It’s the first of a series of changes that we have planned so the fun doesn’t stop here.

The biggest change is that the sight has had a total makeover. The new look is a lot cleaner and easier to use. We’ve also rearranged a few section so that it flows a little better.

The other big addition is that of a ‘Wishlist’ functionality. A few users asked for this and we thought it was a good idea so you can now add bottle that you want to buy to Sommelier.net.au.

There are a range of other improvements as as I say, there are plenty more to come.

We hope you like it and we encourage you to let us know what you think by emailing us at wine@sommelier.net.au

It makes some minor changes to the layout on both the HTML and CSS side which means that anything appearing below the gallery is spaced out a little better.

We’ve added a new class, .go_clear which adds this spacing and could be edited for the purposes of customisation if needed.

It takes the standard WordPress Gallery and applies the Moodular jQuery plugin to make the gallery pretty.

It’s very straight forward to use but also quite customisable with further customisations already under development.

For now you can download it from our Gallery Only page and we’ll have it up on the WordPress site as soon as possible.

Update: and it’s now up on the WordPress Plugin Directory site.

We hope you enjoy it!

Here’s a Demo featuring a series of photos by Ariane Barton:

We love the comic so considered it an honour to be able to contribute in some small way.

The creator wished to be able to provide ‘VIP access’ and trial subscriptions to users for the purpose of reviewing and promotion.

We developed a ‘back end’ where the creator could generate tokens that would then be emailed to the designated user. When the user enters their details on the iPad app, the app would check with the web service and then provide additional access depending on the result.

Simple enough but good fun too.

Tech notes: The web service was build using PHP and MySQL. The data was transmitted as JSON over an SSH connection.

Firstly, we have opened a UK office. I (Hammy) have moved to London and even set up a new personal website: http://hammygoonan.com. Please get in touch if you have some development work that needs doing in the UK.

We have also launched a few new sites:

2012 Semaine Fédérale en Australie

For the second year in a row Hammy has developed a registration site for Audax Australia’s annual Semaine Fédérale cycling event.

This custom built eCommerce site accommodates a complex pricing system which dynamically adjusts according to the user’s order, their age and their membership of the organisation. It also processes payments and has the capacity to order merchandise and add additional children riders.

The site also accommodates the complex reporting requirements of the organisation so that they can manage the event on the day.

Tech notes: The site was built using CakePHP and jQuery
URL: audaxaustralia.org.au/sfa2012

Your Voice in House

Your Voice in House is a database of every Australian politician. Users can search for politicians by name, electorate or portfolio and contact them using the email form provided. It provides a comprehensive management system that allows the administrator to update and upload new details as well as allowing end users to alert the administrator to an error in the database.

An API is currently being developed for the site.

Tech notes: The site was built using CakePHP, jQuery and jQuery UI
URL: yourvoiceinhouse.org.au

Realestate 4 Ransom

This website was built for an independent film about Australia’s housing crisis. The film makers wanted a neat, compact website that had a reasonable amount of functionality (ie the ability to organise a screening of the film) and that was easy to manage themselves. As they were already familiar with WordPress, I adapted it to suit the needs of the site to enable ease of use. The film ended up generating an incredible amount of publicity which the website provided solid support for.

Tech notes: This is a heavily customised WordPress site with a template built from scratch.
URL: realestate4ransom.com

Terry Johal

This was a fairly straight forward WordPress install that we modified the very neat Six Hours Theme for. Our client just wanted a clean, uncluttered look which is exactly what we gave him.

The site also includes his twitter feed, a basic events management system and an automated weekly digest of his twitter feed.

Tech notes: A customised WordPress site.
URL: terryjohal.com

It will improve with time but for now it’s a lot better than the ‘coming soon’ page we’ve had there for eternity.

You can see it here: https://audaxaustralia.org.au/sfa/

Of course, all of us have been releasing websites individually for a while but it is great to finally get one out as Spire Software!

The site is a registration site for the Semaine Federale en Australie, run by Audax Australia. It is build using the Cakephp framework as well as the JQuery Javascript library.

