The Digital Buzz at Stormfront Productions

Opera House Gets Facelift With Help From SFP

2012-05-04T13:22:22Z

DELPHI, Ind. (WLFI) - New plans are unveiled to renovate a historic building in Delphi.

The Delphi Preservation Society announced big renovation plans for the Opera House.

After the building opened in 1865 to host a ball for returning Civil War soldiers, the Opera House opened in 1882. It was shut down in 1914 by the Delphi Fire Marshall for only having one entrance. But when it was open, Opera House Advisory Board Chair Anita Werling said many performers graced its stage. James Whitcomb Riley, the famed Hoosier poet, performed on the stage at least six times that are documented and perhaps more," said Werling.

Renovation plans to bring the Opera House back to life have been unveiled. Some new features include a museum, a new lobby, a renovated stage with 200 seats and a roof top garden. Werling said the new Opera House will be used for different types of community events much like it was in the 1800s.

"Traveling theater troops would have come through Delphi. Delphi had it's own dramatic company then, as it does now so there would be original performances put on once a month," said Werling.

Delphi's Mayor Randy Strasser said the city has been trying for years to attract tourists and business to Delphi. He is hopeful that the Opera House renovations will do just that.

"How do you renovate buildings in the downtown area? How do you go about that and what does that bring to the community? We know that heritage tourism is an economic development tool," said Strasser.

Mayor Strasser said he hopes the revitalization of the Opera House will help advance restoration to other buildings all throughout Delphi.

2011 - A Year In Review

2011-12-28T18:21:10Z

The last year has been particularly busy here at Stormfront Productions. It seemed just like yesterday we were moving into our new building at 424 Main Street. It's hard to imagine that was nearly three years ago now.

We were fortunate to have a great 2011. With the economy the way it is we all had to pitch in more than usual, but in the end we had a solid year. Many thanks to all our clients and supporters.

Our agency grew once again in 2011 as we welcomed in our new hires Marilyn Welniak, John Wineman and Oscar Trejo-Soria. We plan on further expanding the agency in early 2012.

2011 also brought our first West Lafayette Parks and Recreations co-ed softball championship. We were excited to field a winning team this summer and look forward to protecting our championship next year.

We were also excited to launch our latest product, FujitaCMS earlier in the year. The product gave our clients full control over managing their websites. The new framework spurred other products including FujitaMailer and FujitaGallery amongst others still in development.

Most importantly, because we were in a good position, we were able to give back to the local community in 2011 more than ever. Stormfront Productions donated to several great causes including Kedler's Village, a website setup to help the Haitian earthquake victims and The Purdue Challenge, the Purdue Center for Cancer Research's 5K Walk / Run.

The staff and I would like to wish everybody a safe and happy New Year and a prosperous 2012.

SFP Presents Fear 2011 An Interactive Experience in Terror

2011-10-18T20:35:51Z

We are prowd to announce our second haunted attraction titled "Fear 2011" as part of this year's ZombAid. The event will be held Friday, October 28th from 5:00 - 7:00pm and immediately followed by a "Zombie Walk" down Main street.

We will be featuring the interactive, haunted attraction at our office along with lots of candy for the little ones. This year's theme will include an evil carnival, outdoor graveyard, a real-time lightning simulator, live actors and lots of spooks and surprises. It will be a fun time for the whole family but be warned not everything is just a prop! We hope you'll have a spooktacular time!

To find out more about the event please visit the ZombAid website at www.zombaidlafayette.com

WLFI Features Latest Web Application

2011-04-26T15:07:07Z

LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - Lafayette School Corporation (LSC) makes it easier to volunteer in the district.

It's as simple as clicking the "Help LSC Today" picture at the bottom of the corporation's website.

"The app is intended to help people who would like to help our schools by volunteering or providing donations or contributions," said Superintendent Ed Eiler.

Teachers will list their needs including time, materials or money on the website. It's up to volunteers to decide what to contribute. Superintendent Ed Eiler explained the district developed the link to get parents and the community more involved in the schools.

"I wonder if there is a way to connect what people need to have done, if you can control that, with people willing to help," he said.

