The end

Okay so that was a little vague, but it serves a good point. People don’t read on the internet, they scan. We are so used to searching on google, clicking links and finding we end up in the wrong place, that we tend to scan the page first to make sure we’re in the right place. In addition, we also do this in newspapers. Scanning the headlines, maybe the first paragraph and quickly deciding if we want to read further.

So we need to write copy that is powerful and to the point. Readers need to be able to scan the page and know exactly what it’s about. This will help:

how to write for the internet

This leads us nicely into my next point. Don’t use fancy words, it makes people think. Sure it makes you sound clever, but will your audience understand? You might like to think your readers are well educated, but do you really want to alienate any? Those that don’t understand will quickly leave and those that do, won’t notice.

David Ogilvy once used the word obsolete in a headline, then discovered that 43% of housewives didn’t know what it meant.

It is true to say that sometimes it is necessary. If your a scientist and you run a specialist blog that only other scientists will read, then fair enough. But if your clients are everyday normal people (not that scientists aren’t!) then write for them.

Don’t waffle.

There is no need to pad out your copy using fancy sentences. Why use “on account of the fact that”, when “because” will do. It doesn’t make you big or clever, just a waffler. The Art of Plain Talk will pursuade you to use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.

Marketing/Corporate waffle is worse still

This is a typical example of marketing waffle. Can you even be bothered to work out what it means? To be honest, I stopped caring after the first five words.

Reducing worklessness should become a key priority in the Sustainable Community Strategy. The Sustainable Community Strategy should include targets to reduce the number of workless people in the district, empower communities and provide role models.

plain english campaign

Is worklessness even a word? Apparently we should reduce unemployment. Phew! That was hard.

Anyway, at risk of waffling on here is a list of useful links

• Idea.gov.uk
• The Plain English Campaign
• Provenance unknown

You can use these in any visual way you please. Please value our rights however and NOT resell or distribute these images. Links back to this page are appreciated.

Enjoy!

None of us are exactly pro, but whereas there were two team members with absolutely no experience what so ever, there were also a couple who fancied themselves (just a little bit) as golfers. Competition was fierce, and Tom risked his job by taking an early lead over Guillaume. In fact, he still hadn’t given in after the first 9, where the two were equal on 36 strokes.

Meanwhile the rest of us were basically trying not to come last. One of us, who shall remain nameless. had not even been aware that pitch and putt and crazy golf are two different things. Though, judging by our performances, you’d be hard-pressed to tell.

So after over two and a half hours of play, who emerged victorious? Well, the boss had to win didn’t he, or else we might not go again! Read the sorry details below.

And, me? Last. But I’m not bitter - I was concentrating on the chinese we were all going to have afterwards. Maybe next time I won’t be so distracted.

The Admin Area, though, is a little limited, especially with regards to limiting a particluar user’s ability to change parts of the site that you may not want them to. Although you may have a number of people that need to be of a particular user level (Administrator, Editor, Author) it should also be expected the people with each level will will have varying degrees of computer literacy. In the context of a site this means that it is best that a user only has access to parts of the admin area that they need to use. In my case I wanted to limit a user’s ability to change the Advanced Options when creating or editing posts and pages.

I scoured the web for a solution to this but the closest I could find was Mark Jaquith’s Clutter-Free plugin, but this only allowed you to limit access to the Advanced Options when creating or editing Posts, and it was the User themselves that decided on their own access.

I decided to move into uncharted territory and write my own plug-in (with a little help from Mark’s existing one). After many untold hours (ok, it was an afternoon at most) I achieved what I set out to do, and wrote my very first WordPress plug-in, and I’m rather pleased with myself.

You can use these in any visual way you please. Please value our rights however and NOT resell or distribute these images. Links back to this page are appreciated.

Enjoy!

It was in the What Do You Think section and came off very favorably by Clive Nichols.

It seemed to leave a big gap under the columns. Now i don’t know much about javascript, but i decided to have a look around the file anyway. After a lot of trial and error, i found that removing this line

elem.style.minHeight = newHeight+’px’;

from two places (there are only two), seems to have fixed it! I’m not sure if i’ve broken anything else as a result, however all seems okay for now.

If anything breaks, i’ll remove this post!

With their IPN system it is possible for PayPal to communicate information such as successful payments as well as the customer’s information during the payment process. At Inmeres we have solutions for bespoke systems or existing open-source systems such as OS Commerce, Zen Cart, or even Wordpress.

Your knowledge is worth paying for, and through the combination of PayPal IPN, Wordpress and a subscription based system you can sell this information. Either in the form of protected web pages or downloadable documents such as Adobe Acrobat PDFs.

One of the best way to be on the first page of google is to write good, well written content, aimed squarely at your target market.

Another important aspect is to make sure your site validates to web standards

Increase your google page rank without tricks. Google will frown upon tricks of the trade and in fact are likely to mark you as a bad site.

