On 27/06/2011 08:46, Andy Burns wrote:
djc wrote:

Without
text Google wont index it, and many people these days use Google as a
substitute for domain name lookup, so if people cant find you by typing
your business name (or some half remembered version of it) into Google
your are lost.

I suspect the success of failure of a burger joint is more likely to be
determined by the quality of the nosh and the location, than by its
findability on a search engine

It still makes sense to have an optimised web site and to have a
presence on both twitter and facebook.

Colin Bignell

On 27/06/2011 08:30, djc wrote:
On 27/06/11 01:39, Arfa Daily wrote:

The website is www.ljsburgerandshakes.co.uk

As for the website, as I said, it's by no means done and dusted yet. I'm
sure it will change a lot, before it is properly 'declared' :-)

The one thing I would change on the website is too add more text. At
present, looking at the HTML source it is all script and images. Without
text Google wont index it, and many people these days use Google as a
substitute for domain name lookup, so if people cant find you by typing
your business name (or some half remembered version of it) into Google
your are lost.

You also want to catch the people who just type in 'burger,
Wellingborough' and who have never even heard of the place before.

Colin Bignell

"djc" wrote in message
...
On 27/06/11 01:39, Arfa Daily wrote:

The website is www.ljsburgerandshakes.co.uk

As for the website, as I said, it's by no means done and dusted yet. I'm
sure it will change a lot, before it is properly 'declared' :-)

The one thing I would change on the website is too add more text. At
present, looking at the HTML source it is all script and images. Without
text Google wont index it, and many people these days use Google as a
substitute for domain name lookup, so if people cant find you by typing
your business name (or some half remembered version of it) into Google
your are lost.


--
djc


We submitted it manually to Google, which is an easy enough process, and
last time I checked, it came out right on top when you put in part of the
name.

Arfa

"Terry Fields" wrote in message
...

Terry Fields wrote:

If you don't mind my saying, lose the pdf and make the menu a web page
- people don't like waiting for a separate app to open.

Apologies, I forgot to add my good wishes for your venture.

TF

Thanks for your good wishes, and your comment re the pdf, noted. I think
that the reason it was done that way was so that people could easily
download and save a copy or print it out.

Arfa

"Bert Coules" wrote in message
o.uk...
"Arfa Daily" wrote:

But yes, point taken. We'll get the town name put in. The website is by
no means 'ready' yet.

It's something you see on a lot of websites: because the owner of the site
knows where his business is, it's awfully easy to overlook the fact that
other people don't!

That apart, best of luck with the enterprise.

Bert


Thanks Bert

Arfa

Arfa Daily wrote:

"Terry Fields" wrote in message
.. .

Terry Fields wrote:

If you don't mind my saying, lose the pdf and make the menu a web page
- people don't like waiting for a separate app to open.

Apologies, I forgot to add my good wishes for your venture.

Thanks for your good wishes, and your comment re the pdf, noted. I think
that the reason it was done that way was so that people could easily
download and save a copy or print it out.

Have a 'Save as PDF' link on the menu page?

As others have noted, the web has a world-wide reach, and this could
be important.

Story from younger days: went into my local friendly motorcycle shop
with my friend, to see the proprietor's son going doolally trying to
get the last drop of oil out of a drum. This made us laugh. Quite
properly, he said "That's our profit!" and of course he was quite
right.

Moral: as others have said, consider all the factors in your web page.
If only a tiny fraction of your customers come from far afield after
finding your presence on the web, that'll add to 'your profit' too!

ATB for tonite.

TF

wrote:

On 27/06/2011 08:30, djc wrote:
On 27/06/11 01:39, Arfa Daily wrote:

The website is www.ljsburgerandshakes.co.uk

As for the website, as I said, it's by no means done and dusted yet. I'm
sure it will change a lot, before it is properly 'declared' :-)

The one thing I would change on the website is too add more text. At
present, looking at the HTML source it is all script and images. Without
text Google wont index it, and many people these days use Google as a
substitute for domain name lookup, so if people cant find you by typing
your business name (or some half remembered version of it) into Google
your are lost.

You also want to catch the people who just type in 'burger,
Wellingborough' and who have never even heard of the place before.

Colin Bignell

Spending a little time with Google Webmaster Tools (free) can help pump
prime a site into Google.

Also, adding Google Analytics (also free) will get a good breakdown of how
the site is used.

--
Tim Watts

Arfa Daily wrote:



"Terry Fields" wrote in message
...

Terry Fields wrote:

If you don't mind my saying, lose the pdf and make the menu a web page
- people don't like waiting for a separate app to open.

Apologies, I forgot to add my good wishes for your venture.

TF

Thanks for your good wishes, and your comment re the pdf, noted. I think
that the reason it was done that way was so that people could easily
download and save a copy or print it out.

Arfa

Good thinking - do both!

Default to HTML with a "download/print menu" option that links the PDF.

