Web developer in UK http://jez007.wordpress.com Developing web development Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:56:40 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ en hourly 1 http://www.gravatar.com/blavatar/d3c73eea2307e419cf0c408cfe35914f?s=96&d=http://s.wordpress.com/i/buttonw-com.png Web developer in UK http://jez007.wordpress.com Start with HTML5 http://jez007.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/start-with-html5/ http://jez007.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/start-with-html5/#comments Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:56:40 +0000 Jez D http://jez007.wordpress.com/?p=146 ]]>

HTML5

Getting started with HTML5 is very easy.

HTML 5 is compatible with the XHTML syntax of self-closing tags, so, if you already use HTML5 then making the switch will be easy. Other XHTML features inherited by HTML5 include lowercase tags and double quoted attributes (eg, title=”the title”)

The Doctype declaration in HTML5 is so much easier to remember when compared to XHTML:

<!DOCTYPE html>

There’s a lot more to HTML5 and I will update this entry as I get more info.

 

Posted in General ]]> http://jez007.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/start-with-html5/feed/ 0 jezd007 Web Developement – unseen benefits of compliance http://jez007.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/135/ http://jez007.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/135/#comments Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:04:11 +0000 Jez D http://jez007.wordpress.com/?p=135 ]]>

Wanna know why my personal web developer site is so high when searching for ‘cheshire web developer’ in Google, Bing, Yahoo, plus many more?

No.1 on yahoo.com when searching for the generic term ‘web developer’ and selecting results ‘from the web’.

Probably not, but here goes:

When I decided to rebuild my site, I considered SEO right from the planning stages – even before deciding on a design.

  1. I purchased a keyword rich domain & hosted in my target audience country
  2. Developed the site structure using modern technologies (XHTML/CSS – tableless design)
  3. Ensured all code is entirely standards compliant
  4. Incorporated as many WCAG features as possible
  5. Minimal use of flash
  6. Small images
  7. Transferred PageRank from previous domain
  8. Made full use of Google Webmaster Tools
  9. Textual content – used everything I’ve ever read about SEO

There are of course many more things that can be done, but this shows that sticking to the basics and getting them right, can really have a positive effect.

web developer

Posted in SEO - Search Engine Optimisation, Web development ]]> http://jez007.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/135/feed/ 0 jezd007 Large enquiry forms versus small enquiry forms http://jez007.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/large-enquiry-forms-versus-small-enquiry-forms/ http://jez007.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/large-enquiry-forms-versus-small-enquiry-forms/#comments Mon, 23 Mar 2009 08:17:56 +0000 Jez D http://jez007.wordpress.com/?p=109 ]]>

Instead of, or maybe as well as, an email link, most websites now contain some sort of contact or enquiry form. However, there is always a question of whether this form should be short and concise or long and detailed.

The short form will contain few fields, requesting basic information. The most common I have seen asks the user for her name, contact email address and telephone number, and then has a <textarea> where the user puts their questions or comments. It can take any thing from a few seconds, to a couple of minutes to complete. Quick and to the point. Useful if one needs to make a generic enquiry, such as ‘What time are you open on Friday?’

Example Short Form

Example short form

A large form asks for a lot more details – well over ten fields – and will normally take many minutes to complete in its entirety. As well as asking for more information about the user, it will often require detailed information about the product or service you are enquiring about. For example, asking for size, colour, style, amount, weight, etc. (example here)

Most of us would assume that the shorter enquiry form is going to get the responses we want, which can then be converted into sales. Afterall, it is shorter and takes less of the users time to complete. The table below shows the results of research carried out by PRWD.

Form type Preference Conversion rate
Short 14% 17%
Detailed 86% 55%

It appears that, not only do the vast majority of those who complete enquiry forms prefer the detailed comprehensive form, but the conversion to sales rate of the detailed form is over three times that of the short form. This flys in the face on conventional thinking and if anyone knows the reasons for this, I would love to hear them.

These figures are justification for those of us developing e-commerce or lead generating websites, to give serious consideration to including a detailed enquiry form.

More information available from http://www.prwd.co.uk/

Posted in General, Web development ]]> http://jez007.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/large-enquiry-forms-versus-small-enquiry-forms/feed/ 0 jezd007 Example Short Form XSL problem with Mozilla Firefox http://jez007.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/xsl-problem-with-mozilla-firefox/ http://jez007.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/xsl-problem-with-mozilla-firefox/#comments Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:39:23 +0000 Jez D http://jez007.wordpress.com/?p=95 ]]>

If you are having problems with your XSL styles not being applied in Mozilla Firefox and Safari, try changing this line above the <head> of the XSL file:

<html>

to look like this:

<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml”>

Posted in Web development, XML ]]> http://jez007.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/xsl-problem-with-mozilla-firefox/feed/ 0 jezd007 Usability, accessibility and screenreaders http://jez007.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/usability-and-screenreaders/ http://jez007.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/usability-and-screenreaders/#comments Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:19:55 +0000 Jez D http://jez007.wordpress.com/?p=89 ]]>

This video from the University of Arkansas shows why descriptive text rather than ‘click here’ should be used for links and how skip navigation can improve user experience.

Posted in General, University, Web development ]]> http://jez007.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/usability-and-screenreaders/feed/ 0 jezd007 Change date from American format in ASP http://jez007.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/change-date-from-american-format/ http://jez007.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/change-date-from-american-format/#comments Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:34:34 +0000 Jez D http://jez007.wordpress.com/?p=77 ]]>

This short ASP script will change the date in your database table from American format to a format which can be understood universaly.

OrderDate in the script refers to the column in the database table where the date is stored.

