I love AAPT. Really! I have been with Telstra, Optus, DingoBlue, OneTel, Dodo (my worst telco experience EVER!), Vodafone and now AAPT for the past two years - and they really are that good. We use AAPT for landlines and broadband and used to use them for mobile, but have just recently shifted to Virgin Mobile’s Bean Counter plan (which is fabulous too - 10c calls, 10c text and a winner of a Money Award 2007). But why do we love AAPT?
No contracts! I hate being forced to sign up to a deal for 12 or 24 months - especially when i am not purchasing hardware. Why do i have to sign a contract? Who knows what my requirements will be in six months time or what better deals will be around. If their deal really is that good, why do they need to lock you in??
No connection or joining fees! You only pay for the service - there are no other hidden transfer or connection fees. So, if you try it for a month and then find a better deal - you haven’t lost a cent - you have just paid for what you’ve used.
Free ADSL modem! If you have your landline with AAPT, they give you a free broadband modem with your internet connection - and still no contract! Beautiful! Many other suppliers will charge you $129 plus joining fee - particularly when you are not on a contract.
Great rates! The land line plans have really good cap deals (eg $29 with $50 of calls, or $49 with $100 of calls or $149 with $500 worth of calls) and you get $10 discount on your broadband if you bundle your land line with them. We are on a 1500k plan with 15GB of download for $49 per month.
Great service! In the two years we have been with them, AAPT has provided brilliant service on at least 10 occasions (even when they didn’t have to - such as when we were having problems with our wireless broadband which was nothing to do with them!) and stuffed up once (which they finally got right on the next phone call). And their call centre is in Australia! In my experience of Telcos - this level of service is amazing!
No contracts! Did I mention this already? This really is such an important feature. How many people tell you about their crappy phone plan and then tell you that they are stuck for another X months? No contract is such a liberation! if you try it and don’t like it - move!
So, if you are looking for a better phone deal - it may well be worth your while checking out what AAPT has to offer.
Posted by: Web Design Company - Webcare (http://www.webcare.com.au)
Showing posts with label find a web designer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label find a web designer. Show all posts
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Got an Alfa or BMW?
If you have an Alfa Romeo or a BMW, then you will want to know about one of our favourite businesses in Adelaide: Eurosport Automotive. Peter Axford is the owner of Eurosport Automotive and is an absolute pleasure to work with. He has been servicing my Alfa for 3 years and has always done a brilliant job. I first met him when I was considering buying an Alfa in 2004. I contacted the Alfa Car Club in SA to get a recommendation for someone to inspect a car I was looking at and they suggested Peter. I now know why!
To give you an example, I once had a major problem with my car after it had been driven by a Valet Parking Service. Peter inspected my car and wrote a letter in support of my claim for reimbursement for the repair cost. He also spoke with the Valet’s insurance company. He did this willingly, and without charge. Thanks Peter!
Eurosport Automotive has just relocated to a very convenient spot at Kent Town (107a King William St, phone 08 8362 2333). The team is friendly, informative, extremely knowledgeable and very passionate about Alfa’s and BMW’s. They also have a new website (built by WebCare of course at www.eurosportautomotive.biz.
For more information on this course, visit Melinda at http://www.webcare.com.au
To give you an example, I once had a major problem with my car after it had been driven by a Valet Parking Service. Peter inspected my car and wrote a letter in support of my claim for reimbursement for the repair cost. He also spoke with the Valet’s insurance company. He did this willingly, and without charge. Thanks Peter!
Eurosport Automotive has just relocated to a very convenient spot at Kent Town (107a King William St, phone 08 8362 2333). The team is friendly, informative, extremely knowledgeable and very passionate about Alfa’s and BMW’s. They also have a new website (built by WebCare of course at www.eurosportautomotive.biz.
For more information on this course, visit Melinda at http://www.webcare.com.au
Simple Really! Take Control of Your Day
Many people who run their own business struggle with the need for discipline and routine. I love working in my own business and I love what I do. For me, it is not an issue of not focussing on work. Rather, it is about being focussed on the right type of work. I find it easy to get distracted by an email I have received or an idea that pops into my head. Then I tend to follow the scent of that new trail, rather than completing the task at hand (and then pursuing the other task at a more suitable time).
One of the emails I read and followed was from a guy called Mark Joyner. Mark has developed a goal setting and time management program called Simpleology. This is a slightly twee name, but the concept is fantastic. If you take the free 18 day program, you will find it all a bit slow until about day 12 - but then it starts to pay dividends. I skipped through quite a few of the first 12 days in a single setting, so you can certainly speed it up a bit.
