Late last year Net Registry launched a new magazine called Nett - Take Your Business Further Online. I received the first issue and thought it had potential so subscribed to keep track of where they were heading. From the beginning I kept wondering how long before they sell out and the magazine is full of How to Make Your Own Website Cheap articles, but I needn’t have worried.

The May 2008 edition, currently on sale, includes a tutorial entitled How to Brief a Web Developer which appears to be the first in a series to educate clients in dealing with web professionals. The article is well-written and accurate and I’m looking forward to reading the future instalments to see if they continue in the same vein. more…

Is there a legitimate reason for witholding your telephone number in business?

I have recently changed my phone setup in the office to divert to my mobile if the business line isn’t answered which has given me a better insight into the people who are calling my office. As a result I have noticed that every single caller who has witheld their number so far has been a call-centre or telemarketer making an unsolicited call usually to “save me money on my phone costs”.

It has reached the point where I am considering ignoring all calls from “private numbers”. more…

After a very successful BarCamp in 2007, the Australian Web Industry Association are hosting BarCamp2 next month.

The Perth BarCamp2 website describes the event as:

BarCamp is an ad-hoc unconference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment.

You can find out more at the Perth Barcamp2 website but the important stuff is:

• When: Saturday May 10, 2008 from 9am to 5pm
• Where: E-Central TAFE, 140 Royal Street, East Perth

The event is free for all participants thanks to the generosity of sponsors. You can purchase t-shirts leading up to and on the day from the website for just $10.

Hope to see you there!

As my business expands to a point where I may need to consider taking on an extra pair of hands to keep up with the workload, I have been thinking a lot about the next generation of web designers and developers and how prepared they are for the real world of web design on completion of their studies.

When I became interested in working in the web industry I wasn’t even 100% sure there was one! I was 16 and remember trailing into town with the family to get some books on this HTML thing that meant I could make a website of my own and that’s where it started, with books. I taught myself, often neglecting my traditional studies and ended up studying multimedia at TAFE after high-school. more…

I’m not talking the “Wild West” kind, more the kind that give the web industry a bad name. I have been lucky in the last 6 years in that I haven’t come across any of these so called cowboys and as a result I was beginning to think they were a myth. A project I have recently become involved in, however, has changed my viewpoint entirely. Yes, cowboys in the web industry do exist and they are giving us a very bad name.

Everybody hears the horror stories that people have apparently experienced but until now I had never been so close to any such activity. You know the kind; project misses its deadline, design work isn’t up to scratch, no reporting on deliverables is made, there is no firm plan, money is demanded, team members are sacked, clients are held to ransom with no functioning product, each party blaming the other for the project’s failings - the list goes on.

I don’t know about anybody else but this sort of thing makes my blood boil. more…