Recent Business Work
Sun, 2 July, 2006 – 11:01 am
So I keep saying I'm busy all over the place - what exactly am I busy with?! Well I figured I'd give a quick run down of the work I've been doing and what I've got left to do at present…
Last week we launched a site for a new client that sells a subscription to a site designed to give you postcodes. There are addresses for UK hospitals, embassies and prisons/detention centres, and also a UK Postcode list. The site has been pretty straightforward - the only new thing to learn was how to create a download with PHP using Headers. The only other fun bit of the site was hooking it up to PayPal's IPN, which seems to go quicker and quicker the more I do it. I've learnt how to work 'blind' now with the IPN (as you don't get to see the errors), sending myself an email at various points so I know where it gets to and then where it dies. The site also freely gives a complete explanation of the UK Postcode system, explaining about our postcode and what the parts of it mean, and also how much you actually need to get it to the destination (apparently only the first half is required). The client's remark was that the UK postcode system is one of the most complex systems in the world and very few foreigners can really grasp it.
Last week another site was also launched which has been dragging on for about a year now. The trouble is as client's take their time over various sections, they start to relook at the design and layout and have differing ideas from when they first agreed to it. I know my terms need to be more watertight on additions and changes to something that's been agreed on - it's something I hope to work on over the summer/autumn.
I'm currently on the second phase of work for a music nominations and voting site. The first phase, done back in April, was to allow people to register and then nominate two acts from each category. Now the system needs altering to allow people to register/login and vote for one of the nominees up for each award. It's pretty straightforward and should be finished by Tuesday.
I'm also working on a Reprographics Stock and Ordering system for a College Intranet. Allows the reprographics guy to easily keep an eye on his stock and enter in staff purchases to account for stock being taken, of course providing various reports to make the stats easier to look through, the system also has a second part where staff can just go online and complete a form and send through a file for printing and whatever else Reprographics do! (We never had one of these at school so I wouldn't have a clue). It's again pretty straightforward and should be finished and then finalised this week.
I have another site that started last year (sounds bad on me but this one really wasn't my fault!). A shop selling Cigars and accessories. The guys running it currently sell off an eBay shop but want to move on to their own site. Trouble is their business bank card and pin got intercepted and the had their account cleaned out, then had to wait for the new account to be set up and finalised before they could go to WorldPay for their merchant account. So for about 6 months it all got put on hold. Trouble is they came back to me when I was then snowed under and am having to fit them in too. I know it's not their fault they couldn't proceed, it's just bad timing.
What else? Well another client of mine has decided he wants to set up a community site for the part of London he lives in. A local digital magazine and hopefully making money off advertising and estate agents who'll pay to advertise their properties on it. The site development is being looked after by Dave mainly, with me just overseeing the lot as I don't have the time to think about it really. The client got a print designer to do the web design (which is not really a good thing in my mind) which could slow things down. The site itself is fairly straightforward and we're using Joomla to run it as they're on a budget and couldn't afford me to build it from scratch (plus they wouldn't have it until Christmas!). It's a shame as it sounds like a fun project that I'd have liked to get involved with but for the start up I won't be doing much, however if things go the way they want it and money comes in then hopefully they'll invest some of it back into the site in various parts where I can put my skills to use.
And finally there's the constant work with the Watch site that's currently being rewritten into accessible design, valid markup, CSS/XHTML and securing the PHP further, and also my work at my contract job which covers a whole host of things.
So that's what I'm actually up to, plus finding time to post, reading a few other blogs, trying to set up a few more AIS sites and also having a break from the PC once in a while!