Now though, I use the Daily Praxis program every day (a routine that takes about 15 minutes each day) - and you can manage it all on the web using the Simpleology Web Cockpit. This process enables me to identify all of the tasks that I want to get done, then all of the things I need to get done today. It is quite a bit more involved than that - but the gist of it is that you do not lose things that you haven’t prioritised for today (you put them either in your mental lockbox or your dreamcatcher). You then pick them up tomorrow when you make a decision about how best to get them done.
Anyhow, my day is much more productive when I start with my Daily Praxis, than when I get lazy and skip it. So, if getting through the really important stuff each day is a bit of a challenge to you, then have a look at Simpleology. I reckon you might find it extremely useful.
For more information on web design services, visit webcare at http://www.webcare.com.au
One of the emails I read and followed was from a guy called Mark Joyner. Mark has developed a goal setting and time management program called Simpleology. This is a slightly twee name, but the concept is fantastic. If you take the free 18 day program, you will find it all a bit slow until about day 12 - but then it starts to pay dividends. I skipped through quite a few of the first 12 days in a single setting, so you can certainly speed it up a bit.
Now though, I use the Daily Praxis program every day (a routine that takes about 15 minutes each day) - and you can manage it all on the web using the Simpleology Web Cockpit. This process enables me to identify all of the tasks that I want to get done, then all of the things I need to get done today. It is quite a bit more involved than that - but the gist of it is that you do not lose things that you haven’t prioritised for today (you put them either in your mental lockbox or your dreamcatcher). You then pick them up tomorrow when you make a decision about how best to get them done.
Anyhow, my day is much more productive when I start with my Daily Praxis, than when I get lazy and skip it. So, if getting through the really important stuff each day is a bit of a challenge to you, then have a look at Simpleology. I reckon you might find it extremely useful.
For more information on web design services, visit webcare at http://www.webcare.com.au
Merchant Facilities - ANZ eGate or ePos
Almost any shopping cart or e-commerce website needs to be able to receive payments from customers. In my view, the more automated this method of payment is (ie the payment gets into your control, quickly, without you having to do anything!), the better. Unfortunately, automation (which saves you time and hassle and which will increase your conversion rate)Â comes at a price!
I used to run an online store that was costing monthly merchant service fees (not payments) of nearly $1000! That is a lot of money out of your bottom line - but it is a necessary evil if you want to maximise your conversion rate.
I have spoken with the ANZ about their latest merchant offerings:
ANZ eGate
ANZ ePOS
The ANZ website does not give any details on price - basically, you have to apply before you can find out how much it will cost! Over the phone though, they provided me with the following info:
ANZ eGate
Set Up Fee - $99
Monthly Fee - $39.95
Annual Fee - $29.95
Merchant Service Fee (variable depending on business type and turnover, but usually say 1.25% to 2.5% of each transaction processed)
No Payment Gateway required.
 Recommended for sites with a turnover of $10,000 or more per month.
 ANZ ePOS
Set Up Fee - $99
Monthly Fee - $0
Annual Fee - $29.95
Merchant Service Fee (variable depending on business type and turnover, but usually say 1.25% to 2.5% of each transaction processed)
Payment Gateway required.
Recommended for sites with a turnover of under $10,000 per month.
ePOS supports a variety of payment gateways including:
eWay
Verisign
Camtech
Global Point
To give you an example of payment gateway pricing, eWay currently has the following offer:
 $0 set up fee (usually $599)
$0 monthly fee
$285 yearly fee (usually $350)
0.50 per transaction
You will also need an SSL certificate - eWay currently has them for $30 per year (instead of the usual $99).
In addition, there will be costs of integrating whatever merchant system you choose into your shopping cart. Webcare charges about $150 for integrating merchant facilities like these into a shopping cart or ecommerce site.If all this sounds a bit daunting, just start with Paypal. WebCare includes PayPal integration as standard in its shopping cart or ecommerce sites and there is no application fee and no monthly fees.
For more information on it, visit webcare at http://www.webcare.com.au
I used to run an online store that was costing monthly merchant service fees (not payments) of nearly $1000! That is a lot of money out of your bottom line - but it is a necessary evil if you want to maximise your conversion rate.
I have spoken with the ANZ about their latest merchant offerings:
ANZ eGate
ANZ ePOS
The ANZ website does not give any details on price - basically, you have to apply before you can find out how much it will cost! Over the phone though, they provided me with the following info:
ANZ eGate
Set Up Fee - $99
Monthly Fee - $39.95
Annual Fee - $29.95
Merchant Service Fee (variable depending on business type and turnover, but usually say 1.25% to 2.5% of each transaction processed)
No Payment Gateway required.
