Twist Systems RSS Blogg

Snow February 2009

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:52:35 GMT

Snow covers most parts of Wales and the UK!!

Tourism Website Package

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:32:48 GMT

We just wanted to let you all know of the Tourism Website Package we’ve put together.

With the help of our customers, we’ve been able to create the tools needed to grow their tourism business. These tools have now been combined into one tourism package, offering great value for money.

What you get at a glance:

6 page template website.
Content management for news items.
Keyword research and search engine optimisation.
eMail marketing solution with subscriber management, and reporting.
Website submission to major search engine.
Website visitor statistics account.
12 months hosting and .co.uk domain name.

For full details and prices visit our: Tourism Package

Merry Christmas 08

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 12:15:31 GMT

We'd like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thanks to everyone for your continued support throughout 2008.

We will be taking a well earned break from: Friday the 19th of December 2008 until Monday the 5th of January 2009.

From all the team at Twist Systems - Merry Christmas

Hey, we're in the web designers idea book

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 20:59:15 GMT

The postman arrived this morning with an unexpected delivery. Opening the package revealed a shiny new paperback of The Web Designers Idea Book, and guess what - we're in it!

The author Patrick McNeil has cataloged more than 5,000 sites on his website and showcased in this book are the very best examples. He goes on to say...

" I like to think of his book as a snap-shot in time. It captures the web as it exists in 2008, showcasing the very best we have to offer at this time. The inclusion of certain topics and the exclusion of others reflects the status of the industry and will hopefully serve as a reference point for years to come. "

I must say this book has been extremely well received and is a modern resource for all web designers out there. You can head on over to Amazon to buy this shiny goodness.

Magic...

eCommerce Organic Baby Food

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:42:05 GMT

Linda Thomas has just launched the Pure Organic Baby Food eCommerce website.

The Pure Organic Baby Food company produce and deliver delicious and nutritious, home-cooked organic weaning purees, organic baby meals and organic desserts for discerning customers living in, or visiting, South West Wales.

If your looking for an eCommerce solution and want to sell your products online, get in touch, were nice people to work with.

Further info can be found in our Pure Organic Baby Food case study.

The Bridal Factor Competition

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:11:28 GMT

AmyChloé Bridal are giving away a Wedding Gown up to the value of £1500 and up to four Bridesmaid dresses in a superb competition.

Each couple will have to convince five judges why they are worthy to go through to the next round, a little like the X Factor. You will have 60 seconds to convince the judges that you have that BRIDAL FACTOR they are looking for.

Check it out: The Bridal Factor Competition

Matthews Estate Agents Cardiff

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 17:07:21 GMT

Matthews Estate Agents of Cardiff formerly of Hunters contacted us, wishing to develop a new web presence that needed to integrate with their Reap IT esatate agency software.

Matthews cover properties throughout Cardiff and Overseas and from the start it was obvious that their customers receive a superb service, with top notch floor plans and 3D walthroughs being the tip of the iceberg.

Our initial research highlighted a need for a better search experience, which was then structured to allow search engines to crawl a properties information. With the right foundations in place we can now look forward to seeing Matthews Estate Agency rank and perform better.

If your an estate agency and are looking for a design and development team that have experience with Vebra, CoreSystems, DezRez and now Reap IT back office systems then get in touch, were nice people to work with.

Further info can be found in our Matthews Estate Agents case study if thats your bag!

Times Best of Britain - Rooms with sea views

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 22:59:32 GMT

Its so rewarding to stumble upon articles that include our clients businesses. Chris Haslam whilst on his tour of the great British coastline has added 3 Pen Cei and their 5 star bed and breakfast to the Times Onlines Travel Best of Britain with this being WEEK FOUR of his travel through Llandudno to the Gower.

Chris said, "Resembling a harbourside fisherman’s cottage on the outside, 3 Pen Cei is a five-star B&B that looks like a Style-section layout on the inside, with the kind of decor that makes you feel sophisticated, stylish and, this being Aberaeron, ever so grown-up. Which is a good thing, we reckon."