--
Tim Watts

"Arfa Daily" wrote:
[snip]

There is some fairly good photos of the counter I built. I think it looks
quite impressive, but then, I would, wouldn't I ? :-))

The website is www.ljsburgerandshakes.co.uk

If anyone's up this way of an evening, pop in and try a burger and shake.
Tell 'em you're a friend of Arfa's on the 'net. Daughter will probably
charge you double for admitting that, though ....

Bearing what others have said, the site works reasonably well on an iPhone,
except for the "Find Us" button which uses some horrible Microsoft Bing/RAC
rubbish and is a frame within a frame. It's a bit of a shame because
everything else looks good/works well. The only criticism of the look and
feel on the iPhone is that the picture and the buttons are too small. The
screen is mostly black with a small website in the middle.

Looking at the photo, you should be proud of yourself. It's a decent job
better looking than the work of many so-called professionals.

"Steve Firth" wrote in message
...
"Arfa Daily" wrote:
[snip]

There is some fairly good photos of the counter I built. I think it looks
quite impressive, but then, I would, wouldn't I ? :-))

The website is www.ljsburgerandshakes.co.uk

If anyone's up this way of an evening, pop in and try a burger and shake.
Tell 'em you're a friend of Arfa's on the 'net. Daughter will probably
charge you double for admitting that, though ....

Bearing what others have said, the site works reasonably well on an
iPhone,
except for the "Find Us" button which uses some horrible Microsoft
Bing/RAC
rubbish and is a frame within a frame. It's a bit of a shame because
everything else looks good/works well. The only criticism of the look and
feel on the iPhone is that the picture and the buttons are too small. The
screen is mostly black with a small website in the middle.

Looking at the photo, you should be proud of yourself. It's a decent job
better looking than the work of many so-called professionals.

Thanks for your valid input on the site viewed on an iPhone. I'll make sure
this is noted. As to the "Find Us", this was done in a bit of a hurry, and
seemed to do the job reasonably well on the laptop that it was being done
on. However, the website is not 'done and dusted' yet, so any suggestions
for a better royalty-free way of doing this that anyone might be able to
suggest, will of course be listened to, and appreciated.

Thanks for the comments on the counter. I built it for less than half what
we were quoted, and I am quite pleased with the way it went together, and
now looks. You can't really see from the front, but behind, it is
split-level, with a full width second level about 30 cms below the narrow
'lean-yer-arms-on-whilst-waiting' level that you can see from the front. I
managed to build most of it at home as a sort of 'jigsaw puzzle', and then
took it up there piece by piece, and assembled it. The maths of calculating
how to get the curved tops out of standard widths of worktops, took me back
a lot of years to my old geometry and trig lessons at school. It was like
one of those exam questions that we used to get ... " A shopfitter needs
to construct a counter comprising a curved section with a 2.4 m radius, and
spanning 90 degrees. Calculate (showing all workings) the minimum sizes of
counter top required ....... " and so on ! All good fun :-)

Arfa

Arfa Daily wrote:


"Steve Firth" wrote in message
...
"Arfa Daily" wrote:
[snip]

There is some fairly good photos of the counter I built. I think it
looks
quite impressive, but then, I would, wouldn't I ? :-))

The website is www.ljsburgerandshakes.co.uk

If anyone's up this way of an evening, pop in and try a burger and
shake.
Tell 'em you're a friend of Arfa's on the 'net. Daughter will probably
charge you double for admitting that, though ....

Bearing what others have said, the site works reasonably well on an
iPhone,
except for the "Find Us" button which uses some horrible Microsoft
Bing/RAC
rubbish and is a frame within a frame. It's a bit of a shame because
everything else looks good/works well. The only criticism of the look and
feel on the iPhone is that the picture and the buttons are too small. The
screen is mostly black with a small website in the middle.

Looking at the photo, you should be proud of yourself. It's a decent job
better looking than the work of many so-called professionals.

Thanks for your valid input on the site viewed on an iPhone. I'll make
sure this is noted. As to the "Find Us", this was done in a bit of a
hurry, and seemed to do the job reasonably well on the laptop that it
was being done on. However, the website is not 'done and dusted' yet, so
any suggestions for a better royalty-free way of doing this that anyone
might be able to suggest, will of course be listened to, and appreciated.

Thanks for the comments on the counter. I built it for less than half
what we were quoted, and I am quite pleased with the way it went
together, and now looks. You can't really see from the front, but
behind, it is split-level, with a full width second level about 30 cms
below the narrow 'lean-yer-arms-on-whilst-waiting' level that you can
see from the front. I managed to build most of it at home as a sort of
'jigsaw puzzle', and then took it up there piece by piece, and assembled
it. The maths of calculating how to get the curved tops out of standard
widths of worktops, took me back a lot of years to my old geometry and
trig lessons at school. It was like one of those exam questions that we
used to get ... " A shopfitter needs to construct a counter
comprising a curved section with a 2.4 m radius, and spanning 90
degrees. Calculate (showing all workings) the minimum sizes of counter
top required ....... " and so on ! All good fun :-)


You begin to realise what those questions were actually all about.


