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The Josh.biz Blog
Posted: Thursday, 2nd May, 2013, Category: Better Design, Tech News
The Web Design industry never stands still. Both the way we view and design websites has continuously evolved since I was first introduced to HTML, the language web pages are written in, back in 1995.
 During most of this time we’ve been designing websites for typical desktop and laptop computers. It was the era of the ‘beige box in the corner of the room’ for a very long time. 10 years ago laptops became very popular as mass production began and prices fell.
Web designers have always focused on designing for a minimum resolution/screen size. And on the whole we were dealing with desktop PCs and laptops.
First, websites went wider
Several years ago, we switched from designing websites with a fixed width suitable for 800 x 600 (pixels) resolution to catering for 1024 x 768 (and above) resolutions. Suddenly websites started getting wider. A narrow website became a tell-tale sign of an old website. And there are still a few lingering around even today…
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Posted: Tuesday, 19th March, 2013, Category: Tech News
A sneak preview of a forthcoming WordPress Admin Panel has been doing the online circuits recently. Looks very sleek – something for all our WordPress clients to look forward to.
(Click to enlarge)
Posted: Monday, 14th January, 2013, Category: Tips and advice
UPDATE 22 May 2013 – Having used Avast Free Antivirus for the past few months, we’ve decided to switch back to AVG Free. We found Avast to be too intrusive, with a barrage of continuous messages appearing in the corner of the screen. We also found that the software uses devious techniques at ever corner to direct you towards the paid for version. So you may wish to ignore the post below.
PC Pro magazine have just published a review (and testing) of 16 different security suites. Shock, horror – AVG Antivirus has been knocked from its long-held recommended position by Avast (Free) Antivirus.
In tests Avast was able to offer better protection against new viruses (protecting against 98%, compared with 91% by AVG). Avast has a pleasing Interface and places less demands on your PC (providing quicker boot up times).
Interestingly, Avast comes with voice notifications (which can be switched off in the options if desired). But many users will probably find the female update confirmations reassuring.
As with all free anti-virus solutions, there’s a lot of adverts for the full (paid for) version but this can be easily avoided if care is taken.
Posted: Monday, 31st December, 2012, Category: Josh.biz News
Happy Birthday to the Internet!
The web (as we know it today) was born 30 years ago (1 January 1983).
This marked the first use of technology known as Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP) – the method used to exchange information (e.g. web pages and emails) between computers on the internet. And it’s still working this way today…
Posted: Friday, 7th December, 2012, Category: Tips and advice
 PayPal offers an easy way to facilitate payments online at a reasonable cost, without all the hassle of requiring a merchant account, payment provider and shopping cart.
Also, users often like the option of PayPal because the transaction is handled by PayPal’s own secure servers, there’s no need to hand over financial details and it’s very quick. Even if users don’t have a PayPal account, debit and credit card payments are accepted.
One way of taking advantage of PayPal is to offer users a single PayPal Pay Now button where the user can choose how much to pay and provide additional information such as the invoice they are paying or the name of the event being booked. But PayPal certainly don’t make it obvious how you can accomplish this and Google results will lead you down lots of winding misleading paths. Here’s the answer:
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Posted: Friday, 23rd November, 2012, Category: Tips and advice
 This is a question that comes up so often, we’ve at last decided to add an explanatory post for everyone.
As web designers, one of our roles is to keep websites up to date. Nowadays many of the websites we design use a content management system such as WordPress (permitting the client to update content themselves). But many clients still rely upon us to make occasional manual updates for them. In fact, our reliability and promptness in actioning updates for clients is a key service we offer.
Once a page update is actioned, clients like to double check the changes themselves but are often surprised to see that nothing appears to have changed. Why would this be? If they were to ask a friend or colleague to check (at a separate location), they would confirm that the changes are in fact displaying correctly.
