| |
Mid-Sized Fits All
Josh Whitman, President - 4/17/2008
While our Express service stays busy
making top-notch site for small businesses, TrailsWeb has been working long hours to meet the
demands of our several mid-sized customers. Dr.
Paul is always adding to the content on his site, and occasionally improving the look and feel of the site
to make that content more and more accessible. Darrell with Timeshare Bid, Inc. and TimeshareEscrow.us is
looking to expand the way his online services integrate with partner companies in his industry. Tom and the
gang at AZNORTH are preparing for the revitalization in the real estate market and are looking to TrailsWeb
for their web marketing and online sales tools. At the same time, we've put together some new sites for their
capital management group and their newly remodeled
Beaver Creek Inn.
Click any of the links above to see our work in real time. If you've got a project that needs a developer, look no further, we can help.
New Systems, Better Management
Josh Whitman - 2/15/2008
Our need for internal management systems has paralleled the increasing popularity and exposure our TrailsWeb Express program is getting. Much of my time has been preoccupied with creating a system that manages our work as website makers and maintainers. The results are really starting to take shape. With the implementation of the latest update to our internal software, we're able to track which tasks are underway or completed for each project, who is responsible for those tasks, and how long it takes each employee to complete each task.
The end result: efficient turnaround, better websites, more information for us to evaluate our prices and our wages, and more accessible revenue, throughput, and customer information. We can now tell how long each of our sites takes from start to finish - and thus how long it takes to make each type of site, on average. Better information for us, better information for our customers, faster development times, better follow-through and delivery.
Another byproduct of the increased workload is that more of our people are in touch with each of our customers. The need for better communication during and after development has required that several people from TrailsWeb actually talk to the customers before, during, and after working on their parts of the sites. This gives us a better opportunity to both align our vision of the site with our customers and inform them of some of the technical and business aspects of website development, maintenance, and use.
The expansion and success of our Express program has led to a management revolution at TrailsWeb, transitioning us from a one man shop (just me for the first five years) to a six person operation. As the owner, I'm enthusiastically invested in providing livable-wage jobs to the Flagstaff workforce, even if it's only a few jobs. My hope for the future is that TrailsWeb will be a source of opportunity and rewarding employment for our community. We never hire telecommuters, freelancers outside the area, or outsource work we can do ourselves. Keeping the money in our community helps us keep our level of service high and our prices low.
Websites Small and Large
By Josh Whitman - 10/2/2007
Here at TrailsWeb, we pride ourselves on being easy to work with and being experts at the internet marketing game. We're not here to sell our products, we're here to
offer solutions for businesses that face the problem of internet marketing. We've gone through the motions dozens of times with our own products and services and we know what it takes to
use the internet for successful marketing.
Before the internet became the marketing centerpiece of the modern world, TrailsWeb was primarily a software and information systems company. The nature of technology has led us into the
online marketing business, and we've strived to excel in our new role. Our line of express sites, designed to server the majority of small businesses, are as affordable as a custom website can be,
and our hosting (starting at $49/year including domain) is fiercely competitive.
We haven't forgotten our software roots though. We still offer several standalone applications for the PC, and we work on many complex information analysis projects for larger businesses. Lately we've had great interest in
setting up website-systems for people looking to start new ventures online. If you have an idea for a project, perhaps TrailsWeb can help you bring it into reality.
TrailsWebExpress.com goes live!
by Josh Whitman, President (5/31/2007)
Our ridiculously affordable websites have just become extremely easy to order. With an automated system for uploading your content, defining the way you want the
site laid out, and selecting among the various components we offer as packaged items, it is now easier than ever before to get your website set up.
As a way of saying "we mean business" when it comes to making your site, we've put a lot of time and energy into building a site that is as visually engaging as
it is easy to work with. We want you to know that your site won't just state your information, it'll make a statement about your business.
Maybe this sounds like a load of advertising B.S., so stop taking my word for it and see for yourself: www.trailswebexpress.com.
If you have any questions about our services, please call us for the answers. We're here to help.
Affordable Websites for All
by Josh Whitman, President (5/2/2007)
Now that we're offering TrailsWeb Express websites from $499, we want to make it easy for people around the world to take advantage of our professional site development services. We'll be launching a new
site that allows people to enroll their businesses in the program and upload their content automatically - the two areas of the process where customers might find difficulty. Now anyone with an internet
connection can submit their text and images, alon with providing us with a genereal idea of what they want their site's layout to look like.