Articles like these are a great boost for tourism within Wales and a great resource for holiday seekers across the globe as well as for the readers of the Times Online which just keeps getting better and better.

Lesley and John deserve every bit of praise, their loving renovation of Number 3 Pen Cei and their attention to detail has rewarded them with a much deserved 5 star rating through the Visit Wales scheme.

This is not the first article I have come across, so as a business who has the trust of our clients we should also make our comments heard. Its good publicity for publishers, our clients and us.

A happy circle of publicity.

Simply Bow Quarter

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 15:44:01 GMT

A quick blog before I break up for a weeks hols and just my luck it looks like its going to rain throughout!

Anyhoos without further a doo, I thought I'd post the Simply Bow Quarter case study.

This unique East London development is historically part of the famous Bryant and May match factory. Simply Bow Quarter are an independent estate and lettings agency who deal exclusively with properties within Bow Quarter one of Londons largest communal gardens.

Branding was completed a while back but the website is on hold. Will let you know as soon as it is live.

Been a bit quiet

Wed, 28 May 2008 09:38:59 GMT

Sorry all for not providing any new work for you to view or (rip)

However we are close to finsishing several large shinny new sites for you all to have a look at

Check back soon

ARGs a different take on marketing

Wed, 28 May 2008 09:32:48 GMT

Over the last few days whilst surfing around to see whats new on the internet, ii stumbled upon ARGs or Alternate Reality Gaming. Ok so its not strictly a new concept but most deffinately a clever concept.

The basic idea is that you use technology such as email, mobiles and other real world technology as well as traditional snail mail to interact with a fictional alternate reality by solving clues and puzzles. What i particularly like is that you can become immersed in this world along with others to reach the end goal.

The obvious driver is to market a product or a service but it very refreshing to see a different spin on marketing as supposed to in your face mass advertising which must be starting to jade everybody, traditional marketing almost needs to follow a predefines set of rules to become successful where as ARGs define their own rules.

One point of note whilst discussing this concept with my wife last night over dinner, she could understand it but questioned why? So this leaves me believing that although i like the ARG approach there is still plenty of life in the good old Bogof offer

Good staing point : www.argn.com

Twist Local Release 2.5

Wed, 14 May 2008 21:32:42 GMT

There were a few areas on Twist Local that have always been on the to do list, but hey no longer with the release of Version 2.5

Login and create account have now been seperated into their own pages to make user navigation easier and general layout of pages have been rinsed and tidied up.

The sponsorship areas have been simplified and made much bigger whilst a singular advertising price has been introduced. The introduction of Google maps to area pages which will be populated with local sponsors as part of their advertising cost to gives more bang for your buck!

A lot of on-site search engine optimisation has taken place to increase visibility even more, company profile pages are usually getting indexed within 24hrs.

If you have a business or know of others who could benefit from our free business promotion then please spread the word.

And to think that all this is free to local businesses in Wales courtesy of the boys and girls at Twist Systems.

Heck we're good to ya'll

Chauffeured Solutions

Wed, 07 May 2008 11:20:46 GMT

Wales’s latest first class chauffeuring company website is now live.

Chauffeured Solution South Wales offer a personalised, luxury, executive quality, chauffeuring service, aimed towards professionals who require a tailored transport experience for their individual or group travel requirements into, out of and around Wales.

Design, development and promotion case study: Chauffeured Solutions

Some juicy projects are in development so watch this space!!

Getting Photoshop vector shapes into Illustrator

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:51:50 GMT

Do you want to get the custom shapes or vectors you have created in Photoshop into Illustrator?

Surely you can drag and drop I hear you say... well yes you can but not with the move tool, which is where I was going wrong.

The drag and drop route needs to be done by using the Path Selection Tool to keep the vector path intact, shown below:

Simply select you vector or custom shape, then drag and drop onto your Illustrator document and hey presto you've kept all the vector goodness which you can edit now edit in Illustrator.