Arfa

Arfa Daily wrote:


Thanks for your valid input on the site viewed on an iPhone. I'll make
sure this is noted. As to the "Find Us", this was done in a bit of a
hurry, and seemed to do the job reasonably well on the laptop that it was
being done on. However, the website is not 'done and dusted' yet, so any
suggestions for a better royalty-free way of doing this that anyone might
be able to suggest, will of course be listened to, and appreciated.


I mentioned a google map:

Basically, sign into Google Maps (ie actually sign in with a
gmail/googlemail account)

Search on your postcode, then go to "Create New Map".

Give it a name, make it public and click the blue pin and drag that around
until it's right.

Then hit "Link" (top right) and you get a bit of code to paste into your
website.

I did one for you but it might be a bit off:


iframe width="425" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"
marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"
src="http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=52.317851,-0.703715&spn=0.004997,0.009645&t=h&z=1 7&msa=0&msid=217623560817756928606.0004a6b 1cbe0b872c2324"/iframebr
/smallView a
href="http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=52.317851,-0.703715&spn=0.004997,0.009645&t=h&z=1 7&msa=0&msid=217623560817756928606.0004a6b 1cbe0b872c2324&source=embed"
style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left"LJ's Burger and Shakes/a in a larger
map/small

That will be the same as clicking this link:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?msid=2...09645&t=h&z=17

I didn't say it yet, but good luck (to Arfa) - looks like a good location
given the other eateries there and the road links.

;-
--
Tim Watts

On Mon, 27 Jun 2011 01:27:53 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:


Well yes, point taken. But really it's a 'local' venture, and everyone round
here knows where the basic little map and road name is. Also, the RAC route
planner on the website will lead you to it being Wellingborough Northants,
if you put your own postcode in ...

The RAC route planner doesn't work without the space in the postcode.
It should be shown as NN8 4UF.

On Sun, 26 Jun 2011 23:43:57 +0100, "Nightjar \"cpb\"@"
"insertmysurnamehere wrote:



http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/...52767711462499

Unfortunately, not much use to those of us without a facebook account.

Sadly it doesn't work for those of us with a facebook account either.
It is possible to share albums with non-users, I've done it myself.

In message on Mon, 27 Jun 2011 01:59:01 +
0100
Arfa Daily wrote:


I think it is just accepted that everyone has a FaceAche account
these days, so she was just assuming that people wanting to look, would
have.

just think how much profit you would make if everybody who hasn't got a
FaceAche account brought their business to you ...

Agree with most other points that have been made.

I couldn't find the opening times anywhere, other than on the pdf.

Could annoy potential punters who decide to drop in for lunch ...

Must remember to drop in some time - it doesn't look to be too much of a
diversion from our M1/M6, A14, M11 cross country return route from anywhere up
that way. Funnily enough, we did it last week, on our way back from Brum, but
that was the first time in ages, so I doubt the opportunity will present itself
again any time soon ...

Anyway, good luck to you and the business ...

One final query: you've extolled the quality of your burgers on here long and
hard - but what about the chips?

Please tell me they're freshly fried from real potatoes and not some of this
revolting pre-processed muck that is so prevalent these days ...

We're off to Belgium tomorrow, so we do know what proper chips are like ...!

--

Terry

Oh yes, now this is a very good point. What's your cooking process for
them? A Dutch former colleague always said that the problem with
fish/chip shop chips is the oil is only at 160, whereas it should be
at 180. Nice crisp ones please.

Oil? Ok, so what about those of us who want proper *British* chips
fried in beef dripping?
--
Robin
PM may be sent to rbw0{at}hotmail{dot}com

Robin wrote:
Oh yes, now this is a very good point. What's your cooking process
for them? A Dutch former colleague always said that the problem with
fish/chip shop chips is the oil is only at 160, whereas it should be
at 180. Nice crisp ones please.

Oil? Ok, so what about those of us who want proper *British* chips
fried in beef dripping?

That is why I do not fry my own chips. There is a chip shop within half a
mile of my house that sells proper British chips. A phone call means that I
do not have to wait if there is a queue.

--
Adam

Well yes, point taken. But really it's a 'local' venture, and
everyone round here knows where the basic little map and road name
is. Also, the RAC route planner on the website will lead you to it
being Wellingborough Northants, if you put your own postcode in ...

FWIW we have used Lonely Planet,Tripadvisor etc to find some excellent
burgers and chips overseas - not so much in tourist places but en route
between them. So I'd have thought it'd be worth you encouraging your
fans give you reviews on Tripadvisor and the like. As Terry Fields
said, it all adds to your profit.

--
Robin
PM may be sent to rbw0{at}hotmail{dot}com

"Tim Streater" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Terry Casey wrote:

Anyway, good luck to you and the business ...

