Archive for the ‘Work n Web Design’ Category

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A Cynical review of .NET’s top 10 websites of 2011

Saturday, September 24th, 2011

.NET magazine have announced the ten best websites of 2011 in their annual .net awards.

So here’s my some what cynical web designers review of this years results.. Enjoy.

1 http://www.auris-hybrid.de/ it’s flash!? It doesn’t even get a replacement image or alternate site for viewing on iPad or non flash platforms.. just a nice standard flash error. They must be pulling our preverbal leg with this one? Let’s carry on..

2 http://activatedrinks.com/ another flash site? Seriously? At least this time there is still content & no error but its just colours and facebook likes? Again the CSS has not been tested on iPad as a nice White strip resides down the right hand side due to some obscure padding or wrapper alignment at a guess.

3 http://2011.beercamp.com/ wow the first in the list that works on all platforms.. we are getting somewhere. The idea for the usage of css3 animation is a great concept will give them that! Other than the cool functionality though its not really a work of art, just overuse of a barely readable font.

4 http://www.harveynichols.com/ now were getting somewhere.. a site that works on all platforms, looks slick, pulls off the art of making something complex simpler and user friendly. Top work pod1

5 http://www.nikebetterworld.com/ not really a website is it.. it’s a video. Hats off to the movie editors but this would have took the web designer all of 5 minutes.

6 http://sophiehardach.com/ if your going to develop a really cool css3 html5 animation to flow through pages then it might be an idea to test the technology developed for all platforms.. on those platforms! The menu drops down to 2 levels on iPad due to font replacements and padding. Also the set margins make the site unreadable.. both common issues we have found on a lot of sites we have developed, a small quick fix is needed.

7 http://spacelog.org/ great layout, usability and all round website. Could of done with a touch more css3 animation where the large top images lay static on some pages but other than that a good site.

8 http://thedolectures.co.uk/ this is nice. Not awe inspiring.. but nice.

9 http://www.torontostandard.com/ it looks like a standard news blog template, somewhat similar to The Times website.. give the award to them.

10 http://unionstationdenver.com/ this is great, even has built in development for iPad and touch screen platforms with swipe notifications. Usability may cause the layman to get a tad lost but a real nice concept and works!

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Projecthouse SW2 Software Company – Very Unprofessional & Poor Support

Wednesday, July 13th, 2011

Have just had the pleasure of dealing with the single most unprofessional company I have come across in 11 years of web design.

See emails below for the full conversation.. but in summary we asked for a clients database for a bespoke website that they say they provide on their website, I was then supplied a blank database.  I then replied asking why this database was blank and had no reply.. sent another email and had no reply. A week later sent another email and had a sort sharp useless reply. I then asked again how we was supposed to work on a database with no data that they should supposedly supply … to which I had a reply saying I was being sarcastic? I then replied saying this was very unprofessional and CC’d in the owner of the company Les, to which I then had a phonecall from the jumped up little guy shouting and ranting.

So moral of the story is a complete unprofessional manor from a company called projecthouse who create recruitment software called SW2 and recruitment databases. Projecthouse not only have rude employees but appear unwilling to help those who want to use their SW2 software in the way it is intended.

We are now in talks with a more professional company who provide recruitment database software and if you would like advice on the best root to take for this let us know.

On a further note I use a googlemail plugin called rapportive, this shows the users facebook, linkedin and twitter profile and picture next to every  email I get from them and lets just say the employye’s photo and latest updates also reflected the unprofessional persona we took from the company as a whole.

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Emails

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From inLIFE
I have just looked at the database on our server to start coding but all of their client and candidate details arent in there? there are only a few records in there?

Could you please inform how we can set it up to access their full records.

Regards

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NO REPLYFROM THEM

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Message forwarded again after a few days

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NO REPLY FROM THEM

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Message forwarded again after a week

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From Projecthouse
There will not be any client and candidate info… Just vacancies

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From inLIFE
They have much more information though when logging in to sw2, just non in the database you sent. How can we build a system to access it without data?

Regards

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From Projecthouse
Sarcasm isn’t going to achieve much.
Perhaps asking me to take a look at the file on your server might be a better approach rather that “How can we build a system to access it without data?”

Regards,

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From inLIFE
It wasn’t aimed to be sarcasm, it was fact. We asked for your clients database and you provided a blank one. I asked why this was the case a week ago in my original email forwarded below (Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 3:14 PM) to which I had no reply.

I then had to forward this email again this morning a week later to get a less than helpful reply. So excuse me if I had to spell it out. We are trying to establish setting up a website to connect with your database software and deal with a large number of companies every day with the potential to recommend your software to other clients, so talking to someone in a derogative manor on behalf of Les’s company isn’t very professional from your part.

Please can you pass on the details of someone who is willing to answer our questions.

