The Simplisite Team Blog

The King's 6th Finger

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 08:58:00 +0800

There is nothing I like more than a nice bit of illustration, some sweet texture goodness and publication design. Throw these things together with a great little story and you get The King’s 6^th Finger. This is one of the best children’s storybooks I have come across. It is great to see a story with a moral.

When I was shown this book by a friend of mine, I knew instantly I needed a copy. I ended up getting five copies. Being an uncle I am always on the lookout for a great gift for my nephews. Being a designer, I always want these gifts to be the coolest things ever. Unfortunately, this leads me to owning a whole bunch of cool kids toys and books. Hooked for kids and children-at-heart.

Based in a kingdom far, far away, The King’s Sixth Finger tells the story of Mortimer, a King with an obsession with the number 5. Everything in his kingdom needs to be found in fives from the moats around his castle to the hairs on his head. That is, until one day, when he is dealt a sneaky sixth finger. The story goes on to tell the tale of the dilemma that the king is in. What will he do to resolve this most perplexing of issues? Don’t worry; I wont spoil the fun for you.

Illustrated by Jolby, who aims to “tell a memorable story” and “make people smile”, their artistic work is full of fun, lathered with texture and bursting with colour. This book is no different with great character illustrations and awesome hand-drawn typography that perfectly complements the story, co-authored by Rachel Roellke.

If you have kids, grandkids, nieces or nephews, this is a great present - if you can bear parting with it. Not only is this book super entertaining for all ages, it has, like all good stories, a moral.

You know you want to buy 5 copies from Amazon too.

http://www.thekings6thfinger.com

Jquery-fu: Part 1 – What is Jquery and how do I use it?

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 22:37:00 +0800

Originally this was going to be a single post about tips and tricks for people starting out with Jquery, however I quickly realised that this was going to be the mother-of-all-posts unless I separated it up a bit. Instead, I have decided to turn this into a blog mini-series called Jquery-fu over the next few weeks. This initial post just touches on what Jquery actually is, why you would use it, and how to set it up. Enjoy! :)

Ninjas always have GIANT computers. For kicking.

What is Jquery?

Jquery is a most honourable Javascript library that adds some useful functionality to your programming arsenal. Whether you have trained diligently in the art of Javascript or you are fairly new to both Javascript and Jquery, if you have any kind of background in HTML and CSS it should be fairly easy to pick up. There are a number of advantages to using Jquery over "traditional" Javascript (and other libraries!);

It's lightweight
It simplifies and reduces the lines of code required
Cross-browser functionality (IE 6.0+, FF 2.0+, Safari 3.0+, Opera 9.0+, Chrome)
The selector class (which retrieves one or multiple DOM elements) is based on the CSS selector class
The ability to add multiple events of the same type (click, change etc) to the same element/s is a lot easier

The beauty of Jquery is that as well as the above, it also has hundreds of free plugins available. A full list can be found here, however this list is extensive, so it can also be worth looking at user-maintained lists like this one.

Setting up Jquery

To get the latest version of Jquery, visit the Jquery website and download the minified and uncondensed files. When using Jquery on a live site you will want to use the minified file, but the uncondensed file is great if you want to debug the script if something isn't working correctly with a program like Firebug for Firefox, which I would highly recommend installing. Once you have these files, you can reference them within the head tags of your html file by doing the following;

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://yourdomain.com/yourpath/jquery-1.6.2.min.js"></script>

</head>

</pre>

...change the file name to jquery-1.6.2.js if you want to debug, don't include both! ;) An alternate method is to link to the Jquery version you wrote your code with directly as shown below. The advantage to this is that many sites do this, and therefore users coming to your site may already have the file cached in their browser.

