Still As Life
Quicker than you can say cheese!
Thursday, 7 February 2008
TerraMedia Email Exchange
Well, as of today, the TerraMedia Email Exchange is up and running.
Using Microsoft Exchange Server, the TerraMedia Email Exchange provides email, contact and calendar synchronisation whether you are accessing your email from Outlook, via a web browser, or even via a smart phone. So you can access your mailbox wherever you are in the world.
Pricing starts at $29 a month per mailbox and includes 500mb of space and a free Outlook 2007 license. There is absolutely no setup fee, so the total cost to have your own Exchange email accounts are drastically reduced to a low $29 a month.
If you need more than 500mb, there are larger capacity options available to suit.
All of my email accounts are running off of the TerraMedia Email Exchange Server and it is proving to work very effectively.
Check out the news article on TerraMedia for more information as well as the TerraMedia Email Exchange information, key features and pricing pages.
Using Microsoft Exchange Server, the TerraMedia Email Exchange provides email, contact and calendar synchronisation whether you are accessing your email from Outlook, via a web browser, or even via a smart phone. So you can access your mailbox wherever you are in the world.
Pricing starts at $29 a month per mailbox and includes 500mb of space and a free Outlook 2007 license. There is absolutely no setup fee, so the total cost to have your own Exchange email accounts are drastically reduced to a low $29 a month.
If you need more than 500mb, there are larger capacity options available to suit.
All of my email accounts are running off of the TerraMedia Email Exchange Server and it is proving to work very effectively.
Check out the news article on TerraMedia for more information as well as the TerraMedia Email Exchange information, key features and pricing pages.
Labels: internet, software, work
Monday, 4 February 2008
The Alstonville Pathfinders Forum and What Are Pathfinders?
The Alstonville Pathfinder Club forum is now live. It has actually been live for a week or so, I just haven't had time to blog anything about it up until now. It is based on the Simple Machines forum system.
For anyone that doesn't know what Pathfinders actually is, it is similar to the Scouts teen and youth programs. There is a lot of information available at Pathfinders Online. Basically though, if you come across someone who is a Pathfinder, they are part of a worldwide organisation of people that are sponsored by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Of course you don't have to be religious to join, or of the SDA denomination.
As I said, it is similar to the Scouts organisation and includes activities like camping and survival skills, leadership training, community outreach programs, various training programs in more fields than you can poke a stick at, including recreational, artistic, nature based, conservation, vocational, and outreach area's. These training programs all have various levels and awards (or honours) for their completion, many of which are recognised in Australia towards formal qualifications.
Pathfinders are all led, not only by adults, but by their peers. Each level of Pathfinders gains more responsibility and as their rank suggests, Guides and Master Guides, the highest ranking Pathfinders before the leaders and councillors, are guides and role models for the younger Pathfinders. They assist the younger Pathfinders in succeeding in their completion of honours and attaining their next rank.
Pathfinder activities include regular camp outs as well as hall meetings, the yearly expedition where Pathfinders from each division go on exactly that, a hiking expedition with each other and their leaders. Of course, you can't mention Pathfinder activities without mentioning the Camporee's. Camporee's have various sizes from the more common division Camporee's where Pathfinders from every club in a division all effectively go on a giant camp out, similar to a Scout Jamboree, then of course there are the bigger state-wide, national, and world-wide Camporee's that are less common.
I find I am quite often explaining to people what Pathfinder's are because they simply have never heard of them, so it may come as a surprise to many people just how large and wide-spread the Pathfinder clubs are. Clubs can range in size from very few people, even as small as 10, up to clubs in excess of 100 Pathfinders, and that's just in North NSW. The last national camporee that was held in Australia at Yarrahappini had over 5,000 Pathfinders in attendance from all over Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and other Pacific Islands. That's just the Pathfinders that could attend as well. There were many that were unable to make the trip. World-wide Camporee's are, as you can imagine, significantly larger.
For anyone that doesn't know what Pathfinders actually is, it is similar to the Scouts teen and youth programs. There is a lot of information available at Pathfinders Online. Basically though, if you come across someone who is a Pathfinder, they are part of a worldwide organisation of people that are sponsored by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Of course you don't have to be religious to join, or of the SDA denomination.
As I said, it is similar to the Scouts organisation and includes activities like camping and survival skills, leadership training, community outreach programs, various training programs in more fields than you can poke a stick at, including recreational, artistic, nature based, conservation, vocational, and outreach area's. These training programs all have various levels and awards (or honours) for their completion, many of which are recognised in Australia towards formal qualifications.
Pathfinders are all led, not only by adults, but by their peers. Each level of Pathfinders gains more responsibility and as their rank suggests, Guides and Master Guides, the highest ranking Pathfinders before the leaders and councillors, are guides and role models for the younger Pathfinders. They assist the younger Pathfinders in succeeding in their completion of honours and attaining their next rank.
Pathfinder activities include regular camp outs as well as hall meetings, the yearly expedition where Pathfinders from each division go on exactly that, a hiking expedition with each other and their leaders. Of course, you can't mention Pathfinder activities without mentioning the Camporee's. Camporee's have various sizes from the more common division Camporee's where Pathfinders from every club in a division all effectively go on a giant camp out, similar to a Scout Jamboree, then of course there are the bigger state-wide, national, and world-wide Camporee's that are less common.
