NEESH Design Blog
This is a quick list of considerations to think about before contracting a web designer to ensure you get what you need in a web site. Sure it’s easy to meet with your web designer, give your brief then leave it up to them to put it all together but with a little forethought into what you really want and how much you are willing to pay will help turn an OK website into one that you are really excited about and returns the results you want. It’s still surprising how little emphasis some businesses put into their website and at the other end of the scale how much dedication is poured into the company web site by others. When businesses start getting online enquiries, this is generally the time more interest is given to the online presence. This list is by no means exhaustive so it would be great to hear your thoughts on what clients could consider to provide a solid foundation for their new web site.
Well, I’m sure there are more things to consider so hopefully some comments will fill in the extras. As mentioned these are just considerations that may be useful to think about before rushing in to get a web site and should help you contribute to the process of building an effective marketing tool for your business.
Trying the recent Thumbshots plugin that Antonie Potgieter from Tribulant Software has developed. Antonie’s developed a useful range of wordpress plugins that have performed very well on some of my clients sites. Easy to install and use. Great way to liven up blog posts. Just install the plugin then add into the html where you want the thumbshot to appear on the website.
I’ve volunteered to compile a DVD slideshow for the Kurrawa Nippers group and was hoping that an aussie band/s or artist might consider authorising the free use of their music. There are 8 age groups and they will all get their own section on the DVD so hopefully each will have their own sound track otherwise I will just use the same track for each age group which won’t be quite as interesting.
Credit to any Artist supplying music will be mentioned on the DVD and a copy given to the artist for their portfolio. It doesn’t matter how old the music is just as long as it’s G-rated and compliments the Surf Life Saving Club theme. Any help much appreciated. Phone 07 5538 2545, 0404 375 559 or use the contact form on this website. All proceeds from the sale of the DVD will go the the Kurrawa SLSC club. NEESH design receives no payment of any form for this project.
This would be a useful gadget. The idea is to have a transponder that can be attached to an object and a master transponder that sounds an alarm if the distance between the two transponders exceeds a certain limit. I don’t know much about electronics but being able to set different distances for the alarm to trigger would be beneficial for different uses. The small transponder could be attachable to an item or placed in a pocket, desk or appropriate place of alert. The slave transponder would be smaller to allow easy attachment and positioning. The master transponder wiould need to be slightly larger to accommodate a fairly audible alarm.
Slave & Master Transponders
Uses could include:
I’m sure this list could be extended on for different uses and the technology could probably be implemented into mobile phones etc. It is often unknown when and where you may have had an item stolen but even if the theft isn’t prevented by the alarm, at least you would be aware of the place and time of the incident for Police and Insurance reports etc.
Seeing the new dual screen laptop at http://www.gscreencorp.com/ reminded me of a concept for a dual screen that I had some years ago. After giving presentations to clients all huddled around my laptop (when the screens were only visible sitting directly in front) I thought it would be ideal to have a laptop with opposing screens so I could be on one side and the client could view from the opposite side.
Although not ideal with the screen positioned at a 90 degree angle, it still would be useful for anyone giving presentations to small groups, real estate agents, finance brokers, sales reps etc.
The Gscreen prompted a modification to the concept by having a hinged based system for the screens so that they could be adjusted to varying angles and have the possibility of 2 screens facing the user. Here are a couple of pictures to look at.
There are some obvious flaws with the concept, some being:
When my outlook XP froze on Monday I thought it was going to be an easy fix…reboot on you go scenario. After searching and trying many suggestions on what is apparently a common problem with this version (and earlier) having a 2gb size limit for the .pst file I luckily came across the most helpful problem solver post at www.peeniewallie.com/2006/02/you_have_exceed.html.
The advice from the microsoft site didn’t fix the problem and most of the other posts I’d dug up followed the same track. The worrying part was that most of the advice stated when the .pst file exceeds the limit then your file was corrupted and only truncating your .pst file would fix the problem but you had no control over what was going to be deleted. I ended up buying O2M to move my files over to my Mac Mail client and discovered that it did an excellent job converting my emails, calendar and contacts for Mail (effortlessly converting the “corrupted” .pst file) but found that the emails didn’t remain categorised in their folders so then had to sort through 1000′s of emails (finally deleting most) into the same structure as I was used to with Outlook XP.
Maybe I have way too many categories for my emails but that’s the way I’ve worked and know. Making a new .pst file and moving your superfluous emails within outlook as explained in the peeniwallie link above would have fixed the problem easily and all my information was kept. Most people are probably using newer versions of Outlook which apparently have a 20gb limit but for those without it might save you some time to create a new .pst file when your current .pst file reaches around 1.7gb.
Mine froze at 1.80gb (there is no warning when you reach the 2gb limit). And if anyones wondering, yes, my emails were getting archived, my deleted items were always emptied and most of my unnecessary items were deleted. I hope this saves someone some time if they come across the same problem.
Who doesn’t. When I hear “We want to be #1 on Google” my automatic response is “for what phrase or keywords” and then this is usually met with a puzzled stare. To clarify things, NEESH are not search engine optimisers although we go as far as ensuring that our clients sites get primarily optimised for web presence. This includes some inbound links, xml sitemap, Title, Description and Keyword Metatags and content possibly revised to thread in keywords and phrases amongst others.
Any company will have numerous combinations of keywords or phrases that they want to rank for but they will almost certainly get different priorities with the search engines. 
This is where it is important for the client to put themselves in the position of a potential site visitor and think about what the visitor would type in to find their website. There still seems to be a considerable consensus that a website is a static (almost print like) advertisement that is complete upon upload when in fact that is just the beginning of the battle.
Many company’s have large budgets for ongoing SEO (search engine optimisation) as the algorithms of the search engines are frequently changing which means your site may also need tweeking to ensure it maintains it’s ranking. On the other hand there are many ways the site owner can contribute to their sites popularity growth. Here are a few tried and true methods that will hopefully help someone.
I won’t delve into black hat optimisation techniques as it is a specialised optimisation area that I haven’t considered researching.
That is a few of the standard optimisation areas that have sprung to mind. As you can see, most of them require ongoing attention to keep improving your traffic results.
Wouldn’t you think that if you were paying someone to host and manage your website that you would be the owner of the domain? I’m always surprised at the number of clients that approach NEESH to take over site maintenance or upgrades for one reason or another only to find their current web designer will not release the site or domain name unless a ridiculous amount money is paid to transfer the domain name into the clients name.
Depending on the situation, it is often better to just start over rather than to be exploited. Work out the financials, how much is invested in stationery, advertising etc. Usually the site in contention isn’t worth saving as that is normally why the unfortunate client is wanting to leave the original designer. To save any problems, looking after your own domain name is a safe option and from what I’ve seen will cost you about 10% of what some company’s are charging for a simple payment annually or less frequently depending on the term chosen. Reputable hosting company’s have safe, user-friendly, online payment gateways to make these transactions as effortless as possible.
Going to dedicate some time to my site http://www.space2spare.com.au. I don’t think it’s user friendly enough how it is. It’s getting a few members and good traffic but only one persons signed up so far to place a free ad. It’s a free listing site (some listings will eventually be paid for) for people that have any spare space available to rent out or looking for spare storage space.
As mentioned it’s free, so If anyone wants to sign up I’d like to hear any feedback on how user-friendly the whole process was so that I can streamline it further.
Update: Decided to utilise a new script for the site. Much easier to use and with more features. Seems to be getting better response too.