Helmar.org | Canopus Marketing cc

Core Catering and Hospitality Supplies (Pty) Ltd

2007-05-23T11:44:57Z

This is a WARNING to all Web Developers and Designers. Please exercise extreme caution when dealing with Core Catering, especially their CEO Marcel Fuchs. I got burnt when I ignored my usual procedure of 50% upfront payment and started the job because Mr Fuchs wanted a new site 'yesterday'. Looking at their old (well, current at the time of writing) site, one can understand why: it's fuck-ugly, uses frames and Flash, and is therefore not only invisible to the search engines, but also inaccessible to handicapped users, plus it's a user-interface nightmare.

So thinking I was dealing with an effective and efficient professional of German origin, something that blinded better judgement on my part, I went about doing the job. Two full days later I presented them a site that clearly wouldn't win design awards, but where I had implemented a new design, a nice animation on the home page, a completely new product catalog, leaning on the colour schemes and imagery used in their current print catalog, and where it was all database-driven for easy self-administration. I handed over the site together with an invoice, but Mr Fuchs didn't like the design. He wanted a more corporate and funky look, more black and silver (which the site clearly was to begin with). I asked them to be more specific, but also said 'use what you currently have for now; that gives us time to work on a more professional design'. Then news came that Mr Fuchs wasn't prepared to pay. I then deducted the design part from the invoice and charged them only for the database, scripting and graphics part. But no, they were now looking for someone new and I could keep my work. Later on they said 'we thought it was a sample you were giving us'. Well,fuck that, not if you have already given me FTP access to your server and made the point that you wanted the new site live yesterday. And I just did the site for your sister company, Core Furniture, too, remember! I've informed Hellopeter.co.za about their business practices but so not yet engaged legal counsel. My advice: stay clear of them or make sure you have a written contract and an upfront payment before you start your work. Mr Fuchs has made a nice withdrawal from his Karma bank, that's for sure, and maybe one unsuspecting day he drowns in the excrement of a million Albatrosses. You reap as you sow! ;) BTW, the sample site I did for them can be reached via a click on the title above.

Deneys Reitz Attorneys

2007-03-02T12:16:33Z

Deneys Reitz are a firm of attorneys with offices in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban. The main chunk of this project was completed within four weeks time, then fine-tuned to perfection. Their previous site was done in ASP with an Access database behind it. I took over all the tables, optimised the data structure, and rewrote it in PHP/MySQL. The content administration is based on an enhanced version of my own admin system.

Pink South Africa

2006-12-04T11:28:17Z

Client Cape Info Africa is also issuing a gay and lesbian guide called "Pink SA". This guide also required a website, so the current code-base and template system was used and adjusted to create the pinksa.co.za website.

Sunpath Sacred Site Tours

2006-12-04T11:22:16Z

Sunpath Sacred Site Tours offers transported day tours, hikes and full moon experiences around the Cape Peninsula. They are visiting burial caves, rock art and the mysterious Sun & Moon shrines of the ancient Cape People. The site, donning an earthy look and feel, has been built using a blog-type display, and also highlights the most important sections on the left hand side, namely the tours, events, Dean Liprini's book and the frequently asked questions. As with all my sites, this one is database-driven, giving Dean and his team the opportunity to add or amend content wherever they are.

RSS 2.0 compatible XML Writer Class for PHP and MySQL

2006-08-09T10:36:47Z

Generate your own validated RSS2.0 compatible newsfeed using PHP and MySQL. That's what this code does. The original work was done by Manuel Lemos and made available via PHPClasses.org. I've used it successfully on many of my sites - until a client requested a feed in RSS 2.0 format.

The one class I could find worked fine locally but failed on the server, so eventually I turned back to the original code by Manuel Lemos,

Qunu - live help when you need it most!

2006-06-23T17:23:48Z

You'll have read all about it by now already, I'm sure, but it never hurts to repeat a good thing, and Qunu is a good thing indeed! The site is up and running and has had way over 50.000 hits in the 2 weeks following its launch on 8 June 2006. Although I didn't sign responsible for the logo and icon design, pretty much everything else comes from me, including the scripting. As of writing the site is available in English, German and French, the latter courtesy of Yannick Arnaud. There is lots more to tell, but nothing beats a visit, so head over to Qunu.com and see what the buzz is all about - I'm sure you'll like it!

