Stay Connected with a Family Website

Looking to create a family tree or share photos of your first family vacation? Want to share your secret recipe for holiday rum cake? A family website by Epic Business Solutions is a great way to do this. With a family website from Epic Business Solutions you can stay connected with friends and family all over the globe. You also get a subscription to premium services like ESPN Insider and Shockwave.com gameblast.

Check out these great features:

Character Studio

You ever wonder what you would look like as a cartoon? Why not experiment with your Family Website Character Studio and find out? Mix and match your body size, eye type, nose and eyebrow shape with a library of contemporary hairstyles and outfits. And while you're playing, go ahead and try on some blonde hair or see how you would look with a different nose or maybe a beard. The possibilities are as endless as your imagination. With the Character Studio tool, you can animate all of your loved ones - even the family dog!

Blog
The Blog tool is an online journal that lets you and your family members share their thoughts and opinions with all the people who visit your Family Website. This incredibly popular technology gives everyone in your family a chance to create their own blog to write about anything they want: the family's summer vacation, a movie they recently watched, or any other special or important experiences. With extra features like rich-text editing and the ability to add photos to blog entries, you and your family are going to love creating and updating your own personal blogs.

Family Photo Album

The Photo Album is a wonderful way to share photographs with friends and family scattered all across the world. The Flash-based interface makes it easy for anyone to quickly upload and organize photos, and with features like the automatic resizing tool, you can be sure that your online photo albums always look professional. You can create as many photo albums as you want, and you will still have plenty of room left over for all your family members to create their own personal photo albums.

The Family Tree
The Family Tree is a user-friendly genealogy chart that helps you record and map out your family's history. With this tool, you can create detailed profiles of every single person in your family, including physical traits, personality characteristics, and even a favorite saying or quote. The Family Tree is perfect for sharing your personal history with all of your friends and relatives, and it's a great way to help your children learn all about their ancestors.

Calendar
The Calendar provides you and your family with an invaluable tool for organizing and managing all of the birthdays, appointments, events, and meetings in your hectic schedule. Create individual calendars for everyone in your family to keep track of their own important dates and events, and maintain one master calendar to manage all the soccer games, dance recitals, PTA meetings, business luncheons, and doctor's appointments in your family's busy life in one central location.

Recipe Center
If you've been looking for a place to find delicious new recipes to impress your friends and family, look no further than our Recipe Center. You will be able to access thousands of recipes collected from professional chefs and outstanding self-taught cooks like yourself, and who knows, you may even find a few "secret" recipes from some of the best chefs and restaurants across the globe.

File Cabinet
The File Cabinet provides you with an ideal way to store and share large electronic files in a secure, remote location. It is almost impossible to send photos, music files, or large documents using e-mail, but with the File Cabinet tool, you and your friends and family can easily upload dozens of these files directly to one central, online location that all of you can access from any computer connected to the Internet.

Scrap Book
The online Scrapbook is a wonderful tool for capturing the most memorable events and holidays in your family's life. Pre-formatted layouts and themes make it easy for anyone to add pictures and captions to a basic Scrapbook page. Once you're comfortable with this tool, you will be able to customize every inch of your scrapbook with countless combinations of fonts, colors, images, shapes, backgrounds, and themes.

Theme Park
Once you've finished creating cartoon versions of your family in the Character Studio, the real fun begins when you get to choose a background for you family using the Theme Park tool. You'll find a wide assortment of static and Flash-animated environments that allow you to place your family in locations like the beach, Mount Rushmore, or even in outer space. You'll also have the option of uploading your own photos as backgrounds, and even be able to set your Family Website as your Home page on the Internet. With over 150 different Theme Parks to choose from, you're sure to find a background that is perfect for you family.

Layered Password Protection
Instead of just using one general password to protect your entire Family Website, you have the ability to create passwords for all the individual components and sections on your site. Every single blog, calendar, photo album, and file cabinet can have its own unique password-even if it's already in a safe, private area that is also password protected. With these extra layers of security, you can be certain that only family and friends get in, and everyone else will be kept out.

Guest Book
The Guestbook tool offers you a fun way to keep track of everyone who has ever visited your Family Website. Through your Guestbook, both new and returning visitors may leave messages, share their impressions or simply just "sign in" to let you know that they were there. To protect the integrity of your site's content, the messages are not viewable until you have approved them - giving you control.

Free Family Domain Name
Everyone who purchases a Family Website automatically receives a free domain name with their new site. If you're having trouble thinking of a unique domain name for your Web site, you can always use our special Domain Name tool to generate a list of Web site addresses that incorporate your family's last name.

Webmail
Once you have selected a domain name for your Family Website, you can create up to five different e-mail accounts that use your family's name in the e-mail address. Each account automatically comes with spam filtering tools, e-mail forwarding, plenty of storage space, and many other great features you won't find with basic e-mail service.

Syndicated News and Information (RSS)
The Syndicated News and Information tool uses a popular syndication technology called RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, to deliver real-time updates from a variety of popular Web sites directly to you. Browse through our list of nearly 150 different content providers, covering topics like local, national, and world news, travel, politics, sports, business, weather, and entertainment, and we will automatically update your Family Website whenever updates are made to one of the sites you selected.

