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.

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.

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

Why?
 
 
Why?
 
 
Why?
 
People. This is a forum not a poll

It's a hell of a lot faster. Especially if using something like Git for version control. I can deploy a site in literally a few minutes with SSH.
 
There's plenty of articles around about this. here's one that covers some other benefits of SSH https://www.yireo.com/blog/1452-why-ssh-instead-of-ftp

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.

I've got a secure printer. It prints a blank page and shreds it at the same time.

Sounds great. I'll just check with my suppliers that they are ok with me paying them in coffees and beers before I commit. I'll get right back to you.

^ it probably needs to scan CSS for appropriate stuff like media queries, text sizes/colours, padding/margin etc.

NickC4555, Google has a blog post here on the subject.
 
 

I design as I go, once I have my tables all set up in Dreamweaver my sites come together real nice.

The ACT Sirius was the first business computer I worked on. The version with a 10Mb hard drive was £2,000 more than the one with twin floppy drives. Most customers didn't need it because you could get MS-DOS, all your ledgers and stock applications on one 1.2Mb floppy and all your data on the other.

Chrome for general use because it has the best sync across all my devices and single sign on to Google services. Firefox with Firebug for work.

For the last time, would all of you just leave it?!
 
So far everyone's comments have been far from polite, I see personal attacks from all of sides involved. Stop it now!
*Thread closed.

I would suggest asking a solicitor for the answer to that one!

Alt-PrtScn captures the active window or dialog box instead of the full screen.

I don't think the design supports the service you are providing particularly well, but it isn't a bad layout as you suggest. It does have a lot of errors that undermine the quality of your business, though.

In the copy there are numerous random capitals, spelling and grammar errors; I think you need the services of a website copywriter. You can't expect someone to ask you to create the public face of their business if you are careless with the way you present yours.

There are several minor layout issues, e.g. positioning of the get quote button and the form layout on the contact us page. The home page isn't the same as the default page.

On the SEO front, your title tags aren't descriptive (except for the default page which is stuffed with every keyword you can think of) and the description tag is the same on every page; if you are offering SEO services, yours needs to be good.

It isn't responsive.

Having said all that, it could be improved a lot with a relatively small effort.

Whilst "graphic design" relates to the visual elements of a product, it's purpose is no different to design overall, that is to create something that is intended to accomplish goals that are aligned to the strategy of the organisation that commissioned it. It is implicit, therefore, that a graphic designer, must be able to understand an organisation's strategy and translate it into a finished work that supports it.
 
Like many specialisms, I think graphic design is part nature and part nurture. Unless you have that part of the brain that can translate a requirement into a concept and components that meet it, no amount of training will produce the finished article. Unfortunately, I don't, so I am forever in awe of those that do.

Whilst "graphic design" relates to the visual elements of a product, it's purpose is no different to design overall, that is to create something that is intended to accomplish goals that are aligned to the strategy of the organisation that commissioned it. It is implicit, therefore, that a graphic designer, must be able to understand an organisation's strategy and translate it into a finished work that supports it.
 
Like many specialisms, I think graphic design is part nature and part nurture. Unless you have that part of the brain that can translate a requirement into a concept and components that meet it, no amount of training will produce the finished article. Unfortunately, I don't, so I am forever in awe of those that do.

With HTML5 as with CSS3 it's not so much "Can I use this at all?" but more "Can I use this particular part of the spec?"
 
As you are replacing an existing site you have all the information you need in the logs to find out what browsers you need to support, you can then use that information to decide what HTML5 features you can use and how much you need to polyfill them.
 
HTML5 is backwards compatible by default so unless you start using specific HTML5 elements or features you shouldn't encounter any issues. The main thing has already been noted in the thread. Some older browsers, including IE8, will not allow you to apply CSS to elements they don't understand so you need to either set them to display block or use the html5shim to do that for you.
 
This HTML5Doctor post - from 2010 - covers a lot of the basics: http://html5doctor.com/how-to-use-html5-in-your-client-work-right-now/
 
Other HTML5 stuff, for example form fields, will just fallback nicely in old or non-supporting browsers. For example if you use the new HTML5 form field for email in a supporting browser you'll be prompted if you don't enter a valid looking email address, in a non-supporting browser you would get the standard text input field.
 
Hope that helps.

An enquiry to my website that isn't spam. I might frame it.

Would device detection turn a responsive website into a reactive one? Remember that responsive is the goal

I have often thought the same

And people trying to increase their post count by moaning about people trying to increase their post count.

People trying to increase their post count by replying to 3 year old discussions.