 Recommended for sites with a turnover of $10,000 or more per month.
 ANZ ePOS
Set Up Fee - $99
Monthly Fee - $0
Annual Fee - $29.95
Merchant Service Fee (variable depending on business type and turnover, but usually say 1.25% to 2.5% of each transaction processed)
Payment Gateway required.
Recommended for sites with a turnover of under $10,000 per month.
ePOS supports a variety of payment gateways including:
eWay
Verisign
Camtech
Global Point
To give you an example of payment gateway pricing, eWay currently has the following offer:
 $0 set up fee (usually $599)
$0 monthly fee
$285 yearly fee (usually $350)
0.50 per transaction
You will also need an SSL certificate - eWay currently has them for $30 per year (instead of the usual $99).
In addition, there will be costs of integrating whatever merchant system you choose into your shopping cart. Webcare charges about $150 for integrating merchant facilities like these into a shopping cart or ecommerce site.If all this sounds a bit daunting, just start with Paypal. WebCare includes PayPal integration as standard in its shopping cart or ecommerce sites and there is no application fee and no monthly fees.
For more information on it, visit webcare at http://www.webcare.com.au
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
WebCare: Australia’s First Totally Green Web Design Firm
We at WebCare are very excited about being Australia’s first 100% green web design firm. From the core of our business model, we are totally committed to being not just carbon neutral, but carbon positive (WebCare produces much more carbon than it uses)!
Modern technology and communications infrastructure allows us to operate our business from anywhere with power and an internet connection. So we chose to set up our headquarters on a farm with more than 4000 mature trees (if each tree absorbs 650kg of carbon in its lifetime, then this property can absorb 2600 tonne of carbon) and new plantings of about 3-400 trees (260 tonne of carbon) occurring each year. The property is located about 35 minutes from Adelaide, South Australia - so ordinarily that would mean a long commute for staff and long drives to see web design clients or for clients to visit the office.
That is where our web design business model provides a solution - about 95% of our work is conducted by phone and email rather than face to face. So we are able to keep travel by car to an absolute minimum! The environmental benefit of this approach is huge. But that is not all!
The electricity that WebCare uses to power its business is 100% Green (Renewable Energy) Power. The other emissions from our business (such as the few times that a car is required and plane travel, and our host server) are offset by carbon credits from Easy Being Green.
Our office practices also support this committment to being environmentally conscious in everything we do. The office uses recycled copy paper, recycled toilet paper (yes - it is a bit scratchy, but we cope :-), is self sufficient for water (relying upon rainwater and dam water) and, of course, all lights have low energy globes.
If you want a website that is 100% green from its very conception, then talk with WebCare and you will know that the design and building (and hosting, if you want it) of your website is totally carbon neutral. You can read more on our environmentally friendly web design page.
Editing Meta tags in Zencart
Zencart enables you to easily set the meta tags for products via the admin system. But what if you want to change the meta tags for other pages in your site? This starts to get a little trickier. These instructions are not for the faint hearted. And, remember, you should only ever change the original code for your site if you have an up to date backup! Don’t panic though, because apart from Page Title, the meta tags are nowhere near as important as they once were.
Firstly, the meta tags are set in different files.
The default META_TAG_TITLE is set in includes/languages/english.php and as you browse through the pages additional text is appended to this title. This additional text is generated in includes/modules/meta_tags.php
The META_TAG_KEYWORDS are set in the /includes/languages/english/meta_tags.php..(custom keywords )
Also, the keywords are generated depending on the product selected in includes/modules/meta_tags.php. These meta tags can be set in the admin area for each product.If these meta tags are not set then the product name is used as meta tag keyword and its description in meta description.
The other meta tags (authors , generator) are hardcoded in the /templates/template_default/common/html_header.php
Initially category names with custom keywords are appended to it.
The SITE_TAGLINE is set in the includes/languages/english.php.
The META_TAGS_REVIEW is set in the includes/languages/english/meta_tags.php and it gets appended to the title.
See, I told you it wasn’t for the faint hearted! For more information on zen cart web design, visit webcare at http://www.webcare.com.au
Editing Your Photos for Web - No 2!
In our last blog posting on this topic, I wrote about some free software you can use to edit your images for web. In this article, I want to focus more on the practicalities of image size - why it is so important that your images are optimised, and what the real difference in image size means.
A couple of important rules of thumb for you to remember:
1. Image size - between 4kb and 20kb per image (depending on the no of images per page)
2. Page size - each page on your site should be a maximum of 50-80kb in total (though I reckon in these days of broadband that going to 150-200kb is probably acceptable).
