Steve Taylor's Blog

Cars Online 07/08, Capgemini’s ninth annual automotive study, explores trends within the retail side of the automotive industry, focusing on consumer buying behaviour, environmental issues, web usage, lead management and customer loyalty. In total, nearly 2,600 consumers were surveyed in five countries: China, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. [More]

Microsoft have announced it will expand its automotive offering beyond software to include services. Microsoft’s Automotive Business Unit (ABU) continues to enhance in-vehicle experiences by providing automakers with new and innovative ways to meet increasing consumer expectations. [More]

More and more dealers are moving their businesses online with the ability for consumers to purchase directly over the Internet. The Distance Selling Regulations in the UK came into force in 2000 and applies to all contracts for goods where there were no face to face contact. So this would apply to cars, parts or other products. [More]

The book is quite thin, 229 pages in total with lots of photographs and example slide designs so it didn't take long to read it, even if you only read about an hour a day like me.

The book is very well written and presented with well explained concepts. The book takes you through the main areas of presenting: Preparation, Design and Delivery. [More]

In SQL Server 2000 it was quite easy to export a query as HTML via the Web Assistant Wizard. This nice little feature allowed an easy way of quickly generating an export without the need to setup a DTS package.

In SQL Server 2005 the Web Assistant Wizard has been replaced with more the integrated Reporting Services. [More]

For anyone that has ever built an automotive dealer website, you would have come across the need to implement dropdown lists that link to each other, or as I call them, Cascading Dropdowns. When doing a search for a used car, the user typically wants to narrow down the search based on the make and model and specification of the car. [More]

From time to time I find myself having to present a concept or idea to a group of people and every time I tend to reinvent the wheel when it comes to writing the presentation. I've recently stumbled across this guy, Garr Reynolds, and his website He is also on You Tube, check out the video below. Anyway, I'll let you know how good the book is once I've read it. [More]

In April, Microsoft Switzerland created a Silverlight 2 Beta 1 hands-on lab, the lab was created to support the Comparis Silverlight Challenge. The challenge came to an end on 22nd June 2008. The winner was Styv Mermod from Yverdon-les-Bains and here are some screen shots of the entry. [More]

... [More]