I find I am quite often explaining to people what Pathfinder's are because they simply have never heard of them, so it may come as a surprise to many people just how large and wide-spread the Pathfinder clubs are. Clubs can range in size from very few people, even as small as 10, up to clubs in excess of 100 Pathfinders, and that's just in North NSW. The last national camporee that was held in Australia at Yarrahappini had over 5,000 Pathfinders in attendance from all over Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and other Pacific Islands. That's just the Pathfinders that could attend as well. There were many that were unable to make the trip. World-wide Camporee's are, as you can imagine, significantly larger.
Labels: design, special interest, work
Thursday, 31 January 2008
Developments and Widgitization
No, I have not been procrastinating about any of my personal design projects as mentioned earlier. Okay, I have a little bit. Anyway, the point is, I have been doing things.
You probably wouldn't have noticed this yet, but the copy on TerraMedia, particularly on the Home and Learn More pages has been updated. As the description meta tag is also what shows up in Google when TerraMedia comes up, this has also been updated to better reflect the primary target.
The new copy and tags don't yet show up in Google as it has not yet been crawled again, but this will hopefully be there in the next week or so.
Now, that's not that much is it?
No, but I have been doing other things too.
I was working on the new template for Still As Life, then it was looking awesome and was almost finished when a thought popped into my head. "Hey, I think I might change this blog over to WordPress rather than keep it on Blogger."
So I have spent most of the past couple of hours converting the template to a widgetized theme for WordPress. Despite having made widgetized themes before, as well as worked on ones that have already been widgetized, I always seem to forget something. A very useful thing to have on hand if you plan on widgetizing a WordPress theme is the article on Automattic about it. Very easy to follow and makes lots of sense. However, the section where it explains how to add multiple widgetized menus is a little confusing. So for the unsuspecting widgetizer, it may not work as simply as it would first appear it should. For that reason, here is what it should look like if you have 2 widgetized menus:
Anyway, hope that helps someone. There is also a possibility I won't use WordPress, but I'm having fun with my beautiful code all the same.
You probably wouldn't have noticed this yet, but the copy on TerraMedia, particularly on the Home and Learn More pages has been updated. As the description meta tag is also what shows up in Google when TerraMedia comes up, this has also been updated to better reflect the primary target.
The new copy and tags don't yet show up in Google as it has not yet been crawled again, but this will hopefully be there in the next week or so.
Now, that's not that much is it?
No, but I have been doing other things too.
I was working on the new template for Still As Life, then it was looking awesome and was almost finished when a thought popped into my head. "Hey, I think I might change this blog over to WordPress rather than keep it on Blogger."
So I have spent most of the past couple of hours converting the template to a widgetized theme for WordPress. Despite having made widgetized themes before, as well as worked on ones that have already been widgetized, I always seem to forget something. A very useful thing to have on hand if you plan on widgetizing a WordPress theme is the article on Automattic about it. Very easy to follow and makes lots of sense. However, the section where it explains how to add multiple widgetized menus is a little confusing. So for the unsuspecting widgetizer, it may not work as simply as it would first appear it should. For that reason, here is what it should look like if you have 2 widgetized menus:
<?phpNote that when it is mentioned on Automattic:
if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') )
register_sidebar(2,array(
'before_widget' => '',
'after_widget' => '',
'before_title' => '<div class="title">',
'after_title' => '</div>',
));
?>
"I have a theme with more than one sidebar. How do I make them all dynamic?It is referring to the second register_sidebar, not the first.
Oh, that’s easy. Instead of register_sidebar() you should use register_sidebars(n) where n is the number of sidebars. Then place the appropriate number in the dynamic_sidebar() function, starting with 1."
Anyway, hope that helps someone. There is also a possibility I won't use WordPress, but I'm having fun with my beautiful code all the same.
Friday, 25 January 2008
New Powerhouse Music and Technology Website Design
Powerhouse Music and Technology is a music store that sell musical and computer gear. They specialise in guitar parts, especially pickups, knobs, scratch plates, effects peddles and other guitar modifications.
I have been working on their site since the beginning, including the transition to a Zen-Cart based website.
Zen-Cart provides a vast amount of functionality and automation of things, thus it can almost be used entirely in the place of MYOB Retail Manager style inventory and sales management, it prints invoices, keeps the website up to date with current stock and so on.
Everything is customisable.
It does have a few downfalls, for example, only one image can be used for each product, unless you know how to use FTP and know HTML image tags. If this is the case, than you can put more images in the product description since it allows HTML to be entered in it.
It also does not have built in warranty claim management or return authorization management, so this must all be done manually by email, phone, or any other means.
Powerhouse Music and Technology has recently undergone a makeover. I did not design the original Zen-Cart website for them as they found a template much to their liking. I did do all of the custom graphics and so on, as well as all of the custom code.
Over the past week or so, we have been going through the website and making various changes to the template. For anyone that had not seen it previously, it had a dark grey/blue background and used varying shades of dark blue throughout the website. It was a fixed width and had a plain black background behind the main content area. Boring.
If you have a look at it now, you will notice a few key changes that we have been working on. The first and foremost is that the website has been lightened significantly without changing the colour scheme. It is now a much lighter grey/blue with darker rows alternating lighter product rows so they are easier to read.
