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With Christmas only a distant memory and the pain of New Years only now subsiding – it’s time to get back into it! Ohhh Yeah – Get ready for a BIG Year at Gruden!

For all of those who were able to make it to our first Client Christmas party, thanks for helping make it an excellent night! Kicking off in the early hours of the afternoon took it’s toll on a few who decided / needed to call it a night after the pub closed (wise decisions!) – but a few brazen and well lubed individuals continued on till the early hours of the morning at an inner city club….. That’s where it all turned to tears…. the simple task of standing and talking turned into a marathon of senseless gibberish – but boy it was fun!

December also saw the completion of the CBOnline website Data Collection Module (DCM). YAY!! The DCM enables the Community broadcasting sector, which includes all radio stations around Australia (about 420), to input their data into a central online database. You’ve all been hearing about this puppy for months now, and now it’s finally finished!! The sad news is that we can’t show you anything as it’s all secured away behind the scenes!!

To give you a better idea though, it includes a detailed graphing module, CSV importation, extensive reporting, user tracking module and more!! The DCM was a huge project in development for over 14 months, if you wish to read more (don’t want to bore you here) about CBOnline check out the case study.

Academies Australasia required a website with a super quick turnaround – The website was developed and live within a 2 week period!! Academies Australasia is owned by Garratts (asx: GRT) and recently acquired an additional 3 colleges. They required a simple, easy to navigate website with all new colleges and relevant content to be available for stage one of their website development. The next stage is e-enabling all their back office.

EE-Oz also had their Content Management System (CMS) upgraded to include the latest tools and features! A powerful WYSIWYG editor was integrated into their site to enable them to easily update and manage the thousands of pages of content on the EE-Oz website.

A big thank you to Macromedia is required! Macromedia was nice enough to take all of their Alliance Partners in the Asia Pacific Region to Tangalooma Dolphin resort for three days…. very nice!!

Macromedia showcased their Rich Internet Applications (RIA) – the future of the Internet. If you haven’t heard about RIA – get in contact with us to see what the future holds!!

So apart from that G-spotter-ites, we’re done for the month of December! I’ve also made a new years resolution to make sure that I get the G-spot done on time this year!! So it’ll always be updated in the first week of the month… That as well as eating breakfast each morning!! And so far so good on that front!

Till the next action packed, emotionally charged, much loved edition of the G-Spot – I leave you with a photo of our art director from his trip to Burke and back! and photos of our staff Christmas party!

Have Fun!

PS. Best wishes to our good friend (we wish) Jon Gruden who has guided the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to their first ever NFL Super Bowl this year after being with the club for only 12 months. The Buccaneers will be up against the Oakland Raiders who Gruden also coached from 1998 to 2001. Best of luck Jon!

Well, well well,….. The time for giving and receiving, spending lots of money on family and friends (and yourself – if your a special person like me), the time for holidays and the time for speedo’s only weather…. oh Yesssss….. Christmas holidays are almost here!!

As you can tell I’m a little excited about the prospect of getting out of this place for longer than 2 days a week, and I guess there’s no better time to tell you that the office will be closed down over the Christmas break between Monday the 23rd December – Friday 3rd January (inclusive).

So onto the fun part – talking about work, projects and the general happenings around Gruden. Supagas is well under way and should have it all finalised in the next few weeks. Supagas required a product catalogue website with a Content Management System (CMS) to administer their products, and subcategories. They also needed the ‘bricks and mortar’ (love those buzz words!) for the ability to snap in an e business module in the future.

The CBOnline website is almost there, I can tell you’re all getting a little tired of talking about this one, but it’s so BIG and wonderful that we’re all so excited that it’s nearing completion that I just have to keep talking about it!! The good news is that as soon as the Data Collection Module is completed there’s more to jump into straight away – so be prepared to hear about this puppy more in future, I bet you just can’t wait!!

