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<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" media="screen" href="/~d/styles/rss2full.xsl"?><?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~d/styles/itemcontent.css"?><rss xmlns:feedburner="http://rssnamespace.org/feedburner/ext/1.0" version="2.0"><channel><title>Xdrive Computing Ltd -  Blog</title><link>http://www.xdweb.co.uk/feeds/general/</link><description>The latest news, information, and work from X:drive Computing Ltd, effective business solutions since 1999</description><copyright>(c) 2009, X:drive Computing Limited, LLC. All rights reserved.</copyright><ttl>5</ttl><atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="self" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/XdriveComputingLtd" type="application/rss+xml" /><atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="hub" href="http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com" /><item><title>We have moved....Broad Street is the new home</title><description>&lt;p&gt;As of August 2009 we are now located at our new offices based&amp;nbsp;near the heart of Canterbury (Kent) City Centre.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Please update your contact records to:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;X:Drive Computing Ltd&lt;br /&gt;73 Broad Street&lt;br /&gt;Canterbury&lt;br /&gt;Kent&lt;br /&gt;CT1 2LS&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=ct1+2ls&amp;amp;oe=UTF-8&amp;amp;ie=UTF8&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;t=h&amp;amp;z=16&amp;amp;iwloc=A" target="_blank" title="View in Google Maps"&gt;View Map&lt;/a&gt;: [Opens new window]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Our telephone, fax and mobile numbers remain the same.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~4/OVMnVD7L3vY" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</description><link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~3/OVMnVD7L3vY/We-have-movedBroad-Street-is-the-new-home</link><pubDate>Wed 26 Aug 2009</pubDate><feedburner:origLink>http://www.xdweb.co.uk/blog/26/August/2009/We-have-movedBroad-Street-is-the-new-home</feedburner:origLink></item><item><title>Roofing Lines - New Site Launched</title><description>&lt;h3&gt;Public Site&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.xdweb.co.uk/assets/content/blog/public-roofing.jpg" border="0" alt="public-roofing.jpg" width="665" height="386" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Administration Site&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.xdweb.co.uk/assets/content/blog/wenmin-roofing.jpg" border="0" alt="wenmin-roofing.jpg" width="665" height="386" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Shop for windows, blinds and accessories&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Visit Roofing Lines' new website at: &lt;a href="http://www.roofinglines.co.uk/"&gt;http://www.roofinglines.co.uk&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~4/K_pcbUzKOrA" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</description><link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~3/K_pcbUzKOrA/Roofing-Lines-New-Site-Launched</link><pubDate>Tue 4 Aug 2009</pubDate><feedburner:origLink>http://www.xdweb.co.uk/blog/4/August/2009/Roofing-Lines-New-Site-Launched</feedburner:origLink></item><item><title>Kerala Moments - Experience the breathtaking world</title><description>&lt;h3&gt;Introduction&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Kerala Moments were established in 2008 providing holiday makers with a chance&amp;nbsp;of a lifetime experience. With locations covered from Guruvayoor to Wayanad Kerala Moments are in a position to offer personalised packages tailor made to allow each holiday maker the chance to see parts of the world that are breathtaking. Check out the &amp;quot;&lt;a href="http://www.keralamoments.com/tours/Breathtaking+Views+?type=bytype" target="_blank" title="External Link: Breathtaking Views Tours"&gt;breathtaking views tours&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot; offered by Kerala Moments to experience the houseboats on the enchanting backwaters of Kerala or if you're looking for a health spa trip, why not&amp;nbsp;check out&amp;nbsp;the &amp;quot;&lt;a href="http://www.keralamoments.com/tours/Ayurveda+~+Manaltheeram+Ayurvedic+Beach+Resort+" target="_blank" title="External Link: Beach Resort"&gt;Ayurveda - Manaltheeram Ayurvedic Beach Resort&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot; tour that gives you an individual programme with over 50 therapists on hand to give you 28 types of body care programmes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As of April 2009 Kerala Moments&amp;nbsp;have become members of the Travel Trust Association to ensure protection of customer's pre-payments for non-flight inclusive packages.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One of the highlights from Kerala Moments is the personal service that is applied to all bookings from start to finish, this proves to be the perfect way to plan a trip to discover the beautiful country.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.xdweb.co.uk/assets/content/blog/kerala_public.jpg" border="0" alt="kerala_public.jpg" width="665" height="386" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Synopsis&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;In order to provide potential and existing customers with an in-depth resource to the services provided, Kerala Moments turned to X:drive to design and develop both a public interface that promotes the colours, sights and beauty of Kerala along with a management tool that allows staff to maintain bookings, the content of the website&amp;nbsp; and a whole host of information that is provided to the end user. Within the administration tool, staff can upload photography in a structured manner that will automatically be generated into a slideshow when seen on the public site.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;From working with the staff at Kerala Moments for over a year now only brings us to be proud of the work the two companies have produced and the results achieved from working together. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.xdweb.co.uk/assets/content/blog/kerala_admin.jpg" border="0" alt="kerala_admin.jpg" width="665" height="386" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Technology / Features&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;- Booking / Quote manager&lt;br /&gt;- Tours management&lt;br /&gt;- Events management&lt;br /&gt;- Content management&lt;br /&gt;- ASP.NET v2.0&lt;br /&gt;- CSS&lt;br /&gt;- Basic Analytics&lt;br /&gt;- MS SQL Server 2005&lt;br /&gt;- Mootools (Slideshow)&lt;br /&gt;- Google maps integration&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Links&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Check out the tours on offer at &lt;a href="http://www.keralamoments.com" target="_blank" title="External Link: Kerala Moments"&gt;Kerala Moments&lt;/a&gt;, and you will want to also check out the stunning photography supplied by &lt;a href="http://www.salimpushpanath.com/" target="_blank" title="External Link: Salim Pushpanath"&gt;Salim Pushpanath&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~4/--Fv_H3XTMs" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</description><link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~3/--Fv_H3XTMs/Kerala-Moments-Experience-the-breathtaking-world</link><pubDate>Tue 14 Apr 2009</pubDate><feedburner:origLink>http://www.xdweb.co.uk/blog/14/April/2009/Kerala-Moments-Experience-the-breathtaking-world</feedburner:origLink></item><item><title>Are your shopping carts up to date?