FireBox Studios is currently in development on a new web-based calendar application called FireCal. This new system, created for PHP and mySQL, will be focused on simplicity while still being highly flexible.

Instead of incorporating every feature under the sun and becoming bloated, we will be keeping things lightweight and simple. Then when we’ve heard feedback from our initial customers, we’ll decide what additional features may (or may not) be added. But don’t worry, every upgrade will always be free.

The key advantage of using Firecal is its flexible date entry system. You will be able to either enter a one-time event, or specify a recurring event with 5 different recurrance types. PLUS, you’ll be able to add extra dates to any event (ie, Yoga classes every other Wednesday, plus this one extra Thursday). Or you can specify dates to exclude from a recurring event range (ie, Yoga classes every other Wednesday, but not on Christmas).

We are pushing for a May 1st product launch, but should that date need pushed back, we’ll post it to the site. Click here to sign up for the Firecal mailing list to be notified as soon as it’s available for purchase.

Also, for those that are wondering, our project management software is still going to (eventually) happen. We’ve been very busy with client development work and have not had time to devote to it. We had already built a solid event calendar system for a couple clients and it seemed like releasing that as a commercial app first seemed like the more logical route.

Again, once we have more to say about the PM app, we’ll post something here.

We’ve just released an upgrade to our popular PHP script for generating XML for SlideShowPro, a Flash-based photo gallery application.

Originally released back in February 2005, our script allows owners of SSP to automatically scan through multiple folders containing photos, resize them, create thumbnails and generate a correctly-formatted XML document, which is then read by the Flash movie.

Updates in version 1.2 include:

• Added ability to have all images dumped together in the root folder, eliminating the need to create subfolders on small galleries
• Automated thumbnail folder creation
• Set PHP timeout to zero, to try to keep script from timing out
• Added support for Permalinks
• Added support for Image Pause intervals
• Added additional error checking

The script is free to anyone that’s purchased a SlideShowPro license (only twenty bucks!) and can be downloaded here.

The new O’Neill Senior Center site features a wealth of information about their available services, their regularly-scheduled trips, a photo gallery, and the most comprehensive event calendar FireBox has ever built. O’Neill staff have the option of entering events in one of six different event types, recurring daily, weekly, monthly or annually.

Visit them at www.oneillcenter.com.

FireBox Studios has just won the Best Website Award for 2005 from the West Virginia Division of Tourism at its annual Governor’s Conference on Tourism in Morgantown, WV.

The award was for the site we developed for Mountwood Park earlier this year. Among the judges’ notes were comments like: “Nice, tight, and informative; Made me want to visit.”

The awards are part of Stars of the Industry program that each year recognizes the best in West Virginia tourism promotion, growth and media coverage. Additional Stars of the Industry categories and first place winners were announced during the ceremony.

The Hocking Hills Tourism Association and FireBox Studios have received a Ruby (Recognizing Uncommon Brilliance) Award at the Ohio Travel Association Fall Conference, held Thursday, October 20th in Cincinnati. The Bureau was recognized for the best tourism web site (within the $500,000 and less budget category) in the state of Ohio.

The Ruby Awards were created to recognize outstanding advertising, marketing and public relations in the travel and tourism industry.

The website we built for Hocking Hills at 1800hocking.com is an example of technology applied creatively and effectively to portray the beauty of the Southeast Ohio’s Hocking Hills and promote tourism business in that area.

Designed to make planning a visit to southeast Ohio’s spectacular Hocking Hills simple, 1800Hocking.com offers links to accommodations, attractions, shops and more. Guests can check availability for hundreds of area lodging options and access website links for attractions, accommodations and special events and festivals, as well as the area’s state and national forests and the six areas within Hocking Hills State Park.

The primary challenge FireBox faced was the large amount of data that would need to be integrated into the site, yet be easily accessible for visitors. For example, they had almost 400 member records, each with up to 60 database attributes apiece! We were able to import all their data into our proprietary content management software and make it available in multiple ways on the site.

I’m writing this first actual “blog” entry to share FireBox’s project management experiences, specifically software applications built for it, and my decisions based on it.

A couple years ago, our workload became such that we needed to find a better way to manage multiple clients with multiple projects, track time, create schedules, etc. Up until then, “project management” consisted of hand-written to-do lists, stickie notes and whiteboard chicken scratches. From there, I’d progressed to using the Task manager within Microsoft Outlook, but that wasn’t worth much, and didn’t allow me to abandon the previous methods. Read the rest of this entry »

FireBox Studios and the Hocking Hills Tourism Association took home a second place Middy Award in the Web Site category for the comprehensive web site we built for them at 1800hocking.com. The site is an example of technology applied creatively and effectively to portray the beauty of the Southeast Ohio’s Hocking Hills and promote tourism business in that area.

At a time when 70% of travelers use the net to research vacation destinations, 1800hocking.com represents more than 400 southeast Ohio businesses to help capture $247 million in visitor spending in Hocking County. Need to plan a getaway? Click here to start!

The Ohio Association of Convention and Visitor’s Bureaus’ (OACVB) Annual Awards of Excellence are named the “MIDDY Awards” to reflect the Midwest region of the country, as well as the states contiguous to Ohio. Participants are recognized for excellence in planning, creativity and effectiveness of message, concept and design. The MIDDY Awards competition is open to all members of the Ohio Association of Convention and Visitors Bureaus. While other Middy categories are grouped by the budgets of CVB’s, the web site category is not. This means we were up against much larger markets like Columbus and Cleveland. Yay us!

When FireBox built the original website for the Colony Theatre in 2000, the restoration project was still in its infancy. Since then, the restoration group has made huge strides towards re-opening this vaudeville-era landmark.

With so many updates to make to the site and new content to add, we decided to give the site a new look and “engine” as well.

We gave the site a new layout and color scheme and integrated the whole thing into paraSite, our proprietary content management system. This system will allow Colony staff to easily edit all their pages, add news articles and events.

In addition, we added a lot of new content, including updates on the restoration progress, downloadable newsletters and annual report, a new event calendar, new Flash-based photo gallery and lots of other downloadable content.

As of November 22nd, FireBox Studios, the Mid-Ohio Valley’s premier web development company, has a new mailing address and phone number. Please revise your address books to reflect the following:

FireBox Studios
313 Scammel Street
Marietta, OH 45750
740.373.4114
info@fireboxstudios.com
www.fireboxstudios.com

Look for more exciting news and updates on a regular basis from FireBox as we continue to expand and improve our services.

For the second year in a row, FireBox has received the “Best Website” award at the 2005 TIGAR Awards. The annual honors, sponsored by ITAAO, were held on July 27th, 2005.

With a total of eight nominees, FireBox accepted its second TIGAR award for development of the Hocking Hills website at www.1800hocking.com.

We would like to thank ITAAO and all the judges for this honor, as well as thank Hocking Hills for their support over the past year.