We're working up a huge MLP patch for this week with several new features, and the TrailsWeb Express site is next on the list. Our hope is that we can make these very affordable websites available to the largest
audience possible and take a lot of the confusion out of getting a website for small businesses.
Until then, however, give us a call to arrange for us to build your company's website for $499. We'll just have to be old fashioned and email the text and images you want us to use ;)
Technology Quality
by Josh Whitman, President (4/20/2007)
TrailsWeb has expanded from a one person operation to a three person operation. As a result we've added a lot of infrastructure to the company. We finally leased our own dedicated server which means we can host our client's websites
in-house, simplifying the process for us and the customer.
We also added a Win2003 Server box on our local network that serves as central storage for source code and a test environment for website design and development. It's been much easier to develop on an internal system and publish the results to a
public server.
Another great benefit to having three talented people working together is that we can produce significantly more software than before. Admittedly, I'm very happy to have skilled people doing a great job in the areas of software and
website design where I just don't excell. Thanks to Neal Stearman, a gifted programmer who learned to write software just for this job, and Mike Pierce, a talented graphic artist with years of experience (and a bachelor's) in digital media,
the quality of TrailsWeb's services has improved significantly from yesteryear.
Proudly Announcing TrailsWeb Express
by Josh Whitman, President (3/9/2007)
When TrailsWeb began, our rates were certainly affordable. Our products were a bit novice, but for the price they had tremendous value. Today we're excited to announce that
we've found a way to make professional level design and development services available to small businesses at a price that makes sense. This line of development services is called
TrailsWeb Express (250K PDF).
Over the years I've had to turn down work for many small business owners because I couldn't offer the services they needed within their price range. Recently we've been able to
leverage the resources we've compiled building large-scale applications to provide professional website design services within a price range that most small businesses can afford.
The price range most potential customers were shopping in was around $350 for a simple website.
Our new line of services begins with a Professional Website, designed around your logos and existing branding. It costs $499 for a professionally made site with up to ten pages.
If you have info you'd like to update frequently, our second package is the Flexible Website for $899. With this package you can use a special "admin" page to change your site (even images)
anytime and anywhere you can get onto the internet - no need to learn HTML. And finally, we're able to make an Online Store where you can manage your inventory, selling prices, pictures, etc.
as often as you want for $1499.
This Site is Under Development...
by Josh Whitman, President (2/22/2007)
Not THIS site, of course. TrailsWeb is taking up a few new internal projects, which include a handful of small and medium applications and some new web-based services.
Keep an eye out for new software and websites from TrailsWeb this year. We'll likely be launching at least ten new titles in 2007.
Nothing we're planning so far is as sophisticated as, say, Moneylender Professional, but our little TeleSurvey application does have a pretty respectable set of features.
A live platform for self publishing authors will hopefully be out in the next eight to ten months and will be one of our biggest titles for the year.
We've enacted a new policy as a result of the great success we've had with Moneylender Professional. Every title we release from here on out will have a full implementation
of the self-updating algorithm used for automatically updating Moneylender Professional. The level of service we're able to provide as a result of being able to instantly release
and deploy revisions of our software to every customer has proven a welcome innovation, and it seems prudent to employ this system across our entire library.
Also, we might be hiring for a graphic designer with genuine artistic talent and a proclivity for work in Flash, Photoshop, and similar apps. Recently, we hired Neal Stearman on
as a developer and productivity has resultingly skyrocketed. Because we can build much more software than before, we now have a need for someone with a creative genius to help us
shape the appearance of our new systems and products. If you're a brilliant graphic design artist and don't mind learning a little Flash and HTML, please tell us about yourself at
business@trailsweb.com
Patents 'R Us
by Josh Whitman, President (2/6/2007)
We just finished a site that brings the holder of a patent one big step closer to profitably using his patent. It occurs to me that our services are
frequently useful in situations where patent-holders need a company to build their information processes into a working real-life system. At TrailsWeb
we have the experience it takes to create systems both complex and extensive.
If you have a information system you need built, we'll not only handle the design and development of the system, we can help you find the service
providers you need to integrate addition functionality into your application. Contact Us with any questions you might have.
