Silverbolt

It looks ok, but just seem's to be missing something for me. Looking at the layout of the site, you'd expect to see a footer, and I'm not sure about the polka-dot background. Other than that a nice effort though.

Had a spare couple of hours last weekend and was keen on testing out some URL re-direction themed open source software, and eventually got this on the go: http://umpa.tk Ignore the design for now, I was concentrating more getting it working so I can play further with it in the future. Let me know your thoughts on this and has anybody built anything similar before?

Well I don't even have a copy of Photoshop on my work station. I can use it like any other software, but have never found much time to incorporate it into my method of building websites. I do however use FireWorks to assist with developing websites, but writing clean and clear CSS & PHP on Sublime Text is more my style, with a hint of Paint Shop Pro for touching up and resizing any images, etc.

Nice one! Regarding my OP, I've decided on venturing down the 'idiots' guide because I've spent enough time with email, calls and texts alone, never mind the demo I had constructed at the time. I've said £50 and I'll send you a load of PDF's etc. That's the offer on the table now.

Thanks for all your valuable opinions guys. I've just thought to myself "hang on a minute, I build websites, not teach how to build them!". I've also learn from my father-in law who was previously a bouncer there that the nightclub owner is hard to get hold of when it comes to paying because I presume he'll be 'no where' in sight when I turn up to 'educate' the poster/graphic design boy. Was going to charge between £50-100 for a couple of hours but I think I'm making the right choice on this occasion. I do like the idea of a 'dummies guide' though. Think I may send them that proposal across, kind of like a SEO report, but for the WP poster boy noob instead!

Good evening web designers and a happy new year to everyone on the forums, Just wanted to attempt to gain some in-sight into a situation that has arose with one of my clients.... About 5 months ago, I met up with a new client who called me in to develop him a WordPress website, things went well, we agreed a price and off I went to develep a 'demo' readily available for him to look at, scrutinise and have a play with. Having only taken a relatively small deposit and having instructed them to 'tell me' anything they do or don't like during the design process.....I spoke with him a couple of days ago and basically he said he liked the design I made, but since the last discussion had one of his 'own staff' members have a crack at installing and designing their own WordPress site only for them to admit to me it's taken them many numerous hours and headaches trying to perfect (I know, I thought that was the whole reason you hired a web designer in the first place.....). Eventually, they got their site up and online (without sounding big-headed my design matched their initial specification to a tee, and was well structured) but all they have is a bright yellow background, a banner, a randomly place YouTube video and an awful black background on the the text. I suggested to them that since they have already installed everything else, I would give them a reduced price and simply upload my design onto their website, but it seems there's no way of getting a 'full project' out of them now. However, what they proposed over a phone call was if they could now 'Hire me' to come in and show them a tutorial on how to tidy everything up, show them how to make changes, etc, etc and I have agreed to visit them later in the week and I said I'd get back to them with a price. The question is, what do I want to be charging for a probable 1-2 hour tutorial with 'take home' work a probability? What would you charge in this situation? I do intend this to be worth while attending, so any advice on what to point out on my invoice would be extremely helpful. Cheers, Silverb.

Another from East Yorkshire over here, based in Hull.

Came across a useful website this evening that may be of interest to others like myself: http://www.ideaswatch.com

I'm talking about the generation of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and on another scale, cool ideas like Alex Tew's One Million Dollar homepage a while back. Is they any more room to again expand on this myriad of creative ideas that's literally changing the way we use the Internet? I've been exploring a number of ideas for a while, and at one point was due to launch a URL based website where users would submit a link which would be added to a database and upon clicking the 'Randomise' button would take you to one of the sites listed (pretty dumb I know). Anybody had any ideas floating about they might want to collaborate on?

Personally I have an iPhone 4s. As other's have said, If you're used to Apple's OS platform, you'd constantly be nit-picking at features from any other phone you may choose (that's not to say they're other good phones out there) but the fact you're used to Apple, I'd say stick with what you know. At a push and if you feel brave at the switch, perhaps the Samsung Galaxy S3? The whole scenario is like switching from an Xbox to PS3, and believe me I wouldn't want to make that change!

Regarding a decent WordPress gallery, use one of the many Lightbox+ plugins they usually work a charm. Or perhaps integrate Instagram into your website?

Do you have a your own dedicated hosting space with MySQL? Assuming you are going down the CMS route with WordPress, after you've got an idea of what design, layout and features your clients looking for, get a demo website up and running on your own website. That's what I usually do. Worry about the hosting and what not at a later date. If they're changing hosts anyway, you can easily transfer the demo website over to their domain once you've exported the .sql file and backed up the core files.

I'll pay you to convert to WordPress?

Where about's exactly is the search bar? Actually within your sidebar/widgets or in the header somewhere? If it's in the header do you have anything like this: <?php get_search_form(); ?> Do you have a link to the theme/demo?

First of all, get up to scratch on HTML/5 & CSS. A little working on knowledge on how to edit PHP script would be handy too. This site should help: http://www.w3schools.com/ Then ditch the original themes I assume you've unpacked from the WP install and start with a blank canvas like one of these on the following link: http://speckyboy.com...or-development/