Bnpositive's Blog

You are here: Home / Archives for web design

web design

By Leave a Comment

Trying Out Some New Web Development Software

BuzzooleIt's been awhile since I've really used some web development software. With much of my time spent developing and supporting clients using WordPress, the need to have a 3rd party web development tool hasn't been a pressing need for me. When I do need some development software I've usually relied on on old version of Macromedia Dreamweaver. You caught that right, I said Macromedia. It's been years since Adobe purchased Macromedia and took over their products and I never really wanted to make the transition to Adobe so I kept using my old software, which continued to work just fine for what I needed. Even now that I'm paying for the Adobe Creative Cloud suite, I still find myself jumping back to my familiar territory with Dreamweaver 8.

WebsiteX5 Professional PackageBut now I've had the opportunity to try out a new piece of software called WebsiteX5 Professional (you can download a free fully-operational demo version of the product) through a Buzzoole campaign I'm participating.

The product is very reminiscent to me of the old Dreamweaver tools. Things are layed out differently, but from my perspective, it makes sense so that made it easy-to-use for me jumping back into the saddle a bit. One of the other features of Dreamweaver that I liked and that's available in WebsiteX5 is the ability to customize the layout and features to work how you want them to work.

You can jump right into developing the website using the drag-and-drop WYSIWYG editor. If you want to dig into the code itself and use some custom code you can do that as well with your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Whether your wanting to publish a simple site for you to share information with friends and family, or a fully functional database driven e-commerce site, WebsiteX5 has the tools included to accomplish that task.

Don't think you've got to get started with a blank slate either, although you can as an option, WebsiteX5 includes 100's of pre-designed templates as well as access to 400,000 royalty free images to include in your design as well. The software even includes a fairly powerful image editing program with plenty of custom masks and edits available to you.

Another nice feature that's very important these days is building websites that are mobile friendly and responsive. WebsiteX5 helps you manage this task by handling lots of the coding required and help you see how the layout is going to change visually as you develop.

 

Here's a video you can watch to see many of the functions in action and just how easy it is to get started developing a great website with WebsiteX5.

Here's a quick summary of the features:

  • Easy to use
  • 400,000 royalty-free images included
  • Highly customizable
  • Professional tools (email form, reserved area, integration with db, e-commerce, etc)
  • Add your custom html/css/js code
  • Responsive websites
  • 12 months of included web-hosting
  • Dedicated language support

For even more information on WebsiteX5 Professional, you can visit the WebsiteX5 website or connect with them on their Facebook page.

By Leave a Comment

Sprint Web User-Interface Fail

Sprint has an option on their website that you can schedule an appointment at one of their service locations. In theory this should allow you to show-up at your scheduled time and get your business taken care of without having to “take a number” and wait for an unexpected amount of time. Honestly, I’ve still had to wait at least 15 minutes every time I’ve used it, but I still think it’s a good option.

I need to take my phone into have them look at it tomorrow and I was completing their online reservation form. It’s a fairly simple form, and the last question is a large text box where you can enter the details of the problem you’re experiencing.

Sprint Tech Support Appointment Request

As you can see, there’s no specification of how much information you can enter into the box. If it were me on the receiving end, I’d want as much detail as someone is willing to tell me about their issue and why they’re coming into the store. Apparently there’s a limit! 250 characters I believe if I remember correctly. So what I originally wrote:

I brought my Samsung Moment to the south side store because of issues going into airplane mode, losing network connectivity and other lock-ups. They said they couldn’t fix it, I paid for a replacement phone and now the new phone is doing the same thing. Now the new phone is also completely powering down and locking up. the only way to rthe battery, replace it, and do a complete poweset is to pull er-up/boot again.

got reduced down to:

previous phone jacked up. sprint couldn’t fix it. paid for replacement. replacement phone now jacked up the same way and more. getting old.

Folks, it’s not that hard to add a label to the instructions that would tell you how much space you’ve got. Or one of those cool little dynamic counters that tells you how much space you left. Or, you could even limit the form field to only accept 250 characters, then I wouldn’t have wasted the time typing all the rest of that explanation out that I had to delete.