Along with the degree i am currently working on i have been working on a project called WakAttak which is an android game that will be free to play. I’m currently working on the website to showcase what will be on offer and the project should be complete by the end of the month (well i certainly hope so!).
If you want to check it out go to http://www.wakattak.com
Posted in Jay-web support and news, Site updates, Tech stuff
You might have seen the changes made by Facebook recently (unless you live under a rock!) and you probably have an opinion on it weather your pro change or against it. Truth is its all taken from Google plus. The entire format has been cloned from a better built system and Facebook is scared! Truth is people have been looking for an alternative for Facebook for a while.
The annoying adverts, the constant spam from apps and games, the recent activity from auntie no-one-cares being thrown all over your feed and spending hours clearing and blocking the spam. With Google plus this is no longer an issue. Game spam is confined to the game tab and if that isn’t enough for you then you can mute all game activity! There are no adverts to speak of and the circle system is great for managing multiple feeds making auntie no-one-cares not an issue as she will only appear in the feed when you want the latest updates on her life.
As you can see Facebook has adopted the group system and is now forcing you to label your friends. Why? this works on G+ because thats how the system has been designed! This attempt to try and catch up with the impressive social networking system is quite pathetic.
If Facebook is so ground breaking and such a unique app then why haven’t they come up with some new ideas to stay in the game.
I call that this time next year, G+ will be just as used as twitter and Facebook is now.
Posted in Casual Web
Tagged facebook, google, social networking
I had to come up with a solution to the problem as the site in question uses lightbox and the popup needed text in order for screen readers and other web accessibility reasons. After some experimenting i came up with the idea to put the text body in the title tag as this is where the caption appears. Problem is you cant format the text…. right? WRONG!!!
if when your formatting the text in the body then you simply need to replace the quotes and brackets with the asciii html equivalent. IE <br /> becomes <br / a> . Understand?
Oh and because its lightbox you do need an image in there to stretch the box. Simply create a spacer to the desired width at 1px height and use this image. It should look a little something like this,
title=”
<div style="background-color: #006666 ;
font-family:Courier New, Courier New, monospace;
font-weight:normal;
any delivery charges where applicable. <br / a>
<strong a>2. </strong a> Products being price matched must be new and be …………
Notice the use of inline styles there… They are just to demonstrate the use of styling the text. You can use any inline element but it ends there. Don’t be thinking you can use lists or what not because it wont work.
I realise its a bit of a hack but sometimes you have no other options other than redevelop the whole site which isn’t cheap and for one instance not worth it!
I have had a number of requests for a website to be made for them but the process seems rather slow due to the customer not really knowing what they want from the beginning.
Before you decide to get yourself a website made its important to ask yourself the question “Do i really need a website” and “how will a website help me accomplish what it is i want to do”. As long as you have a definite answer for both these questions then we can continue.
First thing is first, I don’t do design from templates! If you want a website from me then its going to be an original design built from the ground up! Secondly i don’t do websites for under £150. At this price alone I’m not getting much out of it for myself!
If your under the impression that websites are cheap then you obviously have never spoken to anyone who makes them. If your looking for a cheap template which has been converted from a photoshop file then you will get a CHEAP WEBSITE MADE FROM A PHOTOSHOP FILE. As they say in all industries “you get what you pay for” and here is no different.
If your looking for some nice functionality then this will bring you into the £300+ mark. I can do all sorts from basic CMS to full functioning user registration systems.
Big jobs like this though require a deposit of the final costs of up to 40% depending on the level of technicality. I don’t intend on being ripped off.
And finally you need to have an idea of where you want to go with the design. Although i am happy to go with just a theme its nice for me and the customer if they actually have an idea of how they want the final product to be produced. This smashes any problems with the design stage.
As long as you have considered these things then the process with be a nice smooth one!
Speak to you soon ;)
Posted in Casual Web, Jay-web support and news, Site updates
So as most of you are aware there is no separation between the clean and not so clean websites. There is soon to be released the .xxx which will hopefully provide the necessary separation between sites that are child friendly and those who are not.
I believe the idea here will be to provide the means to quickly identify and tag a website for its intended purpose. With the addition of this TLD, security software will now be able to block sites that might be dangerous or inappropriate.
These domains are now available to pre-order so expect to see them soon (or not!!).
Some might think that this is a solution but i dont. They are expensive and transferring your website is even more so! I guess only time will tell..
Posted in Casual Web
I’m going to be finishing off my degree this and next year and part (quite a big part) is to finish off a big project. I intend to do an android application so this means I need to get plenty of practice in over the rest of the hols!!
If your looking for someone so help with an existing project I will be happy to lend a hand but as soon as I start uni again I will have other priorities.
Oh and i have a new kickass design that i want to go live soon as well as two websites i have been commissioned to design :)
Posted in Casual Web
Tagged android, application, apps, uni
Iv been watching Google and their efforts to create web safe fonts for a while now. I must admit that when it was first released i didn’t have very high hopes for it as it only had a few fonts to use (and they weren’t very good either). Recently there has been big developments and now there are nearly 200 fonts available to use. Now i must say that i would use any of them as the quality seems to be very good. The font book makes a great feature as you can favourite fonts for regular use. This makes the process very easy.
I now find myself using their fonts in my design work too as they are available for batch downloads. I went through and selected all the fonts i felt would look good then selected to download them as a zip. Great!
I’m very impressed and have decided to use them more in my website as its more compatible than @fontface.
Posted in Casual Web
Ok first I feel I should say that I’m a big fan of goggle and the things they are doing at the moment. Saying that I’m not the Type of person that would stem critique due to my feeling towards a company.
When i first received my invite i didn’t quite know what to expect. I was half expecting another buzz but i was pleasantly surprised. The layout feels alot like Facebook which is nice as i feel if it ain’t broke don’t fix it! I don’t feel it would be necessary to completely remodel the social networking layout and google have done well to not only make the transition easy but to make the design feel very much “googly”.
From the start it was easy to understand the system and the whole idea of groups and “circles” seems like a great idea. I constantly find myself on facebook filtering out people who i dont want to see on my wall all the time. The only option is to remove them completely whereas with G+ you can simply choose to view certain groups of people.
For instance you might want to see what the family is up to. So you click the family tab and there updates are there! You might create a group for uni friends or even project groups. You can also choose to make certain posts available to groups of people with the click of a button choosing to make it a private or public post.
The system at the moment is very basic ofc as its in beta and i eagerly await the final result. An RSS feed integration with feebburner might be nice so i can update from the blog.
I also like that the mass of tools available to google users are right there should you need them. Docs and tools within reach and most importantly they are FREE!
So far I’m happy to be using the beta but there isn’t many people on so it makes it more difficult to ascertain its potential.
Only time will see!
Oh and i added a G+ button to the website so click to add me ;)
Posted in Casual Web
Anyone out there willing to spare an invite to google+?
Will return the favour to the masses should i be in receipt of an invite and able to send some myself.
:)
Posted in Casual Web