Ahhhhh humorless work jokes – how good are they…. So what else – Acuiti Legal are getting some funky new features which should be available in the new year. Our search engine optimisation is going REALLY well. We’ve been trying a few things to increase our position in Google with some GREAT results. Now we’re in the first page for most of our chosen key words – nice hey??

Talking about our search engine positioning, if your interested in reading a little more about this, we have recently posted a paper on Website Promotion. In it you will find a little information on what to look out for and how to get better rankings and better traffic. Yes, yes, save the thanks for later – see if it works for you first!!

The EE-Oz website modifications are almost there, we’re in the process of updating the whole administration system to include the latest and greatest tools for managing your website via a CMS.

And last but not least, the new BANGitUP website is just about there, making some final tweaks and last minute changes for the launch on the 13th of December. All partners who are working on this project are full steam ahead, ready to revolutionise the building industry.

Neoteric tools such as the PDA ordering, builder & supplier website services coupled with supplier enablement functionality all linked via the central product catalogue… OOOhhhhh baby,.. I’m getting excited just talking about it… or maybe it was the sexy women that they have promoting their product – check them out here to get the full story.

Well G-Spotters – it’s that time again… Time to shut up for another month and have you all wondering what the hell is going to go on next month!! (I think I’m dreaming about that one..) anyway enjoy summer, try and get out of work early and enjoy that beach weather!!

Until next time!

Well once again, running a little late with this months G-Spot. Sorry people’s, I can see that a few of you have been a number of times to check out the new edition – just been a little busy! So without further ado, here we go…

It’s been a constant struggle to get it done, every company loathes doing it, but it’s something that has to be done…. Our Company Profile is finally updated – nice work Brent!! Anyway, you can check it out here.

As always we’ve been powering ahead with the development of the CBOnline website. This is in the final stages of development and should have the Data Collection Module completed in the next few months. The work to date was shown to the CBAA board last week and all were suitably impressed. They’re happy that all community radio stations around Australia will have a central database and information source to start data mining stations statistics.

The Graphic Overprint website is now completed! This was a small website to enable them to get a professional & low budget web presence. Hopefully there should be more development opportunities in the near future for Graphic Overprint.

Our good friends at ARIA are full steam ahead on new web development projects that we should be able to give you more info in the not too distant future. Part of their gratitude for developing their ‘best voting website to date’ for this years awards, was some kick ass tickets to this years awards and boy – was it a big night!!! So many messy people and so many cool rock stars….

If anyone that we met that night is reading this, howdy – great to meet you! Hopefully you felt better than we did the next day! For those that remembered us from last year, nice work guys – you’ll be happy to know that we backed it up with another fine performance this year!! To Rove – sorry about the silly photographic incident, our Art Director had way too many Bundy’s at that stage!! Hopefully you found it as humorous as we did…… But going on your comments from the night – maybe not!

EE-OZ is in final stages of site re-development and enhancements. A whole heap of new administration components such as detailed user tracking, new membership area, online shop and a few other cool little tools. Check it out at www.ee-oz.com.au.

Oh, before I forget – we’re now a Macromedia Alliance Partner!! YYYAAAAEEH!, only took us three years to finally get our butts into gear and apply for it!

Another exciting thing in Gruden land is our recent announcement of becoming partners with our good mates at Bangitup. These guys have a huge hold on the building industry, it’s very exciting with some of the new technology that they’re pushing into the industry. For more information on what they do and the onslaught about to take place, have a look at www.bangitup.com – and by the way, the first thing that’s on the cards is a site redesign!

So much happening and way too much in the pipeline to talk about here, so check back soon to see what new, weird and wonderful things are taking place in the world of Gruden!

Till next time G-Spotters…

With summer on its way and the snow season looking pretty dismal, it’s time to start planning those summer holidays! The time where business slows down and the drinking quickens. I can picture it now, sitting on the beach with a VB in hand, sporting my tight assed Speedos and a beer gut to die for! – Bring it on!!