<pre>

<head>

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.2/jquery.min.js?ver=1.6.2"></script>

</head>

</pre>

Now you will want to add your custom Javascript file to start using Jquery in. To do this, create a .js file and include the path to it in a similar fashion to the Jquery source code. It should look something like this;

<pre>

<head>

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://yourdomain.com/yourpath/jquery-1.6.2.min.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://yourdomain.com/yourpath/starting_jquery.js"></script>

</head>=

</pre>

It's probably worth noting that Javascript is read sequentially, so the Jquery source must be loaded before any other files that use Jquery, otherwise you will probably see some JS errors occurring. You should now be ready to start playing around with Jquery. In the next installment I plan on showing how to use Jquery on page load and how the Jquery selector class works. - Tom (more on this and subsequent instalments of Jquery fu at the devninja)

We Should All be Cross-browser Testing Like This ...

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 22:37:00 +0800

Testing Web-based Software Interfaces with Atlassian Bamboo and the Sauce Labs Bamboo plug-in.

Continuous Integration is integral to successful and reliable software deployment. It is also applicable and is a practise worth taking up in general web-development; especially as web-sites become more complex and so integral to business.

What is Continuous Integration?

It is how programmers describe automated application testing environments. The environment listens‚ continuously‚ to a source-code repository for changes in the code and can automatically run pre-established tests‚ indicating if the code-base is green/ok or whether it is red and tests are broken. You could also manually run these tests if you are not using a code-repository. The fantastic thing is that these tests now don't have to only test the code‚ they can automatically test the user interaction with a web-site or web-based application. And better still they can do this cross-browser and cross operating system in a surprisingly easy to set up fashion. When running it is fast, quick to adapt as your code changes and will give you so much more information than if a client or customer stumbles across your issue. Potentially you could save a lot of time cross-browser testing your initial development and code changes.

Use this guide as a top-down and hopefully easy to understand introduction to how we should all be cross-browser testing.

Technically for this guide we will assume you are developing your web-based application using PHP ‚ but there will be very little difference between languages. Here are the technologies we will use:

Unit testing in a testing environment is the means of testing individual units of code and or functionality; there are numerous unit testing frameworks for each programming language‚ we will be using PHPUnit for our sample PHP code.

What is Sauce Labs OnDemand?

Sauce OnDemand is a great cloud-computing service which takes an Open-source technology, Selenium, and makes it easy to configure and use.

What is Selenium?

It is an open-source cross-browser testing framework‚ imagine virtual operating systems (Windows XP, Windows 7, Linux, MacOs) each with different versions of web-browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari) that can be quickly instantiated and communicated to to virtually load web-sites into the browser and interact with them. Interactions are via JavaScript making the browser believe a real user is interacting with it. You can then also interact with the browser to navigate and read the entire document-object-model DOM to test its state is correct‚ perhaps after an interaction; like a mouse-click. But running Selenium alone you face the challenge of tedious set-up and maintenance of all virtual machine combinations via a Selenium Grid (a grid of virtual configurations).

Why Sauce Labs OnDemand?

Besides not having to configure and maintain your Selenium Grids? Because Sauce Labs OnDemand is a cloud it is always available, scalable and you can run multiple environments in parallel. But you can also watch scripts in real-time and even record a video of the browser session to watch again later.

Bamboo and Atlassian?

Atlassian is an Australian company with a hard-to-look-past and ever-growing suite of great development process management tools. You would be hard pressed to find a better combination of tools; and they are well priced for start-ups through to enterprise. You can also subscribe to use Atlassian's suite of tools in the cloud. One of Atlassian's tools is Bamboo‚ this is their Continuous Integration environment. It is easy to manage with a web-based interface to create, run and monitor tests. It can also notify you of test results; by email, RSS feed any way that you like to communicate. Numerous plug-ins for Atlassian tools are available, we will of course focus on the Bamboo Sauce Labs Plugin for OnDemand integration. On a side-note Sauce Labs also have a plug-in for the other popular continuous integration environment‚ Hudson.

What does the Bamboo Sauce Labs Plugin let you do?

