Mentionable Websites

From the scouring of my online adventures and I bring them here to you. For your surfing pleasure and also a sight to lighten up those sore eyes caused by common or bad design. Each of these website hold its strengths on its own and have little weaknesses.

First website I’m presenting is a restaurant that resides in Leeds, Headingley. The restaurant is called Trio and their website feels like a direct representation of their restaurant atmosphere. When I first visited this website, I already felt relaxed and laid back. It’s choice of warm colors with a tinge of grungy brush effects has really brought out the identity of Trio if visited for a meal. I’d highly recommend a website like this as an example for anyone doing a website for a Bar & Grill. Visit Trio – Headingley, HERE.

Next website is an accomodative cottage in Victoria, Australia. It’s called the Elm Cottage Ballarat Accomodation and the first visit to this website was a visualisation of a real getaway. The getaway isn’t the feeling like tour websites but more like a pleasant discreet type getaway. A place where you can live your life awhile without anyone really knowing you. The only fallback I found on this website is the print function (the ‘p’) and the control of text size (up and down arrow). Visit the website and have a feel yourself, HERE.

*Sigh with Awe* You know how some photoblogs can really get to you if given the right treatment especially with pictures just protruding and telling a message. Well, I’ve come across this website that has a soft white coat laid over and its imagery is just amazingly beautiful. The feeling you get from The Snowsuit Effort by Keith is really something you’d want to fall in from time to time. Tempted yet? Well, head on over and experience it, HERE.

Last website of mention follows the trend of today. It’s usage of light green and soft blue tones have definetely brought shine to it. StyleSurge is a company that develop websites and provide other solutions. Now, if I never mentioned that, I’m not sure how many of their first time visitors would actually realize they’re a company that provides these services. I’m not sure if it’s in the name or the presentation of the website but don’t get me wrong cause their website looks totally awesome. It’s just that when I visited, it sounded and looked like one of those websites that feature other great websites. Anyway, have a visit HERE and let me know what you think later.

Happy Anniversary b0o

It’s really a shocker to discover that 2 years has flown by real quick. I guess that’s one of the main advantages of not continuously counting the hours, days, month and years you’ve spent with your partner. I know it might be romantic for some people sometimes but I’d rather just live my life without thought of time and love the ones I care about through it. Counting time to me is partially looking forward to the ending of my days being spent.

My relationship with Ariel hasn’t always been a calm sea to sail on but through thick and thin we’ve stuck together. We’ve teared together when we don’t have anyone to console and managed to get through the harsher times though I’m in Melbourne. I’m really loving her more for that since I know not many people are able to deal with the pressure of long distance relationships. However, I guess I’ve proven them wrong and it really just takes a lot of understanding, patience and love.

In commemoration of this eventful day for me and her, I took 4-5 hours illustrating a photo that was taken last year on this date itself. I love you b0o. muaxXx.

*note: Click image for larger version.

Malaysia E-Commerce Finally

Knocking on the right doors in our hallway? Well, according to the The Star in TechCentral HERE, the percentage of credit card fraud cases has nose dived from 0.74% to 0.12%. When I saw the digits I was really thankful for the quick adoption of the EMV (EuroPay-MasterCard-Visa) chip.

This is definetely the silver lining Malaysian retailers would have been waiting eagerly to come if they were thinking of building an online store. Though not many might hop into the store quickly but the community is ever changing and with proven security such as the EMV, it’s a matter of time before people would frequent and make a purchase. Beat the jams, the stuffy smell wreaking crowds, and the hassle to wait for the counter lady to figure out the price of a product.

But of course, the credit card security isn’t the only encryption needed for safe shopping online. An online store owner shouldn’t be selfish and incorporate the much needed Secure Sockets Layer(SSL) when having payment options via credit card. However, times of online banking are changing as well. An example would be eBay Malaysia that allows transactions to be done via Maybank2u and others.