Last Sunday (150902) spelled the end of the Sony Ericsson Text Message Championships where we saw James Trusler become the Champion of Champions. Nice work James! The only male amongst the finalists and a network engineer…. a computer geek – Nice!! James has won himself a free Gruden Web Package where we’ll be putting together a site for him. Ideas anyone?? something along the lines of him doing some sexy moves on his new Vespa maybe??? James does the exhaust pipe perhaps?!! now we are getting silly! Anyway check out the Gruden Crew showing off our latest summer line of clothing at the Finals.

The Retreat at Wisemans has just under gone a total site rebuild, which includes some subtle flash work, custom built CMS and site usage tracking software. I reckon it looks pretty good! To check it out, Click Here. We recently had our director’s conference at The Retreat and have to say it was our best conference to date! Our only gripe was the fact they closed the bar too early! (Personally, I think they did it for our own benefit. Thanks guys – only had a dull pounding in the morning.)

PPCA have also undergone a complete site rebuild and are using a total site wide CMS. The site has been in construction for quite a while now, but is finally released. YAY!! Check it out Here

Our good friends at ARIA required the talents of Gruden once again, this time to build this years ARIA Awards Voting website in conjunction with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. As per usual, there wasn’t a hell of a lot of time to bang this puppy together, but we pulled it off – damn well actually!

The feedback from the site was better than any had expected. With comments such as “This is the best method of voting ARIA has ever used. Well done.” and “Superb navigation, stunning GUI and such an easy backend system which quickly resolved all pages with out any error what so ever. I think you did a fantastic job Gruden on the whole experience.” *#cough#!cough*! Why Thank You!

Lots of exciting jobs coming up soon. Graphic Overprint’s new website, more CBOnline enhancements, -BLIP- new sites coming (can’t say who just yet…) more Collex, more Cookie Man and lots more in the pipeline.

Anyway peoples I was about to get carried away with ‘but wait there’s more, more, more!!!’ except we had no steak knives to give away and I’m not a fan of Tim Shaw. (sorry Tim)

Till next time!

This months G-Spot is all about the Fish. The poor, poor fish…..

Our decision making fish who gave us guidance in troubled and unsure times have had a re-vamp of their living conditions. Tank cleaned out, newly filled and the water treatment added, “we’re ready for the fish” we said. Our over excited MD drove to the tropical fish shop and stocked up on a few more fine species. All eyes were on our new glowing board of directors, still in bags from the shop – readily awaiting their release into the new environment….

Gotta stop there, getting a little carried away with the story telling. So apart from our day-to-day dramas, things have been motoring on in down town McMahons Point. The pub, Oooooh the pub, dangerously close, just on the corner – sorry, back to the point at hand….

The Sony Ericsson Text Message Championships has been great. Excellent feedback from all, great project to work on, with great people running it. If you don’t know about this comp, then you really need to get out more. Not going to go into it, but you can check it out here.

The Bromic website has finally been completed! This website is another complete site-wide Content Management System to allow them to update their vast product range. This is stage one of the project, so stay tuned for the future enhancements.

Our good friends at ARIA and PPCA are forever pushing new web technologies. Both of should be finished their latest projects by the next edition of the G-Spot, so check back soon.

And how about Taxpack – it’s taken off!! Loads of hits (170,000 last month), loads of enquiries for our new look 2002 tax year. We’ve been receiving some great feedback from our users. Taxpack’s another of one our kind community service projects we so readily participate in! (like we have so many!)

Apart from that, we regret to inform that our newly announced board of directors have all passed away. A horrible painful death was bestowed upon them, could have been the stress, but after the investigation into their deaths the coroner announced that high levels of nitrate could have had something to do with it. Poor bastards – but seems to be an emerging trend in this industry these days!!

So once again – so much to say and so little attention span. Time to go, but when you go to bed tonight – say a small prayer for the deceased that looked so promising until they started swimming upside down and realised their fate was a new media company….

Till next time!

Moving, it’s never fun and it never goes as planned! After going to great lengths to ensure that there was to be no issues – what so ever, Telstra pulled out their ace card and stuffed things up again – what would we do without them!