One final query: you've extolled the quality of your burgers on here long
and hard - but what about the chips?

Please tell me they're freshly fried from real potatoes and not some of
this revolting pre-processed muck that is so prevalent these days ...

Oh yes, now this is a very good point. What's your cooking process for
them? A Dutch former colleague always said that the problem with fish/chip
shop chips is the oil is only at 160, whereas it should be at 180. Nice
crisp ones please.

--
Tim

They are, at least initially, a commercial grade of par-cooked chip. We
might change that when we get a better feel for how many are used. The trick
to getting a good crisp chip, is to start them at the lower temperature of
160 to ensure that they cook through, and then 'hold' them until as late as
possible. They can then be finished off in 180 degree oil just before the
rest of the order is ready. That ensures that they are crisp on the outside,
fully cooked through, hot, and don't sit sweating in the scuttle for any
longer than they have to, which makes them soggy. I have to admit that I'm
not a great lover of chips, due to them generally being cooked poorly, as
you say, but I forced myself to try these in the pre-opening test sessions
where we were getting used to using the equipment, and the cooking times,
and I have to say that they were very nice, so hopefully, the punters will
find them so, as well :-)

Arfa

"Terry Casey" wrote in message
...
In message on Mon, 27 Jun 2011 01:59:01
+
0100
Arfa Daily wrote:


I think it is just accepted that everyone has a FaceAche account
these days, so she was just assuming that people wanting to look, would
have.

just think how much profit you would make if everybody who hasn't got a
FaceAche account brought their business to you ...

Agree with most other points that have been made.

I couldn't find the opening times anywhere, other than on the pdf.

Could annoy potential punters who decide to drop in for lunch ...

Must remember to drop in some time - it doesn't look to be too much of a
diversion from our M1/M6, A14, M11 cross country return route from
anywhere up
that way. Funnily enough, we did it last week, on our way back from Brum,
but
that was the first time in ages, so I doubt the opportunity will present
itself
again any time soon ...

You are only about 10 minutes out of your way on that route. Going west to
east on the A14, the second Kettering turn is the A509. If you come off
there, left would be into Kettering, and right would be to Wellingborough.
Heading that way, it's only a couple of miles to the next roundabout, which
is the one on the map. Left there, and then immediately right - well 100
yds - and you are with us. Fell free to drop in and see them. Wife, daughter
and S-i-L should be there.

Anyway, good luck to you and the business ...


Thank you - appreciated !


One final query: you've extolled the quality of your burgers on here long
and
hard - but what about the chips?

Please tell me they're freshly fried from real potatoes and not some of
this
revolting pre-processed muck that is so prevalent these days ...

We're off to Belgium tomorrow, so we do know what proper chips are like
...!

--

Terry

See reply to Tim S below

Arfa

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Arfa Daily wrote:


"Steve Firth" wrote in message
...
"Arfa Daily" wrote:
[snip]

There is some fairly good photos of the counter I built. I think it
looks
quite impressive, but then, I would, wouldn't I ? :-))

The website is www.ljsburgerandshakes.co.uk

If anyone's up this way of an evening, pop in and try a burger and
shake.
Tell 'em you're a friend of Arfa's on the 'net. Daughter will probably
charge you double for admitting that, though ....

Bearing what others have said, the site works reasonably well on an
iPhone,
except for the "Find Us" button which uses some horrible Microsoft
Bing/RAC
rubbish and is a frame within a frame. It's a bit of a shame because
everything else looks good/works well. The only criticism of the look
and
feel on the iPhone is that the picture and the buttons are too small.
The
screen is mostly black with a small website in the middle.

Looking at the photo, you should be proud of yourself. It's a decent job
better looking than the work of many so-called professionals.

Thanks for your valid input on the site viewed on an iPhone. I'll make
sure this is noted. As to the "Find Us", this was done in a bit of a
hurry, and seemed to do the job reasonably well on the laptop that it was
being done on. However, the website is not 'done and dusted' yet, so any
suggestions for a better royalty-free way of doing this that anyone might
be able to suggest, will of course be listened to, and appreciated.

Thanks for the comments on the counter. I built it for less than half
what we were quoted, and I am quite pleased with the way it went
together, and now looks. You can't really see from the front, but behind,
it is split-level, with a full width second level about 30 cms below the
narrow 'lean-yer-arms-on-whilst-waiting' level that you can see from the
front. I managed to build most of it at home as a sort of 'jigsaw
puzzle', and then took it up there piece by piece, and assembled it. The
maths of calculating how to get the curved tops out of standard widths of
worktops, took me back a lot of years to my old geometry and trig lessons
at school. It was like one of those exam questions that we used to get
... " A shopfitter needs to construct a counter comprising a curved
section with a 2.4 m radius, and spanning 90 degrees. Calculate (showing
all workings) the minimum sizes of counter top required ....... " and
so on ! All good fun :-)


You begin to realise what those questions were actually all about.