<%
'Change from American date format
If Day(DBOutput("OrderDate")) < 10 Then
'add a leading zero if date is single digit
Response.Write("0" & Day(DBOutput("OrderDate"))) & " "
Else
Response.Write (Day(DBOutput("OrderDate")))  & " "
End If
Response.Write(MonthName(month(DBOutput("OrderDate")), true)) & " "
Response.Write (Year(DBOutput("OrderDate")))
%>
Posted in ASP, Web development ]]> http://jez007.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/change-date-from-american-format/feed/ 0 jezd007 Database connection script http://jez007.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/database-connection-script/ http://jez007.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/database-connection-script/#comments Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:42:43 +0000 Jez D http://jez007.wordpress.com/?p=69 ]]>

As a developer, you probably use different servers throughout the development process. When you move your application from one server to another, you maybe have to change the database connection script in order for the application to work on the new server.

If you forget to do this, and the client is sitting in front waiting to see their new web application, it can be quite embarrassing. So, use this script to include several servers in your database connection statements and all will be fine.

<?php

/*This file is intended to be able to connect to your MySQL
database no matter where it is situated.
Insert your connection details for your different hosts into the
switch statement below.
You can add more hosts if you need to. */

$host = $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];

switch ($host)
{
case 'localhost':
$server = '';
$user = '';
$db = '';
$password = '';
break;

case 'domain of host 1':
$server = '';
$user = '';
$db = '';
$password = '';
break;

case 'domain of host2':
$server = '';
$user = '';
$db = '';
$password = '';
break;

default:
$server = '';
$user = '';
$db = '';
$password = '';
}

$link = mysql_connect($server, $user, $password);
if (!$link) {
die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
}

$selected = mysql_select_db($db,$link)
or die("Could not select database");

?>
Posted in Web development ]]> http://jez007.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/database-connection-script/feed/ 0 jezd007 Promoting a website http://jez007.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/promoting-your-website/ http://jez007.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/promoting-your-website/#comments Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:10:51 +0000 Jez D http://jez007.wordpress.com/?p=53 ]]>

So you have your new website, which has cost you a lot of money, and it has recently gone live. Yet the hundreds of enquiries you expected to pour in from the website have not materialised and the 100 visits your site is getting each day are all from your office. What has gone wrong?
The short answer is nothing has gone wrong.

Many people, when they get a company website, have unrealistic expectations and think that having a website will suddenly bring in thousands of new customers from all around the globe. The first challenge is making it easy for people to find your website. Of course we all know about registering with search engines but, when there are approx 600 million websites on the Internet and they cannot all be top of Google, one should not rely totally on search engines for delivering visitors to your website.

There are other ways, apart from search engine submission, to get visitors to your website.

Online

Web referrals are an effective way of driving visitors to your website. There are a number of ways you can generate these.

  • Include your web address in all email footers.
  • Email newsletters – sending email newsletters of offers and new products can be quite effective. People send them on to others.
  • Banner ads, Pay per click – rarely free, but can help bring people to your website.
  • Reciprocal links – if you know a site with similar content to yours, ask them link to yours, but be prepared to reciprocate.
  • Blogs, Forums, social network sites etc – whenever you use one, end your entry with a link to your website.
  • Directory sites – register with as many as you can and when entering details of your business, remember to include your website address.

Offline

The website complements rather than replaces existing marketing activities and, therefore, should form an intergral part of your entire marketing strategy.

Ensure your web address is included on:

  • packaging,
  • promotional items,
  • all business stationery,
  • invoices,
  • business cards,
  • all publications about the business,
  • Word of Mouth – talk about your website at every opportunity to customers, family & friends

I analysed the stats for my website (www.jez-d.co.uk) and only 1.5% of visits are referred from search engines. The vast majority are direct requests, that is, not from a link on the Internet. This shows that other methods as mentioned about actually do work.

Posted in General ]]> http://jez007.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/promoting-your-website/feed/ 0 jezd007 Fieldset and Mozilla Firefox – CSS http://jez007.wordpress.com/2008/08/27/fieldset-and-mozilla-firefox-css/ http://jez007.wordpress.com/2008/08/27/fieldset-and-mozilla-firefox-css/#comments Wed, 27 Aug 2008 06:09:10 +0000 Jez D http://jez007.wordpress.com/?p=47 ]]>

As you may know, <fieldset> creates a box with rounded corners, which looks really nice – in IE!

We can make it look almost as nice in Firefox very easily. Just add the following to your stylesheet:

/* This is to give rounded corners to fieldset in Firefox */
fieldset {
-moz-border-radius: 8px;
border-radius: 8px;
}
]]> http://jez007.wordpress.com/2008/08/27/fieldset-and-mozilla-firefox-css/feed/ 0 jezd007 Googlemaps http://jez007.wordpress.com/2008/08/27/googlemaps/ http://jez007.wordpress.com/2008/08/27/googlemaps/#comments Wed, 27 Aug 2008 05:48:31 +0000 Jez D http://jez007.wordpress.com/?p=42 ]]>

Have decided to get into Googlemaps and purchased a book from Amazon. Now, I tell you, it’s very interesting and I can see loads of potential applications for this technology. From a developers position, perhaps an entreprenurial position, I can see that there’s scope for producing off-the-shelf application which clients can plug in to their existing web-based applications. On top of that, another benefit is that developing for googlemaps, using this book as a ‘bible’, means that the developer has no choice but to get experience with Ajax. Very CV enriching!

However, there is one big problem with Googlemaps – it’s based mainly on javascript technology.
So why is this a big problem? Check WCAG!

Ok, I’ll tell you. Using client-side scripting can create accessibility issues, as users may not be able to access all features due to the browser type or how the browser is configured. That’s why I generally stick to server-side scripting (PHP).

]]> http://jez007.wordpress.com/2008/08/27/googlemaps/feed/ 0 jezd007