The Site Doctor site is featured on CSS Mania

Perhaps not a big thing to shout about for some but our new company site has been featured on CSS Mania!

Check the site out and leave your rating :)

http://cssmania.com/galleries/2008/05/08/the-site-doctor.php

And if you've not already seen it, check out the updated website design process full of jQuery loveliness: http://www.thesitedoctor.co.uk/services/website-design-and-development

The Site Doctor is hiring!

Despite all the doom and gloom surrounding the pending credit crunch, we're hiring as work is piling in and we need help :). So if you're a developer, designer, sales person, marketing guru -or you're just plain bored check out The Site Doctor's vacancies page for the great posts currently up for grabs!

Not sure why you should come and work with us? There are way too many reasons to list in one go but here are my top 5:

• You'll have a great boss (ok I'm a touch biased)
• We have 20% time (every Friday we down tools and do something cool -that doesn't relate to the main projects you're working on at the time -more about that another day)
• We're committed to your development and will fund courses etc
• There are bonuses to be had for referrals and working hard!
• You get your Birthday as an additional bank holiday so you never need to worry about booking it off again!

Oh and there's free Tea and Coffee -so I guess that's 6 reasons to get in touch.

For more information about the posts available (more being added later this week) check out The Site Doctor vacancies page.

Another super logo design from another over priced design agency

Thanks to Gareth and The Register for this one, it had me laughing for a good long while.

After the last design debacle (the London Olympics 2012) logo, you would have thought someone would have thought carefully before making the image public but here's the latest logo for the UK's Office of Government Commerce (OGC):

Other than being just plain boring it's ok right? Yeah, I thought so too until I was told to rotate it 90 degrees clockwise...

Brilliant! I'm still laughing!

Just goes to show (once again) that going with a large digital agency to create your brand identity isn't necessarily a good idea...

Having just rebranded Avant Garde hair salons (see the new logo here), I'm now checking our design. Nope all looks good so it's "Big Guys" 2 - "Little Guys" 0

Can't wait to see what the next government logo is...

SQL Server Management Studio won't install over SQL Server Management Studio Express

Since re-installing my main development machine recently, I've had a real irritation -I had to resort to SQL Server Management Studio Express as I couldn't get the full version installed. This wasn't a problem until today when I had to re-create some full text catalogs (which is one of the things you can't do using the GUI in SQL Server Management Studio Express).

I did look into getting this working before giving up before due to time constraints but this time I had no choice but this time I must have done something differently.

Just to bring you up-to speed, whenever I tried to install SQL Server Management Studio using the SQL Server 2005 installer, I got an error message something along the lines of "Edition Version Conflict". The installer then suggests you uninstall the express tools (which you do) and you try again just to get the same error message.

Most people on Google are just resorting to a complete re-install of your machine but I've found that's because you're not uninstalling the right thing. First thing I did this time was remove Microsoft SQL Server 2005 completely but near the end of the installer it asks you if you want to remove or modify. This time, I chose modify and set all the components to "Entire Feature will be Unavailable". That then seems to uninstall it fully for you. Now uninstall SQL Server Management Studio Express and you're done :)

Hope that helps someone else (or me in a few months time...)

Site, Sight, Stacey, Stacie and all the other ways you can spell The Site Doctor wrong

One of the quandaries I've had for a while with The Site Doctor is our name, it sounds silly but I've lost count of the number of times I've had to spell out "site", it may not be too obvious why at first glance but there's two common spellings of "site" -one relates to websites, building etc, the other opticians (sight). Silly eh!

It has never really bothered me in the past but now that I have Stacey working with me we run into another issue -not only does she have a difficult to spell surname (Shapcott), people use so many inflections of "Stacey" it's comical. So this week I've taken it upon myself to sort this and have gone all out creating email aliases (we used to just have name@, name.lastname@, initiallastname@) but Stacey now has Stacie, Stace, Stacee and numerous other counterparts.

In an effort to make life easier for our clients, we've also got a few more domain names that point to our main domain name which include:

www.thesitedoc.co.uk

www.thesitedr.co.uk

www.sitedoc.co.uk

and my favourite:

www.thesightdoctor.co.uk

A little overkill perhaps but for the sake of £20 I thought it was worth it ;)

Moral of the story: Don't have a long winded name that has words that sound similar to others in it ;)

Rackspace partners with The Site Doctor

There are a lot of changes afoot at The Site Doctor at the moment -not just the new company identity, site and top secret plan but we're partnering with industry leaders to ensure we're able to offer the very best service possible.