Give us a ring and speak to our search engine marketing team (SEM), to see how we can help you be number one.

It displayed correctly in all browsers apart from ie6, where the table seemed to jump right down to the bottom underneath the menu, leaving a large white space. It actually looked like a rendering problem, as the containing <div> seemed to break. It would be okay at the top and okay at the bottom, but the middle wouldn’t be there. Just white.

Well after lots of playing around, I figured out a way. You need to wrap the table in a <div> and set the width of the table to 99%.

#table_container {
         width: 99%;
} 

Have you got any cool urls?

Please, only “witty web based ones” allowed.

Often referred to as negative space, whitespace is nothingness. A void of content. Subsequently it doesn’t need to be white, just blank.

What’s so scary?

Well nothing! In print design, whitespace is used in abundance. You’ll often see blank pages, with nothing but an image in the bottom corner.

Whitespace gives the impression of high class. Think of the junk mail you receive through the door, it’s bright, it’s colourful, completely filled up without a mm of space to spare… and its cheap. Where does it go? Straight in the bin.

Now I can understand this in a way, the advertisers have to print hundreds of thousands of these leaflets just to see a small return in business (don’t forget, most go in the bin). So they print on small paper stock and have to cram all the information in, to cut costs. Whitespace is expensive. That’s why classy/rich companies can afford to use white space effectively.

But with websites it’s different. Space is free.

So what are we going to put in that gap?

NOTHING! And it’s certainly not a prime place for an advert.

It costs nothing extra to have a page twice as long. So let’s use this to our advantage.

Art galleries are experts in negative space

There’s a good reason galleries do not cram in paintings, for instance, they give each piece of work it’s own space completely separate from it’s neighbor. It makes the image stand out, un-encroached and allows you to concentrate on the piece.

With websites, whitespace leaves the page looking cleaner, fresher, and uncluttered. If the page was completely packed out with content, it’s difficult to know where to start. It’s like looking at a fairground and trying to decide what ride to go on first.

Why filling every gap is wrong

• It looks messy
• Visitors do not know where to start
• It looks cheap

Whitespace is good

• Clean and simple
• Visitors won’t get lost within the mess
• Looks classy
• Less likely to date (class is timeless)

After lots of deliberation, I decided to go with a company called fotobook. I chose them for various reasons, but price, cover options and max pages were significant factors.

I’ll let you check out the company for yourself and the options they supply, I’ll move onto the review of the software and actual book.

Okay, downloading the software was easy and simple to install. No Mac version available though which was a let down, however they do have an option to send the files on disc. I didn’t have time for this so I installed on a windows machine.

The first bit was easy…choose your cover. I chose their “shimmer white” cover as it was for a wedding and they said on their website it was perfect for wedding albums. You also have the option to add some text to the cover (at added cost). Finally chose the size of the book. I opted for the 30×30cm one.

Now here’s where it gets complicated. Laying out the pages. I COULD NOT get this programme to do what I wanted. There are quie a few layouts already supplied, which you drag to the pages and the drag the photos into the ‘frames’.

This would be perfect if I didn’t care what it looked like

My book was in a square format, but the layouts seemed to be for rectangle formats (or 6×4 ratio). Seriously, if I just wanted to chuck loads of photos in from say a holiday, it would be great. Quick and easy. But I didn’t.

So i tried to build a custom layout using their programme. This was just as bad. It didn’t matter how precisly I placed the boxes, they never stayed put. Just as i thought I’d got it right…. i zoom out and they’ve moved.

I gave up and did my layouts in Photoshop.

I created 30×30cm page and layed-out my images on there. Then saved as a high quality jpg (300dpi, quality-12) and imported that to the fotobook software. I done this for all 54 pages.

When I was completely happy with all my pages, I was ready to upload. Rollowing the instructions was easy. Though it did throw up some errors when checking the document. I knew all my images were okay and of high enough quality, that I let them go through. But this could worry those with less knowledge.

Upload was slow, but to be honest, this is understandable with the file sizes.

I completed by making my payment.

Fotobook say they will get the book back within ten days. It had to be back in ten days for me, as my clients were having a garden party. They made it in nine! Phew!

The book came well packaged and without any damage as expected. The shimmer white cover is padded and wedding like as suggested. Paper and binding feel good and strong. And the print quality is also superb

To conclude, fotobook produced a very fine end product and I would certainly use them again. However next time I will opt for the ’send on a CD’ option, as i found the software a nightmare.

We decided we needed to update our details on our business cards and this provided a perfect opportunity to test our designer Rob and his design skills.

We needed something that stood out from the crowd, something bespoke.

And we think he’s done it!

Check out Rob’s posts on how he has done them and the process’ he took.
]]> http://www.inmeres.com/blog/news/inmeres-gets-new-branding/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/careers/ http://www.inmeres.com/careers/#comments Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:23:01 +0000 Guillaume http://www.inmeres.com/?page_id=39 Have you got what it takes?

