LABS
THE LATEST FROM OUR LABS
Whilst we’re super busy on client accounts and projects, we carve out regular time to publish new content for you, at least two times per month! Check out our latest posts below. You’ll find a variety of content about our industry and local areas (including Essex and London).
Improving our website
A quick overview of how we’re improving our website, from research, planning, through to a discussion of how we’re going to be building the new site.
Facing my fear in business planning
A narrative in a day the went bad and then went great, and how I got to the point of forming life goals and writing a business plan. And then how I faced my fear in writing a business plan, with the intend on working out how to achieve my business goals.
Optimising your website
Estimated reading time: 2.5 minutes Author Kevin is a published writer in NET magazine, the UK's leading Web Design and Development magazine monthly. Here he talks about how we optimised the DTL website, and how you can optimise yours. TL;DR So what ways are there of...
In this blog post, Sarah talks about the Agile mindset we have adopted, what this means for us, and a bit about the Kanban board we use.
With the team working on big projects and figuring out work coming up on the horizon, we have been looking at productivity and streamlining the work process. Our old processes weren’t working and we needed to rethink what we were doing and how we were working. We have adopted Agile Product Management and Kanban to help us streamline our work.
What is an away day anyway?
An Away Day is time set aside out of the office where you get together as a team to meet, plan and discuss important longer-term goals and direction of your business.
At Digital Technology Labs, we decided that it would be valuable to us to spend time away from the day to day buzz of the office, away from distracting phone calls and endless emails, to spend concentrated time on future planning and strategising for the business.
Handy hints for a Mac user
As you may know from some of the previous blogs we just love an Apple Mac product here at DTL. Macbooks are just lovely machines and we really enjoy working with them. If you’ve tried one, then you know that there are some differences from a PC and while some are minor some can be pretty major. We’ve put together our favourite hints and tips for working smarter on a Mac. Once you start using these hints and tips you’ll thank us. Not only will it help you work more efficiently, but you’ll also look like a total pro!
HINT 1: CREATE A PDF
You can do this really easily using the print function without having to install any new software.
Latest opinion
Improving our website
A quick overview of how we’re improving our website, from research, planning, through to a discussion of how we’re going to be building the new site.
Facing my fear in business planning
A narrative in a day the went bad and then went great, and how I got to the point of forming life goals and writing a business plan. And then how I faced my fear in writing a business plan, with the intend on working out how to achieve my business goals.
Optimising your website
Estimated reading time: 2.5 minutes Author Kevin is a published writer in NET magazine, the UK's leading Web Design and Development magazine monthly. Here he talks about how we optimised the DTL website, and how you can optimise yours. TL;DR So what ways are there of...
How to stay sane working from home
Working from home... what a nightmare! Well, it doesn't have to be. We're all going through stressful times at the moment with reaction to the Coronavirus (Covid-19) and with the school's now closing, more people than ever will be facing working from home for the...
Web trends to keep an eye out for in 2020
What web trends are we looking at? Dark mode Hand-drawn elements White space Minimalist Accessible Honesty It’s all about them, not you Bold fonts Font pairings Dark Mode There's a growing trend for new websites to incorporate Dark Mode. It's not an essential...
Latest experiments
Productivity hack – my calendar
So for this blog post, I would like to present to you a productivity hack, that is really working for me. That is going old school with my calendar. Why go old school? I have various pain points when using digital calendars and reminders: My setup is complex, so...
Hive heating data – An update
Following on from our post on getting historic Hive heating data here: https://www.digitaltechnologylabs.com/2017/12/09/temperature-data-from-hive, I had another go and was able to extract the data again. However, I found that the process still did in fact work, which...
Write a Falling Blocks game in Javascript in 1 hour
Write a Falling Blocks game in Javascript in 1 hour; so a few years ago I wrote a Falling Blocks game in Java, as a Java applet. What I did to write a Falling Blocks game Well I have had it on my long to do list for a long time to rewrite in in Javascript. So last...
SEO performance improvements – an update
SEO performance improvements from last time In the post here, I gave a brief intro to what I've been doing to try and improve SEO and my search engine position. Also know as SERP - or Search Engine Results Page analysis. Well I'm delighted to report I'm now in the top...
Getting historic temperature data from Hive
I set myself the task of getting historic temperature data from Hive, and it turns out it's quite easy - at least to manually extract it. I went into Hive, went to 'My Hive Home', click on 'heating', then scroll down, and it gives the temperature over different...
Latest tutorials
How to choose the right eCommerce platform
Introduction What is an eCommerce platform? A set of technologies (a platform) in which it has eCommerce capability at its core. i.e. you can take payments for things. And then build your application / online ecommerce site/business, etc on top of it. Benefits of...
How to build a business website for free
How to build a business website for free - I’m going to cover a few methods that can be followed for creating a website for free, and then talk a bit about the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. Approach 1 - The business page route There are many platforms...
Relaxation techniques are important for business
Relaxation techniques are important for business, is something I strongly believe. I’m on a journey to significantly improve my skills at relaxation and continuous practice of those skills. My first step is to collate together various ideas, plans, articles, concepts...
Zoho email archiving how to guide
I was somewhat flummoxed when I ran out of space on my Zoho email account today, and in finding out how to resolve, I decided to write this Zoho email archiving how to guide. So how not to do it I started by thinking that I could drag or copy the email out of Mail on...
11 Website myths we need to bust now
Myth Number 1 Myth: The homepage is the most important thing on your website. Fact: While a good homepage it is extremely important as it is the introduction to your company for your users, don’t let all your focus go into the homepage. The rest of your website is...
Relaxation corner
How to maintain a work/life balance
Relaxation techniques are important for business
How to relax in seven steps for the business entrepreneur
SARAH
LEAD CONTENT CREATOR
Sarah leads up our content creation. She posts at least twice a month, and you can view all her fabulous blog posts here.
KEVIN
CONTRIBUTOR
Kevin tries to post at least once a month. He often has an opinion, business tip, or technical tutorial.