Arfa

Indeed you do. I was never very good at maths - except where there was a
need for it in a subject that I was interested in, such as physics, or
chemistry. I can do the maths needed for my day to day stuff in electronics,
in my head without a second thought. Teachers could never understand how I
could be an A grade student in physics and chemistry, and yet a D minus in
maths ! Doing the calculations for chord length and so on were a bit
challenging in that I could not remember for the life of me, the formula for
doing that. Once I had looked it up on the 'net, and applied it to my
drawings, it all came flooding back, and I really enjoyed the practicality
of confirming what I had calculated, when it was all cut out, and went
together exactly as designed ...

When you think back, we had some bloody good teachers back then. This level
of geometry was actually being taught to us in the final year at junior
school, and we would have been expected to tackle a problem such a chord
calculation in our first year at senior school, without help. Now, judging
by my kids when they were still at school, most of the teachers wouldn't
even be able to define a chord, let alone calculate one ...

Arfa

"Tim Watts" wrote in message
...
Arfa Daily wrote:


Thanks for your valid input on the site viewed on an iPhone. I'll make
sure this is noted. As to the "Find Us", this was done in a bit of a
hurry, and seemed to do the job reasonably well on the laptop that it was
being done on. However, the website is not 'done and dusted' yet, so any
suggestions for a better royalty-free way of doing this that anyone might
be able to suggest, will of course be listened to, and appreciated.


I mentioned a google map:

Basically, sign into Google Maps (ie actually sign in with a
gmail/googlemail account)

Search on your postcode, then go to "Create New Map".

Give it a name, make it public and click the blue pin and drag that around
until it's right.

Then hit "Link" (top right) and you get a bit of code to paste into your
website.

I did one for you but it might be a bit off:


iframe width="425" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"
marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"
src="http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=52.317851,-0.703715&spn=0.004997,0.009645&t=h&z=1 7&msa=0&msid=217623560817756928606.0004a6b 1cbe0b872c2324"/iframebr
/smallView a
href="http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=52.317851,-0.703715&spn=0.004997,0.009645&t=h&z=1 7&msa=0&msid=217623560817756928606.0004a6b 1cbe0b872c2324&source=embed"
style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left"LJ's Burger and Shakes/a in a
larger
map/small

That will be the same as clicking this link:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?msid=2...09645&t=h&z=17

I didn't say it yet, but good luck (to Arfa) - looks like a good location
given the other eateries there and the road links.

;-
--
Tim Watts

Thanks for that - I'll pass it on. And thanks for the good wishes - it's
appreciated. They've been open now for about a half hour, and there hasn't
been any panicked phone calls yet, so hopefully, everything's working well !
I shall pop up there later, and see how it's all going. It should be ok.
They had the cafes for long enough, so are well versed in serving hot food
to the general public, which is probably a good step in the right direction
towards a smooth launch night. :-)

Arfa

On 27/06/2011 15:47, Tim Streater wrote:
In article ,
Terry Casey wrote:

Anyway, good luck to you and the business ...

One final query: you've extolled the quality of your burgers on here
long and hard - but what about the chips?

Please tell me they're freshly fried from real potatoes and not some
of this revolting pre-processed muck that is so prevalent these days ...

Oh yes, now this is a very good point. What's your cooking process for
them? A Dutch former colleague always said that the problem with
fish/chip shop chips is the oil is only at 160, whereas it should be at
180. Nice crisp ones please.


Cooking chips is a three-stage process.

First, parboil chipped Maris Piper or Arran Victory potatoes. Dry on
kitchen towel and cool.

Second, fry at 170C*, until soft, but not browned, usually about five to
six minutes. Dry and cool the chips. They can be stored for quite a
while in this state in the fridge.

Third, when ready to serve, brown at 190C for a couple of minutes or so,
then dry on kitchen towel.

* Some sources put the lower temperature as low as 130C, but with a
longer cooking time. Some put it as high as 190C, with the higher then
at 200C


Colin Bignell

* Some sources put the lower temperature as low as 130C, but with a
longer cooking time. Some put it as high as 190C, with the higher then
at 200C

IIRC one of the benefits of refined beef dripping is that it has a high
smoke point compared with refined vegetable oils and so facilitates a
really hot last dip.

--
Robin
PM may be sent to rbw0{at}hotmail{dot}com

Arfa Daily wrote:

However, the website is not 'done and dusted' yet, so any suggestions
for a better royalty-free way of doing this that anyone might be able to
suggest, will of course be listened to, and appreciated.

I'd thnk carefully about setting up a web site that is run from a
Content Management System (CMS) such as Joomla. This gives you a way to
have a very nice looking corporate website which you can easily update,
with news, you can have photo albums you can have different levels of
membership giving browsing to unregistered users and more detail for
users who register with a username and password. You can have members of
your family and friends appointed as authors who can submit news
articles for the website. The newest items will go into the headline and
"push" other items down but the old stuff will all be indexed and
available for searching. It's an incredibly powerful system with a lot
of add-ons to make it do what you want. Any reasonably competent web
person could set it up for you and make whoever you want an editor so
that they can edit and veto posts.