Is there another way

Sure there is, simply use Photoshops export facility to export your custom shape or vector path.

Simply go to File > Export > Paths to Illustrator...

Photoshop will save your vector as its own Illustrator file, so give it a filename, choose a location and click save.

You can now open the file in Illustrator but beware the page will be blank, so do a quick select all (command + A Mac, Control + A PC) and you will notice that your shape is there, just without a fill or stroke.

Importing Illustrator files into Photoshop

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:55:35 GMT

As a designer there will come a time when you want to get your Illustrator vectors into Photoshop without them being rasterized. Basically we want to keep all the vector scalability and goodness!!

Here are two of the quickest ways to do this.

1) Drag and Drop

Drag and drop is definitely the easiest way to achieve this without having to alter any settings. Photoshop simply creates a new Vector Smart Object on a new layer for you.To center artwork just hold down Shift while dragging.

To import dragged vector artwork as a work path hold down Control (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) while dragging.

2) Copy and Paste

Copying and pasting into photoshop is another quick alternative but requires the File Handling and Clipboard preferences in Illustrator to be confiqured properly as well as using the right paste options in Photoshop.

Setting the preferences in Illustrator:

You can configure Illustrator so that it also copies PDF or AICB format. These two formats allow you to retain Illustrator features in artwork pasted in Photoshop. PDF retains Illustrator transparency, while AICB retains Illustrator paths.

(Windows) Choose Edit > Preferences > File Handling & Clipboard.
(Mac OS X) Illustrator > Preferences > File Handling & Clipboard.
In the Clipboard section, select the desired format.
If you selected AICB, select either Preserve Paths or Preserve Appearance.
Click OK.

Paste options in Photoshop:

In the Paste dialog box, select how you want to paste the Adobe Illustrator art and then click OK:

Smart Object Pastes the art as a Vector Smart Object that can be scaled, transformed, or moved without degrading the image. As the art is placed, its file data is embedded in the Photoshop document on a separate layer.
Pixels Pastes the art as pixels that can be scaled, transformed, or moved before it is rasterized and placed on its own layer in the Photoshop document.
Path Pastes the art as a path that can be edited with the pen tools, Path Selection tool, or Direct Selection tool. The path is pasted into the layer that’s selected in the Layers palette.
Shape Layer Pastes the art as a new shape layer (a layer containing a path filled with the foreground color).

Other ways to import Illustrator vectors into photoshop

RBS Grand Slam Winners 2008

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 20:41:21 GMT

Wales have won the RBS Six Nations Grand Slam 2008 with a 29-12 victory!

I'm a firm believer in credit where credit is due and I applaud the hard work of all of the Welsh team, Warren Gatland, Sean Edwards and all the other coaches over the superb win over France.

We didn't just win, we deserved to win this tournament. To only conceed two tries in the last five games speaks volumes.

The two try scorers on the day were winger Shane Williams who now overtakes Gareth Thomas as Wales' new record try-scorer with 41, Shanes simply been a blaze this tournament and flanker Martyn Williams (RBS man of the match) who's been an absolute rock for Wales since..well forever!

Well done Wales, RBS Six Nations Grand Slam Winners of 2008, the nations proud of you.

Amy Chloe Bridal Shop

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:27:03 GMT

The Amy Chloe Bridal Shop website is now live, or at least in final beta!

If your planning your wedding day and want to look and feel wonderful, then Debbies Bridal Shop in Ammanford has a fantastic range of bridal gowns, bridesmaids and prom dresses as well as shoes, tiaras and accessories to fulfill your every wish.

If your local you'll know the shop, its the one your girlfriend would love to look around!

More details can be found in our case study: Amy Chloe Bridal

Crazy robot from Arizona

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 20:58:50 GMT

*** Update ***

Support information for the: Searchme's Spider (Charlotte)

Have you seen this robot.

We certainly have, we even managed to capture him on camera, that's his mugshot, doesn't he look crazy!

