rhysdavies

I would be inclined first of all to exploit the marketing opportunities and get some advertisers on board, given as you say the traffic is set to increase dramatically. After that I wouldn't be too worried about having to pay your hosting company for databases. Others on here would be able to advise you better on what CMS to go for. But if you going to have a regular 1000 visitors a day, there's a lot of scope to increase advertising revenue, which in turn can be spent on an all singing all dancing CMS.

I know I should give him what he wants, but I am just trying to work out a way of telling him politely why he doesn't need fluid width! There's a fair amount of work involved as you know - I plan all my templates from the ground up and I told him at the very beginning that my sites were now built with 1024px and above resolutions in mind.

I have been working on a site for a while, and have designed it at 960px wide so to fit comfortably within any screen resolutions that are 1024px and above. Looking at statistics for my other sites, and reading on the web, this now seems to be the norm. However, this morning I have had the client on the phone wanting the site to be a fluid width. No, not so as to fit in screen resolutions less than 1024px, but so that he does not have to scroll horizontally when he resizes the browser window. This means a lot of work and hassle to convert the nearly finished template to a fluid width template, and I can't for the life of me see any sense in this request. What do you guys think? Any ideas on counter arguments? Cheers

I quote for any maintenance work based on what the client tells me. If its adding a few bits of news each month, then I quote, say £50 a month. I then bill them 3 months upfront for this work. Anything over and above what I have quoted for is then charged or quoted for individually and the client has to send an approval email agreeing to the price I have quoted. This is then billed at the end of the job. I tend to view this kind of work as extras and if I offend people by asking for money up front, I don't really care.

My basic package is as follows CMS Made Simple with basic apps (news/calendar/rss) One year php/mysql hosting One year software updates Basic template design Google analytics Training the client to use CMS For this I charge £1000. My outgoings are about £10 a year for php/mysql hosting, travelling expenses to visit the client (usually 2 visits) and my time is charged at whatever is left from the £1000 divided by the amount of time I have spent on the job. Usually around 25-30 hours. I charge extra for more complex apps (product catalogues etc.), SEO, adding content, image editing etc etc.

Thanks for that Darren. I've had a look and borrowed some ideas!

I am currently building a catalogue site, and while the bare bones are all in place and working a dream, I am struggling for inspiration. The site is for selling art deco pottery, and the client ahs asked for a theme to reflect that. Any ideas???? Cheers

Thanks for that. I went off to a meeting last night, and whilst driving there, it all came together - I can use a products module on the CMS and slot a little form into the item description template! Just like you said, Bluedreamer. Simple when you think about it! (Is there a 'simples' meerkat smiley????!!!!!)

I have taken on a job for a client who needs more of a catalogue site than an online shop. The process goes like this: Client enters detail of product (antique) onto a CMS based system, with 3-4 jpegs and price. Customers view the site, and then find what they like. There should be a contact form on each item description for the buyer to make an enquiry. Client gets email with enquiry, then usually haggles over price via email, does a deal and then gets paid via paypal or IBAN for higher value stuff. We can't use a shopping cart and checkout because the prices that he asks, and the prices that he actually gets never match! I could use a shopping cart with no checkout facility, but each item is unique (he deals in antiques) and there really needs to be a seperate contact form for each item. Any ideas? TIA

I have been trying to create a png or gif with a transparent background but having followed many different sets of instructions to the letter, I still can't manage to get a transparent background. When I check the preview in Fireworks, it looks OK, but once its exported and loaded to the site the image has a white background. I have attached the image as a png and an exported gif for you to have a look at. I would be grateful for any help Cheers

I use Wise FTP - I like the functionality, and left alone, it can cope with massive uploads, but it is an absolute bugger for crashing and not responding.

I tried to get away with just a simple hoempage with a green left sidebar and blue right sidebar, but the client liked the idea of the image background. He is happy with it and it is now live, even though some of the content is not yet finished. I am going to leave it for a few days, but I need to increase the height of the homepage background at some point - I will reduce the opacity a little at the same time.

redirectMatch 301 ^(.*)$ http://www.welshblackcattlesociety.com redirectMatch permanent ^(.*)$ http://www.welshblackcattlesociety.com

My client has approved the design and he is happy with it! It is now getting launched to the members and hopefully they will be happy with it. I am not doing any more on it until I start getting feedback from the members. I have found your input on here priceless and it has really improved the homepage! Thanks a lot to all that helped me

Here we are again! I have changed the layout to match the theme of the rest of the site. The client is adamant that all this information has to go on the homepage, so I am working to some constraints in this respect. As regards the marquee, I managed to cut down from 3 to 2 (the client likes them), and this morning I have just the one marquee and the updates fading in and out of view rather than scrolling. Thanks for all your replies - they really have helped!