We don’t openly advertise jobs at Inmeres. Why? Because we are happy to wait for a great CV rather than take someone average to fulfill a specific need.
We are following a clear growth path. We have a five year plan we are all working to. We are building a great company. Do you want to be part of building something special?

Designers, Developers and SEO/SEM people, read on:


On a day-to-day basis you will.

• Develop cool sites for our clients.
• Help them increase their turn-over by delivering them a great online presence.
• Develop our own products and services.
• Get paid to do something you love!

And we expect you to:

• Be passionate!
• Come up with cool ideas for new products and services.
• Push for new technologies to be learnt and used on our sites.
• Learn about new technologies and find ways to use them on our projects.
• Work in our office. No telecommuting.

What we give you:

• You pick the machine you want to work on: Windows, Mac, Linux, we don’t care. Whatever makes you work faster and better.
• All developers and designers are working on dual 24” widescreen machines. You can probably see our office from the moon with all that light coming out the dev room.

Impress us at .

Note to all recruitment agencies: we do not accept CVs from agencies. We get enough direct contact that we don’t need to pay someone thousands of pounds to send us random CVs (you know who you are). When we do work with agencies, we always use the same one because they took the time to learn about us and they know how we work. If you really insist on sending us CVs, don’t expect any fees to be paid.

This website has been developed using the white label quotation system developed by Inmeres Solutions on a Microsoft platform (SQL SERVER, ASP).

Using our flexible quotation engine, we were able to deliver the travel site in a record time, following the airlines design guidelines.

Check out the airline case study.

What was the situation?

Travellers Protection Services was using a legacy call-centre system with no direct interface with the few online websites they had at the time.
The online sales made every day were keyed back in by an operator the following day.
There were several points of major frustration:

• Poor customer service: Delay of 24 hours before the call-centre could handle a call from someone who purchased a policy online. If someone phoned regarding their policy purchased online before the policy was entered in the call-center system, the operator was unable to assist, which was always an embarrassing situation.
• Big scalability issues: TPS had a strong strategy for online development (which we also developed for them). However, it couldn’t be implemented until the call centre could receive the web sales in real time. It was unthinkable to manually re-key the hundreds of policies which we are aiming at selling online.
  

  What we did

  Solving TPS main frustrations was obviously our main focus. As we developed the TPS new online strategy, we were in a unique position to address all their call-center issues at the same time.
  Call-centre systems are usually desktop applications (i.e. a windows application). However this doesn’t lend itself too well to integration with a web system.
  So we developed an innovative web-based call-center application, running on the same database as all the various insurance website we developed for TPS.
  The application is obviously completely secured and password protected.
  Our clients really appreciate the fact that we can provide a complete end-to-end solution to their business problem. For TPS we therefore supply the server hosting infrastructure needed to run such a complex system.

  What was the result?

  All the main frustrations were addressed:

  • The manual re-keying is now a thing of the past: The person who was performing this task is now employed performing more added-value jobs in the business. It is beneficial to both the staff, who gets to perform a more challenging role, and to TPS who gets more out of their hard-working staff.
  • Any policy purchased online is now available immediately to the call-center operator, meaning that they are always ready to help customers should they call.
  • A direct benefit from using a web-based system was the flexibility added to TPS disaster recovery plan. Should anything happen to the main TPS offices (fire for example) the call-center application would not be affected at all as we are hosting the whole application for TPS. The result is that TPS can be back supporting clients in a matter of hours. All they need is a phone and a web connection!

  

  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-helped-others/tps-insurance-admin-services-ltd-web-based-call-center/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-helped-others/airline-travel-insurance-website/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-helped-others/airline-travel-insurance-website/#comments Tue, 10 Jun 2008 10:58:43 +0000 Guillaume http://www.inmeres.com/?page_id=33 Increased turn-over with new e-commerce solution.

  This airline is a very successful airline, creating the concept of low-costs flights across Europe and is still the leader of low-costs flights in Europe and carries 52 million passengers every year.

  What was the situation?

  The business model is based around their main website, where users can book their flights online. Through the years the products added to the site ranged from hotels deals to car rentals, airport parking and money exchange.
  Amongst all those opportunities the airline identified travel insurance as a huge source of additional income.

  The main points to address were:

  • Loss of earning through lack of travel insurance upsell: Existing customers couldn’t upgrade from a single trip cover to an annual cover.
  • Missed opportunity to sell to other customers: The travel insurance product is essentially the same for travellers and non-travellers. The airline was therefore missing a big chunk of the travel insurance market by restricting their sales to existing customers.

  What we did:

  The strategy put in place was for the airline to work in tandem with their insurance provider who provided the original travel insurance product for the flight booking process.

  When it was time to choose a web solution provider, the airline turned to Inmeres Solutions Limited as they wanted to use our flexible insurance system.

