Gmail can be the perfect all in one solution for email. Currently, each user is given over 7 GB of space, with the ability to upgrade as necessary. Even a high traffic user can expect to store over 5 years of mail, which is search able and accessible at any time.

At the core of its functionality is its web based interface. By existing as a web based service, any web enabled device can connect and view the same inbox. Additionally, Gmail can be constantly upgraded by Google behind the scenes, with little or no downtime. Gmail’s search functionality is second to none, allowing the user to broaden or narrow their search as needed.

Our favorite feature of Gmail is its ability to receive and send mail through other mail servers. This means that Gmail can connect to your mail servers the same way as a traditional desktop application.

If you are using Gmail without sending would send your mail through the Gmail servers. By doing so the mail headers show that the sender’s domain and the mail server’s DNS records do not match. This typically sets off a red flag on spam filters nowadays and can cause deliverability issues.

Since we are setting up Gmail to send each mail account’s email through its domain mail server, all your email will be routed through the proper mail server. The ensures that there are no deliverability issues as outlined above.

One of the problems with a web based system is that you need to be online to view your email. This issue is avoided by using Gmail’s IMAP servers to sync your desktop or mobile mail application with Gmail. Additionally this allows the user to setup and deploy Gmail from traditional desktop mail applications such as Apple Mail, Outlook or Thunderbird.

Both incoming and sent mail can be setup so they are tagged by filters, which can place email into specific folders. These folders are available underneath the aggregate inbox and allow the user to check specific email accounts.

There are a few tricks to optimizing your Gmail and EJHost will be happy to assist you in getting setup. Please contact us today for more information or how you can be switched over to a Gmail platform.

We established a hard budget with the client during the estimation and proposal process. To stay under budget while producing a high quality product, efficiency was even more important than usual. One of the main pieces that was removed was lack of design concepts and lack of revisions. We needed to get this one right the first time!
Read more about working within a hard budget here.

We felt confident using this method of development since we had excellent communication with the site owner. We understood his expectations and felt like we were on the same page with him. Conceptually, we shared his vision and understood that he needed the site done quickly.

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Last edited by jesse on April 20, 2011 at 2:20 pm

Excerpt

The Wayward Roots website was developed using a custom WordPress theme loosely based on the 2010 theme. This is our typical method of WordPress development, we start with a stripped down custom theme and build upon it.

We used our set of custom WordPress functions to handle some of the sidebar and SEO items on the site.

From there we setup Posts categories and custom fields to manage News, Music, and Home page images. This allows the site owner to easily manage these lists.

The last pieces were using JQuery cycle and PHPThumb to manage the home page images. PHPThumb takes the full sizer image and does a zoom crop + maximum resize to display the image within the home page’s frame.

We had a lot of fun doing this site and check out Wayward Roots music

Our piece of the puzzle was solely website design and web development. There were also certain elements of graphic design that were required of us, but the design and concept was done by Rodd at Cause Design.

This project was a rapidly paced project which moved quickly. We met with Rodd and he supplied us with the entire design and concept in Photoshop. We then translated this design into a web based format. Geoff from Geoff Matheson Design helped with CSS and graphic work. His work was invaluable in getting the design tweaked just right.

For this project we used WordPress as our CMS. WordPress is a superior user friendly CMS and is designed for SEO and other internet web standards.

For all of our websites that use WordPress, we design the WordPress theme from the ground up. Our theme is loosely based on the best parts of the current recommended 2010 design. We start with a stripped down 2010 theme + some of our own default goodies. A customized theme and layout is then created from this default. This is where we then build our CSS and XHTML code. Since we have such an in depth knowledge of WordPress, we can use built in WordPress functions at times, and then either use our own custom written PHP functions or create our own. The combination allows us to create anything and everything possible, while giving the site owner complete control over their site.

Other features of this website are:
1. A JQuery Cycle based home page splash. JQuery Cycle is very cool because it allows you to use JavaScript with regular XHTML & CSS. It is incredibly flexible and really easy to use.

2. Lots of WordPress Post customization. We use WordPress Posts as custom taxonomies which power pieces of the site, like the Testimonials. The site owner can then add and edit these Posts and all of the information will appear in the correct sections of the website.

3. Recent Blog posts on the home page use PHPThumb to display thumbnails of larger images. PHPThumb is one of the coolest scripts we’ve found in awhile. It allows runtime thumbnails to be created & their file size adjusted proportionately. This means that the site owner can upload any image & our script can crop this image however we tell it to. Super Cool!!

4. TypeKit fonts used for the website’s font.

5. Social Media Optimization and collaboration. Each of the Blog posts on the website have their subject and URL automatically posted on The Game Within’s Twitter feed. Once the tweet is done, it is automatically posted on The Game Within FaceBook page and then finally automatically posted on Christo’s Linked In page.

So check out the website today!

While this sounds great, we want to improve to 99.999% uptime. The only “outage” we had was due to server hang, and not a real outage. However, we’ll count it against us.

Over the next 109 days, we’re striving for 100%.

Stay tuned and keep watch on our uptime at Web Hosting Review.

Quick Hosting Plan:
$11 / month
1 GB disk space
10 GB monthly transfer
10 Email Accounts
4 MySQL databases
2 Parked Domains
2 Add-on Domains

EJHost is currently running a special on hosting. Our hosting Quick Plans, normally costing $10 / month have been reduced by 50% to $5 / month through August 7th, 2010. Please use the code: AUGHOST to take advantage of this hosting special.

EJ Host Loves SEO!

In addition to the hosting special, EJHost is also currently running a SEO services special. SEO means Search Engine Optimization. Have your site analyzed and a proposal put together for FREE! Just use our contact form and send us your site name and some background about your business. Together we can put together a plan of SEO your site and to increase your online presence. EJHost’s SEO services typically start around $700, however it is possible to focus on parts of SEO for much less. We will work with any budget and have put together many successful campaigns for varying budgets. Make sure you mention you saw our special.

Unlike some of our competitors, we do not try to package our SEO services into plans like you can for hosting. Whereas hosting has clearly defined services, SEO services shouldn’t be broadly defined and each business is truly unique. We will do the legwork to find who your customers are and how to appeal to those customers. While it is difficult to explain the inner workings of SEO, it IS extremely important to provide clear quantifiable goals. The mechanics behind SEO vary greatly site to site and really are dependent on each business’ goals. Read more about SEO using the EJHost method here.

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We will also provide 1 year free hosting with the purchase of any SEO package.