Let's (not) make some forms

Published | 16.15, 23rd of January 2009, by Jay Vincent | Technical

One of the most unenjoyable tasks I often have to undertake is the creation of forms - simple web-to-email forms. Therefore, I've decided to create a little wizard-like application to allow non-webbies to create them, so I don't have to. A few points to consider for anyone doing this are as follows:

1. The PHP page which will process the form will need to be generic, and able to handle any input type thrown at it - a checkbox group is read as an array, where as radio button values are simply strings.
2. The PHP proccessing page will need to recognise which fields are marked as required fields.
3. If required fields are left blank, the PHP processing page will need to send the user back to the form, with values the user has already inputted preserved.
4. Inputted values will run through a PHP regular expressions function which will allow only white-listed characters. This security measure will prevent form hi-jacking.
5. The PHP processing page will need to verify it is receiving data from its own website. This is done by checking the $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] variable.
6. The recipients email address will be cross-referenced in a database table by a unique ID. This ID is what will be specified on the form page. This security measure means a hacker can't alter the recipient email address.
7. The form will need to specify a redirect page the user will be sent to upon successful submission.

The creation of the form itself will be wizard-like - WYSIWYG almost, with the user specifying which type of input, its possible values, required fields, etc. Each form and its contents will be stored in a mySQL database table.

This will be a fun little mini-project for me to work on, and when its done it will either be attached onto Arena (our custom CMS) and/or sold here on our website!

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Unique Selling Point (USP)

Published | 09.22, 21st of January 2009, by Paul Butler | Marketing

In such a competitive world it pays to invest time on marketing and one of the first elements to be identified is your uniqueness.  Discovering what you can offer that others in your industry can not is difficult, but it will help in any future promotional activity.

Unique means unique. A USP doesn't refer to a general benefit that could apply to both you and your competition. A USP needs to focus on one or two elements that make your business, your offer, your product or service better than anyone else. Your uniqueness could have something to do with your experience or the team you have put together. It might relate to the product itself. It might even be that you are the only company that offers a specific service within a particular industry or region. Try to look from the outside in. Sometimes it's harder to identify something like a Unique Selling Point (or Proposition) if you are too close.

Bidding on price alone is dangerous and remember if cost was always so important why aren't we all driving the cheapest cars. There is also an element of you get what you pay for to consider. Look at your previous successes. Ask your existing customers why they chose you in the first place. They may be able to see something about your business, your experience or the product or service you offer that you can not.

In fact when was the last time you asked your customers for help on anything? It takes a matter of minutes to create a short email survey but then if you do not have email addresses for your contacts it will of course take longer.  Artlines Media will help you create a client database and provide the resources you will need to keep in touch with your customers on a regular basis. We will also help you define your offer and identify the unique factors that new clients will find appealing.

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In Flash Replacement - Controlling fonts and text-smoothing (anti-aliasing)

Published | 16.23, 15th of January 2009, by Jay Vincent | Technical

I'm coming across more and more websites using this technique, buzzwordly-named IFR (Inman Flash Replacement)

IFR is displaying text through flash - dynamically feeding a text string into a SWF file, which in turn displays the string in a font style specified by the SWF. Doing this ensures text is always displayed in a smooth anti-aliased fashion, and allows for non-web fonts to be used on web pages.

The most desirable application of the IFR technique is for text in header tags (h1, h2, h3, etc), but these tags are very important to search engine spiders and contribute quite heavily to how the page is read, so replacing them with flash files is a big no-no. Search engine's don't read text within flash (or images for that matter).

The solution is a clever mix of javascript and css:

1. h1, h2, h3, etc. tags are set to display: none by default.
2. Once the DOM (document object model) has loaded, a javascript function is triggered which reads the text in these tags, and inserts the SWF file into the tag with the text as a parameter.
3. The original text is then wrapped in a span tag.
4. The h1, h2, h3, etc tags are set to display: block, and span tags within these tags are set to display: none;

Thats how I think I'd do it anyway... although setting h1 tags to display: none by default scares me a little, perhaps visibility: hidden would be better. There would also need to be flash detection at stage 2...

Example - http://www.yourstreet.com/ - Uses IFR quite extensively on the homepage, but select 'no styles' and you'll see the text as normal web text - readable to us and search engines.

Personally, I'm not too keen on this technique although I can see its purpose. I'd prefer to use PHP's GD library and the freetype library because I feel dynamic content should be handled and processed at the server, not the client. Doing this eliminates the need to test the client machine environment for flash, activeX, browser, etc...

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Design a key factor for company stability

Published | 12.43, 15th of January 2009, by Chris van Aurich | Design

As I have said many times on this blog, the use of design can have a dramatic impact on a business and how well it fairs in its market place. The design council have published research that only enforces that argument:

 When times are tough and revenues are falling there may be a temptation for business to cut ‘discretionary’ budgets - money allocated to activities such as design, perhaps.

But design is a powerful tool in a downturn.
Our research shows that more than half of the UK’s businesses:

.... are looking to design their way out of downturn
Over half (54%) of the firms in our survey thought design would contribute to a large or great extent in helping maintain their competitive edge in the current economic climate.

.... think design is more important now
Similarly, 53% thought that design had become more important in helping the firm to achieve its business objectives over the last three years.

.... think design is integral to the economic performance of the UK
The same number agreed or strongly agreed that design is integral to the country’s future economic performance.

read the full article here

The use of design can be critical in giving you the edge over your competitors.

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Arena CMS - progress

Published | 13.21, 8th of January 2009, by Jay Vincent | Technical

For about a month now, I've been developing a custom content management system, which I've have named 'Arena', and I thought I would share my progress.

In a nutshell, its a multi-user, multiple-permissions, multi-function, ajax-based content management system. It consists of various modules which behave independently of each other, so only relevant modules need be included at configuration. These modules are:

1. Arena Access
   This module manages the users of the arena system and their permissions
2. Asset Management
   Handles the upload and management of user-uploaded images, videos, audio and documents. Can also dynamically resize images.
3. News
   This module manages the posting of news articles.
4. Case Studies
   This module manages the posting and ordering of case studies.
5. Pages
   The most in depth module, this manages the creation of, editing of and deleting of static pages, aswell as the structure of the website navigation.

I have other modules planned (like ecommerce and statistics modules) but for now, I think I've got enough to work on.

Arena's first deployment will be the re-launch of software company website, who's web editors are currently struggling to cope with the wordpress system installed. The relaunch will happen Spring 2009.

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