  The airline really appreciated working with a web solution provider who understood their business and their business needs.

  The outcome.

  Thanks to the flexibility of our insurance web solution we were able to deliver a website which followed the airlines design guidelines to the letter.

  

  The result? A dedicated site exclusively aimed at travel insurance customers.

  The benefits are:

  • Customers can now purchase travel insurance online, whether or not they are previous customers. The airline is thrilled to now have access to a new audience.
  • Completely automated system: The airline didn’t need to invest in additional staff to generate this new income stream. Credit card payments are taken online automatically and documents are emailed directly to the customers.

  The airline is delighted by the results generated by our system. Official figures cannot be published but sales run into the hundreds of policies per day, creating a significant additional income stream for them.

  

  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-helped-others/airline-travel-insurance-website/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/blog/news/epc4less-launched/ http://www.inmeres.com/blog/news/epc4less-launched/#comments Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:53:55 +0000 Matthew http://www.inmeres.com/blog/?p=54 Inmeres would like to announce the launch of epc4less, a new seller of Energy Performance Certificates in Northern Ireland.

  Ready for the arrival of energy performance certificates on the 30th of June, epc4less will be serving the population of Northern Ireland and proving how green their homes are.

  Like our very own inmeres.com, this site was built using WordPress, but you would hardly know it. It just goes to show that in the right hands, and with the right plugins (of which there were many for this site), WordPress is a valuable and versatile system.

  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/blog/news/epc4less-launched/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/blog/development/wordpress-plugins/ http://www.inmeres.com/blog/development/wordpress-plugins/#comments Wed, 28 May 2008 11:05:35 +0000 Steven http://www.inmeres.com/?p=29 Wordpress was originally developed as a simple blogging system, since then it has grown to become the leading open-source blog solution and far more than just a blog. Examples of the sort of additions that have been made to the system include spam-proof contact forms, search-engine enhancements that improve your chances of getting your site found, e-commerce such as shopping carts, forums, newsletters and many more. Here at Inmeres we can enhance your sites still further by creating our own plug-ins customised for your needs.

  Some of the add-ons that I have encountered are listed below, but if you have found one that you think is better please leave some comments:

  • WP e-Commerce - Shopping cart solution.
  • podPress - Extensive podcasting plugin with multiple format and video support.
  • All in One SEO Pack - Search engine tagging.
  • cformsII - Custom contact, tell a friend and general form creation.
  • Improved Include Page - Include any page within the content of the your templates.
  • Google Sitemap - Generates Google sitemap files that will help with the indexing of your site.
  • Sitemap Generator - Generates a sitemap page for your site.
  • WP Security Scan - Scan your Wordpress installation for security holes.
  • Navigation List Plugin NAVT - Creates menu lists for use with the front of your site.

  This list is certainly far from exhaustive and if you want to browse through the kind of functionality Wordpress is capable of please visit their extensions site. If you need something and you can not find it please feel free to contact us with what you want and we’ll develop it for you.

  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/blog/development/wordpress-plugins/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/communication-process/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/communication-process/#comments Tue, 27 May 2008 10:40:39 +0000 Guillaume http://www.inmeres.com/?page_id=28 Communication is the key to success

  Our clients believe communication is key to the success of the project. As such we will establish what is your favourite means of communication (phone, email, ticket system) and the frequency of updates you want. Some clients wants a call every day with a quick update, others just want an email once a week, whilst some just want to be able to login into our client portal when is convenient for them and get a snapshot of the current issues being worked on.
  With our flexible system, we can match our communication style to your needs.

  
  
  
  
  
  

  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/communication-process/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/step-6-support-process/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/step-6-support-process/#comments Tue, 27 May 2008 10:35:37 +0000 Guillaume http://www.inmeres.com/?page_id=27 Someone to look after your site.

  
  
  
  
  
  

  All those steps are covered by our communication process.

  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/step-6-support-process/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/step-5-monitoring-process/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/step-5-monitoring-process/#comments Tue, 27 May 2008 09:38:53 +0000 Guillaume http://www.inmeres.com/?page_id=26 As our goal is to help your business increase their turn-over through your on-line strategy we are committed to the ongoing success of your web site. We monitor our servers for performance, errors and statistics to ensure a long-term success.

  
  
  
  
  
  NEXT:

  All those steps are covered by our communication process.

  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/step-5-monitoring-process/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/step-4-set-to-live-process/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/step-4-set-to-live-process/#comments Tue, 27 May 2008 07:56:52 +0000 Guillaume http://www.inmeres.com/?page_id=24 Launching towards success.

  Once you are 100% satisfied with the project on the development server, we will make your project live open for public access. Launches are pre-planned to ensure minimal interruption to your business functions.

  
  
  
  
  NEXT:
  

  All those steps are covered by our communication process.

