OUR BLOG

In our experience, it’s common for website buyers to treat hosting as a commodity - a bit like electricity and gas supply, website hosting is all the same really, the only difference is the price?  Wrong! There's a big difference in the hosting services on offer, and as a buyer, it’s crucial to understand what you need and what you're getting for your money. Requirements for Hosting an Umbraco Site  Hosting an Umbraco site calls for a number of minimum requirements: you must have Windows-based hosting, it needs to be in Full Trust Mode, and you may (probably) need a…

Today I spoke at the inaugural Umbraco Spark Innovation Conference, based on some research that Jamie Pollock and I have done.  Titled How to design a great Content App for Umbraco 8 the talk was really an opportunity for me to research and better understand one of the new features in Umbraco 8: Content Apps.  Over the space of a few weeks I managed to speak to a number of Umbraco devs who have been pioneering the development of Content Apps, and this presentation is the distillation of what I learnt. Transcript Slide 1 While working to design and build…

When commissioning a new website built using Umbraco, or any CMS for that matter, its critical to have a clear understanding of your audience.  During the initial scoping of the new website, you should define who you are targeting the website at in as much detail as possible. Why it's important to have a clear audience in mind Having a clear audience definition that clearly states their goals can make it very easy for an agency to understand what you're trying to achieve and ensures that the site is personalised with meaningful content.  The audience statement supports the production of…

Today saw the release of Umbraco 8 - a long-awaited update to the CMS we know and love.  We’ve been using Umbraco since version 3 way back in 2008 when Kung Fu Panda was released and the charts were chock full of X Factor stars.   Umbraco 7 has been arguably the most stable, successful and long-running version of the CMS. But the world has moved on, and with version 8, so has Umbraco. Things we’re most looking forward to in this release are the new Content Apps, the improved performance and the new editing experience - Infinite Editing. What are…

“There is only one happiness in life: to love and be loved. (And finding the perfect CMS)” – George Sand, Author. Have you ever met someone and just known that they are the one? We first met Umbraco 10 years ago, and have never looked back since. After finding Umbraco, we’ve never felt the need to use another CMS. With over 443K active installs it’s the most frequently used .NET CMS. We love Umbraco…here’s why it’s been our Valentine for the past 10 years. Umbraco I really do love you, you never make me frown,Your reliability is second to…

When starting out on a new Umbraco Project it’s really important to know and communicate your requirements and your desired features. There are many ways of communicating these, but here at Carbon Six Digital, we use a spreadsheet called the Prioritised Requirements and Traceability Matrix. Long name, but easy idea. First the requirements list. This is a methodical list of all the features the new system must incorporate alongside other factors, known as non-functional requirements, such as security and performance requirements. The functional requirements are often best articulated as a “User Story”. The list should be Prioritised so that the…

The UK Government Digital Service Standards require all new source code to be released as open source code. Point 12: Make all new source code open and reusable, and publish it under appropriate licences. When we developed a new website for UK Central Government we were required to release our code as Open Source.  This presented challenges we've not faced before, such as how to preserve private information such passwords and access keys. In this article written for 24Days.in our Technical Director, Paul Marden, talks about how to develop websites as open source.…

A website saddled with a bad Content Management System can often really impact the site from being developed to meet your needs. As Umbraco development specialists, we’re often approached by potential clients asking for their current site to be migrated to Umbraco. What we’ve learnt is that the impact of failing to properly brief an agency during a migration project can make a huge difference to the quality, timescales, and budgets of what’s being delivered. The Risks of Not Providing a Brief  It can be very difficult for an agency to provide an accurate or effective quote if presented with…

Those in the market for an Umbraco website are presented with an often mind-boggling number of options when shopping around for providers: the most common being sole developers and large agencies. Each comes with its own pros and cons, so it’s essential that those looking to source services have the inside track on what to look for and the right questions to ask at the procurement stage. There are plenty of great sole developers out there, in fact, some of the highest profile and most competent Umbraco Developers in the community fall into that category. We think that working with…

Like any piece of modern, evolving software, Umbraco - and its users - benefit from regular release updates.  These could be new patches for specific issues, which come out on a weekly or monthly basis, minor version updates which are released anywhere between a monthly and quarterly basis, or major version releases, which come out every few years. But each release, no matter how major or minor, is always an improvement on what existed before. So when commissioning a new site, it’s crucial to understand what your prospective agency's support policy is regarding applying updates. If your new site is…