Enchanted Memories Travel - Depot Plaza

Enchanted Memories Travel is a full-service travel agency dedicated to simplifying vacation planning. Make memories, not reservations.

You can visit them on the web, or now you can visit them in person. A recent tweet announces their new storefront location in downtown Franklin!

Local friends, thrilled to announce our new storefront in Depot Plaza in Franklin! Coming soon! @FranklinMatters pic.twitter.com/IDCvM4z6iN
— Enchanted Memories (@Enchantedmem) November 23, 2014

Enchanted Memories - Depot Plaza, Franklin

Visit Enchanted Memories on the web http://www.enchantedmem.com/

Did you see Franklin's new website?

With little fanfare, Franklin has introduced a re-design of the town website.  http://town.franklin.ma.us/

re-designed Franklin website

The new layout is clean and better than before. Most of the common items are more visible and easier to get to. However, there is still room for improvement. The 'Town News' section is shorter and revealing less info than before.

The 'Contacts Directory' and the 'Hours of Operation' go to the same page. Considering that the 'Departments' tab on the top navigation bar also takes you to the same page, that is effectively a waste of prime real estate.

Contact Directory and Hours of Operation links go to the same place

The biggest drawback for me is that there still is no RSS feed. Yes, that maybe a little techie for some but it is a feature of most websites and enables an easy notification if something changes. Without such notification, if you want to find out when the agenda for a committee meeting is posted, you need to go to the site, click through to the page and view if there is an update or not. The website software could tell you via the RSS notification automatically.

Franklin just implemented Twitter to help with their notifications. Do you think the webpage has the info on how to follow Franklin on Twitter? It should but I couldn't find it. The page could also display the Twitter feed in a widget (tech term for a small window) to help showcase what is being sent out via Twitter.

BTW - if you do want to follow Franklin on Twitter you can find their profile page here  https://twitter.com/TOFranklinMA

Check out the new Franklin website here  http://town.franklin.ma.us/  or here http://franklin.ma.us/

What else would you like to see on the page?

Alternate path to Franklin website

If you tried to get to the official Franklin webpage
http://franklin.ma.us/    as I did most of Monday, you were likely unsuccessful.

webpage is unavailable message

I was able to reach the site Monday night via this link:
http://franklinma.virtualtownhall.net/

Town of Franklin, MA webpage

Franklin Historical Museum - updated website

The website link in the "Other Resources" column has been updated to direct you to FranklinHistoricalMuseum.org rather than the FranklinHistoricalMuseum.com it used to use.

Even if you continue to use the .com address, you'll still end up in the right place.

Franklin Historical Museum

Not all the tabs and features of the updated have been completed. It is still a work in progress.

4th of July Parade in Franklin in the 1900's

Do stop by from time to time to see what has been updated. For their current event calendar, visit their Facebook page  https://www.facebook.com/FHM02038

Welcome myBigY members to the New BigY.com

We're upgrading our website to bring you more of the features you've been asking for.

Click here to view in browser

Welcome myBigY members to the New BigY.com! Hello! We'd like to introduce all of our MyBigY members to the new bigy.com and updated myBigY. As a member, you know that at Big Y, the customer is Job #1 and we're upgrading our website to bring you more of the features you've been asking for this year. • clean and bright new design • easy to navigate • new recipes with nutritional info • meal planning information for healthy living • and coming soon...     Special offers only on bigy.com     Special deals that load right to your Big Y Express Savings®     or Silver Savings Club® card In order to continue to offer you great customer service and a fast and efficient online experience, please reset your MyBigY password in order to keep your information secure and accessible. Simply click on the link below and continue to take advantage of great service, great sales and an easy way to get both! UPDATE myBigY now Thanks for being a myBigY member and for shopping Big Y, The Big Y Web Team

©Copyright 2013, Big Y Foods, Inc., 2145 Roosevelt Avenue, Springfield, MA, (413) 784.0600

Registry of Motor Vehicles Unveils MassRMV.com

Sent to you by Steve Sherlock via Google Reader:

Registry of Motor Vehicles Unveils MassRMV.com

via Commonwealth Conversations: Transportation by Klark Jessen on 2/4/13

MassDOT Registry of Motor Vehicles Division has transitioned to a new website making it the first motor vehicle administration in the nation poised to accept advertising in order to generate new revenue.

With more than 16 million website visits per year, the switch to www.massrmv.com offers limited advertising opportunities, and allows the RMV to develop clearer navigation to let customers perform their transactions with renewed confidence.

"This is a great example of MassDOT's continued emphasis on making our services more user-friendly," said MassDOT Secretary and CEO Richard A. Davey. "MassRMV.com makes online transactions simpler for the customer and gives us additional revenue opportunities."

During 2012, Registry customers performed more than 3.4 million transactions online, up from 2.9 million transactions in 2011, ranging from license and registration renewals to citation payments to signing up to become organ donors. Advertisements will be limited to select informational pages and are not on customer transaction pages.