Well over the last month we most certainly have and we've been monitoring the high amount of direct traffic that he has been adding to our site.

Looking through the stats, they all originated from one source - Limelight Networks in Tempe, Arizona.

Originally we thought that somone was scraping our site but digging a little deeper showed that were not the only ones experiencing the same problems: Unusual traffic from Limelight Networks

Hey Mr Crazy Searchme Robot stop requesting javascript from our site its throwing our stats outta wack. So in the meantime Kavam.net and Limelight Network we'll have to remove your crazy ass smile from our stats, its just not nice.

Robots photograph courtesy of Jane, the queen of beauty

Word!

Web analysis and report offer

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 18:58:45 GMT

The Twist Systems January Sale is offering a Full Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Analysis and Report on your website for only £250 (Usually worth £500) thats a huge 50% off !!!

What work will be carried out?

Keyword Analysis - Discover the best keywords for your website.
Website Evaluation - Highlights problem areas on your website and solutions.
Keyword Ranking - Detailed ranking of your search engine positions in Google, Yahoo and MSN

Make Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) work for your business.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - A proven way to bring more customers to your website and really get your business seen by Google, Yahoo, MSN and other search engines.

If you're considering investing in on-line marketing, Twist Systems offer solutions to really get your business seen.

More details: Website analysis and reports

Creative winding down

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 13:56:26 GMT

Well after a hectic couple of months I'm finally starting to wind down, aparently it's holiday time!

This year I'm looking forward to taking some creative time off [woohoo], although intermails and intrawebs will still need to be checked - I can still look forward to putting my snooze hat on.

To prevent boredom I've armed myself with 3 books, (1) To refresh my branding knowledge and (2) To bubble up some creative juices.

Wally Ollins - On Brand.
LogoLounge: 2,000 International Identities by Leading Designers.
Logo Savvy: Top Brand Design Firms Share Their Naming and Identity Strategies.

I've already had a sneaky peek at Logo Savvy which I'm already looking forward to reading.

Anyhoo's if you don't hear from me before hand have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year.

Please don't steal SeeWebGo

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 09:03:24 GMT

Thanks to everyone who took the time to send us an email pointing out the theft, you are all stars

Well we knew it would happen....again. Come on people please dont steal!

As the Big Noob kindly put it - "The answer is always going to be 'no'. Even if you'd asked before you took anything, the answer would still be 'no'. No, we do not want you to copy our work."

Im not flattered that you feel the need to replicate our design but please respect our copyright and remove this lame copy of our site: http://seehttp://www.twistsystems.co.ukwebgo.com/

Update: The order of the universe has been restored so here is a screen grab of the offending page just for old times sake.

A big thank you to everyone who contacted us with support and of course the heads up!

Compliment or Crap!

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 08:56:53 GMT

Hi All,

When we launched this website we where very happy with what we had produced and the amazing response we have received from other Web agencies, CSS website galleries etc really promoted the effort made with it. (nearly 3 months development and fine tuning)

Well this morning you can imagine how we felt when we received contacts from other designers regarding a website they had come across.

www.seewebgo.com

Have a look at this site and yes Guess where they got their design from. If like us you are sick of people ripping your hard work because they are well talentless or lazy then why not contact SeeWebGo via the yes you guessed it Hire Us button and let them know.

Thought I would get this blog up very quickly so that our SEO will start to kick in now and this will be indexed very soon, and probably the first link for seewebgo.com will come from this blog.

Update: The order of the universe has been restored so here is a screen grab of the offending page just for old times sake.

A big thank you to everyone who contacted us with support and of course the heads up!

Seasons Greetings

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 15:40:02 GMT

Twist Systems will be taking a well earned break from: Friday, December 21st 2007 until Thursday, 3rd of January 2008.

FROM THE WHOLE TEAM AT TWIST SYSTEMS WE WOULD LIKE TO WISH EVERYONE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Make my logo bigger

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:49:23 GMT

Make your logo bigger now!

Improve Brand Recognition!
Grab Customers Attention!
Works in Minutes!
Goes on smooth!

