Another website using WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS). The website brief was to set up a nice simple looking website that could be edited by the client. WordPress was the perfect match with the many features that WordPress provides. We also added a little sprinkling of jQuery to enhance the site with some animation, it grabs the attention of the user showing off what they do on the homepage with the animated slideshow.

SFS are very proud of their testimonials so it was obvious we had to make sure they were prominent on the website, again using some jQuery to show a snippet of a selection of testimonials and sliding along every few seconds.

Ross Negus: We are delighted with the new look and hope that our current and prospective clients will feel the same.
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The animated slideshow on the homepage as previously state uses jQuery for the animation but it also uses some bespoke WordPress plugins to allow the client to edit the images and text themselves, something they have wanted the ability to do for some time.

Look out for some updates in the not too distant future as the website develops.

Visit the Southampton Freight Services website

The Asante Coffee Shop is a charity project to help raise money for the citizens 4 change (c4c) charity in Chandlers Ford in Southampton.

The website is built using WordPress as a CMS (Content Management System) like many other websites built by The Funk House.

The client can edit the content themselves including adding video from YouTube, adding photos and creating or managing the form for the contact section.

The website has been built in such a way that it only uses one page to show all of the content. All of the content goes down the page allowing the user to see all the content in one go by simply scrolling down the page. This was done because the website does not have much content and it also allows the design to have a bit fun with the moving giraffe. Through the use of jQuery clicking on the menu slides the page down and also makes the neck of the Asante giraffe shorter as the page moves down. This was done to add a little bit of fun to the website along with the Twitter bird in the scene at the bottom of the page. Next to the Twitter bird is the latest tweet from the Asante Twitter account (make sure you follow @asantecafe).

The main aim of the website was to be able to show potential customers what the coffee shop is like. The photo gallery can be easily updated by the client as they introduce new food or drinks. The initial photos in the gallery were taken by The Funk House to help out with the website. The gallery makes use of the Fancy box jQuery plugin to pop up the image in the same window without navigating to a new page. This is very common on the web and looks great.

View the Asante website

The Funk House has looked after the Hallin Marine website for some time, along with the website we also do the emails for the press releases and create interactive ebooks for the newsletter.

This latest update was done in conjunction with the Hallin Marine designer. The Funk House was supplied with the design in PSD format and then it was cut up into individual images and laid out in HTML to be applied as templates in the SiteKit CMS.

The feeds on the homepage that show the latest news, projects and the latest city announcements use XML and XSLT to publish the content to the website. Within in some of the templates in the vessels pages are some photo galleries that are also built using XML and XSLT with some Javascript to show the lightbox gallery.

There are also some short promotional videos on the website that are encoded into Flash to allow a simple bespoke video player rather than using YouTube.

The website is managed by many different users from different sections of the company. The website is set up using the SiteKit CMS to allow modifications to the website only if the user has permission to do so, allowing the main admin to manage the website and if necessary set pages to be reviewed before they are published.

Lee has worked closely with Hallin for a number of years and we have always been delighted with his work. During this time Lee has produced our much-praised website, converted newsletters into online ebooks and helped with our email distribution of press releases, including a sophisticated feedback tool.
He has recently completed a project for Hallin that involved demanding deadlines and absolute secrecy and complied absolutely with our requirements.
So, in short, we are a fan and intend to keep using his services!
John Quinn
Director, Hallin Marine Subsea International PLC – John Quinn Hallin Marine

View the Hallin Marine website

Flow is an FTP program that is simple to use and has excellent features.
I am a little bias as I use it all the time, however I have used many other FTP programs and Flow just seems to work.

The interface is what you would expect from Mac software, it is clean, sleek and a little bit whizzy. Add a new bookmark and you will see what I mean by whizzy, the panel slides in and lets you add the necessary details for your website FTP, SFTP, Amazon S3 or MobileMe iDisk servers. Transfer a file and the transfer panel slides in showing the progress and when finished it slides back.

Want to edit some files on your site directly?

I use this feature all the time, not only can you use the inbuilt text editor to edit html, php or any other text based files you can also set it to open files in your favourite editor. I edit my php files using Dreamweaver (don’t worry I use it as a glorified text editor) directly from the server and each time I save the file it shows a quick Growl notification to let me know it was saved. I can then view the site and the change has happened.

Need to see what image is what on the server?

You can with ease by simply clicking on the QuickLook button, it pops up a preview and you can view the image.

My favourite part of Flow is using Droplets. Droplets allow you to use a bookmark as a icon that is stored on your Mac. As an example I put a droplet into my working folder for a website. Then instead of having to launch Flow each time I want to upload a file I can drag the file onto the Droplet and it uploads the file for me.  A progress bar pops up to let me know it has worked even for multiple files.

I have only mentioned a few features that I particularly like but there are so many neat features that you need to try it yourself.

For one lucky reader I am fortunate enough to have a spare copy of Flow that Brian from Extendmac is allowing me to giveaway.

The Competition

To win a copy of Flow simply Tweet this article making sure you have @thefunkhouse in your tweet so I know you have done it.

Here is an example tweet you could use:

RT @thefunkhouse Flow FTP for Mac from @extendmac Free Giveaway:
 http://is.gd/adNLp A funky FTP program for mac that is so useful

If for any reason you do not use Twitter please leave a comment below stating how useful Flow would be for you. Please do not leave short comments that mean nothing, they will not be entered into the competition.

The winner will then be randomly chosen from all of those who participate.

The closing date is 18th March 2010 at 1pm GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)

HAS NOW ENDED

The winner will be notified on Twitter and I will also leave a comment below. The winner will then need to email me using the contact form leaving their Full name and email address so the license can be issued from Brian at Extendmac.

Good luck!