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Web and Multimedia Design

Websites are like cars

By Mark | Published October 6, 2011

They come in all shapes and sizes

Picture of a carI often get asked the question, “How much is a website?”. There really is no answer to this, it’s a bit like asking “How much is a car?”. Just as cars can be big, small, fast, reliable, luxury, classic or rusty old bangers – websites too come in all shapes and sizes.

Whether you buy a Ferrari, a Volvo or a Range Rover depends on your needs and budget. Similarly, the creation process of a website must also be tailored to your requirements. After a brief discussion, a good web designer will be able to get a feel for what you are looking for and create something that’s right for you.

Look out for the dodgy dealers in both the car and web industry. You don’t want your wheel falling off as you pull away from the car dealership, or a website that doesn’t work!

They should look good and perform well

You wouldn’t show up to a client meeting in a car that’s chugging along with smoke pouring out of the exhaust. You wouldn’t show up to a client meeting in a car with pink and orange multicoloured doors (I hope!).

First impressions count, and it’s very important that your website looks professional and functions well. If a website looks ugly or doesn’t work it reflects badly upon you and could cost you business.

They can help you reach new places

A car helps you to broaden your horizons. A website helps you reach a larger market. Even the most basic website can act as a great shop window for your company. It’s a marketing tool that’s live 24/7 so you never know who might stumble across it.

More and more people use search engines to find the things they need. Hundreds of millions of searches are made on Google per day, so make sure you have a web presence otherwise you might be losing out on customers.

They need topping up

Without petrol a car won’t go anywhere, unless you fancy pushing it. Without fresh content a website starts to look unloved. I once read this summarised very succinctly – “A website is never finished, only abandoned”.

New content keeps your website dynamic and gives your visitors a reason to come back. Furthermore, the major search engines prefer websites with fresh, unique content and give them priority in their rankings.

Whether it’s an article, some research, pieces of advice or just the latest company news, it all helps to keep your site current.

They need crash testing

Before any car is released it goes through rigorous safety testing. A website must also be tested in a variety of different environments. For example, it needs to display correctly on all of the most common internet browsers and it must be accessible for people who use text only browsers and screen readers. It must also be user tested by other people to make sure the navigation is clear and easy to use.

Need a website? Please get in touch and I would be very happy to discuss it further.

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Three pieces of advice for new web and multimedia designers

By Mark | Published January 26, 2011

I was recently featured in a list of resources for multimedia students and it made me to think back to when I was a student, yet to experience the world of commercial multimedia.

It would be no exaggeration to say that I learned more in my first few months as a multimedia designer than in my entire final year at university; and that’s nothing against my university – I just learned an awful lot! So if I looked back to when I was just leaving university and about to move into employment, what words of advice would I give myself?

Become a good Googler

Google is a fountain of knowledge – Do not be afraid to use it if you get stuck. You might think that your co-workers or your boss will think less of you, but let me tell you, even after over four years as a multimedia designer I visit Google at least once a day to help me solve problems that come my way. Your boss would much rather you spend 20 minutes finding a solution on Google than spend 4 hours trying to solve it yourself.

Being able to use Google to find solutions is a great skill to have. Does the website you are working on not look right in Internet Explorer 6? Are you getting a PHP error? Is that extension that you installed not working? If you encounter a problem the chances are someone else has had it before, so type out the problem or paste the error code into the Google search bar and hit search.

Most of the results will usually be forum threads and blog posts. Scan through these, read the responses and before you know it you will find an answer. (If not, why not register and post your question on one of the forums?)

Test, Test and Test again

It’s happened to me before a number of times. I’ve created something for a client; it works brilliantly on my own computer but then as soon as I try it on theirs, something goes horribly wrong. It’s very embarrassing and sometimes non preventable but it’s definitely something to watch out for.

There are a million different setups a computer can have (Windows/Mac, XP/Vista/7, Internet Explorer/Firefox, different versions of Flash Player) and the list goes on, so it goes without saying that all systems aren’t going to work the same.

When you have built your multimedia or web application you are only two thirds of the way there. You need to test it out on as many different platforms as you can get your hands on. Your sister’s computer, your phone, your Nintendo Wii…

A few years ago I was involved in a project to create a multimedia resource for a very large organisation to be distributed on a CD-ROM. The disc had to run an interactive application if it was put in a PC and play a video through the TV if it was put in a DVD player. We somehow managed to pull it off but the client wanted assurance that it would work in most household DVD players, so we went to the nearest Currys electrical store and they were kind enough to let us try it on a range of different brands!

You probably won’t need to go to these extremes, but why not send it out to friends and family for them to test and report back with any problems?

Back up your work

You will hear this a lot, but believe me, don’t ignore it. There are nasty little gremlins living in your computer that break your equipment when it is least convenient.