Make my logo bigger cream also comes with White Space Eliminator, Starburst Dust, Fluorescentsizer and Emotionator!

Wow!

Gatlan for Wales.

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 09:02:49 GMT

Well as we are all aware we have a new national coach Warren Gatland.

Looking at WGs time spent with Wasps and Ireland and what he acheived we should all be looking forward to his impact over the next 4 years.

If we look back at the last time we won the Grand Slam during Ruddocks era then i think every body would agreee that the success was as a direct result of the foundations put in by Henry and more-so Hanson a tough talking Kiwi. With Interest it seems according to Eddie Buttler that part of Ireland and oSullivans success was also built on the foundations of Gattland.

Looking at the recent performances of Wales and Ireland then one could say that now that we have a coach such as Gatland maybee we should allow him enough time to recreate the structure so required in our game and maybe (to you the WRU) let him start building on the foundations.

I would also like to see some of our regional coaches start to adopt some of the no nonsence approach that we seem to be prepared to pay large salaries for, however i do think our regions are doing ok.

Well done The Dragons you continue to perform against whoever you are faced with, maybee some of the better squads should take note.

The Boat House...

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 20:46:30 GMT

...Bed and Breakfast website is live!

So whether your planning a quick business stopover, long lazy weekend or jam packed activity holiday in Wales, their delicious home-cooked meals and top quality accommodation will set you up for a carefree and memorable stay.

The Boat House Bed and Breakfast is situated in Laugharne South West Wales home of the famous poet Dylan Thomas...Laugharne’s most famous resident who lived in a number of houses before settling in The Boat House that nestles on stilts on the estuary.

A case study on the website design, search engine optimisation, blog development, email database integration and promotion is available here: The Boat House Bed and Breakfast

Busy a quick update

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 08:53:47 GMT

We Been doing a lot on modifications on Twist local this week , we have extended the the special offers so that they can now run for up to 12 months all for free and some other minor improvements to usablity.

We have been busy in meetings with existing and new customers, some exiting stuff ahead.

We have also received some very exiting news.... watch this space as this will be big.

Today im going to be writing a desktop application, which i am looking forward to immensly been a while see how much i can remember.

Also we have had several requests asking us how we implemented the contact form on TwistSystems. I shall hopefully get a tutorial up in the next week or so and i shall also touch on our techniques for css/xhtml/asp.net site without using theemes and master pages.

All for now

Sheridan

Promoting Welsh Business

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 11:10:35 GMT

Twist Local are not only offering FREE business listings and profile pages for businesses in Wales but get this...

...Simply add your business or log back into your account to add a FREE special offer.

Special offers can run from 1 - 12 months, it's up to you!

Work for Homes of Distinction

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 10:48:05 GMT

Why work for Homes of Distinction Wales from Emma Davey?

Homes of Distinction Wales is an Estate Agency dealing with high value properties for sale throughout Wales. They not only sell properties but sell the lifestyle of Wales as being the place to live and enjoy life.

They have a professional website where properties will have a high profile and reach individuals who want a better quality of life.

They are looking for Sales Associates who want to be in control of their own destiny, working with like minded professionals as an independent contractor. The more properties that you can list and sell the higher the earnings you can achieve.

So if you are ambitious, professional and have estate experience then Visit: Homes of Distinction to experience the difference.

Nice weather for winter !

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 14:46:41 GMT

Hope the weather is good where you are , its great here

Organic Baby Food Co.

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 12:52:59 GMT

This will be an interesting project to work on.

~~Watch this space!~~ Further info can be found in our Pure Organic Baby Food case study.

Mac OSX Leopard

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:21:50 GMT

Well here here she blows OSX Leopard arrives on the 26th of October 2007, the 300+ features page will give you an insight into the world's best opertating system.

In my view anyway!! Get a closer look at the features that will transform your Mac.