</title><description>&lt;p&gt;With a new VISA mandate coming into effect from 1st June 2009 that requires that the CSC* be provided with all Visa eCommerce transactions (online only), it's time to make sure your&amp;nbsp;e-commerce is up to date and coplies with any legal requirements. By doing&amp;nbsp; this you will enhance security to your customers and reduce the risk of being fined.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;*CSC - Card security code, also referred to as CV2, CVV and CAVV - these are the three digits on the rear of the card (four digits if Amex)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are a number of exemptions to the new VISA mandate, these are listed below:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;- Recurring and Instalment Payments (scheduled transactions)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- Hotels/Lodging&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- Car Hire&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- Delayed or Amended T&amp;amp;E Charges&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- Travel and Entertainment deferred or amended charges&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- Health Care Incidental Expenses&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- Account on file CNP transactions (repeat transactions)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- Split Sales&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- Business Travel Agents&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;- Mail Order Transactions&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In addition to this mandate, some acquiring banks are also specifying that the CSC be provided with all eCommerce transactions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;What you or your site developers need to do&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;A CV2 field needs to be incorporated on your payment page prior to the enforcement of this as a mandatory field. If you are unsure whether your site has this already, checkout your payment provider site where you login and see transactions processed, along with each transaction you should be able to determine whether the CV2 matching is in place.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The UK's E-commerce Regulations&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Excerpt from Out-law.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Whether your business is trading online or not, it is almost certainly affected by the E-commerce Regulations which came into force on the 21st August 2002. The Regulations (Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002) implement the EU's E-Commerce Directive into UK law. The Directive was introduced to clarify and harmonise the rules of on-line business throughout Europe with&amp;nbsp; the aim of boosting consumer confidence. The Directive was passed in June 2000. The UK missed its implementation deadline by over eight months.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Continue reading article at &lt;a href="http://www.out-law.com/page-431"&gt;http://www.out-law.com/page-431&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;What to do?, where to start?&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you need any advice on your shopping carts legal requirements, feel free to &lt;a href="http://www.xdweb.co.uk/contact/" title="Drop us an enquiry"&gt;drop us an enquiry&lt;/a&gt; or there are a number of sites that are available to help you. We have listed a few below to give you a starting point:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UK Business Forums&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Small business and startup help and advice for owners, managers and entrepeneurs.&lt;br /&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.out-law.com/page-351" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Out-Law&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Out-Law.com is part of international law firm Pinset Masons and provides free legal news and guidance, mostly on IT and e-commerce issues.&lt;br /&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ukbusinesslabs.co.uk/forums/" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;UK Business Labs&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The forum based site is aimed to bring together business people from the UK &lt;br /&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.xdweb.co.uk/assets/content/blog/businesslinks.png" border="0" alt="businesslinks.png" width="665" height="79" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This information is provided with the assumption that you use a third-party payment provider (or direct with your bank) for your payments. X:drive do &lt;strong&gt;NOT&lt;/strong&gt; recommend that you collect payment details and process them offline, by hand or by any other means. If you are in this position you need to consider the security of your online store.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~4/IrL1ZZcP6a0" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</description><link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~3/IrL1ZZcP6a0/Are-your-shopping-carts-up-to-date</link><pubDate>Thur 2 Apr 2009</pubDate><feedburner:origLink>http://www.xdweb.co.uk/blog/2/April/2009/Are-your-shopping-carts-up-to-date</feedburner:origLink></item><item><title>1 Year, 365 days, 8760 hours, 525,600 minutes - 100% uptime</title><description>&lt;p&gt;Running your own hosting solutions can be both tiresome, expensive and worrying...we have managed to achieve something that not a lot of companies can boast about. We have completed our first years hosting with 100% uptime achieved across our hosting network.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;A few statistics&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;Outages - 0&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Downtime - 0.00% - 0 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Planned Outages - 0.00% 0 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Up time - 100% - 365 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Availability - 100% - 365 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Response Time (Low) - 69 milliseconds&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Response Time (High) - 116 milliseconds&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;h3&gt;What does this mean?&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Our clients that have their websites hosted with us have not missed that all important enquiry that could turn a business on it's head (for the positive), which is especially important considering the current climate.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Also, our hosted solutions like &lt;a href="http://www.whosoff.com" target="_blank" title="External Link: WhosOff (The Online Staff Holiday Planner)"&gt;WhosOff&lt;/a&gt; have experienced 100% uptime allowing over 49,000 staff members around the world to book that all important leave and for their respective approvers to monitor their sick and other leave setup.