Web Design Essex Blog

Bird Control using Falconry

2011-12-01T01:01:00.001-08:00

Nuisance pigeons are a very common problem and one that is particularly acute in London where pigeon populations are high. There are several methods available to prevent pigeons from roosting, landing and nesting at a particular site but one of the more humane and innovative techniques is using Falconry.

Bird Control using Falconry is where highly trained birds of prey, guided by their handler, fly around a location be that a business premises, government building or public space to scare the pigeons. With frequent visits from the bird of prey, often a Harris Hawk, and their handler the Hawk makes itself well known and pigeons are forced to move on elsewhere.

Very rarely are pigeons actually killed or injured by the Hawks as that's not the aim but rather to upset the normal roosting and nesting habits of the pigeons so they seek another place to call home.

Bird Control using Falconry is used at many high profile business and government premises in London as it often offsets the cost of the expensive and specialist cleaning that is required when nuisance pigeons are left unchecked.

This article has a summary of several bird control methods that are available.

The Benefits of Theatre Training for Children and Young Adults

2010-10-07T01:13:00.000-07:00

Theatre training has many benefits for children and young adults beyond the obvious ones such as improving and broadening their skills and technique and their readiness for live theatre performances. Theatre training includes acting, singing and dance classes.

Theatre training provides an unparalleled platform from which young performers can explore their own creativity in an environment where their creativity is encouraged and celebrated. This relaxed and supportive environment enables many students to tap into their own hidden talents which have never before been given the opportunity of expression. Students reading and presentation skills are often improved as a consequence of their theatre training.

An open and inclusive teaching environment, a world away from the “classroom” helps to build performers confidence over time which cascades down to benefit all areas of their school, family and personal life. During even short periods of attendance students often form strong friendships with staff and pupils alike and that is one of the many factors that keep students returning.

Many of our courses culminate with an end of term theatre performance in front of a live audience of family and friends. This is often the most rewarding part of the process for students (and parents too) as students are able put into action the new skills and techniques they have gained during the course and enjoy the unique “buzz” and sense of achievement that comes from a successful live theatre performance.

Curtain Call Academy is a stage academy based in Essex (UK) for children and young adults. The academy encourages young performers to have fun, be creative and let their talents shine.

Why Outsourcing IT Support is Right for Your Business

2010-03-16T08:29:00.000-07:00

For any small/medium sized enterprise (SME) IT is crucial to your day-to-day operations yet it is difficult to justify the expense of a dedicated IT person or persons in order to give you the level of IT support and back-up you require. Even if you did have a dedicated IT person what would happen on days they are ill or on holiday if an emergency were to occur? How would you ensure that person was kept up to date with the latest technology and best practice? How would you evaluate prospective candidate’s knowledge at the interview stage?

For almost all SMEs outsourcing your IT support and IT consultancy is the right option for the business. It allows you to benefit from the same high level of knowledge and expertise that would usually only be reserved for large corporations and multinationals. Without the burden of a full-time staff member’s salary you can often benefit from significant costs savings as well. The flexibility of only paying for the expertise and time you require helps to make your IT budget go further too.

Members of staff come and go but you can retain an IT support agency for as long as you wish. So you benefit from that continuity by having a team who always have an up-to-date knowledge of your business, the challenges you face and the IT systems, software and configuration you already have in place.

While your IT support agency is working on other clients IT systems they might deploy a new hardware or software solution that could solve a similar problem in your organisation. It’s this shared expertise and know-how that you are able to benefit from without having to invest in expensive training programmes and courses were you to consider an in-house IT support person.

The range of services offered by an IT agency is likely to cover every possible need you may have now and in the future, it would be impossible to find a similar breadth of expertise from a single member of staff. Last but not least an IT Support agency is able to offer you complete peace of mind in terms of 24 hours a day 7 days a week support coverage which would be impossible to find in even the most dedicated of staff members.

PDQ Computers Ltd have been providing IT Support and Consultancy from their Essex headquarters since 1995, serving SME and corporate clients in London and mainland UK.

Is your sales team performing to their full potential?

