Junior Web Developer
Negotiable salary and benefits

Working with a team of developers, and reporting to the Team Leader, the main duties will include the following:

• Provide support to the Lead Developers in all aspects of web development, working on any current web projects.
• Have a sound knowledge of computers and the internet.  Some experience of web development would be a distinct advantage, including some knowledge of WordPress.
• Working closely alongside the team to ensure a project is completed to the highest possible standard and delivered on time.
• Keeping abreast of industry news and trends.
• You must be willing to quickly gain skills in web development, and have an active and keen interest in this industry.

Think you’ve got what it takes to join our hard working and fun loving office?  Well then send your cv to steve@bigdotmedia.co.uk or speak to Steve on 01270 520050.

No agencies please.

Color Stream – Free
This is a brand new app we came across last week via our friends over at Smashing Magazine. Essentially the app allows you to create and store colour palettes, however the bits we really like are the ability to do this using the built in colour schema or by using a photo from your local library. Granted there are identical tools available on the web, Kuler being one of my favourites, but the speed and convenience of Color Stream make it worthy of a mention.

iMockups – £5.99
Before the days of the iPad, we’d turn up to meetings with our trusty note pads ready to franticly scribble down notes and sketch out ideas. iMockups has changed all that; by letting us put together wireframe mock-ups of ideas then sculpt them right in front of you. Whilst it certainly carries an above average price tag, we’ve found it an invaluable tool for visualising ideas on the fly and in rare cases, we have even been known to let our clients have a go on the iPad and play with it themselves. Note* no greasy fingers allowed on the iPad.

Instapaper – Free
Instapaper is quite a straightforward app but is incredibly useful. It works by letting you tag pages from websites via your computer, which are then synced to your iPhone/iPod ready for offline viewing. Since starting at Big Dot, I’ve signed up to countless blogs which add up to a lot of reading, so Instapaper lets me make a bit more sense of it all. For sheer simplicity and convenience, it’s a great little app.

Dropbox – Free
Think of Dropbox as a replacement for your USB pen, with the added bonus that you can’t accidentally send it for a trip through the washing machine! It works in conjunction with sister applications installed on your main computer whereby a shared folder is automatically synced with any other machine you have Dropbox installed on. Compatibility wise it’s faultless – I have it installed on my Mac at home, PC at work and also have this app running on my iPod. Everything syncs perfectly and does so without any effort required on my part. Well worth a download if you’re as dedicated as me and take your work home!

Analytics App – £3.99
Small but mighty is the best way to describe this app. At the touch of the icon you’re immediately given every sort of website statistic imaginable from keyword information and Adword campaigns to event tracking and visitor locality. It’s another one of those handy apps we use in meetings to give our clients up to date information about their site and how its SEO performance can be improved.

And now, on to the fun stuff…

Angry Birds – 59p
Angry Birds – without doubt the most successful app of all time! I’ll set the scene; you’re an angry bird, locked in a fierce and intense battle with the green pig gang who have stolen your eggs and locked themselves away in their near impenetrable castles. Your task is to slingshot your way to victory, wiping out the pigs and reclaiming what’s rightfully yours. What’s more, you get all this for only 59p! I’ve had this app since it was released in February and I still find myself going back to it, trying to hunt out more golden eggs and acing all of the levels with 3 stars. What’s more, the developers continually pump out updates containing new levels and different types of birds! If you haven’t got it, buy it. If you have got it, brace yourself for the next update!

Doodle jump – 59p
Another overly addictive game involving little Doodle the Doodler who has been given the never ending task of jumping up an array of platforms, picking up everything from spring loaded boots to jet packs. What’s more is that the poor little guy has to do all this whilst fighting off aliens and dodging black holes. It’s all controlled by the iPhones motion sensor which makes for some really interactive game play and it also links up with your Facebook account so you can trade high scores with friends.  All this in itself is quite a challenge, but if you really want to push yourself, try playing it in the car (passengers only!).

