OuterEdge Blog

Job Advert: Web Designer

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:04:15 +0000

An excellent opportunity for a Web Designer to join a fun (we have an Xbox) and fast growing web design and development company based just outside Brighton in West Sussex.

Specialising in E-Commerce and Bespoke Web Applications, we're looking for a designer that is able to create modern and creative designs that show a good understanding of our clients marketing and business objectives.

The ideal candidate will be passionate about the web, showing strong motivation and close attention to detail. You should..

Have at least 1 to 2 years experience creating designs for websites and/or web applications
Be able to be a project lead when required
Have experience using Photoshop or Fireworks.
Excellent communication, team-work and telephone skills
An impressive design portfolio
An almost obsessive passion for design
Front-end development skills are a big plus but not required (and only if you can design well too)
Desirable - an understanding of user experience design

This is an excellent opportunity to advance your career by being responsible for all of our design requirements.

What we can offer you..

Awesome lunch room with XBox & Projector
On-site car parking
Flexible working hours
Generours holiday allowance
Mac, PC or Linux - it's your choice

Salary Negotiable

To apply please send your CV and a link to previous work you have been involved in (stating your role) to jobs@outeredgeuk.com.

NO Agencies please. Seriously.

Christmas Office Hours 2011

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 12:36:37 +0000

Our offices will be closed from Wednesday 21st December 2011 and will re-open on Tuesday 3rd January 2012. We'll also be out having a little celebration on the afternoon of Thursday 15th December.

I dare say it again but WOW! this year went by quickly. It seems as if we were only writing about Christmas a few weeks ago, in fact we've been a bit naughty and haven't updated the blog since (sorry Santa)! I guess they say time flies when you're having fun.

This year has been both a challenging and exciting time for us, we've had the priviledge of working with so many amazing clients including some big names like My Tuxedo, Moët Hennessy and many others. We've seen clients achieving incredible sales volumes and unexpected success.

We continue to grow, thanks to the high standards, dedication and hard work of our team and are very much looking forward to the year ahead. We thank all of our customers for their continued business this year and wish them a very Merry Christmas.

Please note, if you need emergency website support during this period, you should raise an 'Emergency' support ticket from your client area.

December Newsletter

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 17:16:16 +0000

Welcome to the OuterEdge December newsletter. With our phone lines closed today due to the snow, we thought it would be an ideal time to let you know our plans for the festive period and beyond.

Christmas Office Hours

It's that time of year again!

The offices will be closed from Wednesday 22nd December and will re-open on Tuesday 5th January.

If you have an urgent support query during this period, please send an email to our support helpdesk at support@outeredgeuk.com which will be monitored periodically by staff.

From all of the staff at OuterEdge UK - David, Vic, Mike, Martin, Joe and Andrea we thank you for choosing us and wish you a very Merry Christmas and a profitable New Year!

VAT Increase - 4th January

The standard rate of VAT is set to increase from 17.5% to 20% with the effective date for the change being the 4th January 2011.

Are you VAT registered and trading online? If the answer is yes then you'll need to consider updating your website by midnight on the 3rd January.

Contact us today for assistance with making these changes to your website, we'll be happy to help. We can provide instruction free of charge in most cases and even arrange for your site to be updated by our team on the evening of the 3rd for a small fee.

Lightbox - Operation Aborted Error in IE

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 14:19:40 +0100

If you're getting 'Operation Aborted' in Internet Explorer 6 or 7 on a page that loads Lightbox 2, you may need to patch the lightbox.js file with the code below to fix the problem:

if (Prototype.Browser.IE) {
    Event.observe(window, 'load', function(){
        new Lightbox();
    });
} else {
    document.observe("dom:loaded", function(){
        new Lightbox();
    });
}

Brighton Web Design Company Launches New Website

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 11:01:47 +0100

Today we celebrate the launch and re-brand of our new company website, designed to better represent the range of website design, development and internet marketing services on offer.

The concept of the new website is to help inform prospective and current clients alike. "We wanted to show our clients that we offer more than just basic website design services, and show off our skills in a more exciting way", says David Windell, our Managing Director.

Since the launch of our previous website, our focus has increased in the areas of Bespoke Web Applications, and Magento E-Commerce development. We feel the new site portrays this with a clean and fresh design, complete with a complete re-write of textual content.

For the techies amongst you, the website is fully XHTML1.1 and CSS compliant (minus a few CSS3 niggles), and was built on the SilverStripe CMS platform. A combination of advanced caching and hosting from our sister company, Edge Hosting, page load speeds are lightning fast.

To coincide with the launch, our Sales & Marketing Manager, Vic, was interviewed about our company by WWDC.

