New laws relating to UK websites
- Thread starter RogerS
- Start date
Help Support UKworkshop.co.uk:
engineer one
Established Member
interesting, roger and very useful thanks from us all.
with that in mind i wonder whether others have had problems setting up their new websites to allow proper contacts and emails to get through.
as you know i promised to help out with the festo fanatics site and woodshed andy.
have talked again with andrew at fanatics, and he has complained about problems loosing emails and details off contact us sheets. apparantly they have been using outlook, and the contact us and emails have not been getting through. they have only really discovered this after xmas, and are worried that it might make them look like w*****s for not answering.
so has anyone else recently set up a site, and discovered that all they expected did not happen?? like have you received emails, do they contact us buttons work, how do you over ride the spam part of outlook, not outlook express. silly things but they can play games with all your plans.
since i figure so many people have been trying to set up sites around xmas time, this could be useful to know.
paul :wink:
with that in mind i wonder whether others have had problems setting up their new websites to allow proper contacts and emails to get through.
as you know i promised to help out with the festo fanatics site and woodshed andy.
have talked again with andrew at fanatics, and he has complained about problems loosing emails and details off contact us sheets. apparantly they have been using outlook, and the contact us and emails have not been getting through. they have only really discovered this after xmas, and are worried that it might make them look like w*****s for not answering.
so has anyone else recently set up a site, and discovered that all they expected did not happen?? like have you received emails, do they contact us buttons work, how do you over ride the spam part of outlook, not outlook express. silly things but they can play games with all your plans.
since i figure so many people have been trying to set up sites around xmas time, this could be useful to know.
paul :wink:
matt
Established Member
What technology are you using for the contact form?
engineer one
Established Member
all i know at this time is that they are using a programme called outlook.
but will check in the morning and see what there is to be told.
paul :wink:
but will check in the morning and see what there is to be told.
paul :wink:
Paul, barring server failure the only thing that would cause mail links on a website to fail is incorrect coding. Contact or enquiry forms on the other hand could fail for a variety of reasons depending on the "technology" used, reasons could include incorrect coding, file permissions incorrectly set on the files used to process the forms even simple typos in the code. Without searching through the code you won't know. If some mails get through and others don't that suggests that the forms & links are ok but the server is intermittently losing mail I suppose this could happen with a particularly low cost hosting provider though I suspect that programmer error is more likely.
Outlook is simply a mail client, it could only be responsible for lost mail if for some reason it was classifying the "lost" mail as junk and autodeleting it. I say only at least I can think of no other reason at the moment. Is this http://www.festool-fanatics.co.uk the site in question?
cheers Mike
Outlook is simply a mail client, it could only be responsible for lost mail if for some reason it was classifying the "lost" mail as junk and autodeleting it. I say only at least I can think of no other reason at the moment. Is this http://www.festool-fanatics.co.uk the site in question?
cheers Mike
engineer one
Established Member
thanks mike very interesting, the first time i have come across such a thing.
yes it is that site.
paul :wink:
yes it is that site.
paul :wink:
Hi Paul
Is any mail getting through via the enquiry form? Is that the problem? It may be that the script that processes the form is just not available at the address the form thinks it is at. When you try to access the script directly you arrive at a page not found page, rather than an access forbidden page which I would have thought more likely. Of course this doesnt mean that the process script isnt in the right place, there are other reasons for getting the result I did but I would check the location of the script and compare the location to the indicated address for differences, typos etc etc. Then if everything is ok there, move on to the next thing to check. It looks as though theres some kind of validation going on so that the scripts know to allow use by mail forms on that domain. It would be worth checking these as well.
cheers Mike
Is any mail getting through via the enquiry form? Is that the problem? It may be that the script that processes the form is just not available at the address the form thinks it is at. When you try to access the script directly you arrive at a page not found page, rather than an access forbidden page which I would have thought more likely. Of course this doesnt mean that the process script isnt in the right place, there are other reasons for getting the result I did but I would check the location of the script and compare the location to the indicated address for differences, typos etc etc. Then if everything is ok there, move on to the next thing to check. It looks as though theres some kind of validation going on so that the scripts know to allow use by mail forms on that domain. It would be worth checking these as well.
cheers Mike
engineer one
Established Member
thanks again mike really helpful, will see how i can get through the door in the morning.
paul :wink:
paul :wink:
RogerS
Established Member
Oy! Start your own thread [-X :wink:
PS Their website is illegal...see my first post
PS Their website is illegal...see my first post
And Roger I meant to thank you as well for your OP, shame that the news doesnt seem to have filtered past the specialist IT sites as yet. If it had then site owners may be more proactive in making their sites more compliant with accessibility standards legal requirements. Having said that the Festo site and others may not actually be in breech of any legal requirement depending on the nature of their business, they may for example be a partnership and as such not neccesarily subject to company law though this is something that I need to investigate myself to find out just who is and isnt affected.
