Pixelwave Website Design Weblog
Latest News from Pixelwave

I’ve recently started work here at Pixelwave Web Design on a new project for a local graphic designer.

The designs this new company create are specifically for sports and active wear and will be sold on various items of clothing including top quality ‘T-shirts, hoodies and a wide range if other items under the brand name of Slick Activewear.

Pixelwave Web Design are currently in the process of building a fully featured online eCommerce system allowing Slick Activewear to showcase and sell their products online. The system will have all of the usual shopping cart features and will allow Slick Activewear to easily update the products and categories themselves as well as track orders, stock levels and much much more from within an easy to use Administration panel.

Pixelwave Design has been working in close collaboration with Slick Activewear on the design and layout of the website, which will feature some of their own artwork. So far their catalogue includes designs within the following categories:

• Biking
• Climbing
• Diving
• Equestrian
• Open Air
• Snow Sports
• Wave Sports
• White Water
• Slickwear

Watch this space for more news on this exciting new website.

Pixelwave Web Design is pleased to announce the completion of the first stage of the Oil and Gas Industry Terrorism Monitor (OGI-TM) website.

The Oil & Gas Industry Terrorism Monitor is the achievement of several man-years worth of research, data collation and analysis of militant activity targeting the O&G industry. The culmination of this effort is an extensive database of global incidents and other activities affecting O&G operational activities.

I have been working on this website for a couple of months and the public areas of the website are now live online. The majority of the website is only available to subscribers. These areas are ready to go and will be populated with data over the next month ready for the full release date of July 1st 2007.

The content population is being carried out in house by OGI-TM using a bespoke, easy to use Content Management System which will allow OGI-TM administrators to add new data to the site on a daily basis.

The database is flexible and dynamic in nature with updates and new intelligence being added or updated on a 24/7 basis.

Around this time last year I posted an article about using Google Analytics to monitor your website traffic. I’ve been using this service (along with other Stats Analysis programs) since then for my websites and Google have just updated the interface of their Google Analytics program.

The new interface is a definite improvement. As far as I can tell there isn’t any new functionality or any new features but the new interface makes finding and analysing your websites traffic stats easier than ever. The visual interface helps you to monitor trends and see how advertising campaigns etc have affected traffic to your website.

Monitoring the traffic and the routes visitors take through your website should be an essential part of every website owners routine tasks and knowing where your visitors come from and what they are searching for is invaluable when planning how best to take your website forward.

Once again I’ve been really busy here at Pixelwave Web Design so must apologise for not posting much in the way of news lately, but here is a quick post about certain issues I have been working on.

One problem a few website owners have been experiencing lately is that of spam. Spam is no longer associated only with email, but can also be a nuisance for website owners. For those of us who run community based websites, or even weblogs that allow people to post comments, then removing unwanted comments / content and deleting accounts of unwanted members can be a frustrating and time-consuming process. One approach of course is to simply remove certain aspects of functionality from your site and for one of my clients this was the best approach as the ability for visitors to post comments wasn’t really needed.

Another approach is to set up a moderation facility where all new registrations or comments / content has to be approved by an administrator prior to going live on the site. This has been an option on a few sites I have built for a while now. This works well and certainly prevents inappropriate material making it to the publicly available sections of a website but can still be a time-consuming process. This process becomes especially time-consuming when automated spam-bots start adding content to your website as they can add hundreds of comments or sign up hundreds of times as soon as you turn your back making the job of sorting the wheat from the chaff an unenviable one.

There is a way around this for many websites. It is often possible to install automated spam-checking software to your web application that will do some of the sorting for you. However, as with all automated processes it isn’t completely failsafe, sometimes spam will get through and it is also possible for legitimate content to get marked as spam. It is an option that I’ve used for various sites though and where used it does work well.

The next approach is to add a barrier to the registration process or content submissions process (or usually both) that prevents automated spam-bots from completing the process. This is now the approach I have used on my community based sites and have also added to several of my clients sites, especially those with forums. Of course, getting the balance right between making things difficult for spammers whilst still making the process of registration / content submission quick and easy for legitimate users is always an issue. I have been using ‘captcha’ scripts which are now common across the web and therefore users are fairly familiar with them.

Captcha scripts automatically generate an image which comprises several characters. These characters have to be entered by the user before they can complete the particular process they are carrying out. The idea is that automated spam-bots are unable to read the characters in the image and therefore never get to complete the process. So far it has been a roaring success where I have installed such a system. I’ve had no complaints or usability issues from legitimate users and very little spam has got through the net.