You could even have a customer blog feature with you acting as moderator
to screen out the nasty *******s if you wanted.

Sadly my provider has ballsed up their SQL implementation and lost the
sites I had created using Joomla, otherwise I could have given you some
URLs to have a look at.

On 27/06/2011 18:42, Robin wrote:
IIRC one of the benefits of refined beef dripping is that it has a high
smoke point compared with refined vegetable oils and so facilitates a
really hot last dip.

It probably doesn't matter to Arfa, but this does of course exclude
vegans. Olive oil is supposed to be pretty good - but not cheap

I quite like the old soggy chippy chips.

Andy

It probably doesn't matter to Arfa, but this does of course exclude
vegans.

And vegetarians, and Hindus, and ... - none of whom seem to show much
sensitivity to my cultural heritage of eating chips cooked in the
traditional saturated animal fat
--
Robin
PM may be sent to rbw0{at}hotmail{dot}com

In article ,
Steve Firth wrote:
Arfa Daily wrote:

However, the website is not 'done and dusted' yet, so any suggestions
for a better royalty-free way of doing this that anyone might be able to
suggest, will of course be listened to, and appreciated.

I'd thnk carefully about setting up a web site that is run from a
Content Management System (CMS) such as Joomla.


Nice idea, but I'd avoid that if possible unless you really know what
you are doing (or, you are hosting at somewhere who does...).

Plenty of security holes in Joomla etc - patches are usually quick to
be released but unless you are quick to install you are a target. It's
overkill for a site like this IMO. If you want the community stuff, then
have a facebook page. As much as I hate facebook, I seem to be in the
minority (probably not on this group mind.. ). It works, people understand
it. You look trendy with the young folk. Older folks and people who don't
like the idea of facebook are most likely the sort who won't want to give
up their details to $yetanotherrandomsite.

Also plenty of history of managed installs not being maintained properly
and cocking things up.

Sadly my provider has ballsed up their SQL implementation and lost the
sites I had created using Joomla, otherwise I could have given you some
URLs to have a look at.

Ah, just like that. Overcomplex.

There is a place for CMS setups - just not here.

Darren

"Nightjar "cpb"@" "insertmysurnamehere wrote in message
...
On 27/06/2011 15:47, Tim Streater wrote:
In article ,
Terry Casey wrote:

Anyway, good luck to you and the business ...

One final query: you've extolled the quality of your burgers on here
long and hard - but what about the chips?

Please tell me they're freshly fried from real potatoes and not some
of this revolting pre-processed muck that is so prevalent these days ...

Oh yes, now this is a very good point. What's your cooking process for
them? A Dutch former colleague always said that the problem with
fish/chip shop chips is the oil is only at 160, whereas it should be at
180. Nice crisp ones please.


Cooking chips is a three-stage process.

First, parboil chipped Maris Piper or Arran Victory potatoes. Dry on
kitchen towel and cool.

Second, fry at 170C*, until soft, but not browned, usually about five to
six minutes. Dry and cool the chips. They can be stored for quite a while
in this state in the fridge.

Third, when ready to serve, brown at 190C for a couple of minutes or so,
then dry on kitchen towel.

* Some sources put the lower temperature as low as 130C, but with a longer
cooking time. Some put it as high as 190C, with the higher then at 200C


Colin Bignell

That's pretty much how ours are done, but with slightly different
temperatures. Most takeaways just throw 'em in and let them cook to
something that 'looks' about right. Often that results in a chip that's
either soggy inside, or just to the left of properly cooked, and still a bit
'potato-y' inside. About the most inconsistent chips that I know, are from
the chip shop (!) in my village. The guy that owned it before the current
clowns, was a 'real' chip shop man. He used to test the chips by picking a
shovel-full out of the oil, and pinching a couple. They were always perfect
....

Arfa

"Andy Champ" wrote in message
. uk...
On 27/06/2011 18:42, Robin wrote:
IIRC one of the benefits of refined beef dripping is that it has a high
smoke point compared with refined vegetable oils and so facilitates a
really hot last dip.

It probably doesn't matter to Arfa, but this does of course exclude
vegans. Olive oil is supposed to be pretty good - but not cheap

I quite like the old soggy chippy chips.

Andy

Our chippy used to fry in groundnut oil, and that was pretty decent.
Imparted a very nice flavour to the chips, without sort of 'flavouring'
them. if you see what I mean ...

