Clarihon blog

• Welcome to Clarihon Web Service’s blog

One of our latest clients is SJYSolar. They’re an off-shoot of the established electrical engineers in Launceston, SJY Electrical.

Run by Steve & Sarah Yeo they’ve developed an excellent reputation for their electrical work. It was a natural progression to add the installation of solar panels for generation of electricity to their portfolio. Providing both domestic and commercial support, mainly in Cornwall & Devon, they would be an excellent choice for those looking to cut their electricity bills.

We were recommended to them by a long-standing business contact, for whom they’ve done electrical work. After an initial meeting we were soon asked to provide a specification for a new solar web site.

Throughout the design, content generation and site build stages we had regular conversations with Sarah & Mark, their lead installer. On Thursday 26th May the site went live – just as Steve & Sarah were beginning an advertising push.

The site has been well-received and work is ongoing to add further information and get the pages ranked on Google – as the pressure of Sarah’s increased workload allows!

www.sjysolar.co.uk

OK, we like playing around with new technology here at Clarihon, so we decided to buy a tablet which for one thing, will enable us to see how any new sites we develop will appear.

Before doing any homework, we first thought that we would buy an iPAd, after all that seemed to be the one that was getting all the media coverage.  A downside of the iPad is the fact that it does not support Flash, so some sites will not appear at all and elements of others won’t.  So far on the Asus we have not encountered any problems when viewing sites that include Flash.

Most other tablets are now based on Android which is used for more and more smartphones so this seemed to be the sensible way to go.  There is plenty of choice out there (a few of them are listed here), but the one that seemed to feature well in any review was the Asus EEE, it also comes with a keyboard so can be transformed easily from a tablet to a netbook.

After a bit of trial and error we managed to get it hooked up via WiFi, this was not a fault of how to set it up on the Asus just there not being a particularly good signal.  The screen is clear and bright and it’s very easy to navigate.  The keyboard is also good to use, though the mouse is very sensitive so it takes a bit more control than the touch pad on a conventional laptop.  The keyboard also has 2 USB ports whereas the tablet itself just has a micro HDMI slot.  It will read Office documents  and they are editable; the Powerpoint didn’t transfer perfectly but this happens anyway with Powerpoint!  There are 2  cameras, the rear one can be used at 1, 2, 3 or 5mp, with options for normal (colour), sepia, black and white or negative images and an 8x zoom, also a video option.  There is also an in-built webcam.  Kindle is also loaded so you can read any books you want when you’ve had enough of web browsing!

Verdict overall:  we are very pleased with our new toy so far and it is as good as the reviews say.  If we find any real problems with it then we’ll report back here.

Have you checked out how your website looks on a smartphone or tablet computer?  The chances are it won’t appear as well as it does on a desktop or laptop computer and you may be losing custom as a result.  A survey undertaken at the end of 2010 found that over half of businsses users had never checked the appearance of their site on a mobile phone yet within a few years it is projected that mobile access to the internet will overtake desktop/fixed access.  For consumers who now expect to be able to access information and services wherever they are, there is a big opportunity for businesses to make sure that their online presence is well presented however users are accessing their site.

SMARTPHONES

These are becoming the phone of choice when users upgrade their handset, but what are their limitations in browsing the web?  The obvious one is the size of the screen which will result in users having to scroll a lot more to be able to read the text at an acceptable size.  Some images may not show up – only JPEGs and GIFs will be displayed, so PNG images won’t display and websites using Flash and other types of script may not display properly.

To get round the limitations of mobile phone browsing, companies are creating a special ‘app’ for users to access their site.

TABLETS

Tablet computers have been around for several years, but generally today’s batch run the same kind of software that comes on smartphones, they have touch screens and cameras and a host of  ‘apps’ that can be downloaded.

Because of their much bigger screens then viewing websites is less of an issue on tablets, but simpler designs fare better e.g. 2 columns rather than 3.  Flash does not run on an iPad and does not work brilliantly on other tablets.  Forms are another issue, so at least check out how any sign up forms look on a tablet.  If a form doesn’t work correctly then you may have lost a potential customer.

As with smartphones and you’re serious about giving your clients the best possible experience from your website you may want to consider an ‘app’ specially written for anyone accessing it from a tablet.

Check out some of these websites to see how yours fares on a mobile or iPad.

See also the article on the Asus EEE tablet.