Peppercorn Blog

Ecommerce Site – Bespoke or Off-The-Shelf?
February 8th, 2010

Web designers have many options when developing an ecommerce site.  The main decision to make is whether to use an off-the-shelf product or develop a bespoke ecommerce site.  There are advantages and disadvanteges to both but as with so much in life, it comes down to budget!

The first option is to use an off-the-shelf product like OScommerce which allows you to setup an ecommerce site quickly and relatively easily.  Development costs for these sites are usually lower as much of the code is already written and all you have to do is plug in various parts of the site to make it functional.  The back end system is good and caters for just about every thing you need.  The main disadvantage to this is that the graphic design can be restrictive and it can be difficult to deveop an eye catching design using the off-the-shelf products due to their limitations.  However, the cost reduction in this may make it a price worth paying.

The alternative is to have a completely bespoke site that is designed from the ground up.  While more expensive, the freedom this gives you is huge in that your web designers will be able to create a graphic design without any limitations.  This will allow a much more creative and eye catching design that will stand out from the rest.

You will also keep all control of functionality and should you need to add any functionality that is not included in an off-the-shelf product, it will not be a problem.   In the long run, this could be a wiser investment.

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Internet Explorer – More Flaws
January 25th, 2010

Experts looking at Internet Explorer’s vulnerabilities and have found more.

Core Security Technologies found four or five potentially exploitable secutiry failures in IE that could give a hacker remote access to a user’s PC. Individually, none of the vulnerabilities could be used to break into PC’s running IE, but if networked they could.

It has already brought the flaw to Microsoft’s attention and intends to run a demo of the hack at a Black-Hat security conference in Washington early next month.

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Google Website Optimizer
January 15th, 2010

Google has a tool that will allow web designers to try different designs, versions or content of their website to gain a solid idea of what is most effective.  Website designers can create different designs for pages and add them to Google Website Optimizer which will automatically distribute users to the differently designed pages.  Google will then offer statistics on which pages were successful and how many ‘goals’ converted.

Secondly, once you have established which design layout works the best, you can experiment with various text content and images in the same way to see which variation gains the most of what you want to achieve.  This will really help web designers isolate the message for the sites they create and help you realise what your users want from your site.

This is valuable information for website designers as it gives real data as to what works and what doesn’t. Click here to see for yourself.

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Google to Leave China?
January 13th, 2010

Google said today it was considering ending operations in China after a “sophisticated and targeted” attack originating from the country.

Google says it is no longer willing to censor its Chinese search engine – google.cn.   This would result in closing the site, and its Chinese offices.

Click here for the full story.

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Peppercorn to Prototype Websites
December 22nd, 2009

Peppercorn is now using a new prototyping tool to develop front-end and CMS areas of websites it is developing.  By developing sites in a usable, clickable format for our clients to view, feedback, amend and approve we are sure this will make the development process easier for us as web designers and our clients as they will be able to see exactly what is to be delivered in a working model before its coded.

Peppercorn always strives to ensure customer satisfaction and is always looking for new ways to improve our service.  Any feedback is appreciated!

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Google Page Speed
December 8th, 2009

There has been talk recently that Google will soon be using website speed as a major factor in determining search placement. While this is not yet confirmed there is a new tool available from Google that may help in making your site run even faster. Almost all of the points that will need to be optimised will have to be completed by your web designer.

Downloaded Google PageSpeed using the link below:

http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/download.html

In addition to this, Google has now outlined its own best practices for website development here:

http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/docs/rules_intro.html

Web designers should be aware of these new practices especially if SEO is part of the website development.

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Peppercorn’s 10th Birthday
December 5th, 2009

2009 was the year to celebrate Peppercorns’ 10th birthday. A new site was launched this week at www.peppercorn.co.uk to celebrate the occasion with a new portfolio page showcasing our latest and best work over the last 10 years.

Its been a long road as web designers that has seen us develop hundreds of websites, big and small, online games and many other online applications. We’ve meet many people, heard many ideas and made many of these ideas reality.

For the next ten years we look forward to meeting more new people  and pushing the limits of the Internet to make more ideas reality.

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SEO Toolbar for Firefox
November 28th, 2009

Firefox users can now download and install toolbar that will help their SEO efforts.  The Firefox SEO toolbar will allow users to see information such as the number inbound links, Google PageRank, site age, date Google last cached the website, estimated traffic and more.

This tool will really help users analyze their site and gives a good overall for web designers to see what they are working with as they begin SEO work.

The toolbar can be downloaded here.

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Font Control With sIFR
November 24th, 2009

sIFR allows web designers to replace short passages of static text with text rendered in your preferred font in a search engine friendly manner. It does not matter whether users have that font installed on their systems. This is achieved by using javascript, CSS, and Flash.

A very short delay can occur while the page is loading but the impact is minimal and offer website designers much more opportunity to work with various fonts within websites they build.

Search engines are still able to spider websites that use this technique and do not have any issues with it. For a live example of this technique, keep your eye on www.peppercorn.co.uk as we have integrated this with our new website design.

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Prepare for the VAT increase in January 2010
November 21st, 2009

The VAT rate was reduced to 15 % on 1/12/2008 but will return to 17.5% on 1st January 2010.

For any sales of standard-rated goods or services made on or after 1 January 2010 the VAT must be charged at the rate of 17.5%.  This is significant if you are taking payments via your website or online as you may need to change the VAT rate on 1st January 2010.  Contact your web designers to make the change to your back end ecommerce system or payment gateway if this effects you.

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