Blog

Leaving Lightroom

Tuesday, 25 August, 2020 by Alan Hearnshaw

Reading time: 31 minutes.

I’m not a fan of software rental. There, I’ve said it. I must, however, qualify that statement. There is, of course, room – and even a necessity – for software as a service (SAAS). When data must be collected into a central repository—and that data needs to be accessed from anywhere—then the obvious solution is a cloud-based system. Traditionally, this has been the realm of SAAS, or subscription-based services.

However, there has been a move in recent years to move regular desktop-based applications into the SAAS world. I’m talking about those application which you used to purchase once, install on your system, and use until you either decided to upgrade them yourself, or operating system changes made them unusable. In short, desktop applications.

I can see why companies like this model. Who wouldn’t want a monthly semi-guaranteed income? However, is this model really the best for the consumer?

How Your Website Works

Saturday, 18 April, 2020 by Alan Hearnshaw

Reading time: 4 minutes.

Being involved in Internet development for over twenty years now, it’s easy to make the mistake of taking some things for granted. One of those things is assuming that people I’m talking to know the fundamentals of how a web site works,and what is involved in getting your web site “live”. That isn’t always the case. Why should it be?

For this reason, I decided to write a quick primer on the three fundamental parts of the mechanism. This isn’t a technical explanation, just a high-level overview so that it can be understood that—more than anything—there are indeed three different parts to the equation, and each is handled separately.

How to Choose a Domain Name

Wednesday, 15 April, 2020 by Alan Hearnshaw

Reading time: 8 minutes.

Choosing your domain name can be one of the most important decisions you can make when it comes to your online presence. It can also be the most frustrating. All the good ones are taken, right? What makes a domain name “good” anyway? What’s the best strategy for search engine placement? In this post, I hope to make things a little easier for you.

Before I go on to the best strategies, let’s quickly explain what a domain name is, and its purpose:

Why I Ditched WordPress and Switched to Hugo

Tuesday, 27 March, 2018 by Alan Hearnshaw

Reading time: 8 minutes.

Among my other ventures, I run a couple of blogs (Motorcycle Mastery and Scoot Safely). These blogs have been up and running since about 2014. Like most people, I used the software that has become the de-facto standard for blog production: WordPress.

I have, however, spent the last couple of months converting those blogs to an alternate system. Here, I’m going to outline the reasons behind that change, and will discuss some of the pros and cons for such a decision.

But first, let’s have a quick look at how blogs are produced:

The Development Process

Tuesday, 6 January, 2015 by Alan Hearnshaw

Reading time: 4 minutes.

I understand that, for many of our customers, this may be the first time that they have been involved in a web development project. My goal is to make the process as easy for you as possible, and for you to be as involved as you would like.

Sometimes I find that the client wishes to be as “hands off” as possible, and leave many of the decisions to me, and that is fine after I have gained enough information to work with. Equally, some clients prefer to be much more “hands on”, and be actively involved with every step. That is also welcome. It is your project, and the most important part is that you are happy with the end result.

No matter which type of solution I am creating for you; whether it be a static web site consisting of just a few pages, or an enterprise-level comprehensive database-driven web application, the steps we go through remain essentially the same, and I’d like to outline them here.

Over the eighteen years that I have been in the business, the one thing that stands out as being crucial to the successful outcome of a project is communication. This is a two-way street. Clearly, you need to know that I are available to you, and that I will promptly respond to your questions and requests. Equally, the project will go much smoother if the client is available for timely requests for information—particularly during the period before actual development begins.

To give you an idea of how the process works, and the different phases involved, I will here outline the different phases of the development process:

The Pros and Cons of a WordPress Site

Sunday, 4 January, 2015 by Alan Hearnshaw

Reading time: 8 minutes.

Recent years have seen a huge increase in the use of CMS (Content Management Systems), such as WordPress, Joomla and Drupal for web site creation. The most common of these is WordPress. I am often asked what exactly these systems are, and how they may help in your business’s online presence, so I’ve created this mini guide to help you understand what they are; the pros and cons of using them, and whether they would be suitable for your own web site needs. For the sake of simplicity, I will talk mainly about WordPress here, but keep in mind that the other platforms provide quite similar functions.