As part of developing a website for a customer I needed to share examples of a good and usable services page for a business which provides services of web development, web design and online marketing.

Examples websites having a well designed services page

Web Square

URI - http://www.websquare.co.uk/services/



The services page provides an introduction to each service with the click through to a dedicated page for a particular service. It works well from the perspective of the customer as they can see the full range of services provided at one place and further a page is dedicated to the service which allows one to optimize for a higher ranking for a particular services in the SERP.

The use of icons across the page is also interesting and lends a colorful look to the page.

Ensema

URI - http://ensema.co.uk/services/





Large icons have been used to represent the services. If the services have to be added to the home page this would be a great way to present the services. Some inspiration or ideas can be taken from the website at http://www.leicesterwebdesigners.com/ as the services section is based on a similar design.

Quite Curious

URI - http://www.quitecurious.com/






Quite curious has a interesting page where the front page has a small writeup or introduction of the service provided which the user can click through to the services page. If the content is written well this can improve engagement of the visitors which should be a primary goal of a website. However, there is a drawback as well which is that in case the customer is looking for a services page then they would not find one easily on the website. Therefore there is a trade of here but hey you can always do some split testing to see which design works for your website.

Sarah Lynn Designs

URI - http://www.sarahlynndesign.com/services





Clear and usable interface of the services page which provides clarity to the user which is important for any services page.

Urban influence

URI - http://www.urbaninfluence.com/services





A nice way to present the services in a collapsible accordion using Jquery.  Though on the website the sub sections of services are not linked, ideally pages for each sub section should be created and linked to from the subsection.

Blue Fountain Media

URI - http://www.bluefountainmedia.com/services-overview





The page is particularly unique in that for each service portfolio examples have been provided as well which help in building faith in the services provided by the business.

The services page should have a call to action which the customer or the visitor should click on to get in touch or ask any questions. This is a major component that is missing on most of the websites. Further it will help to have a video about the services as well in this age of growing importance of video content.

If you are working on a project and it would help if some bright, smart and enthusiastic people to help you on the project then apply for the Google Summer Of Code 2014 program.

Since this is the 10th anniversary of Google Summer Of Code Google will accept 10 more organizations than in the past years which makes it 190 organizations.

Every week I plan to have the Google changelog. The Google change log would contain summary of things that have changed with any of the Google products.

Source of information

The main source would be taken from This Week In Google (TWIG) on the TWIT.tv network, which is hosted by Leo Laporte and the participants are Jeff Jarvis of the Buzzmachine and Gina Trapani (one of my top 10 techies whom I admire and try to emulate). The log is usually prepared by Gina and announced at the end of the TWIG show every week on Wednesday. However, if anything important I would be adding those to the update. However, given the way Gina does things (check her thinkup app which provides social analytics) I do not think there would be a much of chance of me adding to her Google change log.

Purpose of the Google change log

There is an ulterior motive for maintaining the change log (sorry I'm not that nice guy who  does things only for the readers) is to keep myself updated on what is happening on Google. I have realized that basically I'm a lazy guy and if I do not write this weekly post, which over a period of time is hopefully read by some people, I will not have the incentive to keep myself updated.
So without further ado here is the change log of this week.

Google Change Log (week ending January 8, 2014)

1. Google+ Auto Backup for Desktop
   
   
   A new application allows you to backup your Google+ account. The installer is available in the latest Picasa for Windows or Mac. If you do not want to download and install Picasa you can download G+ Auto Backup installer here. To know more about G+ Auto Backup for Desktop click here. 
2. Google Latitude dashboard de-linked.
   The bad news for location users on Google Maps is that the dashboard has been removed. The good news is that the old data will remain in your account but it will not be updated. You can go to the location history URL but the dashboard will not be available which used to earlier provide data like a summary of your locations, including total miles traveled and trip information.
   
   I agree with Leo Laporte that the reason behind shutting the dashboard is that Google does not want you to know how much they know about you since Google internally will still have the data from the dashboard when it comes to delivering relevant advertisements.
   

   

   Old Google Location Dashboard that has been retired

   Personally I would be more comfortable if Google showed me all the data they have about me but now with the latitude dashboard there is gone I will not be able to see what information Google has which is not good. 
3. Schemer is being shutdown.
   Schemer was a service where users could share and discuss their plans. The name schemer was kept to associate the service with the users as they used to plan or scheme about achieving their goals. The service was a invite only service for quite sometime.
   
   Unfortunately the service, that was launched two years back,  never caught on in spite of having an Android and IOS apps and therefore the service is being shutdown and users have been advised to download their data from the service.

That is all for the week. Please provide feedback and advise on the posts and whether this series should be continued or not. Any feedback would be highly appreciated. 

