The application, Travellogger, was developed by White Wall Web in response to recent stipulation enforced by SARS, which states that effective 1 March 2009, South African tax payers will be required to properly track their travel and related expenses in order to qualify for rebates.

Travellogger enables users to track their mileage online throughout the year and easily export the data to a CSV file for use in Excel, when it becomes time to submit their annual returns. This application is also compatible with most cellphone browsers, making it ideal for “on the road” logging.

All  data is stored on one of our web servers in the Cape Town Data Centre environment, greatly reducing the risk of data-loss normally associated with paper based alternatives. Ruby on Rails is the web language of choice used to build the application and its developers worked in conjunction with RSAWEB engineers to setup and migrate the application onto our web servers.

Visit www.travellogger.co.za to check it out.

Have you seen our new Data Centre? Take the tour

Online convenience for tax payers

A good website is never finished. The fluid nature of the web & technology in general, demands that you need to be constantly upgrading, redesigning and publishing if you want to stay on top.

We often advise clients to adopt a continual improvement philosophy when it comes to their website, encouraging them to keep content fresh and to make a few small improvements every month. However, from time to time a major change is needed, we felt that time had come.

It’s also important to be listing to your users. The site is, after all, for their benefit.

One such example of where we applied this principle was in expanding the pixel dimensions of our site. Based on older web-standards, our website was design to fit within an 800 x 600 pixel PC screen resolution. Usage statistics however, showed us that only 4.5 percent of our users were still using the 800 x 600 pixel resolution, with the majority using 1024 x 768! Consequently, we changed the site to fit the 1024 x 768 resolution, which not only catered to the majority of our users, but also gave us the extra space to add more content and improve the overall usability and aesthetics of the site.

Other noticeable improvements included:

Improved SEO capabilities. this helps users find us easily using search engines such as Google or Yahoo.

More informative. More content around our products and services was added to aid users in making informed decisions.

More Helpful. Various help mechanisms such as our Online Broadband Consultant help users to find what they’re looking for without having to spend money on a phone call.

Refined usability. It’s the little things that improve usability. Accessible menus, adding extra links, removing unnecessary pages/steps.

Got an opinion? go take a look at the improved site here, and let us know what you think.

Have you seen our new Data Centre? Take the tour

Our website evolves

In the real world, people can distinguish a business because of its location, structure, window displays, or signs before deciding whether to go into the store. While walking down a street, you can distinguish a bank from a hair salon via their signage and window layout. This immediately helps you make up your mind, and helps you associate a particular brand with its product offering. However, in the online world, prospective visitors have no idea what your company does before they reach your website and read its content. Unlike in the real world you can’t stand on a street corner while looking at their shop window know that Amazon sells books, you have to go to their website to find that out. For this reason, it is a good idea to in some way describe what your business does in its domain name if possible.

In the real world people can also forget your shops name, but because they remember the shops location, they may return. This is not the case on the internet, who ever says: “I can’t remember that websites domain name, but I remember its IP Address…” It never happens. So domain names on the internet need to be memorable.

Your domain name can spell the success of your brand on the internet. Your domain name is also your only weapon to ensure people find you and more importantly remember you on the internet.

My six points to remember when choosing a domain name are:

1. Keep it short.
2. Keep it simple.
3. Describe your business in some way.
4. Be memorable and unique.
5. Always be able to say your domain name like you spell it!
6. Make it personal, not too generic.

Have you seen our new Data Centre? Take the tour

Choosing the right Domain Name