Osmos – £1.79 (iPhone) / £2.99 (iPad)
When the iPad arrived at the office, this was one of the games we all found ourselves getting completely immersed in. The focus of the game is to guide your small mote particle through 72 visually stunning levels, absorbing smaller motes that cause you to grow in size.  Every time you propel yourself however, your own matter is ejected, meaning you must strike a harmonious balance between moving and growing. Up until recently it was only available on the iPad, but after months of anticipation I finally saw today that it had been released for the iPhone/iPod Touch! I immediately downloaded it and have been playing it all day. Without doubt my favourite app of late. Download it.

There are literally hundreds of other apps I could go on to mention but for the time being these will have to do. I swear most of my pay cheque ends up in the iTunes so feel free to mention any you think I should check out.

The main issue is that if your client requests a CMS, generally you, and therfore we, will have no way of knowing how they will edit their website in the future. For instance, will they be adding new pages? They might say no right now, then change their mind in three months. How do you plan for that possibility in your design. What if the main navigational menu that you have designed fits perfectly and evenly across the width of the website, and they add two new pages into the main navigation – result = broken layout.

And here’s another example. What if one of the pages has two paragraphs of copy. You have carefully designed all the imagery, gradients, columns and buttons to ‘house’ this copy with pixel perfect precision. Two weeks after the website goes live, the client decides to add another eight paragraphs of copy to this page – result = broken layout.

Now, there is an easy answer to all these, and other related challenges. Design flexibilty. Now, come on designers, don’t start moaning at me! Let me explain…

The right process starts with ‘account management’ and the creative brief. When you run through your planning meetings with the client, and they have requested a CMS, really drill down into what they want from the CMS. What kind of changes are they expecting to make? Will they want to add or take away main navigational pages? What about sub-navigation pages? What kind of control do they want over the imagery? All these factors have to be taken into account when you brief in creative. And then we need to know when you brief us, unless of course we have attended the pitch and planning meetings with you.

If we know what is likely to be edited, we can advise you of potential problem areas and possible solutions in the design. Note that I am not talking about giving you design suggestions. We are not designers, but we know what works and what doesn’t work from a build point of view.

As a partner, we’re here for you every step of the way, to enable you to offer the fully-integrated service.  So why not ask our advice before you present creative to a client, just in case. Otherwise you could show the design to a client who loves it, then you show it to us and we say something needs to change. You know that most of the time we build it exactly as you have designed it, but occasionally there is an issue that needs to be addressed and we would not be doing our job as a ‘Trusted Partner’ if we did not address them with you.

Account Management, Creative and Developers all approach the same website with a different set of objectives. Add the client ( “I want our logo bigger”) into the mix and you have a lot of input that needs to be addressed.

Use us as a sounding board for these issues, get us involved early so we can advise and support through all stages of the project. Its what we are good at. The balance between design and functionality is often a minefield of technical, creative and political issues, but we are always here to help and support whenever you need us.

By the way, if a client says to you “can we make the logo bigger?” – point them in this direction

Everyone crowded round the desk of Chief BigDot as the package was handed over, and we waited with baited breath as the brown bag was opened.  There were many ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ as the white box was revealed, many people commenting on how small or how large they were expecting it to be.

Some who had openly expressed their desire to try it out were met with a piercing glare by Chief BigDot, their bravery much admired by their fellow employees.  The iPad was borne to wild applause; the atmosphere was electrifying as Chief carefully plugged it in and began synching it to his pc.  Time seemed to stand still as we patiently waited for the first flicker of life on the screen.  Huddling closely now for a better view, Chief pressed the button and the iPad sprang to life, the stunning screen in all its glory was a joy to behold.

There were tears of joy and squeals of delight as Chief opened the inaugural application – Angry Birds. Stunned silence followed as we watched Chief expertly fling his birds across the large screen.  Coin Dozer was next, and staff expressed their amazement at the quality of the graphics as the coins fell and teddybears were won.   We had never witnessed anything like it before and probably never will do again.