Well it comes pre-configured with everything to integrate Bamboo with Sauce Labs OnDemand. And the interface is simple. Enter your Sauce Labs login credentials, choose an operating system and browser combination and then customise server configurations manually or simply use an established Selenium-Factory containing all configurations. New web-browser and operating system combinations are automatically listed as they become available. Whilst configuring you can turn on or off the optional video recording‚ note you may turn it off for performance reasons. What if you are testing a web-site on your local network? Sauce Connect can be used to establish SSH tunnels for fire-walled websites. Again via the easy to use configuration interface.

My IT guy will take care of all the junk you have mentioned so far‚ I just want to write the tests!

Selenium users‚ Locators‚ typically known as DOM Selectors in web-based programming, where you can interact using DOM element Id's, Names, Links, XPaths, CSS and DOM traversal. So you can essentially pin-point any part of the HTML document. You can then interact with it, click hyper-links or any other part of the DOM which may have JavaScript events associated to it. Your final step once you have interacted will be to test the outcome is as desired. Here is what the code to do all three things looks like. We find a hyper-link named‚ Simplisite A Symbol! click on it, wait for the page to load and then check the title of the resulting page in the web-browser is‚

$this->open("/");
$this->waitForPageToLoad("60000");
$this->click("link=Simplisite A Symbol!");
$this->waitForPageToLoad("60000");
$this->assertTrue($this->isTextPresent("Blog » Simplisite A Symbol!"));

*Web designers are running for the hills!*

But wait, there is more. This steak-knife set comes with a sharpening block‚ call any-time... cue Sauce Labs Firefox plug-in called Sauce Builder. Now this is a great plug-in, super easy to use. Once you have installed the Sauce Builder, tell it to start navigation at a URL‚ i.e. the web-site you want to test. Now start interacting with the web-site and the Sauce Builder records your every move. After interacting add Verification to verify the outcome and each time this script runs it will verify the outcome is as desired. From Sauce Builder you can test your script and watch it in action on your local PC or even run it in the cloud on another web-brower‚ again watching it in real time.

Screenshot: Run Sauce Builder script locally

Screenshot: Run Sauce Builder script OnDemand

This alone would be a great way for web designers to test their web-sites and applications‚ but use Sauce Builder's export functionality and you can export this script to your unit test language of choice. You will have just created one script which will test multiple browsers and you have not written a line of code. Put this script into Bamboo and the continuous integration environment will take care of running the test for you again and again; as you change your code but also as new web-browser versions are released!

Screenshot: Export script

How do we use Bamboo?

Bamboo is probably the steepest learning curve if you have not used it or any Continuous Integration before; and more-so if you have not used any of the Atlassian suite before. But bear with me; you will enjoy using it and will wonder how you ever did anything without it once you are up and running. There is plenty of documentation on the Internet and on the Atlassian web-site. But here is a brief overview. Bamboo builds are broken into levels; Projects‚ Plans‚ Stages‚ Jobs‚ Tasks. Each level can have multiple entries and each entry at subsequent levels has one parent entry. Plans and Stages are high-level groupings. Whilst a Job is a container for the individual build Tasks‚ an example Task type is a PHPUnit task which will run a PHPUnit test. Pre-requisite is that you follow the PHPUnit install instructions as guided by Atlassian Bamboo's PHPUnit wiki page. So essentially the test script you generated using Sauce Builder is a PHPUnit Task in Bamboo. Wrap that in a Job, wrap that in a Stage and wrap that in a build Plan and wrap that in a Project. Configure these and your test is ready to go. Your Jobs do not necessarily need to be Unit tests, for instance you might have a job for each task like; reset a database, a test environment, retrieve or copy the latest version of code and deploy the code to the test environment; all before running the Unit test jobs.

We should all be cross-browser testing like this.

