Archive for the ‘Technical’ Category
Does exactly what it says on the tin; just the posts that relate to the above...
Ruby on Rails expert, PHP genius, Apple iPhone developer and mobile DJ joins the growing Mixd team!
Friday, May 21st, 2010
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
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010
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
Google phases out IE6
Saturday, January 30th, 2010
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 the last ten years, from simple text pages to rich, interactive applications including video and voice. Unfortunately, very old browsers cannot run many of these new features effectively. So to help ensure your business can use the latest, most advanced web apps, we encourage you to update your browsers as soon as possible. There are many choices:
Many other companies have already stopped supporting older browsers like Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers. We’re also going to begin phasing out our support, starting with Google Docs and Google Sites. As a result you may find that from March 1 key functionality within these products — as well as new Docs and Sites features — won’t work properly in older browsers.”
PHP guru required
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
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 with a good working knowledge of WordPress to join the Mixd team. Initially on a part-time or freelance basis, but it is anticipated that this demand may grow to full-time.
If you want to work with an exciting team, at the top of its game, please get in touch through whatever means suits you best to arrange a chat over a coffee / tea / beer.
Utilising Twitter for business
Thursday, July 30th, 2009
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 for your business.
Most of you will have logged onto your Twitter account yesterday morning and seen a brand-new homepage, and very nice it is too. The key difference you will notice from the old homepage is that the emphasis has shifted very much towards searching the millions of Tweets passing over the network. It is the search function which can bring real benefits to your business or organisation.
How can Twitter benefit your business
The capacity to reach an audience of thousands with your latest business news or updates is obvious. But using the search function can take Twitter well beyond the trivial “what I had for dinner” notion and act as a key tool for you in business. Below are what we consider the key benefits of using the search facility within the network:
- You can instantly search for anyone talking about anything in your field of business, potentially giving you new leads
- It allows you to find anyone talking about or sharing an opinion on your product or service, giving you the chance to gather feedback
- Finding out what your competitors are up to or what people are saying about them has never been easier
- You can find any comments that have been made about your business, whether positive or negative
- The potential for business networking and making contacts is huge
Using the Twitter search function effectively
Twitter have made the search function very flexible by making use of some expressions which will allow your business to return more specific results. Here is an outline of some things you can enter in the Twitter search box beyond the generic keyword(s) search and how it can work for you (what you need to enter in the search box is in bold):
- near:harrogate – Makes your search results specific to a certain area, great if you want to work locally
- “looking for a website” – Matches the exact phrase “looking for a website” If someone is looking for a website, you can find them
- web design OR graphic design – Search Tweets which contain any of the words “web design” or “graphic design”, a lot more specific than a keyword search
- design -CAD – Searches for “design” but excludes all Tweets containing the word “CAD” (computer aided design), allowing you to exclude areas of business that you are not interested in. You can also exclude your own Tweets if you Tweet often enough!
- since:2009-07-01 - Returns Tweets which have been posted since the beginning of July. If your business searches regularly, keep a note of your last search date and you will only see recent Tweets
- from:mixd – See what a specific business or organisation has been saying
- to:mixd – Shows Tweets directed at a specific business or organisation i.e. Tweets that start “@mixd ….”
- @mixd – Search for references to a certain business or organisation i.e. Tweets that contain “@mixd”
- #help – Matches hash tags posted within Tweets, for people that have dedicated the tag as an important search term
When you look at the example below, you can really see just how specific your business can get with your searching and how powerful a tool it can be:
“looking for a website” OR “looking for design” -CAD near:harrogate since:2009-07-01 #help
You can instantly find anyone who is looking for a website or looking for design (not computer aided) near Harrogate since the start of July, who needs help! The benefits in searching this specifically are enormous.
Want to start using Twitter?
We recommend using CoTweet which is ideal to focus your company’s Tweeting and is used by some of the biggest companies in the world.
CoTweet allows your business to set up user accounts for as many people as you wish across your organisation, letting everyone contribute and manage your Twitter output. The main benefit of course is that it allows you to focus all your Twitter activity into one area. CoTweet also has a very good search facility, an archive and an inbox which allows you to see and store messages people have posted to your Twitter directly using the “@” symbol. We have been using CoTweet (still in Beta) here at Mixd for the past few months and we couldn’t recommend it highly enough!
At Mixd we encourage the use of Twitter as a marketing tool alongside any web project we undertake and hopefully you can begin to see the true potential of making Twitter work for your business.
Skype on iPhone
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
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 calls to traditional landline phones. Whilst this service has been available for some time for Nokia, Windows Mobile and Google Android phones, this is a huge development for iPhone users that have been requesting this for some time.
The Skype application for the iPhone or iPod touch will be available for free from Apple’s App Store on both devices.
WordPress consultancy
Thursday, March 19th, 2009
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 use WordPress:
It’s free!
Yes, that’s right, WordPress is open source, so there’s no cost to using or distributing it; and it runs on PHP and MySQL, both of which are similarly free to use. This greatly reduces the cost of development.
Simple to use
One of the great benefits of the WordPress publishing system is its so easy to use. The number one reason that content management system implementations fail is lack of adoption by owners and authors. We believe the WordPress system the most usable, intuitive and easy to learn publishing system available.
Full standards compliance
Every bit of WordPress generated code is in full compliance with the standards of the W3C. This is important not only for interoperability with today’s browsers but also for forward compatibility with the tools of the next generation.
Modular architecture
The open architecture of the system allows for content types and further functionality or logic to be ‘plugged’ into it in a modular fashion. This allows for scalability and developers to write code for WordPress.
No lock-in
Decide you don’t like Mixd and want to work with a different web agency? Any competent web developer should be able to work with the files we’ve coded, meaning you’re not locked in to working with one agency.
Search Engine Optimisation for WordPress
WordPress comes with several built in search optimisation tools that make it easier to optimise your website.
To find out more about how WordPress can help you please contact Mixd
Tellin’ stories
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
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 books – but all they do is present the reader with pages, albeit digital pages staring back at you from an LCD screen.
Now, however, the whole concept of storytelling is being re-invented with this lovely piece of interactivity brought to the world by a small company called Six to Start in conjunction with Penguin Books. Hopefully the door between fact and fiction, reality and virtuality has been nudged open just a little bit more.