The second main change to the website is that the background is no longer a boring plain black that does nothing but emphasise the empty background. It is now a tiled pattern based off the material covering of an early Vox Guitar Amplifier. The pattern does not scroll with the rest of the website so it remains the same no matter where you are or what your screen resolution is. The decision to do this was made because having the website automatically adjust to fit different resolutions, while being based on the current template would take a lot of time and work and would rewriting the majority of the CSS. Thus, something else was needed to emphasise the content.
The background does this perfectly. The colour scheme does not clash with the current colours and even the black material on it's own without the stitching provides a better background than the plain black because it contains various shades. The background as a whole however now emphasises the content and makes the website more interesting, especially on higher resolution screens.
There have been other changes made as well, though not so significant, with the switch from dark to light, the text colour has all had to be changed and in doing so, the link hover colour has been changed to a green rather than a blue, to fit in with the green used in the logo.
The menu has also been adjusted to remove gaps in it that left it seeming empty, which it is far from being.
Finally, there have been a few fixes to widths that had not previously been noticable with the darker background that became apparent with the light background.
The past couple of days we have been gradually working through the site and picking up the colour glitches here and there that have been caused by the change and were missed for whatever reason in the main styles. So if you have a look and notice anything that doesn't quite seem right, such as unreadable text, it would be great if you could let me know.
Thanks.
I have been working on their site since the beginning, including the transition to a Zen-Cart based website.
Zen-Cart provides a vast amount of functionality and automation of things, thus it can almost be used entirely in the place of MYOB Retail Manager style inventory and sales management, it prints invoices, keeps the website up to date with current stock and so on.
Everything is customisable.
It does have a few downfalls, for example, only one image can be used for each product, unless you know how to use FTP and know HTML image tags. If this is the case, than you can put more images in the product description since it allows HTML to be entered in it.
It also does not have built in warranty claim management or return authorization management, so this must all be done manually by email, phone, or any other means.
Powerhouse Music and Technology has recently undergone a makeover. I did not design the original Zen-Cart website for them as they found a template much to their liking. I did do all of the custom graphics and so on, as well as all of the custom code.
Over the past week or so, we have been going through the website and making various changes to the template. For anyone that had not seen it previously, it had a dark grey/blue background and used varying shades of dark blue throughout the website. It was a fixed width and had a plain black background behind the main content area. Boring.
If you have a look at it now, you will notice a few key changes that we have been working on. The first and foremost is that the website has been lightened significantly without changing the colour scheme. It is now a much lighter grey/blue with darker rows alternating lighter product rows so they are easier to read.
The second main change to the website is that the background is no longer a boring plain black that does nothing but emphasise the empty background. It is now a tiled pattern based off the material covering of an early Vox Guitar Amplifier. The pattern does not scroll with the rest of the website so it remains the same no matter where you are or what your screen resolution is. The decision to do this was made because having the website automatically adjust to fit different resolutions, while being based on the current template would take a lot of time and work and would rewriting the majority of the CSS. Thus, something else was needed to emphasise the content.
The background does this perfectly. The colour scheme does not clash with the current colours and even the black material on it's own without the stitching provides a better background than the plain black because it contains various shades. The background as a whole however now emphasises the content and makes the website more interesting, especially on higher resolution screens.
There have been other changes made as well, though not so significant, with the switch from dark to light, the text colour has all had to be changed and in doing so, the link hover colour has been changed to a green rather than a blue, to fit in with the green used in the logo.
The menu has also been adjusted to remove gaps in it that left it seeming empty, which it is far from being.
Finally, there have been a few fixes to widths that had not previously been noticable with the darker background that became apparent with the light background.
The past couple of days we have been gradually working through the site and picking up the colour glitches here and there that have been caused by the change and were missed for whatever reason in the main styles. So if you have a look and notice anything that doesn't quite seem right, such as unreadable text, it would be great if you could let me know.
Thanks.
Thursday, 24 January 2008
Designs and Developments
The past month, I have been brainstorming and experimenting with idea's on new and interesting (to me) things to do on the web.So far I have a few things. Of course, high up on the list is to market TerraMedia and Ultralight more, but at the same time, there have been other things come up as a result of that.
Company and product image.
For example, I have been trying to come up with a new and interesting logo for TerraMedia. I did a subject at university first semester last year that was based entirely around product and company image, through logo's, packaging and so on. KIB101, Foundations of Communication Design 1 is the subject. Great subject, I learned a lot doing it. The problem is, I could not get past one of my early logo idea's which I realised after I finished it, that it was very similar to the old Sony Walkman logo which is a trade mark, and while it's not the same, I didn't particularly like the idea of Sony having a reason to come after me. Thus, I ended up with the current logo, which is nothing too special, I like it, but it's not what I would ideally like.
So, this is something I have been aiming to change. I still don't really have anything set in stone yet, but I have some idea's that I am working on since my mind has seemingly been freed of it's mental block at the moment. How long this will last I cannot say, but hopefully for a while yet.
In working on this new logo, I have also been considering redesigning the TerraMedia website, and reworking it to better fit my new marketing strategy (which is at the moment still in it's planning stages, so I can't give you details because it is not yet in an entirely logical structure and will most likely come across as a bunch of babble). I spent a couple of hours with Rhi on Sunday afternoon brainstorming possibilities in this regard, and along with things I have since come up with on top of our combined masses of brain power, I think we have some very interesting idea's that I plan on experimenting with. I'd show you, but that would ruin the surprise.