Now, I’ve been saying how much security of the shop is important to the customer and yet to mention how the customer themselves need to adopt better etiquette. Yes, shoppers need to be wary if their computers are invaded by spyware, trojans and other stealing immigrants. Also, shoppers need to be aware when shopping online to check if the online shop has implemented SSL into its payment system.

How do you know if it has SSL?
Look for the LOCK icon on your status bar.

Several things I’d like to see implemented in our local e-commerce shops:

• Receipt of purchased product to be sent to our email with any required policies.
• Notification when the product has been posted or shipped.
• Tracking of item though its by POSLaju.
• Prompt and high quality customer feedback with follow up rating service.

Any others you think should be implemented?

The Forgotten

Beginning before even think of adapting to web standards never did occur to me. I’m not sure about the rest of you but the article written by Gex Lemon at Juicy Studio, HERE has reminded me of the main practice in CSS.

His article titled Div Mania was an explanatory on how most people today have used excessive DIVs without knowing. It hit me when I read that and really went, “oooohh yeahhh..”. I’ve admittedly use so many DIVs that I’ve not remember them to function only as a container. Basically, all I’m saying is that I’ve been using so many DIVs that sometimes they might’ve not beed needed.

I’ve used the DIVs to such an extent that I’ve forgotten there is a SPAN tage to be used. Gez has reminded us by saying:

The div element … doesn’t have any meaning other than the fact it is a container element.

That line definetely struck the mallet on myself for being such an imbecile. I’ve been coding DIVs without knowing it should only be used as a container element. Anyway, in his article he also taught some important declarations. There was a tag I’ve not heard though sadly can’t be used coz Internet Explorer doesn’t support it. Here’s an example:

Adjacent Sibling Selectors

Sibling elements are elements that share the same parent. Adjacent siblings are siblings that are immediately next to each other that share the same parent. Adjacent sibling selectors are denoted with a plus sign, ‘+’. The following example would apply a pale yellow background to all h2 elements that immediately follow a h1 element that share the same parent.

Example: h1+h2 { properties }

If you’d like to read on, click on Div Mania.

Standardizing Web Project Cost

Is the latest development in the discussion of the comments for the previous article I posted, The Malaysia Now. Strizzt and Viceice were both agreeing that there should be a standard system to follow in charging clients for a web project. However, given some thought there’ll always be pros and cons to a great idea. Let’s have a look at this.

The standardize system would have to be run by an organization of website designers, developers, as well as bosses from companies. The first problem establishing such an organization, is electing the board on it. There are a lot of good people and yet there are those who are just as corrupted and hungry for power or money.

The system will definetely help out freelancers starting out in the field. They need not be cowards anymore and feel the clients should walys have the higher authority. They won’t be boggled by the project quotes since there’ll be a foundation for them to weight their own price. Now, all this is really sounding favourable but there’s one critical flaw.

Because we have designers/developers on different levels or experience, a metrics need to be acquired. The other problem I also realized is that the metrics won’t be able to help fresh good designers/developers place themselves on an appropriate level. And if you looked at the system from all angles, the system would also need an administrative branch. Why? Well, someone has to handle all the submissions to be compared on the metrics.

Does the organization or standardizing web project cost still sound like a bad idea? Well, it’s not because ideas evolve through time and this one just needs to be thought of from wider angles including from the government perspective. I’m very sure Malaysia will get there in 5-10 years.

However, I shan’t leave would-be freelancers hanging and gripping their balls/boobs in fright. I’m going to leave you some advice that has worked for me. Here it is:

The project doesn’t just involve you(designer) alone. You need to consider aspects from yourself and the client. You don’t disrespect your spouses in a relationship. Instead, you try to understand and work it out. The web project you get is a relationship established between you and the client. Try your best to get a healthy price from the project by breaking it down to the client so they can understand. Worst case scenarios, you don’t buy them a ring but provide them earrings.

Hope this post has been inspirational for some as well as somewhat educational.