The iPad is now a full time member of the Big Dot office, however Chief tells us that we can’t try it yet as he’s still ‘testing’ it and that we can expect this to be the case for some time… Hopefully, one day, we will get to witness the amazing-ness of the iPad first-hand very soon.

Perhaps the most exciting of these is the creation of additional space, which we have nicknamed ‘The Pit’, although this is a rather unattractive name for what will be a beautiful area for staff and clients alike.  We are creating a meeting room, training facility and crash pad, adjoining our current office.  As you know, our work is highly confidential so we can’t entertain visitors at our office which is why we decided to create this new area.

This brand new space will include:

Partner Meeting Room:
A client meeting room for those partners wishing to come along and discuss projects, or just drop in for a coffee and a chat and witness the wonders of our location in the beautiful Cheshire countryside.

Training Facility:
A place where we will be running half or full day training sessions, including lunch, for one partner company at a time (due to our silent partnership status) on various specialist areas of digital media, social marketing and search engine optimisation (more on this at a later date).

Crash Pad:
A crash pad for the development team is being created as a place to down tools and play a game of pool, have a blast on the Wii, or even watch a DVD.

We can’t wait for these developments to take place and we will keep you posted about when the new facilities have been completed.  We will contact our partners in the near future to talk some more about the training courses we will be offering.

Name: Steve McGrath
Age: Thirty eight
Occupation: Managing Director, Big Dot Media.  Vice-Chair of Governors, St Annes Catholic Primary School.  Director, Sunflowers Nursery
Spoken For?: Happily married for 15yrs!
Children: Three, 2 boys (6yrs, 3yrs) & 1 girl (9yrs)
Favourite Film: Up Close and Personal
Motto: Screw it, let’s do it (Richard Branson)

Hello Steve, how are you today?

Tired – it’s been a very busy and very long week

What did you have for breakfast this morning:

Frosted Shreddies

What are you working on right now:

A flash movie for one of our partners, whilst having a deep and meaningful office discussion on Speedibeet – just another random day in the BigDot office

How did the idea for Big Dot Media come about?:

I set up the agency as a run-of-the-mill web design agency about 4 years ago and formed a partnership with an advertising agency after using them in a previous role.  It worked well and I soon realised there was a niche in the market for creative agency partnerships.  Due to the explosion in digital media, there were many agencies who just didn’t have the capability nor the knowledge to offer a fully integrated service to their clients, so we took the decision to focus solely on partnerships with creative agencies rather than working with end-user clients.  We have formed some great, trusted partnerships, and some strong friendships, and we wouldn’t do things any other way.

Do you ever encounter any major difficulties in your partnerships?:

Not really, in fact it’s been rather easy.  Many times we have been told that we were just what they needed to increase their service to their clients.  And because we sign non-disclosure agreements before discussing any work, our partners are safe in the knowledge that their clients are safe – we have heard the same story from many of our partners about other digital agencies trying to approach their clients direct.  The non-disclosure agreement brings an immediate element of trust to the partnership.

The only other difficulty that we sometimes encounter is the fact that we can not showcase the work that we do, as we work in a silent and confidential capacity.  Therefore when we visit a new partner, the first job really is given on a trust basis.  Most partnerships usually begin with a couple of small jobs, and then the partnership blossoms from there.

Have you always worked in I.T?:

I have a background in business development, health and safety and human resources.  I was a digital media and IT manager for a global recruitment organisation for 10 years before Big Dot Media. My first real job after leaving school was as  a bus driver, but after crashing eight buses, I decided it wasn’t my forte. (Actually GM Buses decided it wasn’t my forte)

Who did you vote for in the General Election?:

Conservative

What one thing are you most proud of?:

All of my three children

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?:

Bora Bora

Where do you see Big Dot Media in five years time?

As far as I am aware, we are the UK’s only specialist confidential digital media agency for creative agencies, but I would like us to be recognised as the UK’s number one, having created many more partnerships and forging more exceptional relationships.