Apart from a few little hiccups, we’re just about settled in our new pad. Much better surroundings, much nicer pub and much nicer food selection. Happy about that! Make sure you’ve got our latest details.

So onto the projects! As you may have read, last month there wasn’t too much to write about, but after working some silly hours to try and meet some sillier deadlines we’ve finally got something to show.

The Sony Ericsson Text Message Championships is now live and happening! Our role in this project was to build and design the website, SMS registration system and heat allocation system, as well as giving away the best prize in the comp – The Gruden Web Extravaganza Pack! – yeah right…

To date, everything is purring along nicer than a finely tuned F1 McLaren. It received over 6 thousand visits (not hits) in 3 days – Nice Hey?… Anyway, if you think your pretty damn fast at texting – check it out…

Our long time client Tim Flattery (pophouse) has let us run wild again to come up with a cool little website. Custom Content is the name of this puppy – you getting flash backs of Sim City..??

There’s still a couple of sites that will be released very shortly,. just making the final touches and enhancements before we release them into the wild. We also like to say Happy New Year to all those financial people out there,. hope it wasn’t too painful those last few days, but if you need any help, remember there’s always Taxpack to turn too.

Till the next instalment of G-Spot – enjoy the winter, get down the snow and chop up some of that white stuff!

The time has well passed for another edition of the G-Spot. I’ve been checking the stats and can see you’re all bursting to hear about what’s happening in the world of Gruden.

A heaps been going on, but unfortunately nothing new to show! The CBOnline site is still rolling, all the high-end back office stuff for the Data Collection Module is currently being worked on. The Bromic site is also almost there, along with the Custom Content, Wisemans Retreat, PPCA and few other sites that you will hear about in the next edition,… exciting stuff that I was talking about last month… Love to tell you, but you know the deal.. something to do with contracts or something.

You may have read it in the paper or heard through the grapevine vicious rumors of Gruden moving office?? Well, they’re right! Not long to go now, but we’ll be moving our studio to a much nicer area & office. We’re all pretty sick of living off Thai and service station food – The lease was up, our waist lines beyond help, so buggar it we thought! ‘Lets blow this popsicle stand and move onto something that’s going to keep us sane’. Can’t wait! AND the pubs’ are even closer in this office! Nice!!

For all our clients out there, you’ll be receiving the new information shortly. For all the others, sorry, but your going to have to wait! If your lucky enough you might find an invitation in the mail to the opening…..

Anyway G-Spotters, it’s been a hard month of slogging away but we should have something to show you in the next exciting edition of……… ‘the spot of the G’ or the ‘G of the spot’ or whatever – it’s getting late.

Before I go though, thought I’d show a lovely picture of our infamous Art Director, looking his best in one of his moments of brilliance! Now that’s priceless!! Wonder how long it’ll stay up here for…??

p.s. Hopefully we’ll have something interesting to say next time..
Till Then..

Another month gone… For all those avid readers of the G-Spot you’ll notice that we let one slide through our slippery fingers. Tut – tut. But alas, this edition is packed full of website excitement.

Now, to save on the big spiel about W3C accessibility and whats involved (we’ve done it to death), all I’m going to say is WE PASSED! Wahooo!

Our first W3C WCAG 1.0 compliant site for our long time client CBOnline not only conforms to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, but the backend content management system also conforms to the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines.

Not only did we pass, but we received a nice pat on the back from Vision Australia, who conducted the compliance audit. Here’s what they had to say:

“CBOnline and their developers are to be congratulated on their implementation of the WCAG 1.0 guidelines. It is obvious that a concerted effort has been made to ensure that the CBOnline Website and Administration site conform to the WCAG guidelines both technically and practically.” and…

“This site is one of the best conforming that we have seen in some time. We will be adding your site to our “Exemplary Sites” list if you don’t mind.”

So there you have it! – as if we’d mind!

Last week saw one of our most loved employees leave us, off to Byron Bay to live the life of a tree hugging hippy. God Bless. Thanks for all your hard work Nick – greatly appreciated.

