Archive for the ‘Tips’ Category

Sharing Bookmarks: A better way

Thursday, July 15th, 2010 by Francois

Delicious Logo

I’ve recently completed testing more efficient ways to share our bookmarks.

Previously we shared links internally and with clients by writing a weekly round-up post on our blog.

Not only was this time consuming it wasn’t user-friendly.

So why persist for so long?

Habit.

Even though we knew we should have transitioned to something like Reddit, StumbleUpon or Delicious we never did.

Why? Because it was such a simple thing to do it kept on being put off. Not good I know, hence this post to absolve my guilt!

The options:

After playing around with Reddit, StumbleUpon and Delicious and looking into the usage stats of each we’ve settled on using Delicious. You can check out our account here.

Getting Started:

With Delicious importing your bookmarks is a breeze:

First off, you will need to save your browser bookmarks.

If you are not sure how to do this, create a Delicious account and follow the detailed instructions for Firefox, IE 6 & 7, Opera. Please note you must be signed-in to access this page.

In addition to the supported browsers this works fine in Safari too (go to “File” and select “Export Bookmarks”). Although Chrome on OSX is still lacking a bookmark exporter there are work-arounds available.

Once you’ve done this pop over to Delicious and create your account if you haven’t already:

  1. Click on Settings
  2. Click on Import/Upload Bookmarks
  3. Choose the File to Upload
  4. Click on the Import Now button

The import process is surprisingly quick and there is an email notification option that tells you when it’s completed.

Once the import is complete you can start sorting through your tags and the Bulk Edit feature is very useful for this.

Other features you should check out:

  • Export/Backup bookmarks feature makes it simple to download a copy of your bookmarks for safe-keeping. We would recommend doing this regularly.
  • Link Rolls/Tag Rolls is an easily enabled feature that allows you to display your latest Delicious bookmarks/tags on your website or blog.
  • Blog Posting is an experimental feature that can automatically post entries  containing your latest links to your blog every day. This isn’t something we are currently using but it is something we would be interested in using in the future.

Conclusion:

Delicious is a great solution for sharing and storing your bookmarks online.

It is easy-to-use and its import/export features work well. The extra settings available means you can also customise the way Delicious works.

All in all we are really happy with Delicious but as with any hosted solution we’d always suggest you continue to maintain a regular backup procedure.

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Categories: Tips
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3 Things That Made Us Better

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010 by Esther
Process Map

BCM's Initial Client Contact Process Map

Here are 3 things that I have introduced at Border Crossing Media.   You would most likely see them in a large organisation but they have helped us grow as a company:

1.  Process Maps

A process map is a diagram that clearly defines each step of a process or task, who is responsible for that step and preferably the time and cost of each step.  It allows you to see a project, process or task, on a granular level and work out the most efficient, cost effective method for producing deliverables independent of who undertakes the work.

You do have to invest time to map out each individual task or process, I had to sit with my partner for a day and draw out each process for each of our service areas, but the benefits of having a good set of process maps mean that you get numerous benefits.

The best thing we have found is to map them out initially and then test them over time and improve them. Your maps are a working document, not the fixed solution, that you can adapt over time as your business changes and grows.

The benefits of investing in process maps are:

  • Consistency: By having a clearly defined process map for people to follow they will be able to deliver the same quality of result every time, independent of who undertakes the task.
  • Efficiency: Mapping out each step you undertake for a process means that you can assess whether you are taking extra, unnecessary steps that are not adding value to the outcome.
  • Understanding: If your standard processes are mapped then anyone can quickly review them and understand how and why your business works.  It helps with training new staff as they can understand your method from start to finish without necessarily undergoing them and they are great for Clients who are querying why tasks take the length of time or cost of a process.
  • Faster, accurate quotes: We quickly assess the length of time a project will take and therefore cost it quickly by taking our standard process map, adding any additional elements that are required and any external costs that will be occurred.  It takes us a lot less time to quote for Clients and it gives us an accurate, realistic quote.

2. Action Plans

It is very easy not to be able to see the woods from the trees sometimes and so even though you may have your finger on the pulse of the business do you take the time out to review where you are in terms of your goals, objectives and performance.

When I joined Border Crossing Media there were clear objectives that we wanted to achieve.  Most of the time we knew how we going to do it and went about getting them done.

