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Tag: design

Managing IT complexity through simplicity

Managing IT complexity through simplicity

I’ve always been obsessed with the details. Whether it’s coding, cycling or carpentry, the detail is where my mind wanders first.

I see this as a sort of superpower, as the detail is complex, and has many moving parts. Making sense of the overwhelming noise the detail creates is where even the brave fear to tread.

But over time I have come to gain another perspective. Painting the big picture is the purest form of technological art.

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Web design requires a decent hat stand

Web design requires a decent hat stand

hatssAs someone who builds websites on an almost daily basis I often find myself in a situation where I need to wear multiple hats.

What follows is a simply breakdown of the many hats worn day to day:

The audience listens to the client, sometimes the message is clear, concise and to the point, other times it is passionate but vague, other times it is simply dreary. Everyone needs to have there say, as truly great clients can come out of small beginnings.

The assessor then needs to read the viability of the task at hand, and decide the way forward.  Knowing what it takes to please the customer is a skill the assessor cannot do without.  Sometimes it is better to walk away from a seemingly lucrative deal when the client needs are simply above what is practical or realistic. Trying to please everyone never works.

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Want creative freedom? get Morph

Want creative freedom? get Morph

I am a keen and long term supporter of both yootheme and RocketTheme, having long ago given up on free templates. The time you save using a professionally designed template means there is simply no comparison.

I also make extensive use of the template addons, like the lightbox effects, sliders, accordians and other tools that are available from these template masters.

My one frustration has always been the limited choice, as both only brings out one template a month, and editing these into unique variations does make life a bore.

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Joomla Web Design training comes to the Garden Route

Joomla Web Design training comes to the Garden Route

Office Reliance is hosting the Garden Route’s first Joomla web design course. The course will run from 2 to 4 December at the Reliance training center.

“Joomla is an award-winning content management system (CMS), which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online applications. Many aspects, including its ease-of-use and extensibility, have made Joomla the most popular Web site software available. Best of all, Joomla is an open source solution that is freely available to everyone.”

The course is split into three separate parts, on consecutive days.  This allows participants to pick the days that are suited to there particular skill level.

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Company website overhaul

Company website overhaul

Office Reliance is one year old! As part of the celebrations we decided to redo the website in line with our updated web 2.0 branding. The site has been simplified and streamlined along usability guidelines.

Before After

The new site uses lots more images and unfortunately the template is fairly bloated with icons, styles and scripts, but the overall load time should be manageable.

After burning lots of midnight oil the new site has finally gone live. Go visit the new Office Reliance website, then let me know what you think.