Today I'm going to introduce our hosting provider, Rackspace. The Site Doctor has partnered with Rackspace^®, Europe’s fastest growing and most successful IT hosting company, to provide our fully managed hosting solutions.

The Site Doctor has chosen Rackspace as our trusted hosting partner as they are completely focused and experienced in managed hosting. Every system and process at Rackspace was built exclusively for delivering a reliable and secure service, with support staff highly trained for supporting complex hosting environments. Rackspace supplies the necessary superstructure - web, application and database servers, network devices, bandwidth and managed services - needed to run any outsourced hosted solution. Solutions are hosted in state-of-the-art secure data centres, watched over by certified staff.

Another reason behind The Site Doctor's decision to partner with Rackspace was Rackspace's award winning and unbeatable level of customer service -nicknamed as "Fanatical Support^®". Rackspace employees are available 24/7/365 to meet and exceed your expectations, meaning fast responses to critical issues, unlimited (free) technical phone support, access to their huge online knowledgebase, guaranteed 100% network uptime and many other business-critical support features. By outsourcing to Rackspace, we get the peace of mind that our hosting environment is being looked after by the experts.

Rackspace's commitment to its customers has won them the Unisys/Management Today Customer Service Excellence Award for 2005, in addition to being named Microsoft's Gold Certified Hosting Solutions Partner of the Year and Red Hat's first Advanced Hosting Partner in Europe.

The Site Doctor highly recommends Rackspace because, like us, they hold the highest standards in service excellence and therefore are able to ensure that mission-critical applications will remain up and running in a secure environment.

The new "The Site Doctor" website finally gets online!

Somewhat behind the original schedule we've finally launched the new company website!

There's still more refining to be done to it and there are a few errors but it's far better than the old site :)

Visit the new The Site Doctor website at www.thesitedoctor.co.uk -new customer quotes and portfolio items coming soon!

We've got some wicked new branding designs to share shortly but until it's all published it's all very hush hush I'm afraid ;)

Stacey's first day and the company is incorporated

Today is Stacey's second day and change is already abreast, Monday was somewhat quiet on the business front with Gym, Hair Cuts, Lunch, Shopping and numerous phone calls but today things have really started moving -the first port of call was going Ltd:

Congratulations...

We are pleased to advise you that your company, THE SITE DOCTOR LTD has been accepted for incorporation by Companies House

To my foreign readers this means that my West Midlands based web design company The Site Doctor is now officially listed with Companies House -we've got a certificate 'n everything...

Although it was a "real" company, now the main benefit is If The Site Doctor Ltd was to go bankrupt, each shareholder is responsible only for the amount they have invested in the company -so if The Site Doctor Ltd was to go bankrupt (which I hope it doesn't!) I won't lose our house!

Watch this space as The Site Doctor Ltd and it's new branding will be launched later this month...

Registration opens for the UK launch of Visual Studio 2008 -in Birmingham

For those of you Microsoft readers I thought I'd let you know I've just had an email come through about Visual Studio's UK Launch. It's happening on March 19th 2008 in Birmingham's ICC. Registration has finally opened and you can register here: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=8126604

Alternatively check out the live cast at: www.heroeshappenhere.co.uk.

Why am I excited about this? Well the last launch event I went to gave away free -and full- copies of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 to every delegate! Hope to see you there -let me know if you can make it.

Fantastic new -and cheap domain name registrars

After our recent issues with Fasthosts (or as they are now fondly referred to in the office - Farcehosts) I have made the conscious decision to move away from them completely over the forthcoming months (probably years). We no longer have any clients on their hosting platform but we still have circa 300 domain names registered through various accounts through their sister company UKReg.

Due to the authority's charges, we can't just transfer all these domains away as it'd cost us a fortune (and possibly one we can't recoup) so I'm going to do it as they expire. In our search to find an alternative provider someone suggested we check out the new kid on the block - Heart Internet. According to those in the know on Underscore they are a bunch of guys who used to work at 1&1 and decided they could do it better.

So far I've found their service to be great -and value wise they're cheaper than most providers which is a bonus. As with most of the providers these days it's all managed through their easy to use online control panel which is pretty straight forward. If you're on the lookout for great value or cheap domain names give Heart Internet a look.

BTW if you're wondering where Heart Internet's .co.uk domain names from 9p is, check under the transfer fees. Still £2.59 is a great price for any .co.uk!

The King Daddy of Office chairs - Herman Miller's Aeron

If you've found this article through a Google search I expect like me you've read a plethora of articles and blog posts that vary from saying how amazing the Aeron is, to how the Aeron is an over-priced relic of the burst dot com bubble of the 90s. Well this one is my take on Herman Miller's Aeron.