"MassRMV.com is now the official website of the Registry of Motor Vehicles where customers may perform 35 different transactions safely and securely," said Registrar of Motor Vehicles Rachel Kaprielian. "We work hard to drive customer traffic to the web, so we recognize our obligation to make this mode of service delivery as convenient as possible."

In September, MassDOT conducted usability testing on the new website design with customers at its Chinatown Branch. Based on customer reviews, navigation bars were redesigned, terminology was changed and special alerts affecting branch operations have been pushed to the forefront at MassRMV.com.

MassRMV.com customers will initially see promotional ads for MassDOT and RMV services while a contract with the advertising vendor, Municipal Media Solutions is finalized. In its first year of operation, the advertisements are expected to generate about $65,000 in new revenue.
Online advertising supplements current advertising partnerships, including those used in RMV mailers to defray mailing and productions costs. A closed-circuit RMV TV network, MVN, targets ads to those likely to be conducting business in Registry Branches and offers PSA time for relevant RMV news and updates.

Things you can do from here:

• Subscribe to Commonwealth Conversations: Transportation using Google Reader
• Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites

Franklin Food Pantry website update

We apologize for the issues with the website. The data and information is still here but if you can't find it then it doesn't do much good.

At least for now, you can find us at franklinMAfoodpantry.org

You already remember "franklinfoodpantry" just stick a "ma" right after Franklin and you should arrive to the website properly!

This should buy us some time while we sort out the issues with the original "franklinfoodpantry.org" problem and return to a normal operation.

In the meantime, the Food Pantry is continuing to operate. We remain open and active during our normal business hours.

Schools website changes underway

Franklin upgraded its website a couple of years ago and at the time, the School Dept did not follow to the new software. This summer a transition appears to be underway to a new website design. This seems to be the same package as the 'virtual town hall' that the town portion of the website is using.

The top level page is currently showing the School Committee although when you follow a link to the "District" that is where you end up. This will likely get resolved as work progresses. The School Committee subcommittee page is updated with a description of each subcommittee and the members.

The District Profile link will bring you to the official MA DOE ESE page for Franklin. The School Committee Members page is complete. Following the link to the individual school pages still brings you to the old pages. Word of caution: there are still some broken links (i.e. links that take you to pages that error out) but it is summer time and the work is underway!

Mower N More: Snow blower pre-season tune up 2011

Mower n More is pleased to announce the following incentives for pre-season snow-blower tune-up, when booked on-line by September 17, 2011 for any available date on the calendar:

• $15 off a snow-blower tune-up = $114 ($129)
• $10 off extended area charge (where applicable) = $19 ($29)

Book now (Use promo code SB11)

See what's included

Wishing you a happy autumn,

Mower n More

Prior post on Mower N More
http://franklinmatters.blogspot.com/2011/07/mower-n-more-summer-2011-closure.html

This message is sent to you as a customer of Mower n More. We believe the content to be beneficial to you, but if you would like to be removed from future mailings, you can Unsubscribe. Mower n More, P.O. Box 201, Hopedale MA, 01747. (508) 478-2004

"concerned about keeping costs in check"

"It's 10 years old and 10 years ago it was state of the art," Rapoza said of the current website. "We want to give our teachers more abilities. We have hundreds of teachers and I want them all to have a web presence." 

All teachers can create a page on the current website, which is hosted on the district's servers and was designed by a volunteer. But posting requires some knowledge of HTML coding and experimentation to ensure information appears correctly. Many teachers have also requested the ability to upload videos, Rapoza said. 

Rapoza hopes a new website, which will be hosted by an outside company, will also be more searchable. Internet users have become accustomed to using Google or other search engines, but the current website relies on navigation trees, forcing people to browse through several layers of pages to find information, he said. 

"The Web overall has changed," Rapoza said. "People are looking for something differently. ... They want to see a big fat search page. The information is there. We just need to change with the times."

Read more: Franklin schools plan to redo website


Franklin, MA

Year end activities

As 2009 winds down and we get ready for 2010, I'll spend sometime making adjustments to the site. For example, the meeting summaries for 2009 will move from the center column to the far right column. There will be a new box for the 2010 meeting summaries in the center column.

I will continue to feature items from the 2009 Annual Report while I work on my review of 2009. Each month will appear as it is ready.

I have some other changes I want to make to the web site to help make it easy to use. I'll announce those as they appear. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to drop me a line and let me know.

In the meantime, I anticipate overall activities will be light here. I will be sending time enjoying the holidays with family and friends. I trust you will take advantage of the time to do so with your circles.

Enjoy!

"There are no secrets in the big house"

By Joyce Kelly/Daily News staff

GHS

Posted Mar 17, 2009 @ 12:16 AM

---

FRANKLIN —

Franklin's homepage has a new look this year that some residents have pooh-poohed as being uglier than in years past, but the Massachusetts Campaign for Open Government again recognized it as a "gold star" community.

Every year, the campaign (www.maopengov.org) assesses how easy it is for the public to obtain information about local government.

"It's not based on looks or design, only information. This year, we've only added to the information," said Assistant Town Administrator Maxine Kinhart, who helps administer the Web site, www.franklinma.virtualtownhall.net.

Franklin has been given the annual e-Government award every year since 2006, Kinhart said.

