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Macmillan Global Wins TEFL.net Site of the Month Award
We’re very pleased to hear of the success of http://www.macmillanglobal.com in the TEFL.net Site of the Month Award. Global won the award for February due to their valuable teaching resources and all-round contribution to English language training.
The site has achieved great success already in terms of visits and newsletter subscribers. We’re confident that this success will continue due to their commitment to high quality content. The site offers audio and pdf downloads, videos and frequent blog posts about their course and broader issues relating to teaching and learning English as a foreign language. The blog section features the writing of well-respected contributors such as David Crystal and Linsay Clandfield.
We are proud of the web design and our contribution to presenting their content in an effective, visually-appealing manner and we hope to see the site continue to achieve Macmillan’s goals in award-winning style.
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Sunglasses Save rise in the search engines
We have been working on the Sunglasses Save web design, onsite SEO and offsite SEO for 9 months now through the depths of the ICY Winter. The site is now bursting to life as they have progressed to top 5 position for most of their brand sunglasses and on page 3 and rising for the VAST and competitive search phrase Sunglasses.
Sunglasses
The word Sunglasses was searched over a million times in december which is the worst time of year for sunglasses so as we progress the guys at Sunglasses Save should have a busy summer. When our gameplan comes to fruition I am expecting to be furnished with a pair of awesome Ray Ban Aviators for the summer holidays.
The site is built in Magento and we have developed some unique and creative SEO site technology to give the site competitive edge.
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Embedding YouTube Videos, Flickr Images and more in WordPress 2.9
WordPress 2.9 has greatly increased the ease of embedding videos, images and other types of content. You are now able to display videos on your site from, for example, YouTube simply by entering the url of the YouTube video as plain text in a WordPress page or post. It is also possible to similarly embed videos from Vimeo, DailyMotion, Google Video and other video sites or embed images from Flickr and Photobucket. Embedding articles from Scribd or polls from PollDaddy is equally staightforward. A more comprehensive list of sites that you can embed from using this method is available at http://codex.wordpress.org/Embeds .
The example displayed below shows the post content in the admin (4 urls entered as plain text on a separate line – one from Flickr, one from Scribd, one from YouTube and one from PollDaddy) and the next two screenshots display the output on the front end of the site (a Flickr image, a Scribd article, a YouTube video and a PollDaddy poll).
This is all possible in WordPress 2.9 through it’s support of the oEmbed protocol. This protocol enables your site to query another site for the code needed to embed parts of its content.
By default you are only able to embed content from a list of sites approved by WordPress. This can be extended by using the oEmbed Discovery plugin or, for developers, using the template tags wp_oembed_add_provider() (for allowing embedded content from an oEmbed-enabled site) and wp_embed_register_handler() (to enable embedded content from a non-oEmbed site).
If you would, however, prefer to prevent links from being converted to embedded content, this feature can be turned off under Settings > Media. There you will need to deselect the options labelled ‘Attempt to automatically embed all plain text URLs’ and ‘Attempt to embed content from unknown URLs using oEmbed’.
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Image Editing in WordPress
The release of version 2.9 provided WordPress users with some very useful additional image editing capabilities. In the following article we will look at some of the new options for reversing, rotating, cropping and resizing images.
When you are editing a page or post, a row of tools for uploading additional files is available just above the main content entry box. These tools are labelled ‘Upload/Insert’ and the first is used to handle image files. Click on this tool to open the media file pop up window.
From the pop up window, click on ‘Select Files’ and choose the image you want to upload.
Once this file has uploaded select the ‘Edit Image’ button.
To crop the image, click, hold and drag to select the area that you want to keep. Select the crop tool from the row of options at the top and then click ‘Save’ to apply the changes.
The additional buttons along the top can be clicked to rotate clockwise, rotate anticlockwise, flip vertically and flip horizontally. Remember to select ‘Save’ to apply the changes.
In addition to the original image file uploaded, WordPress generates versions in 3 other sizes: thumbnail, medium and large (the default sizes for these can be specified under Settings > Media). When you are editing images using the new options in WordPress 2.9 and above, you can choose to apply these alterations to all sizes, only the thumbnail versions or all sizes except the thumbnail versions.
We are very pleased to see this functionality added to the WordPress core as it means that simple editing tasks can be handled without the need for external software which can be expensive and cumbersome. While the options may appear quite limited compared to what external software and plugins can offer, they are nonetheless very useful.
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WordPress Database Backup Plugin
Today we are very thankful for one highly recommend and potentially invaluable plugin: the WordPress Database Backup plugin.
It’s likely that you have been frustrated several times by losing unsaved work when your computer or one of it’s applications has crashed unexpectedly. Just imagine, then, the all-consuming sorrow of losing weeks, months or even years of blog posts or other site content. Your hosting company may provide a responsible backup service (or you may have a well-considered system in place if your site is self-hosted) but some extra insurance can be crucial if the unexpected happens (as it did for one of our client sites today).
