I’m going to write this as if you’ve got a company, business and or product and you’re thinking about getting a website built. The size of website does not really matter it could be one page or the size of “Wikipedia”. What does matter is having an understanding of what you need and, probably more importantly, what you don’t need.

I know nothing about cars and thats probably why every time I go into a garage/services my heart rate picks up. I really don’t know enough about it to know if I’m getting ripped off or if someone is actually giving me some information that is going to save me time and money in the future. That is why I’m writing this post, to try to let you know the do’s and don’ts.

Know what you want

 
The first thing is to know what it is you want. You don’t need to know anything about the web – just write down what information you want people to be able to find.

1. Let people know where i am based (address, maybe a map)
2. Contact details (a place where people can send me an email)
3. The times I’m open
4. Information about my product(s)
5. Special offers / A place where i can tell people the latest news eg: “we are having a charity event”
6. These are the words that matter to my site: London, Chelsea, Car, Oil, Change,
7. and so on…..

 
It’s pretty straightforward, no need to get into the fine details of how this is going to be built. It lets you and the 3rd party know what the most important information is to be delivered to your customers.

Another good idea is to reference some sites that you like the look of, and the main colour of the site. This is helpful but not a must have.

How Much Will it Cost

 
Ok, how long is a pice of string. I know that’s not what you want to hear but let me explain. I could build you a very simple one page site for $100 USD. You could find someone to do it for less. The same way you could go out and buy a car for $500 or $50,000. Now a one page site is pretty simple and you can’t go too far wrong. But what about getting that page “search-engine friendly” and may be submitting it to search engines, yellow pages…..
How about being able to edit the information easily yourself. There is nothing worse than having a web presence that has incorrect information. Have no site at all if you are not going to keep it relevant and up to date. It takes 5 min to say, “We are opening an hour later this week for Christmas” or “This week get a free oil change with a new set of new tires”.
Yes you might have to spend a bit more to get the above things added but they will pay for themselves.
Also, don’t bother to add an email address unless you are going to be checking your mail at least daily.
Ask the question “If I have a one page site to start with, would it be easy to add other pages and how much would an extra page cost”.
You want your company to be at the top of Google if someone types in your city and name. This can bring in lots of business. More people are using the web to find what they want. So think what words people would type in for your business.

Some people might say I really don’t feel comfortable editing a web site. Well thats fine why not ask if you could pay $20 a year fee to be able to send an email or phone someone to let them know what you would like changing. That way you know your not going to get burned down the road. I know there are companies that will do the first job cheaply and then charge you $50 just to change a phone number (I’ve worked with such companies).

What i’m trying to make clear is that you should be thinking more than just building web pages.
What is it that you want the site to do for you? Cheap is not always best, we know this is the case with most of the things we buy. As I know from experience, a good clear website with a marketing strategy, (I’m not talking pay for click, maybe just getting your website on other local sites) can really pay out in the long run.

Ongoing Costs

 
There are a couple of ongoing costs to be aware of:

1. Domain name (www.thisIsMyDomainName.com).
A domain name normally costs between $5 – $50 USD per year, depending on whether its a “.com” or “.info” etc, I wont list them all.
You can spend a lot of money on buying a domain name from someone who already owns the one you want. I would just make the name unique to you, eg if “www.cars.com” has been bought you could try “www.johnscars.com”.

2. Hosting your website.
Just as you have a home so does your site. If you have a one page site then this is going to cost between $0 – $10 per year.
If you have, say, a big online shop this could cost up to $20 per month. You are paying more because you need a bigger and more reliable service.
Most website builders will include the domain & hosting as part of their service, just make sure you are aware of what it is going to cost from the outset.

Conclusion

 
I know that you were probably looking for exact figures but I hope that I have made it clear that just getting someone to build a page or multi page site really is like buying a car and then not putting petrol in. Just a bit more work could really make all the difference.

If you would like to contact us about building you a site please do!