Because of ‘Web Caching’
This is ‘a mechanism for the temporary storage of web documents to increase performance’ (see Wikipedia). In the early days of the internet, we were reliant on very slow dial-up connections and one way of speeding up the browsing experience was for software (e.g. Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox etc.) to temporarily store the content of pages you recently visited. If you went back to a page you had already visited (i.e. earlier in the same day), you wouldn’t have to download the page all over again.
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Posted: Thursday, 15th November, 2012, Category: Tips and advice
Lately, I’ve encountered lots of clients reporting the appearance of software on their computers which they can’t remember installing (or even wanting in the first place). Additionally, browser home pages get usurped and default search engines are replaced.
In most cases the problem can be traced to the updating of key software on your computer – e.g. AVG Anti-Virus, Adobe Flash and Oracle Java (and many more).
This morning I was prompted to update my version of Adobe Flash which I normally proceed with automatically because there’s still plenty of Flash used on the web. Just before I rushed to click the ‘Update’ button, I was lucky enough to notice that, by default, a box was ticked to also download and install McAfee Virus Scan. I already have anti-virus software and certainly don’t need two of them. In fact, the general recommendation is to avoid installing anti-virus software by different manufacturers on the same PC. A lucky escape!
Then, half an hour later, I’m prompted to update my ‘Java’ engine – another essential piece of software which ensures that lot’s of websites will function correctly. But again, there was the discreet tick box (already ticked) to sneakily install the Ask toolbar and to set it as my default search provider. Another lucky escape! But how many users out there are overlooking this and filling their PCs full of unnecessary software which they never wanted (and probably slowing down their PC)? I’ve highlighted the offending tick box in red below:
Look out for them every time you install software. They’re popping up everywhere.
It’s just a great shame that these bona fide companies have to resort to such measures to sell their wares. It shouldn’t be happening and they should all know better. Be on your guard and look out for those tick boxes…
Posted: Tuesday, 30th October, 2012, Category: Tips and advice
I’m constantly surprised by the number of emails I receive without a comprehensive signature – no telephone number, no website, etc.. I then have to hunt the information down. That’s crazy! Enhanced Professionalism × Free Brand Advertising ×
Use a well composed email signature to reflect your personality, provide essential information (including social media links) and much more. For more information, visit this excellent guide: The Art And Science Of The Email Signature.
Posted: Sunday, 21st October, 2012, Category: Tips and advice
As Windows 8 is primarily targeted at tablet devices, many of us will be sticking with Windows 7 for a while to come…
In the meantime, in case you’re tempted to defect over to an Apple Mac with its shiny OS X interface, don’t forget that Microsoft provide a dedicated website with free downloads to beautify your computing experience. Here, you can “customise, protect, and enhance your computer”. It’s worth a visit.
Alternatively, right click your Windows 7 desktop, choose ‘Personalize’ and look for the discreet text link, ‘Get more themes online’ which takes you directly to the Theme Downloads page.
Visit http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows/downloads
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Microsoft – another empire in decline?
Past Microsoft logos
It’s a shame to yet more signals that Microsoft are blundering and refusing to listen to customers. As we’ve suggested before, Microsoft seem to be “just doing their own thing” and hoping that the rest of the world will follow suit.
Almost 4 months have passed since Windows 8 was widely released. Yet Windows 7 is still being sold on up to 93% of British PCs – and even Bill Gates is criticising the lack of innovation.
Then there’s the bright and bland new version Office 2013 which they’d like us to subscribe to monthly now. Users have been complaining about this since August last year.
Or this could just be another case of Microsoft releasing one good version followed by something sloppy?
95*, 98, Me 2000/XP Vista Win 7. There’s definitely a pattern.
*Windows 95 can be forgiven as it was so ground breaking. Windows 3, before that pretty solid, continuing the pattern backwards.
Fierce competitor Apple is facing the opposite crisis. Everything’s rosy but where do they go next? They need an even bigger dose of innovation to satiate their customers’ desire for something new. How do you make a good thing better?
And of course, there’s Google Android. But their destiny is still unravelling. Things are moving fast though.