SEM Studio

Clients of SEM Solutions are bucking the trends of the current economic climate through the use of an innovative ecommerce solution - the SEM Store. The SEM Store has been developed by the team of software developers working from SEM’s office in Ashford and is currently being used by more than 20 traders to sell goods and services over the World Wide Web. The collective total of sales generated by clients using the SEM Store has recently passed the £1 million mark, a landmark that the SEM Team are extremely proud of.

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We’ve just finished working on the new Launchpad tour which has recently gone live. The team here at SEMStudio were responsible for all the graphic design and coding (HTML, CSS & AJAX). It was probably one of the most interesting jobs I’ve been involved with as we got to work closely with Mark Shuttleworth, the man behind Canonical, Thawte, Ubuntu and the first African in space. The meetings we had to attend with Mark at first were nerve wracking but it wasn’t long before we settled into job and started getting very positive feedback from him. This was no mean feat - consider this; how do you impress a man that has been to space? The first time I met him I found myself completely lost for words - he asked me a simple question about our programming skills and I couldn’t give him a straight answer. I suppose this is what happens when your client is a world famous entrepreneur and pioneering space tourist with their own page on Wikipedia!

Back to Launchpad. As many of you will already know it is a “hosting service for open source projects that’s big on collaboration.” We had to get pretty familiar with it in the course of this work and its fair to say that it does have some very impressive features and if I ever decide to release any software under an open source license I will definitely be taking advantage of the Launchpad service.

SEM has recently completed a new site for Autouseful, a website with something for every motorist. The ecommerce is powered by the SEM Store and advanced CMS features were provided through the integration of the store with Drupal. This is not the first time we have integrated SEM Store ecommerce software and Drupal and together they are proving a very successful combination. Visit www.autouseful.co.uk to take a look at the site - the excellent design was done by Martin Jewiss of MPJDesign Ltd.

I did a talk today to professional photographers on behalf of Business Link. The talk covered web marketing and SEM and was given together with Martin Kingston of Kingsbridge Consultancy (Kent) Limited. The talk was well received and Business Link have indicated that SEM will be invited to give a series of talks in June across the south east region.

Ubuntu 8.04 went live this week along with the new Ubuntu demo tour that we designed for Canonical. This project has led to SEM being asked to do a demo tour for Launchpad.net that will be released in July.

Momui Home is a new home accessories boutique selling stylish and decorative gifts for the home and garden. Mo, the creative spark behind the business decided to use the SEM Store as her ecommerce solution. The site was designed by Sharon Havenhand of Comarni.

We really enjoyed building this store for Mo and would like to wish her every success with her venture.

The SEM Studio is currently working on the new online tour of Ubuntu. We’ve been contracted by Canonical the founding company behind Ubuntu that was started by Mark Shuttleworth.

We passionately believe in open source and free software (we’re currently deciding when to release some software that we’ve developed here at the SEM Studio under an open source license) and have always worked with Linux servers and even Linux PCs where practical. Having been introduced to Ubuntu earlier this year we’ve not got it installed on most of our office production PCs and we all agree that it has taken Linux to a new level of usability. At last there is a free alternative to Windows that can genuinely compete in the wider market. The fact that Dell are now shipping (as an option) new computers pre-installed with Ubuntu shows how far it has come.

Watch this space for a link to the new Ubuntu demo when it goes live.

This does not have any direct relevance to the work of the SEM Studio but I wanted to show it anywhere. It is a fascinating story about a Heavy Metal band struggling to survive in ‘post war’ Baghdad. Things got tough and they ended up in Turkey via Syria. Their survival has depended largely on the generosity of international supporters. I think it is a great way to show people that Iraq is a country and culture with depth and variety just like any other place on earth. The media story is often so narrowly focussed that it is a breath of fresh air to see an alternative news story like this one. Visit their site at www.heavymetalinbaghdad.com.

Localis, the government think-tank have recently launched a new website - www.localisresearch.org - that was design by Sharon Havenhand of Comarni and development by SEM Solutions at the SEM Studio. Sharon’s work is always awesome and we always enjoy partnering with Comarni on development work. It really helps us here at SEM to play on our strengths - we prefer to focus on the coding and programming while someone else has to worry about the ‘creative’ aspect of the job.

Here’s a quote from the ‘About Us‘ page new Localis website that should give you a slightly better idea of what they get up to!

“At a time when the great bulk of local authorities are conservative and when existing local government think tanks veer to the left, Localis offers a fresh and distinctive approach based on close links with Policy Exchange, Prospect’s think tank of the year 2006-7. Localis aims to influence policy makers and thinkers outside the local government village in clear, jargon-free language.”

Our client, AES, is promoting a new range of Packaged Pumping Stations for the pumping of sewage and effluent.