The event has a fairly complex pricing system with discounts for being under 16, being a member of the cycling club and for early bird registration. It allows people to become a member of Audax when they register in order to receive a discount and has a fairly detailed reporting system out the back.

I can’t wait for the next one!

Personally I think it is a terrible idea. Yes I’m concerned about the potential for the filter to interfere with free speech and civil liberties, but the fundamental problem with it is that it simply won’t work. That makes it a very expensive mistake as well.

This video by the Electronic Fronteers Foundation shows just how ineffective it will be:

It goes without saying that child pornography is abhorrent, but a filter of the Internet is simply bad policy and a horrible waste of money.

But I did recently come across this blog with an article that struck home for me ‘Why Do So Many Companies Suck at Social Media?‘

I certainly agree with this:

Part of the problem is that most companies are not inherently “social” to begin with. It’s not in their DNA to understand what it means for individual employees to start having conversations with the social web at large as representatives of a company personality. Marketing is about many things including connecting audiences with products they want to buy.

The key is to give people something they want. That might be a good laugh or information on an issue that is important to them. Which is why I quite like the way Bill Cosby lunched an iPhone App to assure his fans that he is not, in fact, dead.

The story is about “…Jared Cohen, the youngest member of the State Department’s policy planning staff, and Alec Ross, the first senior adviser for innovation to the secretary of state…”

The are using social media sites like Twitter as “an integral part of a new State Department effort to bring diplomacy into the digital age, by using widely available technologies to reach out to citizens, companies and other nonstate actors.”

And here’s the thing, when they tweet, they tweet as themselves, not as representative of the State Department or anything else, but as individuals who work for the State Department which obviously forms a major part of their identity and what they tweet about.

In other words, they tweet about major events in diplomatic circles (Guinea’s first free election since 1958) and pop cultural or personal stuff as well (the season premiere of Entourage).

I see a lot of people using social media tools purely for marketing purposes and it just doesn’t work. Why would you voluntarily add a series of ads to your twitter feed? It’s uninteresting and I’m bombarded with enough advertising as it is already, thank you very much.

That’s why I quite like this site: howtousetwitterformarketingandpr.com

A good example of this is politicians. Far too many don’t ‘get’ twitter and just use it for self promotion and cheap shots at the opposition. Classic examples include Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, Peter Garrett and Andrew Robb

A notable exception is Malcolm Turnbull, a known tech-head who has a fantastic banter going with AMWU chief Paul Howes.

I follow all these people because I’m a political junky but they are largely incredibly boring. The people I find interesting are journalists, programmers and academics who fill my twitter feed with a plethora of fascinating insights and links. In fact twitter has just become my default news feed and it usually beats any ‘established’ media to the punch by quite a bit.

Another good example of this is Wineries. I’ve built websites for a couple of wineries now and my own personal project is wine-related (Sommelier.net.au) so I follow quite a few wineries on Twitter. Those that do it we tell me about what’s going on with their harvest, when they are bottling wines and how the tastings are going. The bad ones just tell me the latest special they have at their cellar door.

So when using these tools, make them interesting. Tell the personal side. That’s how you get people following you and that’s how people will find out about your fantastic services.

Perhaps the most notable tweeter of all is Stephen Fry, so I’ll leave you with his comments to the ABC:

“If you’re not on Twitter and you’ve only heard of it and it’s only been described to you, then naturally you will go, ‘Phww! What?! Never! What is… I never! What the! Oh for heaven’s, Oh good gracious! Oh, what?! Are we supposed to be interested… Oh, Lord! How trivial! How tedious!’ etc, etc, etc.

“I can completely understand why they would think that but they should bear in mind, I think, that maybe early in the 18th century there was a new kind of technology as hand presses and printing became cheaper and cheaper and cheaper.

“It wasn’t the full invention of printing, any more than Twitter is the full invention of the internet. It’s a little development within it that seems so small. And there was the little development of the hand presses that led to magazines, journalism.”