After the Robot-Football World Championship won by our CTO, Marc, it was time for another programming achievement. Dirk Songuer and his team won the 3rd place at "the Ultimate Meeting" with his "Objektgeballer 2" program. The aim was to pack in the most impressive visualisations with music in a tiny 64KB file. 64KB, incidentally, is smaller than the Notepad program of Windows XP! The important thing here was that no graphics can be inserted into the file due its small size. The visualisation effects are completely programmed. However the file contains a 2 minute long music file and a stand-alone music player (capable of playing only this music file) embedded in it.

You can download the program here. Just extract and run the EXE file to see some magic! You can hit the ESC key (top-left of the keyboard) to exit the program.

Sitewards created a new Corporate Design for the Rosbach-Rodheim based Elektro-Winkler. The project involved creation of a new Logo with design also for Visiting Cards, Document Templates, Letter Heads and Work Reports. The firm founded in 1890 now has a fresh look, compliant with its new business areas and appealing for its large clientele. (Click on the image to see all the design elements we created for Elektro-Winkler.)

3t nails recently launched a new line of furniture for nail studios. The furniture is available with several options of colours for the panels, metallic handles and edges. Sitewards created a Macromedia Flash based Furniture Configurator to help 3t nails' customers quickly preview their choices. To build this Configurator, we started with several photographs of the furniture with their measurements and created the 3D models. Then we used Macromedia Flash to animate these models and provide the options for changing colours and rotating the model. (Click on the image to test the Configurator for yourself!)

Sitewards has published the new website of start-up company Lentis Media. The website shows off their new Corporate Design developed by Sitewards and introduces Lentis Media's new product called Lydia. Currently, Sitewards is also creating the User Interface for Lydia. Sitewards had earlier created the Corporate Design and designed the Visiting Cards, Presentation Templates and Letter Heads for Lentis Media.

Sitewards has a long standing and close relationship with the TU-Darmstadt. Not only have all three founders of Sitewards studied here, Sitewards has also in one way or the other contributed to several department websites at TUD. The website for the Computational Engineering department of TU-Darmstadt is the fifth such website that Sitewards has designed. The website is simple, beautiful, based on DIV tags, and easily maintained and updated by the Computational Engineering department staff.

http://www.ce.tu-darmstadt.de/

BCI (Brava-Casa-Real-Estate internacional S. L.) is one of the oldest customers of Sitewards. Over the years, Sitewards has developed a website, with an ever increasing number of languages, and several software tools for managing their properties, customer information and uploading information on to their website. Read the case study here. As BCI grows across Europe, it is finding customers in the Eastern European countries and especially in Russia. This website, therefore, is in Russian - the sixth language so far.

http://www.bci-immobilien.de/ru/

Through the new internet-presence, the new Corporate Design (logo, fonts and colours) of the company will be presented for the first time. On the new website with the new search function (supported by the "Web 2.0" Technology, AJAX), there are currently over 250 Mercedes Benz Jahreswagen offered - directly coupled with a user interface for AutoHirch-employees for the management of cars, customers, news and including automatic conversion, logo-watermark insertion and uploading of photos of the cars. Behind this website, there is much more hidden, that is not visible in the first view. This assignment is a prime example of what Sitewards' projects look like and how we integrate our Design and Technology capabilities with inputs from Marketing and Consulting.Therefore we will soon publish a comprehensive Case Study of this project as a "Reference Project".

http://www.AutoHirch.com/

Today, in the current issue of the Wirtschaftswoche, in the section "Beruf + Erfolg" from ages 175 to 178, the article appears along with a report on yet another Search Engine Optimiser, about how Sitewards goes about the task of Search Engine Optimisation. We discussed the basic knowledge about Search Engine Optimisation - what is allowed, what will be punished by search engines with a bad ranking, and some information that ensures promising growth in online marketing and Search Engine Optimisation. The photo of the Sitewards team appears on page 176, and the text of the interview on page 178.