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;img class="content_image_left" src="http://www.xdweb.co.uk/assets/content/blog/100percentuptime.png" border="0" alt="100percentuptime.png" width="135" height="138" align="left" /&gt;The next goal...&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Well, two years at 100% is a target, whilst increasing our bandwidth and loads on across our network we aim to continue our success in uptime.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;What would happen if?&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don't worry, if we experienced any downtime throughout our hosting setup, we have procedures in place to investigate, identify and resolve any issues that would cause this downtime.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~4/zIHOZ3VS8ko" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</description><link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~3/zIHOZ3VS8ko/1-Year-365-days-8760-hours-525600-minutes-100-uptime</link><pubDate>Fri 27 Feb 2009</pubDate><feedburner:origLink>http://www.xdweb.co.uk/blog/27/February/2009/1-Year-365-days-8760-hours-525600-minutes-100-uptime</feedburner:origLink></item><item><title>Executive travel website offers that little bit extra...</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.xdweb.co.uk/assets/content/blog/blog_bayliss_head.jpg" border="0" alt="blog_bayliss_head.jpg" width="665" height="200" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Synopsis&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Providing a wide range of clients with up to date information regarding events and general company services is an ongoing challenge, Bayliss Executive Travel turned to X:drive to encorporate their new brochure designs into a new website that allows customers to feel that extra special service is received both offline and online. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The new website allows day trip events to be searched, latest day trip brochures to be downloaded, as well as mailing list sign up features that keep the visitors to the site interested in latest information.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Since it's launch the site has been receiving on average 3 quality leads per day, which is a 100% increase on the old website.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;img class="content_image_left" src="http://www.xdweb.co.uk/assets/content/blog/blog_bayliss_inset.png" border="0" alt="blog_bayliss_inset.png" width="209" height="180" align="left" /&gt;From the West End to Paris&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;The new website allows two sides of customers to be targeted. The customers that require airport transfers, corporate travel or group bookings, to &amp;quot;one-off&amp;quot; customers that are interested in day trips to Brugge, the Ideal Home Show, theatre trips like Wicked or The Lion King, as well as an interface that enhances cross-selling by its ease of use and enriched design. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;[Yes, we designed the brochures as well]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Technology / Features&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mailing list management&lt;br /&gt;Enhanced statistics&lt;br /&gt;MS SQL Server 2000&lt;br /&gt;ASP.NET v2.0&lt;br /&gt;CSS&lt;br /&gt;Email distribution management&lt;br /&gt;siFR v2.0&lt;br /&gt;Content management&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Links&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;If your looking for a trip to a London Theatre show or fancy a day trip to Brugge, or you party needs a minibus for transportation to and from that special event, contact &lt;a href="http://www.baylissexecutivetravel.co.uk" target="_blank" title="External Link"&gt;Bayliss Executive Travel&lt;/a&gt; or check out their &lt;a href="http://www.baylissexecutivetravel.co.uk" target="_blank" title="External link"&gt;website&lt;/a&gt; today, and from personal experience, the service is exceptional!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~4/QIv1HuRcyQk" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</description><link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~3/QIv1HuRcyQk/Executive-travel-website-offers-that-little-bit-extra</link><pubDate>Tue 17 Feb 2009</pubDate><feedburner:origLink>http://www.xdweb.co.uk/blog/17/February/2009/Executive-travel-website-offers-that-little-bit-extra</feedburner:origLink></item><item><title>which provider is right?</title><description>&lt;img src="http://www.xdweb.co.uk/assets/content/blog/secure_payments.jpg" border="0" alt="secure_payments.jpg" width="665" height="200" /&gt; &lt;h3&gt;Overview&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Whether youre thinking of selling your services/products online or you are reviewing your current operations, one decision that will be crucial to get right is deciding how to deal with online payments. Across the years of working in the ecommerce industry&amp;nbsp;we have seen a range of methods used, from no online payments (where user&amp;rsquo;s have to send cheques via post before goods are despatched), through to instant online payment with a third party payment provider, and all the good and bad practices in between.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;This article gives an overview of the spaghetti like decisions that will be required in order to select a suitable provider. Get this right and online customers will feel&amp;nbsp;that they are dealing with a reputable company, thats &amp;ldquo;you&amp;rdquo; by the way. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Who should be reading this&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Well, you are, so that&amp;rsquo;s a good start.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Why do i need a payment provider?&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unless you are a banking organisation (where your integration fee&amp;rsquo;s will be next to nothing), or you intend to process card transactions offline you will at some point require the services of an established payment provider. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Although each provider is different in terms of costs, features and levels of headache for your development company, choose the right one and you will find that operating your online payments can be seamless and give your customers confidence to re-purchase as well as spreading the word about your company.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Who are the Payment Providers?&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;So, how do you know which provider to choose?, how many are there?, and what is the difference between them all?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;First of all, there is a long list of payment providers, but rather than going through each one in detail at the risk of missing one, I have listed a few in the following table in order for you to explore for yourself. Each payment provider has it's advantages and disadvantages and the key decision wil be yours, and will depend on a number of factors.