Established in 1986, B-Line continues as a thriving and professional business supplies company, enjoying unparalleled success through working in partnership with their customers. B-Line can supply everything an office needs from the latest technology products to essentials like coffee.

Visit the new website: www.b-line.co.uk

Please note, OXLink will be closed for Christmas from 1pm on Friday 21 December until Tuesday 1 January 2013, inclusive.

We’ll be open again on Wednesday 2 January 2013.

Email us for urgent support

As with previous years, our support@oxlink.net address will be intermittently checked over the festive period but emails sent to other addresses, or telephone messages left on our answerphone will not be received until the office re-opens next year.

A very Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to one and all!

Oxford Knee Group are a team of highly skilled and specialist knee surgeons. Operating from the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford, the group treat both local cases and complex cases from across the country.

Visit the new website: oxfordkneegroup.com

When and where

When we say “imminent”, we mean this week! Our moving date is this Friday 19 October (so we might be a bit at sixes and sevens that day – if you’ll forgive us). Our first “official” day in our new home will be the following Monday though.

New address (from Monday 22 October 2012)

OXLink Ltd
Hampden House
Monument Park
Chalgrove
Oxfordshire
OX44 7RW

Telephone, fax, email and web

Telephone / fax numbers, email addresses, web address etc will all remain the same.

And finally… the rumours are UNtrue

Any suggestion that the move might have something to do with the availability of bacon butties just across the way from our new office is entirely baseless obviously.

Sounds exciting, but um… pardon?

Okay so that’s a few acronyms in there…

Basically, SAP is a large company that develops enterprise application software and by using SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) we are able to provide a simple web interface enabling customers to interact with a complex SAP back office system – to perform such tasks as reporting issues and managing personal account information.

How it works

With SOAP we can transparently call functions (or issue commands, if you like) in the SAP back office application as if they were native functions within our web application. The available SAP functions are defined in what is known as a WSDL (Web Services Description Language) definition, which is loaded automatically by our web application so we know exactly what parameters and data the SAP application is expecting. The WSDL file also tells our application how to handle errors, allowing us to provide a robust web interface to the customer with helpful messages if something goes wrong.

Why we’re using SOAP

SOAP is very popular and is supported by a wide range of enterprise application software. This is primarily due to it being maintained as a standard by the W3C, and the fact that it can work easily over existing web infrastructure, such as firewalls and proxies, without requiring any modification.

George Henry Relay are experts at installing & maintaining a variety of systems for an impressive range of clients.

Visit the new website: georgehenryrelay.co.uk

If it wasn’t registered in your company’s name (and it’s not a trademark) then, strictly speaking, you have no legal rights to it. You might be using it for your website, you might be using it for your email addresses but that doesn’t mean that you actually own it.

Why third party ownership could become a problem

The domain name could be sold without your consent

If your domain was registered in the name of someone other than your current website designer or hosting provider, and no formal agreement exists between you, then they could choose to sell, what is essentially their property, to someone else (most likely a competitor of yours) at some point in the future – especially if it’s a sought after, keyword-rich name.

The domain registration could be allowed to lapse

Domain name registrations require regular renewal. If you no longer have a relationship with the registrant and, as such, are not paying (directly or indirectly) any renewal fees yourself, how can you be sure that the registration will continue? If it’s allowed to lapse then any services attached to it (such as email and web) will cease to operate.

The registered owner’s company could cease to exist

If your domain was registered in the name of your web designer, hosting provider or similar supplier and the business fails, you could find that extracting a registered asset of a disolved company from its receivers quite a difficult task – especially if the name is a very good one and therefore worth money to creditors.

You might want to sell your business in the future

If you wanted to sell your business in the future and include your company website as part of the package you wouldn’t be able to transfer the associated domain name to the new owners – only the registrant could do that.

How to check domain registration details

Whilst some domain name owners might use a third party service to hide their registration details from the public, most records can be easily checked by anyone via one of the many free online “WHOIS” services available.

We generally use Domain Tools here, but there are lots of other services around – try typing “whois lookup” into Google.