Late entry from 28.10.2005: The complete article is now also available online.

The magazine Wirtschaftswoche (publishing house Handelsblatt) will publish, probably next week in their next issue, a two-side article about the interview with Sitewards and the webdesigners' work in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

After last week's request through the editor's group, an editor of Wirtschaftswoche from the Köln/Düsseldorf office, visited Sitewards's office in Darmstadt. The subject of the ensuing two hour interview was the work the Webdesigners and Programmers put in for SEO.

Apparently this interview will be published (in print and online) next week, in the form of a 2-side article (including a photo of the Sitewards team). We thank Wirtschaftswoche for their interest and their kind visit, and we are happy that after ProSiebenSat.1 another well known media house reached us through this Internet presence to seek our expertise.

Late entry from 14.10.2005: After the interview last week, it was decided within Wirtschaftwoche's team to allocate more space to the article in the next issue. To follow up, Wirtschaftswoche sent a photographer from Wiesbaden to Sitewards. This picture shows the equipment scattered all over, brought here by the photographer for us to "smile at the camera!"

In Frankfurt, the construction of the visionary project, "Frankfurthochvier" is being recorded by a Webcam. Sitewards helped with the installation of this Webcam and created a stable remote-management solution for the technology to enable frequent saves of this view of Europe's roof. On the Commerzbank Tower, in the outdoor-housing, runs a customised and internet-connected iMac, that can be maintained easily by Kaleidomenia over VPN and VNC. The pictures taken from this webcam will be later used to make a Memomotion Study Film.

The Commerbank Tower, built by Norman Foster, was until 2003 the tallest building of Europe and is an imposing Skryscraper in "Mainhatten".

One of the leading German media concerns, "ProSiebenSat1 AG" contacted Sitewards on telephone today. The subject was expertise about Webdesign and Websites, and we were therefore asked to evaluate free Internet offers to host private homepages for the TV-Program "Planetopia". During the discussion we were asked if it was alright to visit us with a small camera team. The idea was to pick internet users "on the streets" and ask them to get a private homepage from Sitewards and see how it develops - interspersed with "expert comments" from Sitewards.

Late entry on 22.09.2005: After this initial discussion, ProSiebenSat has not got back to us. We understand that the program was developed in the mean time, without our contribution. Nevertheless we are happy to know that ProSiebenSat found us worthy to discuss expert opinions on this subject.

The men's fashion store 'Löffelholz-Herrenmode' based in Lorsch contracted Sitewards for the creation of a new Website. In the new form, the Website will have an easy to maintain Webshop for about 20 branded products. This offer is especially created for the needs of business customers who know their favourite brand and their size and do not wish to spend the time to visit the shop in person.

Sitewards will also reserve additional Domains, to be forwarded to the 'Löffelholz Herrenmode' website.

Late entry on 11.10.05: The new Website and the Webshop are now online (http://www.loeffelholz-herrenmode.de). Furthermore, Sitewards will conduct Search Engine Optimisation - with the aim that
Löffelholz Herrenmode is always found on the first page of results for about 30 chosen search terms.

The Robocup 2005, the World Championship of Robot Football, took place in Osaka, Japan this year. Marc Dassler and his German Team travelled to Japan, the motherland of robots to successfully defend their World Champions' title which they won in Lisbon, Portugal last year. The field of participants included universities and research institutes from around the world. By their sheer numbers, the field was dominated by Japanese teams.

Marc Dassler's Team played in the "4 Legged League"of the Robocup. In this league participants program "Aibo" Robot Dogs from Sony to play Football by replacing the built-in software by self programmed software.

Sitewards is currently developing the functions to optimise the backend of its customer Schiku's Webshop. This includes the automatic uploading and import of webshop data and the automatic resize of the accompanying images.

As soon as this development step is ready, our customer will be able to maintain the data of his Webshop easier with more regular and faster updates. Everything at the press of a button and fully automatic!