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Though your preferred provider will depend on your requirements, more or less each one can be driven for a better bargain than advertised through the art of persuasion and persistence (well, it doesn&amp;rsquo;t cost to try and you may learn a little by trying). &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The following list gives an overview of the payment providers we have come across in our time of ecommerce development, a number of these we have worked with to integrate payment services into websites. With each of the providers listed, we have given a link to their site, as well as a link to &lt;a href="http://www.electronic-payments.co.uk/" target="_blank"&gt;Electronic Payments&lt;/a&gt; that provides an up to date list of features and useful information for each provider.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" width="100%" style="height: 50px; class: DataTable; border: #ffffff 0px solid"&gt;&lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Provider&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Website&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;h3&gt;More Info&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;h5&gt;DataCash&lt;/h5&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.datacash.com/"&gt;http://www.datacash.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.electronic-payments.co.uk/solutions/DataCash" target="_blank"&gt;More information...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;h5&gt;Protx&lt;/h5&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.protx.com/"&gt;http://www.protx.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.electronic-payments.co.uk/solutions/Protx" target="_blank"&gt;More information...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;h5&gt;PayPoint&lt;/h5&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.paypoint.net/"&gt;http://www.paypoint.net&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.electronic-payments.co.uk/solutions/PayPoint.net_payment_Gateway" target="_blank"&gt;More information...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;h5&gt;Payal&lt;/h5&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.paypal.com/"&gt;http://www.paypal.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.electronic-payments.co.uk/solutions/PayPal_Merchant_Services" target="_blank"&gt;More information...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;h5&gt;HSBC&lt;/h5&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.hsbc.com/"&gt;http://www.hsbc.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.electronic-payments.co.uk/solutions/HSBC_Bank_Secure_ePayments" target="_blank"&gt;More information...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;h5&gt;MoneyBookers&lt;/h5&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.moneybookers.com/"&gt;http://www.moneybookers.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.electronic-payments.co.uk/solutions/Moneybookers_LTD" target="_blank"&gt;More information...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;h5&gt;Allopass&lt;/h5&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.en.allopass.com"&gt;http://www.en.allopass.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.electronic-payments.co.uk/solutions/Allopass" target="_blank"&gt;More information...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;h5&gt;pppay.com&lt;/h5&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.pppay.com/"&gt;http://www.pppay.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.electronic-payments.co.uk/solutions/PPPay.com" target="_blank"&gt;More information...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;h5&gt;Nochex&lt;/h5&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.nochex.com/"&gt;http://www.nochex.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.electronic-payments.co.uk/solutions/Nochex" target="_blank"&gt;More information...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;h5&gt;Netbanx&lt;/h5&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.netbanx.com/"&gt;http://www.netbanx.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.electronic-payments.co.uk/solutions/NetBanx_Bureau" target="_blank"&gt;More information...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;h5&gt;WorldPay&lt;/h5&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.worldpay.com/"&gt;http://www.worldpay.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.electronic-payments.co.uk/solutions/WorldPay-World_Direct_" target="_blank"&gt;More information...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;h5&gt;BT&lt;/h5&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.bt.com/epayments"&gt;http://www.bt.com/epayments&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.electronic-payments.co.uk/solutions/BT_Buynet" target="_blank"&gt;More information...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;h5&gt;eKashu&lt;/h5&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ekashu.com/"&gt;http://www.ekashu.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.electronic-payments.co.uk/solutions/eKashu" target="_blank"&gt;More information...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;h5&gt;secureTrading&lt;/h5&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.securetrading.com/"&gt;http://www.securetrading.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td valign="middle"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.electronic-payments.co.uk/solutions/SecureTrading_Ltd" target="_blank"&gt;More information...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TIP&lt;/strong&gt;: Get a demo account, and check out the reporting facilities of each provider.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;span class="main"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;Costs&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;With each provider comes costs and the different levels and types of costs can be as long a list as the providers themselves. Luckily enough most providers employ at least two forms of cost structure:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;a)&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; Little or no monthly fee, plus a % of each transaction or fixed cost per transaction&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;b)&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; A higher monthly, with a lower % or fixed cost per transaction&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Each route depends on the volume of orders you will be placing through your provider, but most will allow you to switch between the available options.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;strong&gt;TIP&lt;/strong&gt;: Check with your development company before deciding on a payment provider as to the costs of integration with each provider on your list.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;strong&gt;DONT FORGET&lt;/strong&gt;: On top of the provider fee&amp;rsquo;s you will incur fee&amp;rsquo;s from your bank for the privilege of having a merchant account (Of course the bank wants a cut!)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Off the Shelf vs Bespoke Development&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;As ecommerce platforms mature throughout the internet, so do their integration options, with some packages including integration with some provider&amp;rsquo;s built-in. This can be a good option if both the ecommerce package fits your business and the supplier offers to integrate with a payment provider that also suits your practices. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately for the sake of this article all of the ecommerce applications i have worked on have been bespoke development to suit a clients / businesses needs.