  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/step-4-set-to-live-process/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/step-3-development-process/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/step-3-development-process/#comments Mon, 26 May 2008 21:47:26 +0000 Guillaume http://www.inmeres.com/?page_id=23 Building the foundations of your success.

  The same attention to details is given to the development process as it was during the previous phase. Our clients appreciate the fact that we use standard conventions for good programming style and all our code is documented.
  Your site is developed on one of our servers in-house. You also have access to your own version published on one of our external test servers so you can review the work at your own pace. You can watch the process of the development and participate in testing.

  Communication during the development process.

  Just as our clients enjoy the online collaboration tool used during the design phase, they appreciate our specific tool for the development phase.
  You can follow the development progress in our client portal at any time.

  Each member of your team will be given user access:

  image here

  Once logged in, you will see the list of outsanding work:
  The detailed page for each ticket looks like this:

  image here

  For any given ticket, you can add comments, attach files and see all the vital information related to the issue, including:
  Who raised it.
  Who is working on it at Inmeres.
  The creation date.
  The due date.

  Tools used during the development process.

  Our clients believe it is important to work in a controlled environment: Do you know your suppliers backup strategy? What about revision control system?
  Our clients rely on us using all those tools tp deliver quality projects on time.

  Backup strategy.

  It is really important for our clients to know that all our machines are backup every night to a central NAS (Network Area Storage) in our office. As a double protection, all our work is also stored online as added security.

  Revision control system.

  Our clients let us know that they wouldn’t want to work with a supplier who doesn’t use a Revision control system at the heart of their project management process.
  A revision control system provides the ability to wrap up all the files associated with a project and manage the changes over time. In essence acting like a time machine, a revision control system allows the developer to take the system back to the state it was in just before a problem occurs.
  Revision control system are also very useful in a multiple developers scenario. When John and Rob are both working on the same file, the control system will either merge their changes or notify them of overlapping changes that need to be sorted out manually. In either case, this is much more helpful than one of the two developers losing all their work, quite possibily without even realising it.

  Our clients are reassured that we have a complete record of all the important changes to the files right there at our fingertips.
  On our oldest project we have more than 1,500 “revisions” of the files and we can roll back to any given file as it was in 2002!

  Our clients made perferctly clear how important Revision control system is to them. If we had to keep only one of the tools we are using on a daily basis it would be this one.

  
  
  
  NEXT:
  
  

  All those steps are covered by our communication process.

  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/step-3-development-process/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/step-2-design-process/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/step-2-design-process/#comments Mon, 26 May 2008 19:30:22 +0000 Guillaume http://www.inmeres.com/?page_id=20 Turning your vision into reality.
  

  Once we completely understand your business (see information process), we can proceed to the design phase of the project.
  
  During this phase our designers and developers are working hand-in-hand with you. Designers will obviously work on the User Interface and design of the site and the developers will be involved in the background to check at all times that the design will not conflict later with the functionalities your site required. Our clients find that this collaboration is a really important aspect of the design phase, as design and function should work together.
  
  By involving the developers as early as possible, we make sure that the delivered system works at its best.
  

  From concept to design.

  This phase starts with the design concept and finishes with the completed design.
  
  Your brand will be established either from scratch or using your existing branding which the initial design will stem from. This will be in-keeping and complimentary to your business.
  
  We will pass this design over to you for your comments and amendments, and we will make any changes you see fit.
  

  Once you sign off the design, the design phase accelerates until you are 100% satisfied with the design.
  

  Unlike so many agencies, we do not limit the number of design revisions

  Often with other agencies, you are only allowed two or three design revisions. This is not what our clients want, and this is not what we want to offer. We are confident in our skills and therefore we are comfortable offering you unlimited design revisions.
  

  Communication during the design process.

  Sharing ideas with a design team during the design process is often the frustrating part of the project. You have to use email, instant messaging, fax, even courier to share design concepts. Often a mild case of Chinese Whispers plagues a good design relationship.

  Those issues, which lead to delayed projects, frustration and poor final design are easily avoided.

  Our clients can use an online workspace that we share with our clients throughout the project.
  

  You can annotate the design with simple tools such as Pencil, Line and Text. You can also be much more specific in your comments with the target tool, which allow you to pinpoint your change and add comments.
  
  
  All communication is logged and saved be it through comments or on-line chat, which means anyone of our team can be up to scratch with the project at the click of a button.

  Design phase conclusion

  Our clients are confident that their solution will be deliver super design, on time, thanks to our design process and on-line collaboration tool.
  
  
  
  NEXT:
  
  
  

  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/step-2-design-process/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/step-1-fact-finding-process/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/step-1-fact-finding-process/#comments Mon, 26 May 2008 11:19:44 +0000 Guillaume http://www.inmeres.com/?page_id=19 Understanding your business and your goals first and foremost.