Read the full article about the recent award for Franklin's web site in the Milford Daily News here

Streaming Video - Historic event

There was a significant historical event this week. The first Town Council meeting was streamed live over the web on Wednesday evening.

What does that mean?
Instead of being in your home with a cable subscription, you can now view a town meeting via your computer. This means that anyone with interest to find the meeting can view it anywhere in the world via the internet and their computer.

Since only 90+% of the town has access to cable, how much this will enable those who don't have cable access is open for discussion.

What will this streaming live change?
I think it will be interesting to see how this will change the meetings, if anything changes at all.

• Will the various board and committee members improve their personal behavior and conduct now that they can be viewed around the world?
• Will the nature and presentations of the meetings themselves be modified now that there is a worldwide audience?
• Will there be an increase in viewing amongst the people in the town?
  

The one drawback I see is that the availability of the meeting via the internet may reduce the actual physical attendance in the room. Only those who actually need to be there to participate in the meeting will continue to be present. On the other hand, the worldwide audience may actually increase the participation due to the exposure.

How do you view the meeting?

1. On your computer, open your favorite browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.)
2. Navigate to the Franklin website home page
3. Follow the link on the notice for the live streaming (I have not yet found another way to get to this live streaming or archive. I assume there will be an additional path put on the site at some time.)
4. The first time you view a meeting, Microsoft Silverlight will require to be installed. Once installed, you'll need to close your browser and restart the browser. After this installation, you should be able to go direct to view either the live or an archived program.
5. You can view the meeting from beginning to end or skip to sections according to the published agenda.

Have you viewed a meeting yet?

What do you think of this?

live reporting - town website

Tim Raposa, Maxine Kinhart, Debbie D'amico (?)

Maxine provides a recap of the history and recognition of the town website.

Technical limitations forced a change. The application was outdated and becoming unsupported. Quicksite was a home grown application.

Virtual Townhall provides support directly to the users posting their information.

Cost of the prior services was approx. $22,000 per year (hosting and support). The new service is an annual cost of about $6,000.

Initial design and framework was by the team with a focus on ease of use to a website visitor. You can access information in multiple ways. Most information can be found on the page without scrolling up/down.

Designed to separate the town and community/business information.

Community/business links moved to American Towns at no cost.

Conversion sessions conducted. Several general done, individual departments also meet directly with Virtual Townhall. Next week follow up training is scheduled. Questions/concerns being collected to help Virtual Townhall prepare for the training session.

Doak - Question on conversion time, was content there? There seemed to be some confusion with what information would be there.

Raposa - There is a difference between the town and community site, only the Town site can have the official seal.

Bartlett - Is all the old Town information on the new site
Kinhart - No, there is 2-3 years there now. It is a project to continue to add to it.

demo of features -
department list, not complete but what is important to show without scrolling
Connect CTY
Fire Department - pictures of equipment and stations
Contact us - has form to request notice for posting to front page
Top navigation bar for Schools, Residents, Business, Home (return to front page)
Community - American Towns

Doak - question on URL and redirects
Raposa - temporary situation until the school website is moved to another server

It 's official - "It’s the perfect combination"

By Joyce Kelly/Daily News staff

GateHouse News Service

Posted Aug 29, 2008 @ 08:28 PM

---

FRANKLIN —

Community Web site specialist AmericanTowns.com and government Web site provider Virtual Town Hall has announced that the town of Franklin, Massachusetts has contracted with them to serve as its principal source of community information and to host its municipal Web site, respectively.

AmericanTowns.com will now provide a hyper-local platform where residents and organizations of Franklin can find and share the best local information about their community, including a unified calendar of events; announcements by and links to local organizations; and local services and resources. Virtual Town Hall, one of the major national providers of online services to city, town and county municipalitie, is now host to Franklin’s Web site.

Read the full article in the Milford Daily News here.

Listen to the podcast where I discovered the local site had moved to AmericanTowns here.

School Committee meeting 8/5/08

Contrary to what the new Town website says, Jeff Roy did confirm via email that the School Committee meeting on Tuesday, 8/5/08 is in the Council Chambers in the Town Hall at 7:00PM.

If you want to attend the meeting don't go to the Horace Mann Auditorium.

Schedule error persists

If you missed the meeting last night, you may not be alone. I also missed it due to a persistent schedule error. Both the old town web site and the new one contain the resolution 07-46 with the approved schedule of Town Council meetings for 2008. Both schedules show meetings on the 16th and not the 9th.

Oh well.

Schedule of Town Council meetings:



Oh by the way, there is a new look to the Town web site. Check it out!

Franklin recognized for open government

WEBSITE SUPERSTAR - Franklin is one of only 24 communities in the state whose website has been designated a "superstar" by the Massachusetts Campaign for Open Government. The organization recognized municipal websites that make it easy for citizens to obtain access to key government records online. Franklin was honored for making its Town Council agenda and minutes, budget information, and general bylaws available to visitors at franklin.ma.us. - Rachel Lebeaux

A small piece in the Boston Globe, so small I won't make you go find it, but if you wish the article is here.