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;The advantage of this approach allows the requirements boxes to be ticked as well as allowing me as the developer to integrate with a payment provider that gives the functionality to perform all required actions and in a fashion that suits the application that is being developed.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;Legal Requirements&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are certain legal requirements that must be adhered to when selling online, the following website provides a lot of useful information and checklists when planning, implementing and running an e-commerce website.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;OUTLAW&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;IT and e-commerce legal help from Pinsent Masons - &lt;a href="http://www.out-law.com/page-351" target="_blank"&gt;http://www.out-law.com/page-351&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~4/eEyblX6sP3s" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</description><link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~3/eEyblX6sP3s/which-provider-is-right</link><pubDate>Fri 9 Jan 2009</pubDate><feedburner:origLink>http://www.xdweb.co.uk/blog/9/January/2009/which-provider-is-right</feedburner:origLink></item><item><title>New multiple language site gives Priority Freight the edge...</title><description>&lt;h3&gt;Introduction&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Priority Freight provides logistical solutions for specific markets &amp;amp; industries where speed, reliability, and security are of the upmost importance. They offer bespoke solutions to each and every client, and solve seemingly impossible logistical challenges. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For a worldwide company, a worldwide website was needed to allow for multiple language content to be delivered to existing and potential customers. X:drive have been working with Priority Freight for a number of years and were asked to produce the new website that followed the look and feel of their corporate marketing material.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Synopsis&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;The challenge for this site was clearly the need to support multiple languages which all needed to be managed from one central administration area, this was achieved by employing custom modules within the site and sub-domains that identified the language visible to the user. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.xdweb.co.uk/assets/content/blog/blog_priority_web_screenshots.jpg" border="0" alt="blog_priority_web_screenshots.jpg" width="665" height="386" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Administration / Content Management&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;The site is backed-up with an enhanced content management system that allows administrators to manage the content within the site as well as introduce alternative languages on the site. From latest news, to services offered and enhanced statistics providing Priority Freight with in depth knowledge of their visitors and activity whilst on the site.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Technology / Features&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;MS SQL Server 2005&lt;br /&gt;Mulitple language support&lt;br /&gt;Enhanced statistics&lt;br /&gt;ASP.NET v2.0&lt;br /&gt;CSS&lt;br /&gt;Content management&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;To find out how Priority Freight can help with your companies logistical needs, give them a call on 01304 828111 or visit their website &lt;a href="http://www.priorityfreight.co.uk" target="_blank" title="External Link: Priority Freight"&gt;http://www.priorityfreight.co.uk&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~4/UOG__7ho3QM" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</description><link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~3/UOG__7ho3QM/New-multiple-language-site-gives-Priority-Freight-the-edge</link><pubDate>Tue 16 Dec 2008</pubDate><feedburner:origLink>http://www.xdweb.co.uk/blog/16/December/2008/New-multiple-language-site-gives-Priority-Freight-the-edge</feedburner:origLink></item><item><title>New employment site launched</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.xdweb.co.uk/assets/content/blog/earlstreet.jpg" border="0" alt="earlstreet.jpg" width="665" height="200" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Synopsis&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;In order to provide potential candidates an online service whereby latest job posts can be reviewed and applied for, Earl Street commissioned X:drive to produce a new website to match their new brand identity. The result is an online service that not only allows for job positions to be advertised, but also allows Earl Street to post industry related articles as well as post their job adverts to several job directories around Kent.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Jobs in Kent /&amp;nbsp;KM Jobs&amp;nbsp;Integration&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Within the administration area developed by X:drive (X:drive Webmin) users are able to post any jobs to both &lt;a href="http://www.jobsinkent.com/home/search.php?keyword=Earl%20Street%20Employment%20Consultants&amp;amp;submit=Search" target="_blank"&gt;Jobs in Kent&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://www.kentjobs.co.uk/jobs/search-list-jobs.asp?search_type=agency&amp;amp;company_id=316226" target="_blank"&gt;KM Jobs&lt;/a&gt; websites. Whilst this sounds straight forward there was a lot of finite&amp;nbsp;instructions that need to be followed when integrating,&amp;nbsp;one integration sees a http get/post feature activated whilst the user&amp;nbsp;is waiting and the job is posted to the site in real time, where as&amp;nbsp;the other site requires an&amp;nbsp;xml file generated and uploaded&amp;nbsp;to an&amp;nbsp;ftp site which is also handled automatically.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Technology&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;MS SQL Server 2000&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;ASP.NET v2.0&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;CSS&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Content management&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Jobs in Kent / KM Jobs feed submission&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Links&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;To see the latest positions available from&amp;nbsp;Earl Street or to have a read about the latest industry&amp;nbsp;/ employment news, &lt;a href="http://www.earlstreet.co.uk/" target="_blank" title="External Link: Earl Street Employment Consultants"&gt;Visit the Earl Street Employment Consultants website&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~4/TxJc0Pcu6Sg" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</description><link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~3/TxJc0Pcu6Sg/New-employment-site-launched</link><pubDate>Mon 14 Jul 2008</pubDate><feedburner:origLink>http://www.xdweb.co.uk/blog/14/July/2008/New-employment-site-launched</feedburner:origLink></item><item><title>Chocolate anyone? With your brand on anyone?