Another useful aspect of going with Rails for a web project is that you’re using a framework which tons of other people use as well, which enables you to use plugins created by the community. That also saves you a lot of time and programming effort. For instance, most web applications are going to need some sort of login system. With Rails, you can either build your own custom solution, or you can choose from a bunch of plugins which are well documented and tested for security issues because of all the other people programming with Rails. As of right now, the number of plugins for Rails is well into the hundreds of thousands. Basically, anytime that you decide you’d like to do something that other people might have a use for too (connecting to Facebook, Twitter, uploading images, etc), chances are pretty good that it has already been written. Also, another benefit of using a framework that lots of other people use is that as a developer, it’s pretty easy to look at a Rails app you didn’t write and quickly figure out what’s going on, because the layout of the app is familiar.

Then, you can’t mention Rails without mentioning Ruby, the programming language that it was built on top of. Ruby is a young language, built by a Japanese developer named Yukihiro Matz Matsumoto, and released in 1995. It is elegant, concise (in general, it takes a lot less Ruby code to get something done than it would in another language), and it’s easily readable/understandable compared to other languages.

These things combine to make Ruby on Rails our number one choice at Gatorworks for building web applications. It lets us get things done and go from idea to code in less time than anything else we’ve used.

Here are some projects that we’ve developed using Ruby on Rails:

• Go See Campus: http://www.goseecampus.com
• Event Connect: http://www.eventconnect.org
• Tiger Bookmarket: http://www.tigerbookmarket.com

We’re proud of what Zach is doing and excited to have assisted him with his new website.

The new PolicyPitch.com website designed by Gatorworks

The Southern Republican Leadership Conference (SRLC)

Scheduled for April 8-11 in New Orleans, the SRLC is the most prominent GOP gathering outside of the national convention. Confirmed speakers include Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, Tax Gov. Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich and more. The SRLC will be carried on Fox and CNN, and Sean Hannity will broadcast live. More than 3,500 people are expected to participate.

We are pleased to have had such a large impact on the national conference.

SRLC Website Screenshot

Rodriguez said, “I was very excited to see the conference quickly adopt our technology, and we hope to provide value to many future events of all sizes through both EventConnect.org and the iPhone app.”

Scheduled for April 8-11 in New Orleans, the SRLC is the most prominent GOP gathering outside of the national convention. Confirmed speakers include Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, Tax Gov. Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich and more. The SRLC will be carried on Fox and CNN, and Sean Hannity will broadcast live. More than 3,500 people are expected to participate.

EventConnect.org is an online social networking platform for conferences, conventions, tradeshows, and events of all sizes. The website is simple to use and integrates many existing social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Here is a quick tour of the main areas of the site:

Once the child creates an account, he/she will be greeted by the elf and see this home page. This is Santa's Island where the child can begin their journey!

If the child clicks on the snowman, he/she will see a naked snowman with a box that contains various articles of clothing and accessories. The child can click and drag the items over to the snowman to create one of their own. If an article of clothing doesn’t look just right, then the child can drag the item over to the trash can to remove it.

We decided to make a cowboy, bowler Snowman!

If the child goes over to Santa’s Mailroom, he/she will see a very active room with letters being sucked down a pipeline and being dropped into a pile in the center of the room. A friendly elf is quickly sorting the letters into “naughty” or “nice” pipelines that go directly to Santa’s office. If the child clicks on the colored letters on the ground, he/she can read a letter written from other children to Santa.

The Elf in Santa's Mailroom quickly sorts letters from children across the world.

Santa’s Toy Factory is my favorite part of the website. This is where children can see the worker elves in action making plenty of toys. There’s a countdown to Christmas on the wall at the top right, and the child has the option to click on a toy of their choice on the conveyor belt. If the child clicks on a toy, a window will pop-up that pulls the actual image of the product from Amazon. Then, the child has the option to add the toy to his/her “wishlist.”

Toys are quickly being assembled by elves in Santa's Toy Factory.

The final component of the site allows the child to email Santa Claus, and the child has the option to include items in the email that they selected from Santa’s Toy Factory.

So, as you can see, this was a rather involved project that required a great deal of custom illustration and then custom animation (and action script) using Adobe Flash. We were very excited to win an ADDY for this project at the 2010 awards show this year.

I invite you to visit the actual site so you can see these screenshots come to life and hear the jolly Christmas music we have playing in the background. If you have children, I encourage you to let them visit the site and have some fun next Christmas!

Do you like this site? Check out some other completed projects by our award-winning team.

