Convenience is King

We set out to create a page-editing web application that was super easy to use. It worked! Updates Anytime has an intuitive interface, meaning you won't have any trouble figuring out what the buttons do.

Editing is simple because the controls are familiar. Updates Anytime's look and feel comes very close to the look and feel of the usual desktop publishing programs you use every day. Except, of course, you can use it on any computer, and the only program you need open is a browser.

One of the best features is something that does not come with Updates Anytime: software. You don't have to buy, install, learn, upgrade, fight with or otherwise handle any software on your computer. It's all in the browser.

Speed rules when you're busy. Updates Anytime is sort of the speed dial of web page editing. We streamlined the sign in process so you can get to work with the smallest possible number of clicks. You don't even have to click in the password box -- it's done for you.

The same philosophy guides our design of the editing process:

1. Find your page

2. Click the Edit button.

3. Make a change: click where you want to change it and start typing.

4. Click Save Draft.

5. Make sure the change looks right.

6. Click the Go Live button.

Until computer-brain control systems are developed, that's the minimum possible effort for changing a web page. And it's only available from Service First Webmasters.

You also get great convenience features:

Sign In On Any Page

Start by going to your web site as usual. Find the page you want to edit. Now sign in to make the entire site editable. Signing in gives you a row of buttons above the content area, where you can click the Edit button and start making changes.

If you need to change another page, just navigate to it and click Edit again.

Think for a minute how easy that is. You don't have to locate a particular file, open it, edit it, save it and upload it (over and over again). You don't have to open a special program. You don't have to LEARN a special program.

Let Your Staff Edit

Add staff members to the list of Updates Anytime editors. Our advanced locking mechanism prevents multiple editors from overwriting each other's work.

As an Updates Anytime administrator, you get to add, change, and activate/deactivate staff as site editors. In other words, you decide who gets sign in credentials for editing the web site.

The Editors page is just as easy to use as the rest of Updates Anytime. You can even sort the list by name, email address or user type. A button lets you see editor passwords one at a time (a security feature). Aside from that, it's as simple as pie to add an editor, look them up, deactivate them -- whatever you need to do.

Two Editor Levels

In Updates Anytime, the Admin gets to do everything: edit, restore backups, change editors. Editors can edit -- but that's all. This way, the boss keeps control of who can change the web site. Should there be any staff departures, it's quick and simple for the Admin to delete an Editor, instantly removing their ability to sign in.

Speaking of Backups

We know that very occasionally bad things can happen. Whether intentionally or not, pages can get changed for the worse. For a very fast recovery, we built in 2 separate types of backup for your page content.

Every page can be restored to the way it looked on the day your Updates Anytime feature went live. You just click Restore and choose "Restore Original".

More often, you will want to reverse a recent change. Suppose for example that you clicked the Go Live button by mistake. It's no problem! You simply click Restore and choose "Restore Previous Version". It's Undo on a full-page scale.

You Can't Lose the Data

Because we keep your most recent version, plus the original as backups, there's no way you can completely lose your page content. You can't even save a blank page by accident, even for a draft.

Paste at Will

Our editing page has a button for pasting, just as you would expect. But we also include buttons for pasting directly from MS Word, with or without the fonts and sizes. If you sometimes need to copy content from a Word document, this is a great convenience feature. It saves tremendous amounts of time reassigning styles.

You can also paste HTML directly. That means you can copy directly from any web page (opened in another copy of the browser) and paste it into yours for further editing.

Upload PDFs

You may like having your price list, application form, rules & regulations, terms & conditions or other office documents in PDF format. Web site visitors just download, print and proceed.

What happens when that document changes? How do you get it up on the web site? With Updates Anytime, it's simple. You just upload the new PDF to replace the old one. Or, upload a new PDF and create a link to it.

You can do the same with Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, or whatever else you want your web site visitors to download.

Photos Made Simple

No, you don't need Photoshop. Just upload your photo (straight from the camera, or after some tweaking with Google's free and easy to use Picasa). Make a "thumbnail" of the appropriate size. Place it in your page and watch the text flow around it like water.

Changing the size is also easy: just make another thumbnail. We provide full, clear Help to make doing this the first time really easy.

You'll spend just a little more time putting photos and other graphics on your page than you did the text. But the Updates Anytime process for photos is as simple as it gets.

You can have just the photo, or put in a caption. Several photos side by side? Yes, there's a simple way to do that too.

Web Audio and Video

Upload and link to a sound file like your garage band's latest .mp3 or the CEO's product announcement.

You can also put digital video clips on the page. Nothing sells like a video! It's all simple and easy with Updates Anytime.

Sign In Happiness

The first time you sign in, we save your email address. After that, whenever you go to sign in again, your email address is already filled in. Ok, it's not a magical moment but it sure saves time when you're in a hurry.

The Sign In button works when you press your Enter key. Your sign in process goes like this: click Staff Sign In, type your password, hit enter.

We made it as quick and simple as possible.

Ok, so what if you or your staff forgets a password? We included a feature that saves the Admin from looking up staff editors' passwords all the time: a Retrieve Password button. Click that, enter your email address and click again. Updates Anytime sends you a nice email with your password.

Indexable Pages

Content management systems often add "?" to page addresses, but most search engines cannot index pages with "?" in their addresses. Updates Anytime keeps your page addresses friendly for search engines because it does not need to add any question marks. Your pages with Updates Anytime will be indexed and found just as easily as before.

More to Come

The parade of convenience features doesn't stop there. We're always tweaking and improving. If you have a suggestion, even for the smallest change that would make your life easier, we want to hear about it. Call us at 540.381.9290 or send your suggestion to info@updatesanytime.com.