</title><description>&lt;h3&gt;Introduction&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Waterlow personalised chocolates are hand-made in the UK and available in a choice of 5 product formats, all of which can be personalised to a companies' precise requirements. The Chocolate Selection and Chocolate Squares are created from the finest ingredients, onto which choclatiers use a unique, patented process to recreate logos, illustrations and text, which are printed directly onto the chocolate surface using chocolate as the ink. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;X:drive were selected to design, develop and deliver the new e-commerce website for this new range of products from Waterlow Personalised Chocolates.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Synopsis&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;As far as e-commerce websites go, designing and developing one for any chocolate site is a bonus, but when you see the quality that is being delivered from Waterlow Chocolates' process it's hard not to get overexcited. There are not a lot of products on offer on this site (which was the first challenge) but the products that are available come in a wide range of options and costings to match. The system required for this site needed to allow for multiple price ranges to be introduced for a product according to how many of each product a customer wanted to purchase.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.xdweb.co.uk/assets/content/blog/waterlow_public.jpg" border="0" alt="waterlow_public.jpg" width="665" height="200" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Payments / Security / Post Codes&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;All personal details taken on the site are made through a secure socket layer (SSL) and all payments made are handled through DATACASH, this allows customers to have their payments cleared instantly and the administration team to process orders as they are received without having to process funds for a transaction. Customers also benefit from a post code lookup feature on the site, instead of having to enter your full address upon check out you simply enter your post code, click a button and confirm your house / flat number when prompted.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.xdweb.co.uk/assets/content/blog/waterlow_private.jpg" border="0" alt="waterlow_private.jpg" width="665" height="200" /&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Administration / Content Management&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;The site is backed-up with an enhanced content/order management system that allows administrators of the site to download order details quickly in a format that they can import to their offline ordering system. The administration tool also acts as a checklist for any orders whereby statuses are kept against an order until it is signed off as delivered or cancelled.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Technology / Features&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;Quick order .csv generator (admin)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Postcode Anywhere integration&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;MS SQL Server 2000&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;ASP.NET v2.0&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;CSS&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Content management&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Product gallery&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;siFR (v2)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;DataCash integration&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;SSL Registration/Installation&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Links&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;To see the range of products on offer from &lt;a href="http://www.waterlowchocolate.co.uk/" target="_blank" title="External link: Waterlow Chocolates"&gt;Waterlow Chocolates&lt;/a&gt;, visit their site and see how your companies brand could be enhanced onto your own range of chocolates, a great idea for that special event.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~4/BgXc0kituVM" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</description><link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~3/BgXc0kituVM/Chocolate-anyone-With-your-brand-on-anyone</link><pubDate>Sat 12 Jul 2008</pubDate><feedburner:origLink>http://www.xdweb.co.uk/blog/12/July/2008/Chocolate-anyone-With-your-brand-on-anyone</feedburner:origLink></item><item><title>Online Hips Management</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.xdweb.co.uk/assets/content/client_images/HSA%20Law.jpg" border="0" alt="HSA Law.jpg" width="665" height="200" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Synopsis&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;In order to provide their clients (home buyers/sellers, estate agents and housing associations) with access to published HIPs documentation, HSA Law worked closely with X:drive&amp;nbsp;to deliver a secure portal to allow individual HIP details to be accessed as well as bulk downloading, thus reducing their carbon footprint as well as delivering instantaneous results to their clients.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Each Estate Agent or Housing Association accessing the secure area is able to look up grouped HIPs packs as well as seeing their area customised with their own identity.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Offline Integration&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Whilst developing the online solution to the HSA Law hosting account, X:drive developers worked closely with the in-house&amp;nbsp;support team to integrate the system into the existing case management system employed. This allows for each member of staff within HSA to access the online HIPs area for a particular client with one click of the mouse, without the need to supply login details.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Technology&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;MS SQL Server 2000&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;ASP.NET v2.0&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;CSS&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;ABCpdf4&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Links&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;To see how HSA LAW can help prepare your Home Information Pack, or for an online demo, &lt;a href="http://hips.hsalaw.co.uk/" target="_blank" title="External Link: HSA Law (HIPs)"&gt;Visit the HSA Law HIPs website&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~4/J2F-Dwh0zsw" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</description><link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~3/J2F-Dwh0zsw/Online-Hips-Management</link><pubDate>Fri 20 Jun 2008</pubDate><feedburner:origLink>http://www.xdweb.co.uk/blog/20/June/2008/Online-Hips-Management</feedburner:origLink></item><item><title>Specialist trailer services - New online presence</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.xdweb.co.uk/assets/content/blog/lister-website.jpg" border="0" alt="lister-website.jpg" width="665" height="200" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Synopsis&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Providing specialist trailer services from Dover (Kent, UK) to Holland, France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany, Lister International required both an online presence as well as a tool for volume quoting. X:drive have produced a static website in order to allow new customers to establish an overview of the services provided by Lister and to provide a base of communication with existing clients.