Thursday 18 December 2008

further counting...and Nurseplus

Still counting down the hours till we break up for Christmas !!! (if it works, this should be a link to a Christmas Countdown clock online)!

Quick webnews: The New Nurse Plus Website is going live today, it runs on Loaf, Lingo's CMS thanks to really hard work done by the super fantastic amazing Craig for the CMS, and equally brilliant wonderous and genius like Steve for the design and perfectly creative, fabulously stunning Leigh ann who had her hands well stuck in to the content. Admittedly it's a little 'light' on content as it goes live, but being a CMS, (and knowing that work is ongoing in the background) I know that won't be the case for long.

Yesterday we also got the go ahead on a major (but currently top secret) job! Woooop wooop, good news, just in time for Christmas!

Also, Steve's new preview of the V.6 Lingo Design webpage is coming together rather nicely, (well done Mr.Steve) as is the content for it (in MindJet the planning program we use to arrange content before it goes in) so I'm relatively hopeful for a launch in early 09. It would have been nice to be ready to be live for the new year, but things have been too busy to fit in much more than we already have.

The bread theme is something I am really keen on. There's been loads of inspiration for it, I'm confident of it's originality and impact and the message is strong, but I just need to refine and polish it for maximum effect. More on Bread and Loaf later...this is just a quick post, as I must go and get the client Christmas wine delivered to the local lot, and there's not long to go now before we close down for the 2 week break (can't wait, off to Devon to see family) and my in tray is still looking rather too full for my liking....

P.S... I'm really pleased with my twitter gadget in here now, and also my Google Map of local businesses on Downhamweb) and to see that my Google analytics is counting my blogger stats sucessfully.

Tuesday 16 December 2008

problems...and the original ie post.

Why are there so many connection problems at the moment?

All day I've been trying to post the following post:

"It's not every day that something THIS BIG happens to a progam SO widely used.


http://current.com/items/89626498/internet_explorer_security_alert.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7784908.stm

My advice, (much like everyone else's) is to STOP USING INTERNET EXPLORER...
but then, I've been advising that for a while anyway, and it's the trend which millions of other people are following. The advice is to stop using it 'until it's fixed' but I strongly recommend stopping using it alltogether, and never look back.

Firefox is a great alternative, as is Google Chrome but the trend away from IE (internet explorer) has been speeding up for a while now, and the fight for second place is certainly hotting up, as the stats on this website show... http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp. We check these statistics regularly as we consider the parameters for designing websites.

In the design studio, we have all been Firefox fans for quite a while now, and many of our customers have migrated too. This security risk is highly likely to encourage further movement to the alternative browsers, it will be interesting to see the stats change over the coming months."


and since this morning (about 8am - oh look, 12 hours ago) all that has happened is (apart from the normal working day) constant failure to post this online.

I sit now, on the laptop in the office of a good friend/good customer, while connected wirelessly to their network, basically testing the theory that the problems we've had today are somehow connected to the router at the office. Steve's had email problems, account log ins have been intermittent and generally the whole thing has been very frustrating!

It certainly seems like Microsoft aren't the only ones with problems. (ok, ours are on a slightly smaller scale) (!) but the whole internet security news thing seems to be one of those things which I should have expected today!!!

I have, however, since writing the original post managed to install firefox on another 3 machines...!

winter clouds


winter clouds, originally uploaded by bizziluff.

this picture should have been uploaded with the 'winter clouds' post - but it woud'nt work at the time...

test

this is a test

Monday 15 December 2008

Christmas Countdown

Countdown to Christmas.

I both love and hate this time of year - the countdown is in it's final stages, and the office is very, very busy! The decorations and music are creating a happy, festive atmosphere and we've all picked our menu choices for our staff Xmas dinner on Friday (at www.arbukles.biz of course...) but it's a nightmare too, because (despite doing this for customers) we're left with very little time for getting our own Christmas Cards out to customers/suppliers/associates.