I will adjust my statement, we should all be web-based user interface testing like this - cross-browser testing is just a bonus. If you have come this far, hopefully you agree or can see partly the merit to cross-browser testing like this. It is your reputation and resulting project quality that will benefit most. If you have established a good collection of tests you should be able to rest easy after a code change and be confident you or your team-mate has not inadvertently broken any application functionality. If you/they have, everyone will be aware, the bad code won't go to the client - Bamboo can help control code releases too. If you have a bug, you can script it and make sure it does not crop back up (come on, how many times has this happened?). The people-power and people-hours required to run even on cross-browser test in 3 or 4 browsers is going to be drastically reduced. Using Sauce Builder couldn't be more straight forward, integrate it into your UI design-process, export the scripts and hand them to your developer if you are not sure how to integrate them into Bamboo. How about integrating usability/UX tests like; number of clicks to reach X page or X functionality in unit tests via Sauce Builder - maintain your web-sites usability.

Agree or disagree, want to correct me or ask a question? Please do.

References.

Duckin' & Dodgin'

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 14:37:00 +0800

Well it's been a while, but here's what's been happening ...

We've moved back to Subiaco and are now located at 54 Derby Road - so we are now co-located with our Red Tiki colleagues.

Speaking of the devil, the team at Red Tiki have been smashing it with a nomination in this year's SouthXSouthWest Interactive Awards Business category. Kudos to a small team from WA who have showcased some serious talent on the big stage! Cam, Ella and Jack went across to Texas to represent us at the awards, and had a great time, as well as fitting in some networking and picking up a heap of cutting edge skills and techniques from industry workshops. (read their blog here)

Oh, and not to mention, Cam and Ella getting married in Vegas by Elvis (Big congrats, guys!)

Back in WA, the Simplisite-Red Tiki dodgeball team has been dominating - well, competing - well participating - in the Corporate Super7's Sundowner Series on the Perth foreshore at Langley Plaza. A great setting and great weather for a couple of hours of fantastic fun and team building organised by Greg and the guys at GemSports (top work). And on a personal note, a big win for yours truly, picking up a swe-e-e-et Sexy Bicycle as a prize to reward team organisers (certainly not for dodgeball prowess!). Thanks to Sexy Bicycles for their support of the event (and if you haven't seen one of these machines, check them out - they are awesome).

And here's your chance to see the mighty Simplisite-Red Tiki dodgeball juggernaut in action (enjoy!)

A Simplisite Christmas

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 16:28:00 +0800

We had a glorious day out for our Christmas staff do to celebrate all our hard work in 2010.
We wrapped up the year with a wine & Supa Golf tour of the Swan Valley on the 17th of December.

After getting picked up from our Subiaco headquarters we headed straight for our closest wine country, hitting Lancaster first for wine tastings session one. My favourite was their late picked Chenin which was a delightful accompaniment to the cheese platter they kindly made for us.

Second up was Heafod Glen where we enjoyed tasting session two, the highlights of which were their Viognier & 06 Cabernet Sauvignon.

It was then onwards to Supa Golf, which I have to admit was far more fun than anticipated.
Think giant mini golf; The clubs & ball are plastic, the holes are short & relatively simple.
Good golfing fun was had by all :)

We worked up an appetite sweating it out on the golf course so a late lunch at Sandalford is just what we needed.
As always their food, service & wine was delightful.
We especially appreciated the occasional spritz from the misters in the grape vines above our dining table. Very refreshing on a hot summer arvo in Perth.

We had a blast. Hope you all had a sensational festive season too :)

Simplisite A Symbol!

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:50:00 +0800

We recently heard the wonderful news that our Simplisite Business Solutions logo has been accepted into the LogoLounge "Shapes and Symbols" publication. It's the third book in the new Master Library series.

The fantastic design team at Dessein created the iconic logo for us. We've worked on many design projects with Dessein including the Black Swan State Theatre Company site.

We asked Dessein to work on our logo because we like many others suffered from the 'too many cooks in the kitchen' syndrome. We designed our own logos since starting the business but were never really inspired by the results. Everyone had an idea of what they wanted our corporate identity to be & none of us could agree or agree to disagree about it.

