http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog This is the latest information from www.bluebit.co.uk/blog en-gb Sun, 05 Feb 2012 19:00:00 Copyright (C) 2012 www.bluebit.co.uk 60 http://www.bluebit.co.uk http://www.bluebit.co.uk/templates/default/images/logo.jpg http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Plesk_10 We've recently rolled out our new control panel to all our users, Plesk 10 which is a direct replacement from Plesk 9 that we were currently using. Users will be presented with a brand new interface but with all the security and features you come to expect from Plesk... Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:42:05 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Opencart_ecommerce_support_and_hosting We're now offering ecommerce solutions through Opencart, an open source ecommerce platform rich in additional features. Opencart has been around for a few years now and is gaining ground in the ecommerce space, and can be a more efficient alternative to Magento... Tue, 14 Jun 2011 13:26:27 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/The_Internet_Explorer_6_countdown Finally Microsoft have decided to visibly let people know of the impending shutdown of Internet Explorer 6. Its a bold move but one that many developers welcome. However there are still many corporate companies that rely on IE6 for their bespoke software and so have been reluctant to let go... Thu, 07 Apr 2011 05:35:51 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Christmas_season With Christmas well and truly here (well almost), we're preparing ourselves for extended noshing of lovely food, the exchange of presents and the pleasure of good company. I've already added a couple of extra notches to my belt in anticipation of copious amounts of mince pies... Fri, 17 Dec 2010 18:52:13 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/When_will_Internet_Explorer_6_finally_die? It will be a bitter sweet day indeed when the staple browser for many Windows XP fans out there finally pops its clogs. It's the browser that all of us developers love to hate, with its quirky handling of double margin, to the way it calculates widths of things with and without padding and margin... Wed, 15 Dec 2010 10:16:57 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/conGuu_CMS_gallery_module We've launched a demo web site to show you what you can do with conGuu CMS and the bolt on optional Gallery module. This simple site has public and private photo galleries and albums as well as a fullscreen slideshow feature to run prsentations, all completely from your website... Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:42:43 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/which_web_browser_do_you_use? So which web browser do you use? What's your personal favourite? How do you choose? Is security more important or do you need something quick to load? As web designers and developers we ask these questions on a regular basis and we download and test our sites on as many browsers that we feel are relevant... Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:42:25 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/iPhone4,_Samsung_Galaxy_S_or_HTC_Desire My mobile phone contract comes to an end next month and I'm looking to upgrade to something a little newer that the iPhone 3G I currently run. Why? well the initial reason for the iPhone was to start developing web applications specifically for the iPhone... Sun, 19 Dec 2010 10:31:07 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/conGuu_CMS_image_galleries conGuu galleries bolt-on. Now you can upload and manage your images en-masse, creating web based public and private galleries, displaying full screen images, watermarking, and categorising your work, all within your website!!! We are working on the ability to allow you to sell your images online at the price that you decide... Tue, 14 Jun 2011 13:29:05 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/ilikemusic.com_website_goes_live We've been busy with the guys from I Like Music over the past few weeks designing and building their new interface. The site is now live and we're all really excited about it. There are some exciting features such as streaming audio and playlists plus a weekly format where each week content is added rather like a real magazine... Sun, 19 Dec 2010 10:24:14 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Bluebit_rolling_out_Plesk_for_all_web_sites We are excited to announce that all our hosting customers will be able to use the well respected Plesk control panel provided by Parallels. We're currently rolling out 8.3 on all web sites but looking to upgrade to 9.3 in the next month or so. Plesk allows our customers to fully control every aspect of their web sites hosting plan, from email accounts through to statistics either using Webalizer or Awstats... Sun, 19 Dec 2010 10:23:47 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/conGuu_1.13.0_update We've been busy on the rollup to our big V2 launch and there are some more additional features now available in conGuu: Gallery manager - A module for users who want to set up image galleries. The galleries can be locked down with a username and password... Thu, 16 Dec 2010 13:10:55 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Southampton_Cycle_Challenge We're signed up and ready to go on Southampton City Councils "drive" to get people on their bikes across Southampton and Hampshire. Whilst two of us already cycle to work and a third walks every day, it wouldn't be feasible to expect our fourth member of staff to cycle from Bournemouth to Southampton every day but the challenge is all about trying a bike for the first time and participating in some recreational riding too... Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:40:13 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/conGuu_CMS_1.12.1_update We've carried out a few tweaks and modifications in this latest point release. Here's what's new: VAT Support for ConGuu cart. This gives us the ability to set and change VAT rates and display a company VAT number when sending out e-mail payment notifications... Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:39:35 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/conGuu_1.12.0_released We wanted to release a couple of additional versions of conGuu before our big 2.0.0 launch due in July 2010. To this end we have released V1.12.0 This version has some additional features and some bug fixes thrown in for good measure: Upadated e-commerce shopping cart module installed - Our shopping cart module brings the power of e-commerce to ConGuu, which supports the use of industry standard SSL certificates and secure https:// transactions to transmit sensitive information from server to server via high strength encryption methods, making it virtually impossible for anyone to intercept... Thu, 16 Dec 2010 13:10:34 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Cycle_2_Work_Scheme Bluebit have embraced Southampton City Councils drive to get more people cycling to work and we have signed up to one of the many cycle2work schemes that are currently being run that incentivise businesses to invest in two wheeled transportation for their staff... Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:36:07 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Wordpress_hosting_on_its_way In the coming few weeks, we will be launching our Wordpress hosting service. This service will be squarely aimed at users who simply want Wordpress installed and working. Space and bandwidth figures to be confirmed, but the user will also get FTP access to the entire installation as well as POP/IMAP accounts for email... Thu, 16 Dec 2010 13:10:13 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/To_steep_or_not_to_steep,_that_is_the_question. Many of us appreciate a good brew, and here at Bluebit we are all partial to a cuppa or two. One question however reverberated around the walls of our offices recently after I made a cup of tea for a client and the developers in the office: "How long should you leave a cuppa for to brew?" Of course there is no proper answer to this and there are also loads of other questions that then get fired off like: "Do you put the milk in first?", or "teabag or tea leaves?" which then defines whether you're using a teapot or otherwise... Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:47:41 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/conGuu_CMS_1.11.0_launched_and_version_2.0.0_on_its_way conGuu CMS 1.11.0 is now live and we're rolling out the backups module to all our clients gradually. The backup module automatically backs up your entire account every night for up to 7 days, meaning you can roll back your site up to a week in the past. In addition you can also make your own manual backups as well at any time you please allowing you to work on your website and have the knowledge that you can restore immediately in case you make a mistake and delete an important article... Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:47:11 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Happy_Valentines_day! Grab a handful of red roses, a sprinking of Barry White - the Walrus of love, a specially crafted meal consisting of asparagus spears. Tuck the kids off to Grannys for the day and enjoy most of the day together. Have a great Valentines day. Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:46:54 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Professional_photo_gallery_and_photo_diary_application_on_the_way... After speaking to some amateur and professional photography firms and individuals, it's clear that there isn't a product out there that allows them to focus on what they do best - take photographs - and also have a professional, own branded website. Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:46:35 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/conGuu_1.11_update_imminent We're currently working on version 1.11 which will have a new backup module enabling you to carry out your own backups of your conGuu accounts. You'll also be able to schedule them and keep up to 7 days of rolling backups. This will give you more control and peace of mind in case you accidentally delete that important article or remove that useful PDF... Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:46:17 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Bluebit_Website We've been busy with our new site and it's now up and running. The new version now encompasses some more jQuery and AJAX to make for a more fluid and dynamic feeling website. One significant difference is that pageloads no longer act as a refresh and we simply re-populate specific parts of the page... Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:45:55 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Taking_the_Greyhound After travelling up to London from Southampton on National Express recently I was pleased to see that their coaches have recently been updated. The velour seats replaced by comfortable leather ones and the addition of wifi for any traveller who has a laptop of wifi enabled mobile phone... Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:45:24 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/conGuu_1.9.0_featuring_RSS_feeds The newest version of conGuu (1.9.0) is about to be released, with a new RSS feed option available for each section that you want to add it to. This will allow your users to subscribe to busy parts of your site such your blog enabling you to keep you users up to date... Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:44:10 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/conGuu_CMS_upgraded_to_1.8.2 conGuu CMS has been updated to 1.8.2 with some new features and a few bug fixes thrown in for good measure: Improved page navigation with clickable page numbers. Login now supports multiple domain based accounts. Navigation rules are more strict, only the assigned URLs can be accessed... Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:34:07 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/conGuu_upgraded_to_1.7.0 conGuu has been upgraded to 1.7.0 with some new features listed below: New File uploader now supports multiple file selection. Use SHIFT or CTRL to select multiple image files, or click and drag a box around the files you wish to use Added ability to queue file uploads progress Meter on file uploads File upload security updates Added support for PNG and GIF uploads Increased memory allocation to support larger images Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:43:44 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/conGuu_upgraded_to_1.6.0 We've recently upgraded conGuu CMS to V1.6.0. This delivers some bug fixes and some nice additional features that make using the CMS much easier. Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:43:04 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Tooltips_on_forms_using_jQuery Just recently someone posed the question to me, "How would I use a span as a Tooltip when someone hovers an input?" I was feeling particularly helpful so I decided to take a few minutes to come up with a solution. Whilst its a simple bit of script, as any developer knows, its sometimes the most simple things that people don't document! Fri, 25 Feb 2011 11:37:13 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Bluebit_Go_Limited On July 1st 2009 Bluebit Web Design became a Limited company, thanks to our clients and staff and their continued support. We've grown over the past few months and now have 4 members of staff in the Bluebit offices and it really is a busy place. We'd love to see you so if your ever in the neighbourhood why not pop in for a cup of tea and a chat... Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:43:24 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Speed_up_OSCommerce_and_Zencart If you're finding that your oscommerce based shop is extremely slow, try turning on the mysql cacheing to speed up regularly running queries. You can also change the products table storage type to "innoDB" which can make a significant difference to the speed... Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:41:14 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/3_bucket_layout_with_link_overlay Ok so whilst building mailGuu I came across a problem that baffled me for a while; how do I create a 3 bucket layout and make the entire bucket and all its content a clickable link? Well the answer was relatively simple as most of them are. Read on and follow the screencast for an indepth tutorial on how to achiebe this cross browser, valid technique... Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:41:54 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/mailGuu_launched Our new mailing campaign engine mailGuu has been launched and gives our users the power to send email to their subscribers in a controlled and completely automated way. No more need for large BCC lists in Outlook... Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:42:15 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/jQuery_expandable_navigation_for_Zen_Cart Following on from my post about jQuery expandable navigation using nested UL's, today I am going to explain how to implement this method into a Zen Cart installation. Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:40:45 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/mailGuu_almost_ready... Our new mail email engine is almost ready for launch. We've got a few tweaks to make and we'll be letting it loose for the general public. Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:41:34 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Simple_jQuery_expandable_navigation_technique If like me, you've been driven crazy looking for a simple jQuery expandable navigation that utilises nested UL's, this article may be for you. Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:38:47 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Create_coloured_CSS_Bullets_for_your_lists Need a way to deliver different coloured list bullets for CSS unordered lists without having to create each and every colour, or wrap your LI content in SPANS? Well we think we have the answer. Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:38:07 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Merry_Christmas_and_a_Happy_New_Year We just wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the team here at Bluebit Web Design, Southampton. We'll be closing for the Christmas break on the 24th December and will be back, fresh faced, on the 5th January 2009. Ongoing support for hosting and servers will continue throughout the break so please leave us a message or email us direct as normal for support... Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:37:35 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Our_website_of_the_month Fancy an alternative to the traditional chocolate advent calendar? One of the highlights of the web design year is the annual "alternative" advent calendar over at 24ways... Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:37:14 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Cost_Effective_VoIP_solution If your a geek like me you'll love fiddling with computers, have a big box of wires and read Micromart/.net... probably. My most recent project took me into the realms of Linux once again where I dabbled, sweated, typed foreign commands into a foreign OS... Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:36:46 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Win_an_iPod_Shuffle! From now until Christmas Eve we will be running our popular competition to win one of our exclusive Bluebit Web Design iPod Shuffles. You can even choose from five fantastic colours! Our customers already know how good we are, so all you have to do is recommend Bluebit Web Design to one of your clients and as soon as we receive their deposit both yourself and your client will be entered into our competition... Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:33:02 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Exciting_Developer_joins_the_team We would like to welcome Mark as the newest member of the Bluebit team. Mark has joined us as a full time web developer. As well as web development and working for Bluebit Mark enjoys playing the guitar and partaking in the usual lifestyle of a man about town! Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:33:34 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Top_shareware_app:_November_Edition Stickies. Free your desktop from Post It hell with this great little utility. Stickies is a small and simple program with many features allowing you to banish those dog eared Post It notes to the drawer. Best of all its totally free. Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:34:44 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/SEO_Top_Tips Your website looks great and you have some fantastic promotions in your on-line shop. So why is no-one visiting your website and purchasing from you? When opening a shop would you choose to open on a busy high street or miles from anywhere. The answer is not rocket science... Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:35:10 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/conGuu_cms_website_launch No we haven't been trekking through the jungle, conGuu is our brand new, cost effective, content management system. When we tell you that the complete conGuu package starts from just £2.00 per day, you can see why we are so excited about it. conGuu CMS is already proving to be very popular with our customers who were first on the band wagon and are already using it... Thu, 16 Dec 2010 13:13:33 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Top_Shareware_App:_September_Edition Whilst scouring the web looking for some nifty screen recording software, I stumbled upon UltraVNCs screenrecorder application. I'm familiar with Ultra VNCs own remote desktop control application and use this regularly on some of our kit here at Bluebit, however the screenrecorder was an unexpected bonus... Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:32:30 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Bluebit_launches_it's_re-vamped_website. It is not often that a web development company actually gets time to update their own website. However here at Bluebit we know how important it is to have a good looking website, one that is almost as good looking as we are! We hope you like the new website and that you may feel the need to give us a call and congratulate us or give us your feedback... Thu, 16 Dec 2010 13:09:40 http://www.bluebit.co.uk/blog/Milk_Bottle_Tops Thank you to everyone who helped us collect milk bottle tops for charity. We are still collecting, so please keep bringing them in, we always like visitors and our favourite ones may also get a free cup of tea! Thu, 16 Dec 2010 13:09:21