class RjsResult : ActionResult
    {
        #region Constructors
        public RjsResult(bool setContentType)
        {
            Actions = new List<IRjsActionBase>();
            this.SetContentType = setContentType;
        }

        public RjsResult() : this(false)
        {
        }
        #endregion

        #region Private Vars
        private bool SetContentType { get; set; }

        private List<IRjsActionBase> Actions
        {
            get;
            set;
        }

        #endregion

        #region Rjs Actions
        public interface IRjsActionBase
        {
            string Render();
        }

        private class RjsUpdateAction : IRjsActionBase
        {
            public RjsUpdateAction(string element, string contents)
            {
                this.element = element;
                this.contents = contents;
            }

            public string element { get; set; }
            public string contents { get; set; }

            #region IRjsActionBase Members

            public string Render()
            {
                if (!contents.StartsWith("\""))
                    contents = "\"" + contents + "\"";

                return string.Format("Element.update(\"{0}\", {1});", element, contents);
            }

            #endregion
        }

        private class RjsInsertAction : IRjsActionBase
        {
            public RjsInsertAction(string element, Positions p, string contents)
            {
                this.element = element;
                this.contents = contents;
                this.position = p;
            }

            public string element { get; set; }
            public string contents { get; set; }
            public Positions position { get; set; }

            #region IRjsActionBase Members

            public string Render()
            {
                if (!contents.StartsWith("\""))
                    contents = "\"" + contents + "\"";

                return string.Format("Element.insert(\"{0}\", {{{1}: {2} }});", element, position, contents);
            }

            #endregion
        }

        private class RjsStringAction : IRjsActionBase
        {
            public string contents { get; set; }

            public RjsStringAction(string contents)
            {
                this.contents = contents;
            }

            #region IRjsActionBase Members

            public string Render()
            {
                return this.contents;
            }

            #endregion
        }

        private class RjsShowAction : IRjsActionBase
        {
            public RjsShowAction(string element)
            {
                this.element = element;
            }
            public string element { get; set; }

            #region IRjsActionBase Members

            public string Render()
            {
                return string.Format("$(\"{0}\").show();", element);
            }

            #endregion
        }

        private class RjsAlertAction : IRjsActionBase
        {
            public RjsAlertAction(string message)
            {
                this.message = message;
            }
            public string message { get; set; }

            #region IRjsActionBase Members

            public string Render()
            {
                return string.Format("alert('{0}');", message);
            }

            #endregion
        }

        private class RjsHideAction : IRjsActionBase
        {
            public RjsHideAction(string element)
            {
                this.element = element;
            }
            public string element { get; set; }

            #region IRjsActionBase Members

            public string Render()
            {
                return string.Format("$(\"{0}\").hide();", element);
            }

            #endregion
        }

        private class RjsRemoveAction : IRjsActionBase
        {
            public RjsRemoveAction(string element)
            {
                this.element = element;
            }
            public string element { get; set; }

            #region IRjsActionBase Members

            public string Render()
            {
                return string.Format("$(\"{0}\").remove();", element);
            }

            #endregion
        }

        private class RjsEffectAction : IRjsActionBase
        {
            public RjsEffectAction(string element, EffectTypes effect, KeyValuePair<string, string>[] options)
            {
                this.options = new Dictionary<string, string>();

                if (options != null)
                {
                    foreach (KeyValuePair<string, string> pair in options)
                        this.options.Add(pair.Key, pair.Value);
                }

                this.element = element;
                this.effect = effect;
            }

            public string element { get; set; }
            public EffectTypes effect { get; set; }
            public Dictionary<string, string> options { get; set; }

            #region IRjsActionBase Members

            public string Render()
            {
                string ret = string.Format("new Effect.{0}(\"{1}\"", effect.ToString(), element);
                ret += ", {";

                foreach (string key in options.Keys)
                {
                    ret += string.Format("{0}: {1}", key, options[key]);
                }
                ret += "});";

                return ret;
            }

            #endregion
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Call me from your controller and pass me your ControllerContext and I'll render a UserControl for you and return the contents as a string!
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="userControl"></param>
        /// <param name="viewData"></param>
        /// <param name="controllerContext"></param>
        /// <returns></returns>
        private string RenderPartialToString(string userControl, object viewData, ControllerContext controllerContext)
        {
            HtmlHelper h = new HtmlHelper(new ViewContext(controllerContext, new WebFormView("omg"), null, null), new ViewPage());
            var blockRenderer = new BlockRenderer(controllerContext.HttpContext);

            var r = new RjsResult();
            JavaScriptSerializer serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
            string s = blockRenderer.Capture(
                () => RenderPartialExtensions.RenderPartial(h, userControl, viewData)
            );

            return serializer.Serialize(s);
        }
        #endregion

        #region Fun Enums
        public enum Positions
        {
            Before = 1,
            After,
            Top,
            Bottom
        }

        public enum EffectTypes
        {
            Appear = 1,
            Fade,
            SlideDown,
            SlideUp,
            Shake,
            Highlight
        }
        #endregion

