November 2007 News

In this issue of WebWidgets News, November 2007...

• Welcome Auvasa our new receptionist
• International character sets and special characters
• Changing page formats and page options
• Movember
• Why make a web-plan?
•  WEBSITE OF THE MONTH PROFILE

Welcome Auvasa

We would like to introduce our new receptionist to you all. Auvasa will now greet you when calling our Auckland office. Auvasa will require some time to learn about our system, so please go easy on her in these first few weeks. This takes our staff count up to 6 including Reuben, Albie, Emma, Natasha, Phil and Auvasa.

International Character Sets Supported.

You can now use European accented characters, Japanese, Chinese etc characters in most places within Web Widgets. You can now also use additional special characters like curly quotes, copyright symbols etc, without it producing those odd question marks (in most cases).

Changing page formats and page options

If you click on your blue page buttons, you will now see a new guide for editing your pages. There are so many options you can change for your pages, that we are trying to make it as easy as possible to find where and how to do that.

We have also now made it much easier to change the layout of pages like galleries, FAQs, and shopping carts. You will now see a small visual aid to demonstrate the layout of alternative formats for your pages, both when changing an existing page, or when adding a new page. You can also view functional examples of each on our super demo website.

Movember

During Movember (the month formerly known as November) Reuben will be growin a Mo. That's right I'm bringing the Mo back because I'm passionate about men's health and the fight against prostate cancer. Why...

Every year in New Zealand 2,656 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer and about 600 die of the disease, making prostate cancer the second largest cause of male cancer deaths, after lung cancer.

The average life expectancy of a man in New Zealand is 4 years less than a woman.
To sponsor my Mo please go to http://www.movember.com/nz/donate, enter my registration number which is 149590 and your credit card details. Or you can sponsor me by cheque made payable to the "Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand" clearly marking the donation as being for my Registration Number: 149590. Please mail cheques to: Movember, PO Box 87 150, Meadowbank 1742, Auckland. All donations over $5 are tax deductible.

All donations are made directly to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand who will use the funds to create awareness, increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer, fund research and scholarship programs.

Website planning

 A little planning can go a long way when building a website.  Consider building a house.  You wouldn't dream of building one without drawing up a plan first.  Drawing up a website plan can save you valuable hours when it comes time to build your website.  Use these questions to help you create a website plan.

What type of pages will your website need (eg. gallery pages for show-casing photos, news pages for regularly updated information)?
What is the purpose of each page?
What do you want the "look and feel" to convey about your business?
Do you require a shopping cart for online sales?
Do you require any special functionality ? eg. a member mailing list, an online forum, password protected pages?
If you're committed to building a DIY website, what skills and experience can you bring to the build? 
What assistance would you be wise to invest in?

1. Consider what material you already have (eg.an existing brochure, hard-copy catalogue, logo) and what you will need to create from scratch.
2. Do you have branding that can be used for your website?
3. Do you have writing skills?
4. Do you have design skills?

MOST OF ALL...
Do you have the time?  WebWidgets can assist if you are idea-rich but time-poor.  Contact us with your website plan if you need your website idea online on a deadline.

Website of the month profile

Geraldine and Eric Muncer are the owners and webmasters of www.sparkingreaders.co.nz, established earlier this year.  Their website provides an extensive range of Jolly Phonics reading and writing products for online sale to homes and schools.  The website functions as both an information destination and an online store.
 
Sparking Readers already had their branding and website look and feel designed, but needed WebWidgets to set it up as a functioning website with a shopping cart and content management system.  Geraldine wanted to be able to have control over updating the content and the shopping cart herself, and has found WebWidgets content management system to be just the solution for their online business.
 
Geraldine and Eric have found the experience of building a website a positive one, but involving alot more time and attention than they had anticipated.  They needed to have their website up and running on a deadline, which meant they had to ascertain which aspects of the build they could do themselves, and what to get the WebWidgets team to do for them. 
 
Geraldine and Eric's advice to other businesses looking to build an ecommerce website, is to contact your developer/designer at your earliest convenience.  They can help you save time and costly mistakes early in the build and help you build a website that will not only look good, but function effectively as well. 
 
If you are looking for a Christmas Gift for the special youngsters in your life, check out the Finger Puppets on Sparking Readers website.

Kind regards
Emma, Reuben, Albie and Vasa
The WebWidgets Team