Pertiwi Gallery - Indonesian Furniture Importer

2006-06-09T13:06:04Z

Pertiwi Gallery is based in Humansdorp, in the Eastern Cape. Cecile Potgieter, who is importing furniture and other products from Indonesia, needed a new site - the old one's webmaster stopped being responsive, and the design and functionality just sucked. So I went about redesigning the site to befit the company and its products, and by adding my CMS as a base, added a whole new dimension to it. New here: the entire menu is database-driven. It shows the product categories up to 3 levels deep, automatically handles the menu opening, closing and display and beyond that has a number of very neat features, like required and optional accessories, multiple colors or versions of the same product, but with differential pricing, a shopping cart module written from scratch, account management and a lot more.

Rosie Sturgis, Sculptor

2006-03-28T10:06:03Z

Rosie's webmaster went incomunicado, so she needed someone to redo her site and also add more pictures of her bronze sculptures. Her friend Sybi Rousseau then pointed her my way, so I went about doing the job. The site again uses my database framework, but this time I employed a mod_rewrite to have search engine friendly URLs, rather than index.php?p=this. On the design side I was for the first time capably assisted by Stéphan Theron, a Cape Town designer I unearthed on the CES. He provided the overall design, which my friend Solveigh then fine-tuned.

Cane Time

2005-11-25T13:23:59Z

This is my latest project. Cane Time does have a website, but it has been rather neglected. As they are dealing with high value products, they needed to do something, and that's where I've come in. In order to have something 'new' right away, I quickly went about doing some small visual modifications, including a new page logo (see left); in comparison, their existing site is shown below.

As we are in the process of moving the hosting to my server, you may still see the old site under the link in the header. Stay tuned as I am completely revamping the site early next year.

Q-Link Southern Africa

2005-11-09T15:53:50Z

This was fun. Again not my project and design. The site used the open source Mambo Content Management System (CMS) to display the content. Nice idea, indeed, but with a problem. First of all the system was total overkill for the actual content. Nothing wrong with that, unless you need customization or additional features. Then it's a schlepp to change the Mambo code. Also, they are using a dark background with white text for the copy. In Mambo's WYSIWYG editor, this gives you a lovely white text on a default gray background. The URLs of Mambo were pretty meaningless, so you didn't really have an idea which page you were looking at by looking at the URL. So without much of an order or authorisation from the Q2 South Africa folks, I threw out Mambo and replaced it with my own, trusted CMS. ;) Much simpler, much more flexible, easier to administer and far more appropriate. I took over the overall design, but improved it in useability and looks. Among others, I moved the menu to the left side, gave it subtitles and just prettied it up. I created extra database tables for frequently asked questions and testimonials, stuff that was previously just plain text. This then also enabled me to display random quotes on each page. It also makes the administration of the content much easier. I redid the product display and added links to the Health Shop Online site. I also reorganised the text content after sourcing additional information from the US and UK sites, including the eQuine Q-Link for Horses, a page that also needed a complete overhaul. It now makes much more sense and should make for a far more satisfying visitor experience. Besides that, the site loads a lot faster. Overall, the site now looks the part and will undoubtedly contribute to the success of the Q-Link products in South Africa.

Q2 Energy Spa

2005-11-09T15:47:57Z

I also didn't develop that site, but it was so ugly that I just had to help them make it look a little prettier. So I did quite a few changes to the style sheets that govern the look of the site and also marked up the text on the home page. The design still doesn't look the part of the product and its price, but it's certainly a lot better than before. The Q2 Energy Spa, by the way, is quite an amazing machine. I've used it a number of times at their office (usually before fixing something for them). I'm still in my information gathering phase, but apart from that, the testimonials are staggering. Have a look at the site to find out more.

Health Shop Online

2005-11-09T15:40:44Z

I didn't sign responsible for the development of the site, but helped the owners to make the site load faster by resizing most of the product images to an appropriate size. Some of them were uploaded at more than 2mb, which is obviously an absolute killer, especially as the images were reduced to fit the screen. Now it's loading a lot faster, which should result in higher visitor satisfation and subsequently more orders from the site. I also rewrote the home page introduction and reorganised the image locations.