Rhi is also helping me out with the new logo design which is awesome as she is a fantastic artist! So a big thanks goes to her!
Portfolio.
Next on the list is a possibility I have been throwing around in my mind and have just begun experimenting with using Joomla!
Joomla! comes with a weblinks component when you install it, and that, combined with part of my new marketing strategies has thrown into the works a directory style portfolio. In a way, like a Yellow Pages of web site's by TerraMedia. Of course, there aren't that many at this stage, and it probably doesn't sound like much, but the idea's that are whizzing through my mind regarding this have me really intrigued about setting it up. I have something partially working at the moment. I'm hoping to get it up and running properly within the next couple of weeks.
This also is a reason behind the changes I would like to make in the design of the TerraMedia website. The current design does not incorporate any real portfolio the way I would like, thus it does not have one, which is not a good thing, in fact, it is a very bad thing.
Next up is email.
I have a Microsoft Exchange Server partially setup for TerraMedia. It's still in it's trial phases at the moment, but I am hoping to have it setup properly soon. This will make maintaining my email's, contacts and calendar (why does the spelling of calendar look wrong?) far easier from all over the world, not that I'm frequently all over the world, but you never know.
Once the Exchange server is fully setup and operational, TerraMedia will be offering it as a service instead of our current webmail/POP3 email service, if anyone is interested, pricing will be sorted out shortly. I aim to have this fully operational within the next couple of weeks as well to coincide with my plans.
Blogging.
I am planning on rearranging the news and client information blogs so that they are one and the same rather than two separate ones. I also accidentally blocked myself from allowing RSS, ATOM and OPML feed's from the news page, which is potentially problematic and another driving factor of a new design.
Blogging part 2.
Still As Life is still running off of what is essentially a standard template. Yes, I have changed it significantly. Background image, size, footer, menu etc, but it is still basically a standard template. This I do not like. In my brainstorming for TerraMedia, I stumbled across the foundations of a new design for Still As Life hiding in the dark, atramentous recesses of my mind.
So this is underway as well. I have it in progress, on the Still As Life server, but I'm not going to give you the link because that would ruin the surprise. If you can figure out the path to it though, enjoy and keep in mind that it is still in progress and the colours are far from final.
More Still As Life?
Yes, there is more. Still As Life was not originally intended to be solely the home of the personal blog of me, Matthew Brown. No, it was also meant to be a haven for my fractal gallery. Yes yes, there is my Deviant Art gallery, which does give me unlimited space and bandwidth for free. However, it is not really what I want. I have been tossing around ideas in my mind ever since I first began considering names for this blog. There is actually an installation of Coppermine Photo Gallery setup on this server and has been since I set up the domain. It's just one of those things that never quite went ahead.
Is there anymore?
As a matter of fact, yes! I just don't remember what else there was at the moment, that was actually part of the reason for this blog, so I don't forget everything. Oh well, I'll remember sooner or later. I actually have paper with stuff on it all over one of my walls for this reason as well, however this is one of the things that hadn't made it to paper yet. Though Rhi thinks the paper makes it look like I have gone mad with illegible scribble writing and drawings that look like they are part of the writing and so on. I am happy being mad.
Last but not least, in my creative and un-mentally blank mood, I have been doing some drawing (that does not look like scribble) as well. I have the outlines of a picture that I am quite proud of so far. Hopefully the rest of it will work right and I don't end up with, well, badness.
Labels: code, design, internet, rants, work
Wednesday, 23 January 2008
Domain Resorts Websites
There are a few other websites now live that I have been working on as well.
You may or may not have seen the first two Domain Resorts websites that I worked on, if not, they are:
Since completing these two, I have also been involved in working on five other websites for them through Webtrix™ Technologies.
The websites are as follows:
Enjoy.
You may or may not have seen the first two Domain Resorts websites that I worked on, if not, they are:
Since completing these two, I have also been involved in working on five other websites for them through Webtrix™ Technologies.
The websites are as follows:
- Domain Resorts and Residences Drift
- Domain Resorts and Residences Beach Shacks
- Domain Resorts and Residences Mainwaring
- Domain Resorts and Residences Pandanus Pocket
- Domain Resorts and Residences North Stradbroke Island
Enjoy.
Labels: design, internet, work
Tuesday, 22 January 2008
Swallow Fashion Website Live
The Swallow Fashion website has been live for about a week now. This is a website that I have been working on for Webtrix™ Technologies for some time now.
It was a very slow website to develop, however, it has turned out quite nicely. I was not the only person working on this website mind you, it was just one of those ones that takes a long time to get done, for no real reason.
Swallow Fashion have 3 stores in Brisbane city and do just about anything with clothes that you can think of. They mend, make dresses,perform alterations, dry clean, can work with leather and furs and so on.
I might be biased when I say I don't like some of the parts of the website that I didn't do. However, if you know what parts of the site they are, you can probably understand my dislike of them.
It was a very slow website to develop, however, it has turned out quite nicely. I was not the only person working on this website mind you, it was just one of those ones that takes a long time to get done, for no real reason.
Swallow Fashion have 3 stores in Brisbane city and do just about anything with clothes that you can think of. They mend, make dresses,perform alterations, dry clean, can work with leather and furs and so on.