We wanted to be able to measure our companies performance, and therefore our success, and make sure that the actions and decisions that we took would be of value to us.  So we took some time out at the end of Q1 to review our company objectives.  I asked everyone to come up with at least 5 objectives for 2010 and we all got together and compiled a list of objectives that we agreed as a team we wanted to achieve.  We then split them into high and low level objectives and built them into an action plan.  We give each action a RAG (Red = Not on schedule, Amber = On schedule, Green = On target) Status to show where we are with each one.

We now update each other weekly as to the progress on the actions that we have assigned to ourselves which means that we are all kept in the loop and there is more accountability within the company.  I am also happy to report that to date there are no red actions on the plan!

3. Board Reports
Even if you know everything that goes on in your company it is a good idea to make sure you write quarterly a Board Report.  It is a snapshot of the performance of your company for the last quarter and will highlight anything that is planned for the next quarter.

I produce a lengthy report on a quarterly basis that covers:

1. Company Objectives and progress

2. Finance

3. Marketing

4. Technical

5. Project Progress

6. Client Update

7. HR

8. Any Other Business (AOB)

It is amazing how you can know how your company is performing but when you put it in black and white it gives you focus.  Plus it is a great document to have to hand if you need any financing or other external support and makes a good addition to your business plan.

So those are three things that I have implemented at Border Crossing Media that have made a tangible difference to both the Company’s bottom-line but also to how we all work together.  Why don’t you give some a try if you are not already.  They may not work for your particular organisation but if you don’t give things a go how will you know if they could have helped?

Good luck and let me know what works and what doesn’t work for you.

Categories: Business Strategy, Tips
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Determine your online strategy

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 by Esther

Chesspieces

I am going to start this post with a simple assumption – that you have  a business plan.

As part of your business plan you have noted that you need an online presence.  In essence you need a website – you may not be sure why but everyone else has one so its likely you do too.  You might also need to have a social media strategy but I’ll pick up on this in a later post (if you can’t wait then check out Hubspot for some easily accessible information and pointers).

There is so much information out there and your competitors are everywhere online so what do you do and where do you start?

Well the first thing to do is to think about what you want to get out of your online business presence.  What is your main objective for having a website?

It seems like a simple question but there are huge implications depending on the route that you choose to take.

When the World Wide Web (sometimes referred to as Web 1.0) was created by Sir Tim Berbers-Lee the intention was for people to be able to share and link information documents easily. It wasn’t long before everywhere you looked online there were business brochure websites popping up. It made sense and started to attract people to their companies but just like their paper counterparts these static websites had no real way to increase the conversion rate of ‘browsers’ to ‘consumers’.

Enter Web 2.0 in 2004.

You may be asking: ‘What is Web 2.0 exactly?  Was there an update on everyone’s computer that I missed?’.

Don’t panic there wasn’t!

In fact it was merely a change in attitude to the way in which the Internet was to be used. Instead of a collection of information that was static and difficult to find there were new programs and platforms coming out that were designed around the way we use the Internet. Andrew McAfee defined Web 2.0 with an acronym:

Search:   Find information through keyword searches using Google, Yahoo, Bing etc
Links:   Connect information together through hyperlinks
Authoring: Everyone has the ability to create and update content on the Internet
Tags: Categorise information by assigning tags or keywords
Extensions: Using software to make the Internet become an application platform as well as a document server
Signals: Using syndication technology – allowing you to get feeds of updated work such as blogs etc. e.g. RSS

This was not a new World Wide Web, as Sir Tim Berbers-Lee pointed out, it was simply the way it was always supposed to work!  People began to adopt this attitude and created new, exciting products and websites online allowing us to see the real power that the Internet gives a business to interact with it’s Consumers.

So now lets go back to your online strategy. If you really are investing in an online presence and want a good return on your investment (ROI) then take the ‘Web 2.0′ approach to your website:

Search: Make sure that your website is easy for Search Engines to read.  A search engine works by sending out ’spiders’ or ‘bots’ to crawl your website for keywords on your web pages and hyperlinks. Once every page on your website has been crawled it then indexes it to a massive database that collates all the information online and uses an algorithm to determine the most relevant results to any query.  The more relevant your information is to the subject, the higher your ranking will be.

