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Mixd Blog
Keep up to speed with all that’s going on with the Mixd team; comings & goings, highs & lows, ins & outs and so on. (Incidentally, blog is a contraction of the term web log; why use two syllables, when one will do?!)
Bob’s Band to Bring Sunshine to Charity Festival
Posted: July 16th, 2010 by Matt
Producer at Mixd by day… Cosmic rock n’ roller by night…
Many of you will know Beardy Bob as the Producer here at Mixd, dedicated to your project. However, he does have a life away from Mixd and one of his major passions is music… and in particular his band, The Bobby Sunshine Revival Band.
On Thursday 12 August 2010, the band will be taking to the stage in Leicester as part of Summer Sundae Fringe Thursday 2010; a warm up to the Summer Sundae Weekender Festival. Fringe Thursday was started back in 2006 to showcase up and coming bands to the festival going public and also to raise money for local Leicester charity, LOROS. Since then it has grown to be a festival in its own right, attracting over 2,000 punters and raising over £7,000.00 for the charity in 2009.
Fringe Thursday 2010 sees over 40 bands performing over 9 venues and The Bobby Sunshine Revival Band will be gracing The Donkey Stage (time TBC). A recent performance at The Donkey for ‘The Sunday Sessions’ can be seen below.
So, if you’re Leicester way or heading down there for the festival, Bob and the band would love to see you. A £5 wristband (all proceeds to LOROS) allows you access to all 40 bands, across all 9 warm-up parties, including transport between the venues!
Associated press release:
The Bobby Sunshine Revival Band was formed from the ashes of 1990’s garage rock band Bobby Sunshine and the Rainbows by lead singer Bob Tait, working to the Leon Russell mantra “it’s a hippy commune bona fide”. The band brings together great musicians from Ipswich, Leeds, Leicester, Manchester, North Yorkshire and Teesside (and occasionally New York!) with the same common denominator… to put a new twist on old classics and to entertain themselves as well as the crowd!
Ever since the latest incarnation collided through the Cosmos in 2005, the Sunshine guys have been exciting audiences throughout the UK at hand-picked festivals, bars, happenings and clubs, playing their own mix of boozy, bluesy cosmic rock n roll, full-tilt boogie-woogie and soulful groove.
Loved by gig-goers, party animals and venue owners alike, comments include: “They’re like the World’s greatest pub jukebox… but better!” and “All thrillers, no fillers!”.
The band has become a favourite at The Donkey in Leicester and will be taking to the stage there for Summer Sundae Fringe Thursday 2010… and the guys will no doubt have some special guests up their floral sleeves.
Enjoying the mystique, the talented group of musicians rarely promote themselves, relying instead on word of mouth referrals; however, they can be found on Facebook by searching ‘The Bobby Sunshine Revival Band’.
Fifty squid if Spain win the World Cup!
Posted: July 9th, 2010 by Bob
As this Summer’s sporting festival of football, the World Cup, draws to a close, the British Heart Foundation stands to win £50 if Spain are crowned World Champions.
Before the World Cup started, Mixd undertook a sweepstake, donating 6 places to the British Heart Foundation (BHF). The draw was conducted under unprecedented security in the Mixd office and notable events included:
- Bob crying on to his keyboard as he drew USA and Australia;
- Matt punching the air and gloating when he received Brazil (it was as if he’d won the World Cup himself);
- Phil getting Argentina and not really knowing the significance (Phil isn’t an avid follower of football!); and
- The BHF drawing Spain and England amongst their six teams.
So, as we get down to the last two teams in the World Cup, the BHF is to do battle against Chris (a friend of Mixd) on Sunday evening. With a prize for the runner-up, the BHF is guaranteed at least a tenner!
And if Paul the psychic octopus is to be believed, £50 will be added to Phil’s sponsorship for the South Downs Way in aid of the British Heart Foundation!
Good luck! Just a shame it wasn’t England really…
Ride on time!
Posted: July 9th, 2010 by Bob
Once again this year, our very own endurance athlete (think Lance Armstrong… and then some!) will be taking part in what is known to many as the toughest off-road mountain bike endurance event in the UK – the British Heart Foundation’s South Downs Way Randonnée – on Saturday, 31 July 2010.
The 100 mile (161km) route runs from Winchester to Eastbourne covering the entire length of the South Downs. The route profile includes a staggering 3,550 metres of climbing (that’s nearly 12,000 ft!) and is regarded by many as one of the toughest one day mountain bike endurance events.
Keen to improve on his time from last year (you would be right in thinking it’s not a race!), Phil has been working hard and this year is aiming at a ride time of under 12 hours.
Phil commented, “It’s hard work! I know most people think the South Downs Way is relatively flat but you’re wrong! Twelve hours riding in scorching heat as we had last year was a real test of endurance. It’s not just about the physical ability to ride the distance, you’ve got to consider how your body is going to react! Trust me, sitting down after the ride proved difficult! If you are an off-road cyclist you can’t miss this demanding, yet exhilarating ride. There’s a real buzz between the riders, plus the scenery is truly breathtaking.”
The British Heart Foundation says “Get your own heart healthy whilst helping us fight heart disease – the UK’s single biggest killer.” So why not get involved? At the very least, send a few pennies (or pounds) Phil’s way by sponsoring him… please.
I’ll get a nice soft cushion ready for Phil’s return to work.
UK social media traffic overtakes search
Posted: June 9th, 2010 by Phil
New statistics just out have revealed that UK social media traffic has overtaken search engine traffic in the UK.
According to Experian Hitwise;
“Social networks now receive more UK Internet visits than search engines. During May, social networks accounted for 11.88% of UK Internet visits and search engines accounted for 11.33%. May was the first ever month that social networks have been more popular than search engines in the UK.”