Sitewards developed the Schiku-Webshop towards the end of 2004 based on the Open-Source Webshop OsCommerce - customised to the special needs of this customer. Schiku currently gets hundreds of orders through the Webshop.

The Sitewards Team expands its capabilities and offering-spectrum with the joining of Kshitij "Tidsch" Gupta, for supporting our customers with professional Marketing and establishing a well-aligned company strategy. Kshitij Gupta brings several years of experience from India's booming IT and Consulting industry, and is responsible for Marketing at Sitewards GmbH and Marketing activities and strategy formulation in contracts with our customers.

Sitewards has begun work on the Webshop integration for 3t nails. This project includes automatic uploads of customer and product data including passwords directly from 3t nails' ERP System into the Webshop. This will be derived from a complete a optical redesign of the 3t nails Website.

3t nails (earlier 3T Cosmetics) is a fast-growing company in the German Wellness Industry. After the decision to focus on Nail Cosmetics and complimentary accessories, Sitewards, the long time thchnology partner of 3t, was given the contract for the Integration of the ERP system with the 3t nails Webshop. At the same time, Sitewards is working for the preparations of 3t nails' new appearance for the Cosmetica trade fair in Wiesbaden. This work includes Catalogs, Flyers, Flags, new Letter-heads, Visiting cards and lots more.

In order to complete the ever growing number of Design and Webdesign projects of our customers, the Sitewards Design team has been strengthened by Jörg Dittmann and Joe Sarembe. Both of them bring a fresh gust of wind, a lot of talent and energy into the team. With their assignments in Sitewards Corporate Design and the Sitewards website they will assist the Art Director, Constantin Kammerer, with the conceptualisation of Corporate Designs and creation of Marketing material for our customers.

A lot of work has been put in behind the new internet presence of Sitewards GmbH. After having no website ourselves, with the line, "The shoemaker has the worst shoes", Sitewards' own website will now welcome its customers, partners and prospective employees. On the new website, one can find information about Sitewards' spectrum of offerings, with references and case studies of past projects.

Sitewards has a new customer - the printing company HMD-Druck in Griesheim. In the first order we will develop a new Corporate Design and a fitting redesign of the Website. Sitewards has also taken over the Hosting of the HMD-Druck Website and will be responsible for firther developments and changes..

Sitewards GmbH has signed Robert Kolka, from Frankfurt, as their Lawyer and Legal Consultant for Sitewards' customers. Robert has helped Sitewards with the formation of the GmbH and will be further assisting Sitewards with the creation of Customer, Employee and Partner contracts. He will also be responsible for overlooking the legal issues around Sitewards' work. In addition to consulting for Sitewards, Robert will also extend his services to Sitewards' customers who might need legal assistance with some projects.

The Sitewards team is growing. Sitewards GmbH hired its first employee, Wolfgang Braun, as 'System Administrator and Software & Hardware Consultant'. Wolfgang will be responsible for consulting with Sitewards' and its customers for Software and hardware installations, designing and deploying their IT & Communications backbone, and managing their servers and firewalls.

Bernd Lichtenecker takes over the responsibility for Finance, Accounts and Taxation at Sitewards. Along with taking care of the finances of the new Sitewards GmbH, he will play a pivotal role in the organisation and management of finance and accounts projects for our customers.

Sitewards has moved to a new office space at Pallaswiesenstr. 63, 64293 Darmstadt. This office was selected after visiting about a dozen other options around Darmstadt. The new office can accomodate about 8 to 10 employees.

The partners of Sitewards, Marc Dassler, Constantin Kammerer and Carsten Takac, signed the agreement ("Gesellschaftsvertrag") to make their company (formerly "sitewards.com - Dassler Kammerer Takac GbR") a GmbH company (Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung), the German equivalent of a Limited or LLP company. Prof. Dr. Horst Geschka of TU-Darmstadt was their primary Advisor for the formation of the GmbH.