Arfa

"John Rumm" wrote in message
...
On 27/06/2011 17:27, Arfa Daily wrote:


"Tim Watts" wrote in message
...
Arfa Daily wrote:


Thanks for your valid input on the site viewed on an iPhone. I'll make
sure this is noted. As to the "Find Us", this was done in a bit of a
hurry, and seemed to do the job reasonably well on the laptop that it
was
being done on. However, the website is not 'done and dusted' yet, so
any
suggestions for a better royalty-free way of doing this that anyone
might
be able to suggest, will of course be listened to, and appreciated.


I mentioned a google map:

Basically, sign into Google Maps (ie actually sign in with a
gmail/googlemail account)

Search on your postcode, then go to "Create New Map".

Give it a name, make it public and click the blue pin and drag that
around
until it's right.

Then hit "Link" (top right) and you get a bit of code to paste into your
website.

I did one for you but it might be a bit off:


iframe width="425" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"
marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"
src="http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=52.317851,-0.703715&spn=0.004997,0.009645&t=h&z=1 7&msa=0&msid=217623560817756928606.0004a6b 1cbe0b872c2324"/iframebr

/smallView a
href="http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=52.317851,-0.703715&spn=0.004997,0.009645&t=h&z=1 7&msa=0&msid=217623560817756928606.0004a6b 1cbe0b872c2324&source=embed"

style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left"LJ's Burger and Shakes/a in a
larger
map/small

That will be the same as clicking this link:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?msid=2...09645&t=h&z=17


I didn't say it yet, but good luck (to Arfa) - looks like a good
location
given the other eateries there and the road links.

;-
--
Tim Watts

Thanks for that - I'll pass it on. And thanks for the good wishes - it's
appreciated. They've been open now for about a half hour, and there
hasn't been any panicked phone calls yet, so hopefully, everything's
working well ! I shall pop up there later, and see how it's all going.
It should be ok. They had the cafes for long enough, so are well versed
in serving hot food to the general public, which is probably a good step
in the right direction towards a smooth launch night. :-)

Yup, good luck from me also. Keep us posted with how its going.

--
Cheers,

John.


Thanks for your good wishes John, and will do.

Arfa

"D.M.Chapman" dmc@puffin. wrote in message
...
In article ,
Steve Firth wrote:
Arfa Daily wrote:

However, the website is not 'done and dusted' yet, so any suggestions
for a better royalty-free way of doing this that anyone might be able to
suggest, will of course be listened to, and appreciated.

I'd thnk carefully about setting up a web site that is run from a
Content Management System (CMS) such as Joomla.


Nice idea, but I'd avoid that if possible unless you really know what
you are doing (or, you are hosting at somewhere who does...).

Plenty of security holes in Joomla etc - patches are usually quick to
be released but unless you are quick to install you are a target. It's
overkill for a site like this IMO. If you want the community stuff, then
have a facebook page. As much as I hate facebook, I seem to be in the
minority (probably not on this group mind.. ). It works, people understand
it. You look trendy with the young folk. Older folks and people who don't
like the idea of facebook are most likely the sort who won't want to give
up their details to $yetanotherrandomsite.

Also plenty of history of managed installs not being maintained properly
and cocking things up.

Sadly my provider has ballsed up their SQL implementation and lost the
sites I had created using Joomla, otherwise I could have given you some
URLs to have a look at.

Ah, just like that. Overcomplex.

There is a place for CMS setups - just not here.

Darren


I think you pretty much sum up the purpose of the website, as we see it. For
sure, the primary vehicle for sharing stuff about the place, is intended to
be the FaceAche pages, as is common these days for this sort of enterprise.
Certainly, the milkshake side of things is aimed at the kids. We used to
sell loads to the kids getting off the school buses every day outside one of
our cafes. I just popped up there to see how they were getting on, and they
had to open early because of the queue of kids outside waiting to buy
milkshakes, so that's a promising start :-)

The website is, as you say, more of a backup for those who have no
inclination to use the FaceAche route for seeing what's going down with
'specials' and so on, so the idea is to keep it simple, consistent with
looking reasonably attractive and 'professional'. But, as I said, it's still
under construction, and is by no means the finished article. We will take on
board the comments that have been made, and thank everybody for their
observations, and the work done on the maps for us.

Arfa

Arfa Daily wrote:

I think you pretty much sum up the purpose of the website, as we see it.
For sure, the primary vehicle for sharing stuff about the place, is
intended to be the FaceAche pages, as is common these days for this sort
of enterprise.

I must admit I find it strange that companies which have spent years and
millions building their own web presence and tempting users to visit

www.theirbrand.com

are now so determined to push users away to

facebook.com/theirbrand

or

twitter.com#theirbrand

On 27/06/2011 22:40, Andy Burns wrote:
Arfa Daily wrote:

I think you pretty much sum up the purpose of the website, as we see it.
For sure, the primary vehicle for sharing stuff about the place, is
intended to be the FaceAche pages, as is common these days for this sort
of enterprise.