Links: Are really important to any website.  Firstly from the point of view of the user it is easier to find the information by clicking on a link to the next page or another website then typing in the full address or URL.  People will spend more time online and will ’surf’ through more pages simply because it is easy.  Links are also good because if you can link your website to other popular, established, trusted websites then search engine spiders will read these and think that your website is popular and trusted too.  This is referred to as building ‘link juice’. Be careful though, you should only ever link your company to websites you trust. Search engine spiders are clever enough to know when they are being gamed and this can seriously effect your ranking.  Also if you have more than 100 unique links on a web page then the spiders stop reading them, I like to think they get tired or a bit bored, and therefore only offer value to your Consumers not search engines.

Authoring: The more interesting the information is on your website the more people will read it. If you update it regularly then people will come back to see what you have changed.  It is also good to get your Customers or Consumers involved in creating this information. This is why blogs, wikis and social networking are becoming so popular – people like to be part of the content creation process and therefore ‘buy in’ to the overall business concept.

Tags: If you assign tags to the content that you create both your Consumers and search engines will find it easier to find exactly what they are looking for by category.  It makes your website work in a similar fashion as a human brain by putting each bit into a special compartment with a relevant label on it.

Extensions: Think about how you can enhance your business online through different applications and software. Instead of just showing them what your business can offer, let them buy things or try them online.  I recently came across hairdressers who are now allowing you to not only book your appointment online but also upload your photo to try out different hairstyles by superimposing them on your picture.  A simple but effective enhancement to the traditional hairdresser’s brochure/booking website.

Signals: Why wait for people to check your website for your new blog piece or product update?  Make it easier for your consumers to access the latest information by telling them about it.  Syndication tools allows you to do this easily and in a way in which the consumer wants.  Your consumers may want a daily update as to what is happening in your business or they may only want it monthly.  Syndication technology allows you to share this information with them in the way that they want making them more likely to actually consume and react to it.

So whilst you are determining your online strategy you need to bare these pointed in mind. Before you go and build your new website think about why you want it, who is going to use it, and how. I’d also suggest using the SLATES approach to consider how you can enhance what you are offering your Consumers.

Photo credit: CogDog Blog

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Categories: Business Strategy, For Clients, Online Strategy, Tips
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Defining the scope of a project

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 by Francois

A cracked egg

Now first off I want to state that I have learnt this the hard way. There was no epiphany this is just something I’ve learnt by being burnt.

At the start of any project you will try to define the scope of work required by the client.

This usually involves defining the deliverables the client requires and breaking these down into the tasks needed to deliver them.

Why do this?

  • To manage client expectations
  • To establish clear communication
  • To ensure you can deliver what you say you will (on-time and on-budget)
  • To identify the areas you really can add value
  • To help the client prioritise what it is that they really need

What does this involve?

Well I reckon it all boils down to the following:

  • What are the project’s SMART objectives?
  • What are the client’s business goals?
  • What are the client’s needs (short and long-term)?
  • What are their target audience/end-user goals?
  • What are their target audience/end-user needs?
  • What are the client’s constraints (budget, resources and timeline)?
  • Details of the work to be done.
  • What research has been done to inform the above?
  • Why do they want to work with you in particular?
  • How will they measure success?

Now a well written brief should detail all of the above quite clearly.

However, I’ve seen a lot of briefs recently that look more like a wish-list then a strategic document.

How do we address this?

We are honest and direct and rarely take a brief as is.

We analyse it, critique it and pass on our feedback to potential clients.

There is no doubt that this approach may well have compromised our chances of securing a number of contracts.

Then why do it?

Two reasons:

  • it provides genuine value to the client
  • it ensures you don’t find yourself wishing you had once the project kicks-off.

After all you know what can be done, how well it can be done, and how much risk is involved.

As such I see it as our duty to:

  • provide feedback on what is, and what isn’t doable within the constraints of the project
  • go through their requirements and reassess the prioritisation of the work to be done.

If you know a decision they are taking now is going to have long-term implications state them up-front. This is what clients are hiring you for, not just the fulfilment.

Yes, it may be a difficult conversation but if you don’t do this you will certainly come to regret it.

Bottom line it’s better to miss out on a job then find yourself working on one you can’t wait to see the back of.

Not only can you take a financial hit on projects such as these, the impact on your team’s morale can not be underestimated.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21560098@N06/3812840962/

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Categories: For Clients, Project Management, Strategy, Tips
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Must Read: The 10 Do’s & Don’ts of Web Development

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 by Francois

Fatdux Company LogoThis article has to be shared and promoted.

Written by the always inspiring Eric Reiss of The FatDUX Group, this is a must read if you are commissioning or project managing the development of a website.

