A fully functioning blog has been integrated into the Caboodle website to help us better manage our news. It automtically archives and sorts all posts, produces search engine friendly links to all posts, creates search engine friendly file names and page titles, and allows us to easily tag and categorise articles.

We can integrate this functionality into your website for just £20 per month. You don’t pay per page, and can update the content yourself as often as you like, with absolutely no limits to the number of articles, categories or tags! If you’d like further information please get in touch on 0845 4025 340 or email contact@caboodledigital.co.uk.

We would love to hear from anyone that has read this series to find out if it has been useful or if it can be improved, or if you have any suggestions for future series’.

I would like to say congratulations to Gemma Prangle, and wish her all the very best for the future.

I have been working with Gorseinon College since I completed my Knowledge Transfer Partnership with them in 2006. This has so far involved speaking to computing students about the industry and, obviously, presenting the award last night. We are pleased to be associated with Gorseinon College as they work closely with the industry to help their students make the best of their courses, and we hope to be able to help the college by offering live industry-based projects to students in the near future!

Looking at defining who your target audiences are and the type of content to include, this should give you plenty of ideas about what you can include on your website.

Find out how to write text that is easy to scan and focused to help your visitors find what they are looking for.

Part 2 due next week!

If you’d like to be informed when the article is online please send an email to rhian.davies@caboodledigital.co.uk.

If you ask our designers, the answer is a definite no. Absolutely not. Closely followed by “Tell them to get a proper monitor!” A screen resolution of 800 x 600 is pretty restrictive, especially with an emphasis on good-looking, well designed websites, plus it can look fairly pathetic on larger screens. Either a tiny box in the middle or stretched across the top of the monitor with really hard to read sentences.

Even our developers agree that building for larger screen resolutions is easier as more information can be made available. However, applications and forms that have been designed for a larger resolution can be difficult to use on 800 x 600 displays.

It is definitely a judgement call. Smaller displays are being replaced (according to http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php 800 x 600 screen resolution is down to 7.31% as of 31/01/2008) but you do need to take into account your target audience. If your target audience is a group of technophobes, the chances are they will still be using 800 x 600. There’s no real right or wrong answer…and in a few years time we’ll have exactly the same debate but with larger numbers!

So over the next few months you will see some changes to the Caboodle website, including new features, downloads and images. I also have a New Year’s Resolution to make sure the website is kept up to date.

My first stop was Wikipedia which defines Web 2.0 as:

“a percieved second-generation of web-based communities and hosted services - such as social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies - which aim to facilitate collaboration adn sharing between users.”

It goes on to say that it is not a new version of the web or technologies used, but to HOW the web is used. So, yes, I believe I was right in this aspect. And apparently I am not alone in my view. However, I do appreciate that the way the web is used is changing with the use of sites like Facebook, users are now expecting to get a lot more back from the web rather than just online shopping and research.

I suppose my point was how will it affect our customers? And us? The majority of sites we develop are for people who want a company brochure type site or eCommerce, so how do we incorporate Web 2.0 theories into these sites?

I will not ignore Web 2.0 and am definitely interested in the social side of the Web…I guess I just don’t like buzz words!