PRO IT Service Blog

We've launched a new section: Testimonials

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:22:01 +0200

Unfortunately we've felt a bit this financial crisis, as most of our European customers were from the U.K. and Great Britain was strongly hit during October, November and December 2008. We had a good amount of work planned for a couple of large British companies, but we've lost it due to these contractors' financial problems. Adding to this detail that we didn't accept some projects to make sure we have enough room for these British contractors, you can get the picture. Anyway, rather than complaining or taking an unplanned holiday, I've decided to leverage the free time between some small projects to work on improving a bit our company Web site. I would like to refer here to what I consider the most important update, which is in fact a new section called Testimonials. As you may already be aware, PRO IT Service S.R.L. has been founded by myself way back in 2002 and since then we've server a couple of hundred of customers. Nevertheless this performance, we didn't have enough time to devote to mentioning these jobs under our portfolio, nor to consider adding a Testimonials section. Given the new circumstances, in November I've planned this testimonials section and I've started by contacting about 20 customers and asking them to provide us a testimonial. Some were very quick, some less and some are still to prepare a testimonial for us. On January the 19^th, 2009 after having collected about testimonials, I've decided it is the time to publish them online. This evening I've got a call from a contact telling me that he was impressed with what we found out about our company, but that he only seen a few testimonials. I've explained him that this section is just launched for about 3 weeks now. He though the section is as old as the company :) Anyway, I'm going to make clear on our Web site that this section is brand new. http://www.pro-it-service.com/en/testimonials.html

Thank you for 2008 and Happy New Year!

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:07:41 +0200

I would like to thank all our customers for ending 2008 with another important business growth. Due to the amount of work and to the intention of expanding our team, during 2008 we’ve contracted a mortgage and bought a larger flat where to operate this new media business. Nevertheless the crisis which affected us a bit, as most of our customers are from the United States and from the United Kingdom, we closed the year with satisfactory financial results, but most of all, proud of the projects we’ve worked on. The plans we have for 2009 are to increase our team and to bring this business to the next stage by engaging a private investor and by expanding in one hand our customers base and on the other the number of services offered by hiring more people. Happy New Year! to all and hope this year will put an end to the financial crisis affecting the global market.

Movable Type upgraded to version 4.23. Consultant available!

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 08:20:43 +0200

Six Apart announced a new Movable Type version which, according to the press release, it is a mandatory security release recommended for all users and fixes a good number of bugs from version 4.21. On a side note, you should know that there was no version 4.22, so don't worry that after v4.21 the movable type crew launched v4.23 (it's a long story that is not made public yet). Looking at the change log, I've noticed that I've dealt with some of the bugs fixed in this new release. I should express my gratefulness to Six Apart for putting together this improved movable type version. Are you having your own Movable Type installation? Are you interested for an upgrade? I'm available to upgrade your Movable Type installation to v4.23. Get in touch via the contact page form... You may like to check the movable type v4.23 change log below.

How To Troubleshoot Text Formatting Issues When Taking Content From Ms Word?

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:42:26 +0200

I've had a customer complaining today that he has some text formatting issues when copying and pasting content that he wrote with Ms Word into his Movable Type v4.21 driven Web site. The client was wondering if he is doing something wrong, as some other posts already published on his Web site were looking impeccable. My dears, the problem is well known with a very large range of blogging tools and content management systems (CMS). The work around this trouble is to Save the document As "Web Page, Filtered (*.htm, *.html)". After choosing the new format, Ms Word will alert you that if you go ahead with the 'Save As' command you've just ordered will remove 'Office-specific' tags. Since this is actually the goal with going through this 'Save As' procedure, you should click 'Yes' on that alert window. At this stage you can safely copy and paste content from this new format document into your publishing platform, Movable Type or not. This will solve your text formatting problem after trying to copy and paste content from a document wrote in Ms Word.

Why is it important to upgrade Movable Type?

