Pixelwave Website Design Weblog
Latest News from Pixelwave

I’ve just had a meeting with some clients and shown them how to use the Content Management System on their new website. They seemed over the moon with it but will no doubt be coming back a couple of times for some help as they get to grips with publishing on the web for the first time.

The system is easy to use, but when you don’t really know what to expect and haven’t published on the web before it can be a bit daunting. I shall be on hand throughout to keep them on the right track.

Spirituality Global has been built for a local rector and author who tends to be a little controversial in his thinking and fairly outspoken! He intends to update the site regularly and it will provide a platform for his latest thoughts as well as providing a medium for the  discussion of a wide range of topics. It will also be used to promote his books and plays.

Pixelwave Web Design has just secured a contract to build a website for Focus on Forestry First, a training and evaluation centre for forestry workers in Wales.

The FoFF (Focus on Forestry First)  project is a Welsh Assembly Government/EU funded three year project solely for the ‘trees and timber sector’ within Wales, concentrating on forestry businesses first.

Through the project businesses can:

• have training plans drawn up free of charge
• access up to 100% funding for training courses
• maintain and access training records through the secure project database

The first stage of the web aspect of the project is an information site providing project and course details along with news and updates on the project. This will soon be expanded to provide online access to individual training programmes and employee records.

I’ve already been to visit the project offices in Mid Wales to get a feel for the project itself and meet the people behind it. This is invaluable information when it comes to building such a website. It not only lets me get under the skin of the business but also helps develop a good, personal working relationship with the staff there. I know their requirements and how best to work with them and I’m looking forward to getting to work on the project. They seemed to appreciate the time I took to visit them and explain things too:

“Many thanks for coming over and getting the website moving; it is a breath of fresh air to find someone who can deal with this & explain things in such a clear & understandable way!”

The holding page is ready to go so now I can get down to the nitty gritty of coding the real thing.

Focus on Forestry First Holding Page

Pixelwave Web Design is pleased to have started work on a new website for the Internatonal Demining Centre (IDC).

The job came to me by way of a recommendation from a client. I’ve built a couple of websites for this particular client in the past, including his company website Qualissol. Qualissol have ties with IDC as they work in similar fields and the director of Qualissol recommended my services to them. Word of mouth recommendations are by far the best form of advertising for a freelance website designer and the way in which much of my work comes to me.

The new website for IDC is a simple brochure style site and they have even sent me a pdf of what they want it to look like. Hopedully it won’t be too long before the site is up and ready to go live.

Things are going well here at Pixelwave Web Design. The ‘downturn’ in the economy does seem to have had a small effect in the number of new projects I have had to work on, but that seems to be picking up again now and I’m quite busy once again. I have a couple of new projects that I’m working on at the moment, and a few others in the pipeline that will hopefully start soon.

I haven’t been sitting around waiting for work to come my way though – although some time off would have been nice! Instead I’ve been kept busy with maintenance and site updates for existing customers. A quick read through this website will show you that I’m proud of my work and always strive to keep my clients as happy as possible. This means that I usually get small update requests that come in from them done within 24 hours. Obviously if the work is going to take longer then I’ll let them know, but I love getting e-mails about an update and turning it around within an hour just to surprise my clients.

Quite a few of my clients have been requesting updates recently so they’ve been keeping me busy. I’ve also been doing more and more computer help for clients and have been doing quite a bit of freelance website editing and maintenance for a web-based project at Aberystwyth University. The variety is great and it works well as a freelancer as I can keep myself busy but have plenty of different projects each with different challenges to work on.

In addition to the ongoing website updates, maintenance and and support, I’ve built a website for my own ‘Computer Tuition‘ Services, and I’m currently working on two websites for new clients, but will post about those separately.