Rolling into 2007
by Josh Whitman, President (1/1/2007)
Happy New Year! 2007 promises to be a time of greater prosperity than ever before. The focus is on making great software, and we're fortunate
to have made connections with some very talented subcontractors around Flagstaff that will help take the quality of our work to the next level.
Our graphic design needs and advanced network configuration tasks are now outsourced to very skilled and motivated entrepreneurs. We even have
skilled people come in and bang on our programs to help debug and bulletproof our products.
There's plenty of work on the table for months to come. My new focus is on choosing a couple tasks and getting them done, then moving on to the next
thing. Best wishesto everyone for a prosperous year!
The Rocky Road to Kick Ass Software
by Josh Whitman, President (12/19/2006)
I've been working on a major project for so long, development stopped being fun and started feeling like a chore. Perhaps it was a combination of
factors - having to fire an employee, underestimating the scope of a project, slow MLP sales - but whatever the reason, TrailsWeb was beginning to
feel like a grind rather than a gift. April 2007 will be our five year anniversary, and I feel a great sense of accomplishment for chiseling out a
profitable little organization from the clay of life. Whatever the problem was, it's over and I'm finally excited to get "up to my elbows" in code
again. All-nighters, pots of coffee, innovative problem solving, boolean logic, algebra, hell yeah!
Speaking of coffee, I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who love good coffee as much as I do. In fact, I roast my own beans. Buying a 150lb
burlap sack full of green beans at about $2.50/lb, I roast coffee in my converted barbeque for a weekend and throw a "Coffee Party" a couple times a year.
The people who show up drink fresh roasted coffee brewed in a variety of devices all day long, and take a pound or two as they leave. It's a great hobby,
and I get to keep myself plush with delicious coffee. There are pics on the web and around that people have put up showing their custom roasters, if you
want to try to make your own. Mine has a 1/8hp 60rpm motor that turns the perforated steel drum and can roast a 10lb batch of coffee in about 45 minutes.
In my opinion, fire-roasted coffee (when the roast-master has some experience at least) is really delicious, and brings out a different flavor from the
coffee you can't get in a normal drum roaster. Feel free to ask questions about roasting your own coffee during Arizona business
hours.
Welcome to the site!
by Josh Whitman, President (12/9/2006)
Welcome to TrailsWeb.com. We're a small company based out of Flagstaff, AZ that makes custom software. We build a variety of powerful solutions for local companies,
school districts, and business peeps. We also offer a couple sweet apps that make some jobs (like converting contacts or servicing loans) easier.
We'll take on projects as small as $2000, and we take on projects ten times that size. Being a small shop, we have the flexibility to handle a variety of
challenges. If you're looking for software or website development services, you've come to the right place.
Easy does it
by Josh Whitman, President (11/30/2006)
Moneylender Professional has received a lot of our attention in the last month or two. Partly because we've made improvements and additions, partly to train our
new development support staffer, Chris West, on the program, and partly to release an improved user's guide for the first time since the program came out.
Fortunately, we've had opportunities along the way to take the time out of other projects to work on MLP.
In the mean time we've been bidding for work around Arizona, continued development on TimeshareEscrow, added a new donation portal to
UnderTheSeaNevis.com for their "Swim with Crush" promotion, and made a handful of maintenance changes to sites for many
of our other clients. Now that the rush of work is leveling out, we're taking on one new project, and continuing TimeshareEscrow.
It's nice to be able to see my desk again after shredding, recycling and discarding the pile of assorted materials necessary to put together our latest bid. Rolling
into December with well-trained staff, a great corporate outlook for the next several months, and enough equipment, time and money to enjoy the development process
again - maybe we'll even have time to finish the online store and finally sell off the piles of perforated paper and window envelopes that fill up the corners of the
office!
Spread the word...
by Josh Whitman, President (11/20/2006)
Taking an active grasp of our marketing campaign for MLP, we're now making steps in new directions to help get the word out about our program.
Chris is inviting authors and editors around the world the review our software in their publications. Our product documentation has finally undergone a major
face-lift. Moneylender Professional is finally an easy-to use product with features in place to handle servicing of 99% of all loan types.
TrailsWeb is also starting a for-fun-as-a-funny-joke project called Excugle (excugle.com). Visit the site for the explanation.