2009-08-18T00:10:00.000-07:00

That's a question that most business leaders would probably answer with "no". Often sales teams perform well below their best and even with good sales people there is always room for improvement as sales processes and sales training tend to develop over time if at all. One of the challenges for Sales Managers is that they are often too busy with the day-to-day tasks of management (producing forecasts, dealing with personnel issues, developing sales leads, writing proposals, etc.) to be able to stand back and take an objective view of how their sales people are performing. This means it is very difficult for them or the business to evaluate their people, their processes or the direction and consistency of the sales function in a truly objective way.

That's where The Boardroom Assessment Centre can help. Essentially, The Boardroom provides businesses with the tools and framework to develop real sales leaders. They work with you to deliver sales training and assessment programmes that identity the areas where your sales process is failing your business or where your sales people are not maximising their potential. From the outcomes of these assessments, The Boardroom then put together bespoke sales training in Essex or sales management training and development programmes designed to improve sales performance. They do this by using their considerable experience of high value sales from a broad range of industries along with a real understanding of what constitutes ‘best practice’ in sales and sales management.

This is a task that can only be performed by a team who are external to your business, who can take the time to review how your sales people operate from the outside in and make objective comparisons with other high performing sales teams from yours or other sectors. This means that they can determine performance benchmarks and highlight the areas where improvements can be made; improvements that can make a huge difference to sales performance; ultimately delivering real return on investment for your business.

IIS6 using an SSL certificate on more than one site on one IP

2009-05-29T03:10:00.000-07:00

This is the command to run:

C:\Inetpub\AdminScripts>cscript.exe adsutil.vbs set /w3svc//SecureBindings ":443:"

Site indentifier - Is the site ID assigned by IIS
Host name - Is the site URL e.g. something.domain.com, www.domain.com

This command is useful if you have a wildcard or unified communications certificate.

Original article is here:

http://www.sslshopper.com/article-how-to-configure-ssl-host-headers-in-iis-6.html

MODx "$rs not set! New variable not saved!" Error

2009-01-19T07:07:00.000-08:00

After upgrading MySQL on a new server I noticed an issue with MODx not being able to add Template Variables. I managed to find a workaround by setting the sort order to "0" which allowed the new Template Variable (TV) to be saved. The problem wasn't solved though as the TV would not store any content. The solution was to change the MySQL configuration to remove "STRICT_ALL_TABLES" or "STRICT_TRANS_TABLES" from the "sql-mode" in the MySQL ini file.

MODx Ditto Error

2009-01-05T23:07:00.000-08:00

Just had this error after I upgraded a site from 0.9.6.2 to 0.9.6.3:

PHP error debug
Error: Missing argument 18 for ditto::determineIDs(), called in D:\inetpub\vhosts\tcp.eu.com\httpdocs\manager\includes\document.parser.class.inc.php(769) : eval()'d code on line 792 and defined
Error type/ Nr.: Warning - 2
File: D:\inetpub\vhosts\tcp.eu.com\httpdocs\assets\snippets\ditto\classes\ditto.class.inc.php
Line: 571
Line 571 source: function determineIDs($IDs, $IDType, $TVs, $orderBy, $depth, $showPublishedOnly, $seeThruUnpub, $hideFolders, $hidePrivate, $showInMenuOnly, $myWhere, $keywords, $dateSource, $limit, $summarize, $filter, $paginate, $randomize) {

The solution was to overwrite the "assets/snippets/ditto" folder with the version from the previous MODx install. Or the other option would be to update the snippet calls as there must be a change in the new version of ditto.

The Largest Tree Crusher in The World

2008-12-09T05:38:00.000-08:00

After spending some time working on the mini crusher hire websites for Taylor Construction Plant it made me wonder how big the largest crusher in the world might be.

Well in the Internet era there's no need to wonder! I searched on Google and found this super crusher. An awesome feat of engineering but I have to feel sorry for the trees.

Thankfully the Hi-C40 crusher from TCP is a different kind of beast and is more suited to crushing concrete paving slabs, bricks and other general building rubble. Ideal for a new sub-base or similar.

Crusher Hire to the Rescue!

2008-12-04T10:55:00.000-08:00

The construction industry is going through one of the worst periods in most people's memory and with banks offering mortgages that require a 40% deposit it's no wonder first time buyers are becoming a very rare breed. That's not to mention the effect that job uncertainty and falling prices is having on the UK housing market.