 
If you don’t know about our software you can find out more about it here. In brief it’s invoicing software that runs on a Mac (it runs on a P.C. too).

In this post I’m going to run through the redesign of the software. Busy Bee Invoicing has been available for nearly a year now – we have made many tweaks and additions and we thought it was time to give the software more of a clean “Apple Mac” look. Just to let you know we are focusing on adding a number of extra fuctions like “Payments”. This will be available in the near future too.

Lets start with the logo

 
Busy Bee Invoicing logo used to look like this ( a )

We wanted to develop a logo that could be used for all our products, not just our invoicing software, and we wanted it to look modern and stylish, just like most of the software that runs on a Apple Mac. Our new logo design ( b )

As stated above the logo was to be used through out our product line. Below is how it appears as a logo for our online shop ( c )

 

 


 

Invoice Software

 
Ok so thats the logo now lets take a look at the software itself. Firstly I did a bit of looking around my own Mac computer to look for some ways I could make the software more “Apple Mac”. The first thing I noticed was that the font that Apple used was “Lucida Grande”. So that was the font taken care of. The next thing was staring me in the face the the top bar of the Mac Finder, Safari, iTunes…. Well they all use a grey gradient. So now I had the starting blocks on which to build a new look.

I did not want to totally redesign the software, i don’t think all the people that already use our invoicing program would have like me for that. I just wanted to clean it up. The buttons were to stay in the same place (give or take a couple of pixels) and the main input boxes were to be essentially left in the same place. I did change all the above sightly as you can see below. There is more room for the boxes and all the elements are alined.


Even with one of the main principles of the new look being “just a clean up” the program looks quite different. I’m happy that this will not confuse our users as every thing is still in the same place. So hopefully no looking around for something you already knew how to do.

Below are Some screen shots of our invoicing software.

 

Before the redesign

After the redesign

Before

After

Before, close up

After, close up

Before

After

Please feel free to comment

 
The new design is not out yet but we would love to know what you think. The software will look the same whether its running on Apple Mac OS or a PC. If you have not downloaded our invoicing software please feel free to give it a go. You can download it for a test run before you buy here

 

 

Inflation on Your Money

 
Lets do this quickly. Inflation is the rate that “stuff” increases in price, a loaf of bread this time last year was $1.00.
This year it’s $1.03, that’s 3% inflation.

Ok so in this same year lets say we have saved $1.00 and have it in a bank paying interest at 3%. Your money has now grown to $1.03 At first glance you might think that you are $0.03 better off, as we have seen with the bread you are not. You are in fact no better off than a year ago, your money has kept up with inflation and no more.

This is what a lot of people miss when they are saving or investing. You have to get a better rate on your savings than the rate of inflation to increase your wealth. As we see today inflation is around the 3% mark and most bank accounts are paying below 3%. So that money (in real terms) is losing value against what you can buy with it.

Yes your money is very safe in a bank even in these times and for some people its the best choice. I would always say pay off your debts and have about 6 months in emergency funds in an instant access bank account.

How to beat Inflation

 
Now that we have covered that lets get to the juicy bit. What are the best ways to beat inflation today?

Diversification – thats the number one rule, don’t put all your eggs into one basket.

BP. British Petroleum
You should have heard of this company. Well it yields over 6% and pays its dividend in $ (See bottom “£ $“) so the £ going down against the $ means that the pay out will be even greater. The thing I really like about BP is this: It makes its money from oil and gas mostly, and these two commodities should go up if we get a case of inflation – so what great inflation protection. Now lets say that we get deflation, although I don’t think we will as the government will just print more money (See bottom “Printing Money“). Well deflation (prices going down) is not too good for BP it will probably have to cut is dividend. Let say it halves the pay-out to 3%. Well if prices are falling then 3% will still be pretty good.