I must admit I find it strange that companies which have spent years and
millions building their own web presence and tempting users to visit

www.theirbrand.com

are now so determined to push users away to

facebook.com/theirbrand

or

twitter.com#theirbrand


It's because the marketing consultants are getting worried that their
clients are starting to understand how web sites work :-)

Colin Bignell

In article ,
Andy Burns wrote:

I must admit I find it strange that companies which have spent years and
millions building their own web presence and tempting users to visit

www.theirbrand.com

Depends on the market you are aiming at?

We were seeing something over 70% of email through our email hubs being
facebook related - and that's through hubs that transit 1 million emails
a day...

I'm not sure people realise just how big facebook is. If I'm given a
company name, the first thing I hit is google. I know plenty of people
whose first search will be facebook.

Increasing number of google results now have the company facebook page
returned higher than the main site...

are now so determined to push users away to

facebook.com/theirbrand

I don't think they are trying to push users to facebook, I think it's more
that they realise that's where their customers are.

Also, why have the headache of running forums, blogs, etc (and all the
associated headaches) when you can let facebook take the load? Also means
that the bulk of your users will already have accounts - how many people
think "oh god, another password to forget" when they have to sign up to
yet another site?


twitter.com#theirbrand


Used well twitter is a bit different - see how VirginMedia use it for
example. It's now my prefered model of getting support from them...

http://www.alex-brown.co.uk/2011/06/...omer-care.html

is a nice explanation of how they use it. There are other comapnies doing
similar - but VM is one of the best I've come across.

Admittedly, some companies (and my MP grrr) seem to use it to just push
out PR crap. That just annoys and misses the point.

Darren

On 27/06/2011 23:06, Nightjar "cpb"@ insertmysurnamehere wrote:
On 27/06/2011 22:40, Andy Burns wrote:
Arfa Daily wrote:

I think you pretty much sum up the purpose of the website, as we see it.
For sure, the primary vehicle for sharing stuff about the place, is
intended to be the FaceAche pages, as is common these days for this sort
of enterprise.

I must admit I find it strange that companies which have spent years and
millions building their own web presence and tempting users to visit

www.theirbrand.com

are now so determined to push users away to

facebook.com/theirbrand

or

twitter.com#theirbrand


It's because the marketing consultants are getting worried that their
clients are starting to understand how web sites work :-)

Colin Bignell

There's more than a grain of truth in that one, Colin.

Quoted on a redesign for a website the other day - the spec (from
another consultant) was full of phrases like 'improved customer
experience' - and advocated lots of effort on facebook / twitter etc. -
and "Instead of just catching up with the best e-commerce sites out
there today, we’d like to move one step ahead in style and function."

All the site really needs is better design, a simpler shopping cart
and professional photography - plus proper promotion via the search engines.

Simples!

Adrian

On 27/06/2011 13:52, Steve Firth wrote:
... The only criticism of the look and
feel on the iPhone is that the picture and the buttons are too small. The
screen is mostly black with a small website in the middle....

It looks like that on a 20" monitor too.

Colin Bignell

"Zapp Brannigan" wrote in message
...
Arfa Daily wrote:
"Steve Firth" wrote in message

Looking at the photo, you should be proud of yourself. It's a decent job
better looking than the work of many so-called professionals.

Thanks for the comments on the counter. I built it for less than half
what
we were quoted, and I am quite pleased with the way it went together, and
now looks. You can't really see from the front, but behind, it is
split-level, with a full width second level about 30 cms below the narrow
'lean-yer-arms-on-whilst-waiting' level that you can see from the front.

It's a great credit to you - looks the equal of any other retail premises.


Thanks ! We're pretty pleased with how it all came out, and the general
reaction from both customers and other trades who worked on the place has
been "Wow!"

First night's customer take was good - especially considering it was only a
Monday, which was always a quiet day at the cafes, so it will be interesting
to see how it builds over the rest of the week.

Thanks to all for your help and interest, and I'll keep you posted.

Arfa

On Tue, 28 Jun 2011 07:27:14 +0000 (UTC), D.M.Chapman wrote:

http://www.alex-brown.co.uk/2011/06/...ital-customer-
care.html

is a nice explanation of how they use it.

But a bloody awful colour scheme grey(?) on blue with very similar
luma levels, almost impossible to read the text. Unvisted links being
blue on blue almost disappear. The active page highlight is readable
but only just.

--
Cheers
Dave.

In article , Arfa Daily wrote:

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/...52767711462499

There is some fairly good photos of the counter I built. I think it looks
quite impressive, but then, I would, wouldn't I ? :-))

The overall retro feel and colour scheme is a matter of personal taste,
but you've certainly made a good job of it.


The website is www.ljsburgerandshakes.co.uk

If anyone's up this way of an evening, pop in and try a burger and shake.
Tell 'em you're a friend of Arfa's on the 'net. Daughter will probably
charge you double for admitting that, though ....

Bit out of my way, but good luck. (I won't bother repeating what other
people have said about the website. I'd expect local word of mouth to
matter far more anyway.)