But fear not because there are means and ways in which the small builder and landscaper can reduce their costs and improve their efficiency. OK, it's not going to solve all the problems, far from it, but mini crusher hire can certainly help.

There are no doubt many an occassion when small builders and landscapers could hire a mini crusher and avoid having to use a skip and then buy in imported fill. The net result is a significant saving. Plus you can boast of your green recycling credentials!

Thankfully I know just the people who can help too:

Nice Alpha Transparency Scrolling Effect

2008-11-19T02:18:00.000-08:00

Similar to the Clearleft Silverback holding page:

http://www.webleeddesign.com/

PHP Mcrypt

2008-11-18T01:26:00.000-08:00

To install PHP Mcrypt:

Uncomment the php_mcrypt.dll extension in the php.ini file
Copy the libmcrypt.dll from the PHP install root to C:\WINDOWS\System32\
Restart WWW service

Zend Optimiser Error

2008-11-18T00:20:00.000-08:00

After installing Zend Optimiser v3.3 on a Windows Server 2003 running Plesk 8.2 I noticed an error at the very bottom of all PHP pages.

The error stated:

"Unable to load dynamic library"

"The specified module could not be found"

It listed out various DLL files like php_curl.dll, php_gd2.dll.

The solution was found here:

http://kb.parallels.com/en/975

To fix this problem , the following key needs to be removed:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PHP\IniFilePath.

Then all .php scripts will continue using correct .ini files.

Crusher Hire Kent and Sussex Go Live

2008-08-26T23:12:00.000-07:00

They're coming thick and fast! An additional two mini crusher sites went live recently, this time focusing on Crusher Hire in Kent and Crusher Hire in Sussex. The sites both borrow the design from the first Crusher Hire site for the Essex region so there's a similarity there but that's pretty much where it ends. The content and feeds included in the website are customised to each county, so visitors receive weather and news for their own county rather than Essex, handy that!

Crusher Hire Essex goes live

2008-08-14T10:06:00.001-07:00

I'm pleased to see a recent website go live, Crusher Hire Essex for Taylor Construction Plant (TCP). It's a small one page website which is a bit of a departure from the main TCP website in terms of the graphic design style but I felt it was high time we tried something new and a juicy micro-site project is always a great opportunity to do just that.

I've made considerable use of the excellent jQuery JavaScript library, in particular the localScroll, Easing and LavaLamp scripts. The overall design is very light in terms of actual text as I've focussed on images as much a possible and used some large and striking photography to make the website stand out from its competitors.

My addiction to MODx continues as I decided to use it for the back-end even though this is just a one page site but it made the process of linking in RSS feeds so straightforward using FeedX rather than hacking around to produce something bespoke. Plus if we need to expand upon the site at a later date, we have the foundations to do so.

I've just done a search on Google.co.uk and Google.com and the site is number one for "crusher hire essex" so that's great news.

The new website Crusher Hire Essex promotes TCP's two mini crushers for hire, the MF-450 mini crusher and the Hi-C40 mini crusher.

Twitter updates output to website

2008-04-17T12:06:00.000-07:00

One area where I think Twitter is really useful is in posting short updates to a website. I'm currently in the early stages of a project for a local charity that does a lot of work in fairly remote locations around the world.

I suppose mobile network coverage might be the killer to this idea but how great would it be for someone on a project in Africa to post short updates, sent via text message to their website.

I'm thinking along the lines of "We've just installed an irrigation water tower at an orphanage in Kenya and the water is now flowing! (posted 15 minutes ago)". That to me is really powerful, not only from a geek point of view but if I was a visitor to the site I'd be really encouraged to donate knowing that work is actually happening right now.

The best thing is how easy this is to achieve it's just a matter of dropping the Twitter RSS feed into the site homepage and then styling it.

Twitter, Skype and Facebook

2008-04-17T09:51:00.000-07:00

OK, so I've finally decided to see what all the Twitter fuss is about and sign-up for an account, I was a little dissapointed that my usual username was taken but I managed to come up with something else, but what's this my email address is already registered? Oh yes, I do actually recall registering many moons ago, shows how useful it has proved for me thus far.