For more information visit www.outeredgeuk.com.

An Interview with OuterEdge

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 07:30:00 +0100

To coincide with the launch of our new website, our Sales & Marketing Manager, Vic Seager was interviewed by Which Web Design Company (WWDC).

WWDC: Describe your company in 5 words.
Vic: ”interactive, personal, fresh, exciting, honest”

WWDC: What's your business philosophy?
Vic: ”Use what's there & create what's not!”

WWDC: Describe your office environment.
Vic: ”We work in a relaxed and chilled out environment. We like listening to music and think it is important to allow our staff to express themselves freely.”

WWDC: What makes you different from other web design companies?
Vic: ”Probably quite a lot of things, but that only means other web design companies are different to us too... we're not interested in putting other good intentioned web design companies down. We just get on with doing what we do, and try to be the best at doing it!”

WWDC: How do you get the majority of your business?
Vic: ”The majority of our business comes to us through word of mouth, we also get a lot of referrals from our high ranking website.”

WWDC: What do you think is the most crucial element of creating a good client relationship?
Vic: ”The most crucial element of creating a good client relationship is to fully understand the clients business, to understand their needs and to make valuable suggestions for them.”

WWDC: How do you manage demanding clients?
Vic: ”We are here to meet our clients' needs, and nothing is impossible. If our client demands something we are more than happy to do it for them. ”

WWDC: If a client was trying to decide between a shortlist of web design companies, how would you recommend they go about selecting the right one for them?
Vic: ”It's up to the client which company they use, and they should always do what they think is best for them. All we can do is be honest and try our best to impress... which seems to work most of the time!”

WWDC: Where do you see your company in 10 years time?
Vic: ”The last 10 years have been successful and we've seen massive growth. We don't aspire to loose our personal approach, but will probably have to accommodate a few more staff by then.”

WWDC: What computers do you have use in your offices, PCs or Macs?
Vic: ”Both PC and Mac”

WWDC: How was your company name chosen?
Vic: ”Divine inspiration.”

Xero Module for WHMCS

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 11:06:41 +0000

We are pleased to announce the release of our WHMCS to Xero Integration Add-on Module which is commercially supported and available for just £49.99 per annum.

The module sends Contacts, Invoices & Payments to Xero Online Accounting.

Purchase License & Download Here: https://www.edgehosting.co.uk/billing/cart.php?a=add&pid=51

Features / Modifications

Sends Contacts to Xero
Sends Invoices to Xero
Sends/Receives Payments to/from Xero
Supports single tax rate invoices (including VAT & GST)
Multi-currency Support
Highly configurable, map Payment Gateways to Xero Accounts
Commercial Module with Email Support
30 Day Money-back Guarantee

New Website Launched - Simply Loft Ladders

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 11:02:58 +0100

Today we launched an exciting Magento based website for a new Loft Ladder company based in the South of England. Complete with bespoke checkout procedure and a loft ladder finder tool, needless to say we're very pleased with the outcome.

The client launched the site with the following Press Release:

"It is a fact that more often than not simplicity is key, which is why the arrival of Simply Loft Ladders is causing such a stir. Simply Loft Ladders Ltd is a company that has been designed to provide a simple, easy-to-use and accessible service, with a range of loft ladders to match. All loft ladders have been sourced from the UK and Europe, and with a select and broad variety including sliding loft ladders, folding loft ladders, wooden loft ladders and metal loft ladders, the only difficulty might be deciding which is the loft ladder for you!

However, Simply Loft Ladders by name is Simply Loft Ladders by nature. Not satisfied with supplying a fantastic selection of tried and tested folding and sliding loft ladders, Simply Loft ladders also provide an ingenious product selector on their website, which helps to ascertain which of their premium products is the best loft ladder for your home.

So if you are having trouble deciding if a metal loft ladder, or a timber loft ladder is best for you, or whether your loft could do with a loft ladder that folds or a loft ladder that slides, well the answer is simple. Simply Loft Ladders has arrived and are taking the confusion and complexity out of ordering your loft ladder. It’s simple when you know how."

PCI Compliance with Sage Pay Form, Server & Direct

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 10:56:50 +0100

I’ve done a large amount of research into PCI Compliancy, specifically in relation to Sage Pay and Magento. After running in many circles I can finally summarise my findings.

The comments below are based on a Level 4 Merchant (most SME’s come into this category) who only ever uses their Magento Website to take payments, i.e no on/offline terminals, etc).