  The initial step is to understand your business, and what you want to achieve with your web project. This is typically done through emails, phone conversations and meetings.
In order to deliver the best solution for your business, we need to understand:

  • Are you selling products or services?
  • Do you want to generate new leads or provide onliine features to existing clients?
  • Do you want to be able to add content and products yourself?
  • Do you have, or do you want to put in place a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) strategy?

  At the end of the initial process, we should know what your goals are and should have all the information needed to develop the best solution to your situation.

  
  NEXT:
  
  
  
  

  All those steps are covered by our communication process.

  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/step-1-fact-finding-process/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/who-we-are/our-mission-statement/ http://www.inmeres.com/who-we-are/our-mission-statement/#comments Tue, 20 May 2008 20:27:11 +0000 Guillaume http://www.inmeres.com/?page_id=15 The mission behind the vision.

  helping businesses worldwide fulfill their online potential.

  We will achieve this by:

  • Providing bespoke online solutions to meet our clients’ expectations.
  • Offering long term strategic support to maximize our clients’ online profits.
  • Making it easy for clients to do business with us.
  • Expecting and demanding the best we have to offer by always keeping Inmeres’ points of Culture in mind.
  • Being a team of committed, positive and professional people, who are always striving to be balanced, integral and honest.
  • Being a company employees are proud to be part of.

  Our emphasis on innovation means each employee is a hands-on contributor and shares an obsessive commitment to creating the best solutions for our clients.

  To our clients:

  We always aim to deliver more than expected to inspire our clients loyalty. Our clients, whether small, medium or large in size came to us by choice: We shall always respect them, and each member of the Inmeres Solutions team will take personal responsibility to maintain our customers’ trust.
  As a result our products and services will be of the highest quality, value for money and whether sourced from within the company or externally will always add the most value to our clients and use the latest and most effective development technologies available.
  

  To our employees:

  Being the best is just the beginning, not a goal. We aim at offering products and services that set new standards, through innovation and improvements. The belief that we can always do better and improve products and services is ultimately the driving force behind Inmeres Solutions, and makes Inmeres Solutions Ltd a company to be proud to be part of.

  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/who-we-are/our-mission-statement/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/blog/design/illustrator-for-web-design/ http://www.inmeres.com/blog/design/illustrator-for-web-design/#comments Tue, 20 May 2008 15:19:26 +0000 Rob http://www.inmeres.com/?p=14 Adobe Photoshop has for years been the web designers tool of choice. Fireworks is the developers Photoshop. But Illustrator is my (and many others) web design application of choice.
  
  I come from a print based design background and Illustrator is the industry standard single page design application (InDesign being used for multi-page documents or text heavy designs). When I made the leap to web design I took my knowledge of Illustrator with me and I’ve found it to be a far better web design tool than Photoshop.
  
  Photoshop has lots to offer, that is without a doubt. It does it all including rudimentary vectors. But so does Illustrator including it’s own failings in pixel based editing. They both obviously have their own speciality.

  In terms of workflow however Illustrator, in my opinion, has Photoshop trumped. Its ability to quickly and efficiently amend designs is by far superior.

  Where do you create your logos? Illustrator I hope. The scalable vector format means your logo can be used time and time again at different sizes, colours and media without losing quality. Why go through the hassle of getting them into Photoshop? What happens when the client wants it bigger? In Illustrator this is the simplest of tasks. But unless you’ve imported a smart object into Photoshop you’ll have to re-do it.

  It’s also the perfect format for exporting into Flash or god forbid…into Photoshop. You just can’t go wrong.

  Now this isn’t a list of Ilustrator’s features, so I won’t continue on this train of thought, but just note: Illustrator is far quicker and easier for making amendments, without loss of quality.

  Illustrator has the same save for web option as Photoshop so output is basically the same. Though in my opinion gif files are far superior from Illustrator esp. with the dither option turned off. But with CSS standard now and flexible layouts popping up everywhere, flat slicing isn’t going to cut it (excuse the pun). Images need to be able to overlap and move on top of each other, not butted up static in mind and body.

  What you need is separate elements. This is easily achievable in Illustrator, now I know again Photoshop can do this but my god it’s easier in Illustrator. I tend to make a copy of my final site design just to slice up. This way all the elements can be laid out separately ready to slice. You can even slice up photos.

  Note of warning! Make sure all your elements are sized pixel perfect. Don’t just drag a rectangle out for instance, type the figures in. Not only is this good design practice anyway but it also helps when slicing.

  I like to choose where my images are sliced myself. Line up all your elements exactly on a pixel using the transform pallet. Drag a guide in and move it to the same pixel, again using the transform pallet. Continue this for all your “guide slices”. It’s essential your guides are exactly on a pixel line or else they’ll jump out of position. Now convert your guides to slices.

  Save for web. Select options as desired. Save. Done! Separate elements sliced exactly where you want them ready for your flexible CSS layout.