I might be biased when I say I don't like some of the parts of the website that I didn't do. However, if you know what parts of the site they are, you can probably understand my dislike of them.
Labels: design, internet, work
Tuesday, 8 January 2008
Alstonville Pathfinders Website
The all new Alstonville Pathfinders website is officially live. There are still a few minor changes to be made, such as the addition of the final logo when it is completed and so on, however it is predominately done and ready for use.It is designed around Wordpress and incorporates an easy to use and update calendar and image gallery.
I might be slightly biased, but I think this is one of the hottest Pathfinder Club websites out there.
Feel free to agree or disagree. I don't mind.
Saturday, 22 December 2007
TerraMedia News
If anyone is interested, the TerraMedia website has a brand new News page! If you want to keep up with the latest TerraMedia News, when you visit www.terramedia.com.au simply browse to the News page which is second from the left, between "Home" and "Design", or head directly to news.terramedia.com.au.
Have a great weekend!
Have a great weekend!
Saturday, 8 December 2007
Santai Domain Resort Website
One of the other major websites I have been working on is actually live too, I forgot about this one in my earlier post.
It is a sub-site of the main Domain Resorts website. It is for their Santai Resorts and can be found at www.santaidomain.com.
This one is also getting quite a few unique page views each day, though it is not yet as high as the main website.
It is a sub-site of the main Domain Resorts website. It is for their Santai Resorts and can be found at www.santaidomain.com.
This one is also getting quite a few unique page views each day, though it is not yet as high as the main website.
Labels: design, internet, work
Domain Resorts Website
As of mid last week, one of the major websites I have been working on is now live.
The main Domain Resorts website can be found at: www.domainresorts.com.
I haven't checked on this myself yet, but I understand it is already getting over 100 unique page views a day, so clearly we are doing things right.
Their sub-sites for each of their resorts will soon be live as well.
The main Domain Resorts website can be found at: www.domainresorts.com.
I haven't checked on this myself yet, but I understand it is already getting over 100 unique page views a day, so clearly we are doing things right.
Their sub-sites for each of their resorts will soon be live as well.
Labels: design, internet, work
Thursday, 6 December 2007
The Client's Fault?
The web design company that we use at the store is at it again. This time though, instead of just providing us with a poor service, they are in fact blaming us for their problems.Now, some of the things they were saying and suggesting are fair enough, yes we can control the addition of images and so on, but the reason that the images aren't right is because their system has been changing our images. I don't know why since I don't have access to the backend of the system. We have told them about this problem many times, yet when I spoke to them earlier about it and they tried to blame us for not doing things correctly, they were completely unaware of it and tried to say that it must be caused by a glitch in the system upgrade. However, it's been a recurring problem since well before they started upgrading it.
I have contacted them via email and phone about it 6 or 7 times and spoken to them about it in a meeting as well. So it should have been fixed a long time ago.
So why aren't they aware of it? An even better question, why are they blaming us for their problems? It does not do well for their image, or for both our and their business.
Since they started blaming us for things and been slow to act, if at all, on any problems, I have noticed my boss's satisfaction drastically dropping. I don't think it will take much more to push her into a different development company.
While they no doubt have other clients, one would think it would be important to keep them all happy. Blaming the client for something that is not their fault is a big way to push a client away and should definately be avoided. When it is the clients fault, it needs to be handled much more diplomatically then just blaming them outright.
Thursday, 29 November 2007
Quality Service is Vital to Web Design
Maybe it's just me, but when you are paying hundreds to thousands a year on a website, you expect it to work, and to get a response about problems quickly.I have come across a few web companies that only work like this if it is the easiest thing for them to do. Most recently, the company that owns the system that the store I work at uses for our website.
As I do the majority of the website content maintenance and general store IT work, and as a fellow web designer and developer myself, I understand their situation, however, I do not think they have handled it well.
The content management system that they have written, while it is a good idea as there are few good systems in their area that are also easy to use, has had some problems.
It is a nice, simple and clean system, but for the past 5 months, almost as long as I've been working at the store there have been unresolved problems constantly springing up.
Some of the user updatable things on the website do not save to the database, we have been asking to have this fixed for 3 months, but none of our emails regarding this have gotten a reply, ever, when we have spoken to them in meetings or on the phone once we have given up emailing them about it and not getting a response, we have been told it would be fixed within the week, it still isn't fixed.
Another problem sprung up about 2 months ago where images would occasionally get mixed up and an entire category would display the same image, an image that seemed to be randomly chosen from the database. Again, whenever we emailed them about this there was no response.
About 2 weeks ago, after they did an update on the system, a problem sprung up in almost every link from a product page where a forward slash was missing from the URL's. This is a major problem as customers can then not get back out of a product page without going back to the root address manually, or by using the back button. This is a big issue. When we had a meeting with them on a Friday, we were told it would be done by Monday and they would call us to confirm it was working properly.
We did not receive a call, and the problem still is not fixed.
This is very, very poor service and I do not think it is acceptable in any industry.
We have been speaking with them for a couple of months now about redesigning the website as the template has been the same for a while now. As of last week, when my boss wrote them a somewhat angry email about all of the problems with the website, they finally replied, after a couple of days, to tell us they were not going to fix the problems, as they were redesigning the website anyway, so they would just do that and sort out the problems then. This is all well and good, except that it has taken them a week to start to implement the new design, and now that they have started, it is full of glitches and they have not given us an ETA on when it will be all sorted out.
