BF Internet - Established 1996

The Cookie Law

March 29th, 2012, by Chris Ward

On 26th May 2012 a new law concerning EU websites comes into force. It’s being dubbed ‘The cookie law’ and is a is a piece of European Union legislation that has been adopted in the UK. This article provides a summary of the cookie law and how it affects customers of BF Internet.

What’s a cookie?

“Some websites store small amounts of data on your computer called ‘cookies’ to remember if you’ve been to the website before. They also enable you to use online services more easily.” www.direct.gov.uk/managingcookies

Does my website use cookies?

Probably, yes. If you use ecommerce, or your website has some sort of log-in area (a members area or account area) your website will use cookies to remember when a user has logged in. If you use Google Analytics to track visitor trends you will use cookies too. If your website is a brochure website without any online transactions you probably don’t use cookies.

What’s the law?

In simple terms, a website can’t store cookies in the browser unless the user is provided with clear information about the purpose of the cookies and has given his or her consent. The full version of the law can be found in this PDF on the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) website, on page 7. Read the rest of this entry »

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Taking Payments Online: The Options

February 10th, 2012, by Chris Ward

In the early years, BF Internet offered clients the option of taking credit card payments via through PGP encrypted emails. This allowed shoppers to submit their credit card details through a secure encrypted form to be processed in-store and offered reduced operating costs, whilst not requiring an internet merchant account.

The card payment industry has changed massively in recent years, with greater focus on online security and fraud prevention through the introduction of CV2 numbers, 3D-secure authentication and additional layers of fraud checking. These advances have meant that other payment processing options (e.g. PayPal, Sage Pay..) have become far superior to PGP, offering improved PCI-compliant fraud protection for the merchant whilst widespread implementation has minimised costs.

This article looks at 3 options available to you, to allow payments to be taken online:

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: credit card, online, payment, pgp, secure
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New additions to our portfolio

August 17th, 2011, by Chris Ward

Hewitt Cycles are highly respected and regarded by many as one of the UK’s top specialist road cycle shops. Their new content-managed website boasts an online shop which is fully integrated with an EPOS and back-office system.

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  Cranstons Quality Butchers have been producing award-winning Cumberland Sausage for nearly a hundred years. BF Internet worked with creative agency Cactus to deliver a brand new web site with superior bespoke ecommerce functionality wrapped up in an attractive design.
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  The Pod provide unique, well built, insulated wooden huts to be used as accommodation much in the way of a tent. An existing customer of ours, we relaunched their website with a new design and a great new Pod location finder.

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Ensuring your project runs smoothly

June 7th, 2011, by Chris Ward

Having worked on web projects since 1996, we have a lot of experience of making a web project run swiftly and smoothly, whilst avoiding obstacles that cause delays. As an agency we constantly refine and perfect our process, but as our customer there are plenty of things you can do to help ensure the project is completed efficiently.

Any project – be it a house renovation, car purchase, or a bespoke web project – requires research, planning and strategy, all of which contribute to its success. These points should be considered in your planning now, to ensure your project is delivered successfully: Read the rest of this entry »

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Free image editors – Prepare images for your website

May 28th, 2010, by Chris Ward

If you run a website with updatable content areas, such as an e-commerce platform or content management system, the chances are you’ve been called upon to edit or enhance your own images in order to make them ‘web friendly’. Although Adobe Photoshop has long been the industry standard for image manipulation among professionals, its costly nature and feature-laden interface are generally a turn-off for casual users – however, there are a plethora of free and useful alternatives available for download, a selection of which are outlined in this article.

These free image editors can be divided into two categories:

• Downloadable Image Editing Software
• Web-Based Image Editors

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: image editors
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