  If you have any Illustrator knowledge I suggest you give it a chance for your next design. If you don’t have any……. Learn it!

  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/blog/design/illustrator-for-web-design/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/blog/news/joomla-customisation-in-the-team-results-site/ http://www.inmeres.com/blog/news/joomla-customisation-in-the-team-results-site/#comments Tue, 20 May 2008 09:00:45 +0000 Steven http://www.inmeres.com/blog/?p=50 Inmeres Solutions merge the power of the open-source content management software, Joomla, with their extensive programming backgrounds to display content in a new way.
  Joomla utilises a hierarchical approach, with articles appearing under categories and then sections. Each part of the site is represented as a section, with categories under these sections. Any articles under those sections appear as they would in a blog with their associated categories as text within the article’s heading.

  
  As a part of the Team Results brief, the design was ambitious; the display of articles should roll out of their category headings, and appear to interlock as a jigsaw puzzle. Inmeres Solutions succeeded in creating this with a customised content components to show the category heading as a clickable bar with articles capable of rolling out of the heading, with the added effect of simultaneously rolling any other category’s articles back into their respective headings.

  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/blog/news/joomla-customisation-in-the-team-results-site/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-helped-others/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-helped-others/#comments Mon, 12 May 2008 09:49:17 +0000 Rob http://www.inmeres.com/what-we-did/ A few of our happy clients. We hope you will be next.

  
  Increased turn-over by developing online travel insurance.

  
  When TPS was looking for a new call-center system, only Inmeres could deliver a web-based system integrated with all their public facing sites.

  
  John Lewis wanted to launch a new brand selling services online. Inmeres developed branded website for the Event and Wedding insurance products.

  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-helped-others/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/#comments Mon, 12 May 2008 09:48:52 +0000 Rob http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/ Delivering projects on time and on budget has nothing to do with luck.

  Whichever the size of the project, our clients have come to rely on our project cycle.
  Our project cycle is the result of years of development, collaboration with our clients and fine-tuning of our processes.

  Our clients can rely on the following steps being followed to deliver their project on time, and on budget:
  NEXT:
  
  
  
  
  

  All those steps are covered by our communication process.

  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-do-it/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/who-we-are/ http://www.inmeres.com/who-we-are/#comments Mon, 12 May 2008 09:40:46 +0000 Guillaume http://www.inmeres.com/?page_id=7 We are a web agency dedicated to helping our clients develop their business online.

  Back in 2001 Inmeres Solutions Ltd was created out of the desire to offer great technical solutions to our clients coupled with a fantastic service.
  Our vision?

  Helping businesses worldwide fulfil their online potential.

  And this is what it is all about! We are passionate about the web, and we want clients who are excited about the possibilities to develop their business online, be it by generating more leads online or selling their products or services online.

  Still reading?
  Here is our mission statement (yes, we do have one of those, and all our staff have a copy of it on their desk, give us a call and ask any of us about it) in which you will find what we are all about and we conduct our business.

  Last but certainly not least, we have our points of culture, which again, all our team knows about and completely adhere to.

  The most important thing for us is to insure our team keeps its quality, passion, focus and integrity.
  Those are the rules of our game, and any new candidate is explained our vision, mission statement, and points of culture. If they feel they share our values, great. If not, that’s ok, but we are probably not the company for them.
  We believe the way to offer great service is to have a happy team. The minimum we can do is offer great hardware to all our developers. Everybody gets a dual screen (currently 24” widescreen screens) machine with top spec in terms of memory, disk space and power. Rob (link to profile) has recently received his 24” imac, with 4gb of memory and a 24” widescreen SAMSUNG screen to go with it, and he seems pretty happy! And each new recrue gets to choose their machine: Mac, windows or linux.
  The drinks aren’t bad either, with strawberry & kiwi juice, lime juice, and capuccino available for everyone. We also have normal tea and coffee mind you for the less adventurous.

  The only fights are really about who gets to control the remote control for the internet radio/ipod player on a given day!

  Should you want to pop in for a coffee and see for yourself, we are based in Chelmsford, Essex, United Kingdom.
  We look forward to meeting you!

  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/who-we-are/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/get-in-touch/ http://www.inmeres.com/get-in-touch/#comments Sat, 10 May 2008 13:33:07 +0000 Rob http://www.inmeres.com/?page_id=6 or arrange to pop in for a cup of coffee and a chat

  

  @

  The Old Surgery
  Moulsham St
  Chelmsford
  Essex, CM2 0JJ

  

  

  

  

  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/get-in-touch/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-help-you/ http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-help-you/#comments Wed, 07 May 2008 14:41:59 +0000 Guillaume http://www.inmeres.com/?page_id=2 What matters is your business, your online goals and how we are going to help you achieve them.

  This is typically the page where agencies will try to impress you with plenty of jargon about their technical prowess.
  Sure, we could tell you about our great skills in such and such programming language, that we can work with most database systems around, but really, do you care? And why should you?

