How to tune up XP broadband downloads.

June 9th, 2009

If you asked most people what they would most like to improve with regards to their broadband, we here at web design suffolk bet most people would go for faster downloads.  Amazingly though, with just a couple of of tweaks, most people can get a real speed boost that they would instantly benefit from.

TCP optimizer is a utility that edits network settings in the Windows XP registry. The most important tweak that it does is to the TCP receive window size. This is the actual amount of data the computer can receive from the intranet in one chunk, so increasing the value can improve the download speeds of even web design suffolk - give it a try, what have you got to lose. It also makes changes to Internet explorer too.  Don’t use TCP Optimiser on Windows Vista though, it wont work and and its not needed as Vista adjusts the values automatically.

Rural areas need satellites

May 26th, 2009

One of the main problems that web designers in suffolk find for local East Anglian people is that a lot of people just live too far away from telephone exchanges and get poor broadband performance. The same problem also is there for cable services, that never bother to roll out there services to rural communities. Web design suffolk know that a lot of rural communities need the web, but so many just can’t get a decent service, if they can get a service at all.

Things might just be changing though, with satellite technology possibly providing rural areas with the key to accessing faster broadband services. The down-side web design suffolk has found, is that the initial set-up fees can possibly be very prohibitive. French communications company Eutelsat will charge a monthly subscription of £29.99 for a 2 Mbits service ans the company say they are planning a 10Mbits service next year. The downside - the cost of the satellite dish and, modem and installation would costs more than £600 - putting it beyond the reach of a lot of people.

Broadband Speed Restrictions

May 11th, 2009

When you sign up for Broadband these days, no matter who your provider might be - you might find a few surprises when it comes to speed restrictions. You will certainly get the big grandstanding statement they all make which is unlimited downloads - which web design suffolk normally discovers means nothing of the sort - but what you wont get is any mention of speed restrictions. Yet a large number of ISP’s now impose speed restrictions on most of their customers.

What happens normally is that the heavy users get hit first and hit hard. Speed is usually throttled in busy periods such as first thing in the morning and late afternoon and early evening when the kids come home and hit the network. What web design suffolk has found is that speed can be reduced dramatically - sometimes down from say 10mbps rto 2.5mbps. Users may also find that these restrictions are not exactly accurate when it come to time and the reduced speed can often persist outside the restricted periods.

Its basically called traffic management and ISP’s do it because the network is getting throortled by too many suers downloadint oo much stuff. You canb’t blame them for tryign to make an even playing field for everybody, but we can blame them for misleading new customers with slogans about unlimited speed 24/7, when they usually give nothing of the sort.

Customise your IE Browser

April 23rd, 2009

it has to be said that Microsoft’s Intrenet Explorer is probably the least customizable out of the big three browsers, with the other two being Safari and Firefox.  The reason for this is because it is so tightly integrated into Windows, so web design suffolk discovered that is it nearly impossible to skin it. That said though, if you bother to delve a bit deeper, you will find that there is still a lot you can do to make it customizable. First if you change the look of Windows you will discover that this will change the look of Internet Explorer, but some people may want to go deeper.

If you use a theme package such as Window-blinds, this will really help you get something together with IE, but you might also want to consider installing IEPro, which web design suffolk discovered lets you bring a whole new range of features to IE7 such as mouse gestures for easy navigation and support for Firefox scripts that provide extra functionality and enhanced tabbed browsing capabilities. At the end of the day, you have to find the right tools to do the right changes, but you must always bear in mind that you are customizing to make your life easier - if it doesn’t then why bother?

Mozilla is weaving the web

April 16th, 2009

Mozilla, as I’m sure most of you are aware, are the people behind the all conquering Firefox browser. A browser that web design suffolk wholeheartedly recommends for it robustness and security features, It was the first browser to introduce tabs - now used by all other browsers, and it was the first to make its layout more simple for the average user. It was also free and different from the all mighty Microsoft Internet Explorer, which for many years had an almost clear run at the browser world.

