As many of you have no doubt already heard by now, in the early hours of this morning Google posted to their blog stating that they are taking “A new approach to China”. It would appear that Google, amongst a significant number of large western companies, have been the victim of a co-ordinated and distributed attack with the aim of gaining access to private communication between Chinese dissidents.
Four web design styles for 2010
Jesse Speak on Wednesday, 6th January, 2010
Are you planning a website re-design in 2010? If so you’ll want to show what a forward-looking type you are by leaving the Noughties look behind and embracing the 2010s. Here’s a quick roundup of styles that are proving to be more popular than ever as we emerge blinking into the light of the new decade. These are visual styles that are likely to see a growth during 2010.
Psychedelia Reloaded
How to design for infinite data
Graham Scott on Friday, 4th December, 2009
How can you display a large amount of information on a web page and still have a good user experience? As web designers this is becoming a common scenario to deal with as users need to handle more and more data: search results, emails, tweets, blog posts. There are some emergent trends that are solving this problem in interesting ways, each with their own advantages. Let’s have a quick look at them.
HOW TO: Avoid being a Twitter fail whale
Faith Johnstone on Wednesday, 18th November, 2009
The Twitter fail whale by Viying Lu
What has an unsuccessful whale got to do with your business? I’ll explain by the end of this post – all you need to know for now is that you definitely don’t want to be one. Easier said than done though because Twitter, like most social media sites, contains many pitfalls for an unsuspecting organisations to fall into. So to help you out here are our top five things NOT to do on Twitter.
Should Google Caffeine give you the jitters?
Faith Johnstone on Wednesday, 11th November, 2009
Photo by Espen Klum
Google Caffeine, the worst kept “top secret” project of 2009 is ready for roll out early next year. After a flurry of speculation caused by the beta version disappearing, Google blogger Matt Cutts confirmed the news that one of your New Year’s resolutions is going to be “check my position in the Google rankings”. For now though, we wait.
But what are we waiting for, exactly?
Continue reading “Should Google Caffeine give you the jitters?”
What everyone needs to know about the page fold
Graham Scott on Wednesday, 11th November, 2009
Do your users mind scrolling? Does all your content have to appear on one screen? It’s a long-running debate in web design, recently revived by blog chatter on the significance of the “page fold”. But is it relevant to your website in 2009?
Continue reading “What everyone needs to know about the page fold”
Supporting clients better with Zendesk
Alex Cowell on Friday, 30th October, 2009
Zendesk's happy Buddah logo
The Cubeworks helpdesk service has always had very high client satisfaction levels. I used to work on a helpdesk for a software company about 10 years ago so I know how crucial it is to provide great support. Clients only tend to get in touch when they really need support – it’s not often they phone up the support team for a chat (though they’re most welcome to). I take great satisfaction that we’re good at providing support and it’s important to me that we can maintain this level of service as the company grows.
Increasing demands
In the past two years, the number of support tickets we handle has increased by over 200% due to the number of new projects we’ve taken on. Our development team – who deliver our helpdesk service – has also increased from four people to eight. Unfortunately, under the increased load, our systems and processes have occasionally creaked at the seams. So it was time to think at how we could improve things.
Mrs Focker and internet damage
Iain Holder on Thursday, 15th October, 2009
“The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”
John Gilmore
It’s been a pretty intense week so far in what Newsnight calls “cyberspace”.
When is a secret not a secret? When it’s on Twitter.
An injunction served on the Guardian and at least one other national newspaper, was meant to stop the papers reporting that the MP Paul Farrelly, had tabled a Parliamentary question about the oil traders Trafigura and its solicitors Carter-Ruck. And it succeeded – up to a point.
…
The social networking site Twitter, was soon awash with posts deploring a threat to media freedom and the reporting of Parliament.
What Trafigura and Carter-Ruck have been a victim of this week, is the combined effect of the internet interpreting censorship as damage (and routing around it), with the Streisand effect
Building a music matchmaker with last.fm (aka Heavy Lifting Part 2)
Graham Scott on Monday, 12th October, 2009
In my previous blog post, Heavy Lifting (save money – don’t reinvent the wheel), I introduced the concept of Heavy Lifting – using tools provided by specialist websites to introduce functionality into your own as quickly and cheaply as possible.
It’s always easier to explain a concept with an example, so without further ado I present to you The Cubeworks Music Match Maker! Have a play around with it – enter a list of musicians/bands that you like (separated with commas) into the box, then click “match me up” to find the Cubeworks team members that have similar taste. Seeing as we’re a fickle bunch musically, I’ve added a list with a few suggestions in case you’re not getting many matches.
Continue reading “Building a music matchmaker with last.fm (aka Heavy Lifting Part 2)”
Google’s new Sidewiki kicks up a storm
Alex Cowell on Wednesday, 30th September, 2009
Google have recently launched a new tool which allows any user to add a comment to any page on your website. Yes, you heard that right… ANY user can comment on ANY page on your site and Google don’t give you an “off” button if you don’t like it.
It’s called Sidewiki and it is a plug-in for the Google Toolbar. On the Google blog, Sidewiki is promoted as a tool where all users can add “their knowledge along the way”. But it’s already clear that brands are not seeing things quite the same way…