Presence Multimedia

A social networking website is one which focusses on creating and nuturing online communities of people who share interests and activities. Social networking websites are commonly referenced when describing the Web 2.0 philosophy.

Examples of social networking websites :

• Flickr
• Facebook
• Bebo
• Twitter
• MySpace
• YouTube

You may have heard the phrase 'Web 2.0' over the last few years. This term has come to describe a new philosophy which embraces the internet as a genuine software platform. The philosophy doesn't so much describe changes in technology but more of a 'mind-shift'. The main aspects of the Web 2.0 philosopy can be roughly outlined as :

• Social Software - the creation and nuturing of online communities of people with shared interests
• Simplicity - creating smaller, more focused, websites
• Usability - prioritising user-friendliness and ease-of-use
• Standardisation - adopting and creating worldwide standards for commonly-used functionality and technology
• Mobility - make more lightweight websites that can be easily viewed on mobile devices
• Remixability - extend or enhance a website by combining it's functionality and features with other websites/services
• Open APIs (Application Programming Interface) - a publicly available interface to access data and functionality within a website or service

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. This is the commonly used term to describe techniques and measures put in place to ensure a website features high within results pages of search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN etc.). As more than 90% of people find websites through search engines it is becoming increasingly important to ensure you feature as high as possible for relevant keywords.

Although search engine companies are very secretive about the methods they use to rank websites, there are several basic steps we can take to give your website the best possible chance of achieving a high ranking :

• Ensure important content on the website is available in plain text (HTML)
• If important content is within a Flash movie, ensure an accessible text version is also available
• Use semantic HTML markup (e.g. important headings use the <h1> tag)
• Ensure pages have 'bookmarkable' and permanent URLs
• Ensure URLs are search engine friendly (e.g. /products/product-name/ instead of /products.php?id=135)
• If possible, secure links to the website from relevant high-ranking websites
• Minimise outbound links (links to other websites)

Although we are not a dedicated SEO consultancy, we have a good understanding of making 'search-engine friendly' websites and can provide the foundations to help it achieve high rankings for relevant keywords.

We are listed on Business Link's North East England Service Provider Register (NNESPR). When applying for funding through Business Link, ensure you quote our company name and NEESPR no. (SPR424). Visit www.businesslink.gov.uk to contact your local Business Link office.

We are also an approved supplier to the Catalyst project. The initiative offers 50% funding, up to a maximum of £2,000, for IT and internet projects. More information can be found at www.n-e-life-catalyst2.co.uk

It can sometimes be difficult to know where to start in organising a web-based project. To get the ball rolling, download our Project Worksheet (Word Doc, 40k). Completing the worksheet will allow us to understand your needs better and provide you with an accurate quote. Once you've completed it, email it to .

Although we always advocate the 'best tool for the job' when approaching a project, we have our particular favourites. For websites that feature dynamically generated content, we use the open source combination of PHP and MySQL. When it comes to deployment, our preferred environment is the Apache Web Server running on any flavour of Unix/Linux.

The front-end of our websites are constructed using a combination of standards compliant XHTML and CSS, with unobtrusive javascript (DOM scripting) to add interactivity and subtle interface enhancements. Where appropriate, we will use Flash for more complex animation, video or interaction.

Our websites are hosted at Telehouse, a state of the art datacentre in London. The building provides optimum security, power, access and operating conditions for webservers. We only access our servers via SFTP, a secure version of standard FTP which encrypts all data being sent by us to Telehouse. Our servers run PHP, MySQL and Apache on a custom installation of Debian (Linux).

Flash is plug-in based technology, meaning that your web browser (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox) requires some 3rd party software to playback Flash ‘movies’. Although the plug-in has always been freely available through Adobe's website, it is now a standard part of modern web browsers and operating systems. Adobe claim it to be in use in over 250 million computers worldwide.

The advantages

The main benefit of using Flash in website design involves harnessing it’s rich graphics, animation and powerful programming features. Flash movies can feature sophisticated smooth animations, colour blending and opacity and accurate typography. Flash also produces relatively small file sizes (in comparison to animated GIF or video versions).

The disadvantages

With Flash, and like most things in life, there is a downside :

Poor Usability & Accessibility

Although Adobe have improved Flash considerably over the last few years, it still suffers from poor accessibility and usability. Flash movies are almost entirely visual, with no text alternative, so blind or visually impaired users are left without. Simple accessibility tests such as enlarging the text through a web browser have no effect on Flash movies. Some of the most basic fundamentals of using the internet, such as using the back button, bookmarking, printing and scrolling pages, have no effect on Flash movies.