        #region Rjs Methods
        /// <summary>
        /// Renders a user control and inserts the contents into specified element
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="element"></param>
        /// <param name="p"></param>
        /// <param name="userControl"></param>
        /// <param name="viewData"></param>
        /// <param name="controllerContext"></param>
        public void Insert(string element, Positions p, string userControl, object viewData, ControllerContext controllerContext)
        {
            Insert(element, p, RenderPartialToString(userControl, viewData, controllerContext) );
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Inserts content into specific element
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="element"></param>
        /// <param name="p"></param>
        /// <param name="contents"></param>
        public void Insert(string element, Positions p, string contents)
        {
            Actions.Add(new RjsInsertAction(element, p, contents));
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Update a part of the page by rendering a user control
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="element"></param>
        /// <param name="userControl"></param>
        /// <param name="viewData"></param>
        /// <param name="controllerContext"></param>
        public void Update(string element, string userControl, object viewData, ControllerContext controllerContext)
        {
            Update(element, RenderPartialToString(userControl, viewData, controllerContext));
        }

        public void Update(string element, string contents)
        {
            Actions.Add(new RjsUpdateAction(element, contents));
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Alert some text
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="message"></param>
        public void Alert(string message)
        {
            Actions.Add(new RjsAlertAction(message));
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Render some javascript code.. whatever you want
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="contents"></param>
        public void RenderString(string contents)
        {
            Actions.Add(new RjsStringAction(contents));
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Shows an element
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="element"></param>
        public void Show(string element)
        {
            Actions.Add(new RjsShowAction(element));
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Hides an element
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="element"></param>
        public void Hide(string element)
        {
            Actions.Add(new RjsHideAction(element));
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Delets an element
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="element"></param>
        public void Remove(string element)
        {
            Actions.Add(new RjsHideAction(element));
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Calls an effect of type EffectTypes, also takes array of prototype options
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="element"></param>
        /// <param name="effect"></param>
        /// <param name="options"></param>
        public void Effect(string element, EffectTypes effect, KeyValuePair<string, string>[] options)
        {
            Actions.Add(new RjsEffectAction(element, effect, options));
        }
        public void Effect(string element, EffectTypes effect)
        {
            Actions.Add(new RjsEffectAction(element, effect, null));
        }

        #endregion

        #region ActionResult Override
        public override void ExecuteResult(ControllerContext context)
        {
            if (context == null)
            {
                throw new ArgumentNullException("context");
            }

            HttpResponseBase response = context.HttpContext.Response;

            if (this.SetContentType)
                response.ContentType = "application/javascript";

            string result = string.Empty;

            foreach (IRjsActionBase action in Actions)
            {
                result += action.Render();
            }

            response.Write(result);
        }
#endregion
    }
}

One Major Gotcha

A trick to getting this to work with Prototype’s Ajax.Request is the ContentType of the returned data needs to be of type “text/javascript” in order for it to automatically be evaluated as javascript. However, you can get around this by forcing Prototype to evaluate the response data as javascript via the EvalJS: ‘force’ parameter.

So that’s it. A working way to RenderPartial to a string on the server-side and also the startings of a Rails-like RJS framework for ASP.NET MVC!

Thoughts, comments, patches or otherwise are appreciated!

Unfortunately the Midlands Business Journal doesn’t have an online presence for their articles or we’d link to it. If only there was someway to get them to put their content online (hint hint)

Jeff Atwood says keeping it simple is the paramount to keeping your audience interested. No creating small diatribes or small novels inside your slides.

Seth Godin says to make an emotional connection with your audience through the use of images, simplicity, oh, and not bombarding your listeners with bulleted lists of factoids.

Communication is about getting others to adopt your point of view, to help them understand why you’re excited (or sad, or optimistic or whatever else you are.)If all you want to do is create a file of facts and figures, then cancel the meeting and send in a report.

There are countless resources on how not to use PowerPoint.

If you’re on board with my last few points, you rock and you’re the best – but how can you make an even better slideshow. Where’s that next edge?

Our Newest Concept: Graphic Design + Slides

Last week Dusty gave a presentation at Highlight Midwest with Matt and Jeff about the cool startup/entrepreneurial activity that’s going down in Omaha. In preparation for their talk, they put together a pretty sweet slide deck. However, it was lacking some serious visual pizazz. What did we do?

If you didn’t already know, we value design, look and feel, and usability heavily in the web applications we build. So we thought… maybe apply these same concepts to a slideshow?

Seemed like something worth trying, so we handed it off to Erin #2 to see what she could do. After a few hours, it was pretty apparent that it was time well spent. The before and after results are below.

End Result: Get a Designer to Take Your Presentation to the Next Level

Of course, hardcore graphic design doesn’t come cheap or free (usually). We hired an awesome designer for that reason, but there are other avenues to take if you’re seriously looking.

In fact, we contracted out to this designer, who specializes in gussying up slideshows, to create a presentation for our Tripleseat product. It was money well spent!

The Frog and the Peach

Contemporary American cuisine restaurant The Frog and the Peach in New Jersey is a fine dining restaurant with one location, multiple dining rooms and a lot of special events to manage. Event planner Kara Stout is also responsible for updating the restaurant’s Web site. She ends up accessing their Web tools from home and when away on vacation, as well as from the restaurant itself. “Web-based tools save the restaurant money in the end as far as not losing things as much, but more imporantly it earns us more. We are more accessible because of what we have on the Web,” says Stout.

Booking and planning events on your laptop

Tripleseat is a startup that provides Web-based customer relationship management and event planning software designed specifically for restaurants. The Frog and The Peach has been involved with the system since it first came out in beta form earlier in 2008. Tripleseat handles event scheduling, follow-up reminders, email alerts and banquet ordering. “When myself or any of the other managers take a lead, we go into the We site. It’s easy to follow up, we don’t waste paper and they don’t have to read my handwriting,” says Stout. Customer information is maintained on the Web site to ease the process for future events and provide leads for potential business.

It’s no secret that we at BrightMix love holidays. Unfortunately, we’ve been so busy with work lately that we’ve let the last few fall through the cracks (sorry about that Columbus).

The good news is we’re turning over a new leaf, starting with Halloween! We’ll be hosting a “Halloween Happy Hour”, this Friday from 4:00 – 6:00pm here at BrightMix. All are welcome, so we do hope you will join us for a drink (or some Jello shots?)—courtesy of BrightMix!