Before buying my Aeron I decided to make use of Herman Miller's trial Aeron, this isn't something they make you overly aware of so if you're thinking about getting a new office chair, contact your local representative (or the Herman Miller website) and ask if you can hire one for a month. It'll cost you somewhere around £40 but it'll at least allow you to see what you're getting before outlaying £400+. The trial Aeron took a little getting used to which I've put down to the fact that my posture in the old chair was seriously bad but after a week or so I was sitting very comfortably indeed.

One of the simpler things I liked about the Aeron was the fact you can raise it up higher than many other chairs, this is important for me as my desk is 4-5 inches too high which means I'm always sitting incorrectly. By raising the Aeron up a little more I was able to sit with my arms flat on the desk reducing shoulder and back ache considerably. Another aspect of Herman Miller's Aeron chair that I liked was the fact you could adjust the resistance of the back, again a simple; but important feature, it takes a little trial and error but you can get the balance just right so it lifts you up into your position but doesn't stop you from leaning back to relax (or in my case kick back when you do something right).

Rather than having a cushioned fabric seat, the Aeron has a mesh that stretches a little to offer the same comfort padding does but without the worry that in 2 years time, the padding turns to something more like cardboard (which is one of the factors that prompted my search for a new office chair). The downside I've found with this mesh is it overly aerated which in my case means my bum is kept very cool (and back which is a good thing as sweatiness is reduced to a minimum) -great in the summer but in the winter brrrr!

The main downside to having the Aeron is the price, as I wanted a grey one, I had mine imported from the States and paid a premium but you can pick up the basic spec chair for around £400 (and probably less if you do a little bargaining), baring in mind the 12 year warranty these chairs carry it should in theory outlast 3-4 £99 type office chairs and look after your back in the meantime. Being somewhat of a scrooge, I looked at it from the POV that the difference between what I would spend on new £99 chairs in the warranty period of the Aeron would only be a matter of £200 or so which equates to around 5p per day. That's got to be worth it :)

On the whole though I really like my Herman Miller Aeron, I feel it has really helped my posture and although I didn't really suffer from back ache after a long day (probably down to my canoeing) I feel that the small investment short-term will pay off in the longer term. I consider the chair a luxury and so wouldn't splash out on it if I were a start-up as there are far more important things to get sorted first! That said, if you're planning on spending long hours in your chair from the outset maybe it is worth the expense from the start.

It's worth stating at this point that in addition to trying out the Aeron, I also tried out Herman Miller's alternative offerings and a number of alternative office chairs but I didn't find I got the same comfort.

I did a lot of shopping around for a suitably cheap(er) supplier and was surprised to find out that the supplier just down the road from me was able to offer the cheapest price by far (ignoring delivery etc) so check out Creative Box in Birmingham, Kate from Creative Box in Birmingham was more than helpful and patient in answering my 101 questions so I'm sure she'll be able to help you out too.

Ethical Christmas Presents/Cards

Last year was the first year we sent out presents to clients and it went down a storm though choosing the presents is somewhat awkward -especially when it comes to wine, what if they're a red wine drinker or a white wine drinker etc?

Anyway I digress, as usual we've started receiving gifts from companies and as usual we've had one or two "we're not sending out cards this year, instead we're donating the money to xyz" or "we've spent the money we were going to spend on you, on a goat". A little un-PC I know but -gee thanks.

What a ridiculous thing to do, it really gets my goat (pun intended) when people do this, it's so pretentious -and doesn't impress me in the slightest, they'd be better not to bother -or- donate and not tell me. Why, instead of not spending that £1.00 on a card "saving the environment" don't you pay your bills by BACS instead? That way you would avoid sending a small cheque in a huge envelope with your complement slip etc? Surely THAT would be making more of a contribution?

All these donations to me just say "We've not got the time or inclination to get you something personal so we won't bother". Further more, Stacey and I donate to charities on a monthly basis anyway -to charities that we care about. Some of you may remember the Cheshire Ring Race we did for charity for example.

As I mentioned earlier, this year we were donated a goat -ok it's supposedly gone off to a family in Africa somewhere but quite frankly they should have saved all the donations up and gone over there and helped out, now THAT would have got my attention. Having been on a charity aid project in The Gambia myself I know that would mean a lot more to the locals than (apparently) being sent a goat.

Anyway, enough ranting, if you want a nice Christmas hamper or bottle (or two) of wine for your friends, family or client this year check out the Wine and Hamper Gift website for some ideas.

February 8th - a date for your diary!