Regards

——

This was then followed by a sweaty telephone rant from him.

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The first web Revolution

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011

They say when your in the middle of an event, you don’t realise what a key part it will play in the future. I’m guessing when my Grandad was in the Navy in world war II they bare no thought about how in years to come kids would be learning about those events in the history.

Although not on the same scale as world war II, but just as event changing I think we are now in the middle of one of those times. The internet has had its first technological revolution, with facebook twitter and youtube playing an integral part in freeing Egypt from the corrupt reign of Mubarak. I remember speaking to a taxi driver in Egypt only a few months before everything kicked off and he was telling me all about the countries corruption and he did not know what would be happening in the next election, little did I think then that the very entity I work on, spend every day on, and pays my wages.. the internet, would be the very thing to free them.

From my previous blogs such as ‘rise of the honest open internet‘ it’s clear I have high hopes for the way the net will change our lives, and its still young. Yet I feel we are slap bang in the middle of the on its first key events in a long and promising history.

Following the events in Egypt one couple even named their daughter ‘Facebook’. Now Libya have risen up with the same power of the people through the use of the internet, currently in the midst of a similar protest against their corrupt leader Gaddafi.

Gaddaffi has even made his own poor attempt at convincing the public by faking films of supporters cheering for him and claiming those against him have been forced drugs and alcohol. Through TV media this may have worked but with the power of social media and a public voice this is has just made him look even more stupid.

This is a great time to be in, and I have a feeling the Internet still has a few tricks up it’s sleeve for the future of the human race.

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Halfords domain name hacked? or forgot to re-register? Oops

Thursday, January 20th, 2011

Halfords website down?

Oops looks like someones been either hacked or has forgot to re register their domain name! Just goes to show it can happen to some of the biggest companies out there (well big for the UK anyway)

At present halfords.com and .co.uk looks like this

with DNS servers pointing too..

dns0.vital-group.net
dns1.vital-group.net

Which is the correct DNS.. so has the error rained down from vitals servers?

Looks like someone is going to be in trouble anyway!

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Free Hosting & Hamper offer!

Thursday, December 2nd, 2010

holiday and hamper specialWell I thought this was an offer to good not to shout about!

My Company inLIFEDesign.com is offering current clients a free web hosting and a holiday wine hamper delivered direct to your door.. simply for recommending a friend! That’s it!

Or if you don’t already have web hosting with inLIFEDesign you can still get the hamper FREE just for recommending someone.

Full details on the offer here

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Association of Web Design Professionals

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

I am currently helping beta test an innovative new scheme aimed and building a network of web design professionals.

The ‘Association of Web Design Professionals’ headed by Rob Cullen is set to bring together a community and database of web developers, freelancers, agencies around the world to join and expand their web presence.

I am hoping this will become a place to help combat all the web cowboys out there and bring true web designers and developers together.

First beta launch coming soon, keep checking back at  http://www.awdp.org/

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Webfusion suppport.. promises of a better future

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

Well after the despondency we had with the hosting provider web fusion during the past week.. (see previous post) we have finally, and thankfully received a glimmer of customer service in the form of a direct phone call from their Manager Craig Ingham.

Craig has apologised directly for the level of service we received and has assured me there is currently a customer service  shake up taking place within the company. They are reviewing and altering their customer service process alongside other various improvements. On top of this they are apparently restructuring the VPS team and engineers (of whom our issue was directly with).

This is a promising start towards the only downfall we have had with an otherwise reliable company. As is a common theme on the net (and life) the public often only discuss their issues and problems, yet when they receive a a good level of service they smile, carry on, and feel no need to blog about it.  I rarely will post bad reviews at any first hurdle.. yet this time it felt enough was enough. This said it appears web-fusion have also realised a peak of customer service issues and are now acting upon this.

So in light off the fact they are aware of an issue (the first step towards any reformation) I personally look forward to seeing an improved level of service and we will be continuing our services with them for the foreseeable future.

I am also grateful for the first ‘customer friendly’ approach I have felt in the entire time of working with them. This is certainly a start! Only time will tell.

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Webfusion.. worst level of support I have ever come across!

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

The company I work for has a virtual private server with webfusion.. Friday the 15th October every single website we have went down, and this is what followed.

I cannot be bothered to type our paragraphs of the exact arrogance and stupidity of their support staff and engineers.. so I have summarised it below in bullet points of events, but rest assured throughout each person spoken to has been useless and have been on hold for up to 20 minutes at a time.

Log of phone calls and contact throughout this entire time support ticket was being continuously updated by myself, and rarely by webfusion.

Day 1 – Friday :

- Check out control panel and see apache is not running, unable to restart.. notice engineers have done an update at 1am

- Call up and told to restart the container (which we have already tried) told that they will restart the server so to try again in 10 minutes

- 10 minutes later login to see that they have also just simply restarted the container (not the entire server) nothing changed

- Call back and told there appears to be some corruption on the system files (following their update!) after explaining am told that it will be passed to engineers to fix.