Gerry McGovern: Hurricane Katrina and the Dot Com Bubble

2005-10-18T08:58:49Z

For the last seven years I've been subscribing to Gerry McGovern's NEW THINKING newsletter, a weekly information piece on the Information Age. Gerry's concise style of writing, his insight, no-nonsense analysis and to-the-point recommendations are a must-read for anyone in the industry - and beyond. His latest piece is on information overload. Enjoy the read.

There has never been more information. And that's exactly the problem. Too much information too quickly published is just as bad as too little. Hurricane Katrina exposed a serious and ongoing...

Cape Town Adventure Boot Camp for Women

2005-08-05T21:40:42Z

This one was different. Huenu Solsona, a Volleyball friend of mine, needed a website, but already had one - well, sort of. She had two templates of an existing boot camp website, but wanted her content on it. Not only that, but she wanted to be able to do the updating herself, and needed improvements on some of the template's aspects. I used my trusted database base template again and plugged it into the design. I made several cosmetic changes and completely revamped the registration and calendar pages. Just like with the News page, they are PHP scripts that offer a lot of flexibility and power. Adventure Boot Camp for Women? If you are female and have never done it, why not pay the site a visit and give Huenu a call?

Cape Info Africa Travel & Tourism Centre

2005-07-20T12:03:07Z

Cape Info Africa is a travel and tourism centre in De Waterkant, Cape Town. This gay-friendly outlet specialises in bookings, but also features an Internet Café, retail displays, as well as travel desks of associated travel partners. The site uses PHP and MySQL as a foundation. "Highlights" of this site are random image picks with image information taken from the ITPC tag of the JPG files, a very flexible search script, random expert tips, map search, and a completely database-driven menu structure. Also new and neat: as fonts are still PC-specific (with no useful generic font-loading process in place), one is limited as to which font one can use. This wasn't good enough for me, so I wrote a script that takes a string, creates the bounding boxes using a particular truetype font, then does a check for disallowed characters, and then writes this string into an anti-aliased, transparent PNG image. This way I can use any TTF file on any browser, no longer limited to the fonts installed on the client computer. Another neat 'trick'. Cape Info Africa wanted to allocate more than one type to a particular object, ie "Bloemendal Wynhuis is a restaurant, accommodation and wine tasting establishment". So I extended the type field in the object table to cater for more entries, rewrote the admin section to allow for the selection of multiple entries, and also for the display of them in the admin interface. The search script was then adjusted using MySQL's FIND_IN_SET() function to locate objects. Finally the search form's script was changed so that the proper list of types is displayed, even if an object has been allocated more than one type. A very elegant solution indeed!

4Way Fin System

2005-07-10T09:11:04Z

4wayfinsystem (4wfs) is a multipurpose fin system that allows surfers to not only remove their fins for travelling/replacement purposes but also allows for further simultaneous adjustments to three critical areas of fin functionality, comprising toe-in and out angle, splay angle and horizontal adjustment.

Blommenhuis B&B, Montagu

2005-07-08T12:10:14Z

And another site goes live, this time Blommenhuis Bed & Breakfast. Run by Irene and Wim Blom, this delightful accommodation establishment in Montagu, 2hrs from Cape Town, offers a peaceful and tranquil retreat with lots of personal attention. Blommenhuis had a website, but this one has more content, more pictures, a proper enquiry form, and -of course- is database driven with a complete web admin interface. Enjoy!

Gefährten Faires Hundetraining

2005-06-22T10:07:50Z

This is another successful project between Solveigh and myself. German Claudia Finke is offering dog training courses with a difference, and this website is telling you all about it. The site was also the first where the administration section got fully localised and modularized. It is now very easy to manage the different database tables, image uploads and inclusion of images in the website through the content management system.

How to write good website copy

2005-04-22T12:51:54Z

Irishman Gerry McGovern has been urging those of us in the Internet and Intranet business for years to take good care of how the website is written, and for whom. Recently I met someone who is specialising in doing just that: Wanda Coustas.

