Abe, best of luck out in Pittsburgh. We’ll miss your constant off the wall “Would you rather…” questions and enthusiasm that you bring to every project!

Some people are accusing Google of telling people to “do as I say, not as I do” because of how many ads Google shows in their search results through their pay per click program. However, we still think this recent update is another step in the right direction, pushing web designers and developers to develop sites that present relevant content instead of ads.

To read more about the algorithm update, check out this Google Search blog post.

Come check out our new location sometime!

Flint Hills Design is exploring new territories. Adding new locations. Meeting new people. Eating too much barbecue.

Well, I guess I’m the only one eating too much barbecue. I moved to the Kansas City area at the beginning of the August and after a few weeks of searching for the right office space, Flint Hills Design is proud to announce that we have a new location in Kansas City! I’m working from an awesome collaborative office space in the heart of the Crossroads Arts District near downtown Kansas City. We’re excited to expand into the Kansas City area, as it will allow us to more easily meet the needs of our clients in the Kansas City, Topeka, and Lawrence areas.

Being new to the KC area, we’re anxious to meet new people. Do you have any friends, organizations, or companies in the area that we should get to know? Whether or not they’re interested in building a new website or expanding their marketing efforts, we would love to meet them. Let us know!

And remember to check back often for updates about life up in Kansas City, marketing tips, and maybe an occasional barbecue restaurant recommendation!

Today we’re proud to announce that our first mobile game is available for iPad!

Ziggy Fins is a fast-paced single-button side-scrolling game with lots of fun achievements and challenges to figure out. You play as Ziggy, a young sea turtle trying to get away from the great white shark. The goal is to make is as far as you can before the shark catches you. The green arrow boosts speed you up, while the rocks, coral and jellyfish all slow you down. Tapping the screen alternates the direction you swim.

The gameplay is pretty simple, but it’s addicting! We hope you enjoy it!

We’ve had a great time making the first version of this game, and hope to have versions for Android tablets and phones as well as iPhone and iPod Touch out soon.

Please download the game, try it out, and let us know what you think. We’d love to get some more reviews posted on the App Store right away!

Here’s a link to the app store: Ziggy Fins HD for iPad

Dave Gaeddert – programming

Jesse Graber – graphics

My iGoogle homepage.

Using you Google account, iGoogle allows you to customize your Google homepage with content that interests you. Content is customized by going to the “Gadgets” page and choosing which gadgets you want on your homepage. Developers can make their own gadgets, and Google also offers gadgets for many of their products (Gmail, Calendar…etc).

One of the main reasons I like iGoogle is because it saves me time. With all of my new headlines, email, weather, and calendar notifications on one page, I don’t have to visit 5-10 separate websites to keep myself up-to-date.

On December 23 Google announced that they were launching a gadget for Analytics. This gadget (available here) gives users the basic web Analytics information they would normally find on their dashboard. The gadget is perfect for users who already use Google Analytics but don’t check their website statistics on a daily basis. Google even allows users to place multiple Analytics gadgets on their homepage, so you can have one gadget that tracks visitors, another that displays traffic sources, and another gadget that displays goal sources or keywords.

To make a long story short, we were selected to receive a free Google TV! Here’s a picture of the device that will soon be hanging out in the FHD offices. We’re anxious to start developing for it, and to figure out how we can keep all of our websites looking good across the ever expanding array of internet devices.

There will definitely be more posts about this topic, especially once we get the system and begin working with it! In the meantime, contact us if you want to know more about our app and website development capabilities. And remember to stay tuned for more updates about Google TV!

Mortgage Calc for iPad and iPhone

As we’ve been spending more time working on mobile applications for some of our clients, we thought it was about time to launch an application of our own.  After browsing the iTunes App Store, we noticed there was a lack of simple, well-designed mortgage calculators for iPad.  This persuaded us to develop Mortgage Calc, a simple, easy-to-use mortgage calculator that provides users with important information, such as monthly payments rates, amortization schedules, and outstanding principal graphs.

Developing this app taught us a lot about how to effectively program applications for iPad.  Now, as we are in the process of taking all the information that Mortgage Calc provides on the iPad and turning it into an application for the iPhone, we are continuing to learn more about the importance of clean design when trying to display lots of information on a small screen.

To learn more about our applications, visit our App page.  Or, to download Mortgage Calc for iPad (or iPhone coming soon), visit the iTunes App store here.

It was fascinating to hear perspectives from all levels of the exhibit development process, highlighting challenges faced along the way and innovative solutions to those challenges. It was also great to talk with people from the institutions who host the exhibits, and to brainstorm with them about possibilities for supplemental programming and promotion.

Thanks to those who attended. And for those who missed it, give us a call–we’d be glad to fill you in!

Update:

A few days ago we received feedback from our AASLH presentation. Everyone who rated our presentation gave us an overall rating of 10/10, and one person even said it was the best session they attended while they were there. Once again, thank you to everyone who came and visited us at the AASLH conference!

Today we’re proud to introduce fhdMail, a new email marketing campaign manager from Flint Hills Design.

We’ve been doing HTML email campaigns for a while now, and they’ve been great. But, being the perfectionists that we are, we started wondering if there was a better way.  And so we created fhdMail.

We invite you to read about why fhdMail is better than your standard email campaign delivery service by visiting the website.  But we’ll give you one concrete reason why fhdMail is better right now: the cute, furry little prairie dog character that we’ve affectionately named Flint.  I mean, who wouldn’t enjoy being greeted and guided by this fun little guy in the midst of serious marketing work?

To learn more about how Flint and fhdMail can help your organization do effective email marketing, give us a shout. We know you’ll enjoy it.