The WordPress Database Backup plugin makes backing up WordPress content a painless process. Once the plugin has been added and activated through the WordPress admin section, it is then possible to specify an email address for the database backups to be sent to. Regular automatic backups can be set up to be received at your email address at a chosen interval. This interval can range from every hour (suitable for a very active site) to every week (for a site where content is changed less frequently). Once these few options have been set, the latest content backup will be emailed to you regularly and potential catastrophes avoided with no further effort required.
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Blowtorches – ecommerce research begins
We are scheduling an ecommerce web design and SEO project for February this year focusing on selling gas items including blowtorches. The proposed site will retail blowtorch products and accessories including propane and butane refills.
Blow torches are tools used in all industries for a range of purposes from cutting and joining metal to browning cakes in the kitchen. Blowtorches are not a seasonal item and sell all year round. Its an exiting project this one as it is a more obscure and less mainstream product. To find out whther it sells online there is really only one way to find out. We will be pushing this one in the search engines and producing a cool web design to increase the likelihood of sale.
A quick note too. We have recently got well into photography for our ecommerce projects and it will be on display shortly on our site.
Blowtorch | web design
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First aid kits
First aid Kits are vital for business and the home and are bundles of products, usually including bandaging and treatments for small wounds abrasions and burns. Being the owner of a first aid kit does not necessarily make you a bonafied paramedic but it will help you treat everyday injuries if you know what you are doing.
In the next few months we are carrying out initial SEO research into the First Aid Kit sector for a small ecommerce and web design project we are launching for ourselves. Should we go for it, it will be our first venture into ecommerce not for clients and will be a great learner for us to be on the other side of a sales driven site. We will be implementing all of the web design and SEO methodology that we implement for outr clients and will be going at it hammer and tongue. We have source a quality and good value product that meets our criteria and arranged a supply chain for it.
We wont be going ahead until we are 100% sure that it is a winner… watch this space.
first aid kit | web design
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Getting stuck-in to Magento
After really getting stuck into the nuts and bolts of Magento today, it is becoming more clear how useful and and structured Magento is. As time goes on I think the system will make more sense and will become a more efficient way of developing e-commerce websites.
One of the major challenges that I have faced so far is the templating system of Magento. It is different to systems I have used in the past but makes a lot more sense in the fact that everything fits together the way it should.
You can really see that Magento has been clearly thought out and developed in a way that helps the system fit together nicely.
I will be making regular posts about my progress with Magento and how I am using it at Juno Web Design to create cutting edge websites.
Magento eCommerce
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Benefits of Using a Content Management System (CMS)
A content management system can be used to:
- Simplify the addition and management of content on your site (so that this will all be possible without technical knowledge).
- Allow many people to edit and contribute to your site and allow control over which contributors have particular permissions.
- Set a template or theme for the site so that new content can be easily set to display with a consistent style.
- Incorporate security features, SEO features and other functionality and keep up to date with upgrades.
- Provide options to backup and export site content.
Around 5% of sites currently online use some form of web CMS technology – this means that roughly 95% of current websites can only be edited with specialist technical knowledge. This is unfortunate for the vast majority of people who are unlikely to have the familiarity with HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript or other languages that would be needed to fully control the content and appearance of their site without a CMS.
Fortunately the web CMS options continue to improve and be used more widely, allowing more people to take control of their site. Our preferred content management system at Juno tends to be WordPress. We find WordPress to be excellent in providing all the advantages listed above. We have been very pleased to see non-technical users managing text and images on their site and, in some cases, adding entirely new features to their site using WordPress plugins.
We’d be interested to hear about your experiences of using content management systems so please do add a comment if you have anything you feel compelled to share.
The next post in this series will feature more information about how WordPress compares with other popular web content management systems.
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Hello Magento and Wordpress
Magento eCommerce
I have just started here at Juno Web Design and already I can see a great deal of Wordpress and Magento development going on. Something which I too hope to pick up whilst i’m here. It has become clear that Content Management Systems seem to be very popular for website development at the moment and the fact they can be customised to their needs is important.
I hope to be very involved with new Magento and Wordpress sites over the next few months and hope that my development here at Juno Web Design in Nottingham will really help my career and Juno develop into something great.
I will be posting more about my development here at Juno Web Design in Nottingham soon and hope you will come back to read it.
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Cloud Computing – Usage and Advantages
Cloud Computing has been called the Next Big Thing in web design, but just what is cloud computing? Very simply, it is a system whereby software programs and storage space can be accessed via the Internet. This allows companies to outsource the ownership and management of certain areas of its IT functionality (storage, mail room, fleet services, etc.) to a “black box” within the cloud. They probably don’t know what software or hardware is being used or what operating system it is running on, nor do they need to. This article discusses the usage and advantages of cloud computing.
Cloud computing evolved from the knowledge and experience of managed services, Internet services, application service providers, etc. Its technology is the result of a paradigm shift and is improving business computing because: (1) it is modular, compartmentalizing software applications and associated hardware and infrastructure; (2) it is uniform, utilizing the same resources that customers share. A business using cloud computing can avoid large outlays of capital expense as well as perpetual maintenance costs, thereby aligning cash flow with total system cost.