It is less than a month until Christmas and we have alot of customers through the website, so a working website is vital, especially at this time of year.
It's one thing to have a bit of a wait before things will be completed, but leaving us completely in the dark and not even acknowledging our complaints is no way to do business.
I wonder if they treat all of their customers with this much disrespect, or if it's only us since they knew our store owner prior to us starting up a website...
It is very frustrating not knowing if the company that is supposed to be fixing the problems has even received the problem note. However if it's something that won't take much effot on their part, they respond within an hour, which one can only assume means they get the problem emails, they just don't want to deal with it and thus behave as though they have not received them.
I'm not going to mention the name of the company, but if you are getting this treatment from a web design firm, you should be treated better.
Labels: design, internet, work
Monday, 12 November 2007
The True Blue Balladeer of Aus
John Williamson is a great guy, don't get me wrong, I like his songs (unusual for me, I know), he portrays the Aussie way so well, but you can only here the same albumof his so many times.
My boss has had one album of his playing at work for the past 2 weeks. The same album, over and over. It has some great songs on it,but you can only hear it so many times without starting to go slightly crazy.
Even if it was rotating with a couple of other CD's it would be fine, but in a 5 hour shift, you hear the same songs at least 5 times! That's a little much if you ask me. Especially after an ITB006 (Networking) exam at 8:30 this morning!
The exam went pretty well I think, there were a few things I couldn't remember, like how to do the working on a cyclic redundancy check, and a couple of other questions that I no longer remember, but aside from that it was pretty good.
Again it surprised me how much of it was exactly the same as from the two practice exams, but hey, who's complaining right? Even better, there was nothing from the practical tutorials, it was completely based on the lectures and the theory from tutorial's. Which is particularly good since I didn't actually go to all of the practicals.
I followed most of the lecture material fairly well so I didn't think the question's based on them were very hard, and 30 of them were multiple choice anyway, with the other 5 being short answer questions split into 3-5 questions each.
The most any individual question was worth from memory was 4 marks, with 1 and 2 each being the average marks per question so I think it should be a pretty easy exam to do well in.
I also donated blood after the exam. It's the first time since I moved up to Brisbane that I've been able to donate when I've been near one of the blood banks or the mobile donor centre's. Every other time, I've had to be somewhere in the next 5 minutes or so, or I've been sick or had a headache or something like that. I almost walked past it this time without thinking but they had a big sign up saying they particularly need O blood types at the moment, so since I'm an O positive that caught my eye and lo and behold they took my blood. Filled a bag in 12 minutes, that's a personal best!
Now everyone that's able, go donate blood! It's good, I promise. It doesn't hurt much at all and whatever pain you do get usually goes away within a few minutes anyway, so do it!
My boss has had one album of his playing at work for the past 2 weeks. The same album, over and over. It has some great songs on it,but you can only hear it so many times without starting to go slightly crazy.
Even if it was rotating with a couple of other CD's it would be fine, but in a 5 hour shift, you hear the same songs at least 5 times! That's a little much if you ask me. Especially after an ITB006 (Networking) exam at 8:30 this morning!
The exam went pretty well I think, there were a few things I couldn't remember, like how to do the working on a cyclic redundancy check, and a couple of other questions that I no longer remember, but aside from that it was pretty good.
Again it surprised me how much of it was exactly the same as from the two practice exams, but hey, who's complaining right? Even better, there was nothing from the practical tutorials, it was completely based on the lectures and the theory from tutorial's. Which is particularly good since I didn't actually go to all of the practicals.
I followed most of the lecture material fairly well so I didn't think the question's based on them were very hard, and 30 of them were multiple choice anyway, with the other 5 being short answer questions split into 3-5 questions each.
The most any individual question was worth from memory was 4 marks, with 1 and 2 each being the average marks per question so I think it should be a pretty easy exam to do well in.
I also donated blood after the exam. It's the first time since I moved up to Brisbane that I've been able to donate when I've been near one of the blood banks or the mobile donor centre's. Every other time, I've had to be somewhere in the next 5 minutes or so, or I've been sick or had a headache or something like that. I almost walked past it this time without thinking but they had a big sign up saying they particularly need O blood types at the moment, so since I'm an O positive that caught my eye and lo and behold they took my blood. Filled a bag in 12 minutes, that's a personal best!
Now everyone that's able, go donate blood! It's good, I promise. It doesn't hurt much at all and whatever pain you do get usually goes away within a few minutes anyway, so do it!
Labels: music, rants, university, work
Friday, 9 November 2007
Apples
Ha! So I hear Prince is threatening to sue fan sites, that sounds logical to me, don't you? Fan's get more people to listen to my music, therefore, sue them. Ah wells, that's his problem I suppose. Knew there had to be a reason I never liked him.
In more interesting news, I just received my shiny new MacBook Pro. All I can say is. SWEET! I got the basic 15" 2.2ghz version with 2gb of RAM, 120gb hard drive, etc. and yet it is still more powerful than my desktop. I think that means I need to upgrade the desktop. Actually I need to anyway, but this just gives me another excuse.
It would seem that yet again, one of my current web design client's has changed their mind. Their website was meant to be live almost two weeks ago now to coincide with the start of an advertising campaign, yet they keep changing their mind. I have just received today, a redesigned layout. New colours, extended navigation, almost every image has been changed and so on.