After working with Dessein for some time we could see the amazing work & design outcomes they were producing time & time again. We decided it was time to bite the bullet and hand it over to the experts. It was the best thing we ever did!

It took Dessein no time at all to come up with 3 independently brilliant logo concepts for us based on the requirements we provided. We wanted it to stay in the autumnal colours & maintain the circular like movement of our previous logo but that's all the info we gave.

We all agreed on the logo you see today. Some of us thought it looked like a giant complex cog representing our technical machine like abilities. Others felt it looked like a marigold, or beer bottles in a spiral or a vortex of paddles. Perhaps it's all of those things.

It feels great to get external confirmation from Logo Lounge that we made the right choice. It's a logo we are proud as a company can get behind & be represented by.

Suite Get-Together

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 15:02:00 +0800

With the expansion of Simplisite to now include two offices & with how busy we've been recently we haven't had the opportunity to all get together like we used to on a Friday afternoon to relax & catch up over some tasty food & beverages.

I thought is was about time we rectified the situation & did something fun. So I booked the private room at The Suite for us. Luckily for the Subiaco office Suite is right next door. Team Inglewood trekked over our way & graced us with their presence.

It was a wonderful warm night in by the open fire, sipping on cocktails & nibbling tasty treats. It was great to chat with all the people we no longer get to see everyday. Definitely the downside of expansion.

We thoroughly enjoying catching up with everyone & the rustic charm & eclectic style of the Suite.

The Clean House Cleans Up!

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 16:46:00 +0800

Last night the Simplisite team enjoyed a night at the Playhouse theatre for the opening of The Black Swan State Theatre Company's The Clean House.

The Clean House was both funny & touching. It struck many cords that ring scarily true for most modern families. What family hasn't been touched by infidelity, sibling rivalry and/or death? Certainly none that I've ever come across!

The set was exceptional. Andrew Bellchambers made a fantastic debut as Set Designer with the Black Swan demonstrating his superb conceptualisation skills. He managed to embody a sterile upperclass home, a romantic apartment & a European forrest in the small stage without it feeling cluttered or unbelievable.

The gorgeous Brooke Satchwell was endearing as the frank Matilde whose recent family tragedy had left her floating unattached in an uncomfortable foreign world. I found her even more endearing after chatting with her at the After Party establishing she too was a cat person. We shared photos of our babies & discussed their personalities & health problems like adoring mothers.

Sarah McNeil played Lane to a tee. Although she was clearly constructed to be initially disliked with her anal behavior & kurt mannerisms it was impossible not to gradually feel more & more empathetic towards her. By the conclusion of the play Lanes character demonstrated her courageousness & an exceptional ability to forgive.

Carol Burns got the most laughs as the disillusioned & lonely house wife Virginia, Lanes sister. Her dry pessimistic whit was a great comic relief in many otherwise heavy scenes. There was one great scene in particular where Virginia's jealousy of her sisters success & lifestyle teamed with a thoughtless outburst from Lane caused Virginia to uncharacteristically erupt & put the home that she spent most of the play cleaning into disarray. It got the biggest laugh of the night.

Vivienne Garrett truly shone as Ana. She was simultaneously outrageous & subdued. Her portrayal of a passionate, honest, unassuming cancer patient embodied the concept of inner beauty & made you love her despite the circumstances surrounding her.

Lane's clean crisp white sheet world was juxtaposed beautifully with the colourful natural chaos of Ana's carefree reality best symbolised by the bushel of crisp freshly picked apples that were forever in her presence.

As in all good theatre there were moments that spoke to & moved us all. My favourite thing about theatre is that these moments are completely individual & when talking to the audience after the performance you realise we all have different triggers & take what touches us personally away from the experience.

We love supporting The Black Swan & it's great night's out like this that remind us why.

If you feel like a laugh at the absurdity of life The Clean House is a must. Check out their awesome website for details http://bsstc.com.au/the-clean-house

It made the question "Are you going to laugh or cry?" resonate in my mind.