  What we do for you:

  • Deliver your project on time: We will work on a realistic planning with you.
  • Deliver your project on budget: We will give you a fixed price before the project starts.
  • Communicate at all times with your team: We believe this is the key to a successful project.
  • Offer after-sale support: We will look after your bespoke system once it is live.
  • Develop your Search Engine Marketing strategy: Once your system is live we will help you generate more traffic to your site.
  Please use the contact details on the right-hand side to contact us and see how we can help your business grown.
  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/how-we-help-you/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/blog/news/welcome-to-rob/ http://www.inmeres.com/blog/news/welcome-to-rob/#comments Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:20:01 +0000 Guillaume http://www.inmeres.com/?p=41 A huge welcome to Rob, who just joined Inmeres as a Senior Designer.
  Rob is bringing great design ideas and skills, and a fresh attitude.
  He has a strong background in print design, which explains the attention to details in all his work.
  Some of our clients have already be really impressed by the branding he designed for them, so stay tuned for more amazing designs coming soon from Rob.
  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/blog/news/welcome-to-rob/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/blog/news/goodhealth-insurance-management-streamlined/ http://www.inmeres.com/blog/news/goodhealth-insurance-management-streamlined/#comments Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:22:46 +0000 Guillaume http://www.inmeres.com/blog/?p=42 As one of Inmeres’ longest standing clients, Goodhealth Worldwide Ltd have amassed a number of distinct websites each requiring administration. Over the years as more sites have been added, administration of the whole project has understandably become fragmented.

  This week Inmeres launched the new Goodhealth Administration Portal allowing key staff to manage the entire web portfolio in one place.

  In addition to providing quick and easy access to all policy applications, administrators can manage premiums, country lists, excesses and just about all aspects of the sites’ architecture.

  The new system also provides a centralised repository where the portfolio’s 300+ PDF documents can be easily reviewed updated and set live.

  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/blog/news/goodhealth-insurance-management-streamlined/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/blog/development/symfony-php-framework/ http://www.inmeres.com/blog/development/symfony-php-framework/#comments Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:02:44 +0000 Julien http://www.inmeres.com/blog/?p=49 At Inmeres, we acquired an expertise on the implementation of the Symfony framework to develop powerful, reliable and extensible applications more quickly.
  PHP always had its libraries of functions available to the developer, so we didn’t have to reinvent the wheel for each new project. This started with the PEAR project enabling the developer to plug modules to its project. But since Ruby on Rails demonstrated the benefits of the MVC model (to split the main applicative functions: Model, View, Controller), and since PHP 5, many frameworks were created by the open source community. The common characteristics of these frameworks were the MVC model, the scaffolding (batch creation of the model and basic pages to update the objects), the implementation of AJAX, and tools to debug, test and deploy applications.
  At Inmeres, we are always keen to try new frameworks or any tool which can bring any benefit to our projects. The reasons we often choose Symfony for our projects are the following:
  • Full PHP 5 and object oriented with a clean and reliable code ,
  • Native management of internationalization,
  • Performance with a smart cache system,
  • Documentation, thanks to the great symphony community.

  You can learn more about symfony on the symphony project site.

  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/blog/development/symfony-php-framework/feed/ http://www.inmeres.com/sitemap/ http://www.inmeres.com/sitemap/#comments Sat, 01 Jan 2000 09:21:01 +0000 Steven http://www.inmeres.com/?page_id=57

  Posts

  • Category: design
    • Don't be afraid of whitespace
    • Fotobook review
    • Free wine images
    • how to write good copy
    • Illustrator for Web Design
    • Rob's been published - again
    • six free photo header images
  • Category: development
    • How to get top of google
    • PayPal Instant Payment Notifications (IPN)
    • Symfony PHP framework
    • Wordpress plugins
  • Category: Fun
    • Amusing web based url's
    • Patch and Put
  • Category: news
    • Airline travel insurance site launched.
    • epc4less launched
    • Goodhealth insurance management streamlined
    • Inmeres gets new branding
    • Joomla Customisation In The Team Results Site
    • Welcome to Rob!
  • Category: problem solved!
    • flexible tables in internet explorer
    • multi-column javascript issue
    • My first WordPress plugin
  • Category: uncategorized

  Pages

  • A little bit about us
    • Our mission statement
  • Careers
  • contact us here
  • How we do it
    • 1 - Fact Finding process
    • 2 - Design process
    • 3 - Development process
    • 4 - "Set to Live" process
    • 5 - Monitoring Process
    • 6 - Support process
    • Communication process
  • how we help you
  • how we helped others
    • Airline travel insurance
    • Helping John Lewis launch the Greenbee brand online
    • Travelers Protection Services : web-based call center
  • Sitemap

  View XML Sitemap

  ]]> http://www.inmeres.com/sitemap/feed/