Coders who understand and respect great design are a rare breed. Why is this? It’s partly the nature of the tasks they face and partly the typical personality of those who end up in the coding profession. Coding is a less subjective activity than design so coders tend to see things in black and white […]
Yesterday Google announced that it was restructuring it’s whole company into multiple subsidiaries under a new parent firm called Alphabet. What does this mean for users of Google’s myriad products and the group’s ability to innovate? Now that each individual product is effectively a separate entity we’re betting that their will be a stronger emphasis […]
Today is the day that Google are changing their ranking algorithm to favour web sites that are deemed to be mobile-friendly. This is a reaction to the fact that mobile web traffic has now surpassed that of desktop computers. Specifically, Google are looking for sites to be responsive, with appropriately sized and spaced content that […]
Firstly, a declaration of interest: Jim Shields is the boss of Twist & Shout who are one of our clients and fellow tenants here at Leicester’s LCB Depot. Three Guys Walk Into a Bar is a succinct (and somewhat autobiographical) account of how creative industry firms can discover their true calling. If you’re a bit cynical of […]
WordPress gurus WPMU DEV are working on a completely new way of letting site owners edit their themes on-the-fly. Upfront is still in development but claims to offer the ability to edit themes live using a drag-and-drop WYSIWYG interface rather than a backend-frontend editor. Mote details here: http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/introducing-upfront/ Upfront demos here: http://upfront.pro/ What do you […]
It’s fascinating to see the number of UK creative agencies who claim to have a London office yet are clearly based elsewhere in the country. Does this work? Does a perceived London presence really add that much gravitas to one’s offering? Is it a lie that is easy to maintain once proper engagement with a […]
For the second year in a row I have been coaching entrepreneurially-minded students with Professor Jeremy Levesley from the Department of Mathemathics at University of Leicester. Like all universities, Leicester is keen to give students vocational experience as well as academic knowledge. However, many universities tend to focus on employability, assuming that their graduates will want […]
The EU are trying to stop multinational companies like Amazon and Google avoiding VAT by locating in low-VAT countries like Luxembourg. New regulations which take effect on 1st Jan 2015 require firms selling digital products to charge VAT in the country of sale rather than their own local country. So far so good? Well the sting […]
Last weekend I had the pleasure of mentoring startup teams at the annual Launch48 startup weekend here in Leicester, England. The event gives budding tech entrepreneurs the opportunity to pitch, build and launch a startup over the course of a weekend with mentoring and advice from experts. Startup weekends are fantastic opportunities for accelerated learning […]
Geeks need to get out more. That’s why Henry and I are heading to the Cream Awards Midlands tonight at Birmingham’s Jam House. We hope to meet plenty of the region’s design talent and maybe strike up some new relationships with agencies who need back-end coding help. Plenty of Leicester agencies representing, including Inner Smile, […]
I’ve just scored an invite to Ello.co – the new social network which is pitching itself as the antidote to the current players with their questionable privacy credentials and tendancies to prioritise advertisements over people’s posts. Ello describes itself as a “simple, beautiful and ad-free social network”. Ad-free it may be, but it’s beauty is […]
Web design and programming often get lumped together. Business directories such as Yellow Pages don’t even distinguish the two normally. This lack of distinction makes some sense for someone who is looking to get a website or app built but they are actually quite different disciplines. At Ultimateweb, we specialise in just the coding of […]
Community is one of those over-used words that often pigeon-holes groups of people who don’t have much real interest in each other’s lives. The idea of a ‘business community’ to many is a particularly oxymoronic idea – why would a bunch of self-interested business people bother to help each other out? A couple of years ago […]
There comes a time when the old “you can always tell a cobbler by his shoes” excuse wears a bit thin when it comes to web developers’ websites! Our new website aims to better reflect our clients’ high standards of design and features and also to show off some of the sites and apps that we’re really […]