Broadwater Beach Bar & Restaurant Site Launch

Wed, 05 May 2010 15:56:00 +0800

Simplisite Expansion!

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:23:00 +0800

We are proud to announce the opening of a new Simplisite office in Inglewood.

In the past couple of years our team has grown exponentially to meet the demands of the Perth corporate market. Our Subiaco base that we love so much & has housed us for so many years just wasn't large enough to house everyone comfortably anymore.
So we decided to expand our empire & now boast two Simplisite offices.

You can still find our design & management teams at our Subiaco office. That includes myself, Cam Worth, Jack Faulkner, Siong Eng & Boz Yates.
We have a fabulous coffee machine if you're ever in the neighbourhood and feel like a chat & a cuppa please pop in. I'd happily demonstrate my mad coffee making skills!

But it's our new Inglewood location that is our piece de resistance.
It has been beautifully fitted out and custom designed for us by one of our client's Rain Projects. Who make high end boutique offices & homes for a living.
It's fresh, new, minimal and modern decked out in whites, greys & charcoal and has plenty of room for our developers. Perfect for our tech team!

Our software development & IT teams can now be found at our new Inglewood location on the corner of Sexton Street. The Inglewood team includes Daniel Mende our IT Manager, Adrian Kirk-Burnnand our Software Development Manager & his team of Developers; Brendon Lee, Tom Garner & Francis Dao.

Please feel free to pop in for a visit to talk with one of our Managers about your next project.
We'd be happy to show off our fabulous new office!

New Site for Award Winning Relines Company

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:30:00 +0800

We are proud to announce the launch of the new website for Relines Australia.
Our team worked to design & develop a new corporate website to mirror the proud Relines ethos.

Relines Australia has developed a growing reputation as an industry leader in the provision of safe and cost effective Mill Reline Services.
They have won copious awards to demonstrate their commitment to safety including an IFAP Leading Safety Solutions award in 2009 for meeting all their safety targets & a Gold Safety Achievement Award in recognition of their Safety Management System. As well as another Safety Achievement Award for successfully achieving two years without a lost time injury.

The most interesting part of our job is always learning about the intricacies of different industries and we certainly learnt a great deal about stuff we knew nothing about before our collaboration with Relines Australia. A rewarding & educational experience.

Please take a look at the new & improved Relines Australia website & let us know your thoughts.

New Clients Galore!

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:33:00 +0800

Wow! It' been an intense start to 2010 for all of us at Simplisite.

Never before have we had such an influx of new clients wanting us to work with them on exciting new projects in such a short space of time.  Just in the last few weeks we've picked up Rubra, the Film & Television Institute of WA, Broadwater Beach Bar & Restaurant, Kailis Organic Olive Groves, Sea of White, Australian Friends of Kastellorizo & Novus Sealing.

We're working on e-commerce systems for Rubra & Sea of White to sell their exquisite high end product ranges.  Fortunately for us Allan; Rubra's Master Roaster insisted that we must understand & appreciate his product to effectively sell it and generously supplied us with more coffee that we could ever consume. Accordingly we felt compelled to do his product justice and invested in a San Morino coffee machine to drink Rubra coffee properly.
So that was a win for the office. Our productivity is way up!

For the Broadwater Beach Bar & Restaurant we're conducting an entire business makeover from logo to web development. These are always our favorite kind of projects. When we can really apply our unique expertise to recreate an entire brand in all facets of communication.

We've taken over management of both the Australian Friends of Kastellorizo & Kailis Organic Olive Groves web sites & email marketing systems.

The web is taking off & business is acknowledging it's importance like never before. Exciting times!

Welcome Aboard Francis!

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:44:00 +0800

We'd like to give a big warm welcome to our newest recruit Francis Dao.

Francis studied with Tom & Geoff who started with us earlier in the year and recently approached us to become part of the team. He impressed us with his initiative & the results he achieved in our infamous employee "test" drafted by our crafty Lead Developer Adrian.

