A lesson in usability: sometimes less is more

I was talking to someone the other day who isn't particularly Internet savvy and was trying to set up a Skype account.This person doesn't use the Internet or email too often, but when they do they generally get on OK because they read things carefully, apply common sense and aren't…

Spam email pretending to be from Amazon

I've just had an email apparently from Amazon telling me that my account has been suspended.The email reads:Amazon Customer, [my email address]Your Amazon account has been temporarly suspended for security reasons.After our Security Department made a close checking of your account we discovered that on your account were present unusual…

How to Analyse a website for speed

How quickly a website works is vitally important to its success. There are a million reasons why a website could be running slowly, but the following suggestions might put you on the path to diagnosing the bottleneck. Firstly, you might find it useful to install a Chrome extension/plugin called yslow, which…

Implementing caching to speed up a flickr API implementation

Western Design Architects came to us with an extremely slow site. And I mean sllooowww!The site gets all it's images from Flickr - a great idea meaning WDA only need to upload their photos in 1 place for exposure in 2, they can utilise Flickr apps for getting their latest…

The responsibility of being a programmer

Visitors to the NHS website on Sunday evening were sent to an infected website.I read an article on Wednesday about how visitors to the NHS website on Sunday evening found themselves being sent to web pages hosting malware or - at best - ads which the visitors didn't intend to…

Tips for Installing a 123-reg (GlobalSign) Domain SSL certificate on an Amazon EC2 Instance Running Apache 2.*

This process caused me a couple of issues when I came to do it just now, so I hope the following notes might prove helpful to someone (or possibly me next time I come to do this and have forgotten everything I just did!). In no particular order: 1. Once…

Vimeo launch their new accessible player

It's been 14 months in the making but Vimeo have revealed their new player which they've built from the ground up.Whilst they say it might look largely the same, the player has been completely rebuilt to be fully responsive and to suit as many of the vast array of devices…

Upgrading a Server on Amazon EC2

Changing an EC2 instance type is not as straight forward as you might think, so I'm writing this post in note form as a reference for next time I come to do it. If it can also be of help to anyone else out there trying to get to grips with…

A new look for Muddy Boots Software

We built Muddy Boots' website back in 2010 and so it was time for a refresh!Muddy Boots' software has evolved over the years and so they have a different message to tell now. They also wanted an effective way of letting people easily enquire about certain products or request a…

Happy 2014 from 18a!

Happy New Year from everyone at 18a Productions!We hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year break and are looking forward to the exciting opportunities 2014 has to offer.2013 was a big year for us - we moved to larger premises and expanded our team - and we've…

New website for Hotrod goes live

We've worked with Hotrod Creations for many years, so we were thrilled when they asked us to build their new website!Hotrod's old site was flash based, meaning it didn't work on iPhones and iPads - not ideal for a company who do a lot of digital mobile work! So they…

Site for luxury fashion brand Frances George

Frances George, the UK based luxury hand bag and accessories label, asked us to build their new website using designs by Ben Carruthers.We discussed various options with Sarah Edwards, the talented founder of Frances George, and settled on a bespoke CMS which can grow as the company needs it to but…