One of the big things that mozilla are now working on is called Weaving the web - they just call it weave and we at web design suffolk simply call it brilliant. Weave basically brings together all of the other devices in your life such as mobile phones, PC’s etc and tries to bring an element of continuity to them. Its similar to cloud computing and it is all about services being stored online rather than remotely. Weave will let individuals access what they are actually looking for on one computer on another instantly.

What are RSS feeds?

March 30th, 2009

The incredible rise of RSS feeds online has been a wonder to behold, but a lot of users still do not actually know what they are.  RSS allows you to view feeds or news-feeds from blogs and other similar sites. Each feed consists of headlines and summaries of new or updated articles . RSS simply stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’  and in simple terms - it has revolutionized the way web design suffolk customers view their web content on a daily basis.

When a person sees something they might like, they can click on the RSS headlines to view the full story./article One of the main bonuses of RSS is that it saves you regularly visiting your favourite sites to check out what is new. The real bonus with RSS as far as web design suffolk is concerned though is that you can use an aggregater, to combine lots of feeds from your favourite sites, which in effect is almost like having your own personalized favourite magazine online edited just for your own personal interests.

Hard Deliverables online always do well

March 23rd, 2009

Hard deliverables means physical objects that are easily shipped, selling them on the web in the right way can mean big profits, but there is lots of things you need to get right first. If you think about it, these are many of the same items that sell well through catalogue and mail order. The attractions seem clear once web design suffolk have actually built the site. For one thing, the user can general easily see what they are going to get.  They can see pictures of the merchandise and the stuff is real and tangible.  Another huge advantage of buying online is that there is no parking involved, it is the ultimate free parking shopping trip. All of these qualities transfer directly to an online shopping experience. Ultimately, an online shopping experience will stand or fall on how good the shop layout is for the user and how smooth the whole browsing and paying mechanisms are - of course the biggest question every budding online entrepreneur has to as themselves is what do i want to sell and does anybody want it?

Just what exactly is a blog?

March 16th, 2009

A blog, or weblog, if you want to use it original name that was given to it way back in the day, is a unique kind of frequently updated web-pages (just like this one), consisting of usually short posts arranged with the most recent at the top. Where web design suffolk come into it, is that they have to build lots of them as they are very popular, even on corporate business sites, where they are used as a way of getting a message across in an informal way. Many major sites now feature blogs, sometimes written by a large team of people and sometimes just written by one individual voice.

Many of the most interesting and successful blogs that web design suffolk has been involved in over the years has been either journalistic or political in  nature, with up to the minute news delivered with a fresh angle. It is the immediacy of the Blog that makes it such an attractive and powerful force on the web and it is surely going to be around for a long time to come.

How to reduce an image’s size

February 26th, 2009

One of the most common questions we get asked at web design suffolk is how to reduce an images size. There are a whole multitude of images and graphics available for people to put onto their sites, but it is often difficult to work out how to prepare them for the web. If you don’t get it right, you could end up with images that are pix-elated and blurry, or on the other end of the scale, you could end up with pictures that are too big and slow to download - that why we want to tell you how to reduce them in size.

Reducing the dimensions is the best way that web design suffolk has found to reduce images sizes for the web. For example, if your image measures 1024×758 pixels, you could reduce it to 800×600. You could also crop the image, chopping off excess from the edges. These techniques will change the size and shape of the image, but not otherwise affect the quality.

Always freshen your content

February 12th, 2009

If you are looking to have a successful site online, one that people will come back time and time again, the single most important thing you must do is freshen your content daily. If you visit a site designed by web design suffolk and discover that it was last updated two months ago, you will surely move on and try another site. Even if you are looking at a simple info site and just want an address, if the content isn’t updated and fresh, then people will move away fairly quickly.

Basically, updated content impresses people and keep them coming back for more. What is shows clearly to all users that visit your site is that you have a clear commitment to your site and it matters. Therefore an updated site will always attract new customers and users.