Emerging Markets
I’m a big believer in emerging markets (China, India, Brazil, Russia….) It was easy to say a year ago to put your money in an ETF (See bottom “ETF“) like (LON:IEEM). This is a basket of stocks held in one stock. Just think of it like this. You can by over 300 companies in the emerging markets by just buying the share “IEEM”. I would not be buying this at the moment as I think it has gone up a lot (100% in the last year) and the dividend is less than 1%. But i would start buying it if it comes down in price (it’s priced at £25.45 today). I think a better way to get into emerging markets at the moment is to buy companies like HSBC, Vodafone, Apple, GlaxoSmithKline, BHP Billiton (this one goes up and down like a yo yo), Unilever, Tesco (LON:TSCO) and so on. The thing I like about taking this route into emerging markets is that you are getting part of the “emerging market” growth rate (because these companies are expanding into emerging markets), and a dividend while you wait.

Steady Earners
Well I just listed a lot of stocks in the emerging markets section but lets remember diversification and look at some steady earners. I like to have some good dividend payers, it’s just my thing. Bonds are good but I just don’t like them at this moment in time. I feel that you can get a better pay-out in high yielding stocks. Having said that, LON:SLXX, LON:ISXF are what I would be looking at if I was buying. SLXX is like IEEM in the fact that it holds a lot of bonds in just one stock. ISXF is the same – the only difference is that it doesn’t include any financial bonds and the yield is a bit smaller. Utilities are a little like bonds, they are shares but are heavily regulated, have regular earnings and good dividends. A month ago you could have picked up United Utilities yielding 7%.

In The Long Term
Over the next 5 – 25 years I believe you are going to want to be in emerging markets (I would say 20% – 30% of your portfolio). This is because that is where the growth is going to be. That is where the governments have not got huge indebtedness. We in the developed world (not including some countries like Australia and Canada which I also like as they have great stocks of commodities) are going to be paying higher taxes and if not then inflation is going to be here. After your 20% – 30% in emerging markets I think you want to be in stocks that generate income from emerging markets (see above). After that I think you want a smattering of big dividend players, wait for the bond yields to rise and then buy some of those too. The road is going to be bumpy, especially when the west starts to pay back the bill. Wait for fear and start to buy.

Final Thoughts
Well I’m going to leave it there for now. I could go on and on but i will put some more posts out rather than making this too big to read.

Just a couple of things, I’m not a wizard and can’t see into the future. I would always wait for the market to come down a bit from it’s highs before I bought a share (5% – 10%). I’m not looking for rocket stocks, I just want my money to grow in real terms (beat inflation) over the long haul. Inflation is a moving target, thats why we stay diversified. What is not working as well today might work very well tomorrow.
My investing style is to normally be 80% – 100% invested. I generally sell a bit when the market goes up (like today) and buy a bit when the market goes down. It might sound simple but I suppose scoring a goal sounds simple too but there are plenty of 0-0 game. I’m not saying you should do this and I don’t do it all the time – only when the market has gone up a lot in a short space of time and there is a stock I own that I like less then a stock I don’t. I then wait and if the market comes down a bit I will buy the stock I was looking at. If the market keeps going higher I console myself with the fact that I am making money.

Explanations

 
£ $ – The £ going down more means that the pay out will be even greater. Why?
Well the lower the £ goes against the $ the more £ you will get for every $
Lets say $1 = £1 a year ago.
Now $1 = £2.00.
So you can see that if the company pays out $10 a year you will now get £20 not the £10 that you would have got before the £ lost value against the $.
I hope that makes it clear? Please comment below if you have a question.

Printing Money – The UK government has been printing money – “quantatative easing” – this makes more money avaliable. Now when there is more money around this normally causes inflation.

ETF – IEEM, SLXX, ISXF are all “ETF’s” Exchange Traded Funds. Simply think of it as one share that owns lots of shares.

Stocks, Shares – They are the same thing. If you want to get technical: if investors say they own stocks, they are generally referring to their overall ownership in one or more companies. Technically, if someone says that they own shares – the question then becomes – shares in what company? I found this explanation here

Bonds – A bond is a company or government borrowing money. Normally the higher the yield the less chance the company or government can pay it all back.

