To be honest, I originally wanted to title this post “Top 5 Coding Annoyances.” But that's pretty negative, huh? So I decided that it would be perfectly reasonable to turn things around and focus on the positive. The inside joke is that the items on the list haven’t changed at all. In the end, they’re all about consistency, organization, and taking pride in what you produce. As WordPress likes to remind us, “Code is Poetry.”

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Hello, world – this is my first post! I’ve learned a bunch since joining the Studiobanks team three months ago. Lots of that learning has been dedicated to becoming accustomed to a new workplace (workflows, project history etc), but at least one universal pearl of wisdom comes to mind that I think would be helpful to lots of folks – testing Internet Explorer 6, 7, 8, and 9!

Since we’re all Mac here at the office, I’ve become reasonably familiar with the process of setting up multiple virtual machines to provide a rock-solid (and free) testing environment on my local computer. I’ve employed other techniques over the years (IETester, online screenshot services), but nothing comes close to having the actual browsers loaded in their own sandboxed environment. We’ll achieve this by creating four separate virtual machines in VirtualBox.

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With a fierce following of passionate fans for whom “Like” is an understatement, Bojangles’ wanted to expand its social media strategy with a branded Facebook app that encourages their fans to spread the word about Bojangles’. The newly launched, Friend Biscuit is a Facebook app that challenges users to amass the most friends who “Like” Bojangles’ on Facebook. The app fills a virtual biscuit with pictures of the users’ friends, and then rewards the user with the biggest Friend Biscuit with gift cards and other prizes including a grand prize of free Bojangles’ for a year. The only question we had was: where do we sign up?

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Studiobanks has expanded its team with two new developers. Matt Davis and Zack Hovatter will focus on front-end engineering and server-side programming to develop digital marketing solutions that are both usable and functional.

"With digital marketing continuing to gain prominence in the marketplace, the demand for our services has increased dramatically,” said Banks Wilson, Studiobanks’ president and creative director. "As a result, it’s been critical for us to add specialized talent who can create compelling brand experiences for our clients. Matt and Zack are a welcome addition to our team, bringing an impressive skill set and depth of knowledge in web technology, development and digital trends."

Visit our team page to learn more about the Studiocrew.

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This year's Charlotte ADDY Awards Show & Preview Gallery brought together a record 275 industry professionals to celebrate creative excellence in our community. The Mint Museum Uptown provided a gorgeous setting that matched the evening's award-winning, artistic achievements.

During the Awards Show, Studiobanks was presented with the following awards:

• Gold ADDY: Parker Poe Holiday Microsite
• Gold ADDY: Studiobanks Holiday Microsite
• Silver ADDY: CMA Awards Website
• Silver ADDY: CMA Country Christmas Microsite
• Silver ADDY: Muzak A/V Systems Website
• Silver ADDY: Reel-Scout Marketing Website
• Silver ADDY: Reel-Scout Search Website
• Silver ADDY: SAFER Barrier Website
• Silver ADDY: Varrow Website

Awards are an important part of our industry as they benchmark creative excellence and online success. We happily accepted these awards on behalf of the collabortive efforts and partnerships with our awesome clients.

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Studiobanks is a digital agency specializing in online marketing and web development. We combine big-idea creative, award-winning design and leading-edge technology to consistently deliver exceptional results for our clients. We’ve built a collaborative, open, creative studio environment over the past eight years and are currently seeking an Interactive Developer who possesses the ability to build smart and elegant websites and web apps with exceptional user interfaces quickly and efficiently in a fast-paced environment.

Candidate should have an above average grasp of PHP, MySQL, JavaScript (jQuery) and CSS, as well as a solid understanding of web standards and usability. Candidate should know how to contribute within a team, work from designed screens and strategy documents, test in multiple-browser environments, and produce reliable and maintainable code. Candidate gets the difference between good and great, and is prepared to go beyond to raise the bar.

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You may have read that listening to music while you work can improve productivity and the work you produce. But sometimes you might want to change it up a bit and learn a little something while you're at it. Listening to quality podcasts about the industry you work in can provide tips, techniques or insight that will help you in day-to-day business or when a tricky situation raises its head.

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Last week I stumbled across Support Details – which is a simple, single serving site by Imulus that tells the user the operating system, screen resolution, web browser, browser size, ip address, color depth, if JavaScript is enabled, the version of Flash installed, and if cookies are enabled on a user’s computer. The site even allows the user to take their results and export a PDF, export a CSV or email their results to a desired recipient.

It shouldn’t be hard to see how a service like this can be particularly useful when attempting to debug issues with less computer-savvy clients who are unsure how to acquire any of this information. If you find yourself attempting to address a similar issue with a client, I’d recommend using Support Details.

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