So his departure has left us in a little hole – but not for long, we’ve got 2 new members of staff coming into the family next week, Michelle Cave will be filling Nick’s shoes, doing our Marketing & Communications and young Nathan Cooper will be bringing his outstanding talents to the Graphics Department.

We’ve recently completed the Special Lights website in time for the DesignEX exhibition in Sydney. Keep a watch out for this one over time as there’s a heap more coming.

There’s some very exciting happenings coming up for Gruden in the next few months, if we were a public company – I’d be saying ‘buy buy buy’ but, we’re not. So if you don’t hear about us – talk about us.!

How sad….. till next time.!

Slow Down..!!! 2002 is flying past at a great rate of knots. It’s difficult to think that only a few months ago we were enjoying our Christmas holidays, now it’s just a faded memory.

So Gruden life, busy busy busy. We’re still powering on with the CBOnline website which is almost ready for launch. This website is our first W3C Accessibility compliant site! What’s W3C accessibility compliance I hear you ask? In short it’s making your website accessible to people with disabilities. Click on the W3C link to find out more.

Working with our friends at CPD on the Sydney Opera House (SOH) website was lots of fun! We provided the programming for the new look ‘Kids At The House’ section of the website. The SOH has recently re-skinned the whole site to a new look. Check it out.

Pophouse – pop, pop, popping in new content to the website to provide more relevant and up-to-date info on their companies life. It’s always great working with Tim and Rosemary, not only are they brilliant at what they do, they also love to be different in their web development ideas.

We’ve just recently helped out our friends at Courses.com.au with their database and search requirements for their new website. Courses.com.au provides information on all types of courses throughout Australia, check it out. Super fast search hey!

There’s some exciting new projects on the horizon for Gruden in the next few months. I’d love to tell you all about them, but that time will come. Be patient people.

That’s about it for this exciting G-Spot update, but before I forget, we’re in the process of sponsoring a new boat – a 49′er. So those people that frequent Sydney harbour, watch out for the famous Gruden logo screaming past.!

Till next time…

Well the New Year is finally here. Time to switch off the holiday relax mode and get back to real life. Everyone at Gruden enjoyed their much needed break. Some opting to watch smokin’ tyres in Canberra where our favourite programmer brought us back a piece of memorabilia. Another did the great infamous Sydney to Hobart yacht race, while others enjoyed the home and beach life. Some are even still surfing it up in Hawaii – hmmm.

This year looks looks to be a busy one for Gruden. Saunders Business Cards are continuing their development and integrating with every system under the sun, providing their clients with a powerful web management system. We’ve continued the development to include the latest technologies available today. For example, the integration with Ariba, Westpac B2Buy and a number of other B2B procurement systems.

Cookieman have launched their new website. Stage 1 of it’s development is now complete and there’s no wonder why these guys are the best in the cookie business. They were great fun to work with and the sample bags of cookies always went way too fast! Thanks guys. Stay tuned for further developments on the Cookieman website.

It’s not long before it’s tax time – again!! (There’s that word we all love so much..) Taxpack is getting some great feedback and lots of interest from overseas aussies. I’m sure it will only increase as we get closer to crunch time. Check out Taxpack for your up to date tax info.

We recently completed the Beckford Horse Trials website. This one was a quick punchout, but none the less fun to do for another of our favourite clients. For a sneak preview, click here.

The Gruden Christmas party was a lot of fun, and drinking… We felt the need to relax out in the open air by the sea, so we headed down to Manly and enjoyed a long lunch and a few quiet drinks at the Blue Door. Thanks to the managers, Mark and Mike, for their fantastic hospitality. We had a great afternoon/evening/morning… photos coming soon.

Apart from the usual on-goings, CBOnline is undergoing a site restructure to be W3C accessible amongst other things. Printbuilder is coming along nicely. Gruden Accounting appears to be making great inroads for small businesses, while the Gruden website still remains much the same as it did 5 years ago – gotta get to that one soon…

Happy New Year from all at Gruden.