- Call back 2 hours later.. told engineers still working on it, login to plesk and logs show that it has not even been accessed

- 2 hours later, call back and told the same thing again and that it will be back up by the weekend. Login at 5pm and see that still no access from engineers in the logs

Day 2 – Saturday :

- Called up.. was assured engineers were working on the issue as we speak

- Called up again and told the same

Day 3 – Sunday :

- Called up.. told engineers working on it again (even though a few months ago we were informed engineers do not work at weekends?)

Day 4 – Monday :

- Called up and told engineers have got to reset the entire server as it cannot be fixed any other way.. and that we will have to re-upload all files and backup databases, told them this was implausible as it was them that caused the problem and they need to fix it.. informed they would do.

- called again and told engineers were working on it, asked them to send a copy of our terms of contract to my email address and promised this would be done

- Called again and told that there was no way around it and that a reset is the only way to fix it.. again asked for the terms of contract, and again promised it would be sent now

- Went with this decision to reset the server out of the sense of urgency but asked them to make sure they back up ALL web files and databases, told them we could get in to files ok to backup, but not into databases so we was unable to backup databases. Was told they would do this and would also backup the files for us too and put them both in /old folder when it was done. This was all re-iterated in the support ticket.

- Had previously asked for this to be done by 2pm, rang up at 2pm and was told they were doing it now..

- rang up at 3pm and told they were doing it, once again asked for the contract to be sent and this time told it was not possible and just told to get it off the T’s & C’s on the website.. asked to speak to a manager and told there was non available.

- rang up at 4pm and told they were working on it

- rang up at 5pm and told it would be done by morning (5 hours to move some folders and backup database??)

Day 5 – Tuesday

- Logged in and noticed that server had been reset at last, (but unable to login as had a new password) although we had not been informed that this had been done! Only by chance we noticed for our self.

- Rang up to get password and also asked why we had not been informed.. told that it was not done until 5.30 last night and engineers hadn’t updated ticket to inform us

- Logged in and found that NONE of our website files had been backed up into the /old folder as requested.. although the databases had been.

- Rang up to ask why they hadn’t done this as promised, put on hold for 15 minutes then told to read the update on the ticket (which had just been updated) this was just a paragraph of complete fabrication with over explained simple terms about them being unable to get into the www folders due to them being corrupt, we know this was a lie as we could see them ourselves before they did the reset.

The new server after being reset is also missing a second IP address that we had before, and they had not even bothered to fill out the few fields after resetting to enter the domain name and default IP.

5 days later we are now left to upload ALL our files again from our own personal backups (taking twice as long) reset all domains back up and upload databases accordingly due to their error in the first place.

A simple Google search for webfusion support also finds similar results to mine! On the good side at least I have a case study now when talking to clients about the importance of customer service!

UPDATE : Received a phone call from customer services management with apology and promises of a better future.. see here

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Project IRIS (Smart Home) – First stages

Saturday, September 18th, 2010

Im currently working on a bit of a sideline project I have dubbed as IRIS (inLIFE Reactional Inhabitant System).

IRIS is a Smart Home system built into my house that responds to voice commands, remote commands and other built in macros that can control everything from boiling the kettle at a certain time to dimming the lights to 50% and more. Similar to the smart home ‘SARAH‘ from the popular fiction TV show Eureka.

IRIS will be eventually hidden behind the scenes and pick up voice commands from anywhere in the house, as well as accessibale remotley via the iPAD, iPhone and iPod as remotes also. She can also be accessed via voice command using the iPhone as a wireless remote from the garden.

The video below is a quick guide to the development stages of IRIS so far and beta testing. IRIS is built with a compilation of a number of things including X10 Home Automation Kit, BVC Software, ActiveHomePro Software Dev Kit and Weather aloud. Future enhancements will include the use of Bluetooth detection and recognition.

I will post more video updates as IRIS development progresses. Here is the first sample..

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How do these people run a business?

Monday, September 6th, 2010

Through my time ive seen certain ‘types’ of people running a business and often thought to myself.. how do these people even get out of bed in the morning, let alone manage to run a business!

Well today I had a text message from one of these people running a business seminar.. yes a BUSINESS SEMINAR (see the text below) it speaks for itself!  My replies are in green.

That last message was just being polite… I mean seriously?.. your running a business seminar and expect people to attend just by simply sending out random text messages with the words ‘Hi interested in a free business opportunity seminar tonight at the village regards James’ ?

.. why yes sir.. I dont know who the hell James is, or where or what ‘the village’ is but you seem to have a business head on you so count me in!

It’s beyond me!

Posted in Random updates, Work n Web Design | 1 Comment »

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