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Beautiful websites that work.
 

Website design and development is our passion. We believe code is poetry and that good website design and development is a work of art for the modern world.

Building a website can seem a daunting task and often, talking to a few web companies can make the seemingly daunting task impossible; not to mention stressful. There’s an almost infinite number of ways to build a website, design the layout, colours, images, everything. The good news is, we take all the stress out of it. We believe building a website should be fun and exciting, not stressful, time-consuming and expensive.

We understand that your website is most likely the first thing a new client will see when looking for/at your business. Your website is therefore a vital part of winning the business. Whether you sell coffee, real estate or are a Forbes Top 500, we can build a website that reflects and augments your brand and business – giving it the edge over your competition. It should also engage your audience well, rank well on Google and, most importantly be able to change and grow with your needs.

Our process is what defines us as a web agency, so before you choose a web company, let us shout you a coffee and let’s talk about your project.

Take a look at our work for some examples of the sites we have built. Our websites start at $500.

The success of any social program is ultimately determined by its ability to connect on a one-to-one, human level. But what does it actually mean to be human in social media?

Is it having a fun and engaging brand? Speaking in everyday, colloquial language? Establishing a more relatable — even intentionally non-corporate — online presence?

To an extent, but these are surface symptoms. The core issue lies much deeper, in the nuances of how we interact with one another.

Specifically, there’s a phenomenon in linguistics known as “code-switching.” It refers to when a person alternates back and forth between multiple languages in a single conversation. Recently, a team at NPR dived into this concept, elevating it beyond linguistics and identifying its prevalence and significance on a cultural and sociological level.

One writer, Gene Demby, points out how most of us do this every single day at work. We adopt a corporate tone when speaking to our superiors or coworkers. Then a friend or family member calls and we morph into an entirely different — perhaps even seemingly completely opposite — persona.

The key, though, is that both voices are still inherently us. As Demby writes: “Many of us subtly, reflexively change the way we express ourselves…hop-scotching between different cultural and linguistic spaces and different parts of our own identities – sometimes within a single interaction.”

The implications of this in social media are massive. Social already blurs — and is on the way to obliterating — the line between professional and personal. Combined with our nature to code-switch, that means two huge shifts in how we need to approach social as brands.

Users Don’t Approach Corporate Content Solely as Corporate People

Code-switching not only illuminates the fact that we express various aspects of our personality at different times, but it also reveals that all of these aspects are – at all times – fundamental parts of our makeup. By extension, all of these components of our personality come together to affect our decision-making, preferences, and actions.

In other words, when a user comes across your Twitter handle or Facebook feed, she doesn’t suddenly transform into a “professional-only” mode that consumes, filters and reacts to content based 100% on her company and career.

No, her professional persona may take center stage, but her entire thought process is also influenced by the less apparent parts of her personality: the fact that she’s a parent, enjoys rock climbing, is coming off a rough week or lives in a city.

As marketers, we need to embrace this fundamental nature of user behavior; namely, that people act, engage, and respond not solely as professionals, but as nuanced human beings. Users are not simply — and absolutely cannot be solely treated as — potential sales. Our campaigns, programming and offers must be built to connect with users on that human level — which encompasses, but is not wholly defined by — their professional status.

Learn the Art of Authenticity

Understanding the complexities of code-switching users and the need to connect on a human level doesn’t mean we abandon our marketing objectives, though. We still have businesses to run and revenue to generate. But it does mean we rethink how we communicate and present our brands.

Think about it: If connection needs to take place at a human level, then our brands must also become human. Connection only occurs when there is a convergence between two parties who find something in common. If the user is approaching from a professional-and-personal perspective, and we only approach from a professional one, we’ve already limited how effective our engagement can be.

Being a humanized brand means learning the art of authenticity. It means being genuine, being passionate about whatever it is your brand is and does. Just like in everyday life, people respond most to others who are perceptibly and consistently real. And that’s why it’s an art, not a formula. Authenticity, in the long run, can’t be manufactured or faked.

Every corporation, no matter how buttoned-up, no matter its product or service, has a unique personality. Being human in social media, then, involves identifying all aspects of that personality — even the less obvious or less corporate ones — and embracing them as a whole. From there, the surface symptoms we referenced at the beginning of the column — tone, language, aesthetics — will be easier to define.