So now in a worst case scenario you can do a clean install of Magento, upload your files folders and database and be back to your last backup and not right back at the start.

Ok while the above is only a starting point it will hopefully make your first days working in Magento a bit less frustrating. If you have any other starter tips please comment below.

BrowserLab provides web designers exact renderings of their web pages in multiple browsers and operating systems, on demand. BrowserLab is a powerful solution for cross-browser compatibility testing, featuring multiple viewing and comparison tools, as well as customizable preferences. Since BrowserLab is an online service, it can be accessed from virtually any computer connected to the web.

var pictLdr:Loader = new Loader();
var pictURL:String = “img/logo.png”
var pictURLReq:URLRequest = new URLRequest(pictURL);
pictLdr.load(pictURLReq);
this.addChild(pictLdr);

myButton.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, linkGo);
function linkGo(event:MouseEvent):void{
var getLink:URLRequest = new URLRequest(“http://www.kahndesign.com/automotive/projectkahn/”);
navigateToURL(getLink, ‘_self’);
}

var container:Sprite = new Sprite
this.addChild(container);

ExternalInterface.call(“swffit.fit”,’webdesign’,'990′, pageHeightNum);

stage.scaleMode = StageScaleMode.NO_SCALE;
stage.align = StageAlign.TOP_LEFT;

var css:StyleSheet = new StyleSheet;
var body:Object = new Object();
body.color = “#333333″;
body.fontSize = “12″;
body.fontFamily = “Calibri”;
body.letterSpacing = “1″;
body.leading = “-1″;

var titleColor:Object = new Object();
titleColor.color = “#a92400″;
titleColor.fontSize = “12″;
titleColor.fontWeight = “bold”;

var commentColor:Object = new Object();
commentColor.color = “#a95700″;
commentColor.fontSize = “12″;

css.setStyle(“body”, body);
css.setStyle(“.titleColor”, titleColor);
css.setStyle(“.commentColor”, commentColor);

var headerText:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
headerText.color = 0×006699;
headerText.font = “Calibri”;
headerText.size = “24″;
headerText.letterSpacing = 0;
headerText.leading = -1;
headerText.bold = true;
yourText.setTextFormat(headerText);

var yourText:TextField = new TextField();
container.addChild(yourText);
yourText.x = 40;
yourText.y = storyOne.y – 40;
yourText.width = 80;
yourText.height = 20;
yourText.htmlText = “Latest news”;
yourText.setTextFormat(menuText);}

var myText:TextField = new TextField();
this.addChild(myText);
myText.x = 450;
myText.y = 570 + homeFit;
myText.width = 633;
myText.height = 200;
myText.multiline = true;
myText.wordWrap = true;
myText.styleSheet = css;
myText.htmlText = ” Go”;
myText.addEventListener(TextEvent.LINK, goLink);

function goLink(evt:TextEvent):void {
if(evt.text == “goWebsites”){
trace(“goWebsites”)
}
}

var gradType:String = GradientType.LINEAR;
var matrix:Matrix = new Matrix();
// matrix.createGradientBox(boxWidth, boxHeight, boxRotation, x, y);
matrix.createGradientBox(624, 1400, 0, 8, 147)
var colors:Array = [0xDEDEDE, 0xEFEFEF];
var alphas:Array = [1, 1];
var ratios:Array = [0, 120];

var rectangleGrad = new Sprite();
rectangleGrad.graphics.beginGradientFill(gradType, colors, alphas, ratios, matrix)
rectangleGrad.graphics.drawRect(8, 147, 624, 1400);
container.addChild(rectangleGrad);
rectangleGrad.filters = myfilters;

var rectangle:Sprite = new Sprite();
rectangle.graphics.lineStyle(1, 0xCCCCCC);
rectangle.graphics.beginFill(0xCCCCCC, 0);
rectangle.graphics.drawRect(8, 147, 624, 1400);
rectangle.graphics.endFill();
container.addChild(rectangle);

while (container.numChildren) {
container.removeChildAt(0);}

var myLinesp:Sprite = new Sprite();
container.addChild(myLinesp);
var myLineg:Graphics = myLinesp.graphics
myLineg.lineStyle(1, 0xCCCCCC);
myLineg.moveTo(12, 100);
myLineg.lineTo(112, 100);