This isn’t one of those usual top 10 lists you see doing the rounds. It’s a truly informative and useful primer that all small and medium sized businesses would benefit from reading prior to commissioning a new website.

Why?

It offers non-technical business leaders a concise yet powerful overview of what, and more importantly what not to, focus on if they want to give their website every chance of succeeding.

Here are the core headings:

  1. Don’t confuse your marketing with communication.
  2. Don’t view your website as a software development project.
  3. Don’t couple unrelated initiatives.
  4. Don’t be afraid to set measurable goals.
  5. Don’t confuse your needs with those of your visitors.
  6. Don’t view your website as a fixed term project.
  7. Don’t confuse print design with web design.
  8. Don’t let personal opinion cloud your focus.
  9. Don’t be afraid to ask stupid questions.
  10. Don’t hide in your office.

You can read the blog post or download a PDF to access the full article.

We will be circulating this article to all of our new clients as it effectively addresses a myriad of issues we often encounter.

So thank you Mr Reiss you really are a star!!!

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Categories: For Clients, Project Management, Strategy, Tips, Web Development
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Browser Size: A New Tool From Google Labs

Monday, January 4th, 2010 by Francois

Google Labs recently released a new tool called Browser Size.

What is it?

Browser Size is a visualisation of the browser window sizes people use when visiting websites.

For example, in the screenshot below, the 90% contour means that 90% of people visiting our website have their browser window open to at least this size or larger.

google-browser-size

The sizes represented by the contours are client area sizes, not browser window sizes.

This means they represent the size of the browser without the title bar, toolbars, status bars, etc, and thus give a true representation of how much content can be seen by a particular segment of Web-users.

You can view any website with the same overlaid visualisation by entering the URL of the site you want to check.

Why you should take a look at Browser Size?

Having access to this sort of data is no doubt valuable.

But what I find really special about this tool, is having the ability to quickly check how visible the key elements of a user interface are to a wider audience then your own analytics data could ever provide.

That said, it’s important to note that Browser Size works best on web pages with a fixed layout aligned to the left. For other layouts the results can be misleading.

Google state they are actively looking to improve this tool so expect these issues to be resolved over time.

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Categories: Design, Tips, Web Development
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AWS Economics Center Releases New Cost Comparison Calculator

Sunday, December 13th, 2009 by Francois

Amazon Web Services Logo

Amazon Web Services Economics Center provides access to information, tools, and resources comparing the costs of Amazon Web Services (AWS) with alternative IT infrastructure.

The tools AWS have provided really help quantify the cost/benefit of cloud computing as you can model certain usage patters and determine the likely cost/benefit of each approach to meeting these infrastructure requirements.

The latest of these tools, Amazon’s EC2 Cost Comparison Calculator, is perhaps the most informative as it helps determine the annual costs of EC2 vs. co-locaton vs. on-site hardware.

It is easy to use and can be modified to reflect your specific requirements. You can download the spreadsheet here.

The AWS Simple Monthly Calculator which seems to have been around for ages includes all of the services and regions on offer but due to the fact it is geared towards a monthly estimate it is less useful for analysis purposes. That said, the customer samples are interesting, and cover the primary scenarios we would suggest using AWS for.

The point is even before you speak to a specialist I would suggest playing around with these tools.

They won’t make a decision for you but they will indicate whether or not you should be investigating AWS further.

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Categories: Cloud Computing, Hosting, Tips
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Hosting: Are you getting your money’s worth?

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 by Francois

ServersThe truth is some hosting providers are great, and some are downright awful.

We primarily use Amazon Web Services (AWS) for our hosting requirements.

Even though AWS works for us, it isn’t a suitable option for everyone. So we often have to deal with other hosting providers on behalf of our clients and friends.

Whenever I have to deal with a hosting providers’ sales reps’ it dawns on me how hard it must be for people with limited technical experience to get their money’s worth.

I recently reviewed a client’s hosting set-up. Their requirements were straightforward and would have been fulfilled by a decent Virtual Private Server (VPS) costing around £50-60 per month.

When I pointed out that paying in excess of £200 per month was over the top the client responded with the stock line, “you get what you pay for”.

To which my response was; “yes, but how much of what you’re getting are you actually using”.

And this is the crux of the problem I have with hosting providers in general.

There is a massive disconnect between the interests of a non-technical customer and those of a sales rep or engineer.

