LEW'S COMPUTERS is a non-profit organisation specialising in providing information services related to general entertainment, music and reality television, primarily located in the United Kingdom.
Lew's Computers also regards design and style as very important in delivery of content to the end-user, so there is a great emphasis on consistent design, and carefully constructed graphics and pages throughout the Lew's Computers website.
'Powering information', the slogan for Lew's Computers sums up our desire to provide quality, in-depth information in a way that appeals to our target audiences.
Profile
Since 1996 when Lew's Computers first launched its online presence on the World Wide Web the services provided have grown, developed and evolved into new and exciting portals of information. Lew's Computers always takes advantage of the latest technologies to provide engaging and dynamic solutions.
Lew's Computers is managed by David and Eric Lew. They conceived an online presence at a time when the Internet was enjoying its boom phase and more and more consumers were able to obtain and afford computer equipment that enabled them to access the growing World Wide Web and HTML based content. This was also a time when web technologies were coming to the fore with the advent of Java and scripting languages.
The year was 1997, and Lew's Computers launched 'YinCenter', a website providing computer problem-solving services and opportunities for end-users to advertise online. This was subsequently replaced in 1998 with a music oriented website - clearly a major shift in specialty - called 'Collaboration'. This website hosted minisites dedicated to five music artists, namely: Boyzone, The Corrs, Lighthouse Family, Neil Diamond and Phil Collins, as well as some general music information. The website was extended to include additional coverage on music artists: B*Witched, and some coverage on Dido, M People and Westlife.
Lew's Computers then launched its own website primarily as a front-end to expose its services, in 1999. The site was a portal to Collaboration and subsequently a new classic and reality television oriented website named 'MediaZone'. Throughout 2000 and 2001, Lew's Computers, Collaboration and MediaZone underwent revamps with multiple versions released for each site, but each site remained distinctively separate and bore their own design and style.
In 2001, Lew's Computers launched more specialist music sites dedicated to Atomic Kitten, called 'Atomic Kitten Active' and 'Ronan Keating World' as part of what was intended to be a major roll-out programme of dedicated music artist websites, with extensive information and features that exceeded anything provided before in Collaboration. These became highly successful websites and received acclaim from end-users and even had contact with the official website, in the case of Atomic Kitten Active. Further short-lived attempts by Lew's Computers included: Clea Active, Girls Aloud Active, Essential Michelle McManus and a One True Voice website, providing content on a number of reality TV spin-off music acts, but these became unmanagable and all have been discontinued from 1 June 2004. Thus, Lew's Computers' vision to be a provider of dedicated music websites ended prematurely. It was decided that from 1 November 2005, Atomic Kitten Active and Ronan Keating World would also be discontinued by Lew's Computers.
In 2003, an attempt was made to combine all the content from all sites including the available dedicated music websites (stated as being part of Collaboration) into one unified website with a consistent design and style or livery. A Version 6 of the Lew's Computers website saw this happen. Due to time constraints, Atomic Kitten Active and Ronan Keating World remained quite separate. Invested in this first combined attempt was an increase in reality TV coverage with more shows included at MediaZone and artist minisites at Collaboration.
In early 2005, Lew's Computers put greater emphasis on its identity and a set of design and style guidelines were created to govern how a future website would be built and designed. These guidelines became known as the 'Lew's Computers Livery' and with this a new Version 7 of the website was created built upon these recommendations. All available content whether from Collaboration or MediaZone, now renamed simply 'Reality TV' was available through a consistent shell. However, from end-user feedback, the website proved to be too cluttered and the navigation poor, so it was back to the drawing board one final time.
In August 2005, a refined set of design and style guidelines were drawn up termed 'Livery 2' which polished up some of the graphical elements to be implemented throughout the website and included for the first time guidelines governing use of a limited colour palette, more rigid cascading style sheets and typography. A Version 8 of the website was created from the ground up, rather than refurbished as was the case with all previous versions (except 7). With the final implementation of all of the design and style expected of the site in November 2005, the Lew's Computers website will have evolved into a polished, and carefully constructed piece of work.
In August 2007, a Version 10 of this website (deliberately skipping a version 9 as this latest incarnation of this website is we believe highly refined) was created with a new streamlined design and subtle elements and colours used to keep the information easier to access and navigate.
Today, Lew's Computers Online, the official term for the Lew's Computers website, specialises in what it has always done best: provision of general music information and coverage of top reality television shows. As from the history, Lew's Computers has never quite remained focussed in its vision of services provided, but this is counteracted by a versatility that enables the organisation to adapt to new technologies, new demands from end-users and new ways of delivering content for end-users to benefit and enjoy.
Web Team
David Lew is a Computer Science graduate and keen web developer with a wide variety of key skills in delivering engaging and powerful websites and online experiences. His skills base encompasses for instance, HTML, XML, JavaScript, Perl, Java applet and application development, CSS and use of related software packages that include Macromedia (now Adobe) Flash, Dreamweaver and Microsoft FrontPage, Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Fireworks and the Corel Graphics Suite.
David Lew is the primary developer of the following LC websites:
 London Moving
Just The Two Of Us Web
The X Factor Access
Ronan Keating World
You can contact David Lew by sending a message to webmaster@lewscomputers.co.uk, and addressing David in the subject line please.
Eric Lew is a medical graduate with a enthusiastic interest in web and application software development. As well as producing websites with skills in HTML, XML and JavaScript as well as Macromedia (now Adobe) Flash, Eric also has experience in Microsoft Visual Basic development.
You can contact Eric Lew by sending a message to webmaster@lewscomputers.co.uk, and addressing Eric in the subject line please.
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Web Technologies
The web development team behind Lew's Computers main portal and websites work hard to deliver the information you require. A variety of minds helps to create a diversity of experience and skill that result in powerful web solutions. Who said too many hands spoil the broth?
Web technologies employed
In keeping with the evolving trend in information delivery on the Internet, Lew's Computers always adapts to new and powerful web technologies that enhance as well as aid in promoting features and data. The key technologies that we have been recently using to great effect include: Macromedia Flash, JavaScript, PHP, CSS and Active Server Pages. At Lew's Computers the design philosophy has changed to bringing in a balance between engaging and effective. Every web service has just enough dynamic content to engage but not to overwhelm balanced by effective methods of laying out information without it being too sparse or dense to read on screen.
Software applications
Lew's Computers is actively using Macromedia Dreamweaver as the main website development and maintenance tool. Combining its flexibility, robustness, power and collaborative elements we trust in Dreamweaver to effectively design and organise our web services to maximum effect. Macromedia Fireworks and Corel Graphics Suite are our primary choices for graphics and image rendering and optimisation. All web services have been developed on the Apple Macintosh platform using Mac OS X version 10.4.
Host server
Finding a reliable and consistent web host server is tricky but we have never been disappointed by the level of service delivered by 1&1. A robust platform on which all our web services reside, Lew's Computers can deliver excellent content such as the variety of News data and flexible dynamic technologies such as Perl and CGI scripting.
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Pushing technology with push technology
Incorporating powerful solutions from other sources makkes sense when one considers the effect of close working within Lew's Computers. Lew's Computers uses a wide range of high quality information resources that deliver the data we can convey to you. From the excellent RSS feed delivery by Feedroll on our News pages to the perfect financial data courtesy of Vector2000, Lew's Computers is proud to be able to take advantage of these sources from quality providers.
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