welshstew

First you need to establish that the content is originally yours. This is easy enough if your site has been up for a while and you can look at archive.org to get a history of your site. You can find out who owns the stolen site via whois, andn contact them with a cease and desist order, pointing out that they are in violation of your copyright. If they do not respond you can contact the hosting company pointing out your case and hope that they take it down. In the meantime, the other option is that you could update all your images to a new name and change all the orignal image name to be "rude" images.

I, and many of my friends and family, also hold this view; that jails are failing, as well as asbo's etc, and that national service should be seen as a potential alternative. However, this should be for criminal acts, not just knife and gun crime. Unfortunatly, the arguments put forward on your site are emotional and not expanded or well thought out. there needs to be a lot more detail behind your reasoning if you are to try and take this forward. Also, isn't there a government site that already exisits that you can use to propose a potential law, once you have x number sign ups it is automatically taken to the gorvernment as a potential bill by your local MP?? Not sure, I remember signing something about the congestion charge, but it's inthe back of my mind thatthe site may have been taken down 9as it had silly things like make kermit pm) [edit] found it and it is still going (http://petitions.number10.gov.uk). I also found this petition: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/natservforyouth/ which is exactly what I advocate, but it looks like it didn't get enough signatures in time

have you tried using cache control so that the user downloads the file once and uses the cached copy rather than recalling the one on your server? if you add a query string such as ?v=123.4 and just update it everytime you upload a new version of the video. you can also use this trick for your css files and images. this method is used very effectivly by the BBC.

LMAO

I think there is a fine balance, and only through your own research will you find out what works for your site. However, having said that, users usually review a site within 30/45 seconds and decides whether they want to stay or move on. As such if you have your main call to action somewhere that will catch the users attention more easily then this may attract them to click further. The obvious place for this is above the fold. I agree with you that this main call to action should be backed up with more subtle calls, that are placed with relevance. My own research on our site has shown that medium-long copy with two calls to action and one reinforcement message from a customer (recommendation) seems to increase our conversion rate. Again, as you have already stated, it does all depend on what you are trying to achieve with your site, and who it is aimed at.

If you want a site for mobile users then you should use browser sniffing and direct them to a mobile site. i.e. mobile.mysite.com or mysite.mob This way you can give them a great experiance that is targeted for them.

either a fluid design or a fixed width of 960px seems to be the current standard. height does not really matter, although from a marketing point of view you want to keep your main call to action above the fold.

Only Google truly know, everything else is just conjecture. What we can deduce is that it is "tweaked" often to ensure that it is working effectively and efficiently.

You can always optimise your code for local searches anyway, by using the correct, semantic code. i.e. <address> which the search engines will pick up. Of course you can always use google webmaster tools to show where your site is for google searches, and place your business in google local http://www.google.co.uk/local - and click on add your business

Totally agree

I have never had to use it, as the free support community is really active. But I'm sure that if you have a more technical issue, then they will help as soon as they can.

I agree, samller is better but not sure if 100kb is the target anymore. The 100kb limit was a standard back when the average internet connection was 56kb dialup. With the increase in internet connection speeds, and a UK average of 3mbps - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7098992.stm) I think we can safely say that you can look at increasing your website size. For instance WDF is 360k with 43 http requests and still loads in 6 seconds according to yslow (it loads in 2.7 seconds according to pingdom)

I thought this was meant to be a help forum, not an abuse one. --------------------- Although not a direct answer to your question, check out my post here: http://www.webdesignerforum.co.uk/index.ph...ost&p=83596 and work out your hourly rate for your skills Then it all comes down to how much time will be spent on fulfilling this request. Do you need to make the logo / images etc, or is it a simple throw up page? Another thing to consider is, Do they really need one? Does the "domain registered" page serve the purpose? Personally, as someone else suggessted, if you have already secured the contract, I would throw it up for free.

I hear this question a lot and I have to agree with the comments above. There are many differing variables that make up a pricing structure and I find the best way to help visualise it, is to think of how a car is valued.... To find out the value of a car you need to take many things into account: * brand * reliability * safety test results * engine size * colour * options (cd player, air con, sat nav, ejector seats, rockets, etc) * and on and on The manufacturer will then come up with a price that they think is fair for all of the above and this will be balanced against other similar products on the market to come up with a final price. With website design & development, pricing up your web project is just as difficult, if not more. You need to think about the following (not an extensive list): * core code technology (HTML / CSS / PHP / ASP / RUBY / Flash / etc) * additional code technology (javascript / XML / jquery / etc) * management technology (flat vs cms) * content development * design (site wide design service) * design (logo’s & graphics) * value of your time and experience * other expenses You will also need to take into consideration how much other local designers are charging for similar services and balance yourself against these, so that you are not priced out of the market. Once you have worked out your value you can start pricing up projects for your clients. i.e. A simple, flat HTML website with 3/4 pages will take approx 4/5 hours to code, plus another 3 hours for logo & graphic design (We are assuming that all other content and images will be provided by the customer). Therefore, if you charge £30 per hour for your HTML / CSS skills and £15 per hour for your design skills, this will work out at approx £315 to £360 plus expenses. If you need to include the provision of a CMS then this will need to be added on top. Although not a direct answer, I hope that it helps steer you into the right frame of mind for pricing up your project.

Avoid oscommerce - its code is bloated and ugly as a pig with lipstick.... I would totally recommend magento - http://www.magentocommerce.com/ It's open source, it's code degrades gracefully, has an active support community and numerous add-ons and plugins. It is also real easy to theme, supports multiple payment mechanisms, etc, etc But the real benefit is that you can run multiple stores from the same back end... so you can have one store selling computers and the other selling t-shirts, run on different domains, each with a different design/theme. Great. One of the other things they have concentrated on is the customer journey, with a single page checkout system , which increases the conversion rate. I am a huge huge fan of magento, adn would recommend it to anyone wanting to set up a online store.

The algorithum is always being worked on to ensure that it keeps ahead of the unfortunate black hat activities out there. This is to ensure that the search results that are dlivered back to the user are relevant to the search terms. The Page Rank assigned to your site is updated often (depending on the popularity of your site), and the page rank extract (for your google toolbar) is updated approx every 3 months.

although I ahve both, I prefer the desktop, simply due to the duel screeny goodness that i have

all of mine jumped up one, four sites from 2 to 3 and one from 1 to 2

at work, so brown shoes, grey trousers with a light brown hatch effect, summer jumper although i rode my bike to work (14 miles) so also have shorts, t-shirt and crappy saftey hat my gf makes me wear...

i think there is too much internal space for a site with so little content. if you reduce the width of the site then there appears to be a little more content, and pushes the space to the outside. this helps maintain a "fresh & clean" look and reinforces your grid layout. See attached as a quick example. see how your portfolio wraps nicely to three rows of 4? ( i wouldn't place more than 12 on the home page) then, personally, all you need to do is really go wild with your footer to bring it to life and you'll have a nice looking site. p.s. the "grunge" effect looks like you might have "borrowed" the image and removed ceertain parts... so please clean it up.

or <strong>

ah yes, but who does number 2 work for??

better than "number six", otherwise you may be chased by a giant inflatable white ball all the time...

great shots, i'm new too, see you around

cheers for the warm welcome, trying to get used to the forum layout at the mo. i'm used to vb so ipb is a bit different -in a good kind of way...