SWFAddress.setValue(“/” + storyOneAddressText + “/”);
SWFAddress.setTitle(storyOneAddressText);

storyOne.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, storyOneBig);
function storyOneBig(event:MouseEvent):void{
}

import flash.filters.DropShadowFilter;
var myfilters:Array = [];
var dropShadow:DropShadowFilter = new DropShadowFilter();
dropShadow.distance = 4;
dropShadow.alpha = 0.4;
dropShadow.blurX = 4;
dropShadow.blurY = 4;
dropShadow.quality = 2;
myfilters.push(dropShadow);

import fl.controls.ScrollBarDirection;
import fl.controls.TextArea;
import fl.events.ScrollEvent;
var myScrollText:TextArea = new TextArea();
myScrollText.setSize(318, 60);
myScrollText.move(8, 125);
myScrollText.addEventListener(ScrollEvent.SCROLL, scrollScrollTextOneHandler);
myScrollText.htmlText += “kgk h kjhlj “;
addChild(myScrollText);

function scrollScrollTextOneHandler(event:ScrollEvent):void {
var myScrollTextOneTA:TextArea = event.currentTarget as TextArea;
var posScrollTextOne:Number = event.position;
var maxposScrollTextOne:Number;

if (event.direction == ScrollBarDirection.VERTICAL) {
maxposScrollTextOne = myScrollTextOneTA.maxVerticalScrollPosition;
} else {
maxposScrollTextOne = myScrollTextOneTA.maxHorizontalScrollPosition;
}
}

You Need:
TextArea and UIScrollBar

The problem is that the fl.events.ScrollEvent is tied to the UIScrollBar component. You need to add one of these components to your library, and all will be well.

yourObject.dragyourObject.buttonMode = true;

yourObject.dragyourObject.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN,DragStartyourObject);
yourObject.dragyourObject.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_UP,DragStopyourObject);
function DragStartyourObject(event:Event) {
yourObject.startDrag(false);
}

function DragStopyourObject(event:Event) {
yourObject.stopDrag();
}

yourObject.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, buy_6);
function buy_6(event:MouseEvent):void{
b = 6;
var Variables:URLVariables = new URLVariables();
Variables.cmd = “_xclick”;
Variables.business = “yourPayPalEmailAddress@gmail.com”;
Variables.currency_code = “GBP”;
Variables.amount = navData.channel.item.price.text()[b];
Variables.item_name = navData.channel.item.info.text()[b] + ” – ” + navData.channel.item.model.text()[b] + ” – ” + navData.channel.item.number.text()[b];
Variables.shipping = navData.channel.item.shipping.text()[b];
var Send:URLRequest = new URLRequest(“https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr”);
Send.data = Variables;
navigateToURL(Send, ‘_blank’);
}

var storyOneBigOutTween:Tween = new Tween(storyOneLdr, “scaleX”, Strong.easeOut, 0.5, 1, 1, true);
import fl.transitions.Tween;
import fl.transitions.easing.*;

include “as/menu.as”

var myColor:ColorTransform = _home.homeText.transform.colorTransform;
myColor.color = 0xFCDD57;
_home.homeText.transform.colorTransform = myColor;

var timer:Timer = new Timer(1000);
timer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, onTimer);
function onTimer(evt:TimerEvent):void{
timer.stop();
//timer.removeEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, onTimer);
}

var myColor:ColorTransform = _home.homeText.transform.colorTransform;
myColor.color = 0xFCDD57;
_home.homeText.transform.colorTransform = myColor;

var timer:Timer = new Timer(1000);
timer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, onTimer);
function onTimer(evt:TimerEvent):void{
timer.stop();
//timer.removeEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, onTimer);
}

