When you first start a business, you think you know everything that's needed to run a business and don't need anyone's help. This is primarily because you have a lot of energy and you don't actually know (at that time)... Continue Reading Hiring Organized People »
I'm in a sticky spot right now at Elevator Up in that I know I need to make some changes in what we do, how many (new) people we have on staff and the types of projects we focus on.... Continue Reading We're Good - but is that ok? »
After months of being in office space limbo - our office is finally finished. Janson and I got everything moved in last Friday.... Continue Reading Office with Walls »
The Geeks event is coming up next week Tuesday and after talking with a few people, we decided to have it at the new Elevator Up offices and then walk over to Pizza Hut for some fine dining. So head... Continue Reading Geek gather at Elevator Up »
After working in a big room with only a few desks and cheap chairs from Haworth Outlet store, I finally went to an Ikea store (actually a few) and picked up a few things for the office. If you're... Continue Reading A little style at EU »
About a month ago, I received an email from the editor of MiBiz asking if I'd like to participate in a technology roundtable discussion on security. MiBiz is a bi-weekly B2B publication covering business news in the 18 county-wide... Continue Reading MiBiz Newspaper »
Elevator Up is now located in the new Zeeland Clock Tower building with more room than we know what to do with. If you're in the area, make sure to stop by and take a look around. We're hoping to... Continue Reading Elevator Up's New Office »
It seems a bit weird to think we're ready to add someone else to the Elevator Up team but once you add the first person, I guess the rest come a lot easier. You begin to realize how much... Continue Reading We're Hiring a Designer »
One of the biggest challenges for a company's financials is reoccurring revenue. What's even harder to do is get reoccurring revenue when your business doesn't necessarily lend itself to that model. In the case of web development, most people... Continue Reading Retainers - When to do them »
I do it myself is something Jessica has added to her vocabulary and ever growing independence at the age of two. It's often voiced when Jodi or I are trying to help her with something or do something for her.... Continue Reading I do it myself »
I've always had a lot of frustration with the issue of storage. We have our computers but with all the videos, photos and large client files, I'm filling up my computer faster and faster. I also don't want to... Continue Reading Achieving Storage Bliss »
For the past 3 years at Elevator Up, I've worked hard to move the company forward in the area of web hosting and application development. It's been a tough road and a lot of late nights and long weekends. On... Continue Reading Elevator Up +1 »
Today I got a call from one of my clients that sounded pretty upset when I answered. I ask what was going on and he proceeded to tell me that someone had stolen their site design and used it for... Continue Reading Local Plagiarism »
The Schaap family has been getting into the Holiday season. Jodi and Jessica made a bunch of little treats and flower arrangements all morning then pulled me away from my computer to walk up and down our street delivering... Continue Reading Holiday Specials at Elevator Up »
On Wednesday, November 15. I'll be speaking on Search Engines at the Chamber of Commerce Mid-Day Forum. If you're in town stop but from 12-1:00p.m From the Chamber This presentation is designed for both novice and experienced Internet users... Continue Reading Beyond Google - Finding Information on the Internet »
Some new things are happening at Elevator Up and I wanted to share one of the most recent changes. Do to the current growth on the hosting side, we purchased 3 new servers this week in order provide a... Continue Reading Elevator Up gets new servers »
For those of you hosted on the Elevator Up servers, you probably noticed everything was down for most of Saturday (the 22nd). We had a disk drive failure and had to redo everything. The good news is we had full... Continue Reading Short server outage »
As a child we've all had someone explain the metaphor of "Climbing the Corporate Ladder". It's how school teachers explain the business process, colleges show wannabe managers the value of starting at the bottom and business magazines/books make you envious... Continue Reading How the Upper Ladder can suck »
The other day I decided to order a hooded sweatshirt on the Elevator Up CafePress.com store. I wasn't quite sure what size I needed so I opted for a large - thinking it was easier to shrink cotton than... Continue Reading Shout out to CafePress »
Looking for a good job and you're an amazing Project Manager? From the HR Desk We are now accepting resumes for the Web Project Manager position. This person will be responsible for scheduling, budgeting, content management, billing and assisting with... Continue Reading Hire: Web Project Manager »
7dots is an absolutely fun project to be working on. We're all learning new things and beating our heads over the little details. We've had plans to setup a blog to discuss what we're working on but with DNS issues... Continue Reading 7dots gets a blog »
David's post on "Constraints breed breakthrough creativity is exactly how 7dots is being developed. We've been talking about this system for months now and when a few other people started talking about the same type of idea - we started... Continue Reading Creativity under Pressure »
Just a quick little annoucement that Elevator Up will be launching its first web application within the next few months. We've been working quite a bit on putting all the pieces together and are pretty sure it's going to be... Continue Reading 7dots - Coming soon »