The beauty, though, is that there’s always room for a brand’s personality to expand and express itself in new ways. Just as various parts of our individual personalities can evolve, brands can similarly introduce concepts and experiences that reveal more of what they’re passionate about, without deviating from their key values, objectives or principles.

It won’t happen overnight. It may even be painful. But discovering how to be authentic, to be genuine, is an exercise that will only help a business in the long run. At the end of the day, people connect most with real. And social allows us to connect easier and more frequently than ever before, making it the perfect place to start.

Source: http://mashable.com/2013/04/16/humanize-brand-social/

President Barack Obama won the final presidential debate because it was on foreign policy, and the president’s foreign policy — unlike his domestic spending — is popular with the American people.

Mitt Romney didn’t win the debate, but he did undercut Team Obama. Obamaland spent the day hitting Romney for being too warlike, too much like George W. Bush. Operatives warned of Romney’s “bluster.”

Romney changed the game as he talked up peace and said he wanted to be a partner with China. He graciously congratulated Obama for killing Osama bin Laden and then added, “We can’t kill our way out of this mess.” He did everything but slip a flower into Obama’s gun barrel.

Team Romney clearly understands that a Republican cannot over-criticize Obama the way Democrats whacked Republicans in 2008 when Obama argued that Guantanamo was a top recruitment tool for al-Qaida and that the Iraq War was an unworthy “war of choice.”

Only the left can — and only the left should — hit Obama for his overuse of drones; they have become a top recruitment tool for Islamic extremists. Ditto Libya as a “war of choice.”

Romney also seems to understand that as a Republican, he shouldn’t hang all the world’s problems on the White House as Democrats did in 2008. Hence, Romney frequently acknowledged what Obama has done right in the world.

Sadly, the Benghazi attack that left four Americans dead has proved that terrorist organizations do not respect Washington — nor do they fear this president. Is it Obama’s fault? I don’t think so. Foreign policy is an oxymoron. When U.S. presidents deal with countries such as Libya, Syria and Iran, whatever they do is a roll of the dice.

I credit the president for consistency in opposing the war in Iraq and (if not according to plan, nonetheless) marshaling U.S. troops out of that war. Obama, however, did not stick to his guns (pun intended) when he undermined his own troop surge in Afghanistan by announcing a withdrawal timetable; he told the enemy that they’ll own Afghanistan if they can just hang on through 2014.

Romney was right to point out that Obama was wrong to nudge Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak out of office when the president must have known that the anti-Israel and anti-American Muslim Brotherhood would move in. Obama countered, “In Egypt, we stood on the side of democracy.”

Alas, the Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t stand on the side of democracy.

I am not under the illusion that if elected to the Oval Office, Romney would be so muscular diplomatically that Syrian President Bashar Assad would crumble. I also never was under the illusion that Obama would charm strongmen into a strategic alliance.

In 2008, candidate Obama warned, “We are less respected now than we were eight years ago or even four years ago.” On Monday night, Obama returned to that theme when he said, “When I came into office, the world was divided.”

Today the world is even more fractured and more dangerous than it was four years ago. It may be that there is no right side of history.

Critics may assume that Apple merely shrunk its iPad down to create the iPad Mini, but according to Apple SVP of Design Jony Ive, the Mini is a completely new product and a “concentration” rather than a “reduction.”

Ive makes his case in what now has become standard: The five-minute video in which he describes the design thinking behind a new device in hagiographic terms. In the case of the Mini, Ive and other Apple execs argue that the iPad is an amazing product and the iPad Mini is no less amazing. “One of the things that makes iPad so incredible is that there’s almost no end to what you can do with it,” says Michael Tchao, vice president of iPad product marketing. “So when we made the iPad Mini, we wanted to make sure it had all the features that make iPad so magical.”

Later Ive recalls that “We felt strongly that 7.9 inches was exactly the right display size,” even though Steve Jobs said in 2010 that “The reason we [won’t] make a 7-inch tablet isn’t because we don’t want to hit [a lower] price point. It’s because we think the screen is too small to express the software. As a software-driven company, we think about the software strategies first.”

What do you think? Did Ive convince you? Let us know in the comments.

