All entries for March 2008

Fixed Width v Stretch to Fit Websites

Writing about web page http://unipole.co.uk/default.aspx

Many website templates and free website builders, such as Google’s Page Builder & Free Parking’s WizzSites have a fixed width for your website. This has the advantage of fixing your websites look. To ensure this for most viewers screen resolutions these are normally kept quite narrow.

The MS Office Live SB website builder defaults to 780px wide. You can enable their ‘Advanced Design Features’ and this allows you to select 100% where the webpage will ‘strech to fit’. I quite like this approach since we cannot determine the shape that the browser window will be in the user’s screen. An example has been created by Lee of Unipole with a three column design using 100%. His site’s minimum width is set by the 941px logo but his design manufacture & finishing page is slightly wider due to the picture’s he used.

Another good example of the ‘strech to fit’ approach are these Warwick Blogs especially when used with pictures that ‘float’ using BlogBuilder.

Robert McGonigle : 20 Mar 2008 11:21 |  Tags: Free Websites Msolsb Website Templates |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Warwick Digital Lab and the 'New Media'

Writing about web page http://www.ideasforlife.tv/

I attended the recent training seminars at Rootes on Digital Media. Presented by University of Warwick, Urban Communications and Maverick Television this took us from adding podcasts & video directly into these Warwick Blogs to the new IPTV channel Ideas for Life.

Debates broke out about the quality of new media. There is a lot of rubbish out there but loads of really creative stuff too. The reduced costs of production and publishing has empowered many talented people who would never have seen the inside of a BBC studio in the past. The interactivity requirement for the ‘new media’ tag was also questioned but the 606 Rant Line shows that everyone can podcast if the tools are made available.

The real message was to encourage academics at Warwick to take advantage of the new media to narrowcast their research findings using these new channels including ideasforlife.tv.

One of the functions of WMG’s new Warwick Digital Laboratory, to open this summer, is to host technology demonstrators and showcases. It will also be a centre for research capabilities and knowledge transfer. We should ensure that the simple ability to record audio and video content is a seamless part of this new resource. Not leading edge technology but easy ways to record and broadcast the demonstrators, showcases, case studies and people that will make the WDL an exciting place to work & visit.

Robert McGonigle : 07 Mar 2008 10:57 |  Tags: Iptv New Media Podcasts Videostreams Warwick Digital Lab Wdl Wmg |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

MS Office Live free Website, Contact Manager, Emailer, Workspaces – What's the Catch?

Writing about web page http://www.microsoft.com/uk/smallbusiness/products/office-live/evaluate.mspx

Since I first created a website hosted on Microsoft’s Office Live Small Business online applications platform, last week, their whole offering has been changed. All the applications such as their contact manager, a simple to use CRM system, team workspaces, project management tools, email and newsletter management have been popping up to enable free of charge. So what is the catch? Their evaluate page, above, shows that you now pay for additional users and space.

• 500MB for your website.
• 100MB for photos.
• 100 x Live Hotmail email accounts with 10 MB storage.
• 5 users who can use collaborative tools.
• 50 MB of project storage.
• 200 free emails per month with their e-mailer whilst in Beta. (Till the end of April 2008.)

The number of users is the first obvious limit.
If up to 15 team members were to use this seriously you should probably have a contract and some support.

The really tight limit appears to be the 50MB project space. Not a problem for spreadsheets and text documents but your powerpoint files could eat this up quickly!

Still I do not think anyone can quibble about this extermely professional package that has been assembled by Microsoft for Small Businesses. Microsoft may be the new IBM but this package could make the SME space theirs.

Robert McGonigle : 05 Mar 2008 17:15 |  Tags: Collaboration Workspaces Crm Emailers Web Applications |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

'Shooting' Gun Stands on the Enville Estate

Writing about web page http://gun-stands.co.uk

Last Thursday, before I attended the Mike Smith Memorial Mass, see previous entry, I had an early morning appointment on the Enville Estate, South Staffordshire. I found myself in parkland, with sheep & two fine hunters, taking digital photos for the latest CCM startup, Gun-Stands.co.uk .

Keith Woodall was on the same Enville Estate, for a shoot when he first observed the problem faced by many shooting parties; “I hated to see fine matched pairs of shotguns in the wet grass”. He designed the Stand and manufactured it with the help of local business GRP Building Products . Finalising the website details a packing specialist measured up the stand for the shipping containers. He was a clay pidgeon club member who immediately saw another potential customer. “I have to take my son along to hold the guns upright as noone wants to put their guns down on the rough concrete”.

This is the latest web-site I have created using MS Office Live Small Business or MSOLSB to its friends! These sites, with a free properly hosted domain name, are simple to set up but support all the correct search engine optimisation support. The only area I am thinking of improving is the site map which is not to the full SiteMaps.org standard. But it does have an effective site map as standard and it will be easy to upgrade this to the XML based standard.

Robert McGonigle : 04 Mar 2008 21:08 |  Tags: Enville Estate Gun Stands Msolsb Musket Site Maps |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem