In the last post, we alluded to the fact that we’ve been pretty busy, but didn’t really tell you much of what we’ve been doing. That wasn’t out of any deep need for secrecy or anything, just that we had other stuff to write about.

So what’s been going on? What’s been keeping the midnight oil suppliers in business? Well …

5 Senses

There’s a new site for 5 Senses on the way. Not much is going to change in the way of the design, but the entire backend is completely different. Re-written in RubyOnRails (natch), the site is much more flexible, with 5 Senses being able to edit more of the site than before. We’ve also tweaked the checkout process, to make it easier to use.

We’re in the process of switching Payment Gateways as well, this time going with eWay. We did some work on adding the gateway into the ActiveMerchant plugin, which makes credit card authorisation a snap.

Ampac

Ampac is one of our long-term clients. We started work with them back in 2000 or so, and over time the site has grown and grown. One of the problems with the old site is that it is just static HTML pages, which means management nightmare. The opportunity has never arisen to make any changes to it. Luckily, a few months ago, that situation changed, and we started work on a new site.

Totally new design, database backend, utilising the Globalize Rails plugin to handle multiple worldwide offices with the minimum of fuss for the client.

We’re just adding the final tweaks now, so look for this within a week or two.

World Food Media Awards

Another long-term client, we’ve done 3 versions of the World Food Media Awards website since 2001. This time, we’re adding the ability to do online entries, which will reduce the amount of time and effort needed to process the entries (a totally manual process prior to now).

Getting ready to launch on Friday!

Easyrider Tours

Backpackers and travellers have had the ability to make booking requests for almost a year now, but they’ve had no ability to pay for them online. The range of options when making a booking is almost insane, and has made adding live bookings quite difficult. However, we think we’ve finally cracked the nut, and this is only a week or two away.

Abi and Joseph

The Abi and Joseph range has been online for over one year, along with an email form to make a purchase, but we’re just adding the final touches at the moment to turn on live credit card purchasing.

Optika

A new client, this site is starting out as a relatively basic brochure site, but there’s big plans afoot for it to become the main control panel for contractors hired by Optika. We’ve got this site ready, but we’re just waiting for some final content from the fine people at Optika before we can go live.

2Inspire

2Inspire are another new client (recommended by those funny fellows at The Globe) who are just starting on their road to world domination … um, helping their fellow men and women and children. Or more particularly children. They are offering “Life Coaching” services to schools and youth organisations, to help them with whatever they need help with.

The Globe have done some delicious work on the design, and once again, we’re ever so close to going live.

You’d never believe it, but that’s just a small sampling of what we’ve been up to recently. Ever so busy, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Fun times ahead.