Francis brings a different approach to the team and our projects with his Bachelor in Computer Systems Engineering and Diploma of Database Development (IT).

We're excited about our expanding development team and looking forward to seeing what we can achieve together. Because as much as I hate to quote Henry Ford he was right when he said "Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success."

Go Team!

Congratulations Teng!

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:00:00 +0800

We have had the pleasure of working with the enigmatic Brendon Lee or Teng as he's better known around the office since 2008.

We are proud to congratulate him on his recently completed Bachelor of Information Technology from Edith Cowan University. Which will be made official this Sunday at his graduation ceremony.

Have fun & well done Teng!

A Standing Ovation for The Sapphires

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:46:00 +0800

The 2010 Season for the Black Swan State Theatre Company officially started last night with the opening of Tony Briggs The Sapphires.The reception the play received was unlike any I've ever seen! By the end the entire audience was standing and screaming for more, clapping until our hands stung and our arms ached. The production was that infectious. It was impossible to be in the audience and stay unaffected by the energy, positivity & fun of the production.

The cast were sensational but it was Casey Donovan & Christine Anu who really stole the show. Casey's voice gave me goose bumps and was nothing short of amazing. She took the audience exactly where she wanted them to go. When she was singing the blues the audience fell silent & when she was blasting out Aretha Franklin classics like Respect & Think we were moving to the beat, tapping our feet & singing along. Casey's acting chops weren't bad either. She definitely got a lot of laughs and confidently poked fun at her character Cynthia's overtly sexual nature.

Christine Anu showed us why she's still renowned as one of Australia's most celebrated entertainers rocking the playhouse with her powerful perfectly tuned voice and exhibiting a larger than life onstage persona. She also had the best outfits!

A huge part was played by the Costume Designer Tim Chappel whose dresses were fabu-licious! I would love to raid that wardrobe and adopt it into my own. Every outfit was gorgeous. The bright, bold prints and classic 60's shift dresses were executed perfectly setting the scene for both the music & the era flawlessly.

But I must also mention the supporting fellas of The Sapphires'; Jimi Bani who's fabulous energy, rhythm and showmanship opened and closed the show, Oliver Wenn who played the adorable Dave exceeding well & Aljin Abella who's performance rooted the play in it's Vietnamese setting and provided a genuine & raw reminder of the losses suffered by the innocent in war.

The true story the play is based on resonated throughout the performance and was reinforced by the presence of one of the original Sapphires who made it up on stage for the finale. Although the music and set were fantastical the characters & dialogue never seemed unreal.

If you can get your hands on a ticket I would highly recommend going to see The Sapphires. Check the website for availability About The Sapphires

With the reviews and reception of The Sapphires being so impressive tickets maybe hard to come by. But fear not! With the exceptional precedent set by the opening night of the season I'm sure that any show for the 2010 season will be sure to please.

Take a look at the 2010 shows to see what's on bsstc.com.au

It's productions like The Sapphires that make me proud to be the Online Partner for The Black Swan State Theatre Company in 2010.
I encourage all West Australian businesses to support the arts so that we may enjoy performances like this for years to come and improve our standing as a state that appreciates and supports cultural betterment.

Slick New Site for Award Winning Photographer

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 11:45:00 +0800

Sanny Chong is an award winning Australian photographer whose work spans the fashion, editorial and advertising industries. His photos are beautiful, refined and haunting.

With a solid background in the marketing and advertising industries Sanny's creative eye is continually refined by the countless hours spent working on editorials, marketing and creative campaigns. His work has featured in a number of publications including The West Australian newspapers.

Sanny approached us to join our creative forces at the end of 09. We loved his work and jumped at the opportunity to start a strategic partnership with such a talented photographer.

Our first mission was to recreate his online presence with something that reflected & highlighted his refined and understated style. We did extensive research into the successful and the not so successful photography website designs out there at the moment and came back with the idea of using a clean white canvas.

