This is one of my favourite jQuery plugins I came across whilst browsing the many available

jQuery.spritely is a jQuery plugin created by Artlogic

Its made for creating  background animation in pure HTML and JavaScript.

“It’s a simple, light-weight plugin with a few simple methods for creating animated sprites such as the birds you see on this page, and dynamic scrolling backgrounds.” Says Artlogic.

This is certainly something I would favour over Flash Animation any day, much faster and in my opinion browser friendly, plus it will work on the iPhone unlike Flash Animations. Very light weight so won’t drain your bandwidth, and best of all its FREE.

jQuery HTML Animation

Check it out here: http://spritely.net/

html · javascript · jQuery

This is a great jQuery plugin, works really well for scaling background images in websites, if you have a background image and want to keep it all in view but allow to resize for different size screens, here’s a great little jQuery plugin to do just that.

jQuery Image resize and Scaling Plugin

Download it here

See a Demo Here

image scaling · javascript · jQuery · jquery plugin

It seems that more people are now becoming aware of Magento, and more and more clients are actually starting to request this platform for their Ecommerce Website. Magento has many great features and very user friendly which what I guess is making it the choice of many people today. It has so many Ecommerce features that in a custom built solution would stretch even the more generous budgets, so with Magento you can have a robust feature rich Ecommerce system without all the costs of a custom built solution.

What makes Magento the Choice of many:

1. Its Open Source, open source platforms give developers to ability to adapt the code to the clients needs, the code is fully available to change, modify and build on making Open Source a perfect choice when developing Ecommerce Websites.

2. The standard version of Magento is full with Ecommerce features, from advanced customer and order management, superb statistics and reporting, automated invoicing, stock management, integration with Google Shopping, Google Sitemaps, plus the extension library is rich with superb addons, giving the customer a wide choice of features without costing the earth. (See Features of Magento Here )

4. The Magento Community is full of developers and programmers all reporting bugs, sharing experiences and advice, building new extensions, this helps developers find quick solutions to issues faced that may have already been solved in the Community.

5. The structure and stability of Magento is very powerful, Magento is built on the Zend Framework, a powerful PHP platform, Magento is very secure and structurally strong making it an all round great choice for any Ecommerce Web Design.

For more on Magento Programming, Ecommerce Website Design with Magento visit our website at www.2jdesign.co.uk

ecommerce · eCommerce Web Design · eCommerce Website Design · magento

I know as much as the next person how hard it is to start a new business, one of the things 2J Design like to do is to help new businesses succeed.

We offer small business websites from only £99 for upto 2 Pages, this can often be enough for your first web presence, this will enable you to have a point of contact online we generally have a turnaround time of 48 hours on Small Business Cheap Web Design projects.

Many clients in the past have had a Small Business Website created then come back once the business has started to move forward and gone for either a corporate CMS website or Ecommerce Web Design.

If you are starting a new small business get in touch and see what offers we have available for you.

Cheap Web Design · Small Business Website

This isnt a usual blog for 2J Design as its not related to Web Design or SEO, however every so often you come across something that deserves a little bit of promotion.

Many people will already know Liam Richards of Strike from Britain’s Got Talent, and I’m sure many youngsters have dreamed of becoming the next Strike, well its not as un-realisitic as many would think, if you are based in Sheffield or surrounding areas, or are willing to travel Liam has now opened Excel Academy, a studio aimed at all ages from Mixed Martial Arts to Kick boxing  and Dance Classes.

Excel Martial Arts always look to provide an excellent service to the whole family and encourage students to achieve excellence in all areas of their lives. Their aim is to provide a service that is not only great for the community, helps to reduce crime, bullying and anti-social behaviour but also makes people feel happier and healthier. Excel Martial Arts accept anyone regardless of race, sex or nationality, as one of their aims is to bring people of the community together.

Excel Martial Arts main passion is teaching children and adults, motivating them to achieve their goals and showing them that if they work hard enough they can aspire to be whatever they want to be.

They  deliver classes that educate children about life skills such as:

Focus
Confidence
Discipline
Respect
Perseverance

They also promote:
Health and Fitness
Anti-bullying
Nutrition
If you would like to find out more information and times on Martial Arts in Sheffield  visit the website at www.excel-in-life.com

Brazilian Ju Jitsu · Dance Classes · Fitness Training Sheffield · Karate · Kick Boxing · Martial Arts Sheffield · Sheffield

Since the launch of the iPhone from apple apps have been the big talking point, it seems more and more companies are now requesting apps for their business.

2J Design will be launching iPhone Application Development as a new service in the next 2 months, we have researched greatly into the technology behind this and now have our systems in place, it seems its not as easy to become an Apple Developer for iPhone and iPad applications as many think, after gathering the requirements together we are almost ready to move forward with iPhone Application development.

Some of the services we will offer will be

We design iPhone applications of the following categories:

• Shopping
• Entertainment and Games
• News
• Search Tools
• Social Networking
• Utilities
• Dictionaries
• Business and Finance
• Messaging

Joining this service with our eCommerce Web Design packages and Website Design services give us the opportunity to advise and offer customers the next generation in marketing, and business tools. Thousands of companies are either in the process of this or considering the benefits, over the coming months we will be writing some articles to give people a more detailed account of whats involved and the costs in creating such applications.

For further details and enquiries before the official launch you can email sales@2jdesign.co.uk for more information.

iPad · iPad Application Developements · iPhone · iPhone Application Development · iPhone Apps

One of the first questions we always ask new clients is if they require a static website or one with an admin system allowing them to update the website and images from a simple custom built CMS system, developed and designed by 2J Design.

So what’s the Difference?
There’s not much difference from the front end, most of our websites are built using PHP and the use of Mod Re-write which changes the messy PHP URLs to SEO friendly URLs, so from a user perspective the website will look very similar to a static one, the technology is in the background.

A static website is generally built using XHTML / CSS which is all coded into the html pages, a experienced user of HTML and CSS would still be able to update the website but by using a CMS system this can be made very simple to a none experienced person.

Based on our CMS system the technology behind the website is PHP which is a powerful coding language used to execute the information from the database and pass information back to a MySQL database when you wish to update your website.

The admin system allows users to update the html of the website is a ‘Microsoft Word’ Style editor, meaning no knowledge of HTML is required, at times certain things are not possible that a coder could achieve but in general the CMS is used for updating text and images so layout is not generally a big factor as this is pre-set by the designer.

So hows it work?
The admin system is built using PHP scripts and a WYSIWYG Editor, this converts the HTML code into a easy to manage web page that is up-datable, when the user updates to content this then passes the HTML code back to the MySQL database. The pages in the front end of the website call on this data and insert it into the page making the updates you make instantly live.

So how do I decide?
The way we generally ask clients to decide is by the following, are you wanting to make regular changes to your website?, will you require more than 3 large updates per month?

If the above answers are yes then it would make sense to pay the extra cost for the CMS system, this will certainly save you money in the long run as most design companies will charge for updates to a static website from around £25 per update.

So the extra few hundred pounds spent for a CMS system will certainly pay for its self within a few months.

For more information on our Website Design Services visit www.2jdesign.co.uk

cms · cms web design · CSS · MySQL · PHP · static website · website design · XHTML