Data centers are known to be very inefficient, and clustering and virtualizing their servers has met with only limited success. Over time, there will be a logical segue to scalable computing based on/in the cloud. The future of computing is going to consist of the combination of service orientation, service management, and cloud computing. Some of the reasons for this are:
• Hardware costs would decrease because cloud computing systems would reduce the need for advanced, expensive hardware on the client side. It would no longer be necessary or desirable to buy the fastest computer with the most memory or largest hard drive. Rather, all a customer would need to buy is an inexpensive computer terminal, a monitor, input components such as a keyboard and mouse, and only enough processing power to run the middleware necessary to connect to the cloud system.
• Clients could access their applications and data from anywhere at any time using a computer linked to the Internet. Data would be stored offsite rather than take up space on a hard drive on a user’s computer or a corporation’s internal network.
• Since cloud computing is a “pay as you go” system, companies would not have to buy software or software licenses for each employee. Instead, the company would pay a metered fee based on usage, much the way open source software (as opposed to proprietary software) works. For the most part, cloud computing infrastructures are built from open source components because the cloud providers are hesitant to make large investments without knowing the payoff.
• Cloud computing customers would no longer have to worry about physical space in which to store servers and other storage hardware. They can store data on a third-party’s system, thus removing the need for physical space on the front end.
• Since cloud computing offers tried and true hardware, operating systems, and applications, customers could save money on IT support (for obvious reasons, this is not a concept that IT support personnel in general buy into).
• If the cloud computing system’s back end is a grid computing system, customers could take advantage of the entire network’s processing power. For instance, scientists and researchers who work with extremely complicated calculations could send the calculations to the cloud for processing. The cloud system would utilize the processing power of all available computers on the back end and significantly speed up the calculations.
• Cloud computing provides a way to outsource non-critical applications to organizations better suited to run them, allowing IT to focus on critical applications.
• Cloud providers are more efficient at IT operations, using fewer man-hours for standard tasks (again, not a popular concept with IT support personnel).
• By buying hardware in large volume, cloud providers get better pricing.
So, these are the arguments FOR the cloud computing revolution/evolution. My next article will look at the perceived disadvantages of it and why not everyone is buying in to it.
Juno Web Design
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BuddyPress Camp!
Hey, all you WordPress/BuddyPress lovers: There is a camp just for you next month in New York, and word on the street says the camp t-shirts are nothing short of awesome. Not a Wordpress–ario? Never heard of BuddyPress? Then this article will answer some of your burning question–about BuddyPress, specifically.
Wordpress (WP) is an open source application that web developers use to publish blogs and basic content management. BuddyPress (BP) is an open source package built on top of WordPress that converts WP into a social network (think Facebook). Both are written in PHP scripting language.
BuddyPress does not enjoy the status, widespread use, or intricacies that Facebook and MySpace do; rather, it operates on a much smaller scale, and only in combination with WP. It inherits and extends upon the basic functions of the WordPress engine including plug-ins, themes, and widgets. Upon installation, BP is immediately ready to roll as a basic social network.
When BuddyPress is first installed, a “Basic” group is created with “First Name”, “Last Name” and a profile picture upload function. These fields are the “key” to each member’s profile, so they cannot be removed or modified. However, the site administrator can add fields to this Basic group by using the extended profile component and can specify each field’s type, e.g. text boxes, date selectors, radio buttons, etc.
Here are the features contained in the BuddyPress packaged plug-in:
• Extended Profiles – Web designers can add numerous custom fields to create extended blogger profiles
• Friends – Users can search for, add, and interact with other users. Each member has a visible list of his or her friends on the site. Friend lists are searchable and members can click on each friend for more information.
• Private Message System – Users can exchange private mail with other users
• Activity Stream – Users can keep up with their friends’ activities as long as they are connected. Activity streams combine all of a user’s activity across a BuddyPress installation. Friends’ activities are also recorded and reported. Any type of data can be tracked using the activity stream component, such as wire posts, blogs posts, new friendships, and blog comments.
• The Wire –Members can post messages to other members’ profiles or leave messages for other group members.
• Groups – BuddyPress groups are an assembly of members, wires posts, and forum topics, usually encompassing a similar interest. Any member can create a group in BuddyPress and thus become the group administrator. The administrator can enable certain features such as a group forum (bbPress) and Wire.
• Forums – With the Forums component, groups can create and administer their own bbPress forum. Group members can post and reply to topics all from within the group’s page. Forums can be attached to any content within an installation, which means that third party plug-ins and new components can utilize the Forum component in the future.
• Blog Tracking – This component combines all blogs, blog posts, and comments for each member so that other members can easily find blogs that a member owns or belongs to as well as recent posts and comments.
Because all BuddyPress plug-ins are stand-alone, developers can use them in two ways, either as a whole package or piecemeal in order to customize their existing blog network. If you are a plug-in developer or theme designer and can’t make it to the camp, or if you just want more detailed information, check out the BuddyPress website (www.buddypress.org) and jump on the bandwagon.
Juno Web Design
