Notes from the trenches 

Technical Requirements

You don't have to be up-to-date to work here, but it helps

You don't have to be up-to-date to work here, but it helps

  • Recommended Viewing

    To get the most out of our website, we’d recommend you use the following:

    • Browser  : Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome (latest versions)
    • Javascript : Enabled
    • Plugins  : Adobe Flash (only required for photo ordering)
    • Screen Resolution: 1024 x 768 or higher.
  • Supported Browsers

    Our site is designed to work with a wide range of modern web browsers for PCs and Macs[1]. Provided your browser is (mostly) HTML5 compatible and standards compliant, you shouldn’t have a problem.

    For practical purposes, that means all the latest versions of Firefox, Safari, Opera, Chrome and Internet Explorer will be fine.

    Additionally, a lot of effort has gone into ensuring that our site works reasonably well with Internet Explorer 8, as although this version is now out of date… it is the latest version of Internet Explorer available to users of Windows XP.

    If you are (still) using some ancient version of Netscape or Internet Explorer it may look awful and be about as useful as a tanning salon which is constructed, entirely, of chocolate on an unseasonally sunny day in the Gobi desert.

  • Responsive Design

    Our site uses a responsive/adaptive design, so it’s layout will change depending on how big your browser window is.

    Don’t be scared. That’s the way it should be.

    However, there are limits. If you have are really, itsy bitsy teenie-weenie screen… like the ones on old phone’s you may find that you only have some of the options or information that would be available to you on a bigger screen.

  • Mobile Browsers

    Mobile browsers are, nowadays, pretty much all HTML5 compatible… and therefore, our site should work fine on your shiny new mobile/tablet/tv/smart fridge/4G enabled ironing board.

    However, the vast and diverse array of mobile devices, operating systems, browsers, manufacture and network provider specific configurations, now available means that it is impossible to test/support every possible configuration.

    So, if you are (still) using a pre-2010 mobile device it may look terrible and work about as well as a Koala trying to explain to a particularly officious member of Her Majesty’s Tax Inspectorate why he shouldn’t have to pay class 2 National Insurance Contributions for the period following the collapse of his eucalyptus-flavoured, hat importing business.

  • Connection Speeds

    The days of designing websites for slow internet connections are long gone.

    Most websites, ours included, assume that you’re using reliable broadband connection. The faster your connection, the better your viewing experience will be.

  • Uploading is Slow

    It’s a fact of computing life, that upload speeds are much, much slower than download speeds. You’re average domestic broadband connection in the UK, with a nominal 8mb download rating, will only upload files at about 1/10th the speed that it will download them.