Interacting with Shrewsbury Town Council will soon be quicker and easier after councillors approved plans for a new website.
At a meeting of the Finance & General Purposes committee on Monday [4 AUG] members appointed Shrewsbury based company, The Web Orchard, to re-design the existing site following a robust selection process.
The brief was to make the existing website simpler to use, and more responsive, ensuring that visitors will be able to find what they are looking for within a few clicks.
The new site will be built using responsive technology to recognise which type of device people are using and adjust accordingly.
The design of the previous website, which is five years old, was found to be outdated and difficult to navigate, particularly on mobile and tablet devices. The new design will remove some large blocks of text and replace these with clear icons guiding users to the pages they need.
Work on the new website, which will sit on the existing platform at www.shrewsburytowncouncil.gov.uk, is already underway, with a prototype due to be presented to councillors in October.
Councillor Alan Mosley said: “Soon after taking over the leadership of the Council we recognised that our website was outdated and, as part of our revised Communications Strategy, we resolved to change it to something more fit for purpose. We want a website that will allow the Council to get closer to its residents, one that is more open and accessible and user friendly for all types of devices.
“The re-designed site will be attractive and informative, while giving opportunities for feedback and consultation with residents. We want the new website to link with all our partners as we work together at putting Shrewsbury first.”
Pete White, director at The Web Orchard added: "We're delighted to be selected to re-build the Shrewsbury Town Council website and are already busy working on the project. There are some interesting challenges that we are looking forward to tackling."
Here are a selection of great OS X shortcuts:
cmd + shift + 3 - screenshot
cmd + shift + 3 - cropped screenshot
cmd + shift + 3 then press spacebar will crop the screenshot around the current window
ctrl + cmd + space - full emoji keyboard
cmd + ~ - switches between windows in same application
shift + option when changing volume uses quarter increments
cmd + option + shift + V - paste & match text formatting
cmd + space - shows spotlight
cmd + H - hides active application
cmd + opt + H - hides all windows not in focus
alt + backspace - delete a whole word instead of a letter at a time
control + command + power (eject) - system restart
cmd + shift + i (from a Safari or Chrome) - creates a new email with the URL of the page you were visiting in the body
control + d - replicates the ‘Delete’ key from non-mac keyboards
option + right click on a dock app to show force quit
option + click on wifi icon in menu bar to show wireless speed, strength and other useful details
Thanks to reddit.com/r/apple for some of these.
This years ShropGeek (R)Evolution conference has been another huge success. Held on the 26th September at the Shrewsbury Conference Centre the event covered a range of technology related topics from security to content strategy to user experience.
Guest speakers travelled from around the country representing organisations including Facebook, the Guardian and Buffer. Around 130 people attended with a good mixure of local and national businesses.
ShropGeek meet monthly in the Alb, Shrewsbury and consist of technology enthusiasts and web professionals.
The team behind the popular Love Shrewsbury website are pleased to announce today, that they have formed an exciting partnership with Shrewsbury’s latest and unique app - infoBeetle.
Launched this summer, infoBeetle’s aim is to provide a definitive guide to Shrewsbury and the surrounding area. The special app lists local events, pubs, restaurants, tourist attractions, businesses and of most interest to users - exclusive offers which can be redeemed by displaying the app to retailers.
Love Shrewsbury is a successful website which offers dedicated and varied news content on Shrewsbury - and as such, developing a link with the infoBeetle app couldn’t be more appropriate.
Speaking of the partnership, Pete White of Love Shrewsbury says “Through our new collaboration with infoBeetle, we will be displaying their offers and news items, on the Love Shrewsbury website. It’s a great way of delivering even more fresh and interesting content to our site visitors - people that really do, love Shrewsbury!” He added "We are always keen to ensure that we are at the forefront of what's happening in the town - and the infoBeetle app is a positive addition to Shrewsbury's technology scene."
The infoBeetle app is available from the App store - as well as the Android App store too. For further information visit www.infobeetle.co.uk(link is external) - for local news and events in Shrewsbury, visitwww.loveshrewsbury.com
2014 has been a good year for my side projects, I've not started anything new but have spent time to refine my existing ones.
Love Shrewsbury
The Love Shrewsbury site has been the most time consuming side project over the past twelve months however its also been the most rewarding. The site has reached over 100,000 people and has been expanded to include local offers. I have developments in the new year for an expanded what's on section and possibly a directory. The April Fool's post was particularly successful with 10,000 hits over 2 days.
Switchweb
Switchweb continues to provide the infrastructure for many of my other activities though new hosting sales have been slow in 2014. I'm hoping to rectify this in the coming months, pushing the relaunched site with a series of press releases.
ShropGeek
We ran our second (R)Evolution conference in September, the full day web event was another big success and I'm looking forward to planning events for 2015.
ImAFish
ImAFish continues to attract sponsored posts and advertising and has been a consistent money maker in 2014.
Photography
I've done a lot less landscape photography in the past year, though I got some nice photos in Scotland. It turns out I have a very photogenic son and if you ask any of my Instagram or Facebook followers you will know I take a look of photos of him!
Thanks to everyone who has helped and supported my side projects in the past year, I'm looking forward to 2015.