More from Apple’s iPad Mini event:

• Apple Unveils iPad Mini
• Apple Surprises With Fourth-Gen iPad
• Apple Unveils New, Ultra-Thin iMac
• Apple Reveals iBooks 3 With Continuous Scrolling
• Apple Unveils 13″ Retina MacBook Pro, Starts at $1699
• Live From Apple’s iPad Mini Event
• The iPad Mini Is the Most Interesting Apple Launch in Years
• There Are Now 200 Million Devices Running iOS 6

Google sent invitations to the press Wednesday for an Android event in New York on Oct. 29. The invitations didn’t disclose what exactly would take place, though the tagline, “The playground is open,” suggest the event will have to do with Google Play, the recently rebranded Android Market.

Excited? We are….could the recent problems for Apple and the underwhelming reception for iPhone 5 be the sign of a turn of the tide? What do you think?

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Eyelash Extension is a simple website designed to primarily promote sales for Latisse™. These small sites are an extension of the SEO concept of the “Squeeze Page” and are utilised to rank well for  certain search terms. This website has proved very successful with page one listings for targeted search terms and has driven a significant level of enquiry to this business. These sites can be built quickly and are very effective yielding a high return on investment. Topcatt can build these sites for $500-$1000 depending on what content the client is able to provide and how much we have to generate. Why not discuss how a squeeze site could drive more business through your door.

Alleged parts for the forthcoming iPhone 5 are leaking out on a weekly basis. Has Apple lost its secretive ways — or just gotten better at them?

This year, we have witnessed what appears to be an unprecedented number of believable iPhone parts leaks. Each week, some new component or photo makes its way onto the Web. And if the leaks are real — they certainly look real — then almost nothing about the forthcoming “iPhone 5″ is a secret. Sure, we don’t “know” everything about the device — but more or less, the proverbial cat seems to have slipped out of the bag. So, what exactly is going on in Cupertino? Has Tim Cook lost control? Or has Apple employed some other, more calculated strategy?

Bad Apple

The most obvious answer to the parts-leak conundrum is that component manufacturers in China, and around the world, simply have lost some of their respect (or fear) for Apple now that Tim Cook is in charge and co-founder Steve Jobs is gone. After the company released the “new iPad” last year, its main slogan for the Retina-enhanced device was the made-up marketing word “Resolutionary.” I literally laughed  out loud when I first saw it plastered in 1000-point font across Apple.com. To this day, it sounds like a word invented for QVC, yet Apple used it for months.

For me — a 100 percent Apple outsider — the tackiness of “Resolutionary” was the first visible (albeit tiny) crack in Apple’s meticulously constructed corporate wall. Then came the whole EPEAT debacle. In June, Apple removed all 39 of its products from the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, a registry that rates consumer products’ for their impact on the environment. The move caused Apple customers — many of whom I would wager had never even heard of EPEAT in the past — to freak out with righteous indignation. The removal of Apple’s lineup was a bold move, after all, from a PR perspective. But Apple has never shied away from bold in the past. Less than a week later, however, Apple completely reversed its decision, and handed its Macs and i-devices back to EPEAT. Not only that, but the company actually said it was sorry. Sorry! Sorry? Apple doesn’t say “sorry.” Even when Apple’s iPhone 4 was found to have a defective antenna in 2010 (no service if you hold it the wrong way), then-CEO Steve Jobs refused to apologize. Instead, he told everyone to “calm down,” and gave away some free bumper cases to end the controversy. For the last decade, Apple has told us what to think, not the other way around. Crack number two.

Cook has strayed from Jobs’s hard-lined path in a number of other ways. When faced with criticism over the treatment of workers of Apple’s manufacturing partners in China, Apple pushed for third-party inspections of Foxconn factories. He decided to pay out dividends to investors — something Steve Jobs avoided. And, most recently, Apple pulled a series of Genius ads after they were harshly criticized in the press.  That’s right: Not only did Apple make some uncharacteristically bad ads, but they were shamed into taking the off the air.

And now we have all these leaks — leaks that fuel the rumors that Apple says hurt its bottom line. After all, if you know a new iPhone is coming soon, would you slap down hundreds of dollars on something that’s about to become outdated? Probably not. That said, if the leaks are real, then the next iPhone is going to be pretty darn boring — like the iPhone 4S again, just a bit taller, with a different dock connector, and a headphone jack moved to the bottom. Whoopie!