In the current era there are a large range of web browsers we are able to choose from. The ‘big players’ are Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple’s Safari, Opera and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) but there’s a much more extensive selection making up a less significant percentage of the market. Each browser has a selection of unique features and range of added functionality and making an informed choice as to which is best to use is more important than ever. With Microsoft now shipping PC’s which allow user’s the choice of 12 browsers there’s an ever increasing awareness that there are alternatives to Internet Explorer, which is currently the most widespread browser on the market.

The information we see and the viewing pleasure we experience is affected by our browser choice as web pages tend to be rendered slightly differently depending on the browser used, but general good practice from a development side ensures web pages are displayed as uniformly across browsers as they were intended to be viewed. At Big Dot Media our websites are tested across multiple browsers which cover all the ‘big players’ previously mentioned and versions of Internet Explorer from IE6 to the most current on the market. This means that for people viewing our websites we can confidently deliver equal viewing pleasure across a plethora of browsers they may be using. The multiple browsers we test across cover an estimated 99%+ of the market share, which in current times is a hotly contested field where we’re seeing the prominent IE slowly fall from power. According to Stat Counter’s global statistics the current browser market share is as follows;

Testing across browsers is an important part of any developer’s work process and when we do so we are looking to achieve consistency, accessibility, proper presentation and user friendliness for the greatest audience accessing our websites. The process can be tedious, time consuming but a good understanding of fixes that can be used and good coding eliminate many issues. Older browsers such as IE6 can be particularly troublesome with its lack of support for transparency, CSS and JavaScript incompatibilities plus security flaws to name a few obstacles we have to work around.

So why doesn’t everybody just move away from IE6 and on to more modern, efficient and well supported browsers? Well the reason being is that most websites are intended to be as accessible as possible to a widespread market and IE6 happens to represent a large portion of this market as a significant segment of the public sector still runs IE6. Organisations in the UK including the council and NHS all still run IE6 on Windows XP and 2000 operating systems and have been painfully slow to upgrade their systems. Costs tend to be the main factor as propriety licenses for modern operating systems needed to run newer browsers such as IE8 are never cheap and large scale organisations have a tendency for sticking with what works well with regards to IT, even if it is out dated. The process of upgrading the browser is the lesser issue and relatively cost free, it’s more the cost of updating the OS or hardware and whether training is implemented, that has prolonged the public sectors updating. Furthermore it’s worth noting that often people in the public sector or on their personal computers have freedom to update but either aren’t aware of alternatives, the problems with their current browser or are simply happy to use something they are familiar with.

However with Google announcing that it’s dropping IE6 support after exploitations of the browsers poor security and Microsoft also soon ending support and acknowledging IE6′s faults it’s now imminent that we will see the public sectors moving towards more modern browsers and IE6 will eventually not be an inhibiting factor to consider when testing across browsers. In some European countries we’re even seeing the government endorsing upgrading to a modern browser, the ball is rolling but for now it’s still good practice to test in IE6. Some even go as far to say using IE6 in the corporate environment is malpractice and criticisms from a developer’s perspective mainly surround the notion IE6 is inhibiting modern and excellent technologies web developers are pushing and bringing to our browsers.

With the advent of HTML5 and CSS3, browser upgrades will be even more difficult to ignore as we move towards open standards and new technology. Eventually support will stop for browsers which do not live up to the widely accepted standards and the key question to be asking is when it is time to upgrade and what to? The move will be on the horizon for most people and organisations and an informed decision will be crucial. Safari, Chrome and Firefox are already making great headway with excellent support for HTML5 and CSS3 and new websites are emerging showcasing the brilliant potential of the technologies.

Inevitably there will always be late switchers and stubborn users of IE6 but eventually web developers will stop being hindered by older browsers and be able to demonstrate new exciting features HTML5 and CSS3 will bring. For now testing in IE6 and similar will be a part of our routine for reasons mentioned but there’s a lot to look forward to. Upgrade or replace your browser today and you will notice some of the emerging new technologies about the web, have a nicer browsing experience and relieve a lot of web developer’s headaches all over the world.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) are the maintainer of both CSS and HTML standards and compliance to these standards represents professionalism, makes for easy maintenance, the spread of good practice and is a quality stamp of a web developer’s work. Naturally Big Dot Media being a professional and quality company have excellent compliance.

