Cambridgeshire Webdesign and Online Marketing

I wanted to draw note to this useful article exploring the use of caching browser based web apps using HTML 5's local storage object.

Client Side Caching for mobile web apps [http://00f.net/2010/09/22/transparent-client-side-fragment-cache/]

I have started to work on a handy app (tested on iphone but may work for android and blackberry) mostly it depends if the suppliers have issued a video to cover the phones playback capability.

What doe she do ? She loads in the latest video podcasts for skiing and snowboarding and allows you quick mobile access to view them right there and then.
If you provide a regular news cast or podcast or even video cast then we would love to hear from you to add it to the list of servers. 

[CLICK OR RATHER TAP HERE TO INSTALL] - Don't forget if you enjoy this simple app for free please send a link to your friends or tweet this message !

Happy Skiing.

I wanted to quickly blog this link so I can come back to it when I need a small lightweight html based media player. To play audio and video using JQuery JQueryUI and their extended library JMediaelement so they use what is already in the box with JQuery and its UI extension (for the controls) to make it all work.

Here is the home page JMediaelement

This will be compatible with mobile devices such as the iPhone and Android.

Added the footlocker project to the section flash and flex.

Click here to visit the project description and demo.

I came across this great resource for an infographic today - in itself a small interesting flow - linked in providing the lead and someone shared the graphic, I then searched backwards to give the proper credit here is the original ! 

http://www.focus.com/fyi/wtf-is-html5/ - And for this reason I find another site for 101 most inspirational websites mega article

I decided to write more in depth about my competencies in the wider field as it is rather a lot to cram into the header part of a cv. Yes I do have a cv alongside running my online businesses I can and do work as a freelancer.

Over 12 years or rather since 1998 after graduation from my BSc in industrial product design I have touched upon many different technologies concepts and ideas. The nature of many of the technologies means that as a  freelancer you need to adapt indeed any I.T. solution to a business problem needs to be adaptable to a changing climate.

The Differing Technologies (Areas) that I know inside out.

Flash : I have worked using flash and its compiled language action script for years and years. Both as2 and as3 and used the frameworks associated and written in its language like PureMVC and Robot Legs. I code using either flashdevelop the regular flash IDE or flashbuilder or eclipse and FDT.

Javascript : I have used javascript many years ago in its native format when the browsers really were very different - it was ugly and not at all fun, writing stuff . And more importantly it was often switched off ! Today Javascript is very different and is often assumed to be switched on, and it has become a major force in today's webdesign and front end with it driving what is termed as DHTML. For example AJAX a collection of technologies making a technique that powers google instant and suggestive search. Libraries today written using native javascript such as mootools or JQuery allow repetitive code to be minimised and for common tasks to be performed with a single call.

JQuery : My preffered javascript development library. 

JQTouch and JQuery.mobile : I have used these two extensions of JQuery to make mobile web apps. Check out my bio using your mobile device TAP here !

CSS and HTML : It goes without saying but I wanted to mention that I consider the new css3 and html5 to be a big revolutionary step canvas video....

Platforms: It is important to understand the tiers of technologies today if you want to operate as a consultant. At a basic level servers provide the internet with a way to serve the different protocol requests (this is termed the backend) such as FTP HTTP HTTPS and browsers still form the backbone of software on devices able to display information (data) via html and handle events etc and this seems to be a growing trend. Even if a native iPhone application is running fast objectivec written applications it will probably still communicate with a server using backend technologies and serve its requests with XML. The important limitation with the iPhone app is it will only work on an iPhone not on an Android phone. An html5 css3 based application can store data on the device interact with servers and operate offline and look and function very much like a native iPhone app. The power of browser based solutions is that they can be ported across many more devices like set top boxes for TV's etc.

We still have the browser as a major tier and its multiple platform interfacing ability means that it is going to be around for a long time until some other idea and technology can replace it.

