Dinosaur Live 2009, The Walking with Dinosaurs live show. The website was built in PHP/MySQL using Expression Engine as the core system. As a result of a recent promotion, the site is serving on average 10k page requests an hour, thanks to Expression Engines clever caching mechanism, the website has worked flawlessly. The website is now being setup for other countries covered by the tour. e.g. Germany.  This website was built in conjunction with aka.

Set on the grounds of the University of Hertfordshire, the Forum is a newly built theatre with facilities that can be used by students and non-students.  It will host a wide variety of events from comedy nights and performing arts to headlining acts, such as N-Dubz.

We used Expression Engine to build the website, allowing complete editorial control by the Forum staff.  Accessibility and Usability was kept in mind, as well as optimising the website so that downloading speeds were not affected by the varied content of the site (videos, imagery, text).

The Anglo Sikh Heritage Trail (ASHT) is a project of the Maharajah Duleep Singh Centenary Trust. The Trust was first established in 1993, with the primary objective of highlighting and promoting Anglo Sikh heritage.

The website has a user friendly CMS, newsletter system as well as various ways for the community to contribute. The web site was built using PHP/Codeigniter framework with a MySQL database. Client side development resulted in clean CSS/HTML markup as well as the creation of database driven flash elements. Site wide search makes use of Google's Custom Search.

Blue Peter Appeal 2008 website.  The aim was to encourage people to organise bring and buy sales in order to raise money, to help children around the world to eat better and grow their own food.

Our role was the technical development of the website. The website was built in PHP / CodeIgniter, with a MySQL database. CodeIgniter is a PHP framework developed by the people behind Expression Engine, our CMS of choice.

Extensive use of CodeIgniter's caching features along with an optimised database structure was essential in handling high levels of traffic, as historically, BBC sites attract a high number of visitors.

As well as PHP/MySQL development, we made extensive use of Google Maps API to geolocate sales and search queries. This made use of Yahoo's Geocoding Rest API to retrieve positional co-ordinates and helping place markers on a Google map. The search mechanism retrieved sales from the database within 50 miles of the search term. E.g. a search for "Leicester" would fetch all sales within 50 miles of this location.

Next Big Leap was recently asked to develop a flash game giving fans of Sister Act The Musical the opportunity to win tickets to the stage show. The game was developed in flash with a PHP/MySQL database.

Woven Design assigned Next Big Leap to develop a website that would allow complete editorial control.  This was achieved through the use of an easy to use Content Management System (CMS), Expression Engine.  We also handcrafted all front end templates using CSS and HTML.

Off the back of the success of Dinosaur Live, the website for the Walking with Dinosaurs Live Show, we were asked to develop their new e-commerce website.  This was built using Zen Cart and Worldpay. The store selling to UK was launched with two more stores for Europe and North America to follow shortly. This website was built in conjunction with aka.

Artfair is an online, virtual, art experience, where it is possible to find, buy and sell artwork from around the world.

The aim of this website was:

• To enable a gallery or artist to purchase an interactive booth to exhibit artwork, sculptures, video and audio content.
• For visitors to browse and discover artists, with the added ability to have their own private viewing room and to purchase artwork.

Our role involved planning and technical development of the website.

Flash to database integration / Coldfusion and database development (MSSql)

Due to the websites highly interactive nature, Flash needed to be used to add greater flexibility in design and interactivity. We created the CMS and client admin areas in Coldfusion that passed data to the Flash movies via Flash Remoting.

Future plans for taking the website to the next level (Phase 2), will be coming soon. Watch this space for more news on the development.

A website dedicated to getting bums off car seats and walking, this website was live for a week allowing companies and individuals around the UK to add miles walked against challenges, such as walking to work.

This was a collaborative project where Next big Leap carried out the technical development of the website.  The website was built in Expression Engine with Google Maps API providing a graphical way of informing users of data such as distances walked and carbon saved.

The East of England Broadband Network (E2BN). Set up by the Government with the aim of achieving better provision of broadband technology to help raise standards in teaching and learning.

Next Big Leap provided a complete bespoke development in PHP/CodeIgniter and integrated CSS templates.

"Who Do We Think We Are?" is led by a variety of organisations including The Royal Geographical Society and is supported by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). This educational programme explores identity, diversity and citizenship. It is aimed at primary and secondary schools.

Next Big Leap developed a bespoke content management system in PHP/CodeIgniter and integrated CSS templates. CodeIgniter is a PHP framework developed by the people behind Expression Engine, our CMS (content management system) of choice.

Since 1996, Extreme Music have provided high quality production music for film, television, radio and multimedia written by some of the biggest names in music. Their client list reads like a who's who of media companies.

During 2004 - 2008, Next Big Leap worked with Extreme Music's in-house flash guy as their systems designer, developer and as the people who know about web sites, not only on their public facing website, but also on their back office systems.

Originally, the job was to provide a supportive role patching up areas of the website. This highlighted fundamental problems with the overall structure of the site and database. During on-going consultation, it was decided that a complete overhaul of all systems, with the introduction of new features to help streamline productivity, was required. All features were introduced in phases to minimise any reduction in productivity.

Once seeing what web sites were capable of, combined with staff feedback, more and more features were constantly being added, culminating in a complete shift from paper to online administration.

Features developed included:

• Adding a new admin functionality using C#/.Net
• Developing a playlist manager
• Lucene/Search integration
• Advanced categorization using Thesaurus API
• Batch catalogue editor
• REALBasic download manager
• Invoice system (Sync App)
• Maintaining an aging ASP system

A variety of technologies were used throughout, i.e. C#, ASP.Net, RealBASIC, XML, XSLT, ASP, CSS, XHTML, Javascript, MySQL.

An initiative by the Royal Geographical Society to highlight the profile of geography in schools. This website allows teachers to find geography ambassadors in their area. These ambassadors act as role models enthusing pupils about geography, through presentations and activities.

Our role was as PHP/MySQL/Google Maps API developers. The website was built using the CodeIgniter framework. CodeIgniter is a PHP framework developed by the people behind Expression Engine, our CMS (content management system) of choice.  Proximity based ordering of results to the user was implemented using Google Maps.

Launched in February 2008, The National Education Network  is a teaching and learning resource that is being used by teachers, pupils and parents alike

Next Big Leap built a Content Management System which allowed staff to manage content across the entire website and developed a searchable catalogue system for their teaching resources.

The key aim of SEGFL is to connect every school in the south east region (3019 in total) to broadband services.  SEGFL wanted a website where they could have complete control over the content and make changes when necessary.

Next Big Leap developed the website using Expression Engine.  This allowed SEGFL to make use of features such as:

• uploading rich media such as video and images
• allow groups of people to use the site as a file repository, with access available through a file repositary widget on the homepage
• allow control over who submitted content to their blog page (named SPOT) by creating SPOT authors

The homepage allowed visitors to personalise content through the use of configurable, data driven widgets.