Experian Hitwise said visits to social networks as a percentage of UK internet visits had increased over the past three years by five percentage points, while visits to search engines had decreased from 13% in 2007, to 11.33% in 2010. With Facebook accounting for 55% of all social networking traffic in the UK, it is offering an increasingly strong alternative to leading search engine Google.
Ruby on Rails expert, PHP genius, Apple iPhone developer and mobile DJ joins the growing Mixd team!
Posted: May 21st, 2010 by Mike
Some of you will already know Dave – ‘the international master of rave’ as he is affectionately known here at Mixd owing to his mobile DJ career – from his involvement in the technical aspects of your digital project.
He’s one of those guys that never sees the light of day, survives totally on crisps, coffee and red bull, and is an absolute genius when it comes to anything technical. You know… a (self-proclaimed) geek.
Anyway, enough of that geek talk, we have an announcement to make!
The Mixd team is delighted that Dave has ‘signed-up’ completely to the Mixd ethos and has become a permanent member of the expanding Mixd offering. Dave will continue to head up the Mixd website development team, as Senior PHP Developer, whilst leading online application development utilising his vast knowledge of the fast emerging Ruby on Rails programming language. As the digital world moves more and more into mobile, Dave’s expertise in Apple iPhone app development will also come to the fore.
Mixd’s Digital Director, Phil Shackleton, commented “With Dave coming onboard fully on a permanent basis, the Mixd offering moves forward even further and keeps us at the forefront of the digital world. Let’s face it, no discipline moves as fast and if you stand still you get left behind. We have a duty to our clients and to ourselves to be fully aware of the present and to embrace future trends within our industry as they happen”.
Dave has worked with Mixd for well over 5 years in a freelance and short-term contract capacity, so knows Mixd and its clients very well indeed.
Bob Tait, Producer at Mixd, was overjoyed with the appointment “The acquisition of Dave on a permanent basis is fantastic news for the Mixd team and our clients. People with Dave’s experience, abilities and passion don’t come along everyday and after a lengthy recruitment process, Dave was the right man for the job. I’m really looking forward to working with Dave on new exciting projects that can showcase our talents and offer a great return on investment for clients. However, the main plus point is that it’s made finding a half-decent DJ for the office bash very easy indeed!”.
Now that’s what we call music.
Good luck Dave and welcome (fully) onboard.
Opening external links in a new browser window
Posted: May 19th, 2010 by Matt
For the majority of websites that we work on, clients tend to request that external links open in a new browser window so visitors are not lost to other sites.
On first inspection, this may appear to be a reasonable request and that the client’s wishes may hold water. However, and this may sound controversial, we don’t develop sites for the client, we develop sites for the client’s users; after all, it’s the users that have to use the site (the term ‘users’ is a bit of a giveaway really). For the majority of target audiences, basic principles of usability that have stood the test of time within our ever changing and fast moving digital industry can be applied. So, here’s why when the client says “I want all external links to open in a new browser window”, the discussion begins!
At Mixd we build to the highest accessibility and usability standards, and follow 2 main sets of guidelines:
- W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) XHTML strict validation
- WCAG2.0 (World Content Accessibility Guidelines) level AA and in part AAA
We advise against forcing any on-site links to open in a new window, as to do so would invalidate both of the above. From a usability point of view, forcing this upon the user is considered bad practice and all modern browsers give the user the option to open in a new tab or browser window if they wish to do so.
A huge percentage of web users navigate using the browser’s back button. New window links mean that the back button stops working; often leaving the user confused or even worse, annoyed. Instead of keeping users from leaving your site, it may have the opposite effect by preventing them from returning when they actually want to. With certain pop-up blockers enabled, external links may not open properly either. Furthermore, new windows may also open in the background and not be seen at all by the user.
Instead of opening in a new window, we suggest adding ‘(external link)’ or a symbol after external links to indicate to the user the links which will make them leave your site.
Jakob Neilsen (largely considered the world’s foremost web usability expert) mentioned this in points 1 and 2, back in 1999 and this is as true now as it was back then; http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990530.html
Senior web developer job (Ruby on Rails and PHP)
Posted: February 26th, 2010 by Phil
Mixd are looking for an experienced and passionate Senior Web Developer to join and lead the development team in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. Candidate should have a minimum of 4 years experience in Ruby on Rails and PHP development.
The perfect candidate will be an expert in advanced web development using PHP and MySQL, Ruby on Rails and WordPress as well as a strong command of web standards and best practices. They must demonstrate excellent customer service skills, technical wizardry, flexibility, a sense of humour, motivation and an eye for detail. Any experience with iPhone development and Facebook applications will also be highly desirable.
About working at Mixd
You’ll be working with some exciting clients, creating websites, online applications and iphone apps at the leading edge of usability, accessibility and functionality. It is an exciting time to join Mixd as we continue to grow in size and are looking for a senior developer to further expand our development team.
Benefits
In addition to being rewarded with a competitive salary and excellent career advancement opportunities, you’ll benefit from a number of perks:
- Negotiable and competitive salary based on experience circa. £28,000 – £33,000 per annum
- Prefer someone who will work in our Harrogate office, but would consider remote working
- Personal training/conference budget available
- Flexible working hours
Required skills:
Here is what you need:
- Exceptional development skills in Ruby on Rails and PHP
- Advanced experience in WordPress
- Database design, development and management
- JavaScript, DHTML, Ajax scripting and jQuery
- Experience with version control systems (GIT or Subversion preferred)
- Good understanding of web technologies (HTTP, Apache) and familiarity with Unix/Linux
How to apply
Get in touch with your CV, covering letter, URL examples of recent projects and salary expectations at: info@mixd.co.uk
Strictly NO recruitment agencies – if you are a recruiter, do NOT contact us about this post.