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:45:52 +0200

Why is it important to upgrade Movable Type? I bet many of you bloggers, have been wondering at least a few times in life: "- Why should I upgrade my blogging platform?" "- Why do I have to upgrade movable type when the current version does what I want to do with it. I just need to post my articles and that's it!". Well, we are passing a period when absolutely any technology we are using, either it is for blogging or any thing else, movable type, word press, joomla, whatever... they all have security issues that could be exploited sooner or later... This is the case also with Movable Type and the crew at Six Apart together with the Pronet community are doing their best to discover and fix any bug or security holes. What is nice about Movable Type is that the company behind it listens to the bloggers community and converts their ideas into practice with each and every version. This is a second reason to go for an upgrade! My professional advice to you is to always keep your blogging platform updated to the most recent stable built. At this stage you may wonder: "- But where could I find a movable type consultant to upgrade the installation for me?" "- How much does upgrading movable type cost?" "- Is it worth spending a certain amount of money to upgrade movable type?" You are here at the right place to ask for a movable type upgrade service. We are successfully doing this service for so many customers that we've already lost the counting. The main reasons bloggers choose us to upgrade their movable type installations is that the cost for an upgrade is as low as 100 USD, which is a very competitive rate in this business and this amount is really worth for your publishing experience. You will discover that with every movable type upgrade your blogging experience is better. The menu is better organized, there are extra options and features and overall your movable type satisfaction is increased. You've read till here, but you may wonder: "- Alright, I understand everything so far. But, give me some tangible reasons to upgrade to movable type v4.2 or movable type v4.21 which seems to be the most recent version. BTW, why there are two v4.2x versions?"

Movable Type goes v4.21. Upgrade patch available!

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:42:29 +0200

Six Apart come up with an excellent news! There are just 10 days since Movable Type v4.2 has been launched. People from all over the world identified quite a series of bugs on what was meant to be the most secure and quick movable type version seen so far. In an effort to make the whole community happy and isolate these bugs ASAP, the movable type crew launched today movable type v4.21. Since there were quite two important bugs reported as being fixed, I didn't think twice and started to upgrade all the movable type installations I've recently upgraded to v4.2. Believe me, there were quite a few dozens and re-upgrading them would have been a nightmare unless I would have just uploaded the files that changed in the new release Felt like this could be a problem other people may face, I've also made available online two patches (one for movable type professional and another for the open source version) which will let somebody upgrade from v4.2 to v4.21 is just a minute or so http://www.movabletype4.org/2008/08/movable_type_v421_patch.html Remember that anytime you need help with movable type installation, movable type upgrades from any version to any version, or any kind of movable typo consultancy service, you could ask for it here via instant messaging, email, contact form or phone call Happy blogging everyone!

Movable Type v4.2 is live! The time for upgrades :)

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:34:17 +0200

I'm extremely excited that Six Apart just launched Movable Type v4.2 Last night I was driving back home and at a light stop I've picked up my cell phone and accessed my main email box. When I've seen Anil Dash's announcement that Movable Type v4.2 was released I really felt an extraordinary sensation Instead of dropping off at home, I went to a local shop and brought in a beer for celebrating the event! I know, I should have got a Champaign, but I will consider it for the next Le Web 3 in Paris when I will meet the Six Apart crew again The new Movable Type is faster than ever, for certain operations such as the search is even up to 100 times faster! The great news in top of this is that at PRO IT Service we've made available the Open Source and the Professional versions of this release absolutely free for anybody to check and evaluate online at: http://www.movabletype4.org/ Furthermore, we've already upgraded a couple of blogs to v4.2 and everything looks excellent! We've started this operation with the movable type web sites that we host or that we contract for the upgrading service Do you want somebody to install or upgrade your Movable Type installation for you? Just ask using the contact form above! You may also want to: Check out more about the new release at: http://www.movabletype.org/2008/08/movable_type_42_is_here.html View an absolutely free online demo at: http://www.movabletype4.org/ (service provided worldwide by PRO IT Service)