HTML5 is currently in the working draft state and it will be as long as 12 years before it reaches the final W3C Recommendation stage, although parts of HTML5 are going to be finished and implemented in browsers before this full completion date and many parts are stable as we speak. A number of deprecated elements and presentational tags have been dropped however some of the most notable things HTML5 brings include new ways to present multimedia. Other new notable features of HTML5 include:

• Support for inline Mathematical Markup Language for describing mathematical notations.
• New elements such as <video>, <audio>, <header>, <footer>, <canvas> and many more.
• New types of form controls such as time, email and URL, many of which are currently stable and usable in the latest browsers.
• New attributes and Global attributes.

This is just a snippet and the possibilities are very exciting for web developers, which in turn will transcend gracefully into the design of new websites. Ultimately HTML5 allows new techniques and ways to provide enhanced functionality, which currently inhibits developers due to the current constraints of the HTML language. I believe that the most important part about this new wave of standards is that it will eventually eclipse the need to use propriety rich internet application via plugins, pushing open standards that could potentially reshape the way that video is manipulated, used and deployed. Adoption of open standards, especially regarding video has many benefits especially for browser and platform providers, the biggest dead weight slowing the movement towards such standards are the three big names behind the current major RIA’s which are Microsoft, Adobe and Oracle. However, Microsoft has already joined the HTML5 board and Adobes CEO expressed his acknowledgement of its significance, if not reluctantly.

CSS3 is fundamentally a reworked means of delivering impressive and impacting style to your HTML markup and web pages overall. The ultimate benefit for end clients is more impressive and radical new design features and for the developer the potential to achieve these new designs and in a much easier manner. It is also going to provide a means for on page transitions without the need to use scripting languages such as JavaScript which are often optionally blocked by users, lowering the user experience available to many. Even when using JavaScript for such effects, generally the web browser’s JavaScript rendering engine cannot keep up – this problem should not occur with CSS3!

CSS3 has been significantly compacted into many natural modules, each module offering new and exciting functionality including new text effects, borders, backgrounds, boxes, custom fonts, transitions and layers. What would have once been a tedious design task or not possible at all is made relatively easily achievable for the web developer in the form of CSS3. A lot of new examples of CSS3 are emerging all over the web and it’s all looking very fresh and will set new web 2.0 standards, so maybe it’s time to begin thinking how you can bring your site into life with these new technologies? Since generally it is far easier to ensure graceful degradation via these new technologies for those stubborn people who just won’t upgrade their Internet Explorer version!

The use of true type and open type fonts is one notable new feature and allows for the use of an extensive choice of web fonts. New interface features that used to be achieved in more complex languages such as box resizing are now conveniently placed in the developers CSS toolbox, as are looks achieved once in graphics software such as text and box shadows and gradients.

Most current browsers with an emphasis on Safari 4, Firefox 3.6, Opera 10.5 and Google Chrome now support many new features available in the CSS3 and HTML5 specifications and examples of some of the features are emerging all over the web. So upgrade your browser and navigate the web looking for new design inspiration and seeking out some of the extra little something you may be able to add to your own web pages.

Last month one of the most influential figures in technology, Steve Jobs, personally wrote a blog about his thoughts on Flash. Steve’s thoughts are important because as the CEO of Apple they transcend down into one of the most popular mobile phones of our generation, the iPhone, and also the iPad, iPod, Safari browser, Macintosh computers and everything else Apple has to offer.

What’s the big deal with Flash? Flash is Adobe’s cross platform multimedia system and allows your web pages to contain animation, whether it is advertisements, videos, or actual applications such as games. Flash has long been the prominent tool for media on the internet and has only recently come under heavy fire, most notably from Steve Jobs. Apple and Adobe have an extensive history and its estimated 50% of Mac users account for the sales of Adobe’s creative products but the mixed interest ends here.