At first we included some intricate detailing however as the design progressed we came to see that less was more and removed almost everything from the design except the menu. Simplicity is elegance and we came to see that was how we would represent Sanny best.

We wanted visitors to the site to see only his work and not the site itself and I think we achieved that.

Please take a look and let us know what your thoughts sanny.com.au

Bring on 2010!

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 09:52:00 +0800

We are back in action at Simplisite for the New Year and boy are we excited about it!
We already have some awesome projects on the go which will keep us busy well into the New Year.

2009 was an amazing year for us. Chockers full of change, opportunity and growth.
Our skills in custom application & web development were in higher demand than ever before. It seemed that Australian and particularly West Australian business turned a corner and suddenly saw what the web could do for them. The web is awe-inspiring and we just love being a part of it.
Because we had so much work we needed more skilled team members to help out. Luckily for us we found Adrian Kirk-Burnnand who has been an inspiration of organisation & leadership since joining the team in March of 09.

At the end of 09 we recruited two eager youngsters Geoff Stokes & Tom Garner.
We also welcomed back Daniel Mende, IT expert extraordinaire to the family.

2009 was certainly a year of opportunity for us and we'd like to say a huge thanks to our clients, associates & especially our team for making it our most exciting year yet.

We are so proud of what we have achieved and the direction the company is going in for 2010.
The future looks bright and we can't wait to meet it!

Lumikello Website Launch

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:33:00 +0800

We are proud to announce the Launch of Carita Viklund's Lumikello website.

Lumikello offers some amazing services which we can whole heartedly vouch for being that Carita is Simplisites' personal Massage Therapist. We enjoy her insights, exceptional strength and healing touch every Friday afternoon at the office.

But Lumikello isn't just about massage and relaxation; it's a holistic lifestyle brand catering for all walks of life. There are treatments designed especially for Brides to be, kids & corporate events. As well as gifts including books, clothes, music & more.

Carita has gathered all her sources of inspiration to share in her gift & treatment range. The gifts available on Lumikello have all been hand picked by Carita due to the pivotal role they have played in her journey to a peaceful life.

We couldn't recommend Lumikello enough. Carita has helped all of us to relax more and thus be more productive. Even if you are the sceptical type about these sorts of things (as I was) I promise you will be converted! It also doesn't hurt that Carita is a gorgeous Fin as you can see here Lumikello Team

Check out the site and see what you think www.lumikello.com.au

Welcome Back Dan

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 10:43:00 +0800

We are so pleased to welcome back our resident Giant and IT expert/enforcer Daniel Mende.

Dan started working with us back in 07 and took a brief career hiatus from Simplisite in 08 but now he's back and we couldn't be happier. Dan's wonderful wife Chloe has been keeping an eye on all things IT for Simplisite in his absence and will continue to support our servers and hosting.

With Dan back as Senior IT Consultant we can offer even more IT expertise to our clients including:

Networking
Network Management
Business Hosting
Co-location Services
Oracle Database and Software
Linux and Windows Support
Outsourcing and Service Delivery
IT continuity management
Technical Architecture
System and Service Management
Performance Reviews and System Audits
Hardware
IT Support
Hardware and Procurement
Infrastructure Planning

Dan's return is just in time to help us tackle some of some of our biggest and most exciting projects to date in 2010. We know it'll be an exciting year and we're looking forward to the challenge.

Welcome Aboard Geoff & Tom!

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:30:00 +0800

We would like to give a big Simplisite welcome to our newest members of staff Geoff Stokes & Tom Garner who will be joining the team in the first week of 2010.

Both Geoff & Tom have backgrounds in Information Technology focusing on Database Design & Development, Programming & Software Development

Our new recruits will be working with our development team under the competent direction of Adrian & Brendon.

We think Geoff & Tom are going to make a great addition to the Simplisite family. We look forward to starting our working relationship in the New Year & making beautiful software applications together.

Welcome aboard Gentlemen!