Well it's been a hectic few days what with breaking the news to everyone and getting things in place but we've finally got Stacey's management to give her a leaving date -February 8^th. It's still a fair way off but a lot better than we were expecting (sometime in March) so we can't complain.

I just hope the new office is in place in time -let alone the new website (still very much in development)!

Mobile content developers Mobile Pie wins the New Mobile Game Developer Award

This has taken me a while to post but kudos to our mobile content development partners Mobile Pie who have managed to win the New Mobile Game Developer awards sponsored by Channel 4 and EA Mobile.

Read more about it here: Mobile Pie Wins 4Talent Mobile Game Award

Changeable headers using the media picker

A project we’re currently working on needs to have interchangeable header images. The theory is to set the header image on the parent page and then unless a template is specified for the page, it should use one of it’s ancestor’s.

Umbraco as a nice control called a “Media Picker” which I felt was perfect for the job as it meant you could easily share header images across the site and it also made sense from a user perspective to have a “Header Images” folder to choose from. The issue from my point of view was how to traverse up the tree until it found a header image to use. Imagine the following site map:

-Home
     -Products
          -Category
               -Product details (Custom header image)

If you’re on the products/category page it should display the header image from Home but when you’re on the product details page it needs to show the specified header image.

So how do you do it? It turns out it’s (fairly) simple using XSLT. The first issue I ran into was getting the URL of the media file from the media picker control, Umbraco offers a useful function to do this for you (well almost!). Using the function umbraco.library:GetMedia you are able to get the details on the file based on the media item id but it includes everything so you then need to use a little XSLT to select the attribute “umbracoFile”:

That should give you something along the lines of “/imgs/somefolder/somefile.jpg”

Now how can you traverse up the tree to get the data? Thanks to Morten Bock/Casey Neehouse for helping me understand this XSLT, but the following code should give you the URL of the nearest media item in the tree:

Then add a macro to your project and you’re done :). You can see it in action on the new Lucy Switchgear website if you're interested, it's currently being written so it's bound to be a little rough around the edges but do let me know what you think. Our remit was to improve the CMS they had in place making it easier to manage the site and also sort out a few major issues from a SEO perspective. Although altering the design wasn’t part of the initial brief I think you’ll agree the facelift we’ve given the site is for the better (even if it’s just from a usability point of view).

Florame organic aromatherapy hits the press

Having one of the business owners work in PR can't be a too much of a bad thing for a company, especially not when you manage to get your name into Sunday Times. I'm not sure whether this is something they pushed for themselves or whether it was just the editor happened to come across it but I thought I should share :)

The response from getting into something like the Sunday Times is quite phenomenal, there was a very noticeable shift in the number of sales put through the website and searches performed so if you ever have the chance of a mention, jump at it!

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/men/article2657685.ece

Fasthosts fail to amaze again

I don't know if any of my readers are familiar with Fasthosts' recent security problems that hit the press a couple of weeks ago but I couldn't help but laugh at a conversation I had with them the other day. Baring in mind they had a breach in their security which meant that all passwords had to be reset I was astonished to get this email about an FTP login issue.

Is it just me or is that a little nuts asking a user to send their username and password in clear text just after a major breach in security? I thought my response was very measured:

The office to end all offices

Some of you have already heard about my miss fortune with the office flooding. It's thrown things up in the air somewhat at a time when I could really do without it.

The bonus however is that I get to have a nice new office fitted (hopefully on the insurance) but that's turning out to be a saga in itself. As with any large expenditure we've gone out and got a few quotes from companies such as Sharps, Neville Johnson and some other smaller companies to get an idea of costs etc. To say there is a wide range in the price is an understatement -they range from £1,000 to over £16,000! The office is only 9ft x 9ft which means it'd be £1,777 per square foot! How nuts is that!!

Anyway, I thought people might like to see what I'm thinking about having fitted atm.

Now that Stacey is soon going to be working with me we ideally I need to cram (and it is a matter of cramming) two people into the office space and I think the solution of having the two terminals sitting back to back but offset like this will work nicely. The other problem I have is the size of my screens, at the moment they measure 115cm wide and my old desk meant I was sitting too close to them and would end up with screen burn but this design should allow me to sit far enough away.

I'll probably remove it shortly but the program that I used to layout the room has a 3D export that you can checkout at: www.thesitedoctor.co.uk/office/

25% discount at Florame organic aromatherapy

Ahh Christmas is fast approaching again -and for once I've actually got a few presents (I usually buy them all on the 24th of December) -not that I can take any credit for that, it's all down to Stacey. Anyway I wanted to share this 25% discount for