Thankfully the majority of the changes can be done in CSS, but due to some...creative differences...between myself and my boss, parts of the layout, particularly the navigation, have been coded largely in HTML instead of using CSS to control them so they could be a bit of a pain to modify across the entire site. Oh well though, I'm getting paid extra so it's alright.
On another note, why is it so hard to find information about what laws there are in regards to workplace bullying?! (Different workplace to the web design one)
In more interesting news, I just received my shiny new MacBook Pro. All I can say is. SWEET! I got the basic 15" 2.2ghz version with 2gb of RAM, 120gb hard drive, etc. and yet it is still more powerful than my desktop. I think that means I need to upgrade the desktop. Actually I need to anyway, but this just gives me another excuse.
It would seem that yet again, one of my current web design client's has changed their mind. Their website was meant to be live almost two weeks ago now to coincide with the start of an advertising campaign, yet they keep changing their mind. I have just received today, a redesigned layout. New colours, extended navigation, almost every image has been changed and so on.
Thankfully the majority of the changes can be done in CSS, but due to some...creative differences...between myself and my boss, parts of the layout, particularly the navigation, have been coded largely in HTML instead of using CSS to control them so they could be a bit of a pain to modify across the entire site. Oh well though, I'm getting paid extra so it's alright.
On another note, why is it so hard to find information about what laws there are in regards to workplace bullying?! (Different workplace to the web design one)
Labels: hardware, politics, technology, work
Thursday, 8 November 2007
Resumé Suicide
I don't get it. What is with people? EVERY resume that we have gotten today has had spelling errors, or grammatical errors, or just doesn't show anything useful. There is one, it's two pages long and looks fancy and fairly professional, but the information provided is exactly like the one I posted yesterday! It conveys absolutely nothing useful at all!
There is another, the prospective interviewee has written their resume in Seek and has just linked us to their Seek resume page rather than taking the time to bother doing up a professional looking one himself. His content is reasonable, and I will admit it does look fairly professional, but then you start to read it, and there are lower case headings, comma's at the end of sentences and so on. It would be nice to get a decent looking resume for once. I thought this job of knocking back people would be hard since I don't like to hurt peoples feelings or anything, but some of these resume's make it pretty easy, he hasn't even capitalized the first letters of his first and last name!
On an interesting and slightly less...annoying...note, one in three of the applicants live within a five minute walk of my place.
There is another, the prospective interviewee has written their resume in Seek and has just linked us to their Seek resume page rather than taking the time to bother doing up a professional looking one himself. His content is reasonable, and I will admit it does look fairly professional, but then you start to read it, and there are lower case headings, comma's at the end of sentences and so on. It would be nice to get a decent looking resume for once. I thought this job of knocking back people would be hard since I don't like to hurt peoples feelings or anything, but some of these resume's make it pretty easy, he hasn't even capitalized the first letters of his first and last name!
On an interesting and slightly less...annoying...note, one in three of the applicants live within a five minute walk of my place.
Wednesday, 7 November 2007
How Not To Get A Job
At work at the moment we are looking for more staff and there are job advertisements on places like Seek, University of Queensland Student Union Employment, Queensland University of Technology Student Guild Employment and so on. Now there have been a lot of resume's come through and since I do most of the email work, I have the job of going over each resume and deciding which one's are worth printing and forwarding to my boss, and which ones will get a lovely little email in response that reads:
"Dear Jeremy,
Thankyou very much for your application, however at this stage all of the interview places have been filled. Should any of these fall through, we will be in contact again.
Best regards,
Management"
Isn't that nice?
Anyway, here I am going through these resume's, and only a couple of them I would even consider interviewing, but the majority met my boss's criteria, so theres 8 or so got printed out and forwarded onto her. Then there was this one:
Of course, this isn't the actual resume, but this is exactly how it was formatted and the exact same way it was written, spelling mistakes, poor grammar, some things not formatted the same as the rest, and so on.
Now, I'm not the employer, but just reading that, why would I want to work with them? So why would an employer want to consider employing them? The resume doesn't even take up a page.
So apart from that, what's wrong with it? Where have they worked before? There's no employment history, there aren't even any references, he says he will only supply them on request, so how do we know anything about him prior to speaking to him? He hasn't even given his last name, just an initial!
Additionally, he only has one school listed, which he left in 1998, so either he is in his late 20's (which is fine), or he dropped out of school. Either way he's been out of school for 9 years and doesn't have an employment history, has he even worked at all in that time? He hasn't said he's doing anything else at the moment, such as tertiary education, nor does he have a drivers license, so how do we know he's even motivated to do anything but the absolute minimum?
His interests are fine, but they show nothing and are basically wasted space. Everything likes those things. They don't stand out. So again this works against him as it builds on what I said before, it shows he isn't motivated. In addition to this he doesn't have any skills listed aside from his "Personal qualities", so how do we know what he can do?
Even his "Objective" is shocking. It confirms our belief that he most likely has not had a job before, despite being out of school for almost 10 years and that he isn't motivated!
This in turn leads us to wonder if he is even being honest in his "Personal qualities" as he clearly is not "keen", not about working anyway.
So please, someone tell me, why oh why would someone want to employ him?
It leads one to wonder about the effectiveness of Centrelink and their job diaries. People have to apply for jobs to keep getting paid by Centrelink, of course they don't have to get one...