Homes of Distinction Wales

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 18:56:57 GMT

Not only is Emma Davey celebrating the success of her first year in business but we can finally announce to the world...the new..the super sparkley Homes of Distinction service from Emma Davey Estate Agents.

iIf you're in search of that country and rural house, coastal, town and residential or equestrian fine property Emmas luxury homes for sale team are on hand to offer a unique one-to-one service.

More information is available on the Homes of Distinction case study.

Not another WRU draft plan

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:32:09 GMT

Not another WRU draft plan.

Well firstly what a game for the neutral, the game between Fiji and Wales was a storming game and a good advert for rugby. Unfortunately for Wales the wrong result and as usual in the principality the blame game begins and the coach has gone.

So after watching the fallout and listening to the opinions of the experts and the public I decided to create my own ‘tongue in cheek’ plan for the Welsh Rugby Union.

Draft Plan.

There seems to be problems at all stages of the welsh game from the opportunities available for career progression, the fact that in fairness ‘rugby player’ is not seen or promoted as a career and the skills of even the semi professional tier seems to be lacking. On coaching side of things there also seem to be problems.

So what I propose is a Draft system as they use in the U.S. Before dismissing the idea lets think about it.

If you play at the grass roots level of rugby in this country how do you know if you are good enough to move to the next tier? Well there are the scouts I hear you say true but the onus is placed upon other people to convey and promote individuals. This system must certainly miss as much talent and it promotes. What about if a scoring system to qualify for draft consideration was in place, this then places the onus completely on the individual.

So now we have the next tier from high level amateur to semi-professional well this system can also be applied here allowing the individuals who possess the sufficient skills to further their rugby career to a semi-professional.

And on to the next tier the professionals well obviously they can’t move on a tier however they can certainly be expect to retain the standards required for professional rugby or lose their status and move back to the semi pro tier .

Ok this is a simplistic breakdown of a draft system, but if this could be implemented then the draft should be continually developing new talent into all levels of the welsh game. It would almost certainly improve standards of all the players. I wonder how the professional rugby players would feel knowing that every year there will be 10-15 profesional contracts up for grabs.

Let us not forget that Welsh rugby will always be more important than the player, in which case the only winner should always be Welsh rugby.

London calling

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:21:42 GMT

Tomorrow myself and Sheridan are heading off bright and early to the big smoke for an exciting project meeting, we've packed our wellies just in case!

What a roller coaster of a week weve had since launching the new site, it really has gone down a treat!

More to come...

Rugby World Cup Reduction

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 12:49:01 GMT

To my dissapointment it seems that the power brokers in world rugby would like to reduce the teams from 20 to 16.

Well if any of the power brokers watched the game between Ireland and Goergia on the weekend then please remember that the RWC is a festival of rugby and should stay that way. How can you call it a World Cup if the world is not allowed to play.

When you watch these games you know that in most cases the smaller nations have no chance of winning, however as this RWC has shown the gap between the junior nations and the major is closing and the chance of an upset is what keeps the games interesting.

Sheridan.

Twist is go!!!

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 18:31:27 GMT

After a lot of blood [ hmm ok, there was no blood ], fragrant sweat and salty tears, I've been itching to say...

Twist Systems is Live!!

Hey we got there in the end!

Thanxs to CSS Mania / Screenfluent / Faveup / CSS Elite / Lookom / CSSBased / SJ63 / CSS Flash / Daily Slurp / Pro Web Art / Design Beauty / Screenalicious / Unmatchedstyle / CSS Dump / CSS Vault / Easy Share / CSS Artillery / Design Shack and W3C Sites Editors Pick for finding our site worthy of listing in their css galleries.

Twist Systems website live

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 12:42:49 GMT

Here at Twist Systems we have known for ages that we needed a website that presents exactly what we do well as a company. There are a million other websites out there claiming to be experts in all things web.

This website focuses on the areas that we specialise in and consistently deliver results for our clients, no-more no-less.

Hopefully you will find this a refreshing approach, have fun and enjoy our site.

If you are serious about creating a successful web presence, why not hire us.

Thanks.

Sheridan