34SP.com UK Web Design
Posted by Simon on March 11th, 2010
Its been 2 years since 34SP.com started offering web design as a service in addition to our web hosting plans. During this period our team of designers and developers have designed and built over 20 websites, of various shapes and sizes. In this blog post, I thought it would be a good chance to look at some of the most recent websites we have completed.
Lovesmoothies.com
Lovesmoothies were formed in 2004, and approached 34Sp.com with a desire to update their current site, whilst maintaining their already strong branding style. We were tasked with designing and building a website that would increase online sales and use the latest SEO techniques to increase traffic. The result was an attractive content managed website, powered by the 34SP CMS. Our bespoke CMS allows the client to manage all areas of their website, such as updating page content, managing products in their shop, managing customer accounts and processing orders made via the online shop.
BangkokDoncaster.co.uk
Bangkok Doncaster is an award winning Thai restaurant based in Doncaster, Yorkshire. The restaurant wanted a modern website to reflect their brand. The site was designed to project a high quality image of the restaurant, enabling Bangkok Doncaster to claim their spot in a competitive market place.
Ipanywhere.co.uk
Mobile technology company, IPAnywhere, wanted their online presence developing from scratch, including their branding and identity. We created a corporate identity inspired by the idea of limitless mobile communications, and created a minimalist website to showcase their products & services to potential customers.
Pugliapoolsandgardens.com
Based in south eastern Italy, Pugliapoolsandgardens.com specialise in domestic property management and maintenance. Working closely with the client, 34SP.com created a simple and contemporary website design, using locally inspired photography and typography. To make the most of their new site, we used the latest SEO techniques to drive targeted traffic from the natural listings in Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines.
That pretty much sums up our round up of the latest web design projects we have been working on. If you’d like to see more examples of our work, be sure to check out our website, design.34sp.com. If you are interested in getting a website designed, please don’t hesitate to get in touch, either by calling 0161 2001858, or email design@34sp.com.
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Favourite… iPhone Apps
Posted by Ali on February 26th, 2010
Hello again world! Although we usually focus our blog posts on features of our great products like our reseller hosting or dedicated server packages, this month I’m going to blog about my favourite iPhone apps. I don’t own an iPhone myself (one day…) but quite a few people I know do meaning I can ’steal’ theirs and have a play while they’re not looking. So onto the apps.
Flight Control
Flight control is an app developed by FireMint.
In the game you become an air traffic controller and the aim is to land as many aircraft as possible by drawing on their landing path with your finger. There are three types of aircraft to land – jumbo jets which land on the red runway, helicopters which land on the blue helipad and small planes which land on the yellow runway.
Things usually start off quite well with just a few aircraft arriving with relatively simple landing paths that don’t cross.
But after a while more and more aircraft arrive and it can get quite busy with not enough room for everything so eventually the inevitable happens… something crashes! This ends the game and the more aircraft you’ve landed the higher your score.
Warning - this is a highly addictive game. You can get it from the app store for a barginous 69p.
Doodle Jump
Doodle Jump is an app developed by Lima Sky.
The aim of the game is to guide the creature called the Doodler up the platforms without falling off. You can move from side to side across the screen by tilting the iPhone and there are various boosts such as jet packs and springs you can get to move up quicker.
You can also shoot at enemies by tapping the screen but I always find this difficult to coordinate (yes I know I should be able to multi-task being a woman but it’s hard!). If you fall off the game is over and you have the option to publish your high score to Facebook or Twitter. My highest score so far is 18,359 – this does need improvement!
Doodle jump is just as addictive as Flight Control and you can get it from the app store for 69p.
Rock Band
Rock Band iPhone 04 is an app developed by EA.
True to the original version of Rock Band, you hit the notes as they pass along the fret. There’s the option to play as guitar, bass, drums or vocals just as on the original version and you can even create your own mobile band with multi-player games. The song list is pretty similar to the original game with 34SP office favourites Foo Fighters – Everlong and Silversun Pickups – Lazy Eye being amongst the songs offered.
I somehow doubt we’ll all migrate from bashing out the tunes on the real drums / guitar / bass in the games room to sitting round playing this on iPhones but it’s a fantastic little game which is a great mobile alternative.
You can get a demo of Rock Band for free with the full version costing £5.99 from the app store
iPint
iPint is an app developed by Carling.
Viral marketing at it’s best, iPint lets you drink a virtual pint of Carling using it’s accelerometer, be careful not to spill it though! It’s free from the app store.
London Tube
London Tube is an app developed by Presselite.
I found this app very useful when I went for a weekend in London last November. Although we didn’t use it to its full potential (we used it mainly to find our nearest tube station) it has a bunch of great features:
- You can be notified of disruptions on any lines you select. I can imagine this is great for people who take the tube the same route every day.
- You can find your nearest Starbucks, McDonalds, etc. based on your current location – great for when you’ve been lost for a couple of hours and are starving!
- You can work out the quickest route to take to get to a destination using the best route planner – this saves looking like a tourist staring for ages at the huge tube map at the station.
Those are my top 5 iPhone apps at present. I hope one day I’ll be able to get my own iPhone and discover even more. Add your favorite app to the comments below.
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Building a Website Using Nvu
Posted by fazz on February 5th, 2010
Hi and welcome to my first blog post. I’m Lee the latest member of the 34SP.com team. If you’d like to know a bit more about me feel free to check http://www.34sp.com/aboutus where I will soon be added.
Whether you are running a WordPress hosting site, a business hosting plan or a reseller hosting account - we all want our sites to look great. Recently I have noticed quite a few customers asking how to edit already existing pages on their website after it has been for them by a web designer, or even how to go about making their own new website. Many customers are happy to know we do provide automatic script installers for a few Content Management Systems such as Joomla, Wordpress, e107, ExponentCMS and Website Baker. The scripts are available here: http://scripts.34sp.com. 34SP.com also offers a complete web design service for those clients who need it.
However, if you are like myself and prefer to have a more hands on approach and do things for yourself there is an alternative to web design applications such as Microsoft Front Page or Adobe Dreamweaver. After some searching I came up with what I consider to be a very good free alternative, called Nvu.
Now to some of you more experienced designers this application may seem too simple and light on features, but to me I find it brilliant for beginners. To me one of the most useful beginner guides can be found at the following address: http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp.
In the basic section of this guide it talks of how to add paragraphics and headings and how to set these up in different styles and formatting, how to add tables, images, links, forms and lists. All of these are easy to add to your own site content within Nvu simply by using the buttons in the application. In the advanced section of the guide there is information on how to edit fonts, create layouts use scripts, create and use CSS and use your meta data. All of these are feasible within Nvu using built in features such as the view source code panel, where you can add your scripts and edit your meta data and the built in CSS Editor.
Once you have finished creating and are happy with your page, this handy program also has the ability to automatically publish your files at the click of a single button, automatically creating links between files and uploading them via FTP for general viewing on the Internet.
In summary I have found that Nvu is a great beginners solution for those willing to get into website programming and design who don’t want to use traditional Content Management Systems. While Nvu isn’t as good in some ways as its counterparts, the fact that this application is free and it is available on all platforms (Windows, Mac and Linux) it gives you a great sense of what you are looking to get into where later you can choose to upgrade to a pay for client if you feel that you have grown past this programmes capabilities.As mentioned, you can download Nvu for free at: http://net2.com/Nvu. If you are looking to build things using Nvu you may also want to have a look into an extremely insiteful guide located here: http://www.charlescooke.me.uk/web/kz-ug-home.htm.
Good luck in getting your website built using Nvu.
Posted in Chit chat | No Comments »