In a time when mobile browsing is common place and ever growing it’s important for web developers and clients to produce and maintain websites that will run on handheld devices and more importantly, the most popular devices, which just so happens to be devices produced by Apple. Apple’s policy of not shipping or enabling the use of third party runtime environments means that Flash is struggling to infiltrate the mobile market of which the iPhone claims 60% and the mobile device market of which the iPod accounts 95%….and with the iPad shipping the problem grows. The result means Flash can’t fully be considered a ubiquitous mobile platform even with recent approved support from Android, Pal and Blackberry due to the governance of the mobile market reigned by Apple.

So why isn’t Steve Jobs a fan? Well Steve believes that the use of open standards with relation to web is the way forward and criticises Adobes base of completely propriety products but acknowledges Apple’s own amount of products being heavily propriety.  Steve highlights the use of HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript as opposed to Flash, or more simply put, the use of open standard web technologies emerging in the world of web development. The use of these standards allows the creation of animations, transitions and rich graphics and typography effects and it’s considered may possibly take away much of the need for Flash and make a number of other rich Internet application (RIA) technologies obsolete.

The second major point highlighted by Steve regarding video especially is that approximately 75% of video on the web is in Flash, most of which now has H.264 support, which is viewable on all of Apples mobile devices. A vast majority of web videos are compressed in the modern format, H.264, including all of videos on the YouTube site, which it is claimed contains approximately 40% of all web videos. However although Flash now has H.264 support a large percentage of flash websites use a previous generation decoder not implemented in mobile chips requiring it to be run on software, heavily affecting the battery life of mobile devices, in the case of the iPhone it’s been said to halve battery life. So it seems Flash video is indeed more viewable on Apples mobile devices thanks to H.264 support but contrastingly at the expense of your mobile battery life.

So what else did Steve speak of? Well, the widely known problems with Flash crashing Macs were addressed. For anyone who’s used Safari or owned a Mac you will probably be all too familiar with a ‘Flash Crash’. It just so happens to be the most common cause of Mac crashes and has persisted for many years even after nearly as many years have been spent trying to rectify the problems from both Apple and Adobe respectively. He also acknowledged Adobes failure to put Flash on a mobile device for nearly two years after they claimed a mobile device would ship with it on, this is currently taking place via Android phones but it’s a good job Apple didn’t hold their breath.

Another interesting and logical point made by Steve was that Flash was designed for PC’s and mice and not with touch screen in mind. We’re all familiar of Flash pop ups that appears as we hover the mouse over specific parts of a website, well with Apple’s touch screen offerings there’s no concept of a ‘rollover’ as it’s known and no use of a mouse. So basically, what Steve is saying is that most Flash websites require rewriting to support touch based devices and if this is the case then why don’t they just do so in HTML5, CSS and JavaScript? It seems to make a lot of sense.

Steve’s final problem with Flash and the most important to Steve was regarding Adobe’s focus on developers adopting Flash to create apps that work and run on Apple’s mobile devices. Steve himself understands to his annoyance the problems of third party layers of software between platforms and developers. On the whole Steve stressed Adobes extremely slow adoption of the enhancements to Apples platforms and in general the ‘laziness’ of Adobe. Steve concluded that Adobes Flash offering is just not up to scratch with the requirements of the mobile era and brought to attention the overwhelming offerings of content from media outlets received by Apple, rendering Flash apparently redundant.

The co-creator of Adobe’s Flash software, Jonathan Gay was quick to point out that Apple, it appears, underestimate some features of the open standards such as HTML5 and believes it’ll be far from as rich a media platform as Flash is today. With Google’s latest phones having support for Flash and similar interest in the pipeline, the guys at Adobe don’t seem as worried as one may expect but neither party denies the likely benefits that the use of HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript will bring to the web. Adobe, and other major RIA vendors are involved with W3C’s HTML5 efforts but defend the needs for their own technologies and it seems they all point out quite rightly it will be as long as ten years until HTML5 is finalised and in that time the Flash platform will may have evolved to deliver a ubiquitous, stable platform that is even richer. Steve Jobs certainly doesn’t think so.