SEO and SMM : I have had the necessity of learning how Search Engines crawl websites and rank them. Sadly there is not a better metric (from a search engines perspective e.g. Google) to determine the quality of a site than inward pointing links and until that changes link trading will continue to mean those with deep pockets will be able to buy their way to the top to some degree. The nature of search however is changing. As people understand the online search experience, the search queries are changing too with fewer one word searches (I can’t remember the last time I ran a single word search !) and more long tail queries such as 'Vietnam Organised Travel' mean that if you have a niche you have a chance provided your site is SEO friendly. I am less interested in SMM as I currently feel that while it does boost traffic and is necessary the traffic coming from SMM has a low conversion rate. I liken this to turnover and egos. You are much more likely to convert a long tail search like 'book online cheapest family holiday in the Caribbean' rather than someone who visits your site through #caribbean. 

I'm going to compile a list of free seo tools here for all my dear readers.

http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

This is a future glimpse at UX but in today's market we have to deal with quite remarkable advances in UI such as accelerometers in the iPhone or the pinch zoom which apple's competitors were slow to replicate. Indeed it is my belief that UX is what made Apple products better than the rest. Graphic designers could understand the Operating Systems as there were pretty icons to click and it made that Monday morning start a real joy ! The mobile phone of today force us to look at UI and UX with respect to us not having access to a keyboard and this alone has highlighted the importance even when we are faced with a regular website and a keyboard.

Principles of UX and UI will be addressed as part of an article I am going to make as yet another WIP as this is just the Glossary entry. For now the priciples are very short and sweet, I figure UI to be a subset of UX.

Principles of User Experience  UX

1. Keep it simple
2. Anticipate user movement
3. Test
4. Feedback

 

Crawlers are busy at work ! They are like the un-dead of the night working hard while you sleep in your bed. Google for example crawls pretty much the www with dare I say gay abandon ! It wants to know what is being served globally on-line, this is google's business and its dominant USP in the world. It is why it is so powerful and provides the world with the best search (if loosing some ground of late IMO).

Google sends automated scripts to achieve this task and they find your site and go to work trying to find every single SERVED page on your domain. This sometimes results in ghost like pages which as a user you might be able to see and experience but at times the web pages the google crawler finds are just bizarre !
Consider the 2 url's http://roatan-diving.com and http://roatan-diving.com/?fontstyle=f-larger google here finds what they have to assume is DUPLICATE content pages diluting the quality of the original in this case home page ! So how do you combat this ? Google have devised a way that we can tell google what page we WANT to be the only page so that there is seemingly no duplicated content.

Check the following syntax

<link href="http://roatan-diving.com/" rel="canonical" />

As a webmaster insert this into a page to make a statement to reflect the desired CANONICAL relationship in this case we are saying that this page should be not considered look at the home page instead (at least as far as google are concerned)

This for a CMS is no mean feat - for a small site it is easy the irony being for a small site this wont be an issue! So how do I get for example Joomla to solve canonical issues ?
Check these guys out http://www.bretteleben.de/lang-en/joomla/canonical-url-modul.html

Install the free module and follow the instructions below:

WIP - please be patient as I play and send some good tips and tutorials for this awesome module.

Further reading: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html

 

Joomla is the CMS (Content Management System) that we use to make our sites. It allows the average man to add content to their own web site. Yes it is a bit more complex than using facebook but with some guidance you will be adding pages and new menu items with ease. Even if it is beyond you it allows us to add things remotely to your site. Yes you can add things from your mobile phone or tablet even. You just need a browser and internet connection.

How does it work ?

A database stores the content of the site and various options, this data can be added and changed by the CMS so it updates itself. You can choose to save and not publish immediately items and you have access to advance ACL so you can set a piece to be able to be read by certain people for example subscribers who pay a monthly fee to you Joomla ACL will recognise the logged in user has the correct privileges and will show the item for that user or group only.

Joomla has been developed by many individuals using the Open Source Idea which allows the use as given in its license http://opensourcematters.org/index.php.

Advantages to using Joomla far outweigh the disadvantages
Advantages:

• Scalability (we would use this to build a really small basic site so that the user has the option to add later with no loss of economy due to poor planning)
• Some things are easy to do like add a new article
• Add components such as Forum, Blog, Reviews, Shopping Cart...etc the list goes on see the extensions website to get more of an idea.
• Custom look and feel is entirely possible. Indeed 3rd part templates allow a highly professional look that can be tailored to fit in your colour scheme and branding.
• The limits are just the individual,
• and many more... 