A Cape Town resident, Wanda ensures that whatever content you publish on your website is professional and in line with your corporate philosophy and identity. Wanda writes: "When it comes to...

Russia Tours

2005-04-21T10:34:33Z

Eduard Schleuning is "Russia Tours". He organises hunting and adventure tours to Russia and the now independent CIS states. High competence, excellent contacts and a no middle-men is what makes Russia Tours special. The site was once again designed by Solveigh, whereas I signed responsible for the HTML/CSS, MySQL and PHP implementation.

OASIS Secondary Care Counselling Centre

2005-04-20T09:06:40Z

Plettenberg Bay, South Africa, based OASIS is a secondary care counselling and treatment centre. They offer treatment for: Alcoholism, Drug addiction, "pill" addiction, Eating disorders, Self harm, Gambling, Sex addiction, Relationship difficulties, Marital and family dysfunction.

Medical Education Centre

2005-03-28T09:03:37Z

The Medical Education Centre is based in Cape Town, South Africa. Under the management of founder Oliver Gärtner, the MEC is offering first aid training and firefighting courses throughout South Africa.

Andrea Brand Colour Studio | Creative Facilitation & Teambuilding

2005-02-21T11:49:51Z

This project is a work-in-progress. Designed by Matt Swart, I have now taken over to enhance the site's content, engage in search engine optimisation (SEO) and ensure that the site generates traffic and business for Andrea. The site may undergo design changes too, but for now it's important that the basic structural principles are adhered to, which they are after the conversion from ASP to PHP.

Event Studio

2005-02-21T08:51:02Z

Alexander Christow is the owner of EventStudio, a Windhoek, Namibia, based consultancy for marketing strategies. They are also involved in Marketing Events, Product Presentations, Awards, Incentives, Promotions. The design was done by Solveigh, I took care of the database programming and visualisation of the site via CSS.

Spirit Guidance

2005-02-17T13:56:28Z

Cape Town Spirit Guide Shannon Walbran came to me with the wish to convert her Moveable Type-based website into something different. Less overladen, faster, more flexible. I once again used my PHP/MySQL site framework as a base, carried over the design and style of the site, imported the content, and then did the necessary scripting. Shannon's happy, and so am I. :)

Uthango Enterprise Project

2005-01-21T08:56:08Z

This website is the second one for the Foundation for Enterprise and Business Development, FEBDEV. Like the previous ones it is entirely database-driven, only that several pages run scripts rather than just extracting information from the database. Uthango Enterprise Project is a business hive for entrepreneurs from the Masiphumelele township between Noordhoek and Kommetjie, south of Cape Town. Managed by FEBDEV, it teaches entrepreneurs business and management skills, that they then use to improve the life of those living in Masiphumelele. The logo was skillfully crafted by Solveigh Thude of arteigen.de.

Aerotechnic Group

2005-01-11T12:01:59Z

The Aerotechnic Group is dealing in aircraft spares. With offices on 3 continents, they are quickly aiming at a global presence to be within easy reach for their clients. The website design has been based on an idea by Michael Tupy from Austria. As with all of my new projects, the site is entirely database-driven, so that Aerotechnic can update it as they wish.

no name design Architects & Designers

2004-12-23T17:34:18Z

no name design is a group of designers and architects in Hout Bay, South Africa. This site was first done by NND's Dorit Richter entirely in Flash. For obvious reasons (search engines and maintainability to be the main ones) Dorit then redid the rather different design using Cascading Style Sheets, while compiling the content on an Excel spreadsheet. There I took over and converted the site to PHP/MySQL using a custom CMS as a base.

Simonskloof Mountain Retreat

2004-12-17T17:16:18Z

This is already the 3rd incarnation of Jurgen's website. The last one was implemented only in August this year, but the Drupal system proved to be too slow, too complex and not user-friendly enough. This made me replace it with my own system, which is simpler, faster, better. Who needs more? ;)

Guesthouse Hoekie

2004-12-17T17:13:24Z

Hoekie is a guesthouse in Paternoster, about 140km north of Cape Town on the West Coast. Built and run by Volker and Ingrid Wessolowski, it offers luxurious B&B accommodation at reasonable rates. The site is based on my common database framework, which in this case was used for the first time to manage more than one language.