TechCrunch’s John Biggs, who seems equally perplexed by Apple’s softening nature, tries to explain the leaks with the admittedly “far-fetched” theory that “Apple needs to telegraph the changes they are planning to the [next iPhone’s] dock and, as a result, are forced to release more test hardware than usual. This hardware is falling into the wrong hands.” In other words, more peripheral manufacturers are getting demo units and some of them are leaking pictures and information — betraying Apple.

Bada** Apple

Far-fetched or not, Biggs’s theory is as good as I’ve heard so far. But I have another, even less-plausible explanation: Apple hasn’t grown weak at all. Instead, Cook has used the great resources at Apple’s disposal to launch a covert disinformation campaign. The leaked Apple parts are not real — or, at least, they are not parts that will make up the sixth-generation iPhone. They are decoys released by Apple, or on Apple’s behalf, to throw the tech blogosphere off its trail. The REAL new iPhone will look nothing like these leaked components.

As difficult to pull off as this might be, it would have a great effect for Apple. First, it would allow the company to still surprise everyone when they officially release the new iPhone. In turn, this would release an endless flow of positive comments from the technology media about the device, and how Apple, under Cook, has “still got it.” Seriously, it would be a virtual orgy of fanboyish congratulations. End result: Apple sells even more iPhone units that it would have otherwise.

It would also show the technology blogs who’s boss. If Apple can trick everyone with fake leaks, then the already-sketchy rumor articles we all know and despise will become even more dubious. Perhaps that will result in more conservative reporting, thus stifling the Apple rumor mill altogether, which would also theoretically help sales.

Wild as this may sound, a similar thing happened during last year’s “iPhone 5″ rumor mess. The tech press was convinced Apple would release a tear-drop-shaped smartphone with a larger screen. Instead, Apple release the iPhone 4 with Siri, a better camera, and slightly improved hardware. The only thing wrong with last year’s confusion was that the rumored device was infinitely more interesting than what Apple ultimately offered. If it could turn the tables and make everyone think that it’s releasing one thing, then actually come out with something way better, then Apple will have won on all counts.

Conclusion

I’m going to save you some energy and call my own theory bunk from the start. Even if Apple has the resources to wage such a disinformation campaign, it would still be a tough move to pull off — one that could very well cost a lot of money. And it’s not like Apple’s iPhone sales are hurting — not yet, anyway. Still, I’m going to hold onto this idea as a dream, a hope that Apple is still the baddest company in town, one capable of creating mind-blowing devices that change what I think is possible in personal electronics; A company that doesn’t say things like “Resolutionary,” and never says “sorry,” even when it clearly should. That is the Apple I knew. And when the new iPhone is unveiled in the next few weeks, we’ll find out if that Apple remains.

Say what you will about him — Steve Jobs dreamt big. He didn’t just set out to change personal computers, or even stop at mobile devices. He clearly wanted Apple‘s influence to extend to all areas of daily life. Case in point: He once seriously considered designing a connected car, probably called the iCar.

The revelation was among the many tidbits coming out of the Samsung-Apple trial underway in San Jose. Although the idea of Apple building some kind of high-tech vehicle has been floated from time to time, it’s usually after someone’s had a few too many martinis for lunch.

However, when Apple Senior Vice President of Marketing Phil Schiller recently took the stand, he says there was discussion about Apple making a car or camera, the New York Times‘ Nick Bilton tweeted. Although he punctuated the comment with “crazy stuff,” the fact that the fact that the revelation is coming out in court testimony indicates it was more serious than just idle chatter. Schiller says the company considered building a car sometime before creating the iPhone.

What might an iCar be like? You could probably imagine a very modern interior, with a Ford Sync-like interface that would certainly sync wirelessly with your iPhone, iPad or iPod. Apps would adapt so you could interact with them via the dashboard, and Siri would definitely be present (voice control makes the most sense in the car).

What about the exterior? That’s anyone’s guess, but designers have been creating iCar designs for years. There was the bulbous iMove from Liviu Tudoran that resembled a vehicular iMac (see below) to the recent iCar design from Franco Grassi.

What do you think an Apple iCar would be like? Have your say in the comments.