This holiday season, VECTEC has much to celebrate and be grateful for. This past year has been one of unprecedented growth for our organization. As the economic development outreach center for Christopher Newport University, we are deeply committed to promoting economic competitiveness and development throughout the state.

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The Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission has recently awarded VECTEC a $150,000 grant to provide funds for an e-commerce matching grant program for small businesses in rural Southwest and Southside Virginia. This two-year grant will encourage small businesses in Virginia’s tobacco-dependent regions to grow revenues and jobs by establishing or enhancing e-commerce capabilities through website design and development, search engine optimization, and shopping cart and custom database development.

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The Virginia Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine (VIFSM) located in Richmond recently won a significant grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to establish an online training program for local medical examiners throughout Virginia.

Over the next two years, VIFSM will develop online curricula that will make it easier for local medical examiners to access forensic training without having to travel long distances or sacrifice valuable work time.

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HTML has evolved over the years to using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to control websites' presentation. If you haven't worked with CSS, there are a number of advantages to doing so. Style sheets allow you to control font type, size and color create drop down menus that are search- engine friendly position elements without relying on tables create printer-friendly versions of your site without creating two sites

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VECTEC Spring 2008 Short Course Series

As we reported in our Fall newsletter, demand for VECTEC's educational programs has grown across the Commonwealth. Over the last year, we have received numerous requests for e-commerce training from small business development centers, universities, government agencies and business community leaders. We are pleased to be able to offer more e-commerce courses in more locations than ever before!

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Welcome to Our New Clients

VECTEC has been pleased to welcome the following companies to our team since October. We encourage everyone to visit our new members' websites once they have been completed.

• Charles Anderson Lawn Care
• Newport News Redevelopment & Housing Authority
• Island Butterfly
• Designer Painted Furniture by Faison
• Northern Neck Soil & Water Conservation District
• Premier Decking
• Rancorn Wildman Architects
• Outdoor Vinyl Products
• Rappahannock Masonry Supply

VECTEC Client Feature: GiftCardTRACKER.com

In 2004, Ken Hawkins of Chesapeake, Virginia went to redeem a gift card at a local big box store. Instead of walking away with big savings, he walked away empty handed after discovering his gift-card balance had been wiped out through retroactive dormancy fees. After several unsuccessful attempts to reinstate his balance, Hawkins explains, “the thought came to me: there were already e-mail reminder services for all sorts of things. Why not one to prompt the owner of a gift card to use it before the gift card expires or loses value?”

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If you have any suggestions for content for the E-Newsletter, please feel free to contact Jennifer Maurer, Connections Editor, at jennifer.maurer@vectec.org.