Diminished Search Engine Rankings

Search engine spiders, travelling around ‘reading’ websites, are unable to index any content or follow any hyperlinks within Flash movies. As a result your search engine rankings are diminished. As more and more people use Google and Yahoo to find what they’re looking for, your search engine rankings become crucial to the success of your website.

Longer Maintenance

The nature of Flash movies means they are difficult to maintain. Whereas a simple adjustment to a standard webpage can be made by editing some XHTML or CSS, the correct source file for the Flash movie has to be located, edited then compiled to create a new ‘movie’. If your website contains several movies linked together, a simple adjustment can take much longer than expected.

Conclusion

Used in the correct ways, Flash can be a very effective tool in the design of your website. Sometimes it’s impossible to achieve the requests of clients without using Flash, though we always ensure the client is aware of the pros and cons.

In our experience, Flash is best used as part of a website — for a standalone animation, game or banner — rather than the basis for the whole website. This ‘hybrid’ method of building websites ensures that you still get the impact of using Flash without sacrificing the usability and accessibility of your website.

In our Bits’n’Bobs section we have several Flash examples that have been integrated into a 'standard' XHTML & CSS website.

A Content Management System (CMS) allows you to easily maintain the content of your website without any technical or programming knowledge. As more people recognise websites to be a regularly updated resource of information and content, so the reliance on a flexible and easy-to-use CMS becomes more important.

When we build websites we use our own in-house CMS, developed and enhanced over 6 years, to provide clients with this flexibility. We have also helped clients work with 3rd party CMS' such as MODx, Wordpress and Drupal.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a form of XML (eXtensible Markup Language). RSS is a standard data format to distribute news content, though it can be used to share almost any type of information. The format was originally developed by Netscape for sharing information across portals, but when Netscape lost interest the format was developed further by Userland for their weblogging software and services.

RSS really took off when thousands of bloggers started to use it to publish their own content and read content from other weblogs. Commonly termed as syndication, most major news sites such as BBC, Google News and CNN use this method to share their content to other RSS-aware sources. These sources may be third party websites, desktop applications or software - pretty much anything that can read and parse data.

The logo shown is often used to represent a link to an RSS feed on a website.

More information is available on Wikipedia.

In order to accept credit card transactions online an internet merchant account is required. An internet merchant account can be acquired from any bank, although is it typically setup from the one which maintains your business account.

The fees involved in maintaining an internet account vary, but you will usually be charged a set-up fee, a percentage rate for credit card transactions, and a flat rate for debit card transactions. Over time, as you build up a relationship and business history with your bank, you can usually re-negotiate these rates.

We have experience with the following e-commerce products -

• Protx
• WorldPay (Royal Bank of Scotland)
• Barclays ePDQ
• PayPal

Absolutely. More information here.

Where possible, our websites are built to achieve AAA rating, as specified by the W3C group - this is the highest rating achievable. This ensures the website complies with the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).

When building our websites we utilise experience gained over the last 6 years in testing websites with blind and visually impaired users, having taken part in testing with Age Concern Newcastle and the Newcastle Blind Society.

Ajax is a termed coined to describe a combination of technologies used to update distinct areas of a webpage. Typically to update content on a webpage (e.g. to show search results) a whole new webpage is requested from the server and displayed to the user. With Ajax, small updates to content can occur in the background without the need for a complete page refresh.

The main benefit of using Ajax technology is to provide the user with a much more responsive interface (almost comparable with a traditional desktop application) and allows websites to appear more like web 'applications' than static 'pages'. Ajax is commonly described in reference to Web 2.0 projects.

More information is available at Wikipedia.

1. Strategy
   What do you wish to get from the project, and what should the project users expect from it?
2. Scope
   What are the core features and functionality of the project?
3. Structure
   How is the information organised? This stage is also sometimes referred to as information architecture and generally organises the navigation of the interface.
4. Design
   This stage looks at the visual aspects of the project. We will present various designs and undertake a design process to establish the visual identity of the project.
5. Build
   This stage involves the actual development of the public pages and, if appropriate, the Content Management System. Throughout this stage the client is able to view the project in progress on our own secure development server.
6. Testing, Compliance & Launch
   This stage involves thorough testing of the features and functionality of the project. For websites, the public pages will also be tested for standards compliance and accessibility. At the end of this stage the project will be successfully launched online.