I cannot stand these people who seem to think they shouldn't have to work and should get everything for free.
Seriously, this place is so easy to get a job if you show any interest or initiative at all, I mean, its a surf shop, I'm not even interested in surfing or anything surfing related, yet I got a job here!
"Dear Jeremy,
Thankyou very much for your application, however at this stage all of the interview places have been filled. Should any of these fall through, we will be in contact again.
Best regards,
Management"
Isn't that nice?
Anyway, here I am going through these resume's, and only a couple of them I would even consider interviewing, but the majority met my boss's criteria, so theres 8 or so got printed out and forwarded onto her. Then there was this one:
RESUME
Name: Billy K
Address: 85 Bad St
Phone: 0400 000 000
Email Address: billy.k1989@hotmail.com
Drivers Licence: No
Personal Qualities: Friendly, Fun, keen, patient
Interest & Hobbies: Hanging out with friends, going to
movies, talking to peple
Schooling: ********** State High School 1998
Objective: To get a job to save some money and get
Work experience
Availability: Casual
References: Will give when you call.
Of course, this isn't the actual resume, but this is exactly how it was formatted and the exact same way it was written, spelling mistakes, poor grammar, some things not formatted the same as the rest, and so on.
Now, I'm not the employer, but just reading that, why would I want to work with them? So why would an employer want to consider employing them? The resume doesn't even take up a page.
So apart from that, what's wrong with it? Where have they worked before? There's no employment history, there aren't even any references, he says he will only supply them on request, so how do we know anything about him prior to speaking to him? He hasn't even given his last name, just an initial!
Additionally, he only has one school listed, which he left in 1998, so either he is in his late 20's (which is fine), or he dropped out of school. Either way he's been out of school for 9 years and doesn't have an employment history, has he even worked at all in that time? He hasn't said he's doing anything else at the moment, such as tertiary education, nor does he have a drivers license, so how do we know he's even motivated to do anything but the absolute minimum?
His interests are fine, but they show nothing and are basically wasted space. Everything likes those things. They don't stand out. So again this works against him as it builds on what I said before, it shows he isn't motivated. In addition to this he doesn't have any skills listed aside from his "Personal qualities", so how do we know what he can do?
Even his "Objective" is shocking. It confirms our belief that he most likely has not had a job before, despite being out of school for almost 10 years and that he isn't motivated!
This in turn leads us to wonder if he is even being honest in his "Personal qualities" as he clearly is not "keen", not about working anyway.
So please, someone tell me, why oh why would someone want to employ him?
It leads one to wonder about the effectiveness of Centrelink and their job diaries. People have to apply for jobs to keep getting paid by Centrelink, of course they don't have to get one...
I cannot stand these people who seem to think they shouldn't have to work and should get everything for free.
Seriously, this place is so easy to get a job if you show any interest or initiative at all, I mean, its a surf shop, I'm not even interested in surfing or anything surfing related, yet I got a job here!
Saturday, 3 November 2007
Web Design and Development Portfolio
I have worked on a variety of websites using a variety of different systems.
As I have sub-contracted for multiple companies as well as my own freelance work, and in-house work, I have written website's from scratch using the latest standards in XHTML and CSS along with complimentary PHP work.
In addition, I have designed and developed website's based around numerous content management systems (CMS) and utilised Flash to add to the user experience of particular website's.
Below I have grouped the website's I have worked on by what system they are based on. Note that many of the Webtrix™ Technologies websites are based on a standardised template. Also note that this is a portfolio of websites I have worked on and as such, not all of the sites listed below were designed solely by me.
Assignment's and General Interest Project Websites
Joomla!™
Simple Machines Forum
Webtrix™ Technologies
As I have sub-contracted for multiple companies as well as my own freelance work, and in-house work, I have written website's from scratch using the latest standards in XHTML and CSS along with complimentary PHP work.
In addition, I have designed and developed website's based around numerous content management systems (CMS) and utilised Flash to add to the user experience of particular website's.
Below I have grouped the website's I have worked on by what system they are based on. Note that many of the Webtrix™ Technologies websites are based on a standardised template. Also note that this is a portfolio of websites I have worked on and as such, not all of the sites listed below were designed solely by me.
Assignment's and General Interest Project Websites
- TerraMusic (KIB103 Assignment 2 - Distinction)
- Kes Photography
- Blue Hills College (old website - inactive)
- LANBash (inactive)
- World of Warcraft Site Designer Application (inactive)
Joomla!™
- TerraMedia
- The Prodigy Project
- Australian Tonerider Review (old website - inactive)
- Powerhouse Music and Technology (old website - inactive)
Simple Machines Forum
Webtrix™ Technologies
- Domain Resorts and Residences
- Domain Resorts and Residences Santai
- Domain Resorts and Residences Drift
- Domain Resorts and Residences Beach Shacks
- Domain Resorts and Residences Mainwaring
- Domain Resorts and Residences Pandanus Pocket
- Domain Resorts and Residences North Stradbroke Island
- Swallow Fashion
- Purely Nails and Beauty
- Thermogen
- Trawler Seafood Restaurant
- Highland Smash Repairs
- Trend Smash Repairs
- Baclites
- Ekonopaper
- Mobile Therapies Australia
Labels: code, design, internet, work
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