The best part: if you google "excugle" you get the text from the site, and it reads hilariously.
Inventory
by Josh Whitman, President (11/20/2006)
From the beginning of the Moneylender series of software, as a loan payment calculator and payment voucher printing program, it has been my favorite project.
A big fan of math and money, MLP holds my interest unlike any other project. But when is it time to get realistic about whether the project is successful
as a product?
Moneylender Professional is, thus far, a financial disaster. It costs our small company many thousands of dollars each month to market, improve, document,
and sell. Technically it's a modest achievement - leveraging a broad spectrum of technologies to do what it does. Personally it's a rewarding endeavor -
opening lines of communication to loan-saavy customers and instigating my personal loan investments.
In business if it doesn't make money, why is it there? I personally believe this program serves a much neglected segment of a large market. As of thus far,
the market is unable to locate our product, unable to use it, or otherwise not interested in making a purchase. If you have any suggestions on how to make
our product more visible, viable, or usable please tell use what you think.
"There's a program you should check out..."
by Josh Whitman, President (11/8/2006)
As work on TimeshareEscrow is wrapping up, focus moves back to smaller maintenance tasks and a hearty helping of Moneylender Professional upgrades. Many thanks to
everyone who's given the software praise over the last seven months and a very special thank you to those who have recommended the program to their colleagues.
TrailsWeb is glad to have Chris West on board to help with development support tasks like testing the software, writing and updating the documentation, and making
moneylenderprofessional.com easier for potential customers to find. We're still buried beneath the volumes
of other loan servicing software titles available. Hopefully, in time, we'll be prevalent enough that when the average loan aficionado looks for an affordable
program to handle the day-to-day servicing tasks they'll always have Moneylender on their list of possibles. At the moment the only way for someone to
find us is through a stroke of providence, or more likely, from a loyal customer.
Another note about Moneylender... "The usuals", as I like to call them, who call in with feedback every week or two are growing in numbers. It's very exciting for
me personally to see that the program is drawing the attention of daring, involved lenders who enjoy putting their two cents into the development of the software.
Just as Seth Godin describes in the book Purple Cow, our little app is into the first stage of a product's life cycle and the "Early Adopters" are starting
to take notice.
Full Steam Ahead
by Josh Whitman, President (8/31/2006)
With six different projects under development here at TrailsWeb, we've definitely got our work cut out for us. A potential contract for smart home software
looms on the horizon, a symbol of the abundance of exciting projects to come. A potential agreement between Moneylender Professional and eVantage from
Equity Trust Company means our loan servicing software will be fully compatible with their system, and very
beneficial to customers who hold loans in their ETC managed IRAs. Perhaps the best project currently on TrailsWeb's table is TimeshareEscrow, which implements a host
of fun technologies like cryptography, dynamic document creation, and digital signatures all using state-of-the-art privacy, security, and authentication
techniques.
Growing Pains
by Josh Whitman, President (8/15/2006)
A contract between TimeShareBid and TrailsWeb for the development of TimeShareEscrow.us has triggered a need to increase the developer workforce at TrailsWeb.
When the green light comes on, we'll be opening an online application section on the site and hiring two to five programmers.
If you are a software programmer with strong VisualBasic and JavaScript skills and would be happy to be working as a programmer for years to come, you're the right
stuff for TrailsWeb. We're not hiring now, but you can subscribe to this notification list:
Employment Opportunities
Bigger, Better, Faster, Stronger
by Josh Whitman, President - 6/9/2006
We're very lucky to have such a positive group of people helping suggest features for Moneylender Professional.
Five or so individuals submit daily suggestions for the software, and so far, we're keeping up with the requests.
Some of the more sophisticated features that have been proposed are on the long term side of the patch board. Many
new and useful features are slated to go into the program within a week. Whenever possible we try to keep up with the
needs of our customers on an immediate basis.
One of my favorite things about using my own software is that when I need a feature, I just write it in. That's the kind of
experience I'd like to extend to our customers. If the program doesn't already do what you need, give me a week and it will.
Holy Cow!
by Josh Whitman, President - 5/26/2006
All the feedback from Moneylender Professional 2.0 is a real source of encouragement. I knew I was making a feature concession by putting the software
up for sale when I did, but I still thought I had done a pretty good job of making it a complete solution. That hasn't stopped anyone from giving their very helpful
insight on new features and bringing issues to light. Hooray.