If only I could cut down my email Spam so successfully.

Dynamic Flash photo gallery website templates are now available from our website template shop.

These flash driven website templates provide easy to use and eye-catching websites for all sorts of photographic or image galleries within your website and come complete with a built in Content Management System allowing you to control the images and text shown within the galleries.

Ideal as a complete off-the-shelve solution for your portfolio.

Pixelwave Web Design is currently working on a new website for geocachers in the Aberystwyth area and the rest of Wales.

In fact this is a bit of a personal site of mine as I recently came across the ’sport’ of geocaching and have been enjoying the places it has taken me and the people I have met. It is quite a niche activity, especially in this area but it seems to be growing and the participants I’ve come across have all been friendly and helpful and keen to meet other geocachers. It was this that prompted me to build a website for Geocachers in Wales. The aim is to allow them to keep in contact with each other, plan trips to the hills, discuss all aspects of geocaching and plan meetings for a few drinks in the pub.

I don’t expect the site to become huge, there are after-all only a few of us in this area at the moment, but it will be open to walkers, ramblers and anyone who enjoys the ‘Great Outdoors’ in this part of the UK. This area does have huge potential for geocaching and other similar activities and it is hoped that the site will promote geocaching and encourage people to do it in a responsible manner.

Pixelwave Web Design has recently started work on a web development and website design project for OGI-TM (Oil & Gas Industry - Terrorism Monitor).

This is the second website Pixelwave Design has built for this client. It will provide a new service for the oil & gas industry by monitoring militant and terrorist activity that affects O&G activities. OGI-TM started in 2003 it was launched offline this year and has already has a number of significant clients. The core of the product are monthly and annual reports that describe incidents and also the general activities of some selected terror groups.

The website will contain information about the service and allow new members to subscribe to its offerings. The bulk of the site will be available to subscribers only and will contain various reports and updates that will be added on a daily basis by the website administrators. To facilitate this Pixelwave Design is providing them with a bespoke, easy to use Content Management System allowing OGI-TM to provide up to date information to their subscribers. The system will also incorporate a subscriber management facility and various other administrator only features.

Pixelwave Web Design and OGI-TM hope to release the site at the beginning of July.

Pixelwave Web Design is pleased to have started work for a new local client.

Kumar Saraff, an artist based in Mid Wales has just commissioned Pixelwave Web Design to design and build a website that will allow him to showcase some of his work. I have just started the process and will soon be presenting him with some design concepts for him to comment on.

Following this Pixelwave Web Design will build the website and then instruct him on its use as well as advise on Search Engine Optimisation and website promotion.

In addition to containing some static pages about Kumar and the background to his at, the bulk of the website will be based around an image gallery where his artwork will be displayed. Kumar will have complete control over this gallery using an online content management system, allowing him to organise and add new artwork as and when needed so keeping the cost of website maintenance to a minimum.

It wasn’t long ago that I added a post here with some client testimonials, but not long after doing so I received a present in the post from HeadCandi. HeadCandi is an online Headphone shop that I have been working on various web development projects for and they have decided that they were pleased with my work so sent me a top quality pair of headphones as a thank-you.

Here are the comments they sent along with the headphones:

The gift to you is indeed a reflection of the work that you put in for us and the quality and timescale in which you do it. As I said, I have worked with many web designers, developers and coders in my time but I would have to say that you execute and manage your work the best. Headcandi has come a long way from the original template that we first purchased and I couldn’t be happier with the job you’ve been doing for us so far. So well done.

Now, I’m no audiophile, but the headphones are top of the range Sennheiser HD595’s and are supremely comfortable and an excellent sound quality. However, for me, it really is th thought that counts. The fact that my clients are so pleased with my work that they took the time and thought to send these means more to me than the monetary value of the headphones themselves.

It is always good to know that I’m doing a good job and better still to know that my clients appreciate it.

Pixelwave Web Design are pleased to announce the addition of Zen Cart Templates to its Website Template Shop.

Zen Cart is a free, open source eCommerce system that offers a cost effective but fully featured solution for all your eCommerce needs. Zen Cart has everything essential for online business. The password protected admin panel will let you change its configuration without problems, and adding new categories and products is a breeze thanks to its easy to use Content Management System. A built-in system of sub-pages will let you easily add your information about products and services, and there is a set of modules for operation with the most popular payment processors - to make it easy to set up an online payment system.

Check out our Zen Cart templates now.