I guess it is a little chicken and egg as without any of my friends using it it's not really going to take off for me personally. I read the blogs of quite a few people who do use it but I'm not sure if I'm really close enough friends with them to warrant knowing what they are up to at every moment of the day.

I do have to say though if all my friends were Twittering it could really become useful. I can imagine a situation when on a Sunday someone could Twiter, "thinking about going to the pub" and before you know it we're all at the pub. I suppose text messaging could do the same job but it's easier and perhaps more on the spot than actually sending a text out saying "Do you want to come to the pub" and because we'd all receive updates from each other it would be easier to arrange something.

So Twitter allows you to send updates through their website and also from your mobile and some IM clients but notebly not from Skype. But most of the day I'm signed in to Skype and it would be really handy to update Twitter through that. So I did a quick Google and found an article that describes a slightly mysterious method for doing just that. Gave it a try and it works perfectly I can now update Twitter through Skype.

But I have a Facebook account too and it would be good to also be able to push my Twitters through to my Facebook status as well. That's also possible, I added TwitterSync which is a Facebook application and hey presto I can update Skype to Twitter to Facebook! But what if I don't want to send all my Twitters to Facebook and fill up everyones news feed with my Twitter updates? Well, TwitterSync includes a regex function or filter so Twitters that start with a certain string e.g. "FB:" are the only ones that change my Facebook status. I'm just hoping the application developer is going to make it so that the regex prefix is removed before the status is posted to Facebook as it does look a little clumsy to have "FB:" at the start of my status updates.

MODx and Flash

2008-04-11T00:18:00.000-07:00

I've always been a serious fan of Flash, I don't think there's a better tool for designers as you can build pretty much anything you can imagine. Although that's not always a good thing when you consider the usability sins early Flash work commited in terms of scrollbars that didn't resemble scrollbars in any way, shape or form but the components are solving that problem.

Anyway, as much as I would love to create every site in Flash I can't, simply because it's lousy when it comes to search engine indexing. Such as shame, as this I think is the major constraint that has held Flash back since day one. Google I know indexes Flash but I'm yet to see a Flash site in a high position for a competitive search term, it just isn't going to happen.

I suppose as well there are occassions such as when designing a very content intensive site Flash probably isn't the tool for the job. I do recall in days of old when Macromedia used Flash for content pages in their site and they had some rather slick features as a result but it wasn't long until they removed it and went back to plain HTML which was similar to scoring an own goal in my book.

What does get me excited is the prospect of being able to output content from a CMS like MODx or Umbraco into Flash as that would be really cool. The CMS could be used to manage the content and then Flash can be used to render it to the browser with all the bells and whistles. To ensure the search engines are satisfied I'd want to output the content to a HTML site as well, running from the same content as Flash. So updating the content in the CMS would update the Flash and HTML site.

I wonder if we could use the JavaScript flashObject script to embed Flash into the HTML site, over the HTML content?

So lets say I arrive at the site and I have Flash, the SWF could be inserted by JavaScript over the HTML version so therefore giving me the best experience. But a search engine would still be able to index the site as a standard HTML website, interesting prospect.

Open Source Content Management

2008-03-28T00:13:00.000-07:00

We've been working on a series of content management system (CMS) projects recently and after looking at a few open source content management systems we decided to use MODx.

I've been consistently impressed with how easy it is to use and as I have experience of a few CMSs it was a real breeze to learn. I read very little in terms of documentation and was able to pretty much assume how various features worked and to my delight I wasn't far wrong. It's great when you think something like "I wonder if a template variable will allow me to do x" and it does!

Another good thing about the MODx CMS is that it's very responsive, I've played around with Umbraco as well which looks really good but I think MODx wins out on speed as Umbraco is very sluggish at times which ultimately slows down the web design process.

The best thing about MODx and Umbraco is the fact that they're open source it's fantastic to be able to offer clients a CMS that doesn't cost them anything, just the implementation costs.

If I could find fault with MODx it would have to be the initial screen that appears when you select a page. It displays a lot of information about the page and also the code view of the cached version. This is useful but I do feel the money page is the edit one so I think it would be better if it opened on that by default rather than the information page. 9 times out of 10 the edit page is probably the one users are looking for anyway.