Always the lifeblood of the project, input from people has been the key source of motivation and inspiration. The modest enhancements for the upcoming
Tuesday patch along with fixes for newly discovered issues are just proof that the automatic update component was absolutely necessary. Major improvements
have found their way onto the "long term" list (three to six months for development and release). Calls and emails keep pouring in with more great insight and
suggestions to make the program a truly exceptional value. The only downside to this is that it cuts into development time, which might eventually necessitate hiring
and training someone to help answer questions (and also help me rewrite the documentation in a "friendlier, understandable" way - I am a computer programmer, after
all).
Thanks to everyone for their help, keep the comments coming.
Gamble and Payoff
by Josh Whitman, President - 5/15/2006
Moneylender Professional 2.0 is selling very well. A year ago I recognized a gap in the market that I accidentally found myself in a position to fill.
Loan servicing programs were either hugely expensive or almost useless. As Moneylender Professional 1.001 hit the scene, it became apparent that people
were looking for a program that could gracefully handle a standard mortgage and didn't cost $10,000 or more for a copy.
MLP2 was built with that goal in mind. Designed to be on par with, and eventually better than, the most expensive competition in the areas of ease of use,
flexibility of computations, and effictively network-deployable on a large scale, Moneylender Pro 2 hit the ground running in the last few days of April 2006.
It's already selling very well, and will undoubtedly become a cornerstone of the loan servicing industry in the years ahead.
Important updates and additions to the program are under development, and weekly patches are scheduled until the need for them wanes. Keeping up with the new
surge of requests for different computation methods is quite a task of itself. We're considering new products to expand the usability and benefits of the
Moneylender family, and other projects in the finance vein.
As always, it is my distinct pleasure to talk to customers the world over and work with them to make the most of our program. Many thanks to everyone who has
supported the project with input and money, and thanks to those who will.
Business as Usual
by Josh Whitman, President - 5/8/2006
Now that Moneylender 2 is out and about, TrailsWeb's production schedule is moving back into a healthy pace
of website design work. With the CESM store, AHK Homes, and "phase one" of MusicMatchBox all completed,
we've got the time to concentrate on AZNORTH's new site again.
Without a lot of specific direction on where to take the new AZNORTH.com, our creative and technological skills
have truly been put to the test to devise the perfect fusion of technology and style. Fortunately, we have come up
with a design that will make the site interactively informative and sleekly aesthetic, incorporating data-interactive flash modules
within JavaScript-activated, ASP-driven pages.
Gratefully, we are also getting a lot of calls and emails about MLP2.
Moneylender: Built to a Standard.
by Josh Whitman, President - 4/29/2006 (12:23AM)
This program is finished. Please download it and try the demo. If it suits your needs, buy it. If not, let me know what it's not doing
that you need.
I've looked over the competition for similar products, and the ones I've found are either a joke, ridiculously expensive, or require lots of other
software to work properly. Moneylender Professional has always been angled towards covering the broadest servicing software market, but doing it
gracefully. No compromise has been made when handling the individual lender nor the enterprise.
www.moneylenderprofessional.com
Moneylender 2.0 Beta Release!!!
by Josh Whitman, President - 4/18/2006
Honestly, there's not much I can say that I haven't already said about the software. It represents a level of programming far
superior to anything I've built before. Moneylender 1.0 took about three months to refine. Moneylender 2.0, still in the works but a
very usable product as it stands now, has been under development for a solid ten months. Weighing in around 80,000 lines of code,
this program is a very cool piece of software.
Anyone with suggestions regarding the Beta, please share them with me. business@trailsweb.com
Without everyone's input I wouldn't have even thought to write the program in the first place. Visit
www.moneylenderprofessional.com to get a copy of the Beta.
I'll be building a bulletin board on MLP.com for everyone to share about the software,
the lending industry in general, and personal tips of the trade. That won't happen until around the final release date, though. (Early June)
The Origin of Moneylender
by Josh Whitman, President - 4/11/2006
When I tell my Flagstaff friends what I do for a living, mentioning that my main product is loan servicing software, they invariably ask how I got into
a loan servicing project. For those who seem interested I tell the humble tale of Moneylender.
