You open your web-browser of choice and type in the address for your new state-of-the-art, no-expense-spared website only to land on the dreaded “Server not found” page. After a few minutes of frantically re-typing the address, refreshing the page and shouting and swearing, you grab the phone and demand to speak to the site developers. After a few minutes of shouting and swearing at them, it turns out that they can see the site fine, and in actual fact, its a problem with your connection. Luckily, new website downforeveryoneorjustme.com is here to spare you this embarrassment in the future.
Continue reading ‘Is your site down, or is it your connection?’
Blog
The Haycroft Media Resource Blog covers all aspects of website design and development from the web browsers being used through to the standards that govern the world wide web. As a website design and development company, it is imperative that we keep abreast of all the latest news and happenings in our field, and here we present the major stories along with our commentary. We also encourage the posting of your comments in response to these opinions.
You are designing a website for a client. You’re in Cape Town, and they are in Zurich. You are creative and have photoshop at your disposal. They can’t draw a straight line in mspaint. You mail the design over to them, and they don’t like it, or they “um.. kind of like it, but its not quite there”, or “er.. it needs something extra”, or “ah, um… can we just move some things round”. A lengthy period of time follows with you altering and resending designs back and forth, until eventually both you and the client get so sick of the process, that you both settle for something that you don’t quite like. Imagine now, that you can both have access to the design, and scribble and draw on it to your hearts content, well thanks to twiddla, now you can!
Continue reading ‘Twiddla’
This week’s issue of the Landblou Weekblad features one of our clients, moveit.co.za. The moveit website launched in early January 2008, and thanks to carefully targeted advertising, and articles such as this, it is already enjoying high levels of traffic.
Continue reading ‘Haycroft Media client in the Landblou Weekblad’
We have had a number of clients inquiring about selling low-volumes of product on their websites recently, exactly the kind of thing PayPal would be perfect for. Sadly for our South African clients, this really isn’t an option thanks to our good friends at SARS (the South African Revenue Service).
Continue reading ‘PayPal alternatives in South Africa’
According to research done by French internet traffic analysis company XiTi Monitor, Mozilla’s “Firefox” browser ended 2007 with a significant increase in its usage as compared to Internet Explorer and other browsers, ending the year with a market share of 28%. So, bearing this in mind, have you taken a look at your site in Firefox recently to check that its looking as good as it does in Internet Explorer?
Continue reading ‘Mozilla Firefox continues to grow’
The constant battle to get websites looking the same in Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, and the many other web browsers on the market is an everyday challenge for any web designer, but it is a walk in the park compared with the hike up Everest that is e-newsletter design.
With a variety of software based email clients like Outlook, through to the many different web-based solutions such as gmail and yahoo, it is becoming nigh on impossible to code the perfect HTML email, but before you ditch that great new e-newsletter campaign and resort to the good old days of plain-text, there is a light at the end of the e-tunnel.
Continue reading ‘html: The Email Standards Project’
You’ve approached us for a website design. We’ve established whether you need a cms or a simple HTML site. We’ve set everything up, the website template is just what you envisaged, and you’ve done your preparation work and provided us with all the copy we need for each page. However, all that text just looks drab and uninviting, but fear not, because with the addition of a few simple pictures, pages instantly become brighter and more inviting.
Continue reading ‘Need pictures for your web design?’
As well as requests for our usual web design work (cms, ecommerce etc), Haycroft Media is receiving increasing requests to set-up blogs for clients. At times these requests are from companies or individuals who haven’t yet fully grasped what a blog is and/or the best way to utilise one. So who better to turn to for advice than Jorn Barger, the man credited with inventing the blog.
Continue reading ‘Blogs: Top 10 Tips for New Bloggers’
I stumbled across a great post (and a great blog if you are also a developer) recently. The post is called 10 things you (probably) didn’t know about PHP., and i’m not too shy to admit that, yes, I didn’t!.
Continue reading ‘PHP: 10 things you may not know’