After using a site that was never meant to stay online as long as it did - it was definately time for a change. So we locked ourselves in a room and gave ourselves a face-lift. Improved XHTML, CSS and... Continue Reading Version 2 »
I've recently been asked to speak in Chicago at the next Gospelcom Conference to all their alliance members and development community. I was privileged to attend last years event and sit in on some great workshops. This year, however,... Continue Reading Speaking at Gospelcon »
With everything at our fingertips, individuals are able to both try new things and accomplish them for little to no cost(s) up front. It's beautiful and more often than not - simple. With that, I decided to take advantage of... Continue Reading Elevator Up Clothing »
In the spirit of pushing websites live this week - I'd also like to unveil the new Hearthstone Development website. This has also been a fun project over the past few months and it's exciting to see it finally go... Continue Reading Hearthstone Development Website »
--> It's one of the projects that finally goes live and you can barely believe everyone in the world can now see everything you've been working on for the past 320 hours. Tonight at 7:20pm I turned HudsonvilleIceCream.com site... Continue Reading Hudsonville Ice Cream Website »
Christmas is the time of year in which everyone comes together. It's also a perfect time to be relational with your clients. Some people settle with a quick mass email (not recommended at all), some send out an actual card,... Continue Reading Gifts to Client »
When you see a good ad on TV or the Internet, you can't help but watching it over and over. Sometimes you laugh, sometimes you .. umm... cry but no matter what the reaction - you simply love it... Continue Reading Good ads make you smile »
I'll talk much more on this later but, last week Elevator Up L.L.C. got a call from the City of Holland saying that City Council has approved my proposal for redeveloping their website and would like to move forward as... Continue Reading City of Holland Website »
For a few years now I've been developing all my sites with assessability in mind (in compliance with Section 508). This not only includes my personal websites but all sites I develop. Often times I will tell my clients... Continue Reading Elevator Up develops for Disabilities »
The Holland Sentinel wrote an article today about the "g33ks" group that I started up a couple months ago. We've been picking up some steam lately and people are starting to find out about the group. Already there are... Continue Reading Geeks and proud of it »
After quite a bit of brainstorming, business projections, and conversations with business owning peers - I called up Campbell-Ewald today and told them I was gonna have to pass on their offer. It's still tough realizing that I said... Continue Reading I said PASS »
For those that are interested, Elevator Up has put together a new section called LAB. One of the LAB projects (Project 2) is to start a group called "g33ks". g33ks is being formed for the West Michigan computer folks. A... Continue Reading The LAB is a brew'in »
Every once in awhile you'll find a good deal and want to share it with everyone you know. It just so happens the good deal that I've come across is being offered by my good friend - Rob Walcott... Continue Reading Summer Picture Deals »
Well, it's official - after two and a half years of working at the Holland Sentinel I'm finally on my own with hopes and energy of making it on my own. I won't bore you with all the crazy details... Continue Reading New Job - New Life »
A couple days ago I talked about my frustration with writing a sellable block of text about myself and few days before that, I peeked your interested by saying something new was coming. Now, after much torture and head-to-keyboard nights,... Continue Reading ElevatorUP.com - LIVE »
Over the past couple days I've been working on a portfolio site for myself. I've spent hours coming up with the right colors, searching for the best/cheapest hosting company and keeping the site incredibly simple for ease of maintenance and... Continue Reading Pulling out my Hair »
75 years ago Lida Rogers, founder of Tulip Time, pursued a dream to beautify the community. In the fall of 1928, a quarter of a million tulips were planted, and in May 1929, Tulip Time officially began. Now in 2004... Continue Reading TulipTime.com/.org Launch (v.1.0) »
Looks as though some interesting conversation has come about on an older post of mine entitled "Advertising Headaches". J Carter Marketing doesn't seem to be so excited about the bad press. Update: Doing a quick google search for J. Carter... Continue Reading Bad Press??? »
After an intense month and a half of design & development I finally have my weekend of laziness. Filled with random naps, various movies I've wanted to watch and articles I've been meaning to catch up on - I'm finally... Continue Reading Relaxing Weekend after Site Launch »
A couple of months ago we got a call from a company called - J Carter Marketing. They called us, at the Sentinel, because they've (supposedly) noticed our creditable website and high page views. The deal they offered was something... Continue Reading Advertising Headaches »
So this is my website, huh? It's been awhile since I've been able to update it with new content. Mostly because I've been extremely busy with a couple projects at work but also because I have other things to do... Continue Reading Website Launches »
For almost 2 years now I've been trying to explain to my peers and elders on the advantages of using CSS and XHTML for development. The ease of use, flexibility, server load, changeability, etc. - these are all points to... Continue Reading New Sentinel Design »