3. Stickability - 50% of people leave the average website within 30 seconds! If your website hasn’t even loaded after 30 seconds, how many people will hang around?
I have recently had some clients who have experienced some challenges from this issue of image size - both clients I am thinking of have shopping cart (or ecommerce) websites. One of them had product images that were about 50kb and the other had product images in the order of 400kb!
Now, just having one image that is that much bigger than standard (4k to 20k in size) is not going to be a huge issue. But in shopping carts, you might have a page with 30 of these images showing at a time! 30 images at 400kb each is a whopping 12,000kb (12 MB) per page! Even at 40kb per image you are still looking at 1200kb (1.2MB) per page.
How long does it take to fully load a web page that is 1.2Mb or 12Mb in size? Lets check the
Page Size - 50kb
7 secs - Dial Up - At 56kb (which is quicker than people on Dial Up usually get)
1 sec - Very Slow Broadband (256KB)
Instantly - Slow Broadband (512kb)
Instantly - Medium Broadband (1500kb)
OK Page Size (150kb)
21 secs - Dial Up - At 56kb (which is quicker than people on Dial Up usually get)
4 secs - Very Slow Broadband (256KB)
2 secs - Slow Broadband (512kb)
Instantly - Medium Broadband (1500kb)
Huge Page Size (1200kb)
2 mins 55 secs - Dial Up - At 56kb (which is slightly quicker than actual Dial Up speed)
36 secs - Very Slow Broadband (256KB)
18 secs - Slow Broadband (512kb)
9 secs - Medium Broadband (1500kb)
Massive Page Size (12,000kb)
29 mins 15 secs - Dial Up - At 56kb (which is slightly quicker than actual Dial Up speed)
6 mins - Very Slow Broadband (256KB)
3 mins - Slow Broadband (512kb)
1 min - Medium Broadband (1500kb)
So - you can see the problem with large image files!
From a speed perspective there is no question that you want small file sizes. So why would anyone want to use large image files? To preserve image size (ie the physical dimensions of the image) and image quality (low-resolution, medium-resolution, high resolution, very high resolution). If you are selling products (or services for that matter), you want the customer to be able to see the product in its best light - the image needs to be clear (not blurry) and large enough to see all the detail.
So, it comes down to a choice between SPEED & CLARITY!
The great thing about the way images display on the web, is that usually you can look at a fairly low resolution image and it looks pretty similar to a much higher resolution image.
Two Million Businesses in Australia!
Wow! According to a Dec 07 ABS Report, in June 2007, there were 2,011,770 businesses in Australia - or one business for every 10 people. 96% of these businesses (1.93 million) are small businesses employing less than 20 people and 1.2 million have no staff at all!
The good news is that 58% of businesses that opened in June 2003 were still operating in June 2007 (four years later!). If a business is going to fail, around 1/3 of them will do it in the first year.
It is these 1.93 million small businesses (variously known as home businesses, SME’s (small to medium enterprises) and SOHO (small office home office) that are the target group for WebCare’s web design and development services. There were 2.4% more businesses in 2007 than 2006 - or around 48,000 new businesses. All of these businesses need a website and WebCare’s fixed price packages suit start-up businesses with low capital reserves to a tee!
If you are one of the 10% of people in Australia with their own business, and you don’t have a website, give us at WebCare a call today. We can talk through the options for your website - what sort of site you need, what is its primary purpose (attracting new customers, providing information to existing customers, selling services, selling goods etc), and what are the best options for marketing this site. Best of all - this consultation is free - a great way to canvass the options for your businesses website and to make sure you have enough information to get quotes on your new website.
For more information on web design and development, visit us at http://www.webcare.com.au
The good news is that 58% of businesses that opened in June 2003 were still operating in June 2007 (four years later!). If a business is going to fail, around 1/3 of them will do it in the first year.
It is these 1.93 million small businesses (variously known as home businesses, SME’s (small to medium enterprises) and SOHO (small office home office) that are the target group for WebCare’s web design and development services. There were 2.4% more businesses in 2007 than 2006 - or around 48,000 new businesses. All of these businesses need a website and WebCare’s fixed price packages suit start-up businesses with low capital reserves to a tee!
If you are one of the 10% of people in Australia with their own business, and you don’t have a website, give us at WebCare a call today. We can talk through the options for your website - what sort of site you need, what is its primary purpose (attracting new customers, providing information to existing customers, selling services, selling goods etc), and what are the best options for marketing this site. Best of all - this consultation is free - a great way to canvass the options for your businesses website and to make sure you have enough information to get quotes on your new website.
For more information on web design and development, visit us at http://www.webcare.com.au
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