Author Archive

A client recently contacted us complaining about the amount of spam he was getting, upon investigation, he was actually getting lots of marketing emails from legitimate web sites (play.com, gumtree.com etc.) but was finding them a nuisance.  To reassure him, I sent a description of how we process email to combat spam and thought I’d share that with all our customers here.

This picture tutorial will show you how to setup Outlook 2003 to connect to your email hosted at Axon Birch. If you are setting up a different email client, it will be very similar.

This post is a tutorial that shows how to create a new Spring based Java Web Application using the Spring Source Tool Suite (STS) application (a variant of Eclipse), creating a simple application and test it using the STS built-in tomcat application server.

This is the first of 3 parts that form a complete tutorial for a fully fledged Spring based contact form application.  This first part shows how to setup an initial project using Spring STS.  The second part shows how to add Spring dependencies to the project and have a user post some data and the web server send a response.  The third part shows how Spring’s dependency injection can be used to create email templates that send a reply to the user and a notification to the web site administrator.

It seems that everyone has heard of Twitter. Even my dad was asking me about twitter and he’s a technology dinosaur, in fact my Dad said yesterday, “If the internet comes anywhere near me, I’m going to hit it with my walking stick.” I understand it’s now the law to follow Stephen Fry on twitter and discuss the interesting facts and links he turns up. Twitter seems to be a good way of sharing information. However, our customers ask, “how can Twitter get us more customers? How can it help our business?”

Not probably… but actually the best beer in the world, Old Tom, can now be bought online.  Stockport based family brewery, Frederic Robinson, have just launch their own online shop, designed and built by us.

Have you ever received an email like this?

Hello,

I am Ryan the website manager for Acme Corp, we’re a great company. I was searching the web for valuable industry resources and came across your website. I think our customers would enjoy reading your site for new information and have added a link to you on our website.

It would be great if you would be able to add a link back to us. All you have to do is put the following code on your links page.

<a href=”http://www.acme-corp.com/categories/our-keyword/more-of-our-keyword/”>Keyword</a>

Thank you for your time

Ryan

So why did this get my back up?  

What they wanted

Sumners wanted to provide a new service to existing clients and extend their market reach. Initially they were driven by pressure from their existing customers – independent TV companies & BBC – to have a secure online facility to view edits and make legal checks, as the time taken to bike tapes to London & elsewhere was too costly & time consuming.

What they wanted

1) A system that allowed them to store all the details of their products onto a database, including images of the products.

2) To be able to keep track of any correspondance between their sales staff and various distributors.

3) A search facility so that members of the public can search for any product within the system and view product details.

What they wanted:

Trafford Children and Young People’s Service decided they needed a clearer and cleaner image for their website, with more scope for information and news to be displayed on the homepage. They hoped to achieve greater access to the web and provide a web site site that was more engaging and appealing to all stakeholders. They also decided to do an online voting system for their Youth Parliament in order to engage more children and young people in Trafford in the democratic process.