Those wanting to volunteer in the classroom will still need a limited criminal background check, which the site facilitates. Volunteers can begin signing up now, but the school corporation says the application will be officially launched in the fall 2011.

SFP Markets For the NFL Combine

2011-02-15T21:57:06Z

This February, over three hundred of the very best college football players will be invited to participate in the NFL Scouting Combine (National Invitational Camp). Top Executives, Coaching Staffs, Player Personnel Departments and Medical Personnel from all 32 teams will be on hand to evaluate the nation's top college football players eligible for the upcoming NFL Draft. This intense, four-day job interview is an exciting time for the athletes and a vital step in achieving their dreams of playing in the NFL.

This year, Stormfront Productions helped our client DragonFly Athletics produce a flyer which will be distributed out to NFL teams and commissioners. DragonFly helps NFL teams view video of college games as quickly as 24 hours from the last snap. This turnaround can help save the NFL both time and money.

The NFL Scouting Combine will be held February 23 - March 1, 2011. Keep an eye out for more professional sports marketing solutions from Stormfront Productions.

Indiana Pacer's Forward Josh McRoberts & Pro One Sports Management Choose SFP

2010-11-30T14:54:37Z

Stormfront Productions, a full-service online media and marketing company based in Lafayette, Indiana has been awarded the contract to work on web media and marketing services for Josh McRoberts of the NBA's Indiana Pacers.

Josh McRoberts was selected by the Portland Trail Blazers with the 37th overall pick in the 2007 NBA Draft. McRoberts, a 6-foot-10-inch power forward-center, played in college for the Duke Blue Devils men's basketball team during the 2006 and 2007 seasons. In his first three season in the NBA, Josh was a high energy player off the bench who would provide a spark and intensity whenever was needed. Now after hours of hard work and commitment in the off-season, Josh has earned the starting power forward spot for the Pacers. As one of the best passing big men in the NBA, the Pacers are looking for Josh to be an integral part of the offense as a playmaker, while also providing shot blocking and rebounding on the defensive end.

McRoberts attended Carmel High School in Carmel, Indiana and led the Greyhounds in both scoring and rebounding during his senior year. He averaged 17.9 points to go along with 11.4 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 3.0 blocked shots per game and shot an impressive.593 (166-of-280) from the field while guiding the Greyhounds to a 21-4 record and a trip to the sectional championship game in 2005. McRoberts was considered the number one power forward prospect out of high school, and was projected to be drafted in the 2005 NBA Draft had he declared.

At Duke University, McRoberts averaged 8.7 points, 5.3 rebounds, 1.5 assists, and 1.3 blocked shots while leading the team (60.5%) in field goal percentage. McRoberts was named to the ACC All-Freshman team. He helped the Duke Blue Devils to a record of 32-4, the ACC regular season title, and the 2006 ACC tournament championship title by defeating the Boston College Eagles. He was also named to the third team Freshman All-America by collegehoops.net.

"We're very excited about the upcoming project with Josh and Pro One Sports Management. We feel the creative energy at our agency combined with our track record of successful online marketing campaigns will help further promote Josh's online exposure, off-the-court presence and fan interaction," said CEO & Founder Robert Theodorow.

The new website, which launched January 14th, 2011 can be viewed here.

Vote Now! Downtown Holiday Window Decorating Contest

2010-11-16T18:39:59Z

Stormfront Productions, located at 424 Main Street is part of the first annual Downtown Lafayette Holiday Window Decorating Contest. If you get a chance to make it out to our window, you'll see an interactive audio / visual experience featuring four channels of lighting effects moving along to your favorite Christmas tunes.

Come downtown to view all of stores dressed for the holiday season then vote for your favorite online. On the right side of the page (click link below to access voting page) you will see a poll to vote on your favorite entry.

Below the voting area you can submit your contact information to enter the Downtown Lafayette Holiday giveaway for your chance to win a prize package valued at $400 sponsored by Greater Lafayette Commerce, Lafayette Savings Bank and participating merchants.

Vote Online Here

Now Hiring: Full-Time Web / Graphic Design Position - Lafayette, IN

2010-10-04T20:24:33Z

At Stormfront Productions, your career growth is never limited. You will gain experience and knowledge to work in a variety of web-based fields. Within our agency or beyond, our staff makes a difference as they learn how to excel and become top performers in the industry. Come join our creative team for a rewarding career experience in the online media industry.

Responsibilities
• Design creative layouts for professional web projects in a variety of industries
• Support ongoing web-based projects
• Continually upgrade web sites including: motion graphics, multimedia and graphics
• Work with clients to gather feedback and implement solutions

Required skills
• Work independently and proactively
• Able to work with Adobe Creative Suite
• Knowledge of the latest graphics standards for web and print
• A great eye for overall site design with a focus on user experience

Pluses
• Experience with web development (HTML, CSS, etc.)
• Have worked with WordPress, MovableType or similar blogging software
• Knowledge of multimedia applications including Flash, HTML5 or 3D rendering

Compensation Package
Competitive Salary
Health Insurance
Employee choice of Technology or Health Stipend
Paid Holidays, Vacation, Personal and Sick Days
Flextime

We are looking for someone who can come in and contribute from day one.
Please submit resumes (preferably with work samples) and salary requirements to careers@sfp.cc.

A career coordinator will be in contact if we are interested in speaking further about the position. Thanks for considering Stormfront Productions for your career growth.

SFP Takes Home The Hardware

2010-08-20T13:55:53Z

Well, it wasn't first place, but coming in second place in the tournament our first year of competition wasn't too shabby. We had a blast playing in this year's co-ed softball league through the West Lafayette Parks Department and are planning a strong return next year.

Thanks to all who came out for the games to cheer us on. Pitchers and catchers report next March. Keep your eyes open for the practice times and schedule.

Gmail Updates Prove Helpful

2010-08-11T20:14:56Z

Gmail announced a revamp of many important features yesterday. By taking suggestions from Gmail users, who now amount to over 176 million users monthly, many of the features that were labor-intensive have now been improved. According to the official Gmail blog, the revamped features are as follows:

Sort by last name (look under "More actions")
Keyboard shortcuts (go to Contacts and hit "?" for the full list)
Custom labels for phone numbers and other fields
The ability to undo changes you've just made
Automatic saving
Structured name fields, so you can adjust titles, suffixes, and other name components
A bigger, more prominent notes field

Any user of Gmail should feel comfortable using the revamped features, and will not require a long adjustment period. Another new feature is a small tweak in the navigation area. Instead of the 'compose mail' being a link, it is now a button. The automatic saving feature is amazing, since you do not have to manually save drafts. I wonder if users of Google's 'Blogger' suggested this, since Blogger has employed automatic saving for years. There is no worse feeling than losing an important email or blog post (especially if it was really good or really important.) The contacts link has also been added to the navigation area. It used to be pretty difficult to find, and extremely dated.

Google's Life In A Day: July 24th, Help Document A Single Day On Earth

2010-07-22T18:43:11Z

Life In A Day is a global experiment Google is going to be doing July 24th. They are asking people to send in a user-generated film: a documentary, shot over one day. It will cover a 24-hour period setup to capture a glimpse of life through the lens. The best of the best will be used as part of an experimental documentary film, produced by Ridley Scott and directed by Kevin Macdonald.

If you happen to be one of the people lucky enough to be chosen, you'll get your 15 minutes of fame by being credited as a co-director and may even be asked to attend the film's world premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Find out more at Life In A Day.

HTML5: The newest "thing" in online video

2010-06-18T18:34:30Z

Long gone are the days where flash had to be used in order to display video on a website. Over the past few years, there has been a new web technology in the works; HTML5. In addition to many new features, such as Geolocation, advanced selectors, and animations, HTML5 sports a new way to embed video files.

Stormfront Productions has recently started to incorporate HTML5 video into our own website. With a new banner video which is compatible with all browsers, we are starting to make the long transition to that of HTML5. Check out our new video here.