Useful Links
In the Useful Links section, we've grouped together some of the Web's most popular sites in one place. For instance, say you need to purchase a ticket? Whether it's for a plane or a movie, you can order it on-line through your Useful Links page. Or, maybe you're looking for a safe place for your children to play? Just send them to the "Kids" section of Useful Links for access to their favorite G-rated sites. Do you feel like shopping for your favorite name brands? Just type your zip code into the "Sunday Saver" section to find out what the latest bargains are in your neighborhood. You can also find out the latest news and weather, what's on TV and your daily horoscope. You can even do your banking on-line and so much more. Your Family Website's Useful Links page is your doorway to what's hot on the Internet.

Favorite Links
What is the coolest site you've come across lately? With the Internet growing exponentially, there is an abundance of hot new sites popping up every hour. How would you like an easy way to share your latest finds with all your friends and family? Through your Family Website's Favorite Links page, instant access to all of your favorites is just a few clicks away.

Licensed Content
In addition to all the impressive tools and features our software developers have created, your Family Website also includes free membership to a variety of premier Web sites like:

1. American Greetings
Access to thousands of e-cards and e-vites, and the Create & Print tool for personalizing and printing your own cards, gift bags, and place cards

2. Encyclopaedia Britannica® online
Renowned, reliable information contained in over 120,000 articles, a world atlas, multimedia images, videos, and more

3. ESPN Insider
Your ticket to premier sports coverage. You'll get all the breaking news, exclusive content and wireless access in addition to 26 issues of ESPN The Magazine

4. Shockwave.com GameBlast
Over 150 premium online and download games for the entire family, including classic favorites like SCRABBLE®, full-screen jigsaw puzzles, and fun action and sports games

Read more!

The Haberdasher Limited Launches New Website

That's right. Finally, after 30 years of selling fine clothing for men and women in Green Bay, WI, The Haberdasher Limited has finally launched a website. Working with Epic Business Solutions, The Haberdasher Limited has launched a website that will allow customers to shop online from the comfort of their own homes. Just in time for the holiday season.

Be sure to visit their new site at http://www.thehaberdasherlimited.com Read more!

New Years Resolution for Business Owners - Get a website already!

So, you own your own business. Good for you. Some say that after owning a home, the next American Dream is owning your own business. Whether you own your own mom and pop resturaunt or you run a chain of multi-million dollar retail stores, I am here to tell you that if you don't have a website or haven't paid much attention to your existing site, make it a resolution in 2006 to either get your business on the web or update your company's current web image.

But I already advertise
If you think a website is just another form of advertising, think again! Unlike most advertising that bombards consumers with a lot of hype, a website gives consumers what they want when they want it. The consumer gets to choose which site they visit, how long they stay, whether or not they want to buy something, etc. When we watch TV or listen to the radio, the only choice we have when an add comes on is to change the channel.

Do I really need a website?
Let me ask you this. Would you run your business without a phone, fax machine, computer, or checking account? No, you wouldn't, and you shouldn't run your business without a website. Today having a website adds credibility to your business. People want to know, "what's your website address?" Isn't it about time you were able to tell them?

But I already have a website.
Great! That's the first step. But, is it working for you? If you don't know, then the answer is a clear "No". Find out how to check on statistics like page hits and most recent visitors. Work with your technology professional to implement meta tags for keywords and get your site submitted to the search engines. That's right, I said professional. Enough of the "Well I have a friend...". Is your friend a professional web builder and can they give you the same amount of time and service you would get from some other company? If not, then simply say "Sorry, but this is my business we are talking about." It is about time you took this portion of your business seriously.

Can it really save me money?
Think about this. Statistics show the 70% of people that see a website address in the yellow pages will visit that site. Now, take into account that a simple yellow page add can cost hundreds of dollars every month! Wow! So, reduce that yellow page add but make sure it includes your website address.

Be open 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
Have products or services to sell? With a website, you can be open all the time without having to pay to keep the store open. With a website it is now possible to earn money while you sleep. Online shopping statistics are astonoshing as more and more people flock to the web to shop.
Read more!

I want my super-sized fries super!

If your like me, there has probably been more than one occasion when you have ordered a combo/meal deal from a fast food resturaunt, siper-sized/up-sized/giant-sized it, and, once the food is delivered, your fry carton is anything but full. Frankly, I am kind of tired of it. I love the fries and I super-size them for a reason; I want more of them. So why can't the people working at these establishments get it right? It is my hope, that since the majority of them are younger and probably have blogs of their own, that they might read this and start rectifying the situation themselves.

I would like to add that I, myself, worked for over seven years at a fast food resturaunt and I honestly think everyone should experience it. I know what it's like to mix up an order or short-change someone. I've experienced firsthand the unsatisfied customer and a resturaunt full of hungry,moody,impatient people. Let me tell you, it sure helps you have a bit more patience during the noon lunch rush. Fast food helped me pay for college and probably kept me out of trouble on the weekends.

So, if you are one of the more fortunate people reading this and working at a fast food resturaunt, help spread the word. Make sure those fry cartons are full. You'll feel better knowing you are contributing to my expanding waist line. "Excess in moderation". That's my motto. Read more!