The customer wants piece of mind, the sales rep wants to hit their targets.

The result is that non-techncial clients more often that not end up spending far more then they should be.

Of course this can often work the other way – AIM-listed companies on shared hosting plans spring to mind.

Anyway the point of this post was to say if you’re a techie please offer a helping hand (and no that doesn’t mean becoming a reseller) and if you’re a client, please accept it.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/philschatz/312633642

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Categories: Hosting, Tips
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Codepress Does Not POST Text Entered Into <textarea>

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 by The BCM Team

We are using Codepress for the administrator application within our custom CMS.

Codepress is a web-based source code editor with syntax highlighting written in JavaScript that colors text in real time while it’s being typed in the browser.

We have been very happy with it so far except one little hiccup that we came across when we were integrating it into the CMS: the forms where Codepress was hooked up to were not submitting any entered content for the Codepress enabled form fields. The values were not just set to empty strings in the POST, they were actually missing.

For example, lets say we have a form with the following elements:

  • Name – text field named “name”
  • Description – textarea with Codepress functionality enabled named “description”
  • Submit – button

After entering any content into Name and Description and submitting the form, POST will only have one form related variable in it – “name”. As I mentioned before the “description” variable is not just empty, it isn’t not included in the POST array at all. And here ’s why:

When Codepress gets hooked up to a form’s textarea element, it hides it and creates an iframe that supports all of the bells and whistles like syntax highlighting etc. Not only does it hide the original textarea but it also modifies DOM and removes any textarea’s ID so it does not get added to a form submission via POST. This explains why the textarea content is fully excluded from the POST.

To fix this you need to tell the form to copy the value from Codepress’s iframe (that the user types in) into the original form’s textarea. The best time to do this, is just before the form gets submitted by assigning this action to the form’s submit button on-click event, for example.

Here is the example of how to do it:

<textarea id="code" onclick="code.toggleEditor()" name="code" ... </textarea>
<input type="submit" onclick="code.toggleEditor()" value="Submit"/>

Note the values of the id and name attributes of the textarea. They are set to “code” so we can reference the textarea by “code” when making a “code.toggleEditor()” call.

You can download Codepress from its dedicated site at sourceforge.net.

Codepress in action

Codepress in action

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Categories: Programming, Tips, Web Development
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Using Amazon Web Services To Deliver Online Video

Saturday, April 25th, 2009 by Francois

AWS_LOGO_RGB_300pxAfter much research and testing we have settled on two approaches for delivering video content from Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Each approach uses a different delivery protocol.

By progressive download (HTTP) using CloudFront or S3

HTTP delivery sends the entire video file upon request meaning the video arrives with the same quality at which it was encoded. However, the user will receive it only as fast as their network connection will allow.

You can get around this to a certain extent with PHP-streaming or pseudo-streaming but this still relies on a traditional web server rather than a streaming server.

By steaming (RTMP) using Wowza Media Server for EC2

When a file is streamed via a media server such as Wowza Media Server a measured stream of data is delivered to users as the video plays. Priority is given to timely delivery over aesthetic quality ensuring that the data stream continues uninterrupted, even if it means reducing quality.

Excellent or poor performance can be achieved with either delivery protocol. And in most cases, the user cannot tell whether the video they’re watching is downloading or streaming.

Why set up both on AWS?

HTTP:

  • is what S3 and CloudFront are all about
  • is suitable for videos of a short duration
  • is suitable for delivering high-bit rate encodings
  • is suitable if end-users need/are allowed to keep a copy of the video on their own computers

RTMP:

  • we had the in-house technical resources to configure and set this up
  • we needed a suitable delivery protocol for longer form content
  • we wanted to enable interactive functionaliy between the playback client and media server
  • we wanted greater statistical granularity
  • we wanted greater control over access rights to videos

We would never stick out our neck out and say that one delivery protocol was better than the other.

But we will say that they each have their own pro’s and con’s and having the option to choose between the two was critical for us.

There is no doubt that HTTP is a doddle to set-up.

Wowza for EC2 is amazingly well supported via the Wowza forums but it is still a bit of a challenge.

So our advice would be if your looking for the best of both worlds definitely look into the approaches outlined above but if you’re looking for a quick and easy way to offload your video delivery (or any other heavy assets) stick to S3/CloudFront you won’t be disappointed.

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Categories: Cloud Computing, Hosting, Online Video, Reviews, Tips
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