Recoding Movable Type Projects Based On The Movable Type 4 Templating System

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 01:35:12 +0200

I'm going to call this a day, but I won't like to go and get a good nap before sharing with you a few notes based on a project I've worked on today Lynne Kiesling from http://www.knowledgeproblem.com/ contacted me saying that she needs help with her Movable Type weblog. Basically, nevertheless she was used to Movable Type and upgraded it herself over the years, she recently encountered problems after upgrading to Movable Type v4.01 that were "beyond my coding capabilities" as she kindly mentioned. She wanted me to recode her project templates based on the MT4 framework, to install a new Web site theme from the ones available online and to also add some other features I've already coded a couple of projects since Movable Type v4.x entered the scene, but I should say that it was indeed a pleasure to recode her project. Recoding a movable type Web site based on the v3.x framework into the new framework, with all the new principles introduced by v4.x apart from the excitement it brings could have also a weak point and that is called heavy "publishing times" Six Apart tried to make this product as simple and intuitive as possible for any blog owner to be able to edit the template, go though all the included modules, create or manage widgets from the side column(s) and more. Taking as an example only the "Widget Sets" facility which, nevertheless allows you to easily update your Movable Type Web site side bar(s) by dragging and dropping widgets, regenerating all those widgets could be a problem if we are talking about large blogs

Movable Type Design Assistant: Styles Live Customization is Here

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 20:11:22 +0200

Six Apart just revealed an excellent new tool they are working on and which allows you to easily pick up a new look and feel for your Web site from a Styles Library.

Style Catcher Next Generation

Those of you that have heard or used Style Catcher, the new product is like a Style Catcher next generation and allows you not only to choose and adopt a new look and feel, but to also modify the layout characteristics as you like. Movable Type Design Assistant comes also with an easier and more intuitive interface which guides you throughout the whole new design adopting process.

Each Design Comes In Six Layout Formats

Another excellent feature is that each and every style from the library is available in not less than six possible layout formats covering actually the most popular layout structures currently available online.

These six layout formats are:

[NULL] [/NULL]

Layout-wtt (3 columns: Wide, Thin, Thin)

Layout-twt (3 columns: Thin, Wide, Thin)

Layout-wt (2 columns: Wide, Thin)

Layout-tw (2 columns: Thin, Wide)

Layout-wm (2 columns: Wide, Medium)

Layout-mw (2 columns: Medium, Wide)

Upgrading to Movable Type Open Source v4.1

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 21:13:36 +0200

It's quite some time since I didn't publish anything new in here Well, I've had a very busy time with my work and I've also been in London for about 2 weeks with business meeting a few already established customers and also meeting a few new prospects The time I had in London was great. I was leaving near London Bridge and London Tower, two very nice places in Zone 1 not far from the Westminster and Buckingham Palaces. During my stay in London the Movable Type Crew at Six Apart launched Movable Type v4.1 in two versions, one Commercial and the other Open Source. Nevertheless I've made these two versions available online for free testing at movabletype4.org I didn't have the time to try to actually upgrade one of my customers' version. However, today I've had the opportunity to do my first upgrade from movable type v3.35 to movable type v4.1 open source. The transition was very nice, nevertheless I had to do a few tweaks to make sure all he had before works also on this new version. If I will be to upgrade all our customers I will go beyond 200 movable type instances :) However, if you need to upgrade your movable type driven web site from any version to any other version just get in touch using the contact form and I or my technicians would be more than glad to do this job for you in a professional manner.

Movable Type Security Update: Engineers Available

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 20:09:17 +0200

Movable Type just issued a security update that should be applied to any movable type version since Movable Type v3.2 Basically, in affected versions of Movable Type, there are certain circumstances in which a blog template may be rendered dynamically via CGI in an otherwise static publishing context. If you use Movable Type to publish PHP files (or JSP or ASP pages) and have embedded within your Movable Type templates sensitive information (such as database connection information), then that sensitive information could potentially be exposed and viewed publicly.