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now the site has been established on search engines for natural listings we are in the process of managing Lister's online advertising campaign to provide a wider range of reach for the new site.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Technology&amp;nbsp;/ Features&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;ASP.NET v2.0 &lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;CSS &lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Random image selection&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Adwords campaign management&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Links&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Check out the new Lister International site: &lt;a href="http://www.listerinternational.com/" target="_blank"&gt;http://www.listerinternational.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~4/OOcf6RcPpP0" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</description><link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~3/OOcf6RcPpP0/Specialist-trailer-services-New-online-presence</link><pubDate>Fri 14 Mar 2008</pubDate><feedburner:origLink>http://www.xdweb.co.uk/blog/14/March/2008/Specialist-trailer-services-New-online-presence</feedburner:origLink></item><item><title>Tony Bushell</title><description>&lt;p&gt;Developing from the age of six, you could say that Tony was always going to work with computers, but it wasn't until 1999 that he decided to take up a career in the development world. Starting out in standard ASP sites Tony has now moved to creating sophisticated business applications that allow all users to work more efficiently.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ask Tony what makes him strive and he will always respond &amp;quot;making the clients happy, if their smilin' i'm smilin&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tony's experience includes:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;ECommerce applications&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Secure payment provider integration&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Content Management - Structured / Open&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Newsletter design&amp;nbsp;/ Campaign management&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Stock control / allocation&amp;nbsp;systems&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Holiday / Travel booking systems&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Technologies involved in:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;MSAccess / SQL Server 2000 / 2005&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;IIS / Server Management / Email systems / DNS&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;ASP / ASP.NET / HTML / DHTML / XML / XSLT / RSS / CSS / JS / VBScript&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Flash / Fireworks / Photoshop&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What this means to our clients:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With Tony on board X:drive will take it's offline knowledge of back office and database systems, and combine these with new technologies to bring our customer base new offerings that will allow companies operate across the internet and streamline their processes. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~4/HW3mDb_pZ4M" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</description><link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~3/HW3mDb_pZ4M/Tony-Bushell</link><pubDate>Mon 3 Dec 2007</pubDate><feedburner:origLink>http://www.xdweb.co.uk/blog/3/December/2007/Tony-Bushell</feedburner:origLink></item><item><title>Quick Job Sheet Processing through to Invoice</title><description>&lt;p&gt;Fleetcare's countrywide network of engineers work day and night to keep some of europe's biggest fleets of international hauliers vehicles and trailers moving safely and efficiently. Dockside inspection at many ports around the UK is also a speciality, making good use of the vehicles dwell time on the quayside to spot and rectify both small and major defects.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;hr /&gt;&lt;h4&gt;The Problem&lt;/h4&gt;&lt;p&gt;With such a large number of specialist technicians and engineers spread around the country, dealing with the daily influx of many hundreds of job sheets at head office meant a slick and efficient keying process was required leading to accurate individual and scheduled invoicing.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;hr /&gt;&lt;h4&gt;The Solution&lt;/h4&gt;&lt;p&gt;X:drive worked with Fleetcare to refine all keying processes over a number of months. With neither party resting until efficiencies were brought to each input line - be it calling special discount bulk purchase part prices, predefined work codes, client specified part numbers or the production of export data files to satisfy their individual customer requirements. The outcome has been a truly lightning quick input process leading to accurate invoicing whilst satisfying all parties data requirements.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~4/Gp3wuQIFO-g" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</description><link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~3/Gp3wuQIFO-g/Quick-Job-Sheet-Processing-through-to-Invoice</link><pubDate>Fri 20 Feb 2004</pubDate><feedburner:origLink>http://www.xdweb.co.uk/blog/20/February/2004/Quick-Job-Sheet-Processing-through-to-Invoice</feedburner:origLink></item><item><title>Steel Stock Control</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.xdweb.co.uk/assets/content/blog/anastel_system.jpg" border="0" alt="anastel_system.jpg" width="665" height="200" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Receiving ship loads of steel to the dock-side and strictly managing the delivery of the stock in a first-in first-out order means the control must start before the cargo has even landed. The X:drive system for managing steel stock delivery by the ship load (ranging from angle round to sheet in every conceivable size and bundle) has led to an incredibly accurate and efficienct quotation process. This has also enabled us to cascade these effiencies through the whole quote to order, delivery and invoice process. At any point the system allows for identification of the original delivery ship right through to the last bundle and which invoice it was charged on.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;The Problem&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the fast moving world of construction, fabrication and sourcing of steel materials knowing your stock and back orders is everything. Enpowering your staff with quick and efficient data enabling them to draw up multi-lined quotes quickly and efficiently is a must. Existing systems were found to be rather long in the tooth and did not offer the clear interface and interaction with other Windows based programs. The system that was required needed to cover all of the above and present the company in a clear and concise manner time after time, from initial quotation to invoice production. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;The Solution&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;X:drive came up trumps with a system that exceeded the clients expectations. Not only did it cover requirements of speedy day to day stock control, quotation, order processing and delivery notes etc it also became an effective tool for the initial order to the steel mill. This immediately gave the necessary links to follow every piece of steel from its initial order from the mill to landing on the quayside and onward delivery to site. Requests for quotes from an ever increasing customer base can be dealt with speedily even allowing for the placement of back orders whilst goods are still on the high seas. Overall the X:drive system has given us a robust accuracy and flexibility right through to invoice production via a user friendly interface we could only ever hoped for.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~4/7WZqAmZWTWQ" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</description><link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~3/7WZqAmZWTWQ/Steel-Stock-Control</link><pubDate>Thur 19 Feb 2004</pubDate><feedburner:origLink>http://www.xdweb.co.uk/blog/19/February/2004/Steel-Stock-Control</feedburner:origLink></item><item><title>Sky Engineer and Call Centre Solution</title><description>&lt;p&gt;The Sky satellite dish installation business requires speed and efficiency, not only in tasking and planning the engineers but also managing a busy call centre receiving many hundreds of calls per day requesting installations or service calls. Over the years Spectrum has grown to be one of the most respected partners working for Sky to effeciently install their product.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;The Problem&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Dealing with volume is the key. Starting from needing to process many hundreds of calls requesting Sky installation was just the tip of the iceberg. Each call needed to be accurately processed recording the individual clients package requirements and any special instructions. The system would need to seamlessly calculate charges, communicate with other web services and lead to easy tasking of a large pool of engineers.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Whilst also offering a host of easy to use support tools for checking everything from ordering of viewing cards to serial numbers of equipment held by each engineer.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;The Solution&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;X:drive supplied Spectrum with a solution that delivered call centre flexibility along with built in rating matrix to calculate package costs through to engineer wages based on install type. The system also monitored the daily availability of the engineer resource in real time allowing for immediate bookings to be made with the client during the call. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Planning of the engineers routings was also streamlined and further enhanced with remote user access through an engineers browser based web application. The web based engineer interface also gives a clear view of the progression through the days work. The system also supports many other features including the exchange of data between secure servers with the principle in the operation along with other automated features such as client notification of impending install etc.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;The Future&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;The efficiencies driven by the system have enabled Spectrum to manage a significant growth in their operation without effecting customer service. The next stage is to expand the use of the established system via additional web applications around the group of Spectrum's sister companies.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~4/YU2_7aEGdJU" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</description><link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~3/YU2_7aEGdJU/Sky-Engineer-and-Call-Centre-Solution</link><pubDate>Thur 17 May 2001</pubDate><feedburner:origLink>http://www.xdweb.co.uk/blog/17/May/2001/Sky-Engineer-and-Call-Centre-Solution</feedburner:origLink></item><item><title>Traffic Sheet Solution</title><description>&lt;img src="http://www.xdweb.co.uk/assets/content/blog/priority_freight.jpg" border="0" alt="priority_freight.jpg" width="665" height="200" /&gt; &lt;h3&gt;The Problem&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Priority Freight is a fast growing dynamic company working to ever demanding time constraints in the express freight market. Priority Freight needed a system that could be delivered to a large number of staff over a number of sites. The system had to be able to present both live job details and pending quotations for consideration to all specialist operational staff ranging from vehicle planners, sales staff and driver allocation. The system then had to seamlessly deliver all job information through to purchase and sales ledger accounting areas. A key request was for the system to be able to deal with volume in all areas right from quotation through to final invoice in a quick and user intuitive fashion.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;The Solution&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;After working with Priority Freight for a number of years it was decided a complete re-write was required and SQL was to be the chosen data source giving a robust yet versatile solution. The front-end user interface, was the key to the success of the whole system - ranging from the colour coded traffic sheets delivering clear up to the minute status on each leg of every journey, to the ability to view jobs by vehicle or driver. Speedy delivery of all historical data was an added benefit enabling operational staff to quickly refer to other relevant jobs or accounting staff to view details of historic purchase invoices instantly.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Invoicing across the group is both speedy and versatile enabling the one central accounting facility to deal with the demands of the many Priority Freight locations with their individual requirements catered for automatically within the streamlined invoicing process. Only jobs defined as ready and available for invoicing maybe processed. Completed invoicing can then be data transferred into Sage 100 along with additional job driver and vehicle data to allow for in depth accounting analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;The Future&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;The recent addition of TomTom navigation to the Priority Freight fleet has made available the award winning TomTom WEBFLEET service. X:drive has recently completed stage one of the integration with this service enabling jobs to be delivered direct to the TomTom device in the drivers cab from the X:drive system.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~4/7CuYgDhDeno" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</description><link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/XdriveComputingLtd/~3/7CuYgDhDeno/Traffic-Sheet-Solution</link><pubDate>Sun 14 Nov 1999</pubDate><feedburner:origLink>http://www.xdweb.co.uk/blog/14/November/1999/Traffic-Sheet-Solution</feedburner:origLink></item></channel></rss>
