blog archive.

Following on from the success of their first online store, Sustrans have asked us to build an updated version that's more in line with their current branding.

The most noticeable changes will include a new ‘look and feel’, an enhanced product search option, intuitive navigation and the choice of either using a ‘quickshop’ option to buy one-off items, or creating your own user account with associated wish list and order history.

Behind the scenes we'll be integrating a bespoke management system, making it as easy as possible for Sustrans administrators to keep the product catalogue completely up to date and running smoothly. New areas, like ‘special offers’, will be updated easily and instantaneously, giving Sustrans more flexibility on pricing and product placement.

Our latest web project has been a true collaboration between young people and the Focus New Media team.  Go Places Do Things is an exciting new site designed specifically by and for young people in Bristol.

Teenagers from the GPDT steering group have provided invaluable input throughout the project, from deciding upon the site's 'look and feel', to suggestions on content and even provided eagle-eyed help during the bug testing phase.

On the site young people can find out about sports, arts, volunteering, music events, festivals, youth clubs, cultural and leisure events and places that can offer support.

Go Places Do Things has been developed as part of the Integrated Youth Support and Development Service (IYSDS) those who have contributed include Children and Young Peoples Services, Youth and Play Services and Connexions West of England.

Organisations can register now to add their own events to the calendar, while anyone else is welcome to sign up and leave their comments about the site.

We're pleased to announce the arrival of the newest member of the FNM clan!

Simon Mosse has come on board to create fresh designs, interesting concepts and bring bright visual ideas to each of our new web projects. 

Having graduated with a Fine Art degree from Leeds University in 2004, Simon moved into graphic and web design, working primarily within the third sector.

In his spare time he likes cooking, gardening, films, photography and drawing stuff. 

Apart from that, he has been known to play harmonica, breakdance, snow board and graffiti - all legally, of course, and not at the same time.

Connexions West has been providing teenagers all over the region with sound advice and support for almost two decades.  Their website has been at the heart of this provision since 2001, and is currently used by hundreds of young people and adults every day. 

With this in mind, we have consulted current Connexions users throughout the design process to get their feedback and views.  Two of the ideas that came out of this exercise were:

- the inclusion of social networking bookmarks that allow users to post links from Connexions to their favoured social network, eg: Bebo, Facebook, Myspace.

- the provision of an enhanced online job application section that will allow young people to send their CV direct to employers.


Refreshing the underlying code and adding some additional technical features will ensure that the site meets UK Government guidelines on web site accessibility.  This is important for disabled users of the internet but will also help search engines find and favourably rank Connexions in its results pages.

As well as this project, we are also working with Connexions on a new version of i-Point, a website aimed at supporting adults and promoting education.  Both websites are set to go live later this summer, in time to support students in the new academic year.

Well, clever perhaps isn't the word but effective sounds a bit dull.

Creating a buzz around Firefox 3.0's launch day by attempting to make a World Record for the number of software downloads has worked rather well.  Over 8.3 million users grabbed the software within the 24-hour window, a figure that is being impartially scrutinised before submission to the Guinness Book of Records.

The fact that no other software company has previously attempted this record will no doubt leave some well-paid marketing execs kicking themselves. 

In terms of web development, Firefox 3.0 promises a "leaner, speedier experience", with access to sites like gmail being up to 6 times faster.  It certainly has our own developers smiling!

If you've noticed your site stats going through the roof recently it may not be down to your 2nd quarter marketing efforts but an unexpected side effect of AVG's latest anti-virus software.

20 million users are estimated to have upgraded to version 8 over the past couple of months.  One of the first things you'll notice upon installation is that for any search carried out in Google, Yahoo or MSN, a green tick or red cross appears by each returned result. 

AVG searches all sites for malware, disguising itself as a 'real' visitor to fool the more sophisticated programmes.  Which is good news for users but disastrous for website owners who rely on analytics packages to successfully measure 'real' traffic from which to base their online marketing budget. 

By making an anti-malware 'probe' that is indistinguishable from a human visit, AVG may have accidentally created more problems than it intended to solve.  Web developers may have to work hard to produce an answer to this mess or demand that AVG modify its package.

Source: The Register

This week we'll be concentrating on broadband technology.  The future of UK web development industry very well may depend upon increased investment in this area to ensure we don't fall behind other European nations in the race for average 100Mbps speeds.

What made me think of this today:

 - Radio 4 program last week talking about the total lack of broadband in some areas of the Scottish Highlands.

 - The BBC's front page news this morning (in the technology section).

 - remembering our blog post back in January.

"Honeybees can communicate with others from far-off continents by learning to interpret their dance moves, scientists have found."

I'm afraid I can't think of even the most tenuous link between this article and web development or our industry, it's just the best thing I've read in the papers all week.

Cross species communication doesn't happen all that much (unless you count how many times your pet dog induces you to yawn a week) so it's pretty exciting when it does.  Especially when this involves the deployment of jazz hands (or wings oscillating wildly, which is almost the same thing).

Honeybees find food sources by sending out intrepid explorer bees to find flower food or die trying.  If they return, they have to do a little dance to let other worker bees know in which direction it lies and how far to travel.  Different honeybee species dance in a variety of manners (the French precariously carrying a baguette under one wing, for example).

Amazingly, if you put a bunch of Eurasian honeybees and Asian honeybees together in a hive, the latter species manage to learn the formers' funky dance moves in a jiffy - leading them to the same food sources!  Brilliant!!!

You can read the proper articles about honey bees here and here.  For more stories about shaking pandas and cannibalistic ladybirds, go here and here.

Sources
Guardian
Science Daily
Null Hypothesis
Animal of the Week

Facebook has just been charged with a series of privacy violations by a Canadian public policy group.

Perhaps it was only a matter of time before this happened, especially after the latest BBC reportage indicated how easily a rogue program could be created to harvest personal information from the site.

Canadian officials have called for a full review of social networking rules.  In terms of web development, this appears to be an essential next step for one of the fastest-growing areas of our industry. 

Source: ComputerWorld