Happy New Year 2008!

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 10:37:24 +0200

I would like to thank you all for the great success that PRO IT Service, the company that I'm personally ruling registered this year Nevertheless we had a very busy time, the results we've achieved were extraordinary The New Year holiday inspired us with an even more ambitious developing plan that we would like to put in practice during 2008. Stay tuned ;-) Within the following month I'm going to list for you some of the projects we've been involved during 2007 and we feel like mentioning on our Web site

PRO IT Service is now partner of Six Apart Europe

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 22:29:00 +0200

Today was the second and last day of the "Le Web 3" forth edition conference here in Paris, France I must say the conference was very interesting and I enjoyed it a lot. Cannot wait for the video registration to become available online so that I could link to it from here for whoever is interested The main reason I’ve attended Le Web 3 this year is actually an invitation I’ve got from Six Apart to meet the whole team in person, get to know each other a bit and make official the partnership we’ve signed just a few days ago Basically, for a couple of days my company is an official partner of Six Apart for Europe. (here above there is a photo with the Six Apart team at Le Web 3, including Chris Alden which is the CEO and Chairman of Six Apart’s Board of Directors. I'm the third from right to left) Here at PRO IT Service S.R.L. we are very happy that Six Apart appreciated the work we did over the last couple of years using Movable Type and the effort we’ve made to evangelize this excellent publishing platform If you got to know me or my team you already know that we are not going to stop here! Among our plans there is a partnership with Six Apart North America since most of our customers come from the US market, and a few other wonderful initiatives related to making this product even more popular

Finance Web Site And Blog Development: The MoneyOutlet.co.uk

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:26:02 +0200

As a passionate Movable Type Consultant (some folks like my design skills and call me Movable Type Designer) I'm impatient unless I code a good number of Movable Type projects every week. They are all very nice projects and I would love to find some time to write about each and every one of them, but as you know we are living in a speedy era and time is tight. However, I cannot resist the temptation and will share with you a project I've delivered recently which focuses on finance called The MoneyOutlet.co.uk. Basically it's a Web site built entirely in Movable Type which covers the following finance areas: Loans, Mortgages, Credit Cards, Insurance, Banking, General Finance News & Articles. I was again so fortunate to be building this Web site from the very roots. Everything started from the layout that the customer designed in PhotoShop. We've then had a few sessions over skype and agreed to make some changes that would improve the search engine optimization. Once the reference design in PhotoShop was ready, I've started to slice the images and code it in xhtml/css tableless Web page format.

London, Paris and The Forth Edition of Le Web 3

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:02:44 +0200

It’s quite some time since I didn’t publish anything here and I feel like sharing with you what I’ve been doing during the last month Apart from building up new movable type projects, optimizing some other movable type heavy web sites or coding web site interfaces, I’ve been traveling to London where I’ve spent three wonderful weeks I’ve been to London partly with business and partly for fun. I’ve been working on the U.K. way back in 2004 on the North West for quite some time, but I really wanted to also spend some time in London It’s useless to tell you that I’ve found London a wonderful place and nevertheless I’ve lived in Rome for a few years and traveled around the Europe quite a lot, I would relocate to London anytime now

The Future of The Internet

What makes this time of the year even more intriguing is the fourth edition of LeWeb3 which will take place in Paris on December the 11th and the 12th. I’ve received an invitation to this event and I would gladly participate. LeWeb3 is widely regarded as Europe's largest web conference and is one of the most important dates in the tech calendar. This year's program, featuring high-caliber speakers such as Robert Scoble (PodTech), Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn) and Tariq Krim (Netvibes), is expected to draw up to 2000 participants from around the world to discuss the future of the Internet. For more information on the event, you may like to see www.leweb3.com.