A couple of years ago I was involved in the creation of a video and on the very day that it was supposed to be sent to the client, the external hard drive with the Adobe Premiere file, video files, graphics and all other working files broke. Thankfully we had exported an old version of the video a few days earlier, which we were able to chop up and reassemble – but this still cost a lot of extra man hours.

Over time you will develop hundreds of folders of projects, working files, images, content from clients etc. Imagine what would happen if you lost all this…

It’s always a great idea to keep two or more backups of your files. Furthermore you should keep one of them in a completely different location in case of theft, flooding, fires etc. I use a great free program called Spesoft Backup and back up my files on a daily basis.

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Joomla 1.6 is released

By Mark | Published January 11, 2011

Joomla 1.6 is released

Yesterday was a very exciting day for the open source community as Joomla 1.6 – A brand new version of the Joomla content management system was released. The new version boasts a number of great features including enhanced user control, better search engine optimisation options and the ability to automatically update third party extensions. It is also clear that the developers have observed the way people use the previous system (Joomla 1.5) very closely in order to make the administrator panel even more intuitive and improve the user experience.

The videos below demonstrate the great new administrator features and improvements.

http://www.ostraining.com/blog/joomla/three-new-joomla-16-overview-videos-including-acl/

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Slow page load times with Go Daddy

By Mark | Published November 18, 2010

Apologies to anyone who has had any difficulty accessing my website in recent weeks. I am having trouble with my web hosts Go Daddy. Though I don’t want to make a habit of badmouthing companies on my blog, I thought it would be worthwhile to let people know about the problems I have experienced to prevent them from running into the same issues.

I became concerned when I noticed that my website took well over 30 seconds to load at certain times of the day. When I tried to access my website I would see “Waiting for www.marklangdale.com” displayed for a very long time before the page even began to load. My website is developed around the WordPress CMS and its content and settings are stored in a database.

My assumption was that it was taking a very long time for the database server to respond so I decided to monitor the page load time over the period of 24 hours using this fantastic tool (http://www.dataexperts.com/speedtests/index.html). As a comparison I also monitored the load time of a simple, static html page.

This graph shows the results (Click the graph to see full size version):

Website Load times

On average my site seems to load in the region of 5 to 10 seconds but there some very prominent spikes throughout the day, some up to almost 50 seconds! Nobody is going to wait this long for a web page to load, so this could ultimately cause me to lose out on future business.

I decided to search Google to find out if others were experiencing the same problems and sure enough there are plenty… (Click here to view)

The general opinion seems to be that Go Daddy overload their database servers, putting so many databases on each server that they struggle to cope with the load, resulting in unstable and unreliable performance.

I decided to contact Go Daddy, explaining the problems I was experiencing and included the graph that I had created.

Their response looked as if it had been copied and pasted, and basically said that it is normal to experience some spikes with shared hosting and that I should consider purchasing the appropriate Virtual Dedicated or Dedicated Server to ensure that I am not longer sharing resources.

My website has a modest number of hits and would certainly not require a virtual or dedicated server to cope. In my opinion the fact that they even suggest that I upgrade means that they know their shared hosting options are not fit for purpose. Unsatisfied, I emailed back mentioning the list of unhappy customers I had found on Google.

Their response was a very generic sounding apology, with no attempt to rectify or even acknowledge the problem.

I am very disappointed with this level of service so I will be looking to move to a more reliable web host very soon.

I would be very interested to hear from anyone who:

  • Has experienced similar problems with Go Daddy
  • Can suggest any methods of complaint that could be used
  • Can recommend any good hosting companies
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So who else uses Joomla?

By Mark | Published October 6, 2010

JoomlaMore often than not, the websites that I create are based around the Joomla content management system. It is a powerful, intuitive system that allows my clients to edit and maintain their own websites with very little technical knowhow required. Editing pages is very similar to editing a Microsoft Word document!

Joomla is open source software (It’s free!) and has naturally become very popular amongst small to medium sized businesses who want a strong web prescence but don’t have the budget to have a bespoke system developed.

It may suprise you, however, that Joomla is also used by companies with multi million pound turnovers and monthly website visitors in the millions. I came accross the following sites with a quick search using Google:

Samuel L Jackson’s official website – http://samuelljackson.com/
Porsche Brazil – http://www.porsche.com.br/
Outdoor Photographer Magazine – http://www.outdoorphotographer.com/
The English National Ballet – http://www.ballet.org.uk/
Harvard University – http://gsas.harvard.edu
Total NonStop Action Wrestling (TNA) – http://www.tnawrestling.com/index.php

The Total NonStop Action Wrestling website is an excellent example of the potential Joomla has. It is a very large website incorporating video, countdowns, interactive slideshows, RSS feeds, advertisements and much more. As the second largest wrestling federation in the world, the website will have millions of visitors, showing just how capable and reliable the Joomla system is.

Looking for a cost effective website that you can edit yourself, with endless potential for expansion? Feel free to get in touch!

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