Raising Money for Multiple Sclerosis
August 5th, 2011
We are once again embarking on another Great North Run this year in aid of Multiple Sclerosis.
A member of Steve's family suffered from Multiple Sclerosis, a disabling neurological condition for over 30 years.
This year we are hoping to raise our target to help support this wonderful charity.
To donate please visit http://www.justgiving.com/kelly-molloy.
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Can you quote me for re-doing my website?
July 2nd, 2010
Yes.
That is of course, as they say, the short answer. The reality is that generally speaking ‘re-doing’ a website is a more involved process than creating one from scratch. A site ‘migration’ to use the jargon that we love so much! brings with it an entirely additional set of tasks that need to be planned and executed beyond the normal flow of a new site project.
Initially conversations will develop in the usual way, “what are the objectives for the website”, “what are the timescales”, “what’s the budget…” etc. With a re-build new issues arise such as “which bits of the current site do you like”, “Which bits do you specifically want to improve” etc. Where things then start to get a bit more tricky is when the conversation turns to the existing content…
What will ‘go into’ a website is always tricky, it’s like buying a house, we all have a clear idea of what sort of house we want, but we rarely consider what the decoration will be like and where the furniture will go before we’ve actually bought or built the new house. Of course the content of your house or your website, will have an influence over the structure itself, put simply if the sofa don’t fit, there is a problem Houston!
Generally, one of the chestnuts with a website migration is imagery, if the new design requires bigger versions of the imagery, are the originals still around? this can be very tricky. Then of course the words themselves, it often seems like a simple case of copying and pasting, but of course where computers are involved, it’s never quite that simple! These little niggles are easily alleviated with careful planning, like most things, but of course the extra time involved will incur additional cost, always need to keep in mind that the furniture removers need to be paid too!
Bottom line though, don’t be put off, your new website will be better, up to date, bit of social networking and CMS thrown in, marvellous!
Tags: migration, websites
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iPhone 4, beauty or beast
June 30th, 2010
After watching the utterly professional and typically self appreciative Keynote Address from Mr Apple (Steve Jobs) the other day, it is quite difficult not to get swept away with all the hype and go off and join the queues to shell out a fortune for a totally over the top phone, or very tiny little computer, whichever way you want to look at it!
Whichever camp you fall into though, what is always undeniable with Apple products (not so much their software) is the spectacular design; it is a little beauty! It is one of the few times that form and function get together, spend some time together, go on holiday, live together, get married, have children and simply never experience any conflict at all.
It looks good, and works well (as long as you hold it properly of course). It does really useful things really well, spectacular video with editing, amazing on such a small device, cracking photos, video conferencing (where wi-fi is available) with the ability to show your fellow iPhoner what you are seeing, or a mug shot of your good self as per your webcam on your PC. Yes not one but TWO cameras, one front and back, and two microphones for noise cancelling to improve the quality of the traditional use of a phone, the oh so passé conversation.
So amazing design, bit pricey, but probably excellent value really when you think about it. So congratulations again Apple, we give 10/10 for design.
HOWEVER, we watched the WHOLE Keynote, where at the beginning Mr Jobs told us that the operating system on the iPhone is now called iOS4 and is also on iPads, iTouches and will be on ALL iPhones very soon… And “who cares”, you might say, well you should, because nearer the end of the keynote the BIG gotcha was announced that has so far made very little noise… Your iDevice running iOS4 will, from July 1, being pushing adverts onto your beautifully designed device, whether you like it or not…
The keynote had a demo of such an ad, also very well designed of course!
Tags: design
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The ultimate World Cup Calendar
June 10th, 2010
So at last it all kicks off tomorrow. Pun intended of course!
After years of preparation, finally the ball will roll for the first time in South Africa, tomorrow at 3 o’clock. OK, OK enough of the terrible clichés and puns.
However, one thing the World Cup does bring that is of some interest, apart from winning it of course! is that everyone has a go at designing the ultimate World Cup Fixtures and Results spreadsheet or the online equivalent…
Well, we think we’ve found it. Apart from Spain probably being the clear favourites to win the actual World Cup this year, we reckon they’ve probably already won the best, coolest and most excellently designed calendar award, well at least the Spanish Sports Rag Marca has anyway… Just look at it:
This image of course does NOT paint the whole picture, tastefully built in Flash (there is a good use for flash after all!) it is fully interactive, hover over a country, day, group or location and the centre of the graphic, neatly shaped liked a stadium, displays all of the relevant information about that team, group, location, etc.
BUT, like most thing unfortunately, there is a slight flaw… All times are shown in CET, so remember, if you end up using this calendar, subtract one hour from all the game start times, otherwise you could be massively disappointed!
Click here to play with it then click the full screen button, top left, and enjoy it in its full glory! The Ultimate World Cup Calendar? Very probably!
Cummon Ingerland!
Tags: design, websites
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proof reading, and other whoopsies
June 4th, 2010
Now this one really caught our attention!
To summarise, one local government department e-mailed another department asking for a translation from the English on this sign, into Welsh. The e-mail reply duly came back, the response was copied and pasted into the final design, and the sign produced.
Only one small problem, when you translate the Welsh back into English, it says, “I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated”, Whoops!
There are a couple basic lessons here, get things proof read, properly!
So often the ‘final proof’, comes right at the end of an entire, and possibly long and arduous, process, so everyones guard is down and the deadline is tantalisingly close… But of course this is the moment for MAXIMUM vigilance because it is the point of no return, well the point beyond which return starts to get really expensive and time wasting!
The next huge warning from this rather amusing anecdote is about e-mail, we are all so accustomed to e-mail these days that we forget that it is one way communication that requires our proper attention to read, and even more attention to write, to avoid mis-interpretations and small faux-pas such as this wonderful road sign!
Anyway, have a giggle, as we did! But remember, quality starts in the home, we would all do well to read what we write and read what others write too, you never know what pearl of wisdom you might miss on the way, or even write yourself!
Tags: proof reading
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form and function in website design
May 21st, 2010
Ah, nature nurture, form function. The really ‘big’ philosophical questions.
Form over function, or “does it look good and does it work”, is always a major issue when it comes to websites. It’s made more complicated almost daily because of course what websites can do changes almost daily and what they look like can be changed almost daily. Websites are not like a house, you know what you want out of a house, it’s a pretty functional sort of thing, and you know you can’t change the way it looks on a daily basis, so you quickly become accustomed and satisfied with what you have.
Quite often we find ourselves in a situation where a client asks, “can it do this too”, and of course generally the answer is yes, so the website is made to do “this too”. However once the website does “this too”, that often leads to a, “ah, well now it does this too, how about if we change this too to this too as well”, you can see where this is going…
So we get back to function. Function should not be thought of in complete isolation, in terms of merely what it does. It should of course be thought of as part of the ‘overall’ function of the website, what is the website supposed to be doing for us. You should never lose sight of the objective set out before the website was built or re-designed. Once the focus becomes all about “can it do this”, and a bit more, then generally speaking the plot has been lost, and the initial customer focused objective will be forever forgotten or glossed over.
So, form; does it look good, it’s basic basic function (get the pun!) of a website, to look good, but be careful with function, don’t do function for the sake of function, if the person browsing the website can’t get it to do what they want it to do, quickly and easily, well there are plenty more websites out there for them to look at…
Tags: design, websites
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