NickC4555

I'm retired now, but when I started my business I did try this for a while but took it off after a short time. All of my projects were fixed price for a mix of deliverables that included requirements analysis/business case, design, development, testing and deployment. There were too many variables for published prices to work, both for me and my customers. Some customers wanted simple web brochures, but most wanted to achieve specific conversion goals over time, so I would factor the value of my ongoing relationship in the initial bid price. Sometimes, I would lower my price if a project enhanced my portfolio in an interesting way. Or just if it was a fun thing to get involved with.

I have a few sites with Vidahost (same company, same infrastructure). Like other forum members, I have been concerned about their support since they were acquired, but my last experience was back to how they were in the early days. I placed a call which was above the pay grade of the initial responder, but within 2 messages she escalated the problem to a director who fixed the problem in 1 go. From opening to closing the call was about 1 hour.

Most websites are built using templates. True. There are around a billion websites and most of them are built using a template driven CMS or blogging platform. Thousands more are created every day. What the article fails to address or acknowledge is that almost none of the sites that account for the vast majority of web traffic use templates. Check out the top 500 global sites on Alexa, they are all (ok, I haven't actually checked evey one) custom designed by web designers. It is an irrelevant and misleading statement. I'm not saying CMSs are a bad thing, I'm just disputing the relevance of this soundbite driven article. Before I retired, I made my living developing CMS based websites, and they worked very well for my customers. But my market was small to medium enterprises, none of them having more than about 50,000 visits a month. That's just my thoughts on the first point, the rest of it seems just as flaky and can be taken apart just as easily.

Go to Extensions -> Modules and enable the Main Menu module. Position it in the template area that you want it and in the Menu Assignment tab switch it on for the pages you want.

Sales campaigns are more effective when they are supported by marketing. You need to get your brand in front of people in a number of different ways for it to get under their skin. If they have already become aware of you (and a few key value points) through any combination of mail, email, advertising, sponsorship, events and social media, then a phone call is likely to be more productive.

Test one of your emails here: https://www.mail-tester.com/

This isn't going to fix your underlying problems, but try using JCH Optimize and JotCache. Also, if you are loading multiple jQuery libraries as suggested in previous posts, install JQuery Easy. You should notice significant performance improvements. Check your site out on GTmetrix before and after you install them. Make sure you have a full backup of your files and database before you start.

By default the Joomla home page comprises Featured Articles plus any modules that have been placed there. Edit the properties of the default menu item in the Menu Manager, usually with the title of "Home".

Or you could use a CMS such as Wordpress and add a quiz plugin. You could be up and running in a few hours. https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-pro-quiz/

I'm fairly sure that you can't. Forums are seriously complicated applications, KompoZer is just a page editor. If you check out the features, user management capabilities, database integration, file uploading, spam protection, security and messaging infrastructure that is standard in any forum application (e.g. phpBB), you'll see what I mean. You'll get a better result by choosing a ready built one and integrating it with your site.

A robots.txt file on the development site would be bolting the stable door after the horse has bolted. It should just be taken offline. Then add a 301 redirect to it that redirects each page to the corresponding page on the live site, submit a sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools and also in Webmaster Tools, Fetch as Google to immediately submit the url and linked pages to the index.

It would indeed. When Google finds duplicate content it will deem one of them to be the authoritative source of the information and index it at the expense of the other(s). If the algorithms think it is a deliberate attempt to increase traffic by manipulating search results it will penalise both. In your case I think the former is what has happened. Development sites should never be left online, but if they have to be for any reason, there should be a disallow instruction in robots.txt to ensure they are not indexed. There is no robots.txt file on either the development or live versions of your website.

In no particular order: Notepad++ FileOptimizer FileZilla PaintShop Pro Gimp Firebug ExamDiff Fotosizer IETester Advanced Renamer

https://www.creativeideaz.co.uk/ goes to a copy of your website, which is why it's being indexed by Google. I assume it's a development site that Creative Ideaz has forgotten to take offline. This needs taking down immediately because you will be getting penalised for duplicate content. Creative Ideaz's own website (which displays a number of error messages, worrying for a web design company) is http://www.creativeideaz.co.uk/

WordPress is a great way to go for a new web builder, but I wouldn't go near GoDaddy with a barge pole. Try one of the specialist UK hosting providers, such as Vidahost.

If it's browser specific, you are probably logged in to your Google account when using Chrome, but not with the other browsers; this would cause its search results to be personalised. Try signing out and doing the search again.

Are you using caching, both in Joomla global config and the system plugin? Also, does your template framework support compiling and compressing the css files? If not, get one that does. Try using JotCache cache management and the JCH Optimize plugin. Turn on Gzip compression if your hosting supports it. Loslessly optimise all of your images using a tool such as FileOptimizer. That should speed things up a bit. If not, look around for better hosting - ping times don't mean a lot, it's often down to poor database performance or connectivity when a CMS site runs slowly.

As Web Guru said, avoid GoDaddy and all the other bargain basement hosting providers. Have a look in the hosting sections of web design and other technical forums and get an idea of which companies provide a professional level service. I use Vidahost. I don't know what you intend to run on your website, but you won't find "magic_quotes_gpc = on" in any hosting platform running the current version of PHP. It was deprecated in PHP 5.3 and dropped in 5.4.

From citrio.com: "The best part of it all is that Citrio fully supports the Google Account login, which means you can use all your bookmarks, extensions, and services that you previously had in Chrome. Chrome Web Store is also available in Citrio, letting you install any additional extension you want. All of this makes Citrio a perfect Chrome alternative." If you were previously logged in with a Google account, just login again with the same one.

A responsive web page would definitely do the job, rather then developing separate apps for each mobile platform. To avoid having to maintain a lot of data separately in the web app, though, you should consider integration with your key line of business systems: Active Directory for your sales people to authenticate (assuming that's how you login to your corporate network), your stock system to provide up to date product lists and your CRM to automatically add and track each new prospect. It would add to the initial development cost but substantially reduce the cost of ownership during the lifetime of the solution and improve RoI by providing a more effective sales tool. A final thought. Unless the app is going to be accessed over a VPN, 2 factor authentication should be implemented as an additional security layer.

You won't easily achieve a split layout with a stock template unless you are prepared to do a lot of development. Just pick up a commercial template that does what you want. I use Youjoomla, they also have modules that would achieve the slider effect you are looking for, although tabs and a lot of other stuff is standard in their framework, so you might not need any other modules. For the form interface, look on the Joomla Extensions Directory, there are several components that would fit the bill.

It's never occurred to me to not use FTP, I only use SSH for server to server jobs. What would be the advantage of using SSH for local to server?

If you use a web font, make sure to check them out in different browsers, some don't render nicely in all of them.

Bing images search has a Licence drop down that lets you filter your search to those that you can use, share, or modify for either personal or commercial use.

A Sinclair Z80 that my son borrowed from a friend got me into the IT industry 33 years ago.