HTML's defined

HyperText Markup Language
source wikipedia

XHTML defined

Extensible HyperText Markup Language
Source wikipedia

Call me lazy or something else I had not made an effort to know the exact difference between the two.
When I researched I came across this document which gives a clear picture about the difference between HTML and XHTML and I thought I would share it

Sumblime text is one of my favorite code editor.

For those who are not aware Sublime text is a code editor which supports nearly all the popular coding languages.

Features of sublime text

• one of the fastest code editors
• minimap that gives you bird's view of the code
• multiple instances of code selection and editing possible
• ability to create snippetsL Learn about sublime text snippets here.
• Simplicity of usage with a small learning curve
• cross-platform UI framework
• keyboard-centric
• minimalist interface
• plugins available. There is a huge number of plugins that are available. Every user has the ability to create a plugin as is the case with snippets. To see some popular sublime text plugins click here.
• very good community support for help if you get stuck.

For more details you can check the unofficial documentation for Sublime text here.

Sublime text package control

Packages that have been created by the sublime text community can be installed and deleted. Using sublime text without the packages is like experiencing only 40% power of sublime text.

After you have installed sublime text you can install the package manager to add and delete. The package control is available here.

To know how to use the package control checkout the documenation. The documentation is simple to follow and once you start using sublime text packages you would want to create a package soon which is possible. Adding and managing packages is a breeze.

If are a coder and have not used sublime text I highly recommend trying it once and I'm pretty sure you will stick with it.

Oh! the last thing I forgot to mention that sublime text is free. Sublime text was a paid piece of software from the start but since last year it has been available for free. There is a paid version of sublime text which can be bought here. If you can spare some money please buy sublime text and support its development.

Recommended reading for sublime text users

• Review: Sublime Text 2 is a refined text editor that's a pleasure to use
• Perfect Workflow in Sublime Text 2 - After reading this post I realized what I was missing when using Sublime Text and I made a resolve to read documentation of anything I use at least once otherwise you are the looser.

Google Keep was launched without much fanfare and perhaps that is the reason that most of the people are not aware of the service and those who are aware of the service do not know what exactly to do with it. With the announcement of the retirement of  Google Reader users are skeptical about adopting technology built by Google as you never know when the a service might be retired. I personally have failed to understand why Google Reader has been retired but I'm willing to lend a ear and take a serious look at services that are being launched by Google. Modesty is good but being over modest is stupid. I hope Google has learnt this lesson from the launch of Google Keep.

Some of the techies have compared Google Keep to Evernote, MS Onenote or SpringPad which is not fair because Google Keep is not supposed to replace the use of these applications.

What is Google Keep?

Google Keep is a notepad that syncs with Google Drive. You can add notes, photos, voice notes, web pages and checklist to Google Keep. Google Keep allows you to take notes quickly using any device. Google Keep is supported on Desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile phones. Further Google Keep is available for Google apps for business accounts as well which can be handy for business teams to accumulate notes on the go on any of the projects the team is working on.

Features of Google Keep

1. Colorful tile interface
2. Preview of each note is visible depending upon the content of the item
3. Organization of notes is possible using a drag and drop interface
4. You can also prioritize notes in Google Keep
5. You can add the Google Keep widget to the home screen of your tablet or mobile phone

Conclusion 

Google Keep is a no frills simple note taking app which integrates with Google Drive. Where Google Keep scores above others is the simplicity of the interface and a shallow learning curve. There is a Google Keep Chrome app available and if you want to use it on a mobile device you can always go in for the Android app. If you have not been using any note taking app till now Google Keep is the right excuse to start using one. 

I'm a huge fan of Skype. It is one of the tool that the whole team uses.

Recently a team member encountered a problem while trying to start Skype. The error returned read "Failed to Get Proc Address for D3DPERF_Setoptions(d3d9.dll) In Skype". The operating system was Windows XP and the desktop was at least 18 months old

Solution to the missing d3d9.dll file in Skype

There are two solutions offered for the error and the are

Solution 1

This solution works if you have an old computer (meaning more than a year old)

• Uninstall Skype. 
• Download an old version of Skype ( if possible Version 4). You can download Skype version 4 from here. 
• Install from the downloaded file. 

This solution works for those who have old computers as the new versions of Skype needs resources that are not there on old computers.

Solution 2

If the above solution does not work then it is advised to download d3d9.dll file and extract it to the system32 folder in windows.
The solution seems pretty easy but the fact of the matter is that most of the websites which offer dll (dynamic-link library) are not reliable and you would be taking a huge risk by downloading the file and putting it in the system32 folder of Windows.

To ensure that you will install a clean d3d9.dll follow the steps below

1. Restart your computer if you have not done that.
2. Uninstall the direct version installed from add or remove programs. (important)
3. Download DirectX from the Microsoft website (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/179113) and install it.
4. Restart your computer and start Skype. Everything should work smoothly.

If by any chance you still face problems then you can get more help here. If needed you can contact me as well and I will try and help to the best of my abilities.