var i:Number = 0;
var image:Array = [];
trace(navData.channel.item[0].img.text());
var r:Number = navData.channel.item.length();
trace(r);
while(i < r){

var image_mc:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
image_mc.name = “image_mc” + i;
container.addChild(image_mc);
image[i] = image_mc;
image_mc.buttonMode = true;

var pictLdr:Loader = new Loader();
var pictURL:String = navData.channel.item[i].img.text();
var pictURLReq:URLRequest = new URLRequest(pictURL);
pictLdr.load(pictURLReq);
image[i].addChild(pictLdr);
pictLdr.x = 400*i;
i++;
}

var num:Number = 4;
trace(num.toFixed(2)); // 4.00

myText.textHeight;

if (isNaN(myNumber));

import flash.filters.BitmapFilterQuality;
import flash.filters.BlurFilter;
var blur:BlurFilter = new BlurFilter();
blur.blurX = 55;
blur.blurY = 55;
blur.quality = BitmapFilterQuality.MEDIUM;
yourThing.filters = [blur];

colour = Math.random() * 0xffffff;

MovieClip(downloadLdr.content).stop();

containerInvoice.removeChild(downloadLdr);
trace (downloadLdr);
downloadLdr = null;
trace (downloadLdr);

SoundMixer.stopAll();

var myFont:Font = new Font1();
var myFont2:Font = new Font2();
// “Georgia Italic Bold”;
// “Verdana, Arial”;
// myFont.fontName;
// myFont2.fontName;

var css:StyleSheet = new StyleSheet;
var body:Object = new Object();
body.color = “#4a2c22″;
body.fontSize = “18″;
body.fontFamily = myFont.fontName;
body.letterSpacing = “1″;
body.leading = “-1″;
// invoiceBodyText.embedFonts = true;
// invoiceBodyText.antiAliasType = true;

var css:StyleSheet = new StyleSheet;
var body:Object = new Object();
body.fontFamily = “Arial”;
body.color = “#333333″;
body.fontSize = “40″;
body.letterSpacing = “1″;
body.leading = “4″;
var bodyText:Object = new Object();
bodyText.fontFamily = “Arial”;
bodyText.color = “#333333″;
bodyText.fontSize = “40″;
bodyText.letterSpacing = “1″;
bodyText.leading = “4″;
css.setStyle(“body”, body);
css.setStyle(“.bodyText”, bodyText);
// CSS STYLE SHEET END

var homeTitle:TextField = new TextField();
this.addChild(homeTitle);
homeTitle.x = 0;
homeTitle.y = 0;
homeTitle.width = 300;
homeTitle.height = 300;
homeTitle.styleSheet = css;

var beeLargerequest:URLRequest = new URLRequest(“img/jockeyBlueStarLarge.png”);
var beeLargeLoader:Loader = new Loader();
beeLargeLoader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(ProgressEvent.PROGRESS, beeLargeLoadProgress);
beeLargeLoader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, beeLargeLoadComplete);

function beeLargeLoadProgress(event:ProgressEvent):void {
var percentLoadedLarge:Number = event.bytesLoaded/event.bytesTotal;
percentLoadedLarge = Math.round(percentLoadedLarge * 100);
homeTitle.htmlText = “”;
homeTitle.htmlText += (“Loading: “+percentLoadedLarge+”%”);
homeTitle.htmlText += “”;
}

function beeLargeLoadComplete(event:Event):void {
this.addChild(beeLargeLoader);
}
beeLargeLoader.load(beeLargerequest);

]]> http://bee-software.net/blog/actionscript-3-cheat-sheet/feed/ 4 http://bee-software.net/portfolio/sell-cars-online/ http://bee-software.net/portfolio/sell-cars-online/#comments Wed, 20 Jan 2010 04:49:21 +0000 admin http://bee-software.info/?p=522 This website has been built to help sell cars online. The site has a back-end where all the information shown on the site can be updated.