Reasons for Responsive Design
Your website doesn’t just sit on a desk anymore. And we believe you would be absolutely mad to commission a website today which doesn’t consider optimisation for a range of devices from the very beginning.
Technical
Our take on ‘browser support’
Whenever we create a website for somebody it is important they understand how their site will look to their users. The short answer is: it will look great! Now let’s break that down a little, starting with what ‘support’ actually means.
What the new iPad means for (Responsive?) Web Design
Apple yesterday launched their 3rd generation iPad, oddly named “the new iPad”. The buzz on twitter seems to be a feeling of disappointment with the product not being the step-forward that some people were expecting. However it does feature the much-expected Retina Display. And this leaves us web designers in a bit of a pickle. [...]
Mobilized Header & Footer
We’ve been working a lot on building responsive sites lately. Sites which are flexible to the device they may be viewed upon, and change accordingly. For many reasons, it’s good to start small and work up to a full “desktop” version and this means it is vital we consider the site on smaller devices early [...]
Gordon’s Alive! (but he’s dying a slow and painful death)
Gordon had Ming but Adobe’s Flash has had to contend with a more powerful adversary in the Late Steve Jobs and he was equally merciless in his pursuit of wiping out his enemy. And after years of bitter fighting it seems Jobs has succeeded where Ming failed, bringing Flash to its knees – if we [...]
Why is scoping important?
It is fair to say that scoping is the most important stage of any design and development project. “None of us plan to fail, but some of us fail to plan.” Anon. (I saw this quote as graffiti on a dressing room door!) Without scoping, a design and development project is like trying to build [...]
Flash. Saviour of the BlackBerry universe?
BlackBerry losing mobile smartphone market share With the introduction of the iPhone and Android phones, BlackBerry’s share of the worldwide mobile smartphone market started to reduce dramatically… some might say plummet. In fact, it was only a couple of days ago that a San Francisco Chronicle article reported that Research in Motion Ltd (RIM), the [...]
The benefits of agile development
Agile Adjective Able to move quickly and easily. Concise Oxford English Dictionary Agile development Agile methods generally promote a disciplined project management process that encourages frequent inspection and adaptation, a leadership philosophy that encourages teamwork, self-organization and accountability, a set of engineering best practices intended to allow for rapid delivery of high-quality software, and a [...]
Browser wars
March has been a big month for browser makers, with each of the big three unveiling a major new release. Here is a brief summary of events (I won’t bore you with the technicalities – I’m sure you can find those elsewhere on the internet if you’re interested!) First up was Google Chrome 10 coming [...]
New Adventures in Web Design Conference (#naconf)
Last week Phil and I attended the New Adventures In Web Design Conference (#naconf) at the Albert Hall in Nottingham. A new conference for 2011 it was billed as being “carefully curated; chock-full of integrity, opinion, and fresh content, with an emphasis on shaking things up and challenging convention” by curator and organiser Simon Collison, [...]
Ruby on Rails development
At Mixd, we’re not just a creative digital agency! Our vast experience of back-end systems and complex environments means that we have the technical expertise to turn your bespoke requirements into reality. Here at Mixd, our technology of choice for application development is Ruby on Rails (aka Rails); our development team have been using Rails [...]
Google Analytics
Okay folks. Let me tell you why Google Analytics should be used by you! In general, Google products are good. Google Search, GMail, Google Chrome, Google Wave… okay, scratch Google Wave… Google Maps, Google Earth (my Mum now uses this, which says something!), Google Webmasters and its latest offering Google Goggles (more on this in [...]
External website links. New window or not?
Right. A big bug bear of mine! It has been a growing and annoying trend that links to external sites from one website to another open in a new browser window and it has been something that we advise our clients against… time and time again. Some common misconceptions are listed below with several facts, [...]
Ruby on Rails expert, PHP genius, Apple iPhone developer and mobile DJ joins the growing Mixd team!
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 [...]
Opening external links in a new browser window
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 [...]
Google phases out IE6
News released from Google this morning will bring a smile to many developers! The firm said from 1 March some of its services, such as Google Docs, would not work “properly” with the browser. It recommended individuals and firms upgrade “as soon as possible”. Quote from the Official Google Blog; “The web has evolved in [...]
PHP guru required
Today’s lesson is fundamental Economics… the basics: Supply and Demand. We have high demand for our top-end services and a desire to supply on time, to brief and within budget. In order to achieve this, we like to work with the best in the business. We are currently looking for a top quality PHP developer [...]
Utilising Twitter for business
Twitter is a free social network and micro-blogging service which has been everywhere recently. Companies big and small are using it across the world to get their message out there to thousands within seconds. Twitter does not need to be a one-dimensional method of communication however and if used properly it can be extremely beneficial [...]
Skype on iPhone
The latest update from Skype, the highly anticipated application, Skype™ for iPhone, will be available on the Apple App Store from the beginning of today. With the Skype iPhone application, users will be able to make free calls using Wi-Fi to other Skype users as well as use their Skype accounts to make reduced price [...]
WordPress consultancy
Mixd specialises in website development utilising the open-source WordPress™ publishing platform. Having worked with the WordPress platform for a number of years, we have extended our digital services to include enterprise-level WordPress custom solutions. We can tailor the WordPress system to your specific needs. Here is our five point guide as to why you should [...]
Tellin’ stories
When you think about sitting down and reading a story you imagine leafing through the dusty pages of a nice hardback. Or maybe feeding your obsession for sleazy pulp fiction with something you picked up in the departure lounge on your way to Magaluf on holiday. More recently there has been the advent of digital [...]