Luckily this year, we've planned to do e-cards, and the design is in the bag, we just need to send it out. However, the delay in doing so is now not because we're busy, but because of the debate in how to do so for the best. We could just send the jpeg in an email (not very cool) or a link to a webpage (a bit boring) or an html email which reads in the recipients mail programme (much more preferable).

We're been researching e-shot software, (having used a few different ones last year) and we are keen to test the best version we have found so far. It's typical then, that as I worked late last night to set up the account, in preparation for the e-xmas-shot... the webpage to buy credits online came up with a firefox security alert that parts of the page are unencrypted!! arg!!!

Vigilance is my watchword with internet security, and having foiled a potentially fraudulent transaction on an e-commerce site of one of our customers last week, (involving phone calls to the police's Computer Crime Unit)...this is right at the front of my mind, and I'm not about to enter my card details on an unsecure page!

Craig has said he'll have a look - ( he should be able to tell me what is wrong - perhaps the certificate is out of date?) but the countdown is still ticking and I'm as more cards arrive from other customers, it's going to have to be sorted soon!!!

In other news: We're really pleased to have Claire back in the office full time, (welcome back birdie) and fingers crossed in 2009 her role will include updates and additions to the side project www.downhamweb.co.uk which is gathering pace (again) now she's back.

In website news: The latest launch is the ecommerce (although no online sales) website Draft Wheelchairs

Flickr

This is a test post from flickr, a fancy photo sharing thing.

08/12/08 - winter clouds

winter clouds

Chilly winter days with cloudy skies...and now colourful word clouds online...


http://www.wordle.net/

...love this website! and here's a lingo word cloud...

http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/369633/Lingo_Design

Lingo applied this graphic style to an ecommerce site recently as a secondary method of category navigation.

http://www.shirefoodsofnorfolk.co.uk/index.html

:-)

05/12/08 - recently

I've been busy - but there's a few quick bits I want to chuck in here, re:social networking:

LingoLiz Google Profile

Downham Web

https://twitter.com/lingoliz

Downham Market search on flickr.com (if it works)

27/10/2008 - first post

Hi, I'm lingoliz. Just to elaborate on that slightly, I'm one half of the graphic design partnership called Lingo Design. http://www.lingodesign.co.uk and I'm called Liz. (ok, not very original I admit...)

I'm writing a business blog, to support the work we do here in our studio in Downham Market studio, and to help me to keep track of the many social marketing/other web related ideas/thoughts I have. Also, not least because "everyone is doing it" but because I'm intrigued to see if it can add value to my business and the businesses of my customers.

Mostly Lingo Design focuses on web site design, but that's interspersed with quite a bit of print, and then other promotional graphic design activity.

We called ourselves 'Lingo' because the spectrum of customers we deal with throughout an amazing variety of industries and have a different set of business languages, made up out of acronyms, and jargon. My USP (if you like, although I need a better descriptive term really) is that if we understand your business language we will be able to help communicate your business message more effectively with your potential audience.

I have a thirst for knowledge in a great variety of subject matter, most of which is well covered in the vastly expanding internet, which helps me to do my job better.

I love language, and there's writers in my family, my Granddad Geoffrey Austin was a published author, so I guess the love for the copy writing in websites Lingo produce comes from there, although he'd probably turn in his grave at my spelling and grammar ;-) thank goodness for spellcheck hey>!?

anyway - I hope this blog develops usefully and that if you stumble across it, you might enjoy the read.

ttfn

IMPORTING BLOG.....!

A quick post to say I'm going to import my old (well, recently new) blog.co.uk to Blogger for a coupld of reasons.

a.) It's easier to keep track of because it's linked from My Google profile page -
b.) My only other friend with a serious blog is in here... (Hi Leigh ann)
c.) blog.co.uk is seemingly difficult to subscribe to (you have to be a friend first) no good.

so, I'll bring the old posts over and title them date first and title next, within the title (hope that makes sense and works. So, the next post should be the 1st post ( as was)

:-)