To check with Domain Tools, simply append your domain name to their whois web address – for example: http://whois.domaintools.com/amazon.co.uk.

The layout of the information will vary according to the domain name registry responsible but you should be able to see the registrant details (name and address) – are they yours?

What you can do if you’re not the registered owner

If you’re still friends

If you’re still on good terms with the registrant than then getting a change of ownership shouldn’t be too much of a problem. They might want to charge an administration fee and the registry responsible might also charge a little something for transfer, but otherwise it should all be relatively painless.

If you’re not

If your relationship with the registrant has broken down, transferring ownership might be quite a difficult process – especially if the name in question is not a trademark (even worse if it’s something generic) and you have no evidence to suggest that the registrant intended for you to own the name outright.

In these cases, the registrant may offer to sell the domain to you but usually at a hugely inflated price. If you’re not willing to purchase and there’s no reasonable legal recourse you can take (you might, for example, have a case against a former employee who registered a domain for your company whilst still in your employ) then your only other option is to chalk it up to experience and start again with a different domain – registered in your name.

The ethos of Success In Maths is to encourage efficient and effective use of graphic calculators for the teaching and learning of mathematics.

Visit the new website: successinmaths.com

If you’ve visited the Actinic website recently, you’re probably wondering where the desktop product we all know and love has gone to. Has it really been replaced by its Software as a Service (SaaS) sister, Actinic Online?

What’s happened

It’s nothing to worry about, Actinic Desktop still exists as it always has – just rebranded as SellerDeck.

The same people are behind the product (SellerDeck, the company, is owned by the original Actinic founders) and it’s still being actively developed with no signs of stopping (there’s a new version due out next year).

All that’s really happened is a transfer of the “Actinic” brand along with the associated SaaS product, Actinic Online. Both of these are now owned by Oxatis UK Limited.

Why things have changed

Last year, Actinic (as was) entered into a partnership arrangement with Oxatis in order to offer an online ecommerce solution (Actinic Online). Since that time (and up until very recently), both Actinic Desktop and Actinic Online have been marketed together.

However, after a while, it became clear that offering two ecommerce products with such very different business models was causing a certain amount of confusion – particularly with new customers.

The complete separation of the two products, therefore, is simply designed to give each back its indivdual identity and focus.

What this means to our existing Actinic customers

Essentially, nothing changes.

OXLink will still be providing you with any support you might need for Actinic Desktop / SellerDeck and we’ll still be developing new sites with the software.

Future versions will of course be rebranded but the core product will be remaining the same.

So why not just opt for the cheapest one, what’s the difference?

You get what you pay for

Never has the old adage, “you get what you pay for” been more true. Money translates into time – the time spent on your project will be directly related to the cost. Cost is also related to the quality and professional experience of those working on your project – a friend’s son working out of his bedroom, for example, has zero overheads compared to an office based team with lots more collective experience on offer.

The bigger picture

The nuts and bolts, or bits and bytes, of putting together a website is arguably the easiest part and certainly the most tangible. The harder part, where experience counts, is in defining what that website should deliver – and the best way of achieving it in terms of functionality, user experience and search engine optimisation. It’s the whole picture that needs to work.

Bringing up the baby

Your website is the offspring of your supplier relationship and just like any child it needs attention and nurturing to deliver its full potential now and in the future. Your choice of partner should be prepared to work with you in realising your marketing vision over the long-term, not just up until the moment your new site launches. If you’ve paid very little (or nothing) though, how confident can you be that your supplier will be there for you next year, next month, next week?

Your single most valuable marketing asset

A website, these days, is undoubtedly the single most valuable marketing asset a company has – it will present the public face of the business and will almost certainly be relied upon to generate new leads. Choosing a partner for something this important, therefore, should be seen as a serious long-term decision, based on many factors – not just cost.

Ongoing website spend will vary from business to business, but research suggests it will command the biggest slice of a marketing budget and could average up to 5% of sales per annum. So, if you’re only looking to spend around £100 on your website, are you also only expecting to make around £2,000 worth of sales a year? A bit literal, I know, but worth a thought.