For this article, I assume that “storing” cardholder data includes even for a short while in “memory”. Unfortunately the “in memory” issue seems to have a lot of people arguing, I’ve come to the conclusion that by taking the details of a card on your site and then using Apache to post these onto the Payment Provider, you are indeed storing the details in Memory and exposing them to any potential Viruses/Hackers on your server. It would be good if PCI Security Standards council could be more specific on these issues.

Merchant’s using Sage Pay Form and Server (also Google Checkout, PayPal Standard, etc):

Do not need quarterly vulnerability scans unless their merchant account providers specifically require it.
The website does not need to be hosted with a PCI compliant service provider.
Should complete the SAQ-A because they do not "store, process or transmit any cardholder data" on merchant premises but rely entirely on (Sage Pay) to handly these functions.

Merchant’s using Sage Pay Direct (also Authorize.net):

Should not store un-necessary cardholder data
Should be running a PA-DSS Compliant Payment Application by October 2009 (Coming soon to Magento Commercial Editions)
Should host the site on a Dedicated Server environment with a Level 1 or 2 PCI Compliant Service Provider (with the Database and Application Server seperated).
Should carry out quarterly vulnerability scans of their server network
Will need to complete SAQ-D because they are storing data (even thought it’s for a short time in system memory). The SAQ-D is complicated and can cost a lot of time and money to complete!

At the moment there are very few web hosts who are actually fully PCI-DSS certified service providers to Level 1 or 2 (due to the costs and restrictions). Be very wary of web hosts who claim that their hosting is PCI compliant without saying which levels, types and parts they are talking about. Remember that passing the security scan is only a small part of overall compliance. Visa provides a list of the Level 1 service providers here:

http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/cisp_list_of_cisp_compliant_service_providers.pdf

I’ve also compiled a list of some providers I’ve been able to confirm their status with:

ZZ Servers
GSI Hosting

Approved Scanning Vendors who can provide the scanning and PCI certificates include McAfee Secure, Comodo and SecurityMetrics (https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/pdfs/asv_report.html)

Once all this has been done, the SAQ along with the successful completion of the quarterly vulnerability scan (if any), should be submitted to your merchant account provider to show compliance with the requirements of PCI-DSS.

I hope this helps some people along the way, If you need help with a Magento and SagePay Integration, please get in touch.

Brighton Wall Art

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:54:13 +0000

OuterEdge are happy to announce the launch of the Brighton Wall Art website. Brighton Wall Art provides Handpainted Murals, Handpainted Statues and Handpainted Canvases in Brighton, East Sussex.

We have worked closely with the client over the past few months to help create an online identity which is both funky and original to demonstrate the image the company wanted to convey.

Worthing Business Forum

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

In this current economic climate all businesses are looking to reach more clients whilst saving money, and we’re no exception. But how do you actually do this?

OuterEdge has the answer!

The Worthing Business Forum is a concept we have created to bring businesses together in an informal atmosphere to help generate leads and find ways of working together for the greater good!

The forum will initially meet fortnightly for breakfast (between 7.30am and 8.30am) at the Burlington Hotel in Worthing. At the meetings everyone will be encouraged to get to know each other and discuss how they can help with referrals.

We only allow one company per industry sector to be a member of the group so there’s no worry about competition between members and we can all concentrate on helping each other.

Don’t Rewrite URLs

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

On Monday, Google wrote "avoid reformatting a dynamic URL to make it look static". But really, that's some quite selective quoting.

In one of the few forums I frequent, people have been giving some quite knee-jerk reactions to this, but I think what Google are saying is *think* before rewriting your URLs - not "don't rewrite URLs". They give some quite good examples of quite poorly rewritten URLs, such as these:

www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo/en/3/98971298178906/URL

www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo/language=en/answer=3/sid=98971298178906/query=URL

www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo/language/en/answer/3/sid/98971298178906/query/URL

www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo/en,3,98971298178906,URL

With the long number (98971298178906) being a session ID. Google is saying that, over the years, they've managed to filter out bits of strings like ?sid=98971298178906, but when you have the session ID in a static-looking URL it becomes a whole lot harder for them to ignore that bit of URL.

So what you're going to end up with is duplicate content across multiple 'static' pages.

If you ask me though, anyone who has been rewriting URLs like this:

www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo?language=en&answer=3&sid=98971298178906&query=URL

To a URL like this:

www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo/en,3,98971298178906,URL

Is clearly missing the point of rewriting URLs. Not only do Google themselves say during their post "keep your URLs short", a rewritten URL should be human-readable and be informative of the page content.

So to all those swearing never to rewrite a URL again at risk of making Google Higher Beings upset, then go ahead. But I'm still going to rewrite URLs like this:

www.example.com/product/details.php?p=143

To URLs like this: