New design for make snow dot net.

It's been awhile, yesturday I sat down with the thought of spending about an hour working on the new website, however I ended up spending about 5 hours (good thing it's the summer and there's nothing that I must to do) completely re-working, debugging, and creating the new graphics for the latest site. By no means will it have the traffic of Google, or yahoo (I wish), but at least it's not the default yahoo page maker like it used to be. If you visit http://www.makesnow.net/ I encourage you to leave feed back either through an email to feedback@makesnow.net or as a comment to this post.The latest website is not really a huge change from the navigation perspective, but now the pages are consistant, there's links at the bottom and top left of every page, there is constant branding of the site (http://www.makesnow.net/) at the top of every page, and there are now rollover links on the navigation bar. As an added benefit the rollover links remain a the light version when you are on that page, and the top graphic displaying the site name is a link back to the home page.

The site is now listed on google

That's right, www.makesnow.net (make snow dot net) is now listed on google, so if you are looking to make a snow gun of your own, or make snow in your own backyard, a backyard blizzard if you will, you are now able to find plans through a google search.

Simply type in "makesnow", "make snow dot net", "build your own snowgun", and www.makesnow.net should come up in the first few sites listed. If you want to boost the level of www.makesnow.net you can link your forum signatures to www.makesnow.net , the more links to the site (www.makesnow.net) the higher the site will be on google when people go to search about making snow at home, or some similar search like snowgun, snow, chrismas, etc.

Almost Summer

For many people summer is already here, however in more northern areas, like the one I'm in it has not completely arrived. Fortunately the summer is a good time for making snowguns, I'm sure I have some people who are reading this and thinking what would a snowgun be good for in the summer, or even those people who are saying "what's a snowgun?"

A snowgun is a device which turns water into snow using some special nozzles and some compressed air. Unfortunately a snowgun only works in cold temperatures, starting around 3C (40F), and going down to about -25C (at that point even fast moving water has a very hard time saying as a liquid, which can cause the hoses to freeze up.)

To answer the second question, "why is summer a time for snowguns?" is very simple, it's easy to see that in the summer the temperatures are above freezing, which is good for testing snowguns, because when you know you are going to get wet, it's also nice to know that it's not going to freeze to your hair and clothing while you are doing it. This saves getting wet in the winter when it will freeze to your hair or clothes.

I have been working with snowguns for the past seven years (quite awhile, I know), and have recently decided that it would be a good idea to let the rest of the world in on my ideas. You can find how to build your own snowgun at my website http://www.makesnow.net/ .

First Sale on the New Website

The site had it's first sale earlier this week, justifying it's existance only a few short days after being created, what a world we live in. The site is located at www.makesnow.net and it tells you just that, how to make snow, at home, at work, it doesn't really matter the principles are the same, just how much snow you make might be the difference. On the site you will find the guide as well as parts which you will need to make the snowgun.

New domain, yes it's true!

I finally sprung for the domain name, fairly affordable, I purchased it through lycos, and so the site is now located at www.makesnow.net , it's very easy to remember, and while it's not a 'dot com' name the 'dot com' name is for a commercial company, which means they may someday offer to buy this .net name.

Until then www.makesnow.net will replace www.geocities.com/make.snow as the homepage for my small business, and it will help to serve my customers in the future (and maybe increase my crawl rate :D)

In the heat of the summer

Well, it's nearly here, yes summer is just around the corrner. The blistering heat, hitting over 30 Celcius every day, or over 90F for those using Farenheit still. Can you believe that you could still ski or snowboard at whistler until July 29th?!?!?! What if you could do that in your own backyard? This is incredibly unpractical as it would require tons upon tons of snow to be made, but hey, it's fun to think of what could be possible. I've made snow before that's lasted into April before, but never into July (Still working on that one, maybe next year...) . I great place for plans on building your own snowgun, just like the ski hills (and mega resorts) is my site www.geocities.com/make.snow . In future it will contain all the parts you need to build the snowgun as well, however I am still working with manufacturers to see about getting it all sorted out, but when it is they will be located on the parts page.

Ebay, and how it's good for small businesses

eBay has been the reason why there are a lot more web based small businesses lately, People who have an odd hobby they want to share with the world from jamming to snowmaking. With eBay all you have to do is list an item, and sell it, the money comes to you from the buyer via paypal or one of many other payment methods, eliminating the need for credit card processing, and reducing the confusion greatly for the consumer and the seller.

I have found that while eBay is great for listing general items, when you want to be selling all the time, but the items you are selling are low volume support products that you really need a website, that is why I reccommend that when some one starts on eBay that they create a supplementary website to sell supplementary products from, then their repeat customers can buy without using ebay listings (which cost money to the seller), and they may have their choice of all your products regardless if one sells early or not. My website is located at www.geocities.com/make.snow , this site sells the plans for the snowgun, however it also including running information, set up, take down procedures, tips, and critical information used to determine which parts to use, the site in the future will be used to sell hard to find nozzles, and products which will simplify set up and take down of a snowgun.

Another critical part of any website is a Frequently Asked Questions Section, this section provides information on the products, as well as the company, with my website this page provides details about what the consumer can expect from their snowgun and links to a page where the user can Contact us about their questions of how such a product can help their business generate a greater profit.