About three years ago a friend asked me to build a computer, paying half up front and "financing" the rest. Being a fairly proficient computer programmer
by trade, I decided to write a program that would print payment coupons so I could give him something showing the date and amount due. The program
also computed the payment amount based on the interest rate and amount financed.
I shared the idea with an co-worker and he said the program sounded interesting, and would even be worth using if it could manage the balance on the loan as
it was repaid. Having read George Clason's The Richest Man in Babylon about seven times, the name Moneylender seemed like the perfect moniker for my
little app. That was the beginning of Moneylender Express. It took about three weeks to write Moneylender Express as it currently appears on the site.
Almost immediately after releasing Moneylender Express I was flooded with questions about the software and suggestions for features. Only five months after
releasing Express, a company in Phoenix offered contract money to build a program with the features they wanted. Under contract, I created much of the underlying
structure of Moneylender Professional. With its broad applicability, market undercutting price, and simple set of features, Moneylender had become something
with a lot more appeal. Three months after the contract was completed, March 2005, a generalized version of Moneylender Professional went up for sale at trailsweb.com.
Questions inundated the office once more, and it became apparent that the loan servicing software market, while hugely overserved for big money corporate accounts, was
desperately underserved for small and medium sized lenders. Requests for multi-user support, escrow account handling, and more sophisticated loan structures
poured into my inbox and voice mail. I undertook a project that turned into a monumental task. Having started MLP2 in May of 2005, it is by far the
biggest project I've ever worked on. Almost a year later, this program has brought me to a new level with software development. My little company has put its
name on credit card statements across the globe, and hardly a day goes by that I don't talk to someone from a different country.
It's been my great pleasure to have spent the last two years working on loan servicing solutions for a growing audience, and especially to talk with the people who
actually use my program to manage their portfolios. Once the most critical parts of the documentation are written, I'll be releasing the Beta version of MLP2
for everyone to download and use, free of charge. Less than a week's work away, it's tremendously exciting. Thanks to everyone for making the program a success.
International Appeal
by Josh Whitman, President - 4/5/2006
It has been my great pleasure to meet people from all over the world to talk about our Moneylender software. Nearly every day
the phone rings and the person on the other end is from outside the United States. When I designed MLP1, I put in every currency
code I could find, not because I though people would really be using them, but because it was fun. It turns out, however, that people
are using the software exactly as it was programmed; in just about every currency imaginable.
To promote international sales, MLP2 offers an even broader range of currency codes with the option of entering a numeric value that
corresponds with the currency symbol in whatever font a lender prefers to use. With MLP2's optimized file format, dates can be set to US
format or UK format (thanks Australia) for use in different localities.
Many people have requested a multi-lingual setup. MLP2 is already half way there. With the template designer, a lender can replace the
text in the default templates with text in another language. This means that statements, vouchers, and other correspondence can be written
in any language. We plan to create language packs that also allow the interface of the program to be localized to languages other than
English. Some languages, such as Chinese, will require the creation of a new set of template designer objects based on Unicode formatting instead
of the more compact ASCII formatting. Fortunately, the "portfolio updater" component can seamlessly upgrade portfolio files to newer
specifications as features like these are added to the program.
Priority Shift
by Josh Whitman, President - 3/8/2006
As Moneylender Professional gains recognition worldwide, priorities here at TrailsWeb are shifting from building websites
locally to improving and supporting our in-house products. Since organizing into an LLC in 2002, TrailsWeb's main focus has been
to provide sofware and website development services to the local community. Lately our line of products, generally considered
a secondary facet of the company, have become as profitable as the website work.
With the shift in income comes the natural shift in attention. With progress on MLP2 moving back into a steady forward pace, and
sales on MLP1 hitting all-time highs, it would be hard not to place more importance on our premier loan servicing app. To ensure
our loan program is constantly under testing, TrailsWeb has spawned a sister company, TrailsWeb Finance Inc. In a profitable symbiosis,
TrailsWeb Finance serves as a real-time/runtime environment for improving and refining MLP and also as an investment vehicle for amplifying
revenue from MLP sales. If necessity is the mother of invention, then servicing loans in-house will help TrailsWeb keep our software
up with trends in the industry and prompt development of new tools and shortcuts for the most common tasks.
|
|
|