Cheers Mike.
Cheers Mike.
engineer one
Established Member
sorry roger could not find the bandit symbol 
:lol:
but i also wanted to see and know whether they were operating within the new law. also i was trying to see who else had problems, and you beat me to a post :roll: :roll:
paul :wink:
:lol: but i also wanted to see and know whether they were operating within the new law. also i was trying to see who else had problems, and you beat me to a post :roll: :roll:
paul :wink:
A
Anonymous
Guest
Roger,
Thanks for bringing this to general attention. I had not heard of it.
Have been in and updated my website accordingly.
Duncan
Thanks for bringing this to general attention. I had not heard of it.
Have been in and updated my website accordingly.
Duncan
engineer one
Established Member
interesting, a number of so called professionals who operate web sites for customers promote the view that it is not REALLY important yet, so why bother.
strange how some consultants are very happy about taking your money, but not prepared to take the financial risks involved if it goes wrong :roll:
personal view which i have passed on is obey the law as quickly as possible and avoid the aggro.
paul :wink:
strange how some consultants are very happy about taking your money, but not prepared to take the financial risks involved if it goes wrong :roll:
personal view which i have passed on is obey the law as quickly as possible and avoid the aggro.
paul :wink:
Newbie_Neil
Established Member
Hi Paul
I think the reason may have something to do with the fact that previous internet laws have not been policed. For example, there has not been one prosecution in this country for companies sending junk mail.
Cheers
Neil
engineer one":354cwho9 said:
I think the reason may have something to do with the fact that previous internet laws have not been policed. For example, there has not been one prosecution in this country for companies sending junk mail.
Cheers
Neil
Newbie_Neil
Established Member
When we read so much about identity theft, it beggars belief that you have to advertise your vat number on the web site. :roll:
Cheers
Neil
Cheers
Neil
RogerS
Established Member
Newbie_Neil":10g7xbrc said:
Why? Doesn't it appear on all your sales invoices?
Actually I have discovered a classic hole in the whole process of the fight against 'identity theft'..posted in another thread but worth repeating.
When you move house, most financial providers et al require a utility bill at your new address as confirmation that you have moved there. But when you close down your electricity account at the old place, the utility company will send you a bill nicely addressed to your new home. No checks. Nothing :lol:
engineer one
Established Member
what you have to remember is that eu rules are not supposed to help us, they are designed to allow for more and better tax raising.
according to the eu, vat carousel fraud is more expensive than identity fraud. but just you wait, as soon as a number of them get caught, it will then become very important.
more worrying is the way in which financial institutions dispose of their waste :roll:
paul :wink:
according to the eu, vat carousel fraud is more expensive than identity fraud. but just you wait, as soon as a number of them get caught, it will then become very important.
more worrying is the way in which financial institutions dispose of their waste :roll:
paul :wink:
Evening,
As an aside, checking the above-mention 'festool fanatics' website with WC3's validator, gives quite a few errors and using a couple of others shows quite a few so-called usability errors.
It may be as well checking them yourselves.
HTH,
Colin
As an aside, checking the above-mention 'festool fanatics' website with WC3's validator, gives quite a few errors and using a couple of others shows quite a few so-called usability errors.
It may be as well checking them yourselves.
HTH,
Colin
engineer one
Established Member
sailor, thanks for checking, i will tell them again tomorrow. saw them today, and they had hoped to have sorted, but if you are staying these problems are still current, could you pm me and give me specific details please???
paul :wink:
paul :wink:
Many people wouldn't consider failure to comply with W3C recomendations with regards to html or xhtml standards a problem at all, personally I'm in favour of compliance but there are two sides to that argument. This is obviously not the case regards accesibility which, bringing us back to Roger's original post, already has various requirements "enshrined" in law and with regards to which there have been successful prosecutions. Unfortunately most people developing their own sites are never going to be able to meet the legal requirements re accessibility without some fairly extensive reading of the regs and similarly the understanding of why and how to comply with W3C guidelines is probably beyond the timescale and / or patience of people developing their own sites in house. They simply don't see why they should bother. It's a shame but it't how it is. The best way I have found to help pursuade that accesibility is important is to suggest to the client that they should imagine that Google is a blind user of their site.
cheers
Mike
cheers
Mike