With more than 60,000 entries annually, the national ADDY® Awards are the world’s largest and arguably toughest advertising competition. The ADDY® Awards represent the true spirit of creative excellence by recognizing all forms of advertising from media of all types, creative by all sizes and entrants of all levels from around the world. The American Advertising Federation conducts the ADDY® Awards through its 200 member advertising clubs and 15 districts. It is the only creative awards program administered by the advertising industry, for the industry.

This year’s local competition produced 446 entries from Baton Rouge professionals and LSU students. Judging was held January 16, 2010 at Lamar Advertising. Renee Miller, President/Creative Director of The Miller Group in Los Angles, Ca.; Jim Dudley, Broadcast, Copywriter, Creative Director of Dudley Creative in Roanoke, Va.; and Jimmy Ball, Art Director/Designer, Photographer, Interactive of Jimmy Ball Design in Dallas, Texas, served as judges for the competition.

Gatorworks brought home a Silver ADDY award for their client project, Santa’s Online Wishlist. Santa’s Online Wishlist is an interactive website where children can dress a snowman, have fun in Santa’s Toy Factory, view Santa’s Mailroom, and best of all send emails to Santa Claus. The website took approximately 6 months to hand-draw, custom illustrate, and then custom animate using Adobe Flash software. David Link, Creative Director and lead designer/developer on the project, said, “It’s really nice to be recognized for our hard work, especially in a community as talented as AAF.”

At the red carpet ceremony, 41 gold ADDY®s, 50 silver ADDY®s, three Special Judge’s Awards, a Mosaic Award, Best of Show and Best of Category awards were presented. Advertising students were also recognized with 17 gold ADDY®s, 19 silver ADDY®s, a Best of Show and Special Judges’ Awards. ADDY® 2010* also recognized professional excellence on the business side of the advertising industry with its Pinnacle Awards.

Mallery Mele leads the king cake cooking class

After the shop tour it was time to make our homemade king cakes. Now, for those of you who don’t know, Mele Printing bakes thousands of cookies each month for their clients. Many of their clients plan to receive their printing order on a Monday or a Wednesday so they’ll be sure to also receive a nice batch of fresh cookies. Anyway, each of us was given a log of dough with cinnamon rolled in the middle. We worked our dough in the form of a circle and threw it in the oven.

Once we took the cakes out of the oven, we dug out a few holes with our fingers on the bottom of the cakes to create a canal to insert fillings. I put strawberry and cream cheese in mine. Then, we flipped the cakes over and drenched them in hot icing and topped them with sugar. It was a masterpiece!

The event was an innovative way for Mele’s clients to learn more about their company all the while celebrating the rich history and culture of Southern Louisiana. We’re proud that Mele Printing is one of our vendors, and we look forward to fostering a long-term relationship with them!

Brian Rodriguez bakes his first Mardi Gras King Cake

Here is your chance to decide on the elite creative advertising work in Baton Rouge. American Advertising Federation-Baton Rouge has created online voting for four different categories – print, radio, broadcast and interactive – to be awarded at the 2010 ADDY® Awards.

Voting is held online at http://www.aafbr-pca.org/. You can vote once per entry every 24 hours for as many entries as you want in each category. The entrant with the most votes wins! Voting closes at the end of the day on February 14, 2010.

Winner’s will be announced the night of the 2010 ADDY® Awards show on February 20 at the Louisiana State Museum. Tickets are available online at http://www.addy2010.com for $60 and $30 for students. Doors open at 6:30 for a cocktail reception prior to the show.

All entries into 2010 People’s Choice Awards are property of each owner. All entries included were entered properly using the guidelines placed by AAF National and AAF-Baton Rouge.

If we conducted a poll asking the average John and Jane what is their preferred way of accessing the news, I am sure CNN & Co. will top the list effortlessly. As strong as Twitter is, it needs a couple more apparitions and mentions in shows like Oprah’s in order to make the guy in the cornershop turn to it for good. Still, those who are even partially tech-savvy know the advantages that it brings about. And if they don’t, visiting a site like Newstwit exemplifies perfectly the way it is used to transmit the most recent news.

The site gathers together the latest news, arranged by category. Some of these include “Sports”, “Tech”, “The left” and “The right”, along with a section that is dedicated from start to finish to national coverage. Besides, a “Hot Channels” section spotlights the best of the best to be found here.

The content of each one of these sections is presented back to the user in real-time, and that is exactly where the charm of the site lies. As a platform, Twitter is characterized by providing twitterers with information the kind that had journalists screaming “Stop press! Stop press!” in the past. Now all that they have to do is tweet out. And as readers, all we have to do is visit a site like Newstwit in order to catch the latest copy.

Originally published by Killer Startups.com: http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/newstwit-com-read-news-the-twitter-way