Disadvantages:

• A learning curve that can be beyond some individuals who don't have the time to get to grips with it.
• It can take some time to solve conflicts that occur from 3rd party components playing together. Our considerable experience allows us to solve any that might happen quickly.
• It can be slightly time consuming to make a really small 4 or less page site, experience allows us to do this and create our 200 pounder package !

10. http://www.mazebackpackers.com/ A nice social enabled website that gets the message across for a youth hostel based in Sydney. What's really nice is that they are handling their own booking fees and recognising the fact that they don't need the likes of hostel bookers who take a hefty 10% from the booking fee. I like the layout and the design - its very young and well to be frank I would want to stay there (If I were young again..).

9. http://www.nihilogic.dk/labs/ A great blog at the root domain but for anyone interested in the cutting edge of javascript and the NEW htm5 tag canvas these examples really impress ! CRAZY !!!

8. http://tympanus.net/codrops/2011/03/09/animated-content-menu/ A deep link to a tutorial for some nifty JQuery. I have had some discussions lately about knowing javascript and knowing JQuery - you need to know both I guess but there was an undercurrent from the geeks who dont like JQuery because it makes what they do available to the masses. Boo Hoo to you. JQuery rocks. Beautiful women have baggage cest la vie !

7. We Own ! Interesting branding and they slap a non SEO friendly video right on the front of their homepage just in case you dont know what they are about.

6. (ze merde ! long way to go !) Examples of Beautiful Typography from 3.7 designs What is nice is that you can take the html straight from their page just like I did for one of mine here ! An ad for the Olympics and BP

5. Ryan Scherf http://www.ryanscherf.net/

Some nice no excellent visual examples of colour and font usage in Ryan's work here. He works in Minneapolis by the looks of things.

4. http://www.rebeccahendin.com/

This a flash gallery site showcasing some very talented work by Rebecca Hendin. Its easy to use and allows her readers to get in contact easily with her. The only problem will be for her to rank in the search engines as though Google does have the ability to see some content that exists within a swf file the majority won't able to be crawled and hence Google wont know much about this site. Also the flash problem of not being viewable by Apple devices ! But there are some very inspiring images , sorry illustrations here.

3. http://www.csslayout.com/

Check out the nice harmony of cool colours sorry 'colors' ! But don't miss the nice way it displays depending on different screen resolutions and looks great on the iPhone. It's not all good news as the site is a bit on the small side and there are some interactions which annoy me like the popout slightly on roll over of some items ! I guess he is busy ? But also the graphic in the top right has a poor sharpness.

2. http://www.useit.com/

This is a resource about useability in mobile and the larger media market. Its a blog that doesn't really look like a blog. Its graphically barren and in my opinion though great at a point in time is now overshadowed by hidden ads to buy books on the subject ! If you take a look you will find yourself wanting to get a book not getting the info you thought you might from the site itself - that's why I'm not linking to it as it is an example of a guy making some money from a website. Very clever; when your product is information you have to box like this.

1. http://benthebodyguard.com

Ben the bodyguard is an app for the iPhone that protects your data like photos and contacts or even stored passwords. The site is great for it's non use of flash this is DHTML at its best IMO. Click the link and scroll down to  appreciate the idea.

Within the contexts of the loose web ACL stads for Access Control Lists. 

Laymans Terms: You know like in facebook when you are logged in you can add things about yourself- well it knows how to store your photos as being yours due to ACL. 

More Technical: Consider that as a user of a website you may be using the site in different ways. Staff of a web company need to be logged in and verified against ACL's to allow them a set of privileges that customers might not have. For example Staff need to update price lists and customers certainly should not be able to do that.
if you are designing a website and need this kind of control consider very strongly employing the use of pre-written frameworks or CMS. This is not a light an easy subject to just enable on a basic website. The basic site we offer does come with built in ACL to unlimited customisable levels. 

Groups	Unlimited user-defined Groups
Users & Groups	A User can be assigned to multiple groups
Access Levels	Unlimited user-defined Access Levels
Access Levels & Groups	Groups are assigned to Access Levels. Any combination of Groups can be assigned to any Access Level.

I thought I would get the blog started off with a posting promoting what I (we) do (I will edit this to come up with an ever improving mission statement) :
Design and build and potentially manage your multimedia solutions. Using 15 years of high level multimedia and web design and development experience in finding the best solution for your requirements.