As of now, there are three formats that can be used to display the video. First, H.264 was developed by the MPEG group and standardized in 2003. It can be used on any platform no matter what type of hardware is used. H.264 is a patented technology and requires payment of patent license royalties, so when using this codec you must be very careful. Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari are the only browsers that have native support for H.264 at this time while Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 plans to support this codec. Next, there is the VP8 codec which was developed by On2. On2 was bought by Google in 2010 with the intent to irrevocably release all of its patents pertaining to VP8 and release it as a royalty-free codec for use in WebM videos. WebM is a container format for VP8 video and Vorbis (sometimes called Ogg Vorbis) audio, much like Flash Video (FLV) and MPEG 4 (MP4) are for H.264 video and AAC audio. Because of its BSD license and royalty-free nature it is a very good choice for use in online video. WebM is not currently supported by any stable browser release, but support has been announced for all major browsers (except Safari) with development releases already coming down the pipeline. Lastly, there is the Ogg container format. It is completely open source, utilizing a BSD license, and has no royalties or patents associated with it. The Ogg format is the most compatible format with current browsers with support from Chrome , Firefox and Opera . If you'd like to convert your video to this format, you can utilize Firefogg from within Firefox. Other methods are available, but this is by far the easiest to use.

As of now, all the current browsers are lacking support for WebM. Even though we would like it, not every browser is going to support all three formats. As new versions of browsers are released, more support for HTML5 video will be added. Chrome will support all three types of codecs in their next major browser release. Firefox and Opera will support WebM and Ogg codecs with their next major browser release. Microsoft's IE9 will support H.264 as previously stated. Internet Explorer, the perennial bane of most developer's existences, will surprisingly feature support for WebM video with the catch that the codec will have to be downloaded and installed separately as Microsoft will not be shipping IE9 with native support. Meanwhile, Apple's Safari is holding tight with support for H.264 only, without any announcement for support of WebM as of yet.

Since different video codecs only work in certain browsers when using HTML5's tag, there needs to be three sources for the same video to insure that it will be viewable in almost all browsers. The problem arises when someone is using Internet Explorer (IE9 has not yet been released). The unfortunate workaround that developers have been using is Flash. While the point of HTML5 is to get away from Flash and third-party companies that specialize in video software, this cannot happen until HTML5 is widely adopted and users make use of these updated browsers. Luckily, the ability to fall back on Flash is a graceful transition within HTML5. HTML5 is a great step forward in the world of web development and design. Getting new browsers into that hands of users will take some time, but the wait will be worth it.

Application Development Case Studies

2010-06-16T18:19:24Z

Need custom web-based software created to help your business? Look no further. We can help and have done so for many of our clients over the last several years. We thought it would be nice to share our experience working on a few of these projects by creating case studies.

We've created everything from e-commerce systems, PDF generation software, inventory management systems, talent database applications, CMS and site administration tools, multi-user calendar systems and more. Let us show you how we can help improve your business processes though custom web-based software.

How To Remove The Google Background

2010-06-11T19:47:21Z

With the launch of Google's new personalization options yesterday, the #2 search on Google's trends page today is "remove Google background". I myself wondered what the new background was all about, if it would be a permanent fixture and why it reminded me so much of another search engine.

The change didn't go unnoticed by many. The group at Microsoft's Bing search engine - which also has similar photos on its homepage - didn't have an official comment to make at this time. However, other channels on Twitter mentioned how some of the same photos that have been used on Bing are now up on Google's homepage. Hey, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?

While web personalization may catch on, I don't see this background change being a permanent fixture for Google. They havefocused their brand too long with a "simple is better" type of approach for the homepage. There is no need for the #1 search provider in the world to change, especially after looking at the recent search trends.

HTML5 and CSS3

2010-06-11T19:45:41Z

As the Web continues to develop, most of us are wondering, "What is next?" The answer is HTML5 and CSS3. Both of these new markup languages have a vast number of improvements over the previous versions.

HTML5 is the latest update to the HTML and XHTML markup family. HTML5 has many major improvements. First, it has new types of tags. In place of

or tags, other tags can be used. For example, the navigation on the page can be enclosed in a

tag, or a website footer can be enclosed by a