Website Design Aberystwyth, Wales

It isn’t a particularly exciting job, but Fairies World and many of the sites owned by Fairies World has outgrown its current web-hosting arrangements so over the coming months I shall be moving them lock-stock and barrel onto a new dedicated server.

The success of Fairies World means that the current servers could no longer cope with the huge bandwidth requirements of the site so such a move was unavoidable and although the transfers will be a little time consuming they have come about for positive reasons as far as the website is concerned. Some of the transfers are a little more complicated than others simply because the site have several databases associated with them and some of the scripts need a bit of reconfiguring to work on the new servers, but we aren’t expecting any downtime, except occasionally as the nameserver setting change over.

As I said, it isn’t exciting, or even a particularly challenging project for me, but it does take a certain amount of attention to detail and meticulous planning and will keep me busy for a while.

A client approached me the other day asking me to set up an Amazon Affiliates Store for an electrical goods shop. This is a fairly simple task and doesn’t take too long, so I agreed to do it and it is now ready to go.

The Amazon Affiliate program is one of the longest standing and most respected of affiliate programs on the web. Commission percentages can be around 7% on all sales and with this being backed by Amazons excellent reputation it is an ideal start into the world of affiliate selling on the web.

The Amazon Affiliate Store works in such a way that once set up the products, descriptions and prices are all updated automatically by Amazon. Amazon also of course take care of the order processing, payment and shipping of the products and then simply pay you your commission at the end of each month from any sales your website has made. Of course, nothing is ever quite that easy as you need to make sales and therefore get visitors to your amazon affiliate store first, but if you already have a website with healthy traffic stats then it can be a good way of boosting income.

Aber-Cachers website designed and built by Pixelwave Web Design has now gone live.

The site is an non-commercial site built by Pixelwave Design to cater for people geocaching in the local area and the rest of Wales. Geocaching is an activity I have taken up recently that gets me out into the hills and the fresh air and away from my computer for a time. The site itself allows local geocachers to keep in contact with each other and will help promote the activity in the area. It is also intended as a point of contact for people visiting the area or new to geocaching.

Aber-cachers website is composed of an easy to use set of forums and a photo gallery as well as various subsidiary pages and an Amazon Affiliate Geocaching Shop. It is hoped the site will promote responsible and safe geocaching and that the commission from the Google ads and Amazon Store will pay for its upkeep and hosting costs. It was also a bit of fun for me as a web developer.

If you want to know more about geocaching or would like to contact other cachers, please feel free to join.

Pixelwave Web Design has recently embarked upon a new website design project for South African and Rhodesian Military Engineers.

The website is intended for access by serving members of these regiments and more importantly as a contact point for retired engineers. It’s requirements as a community website therefore makes this project an ideal candidate for a forum based website that will allow members to post and reply to each other in topic based threads. In addition to this there will be a set of hoto galleries that will allow the administrators to add images and photos at will. If required the software used to drive these photo galleries will also allow individual members to have and maintain their own photo albums.

Login and membership details will be integrated throughout the site, and in addition to adding images and posting in the forums members will have their own personal profiles and will be able to send private messages between themselves.

I have had little to go on design-wise, just the regimental colours, so will keep the design clean and easy to use. Once the basics of the website are in place I shall be instructing the administrators on its use and providing support while they attempt to get the online community up and running. In general terms, community based website can be difficult to get off the ground as they tend to need a certain base level of membership to make them attractive to other members. However in this case, the proposed membership is a very distinct set of individuals all of whom will have similar experiences that they wish to share, so hopefully there should be a good base from which to develop a community website.

I’m often encouraging clients to add Content Management Systems or simple latest news weblogs to their websites, so that they can save money on website maintenance, keep their websites up to date themselves and improve the ranking of their websites within search engines.

One of my favourite blogging engines is that of Word Press, and its recent update to version 2.1 menas it is now even better. Pixelwave Wave Design is happy to keep up to date – We now offer our customers Word Press Themes for version 2.1, and of course all new websites we build that incorporate Word Press will use the new updatd version. Just some of the new features new features include:

• Autosave – makes sure you never lose a post again.
• New Tabbed Editor – allows you to switch between WYSIWYG and code editing instantly while writing a post.
• The Lossless XML Import and Export makes it easy for you to move your content between WordPress blogs.
• The completely re-written visual editor also now includes Spell Checking.
• A redesigned login screen from the Shuttle project.
• WordPress Administration Panels have been refreshed to load faster and be more visually consistent.
• Much more efficient database code, faster than previous versions.
• The Upload Manager lets you easily manage all your uploads pictures, video, and audio.

Click here to view Word Press Themes available through Pixelwave Web Design, and feel free to contact us if you have any questions regarding such weblog and Content Management based websites

Pixelwave Web Design is just about to start work on a new content management system for a local charity group, the Mid and West Wales ME Group.

While I was a student (many years ago) I helped pay my way by doing various jobs (cleaning, gardening, decorating etc.) for quite a few local M.E. sufferers. I have kept in contact with many of them and often help them out with advice on their website which has been built and maintained by the husband of one of the sufferers. The work involved had all been getting a little too much for him so I am going to set them up with a new, easy to maintain website based on a Content Management System.

As this project is for a charity group Pixelwave Web Design will be doing it at a bare minimum cost making little or no profit from it. To keep the development time down I shall be using an off-the-shelf blogging engine, and a web design template that will then have various customisations and plug-ins added to it to provide the Mid and West Wales ME Group with an easy to use website from the point of view of the visitors to the site and for Tony who will be maintaining the site and adding new content to it.

Click here to visit MWWMEG

This one is a bit of a personal site aimed at developing a geocaching community in the local area. The ‘sport’ of geocaching is a relatively new one to me but I’ve been enjoying it and it seems to be going through something of a surge around here at the moment. I therefore though it was time that the local geocaching community had a website of its own.

Pixelwave Web Design is just starting to build it with the core components being a forum that will help people keep in touch with each other, ask and get answers to questions about geocaching and arrange trips into the hills etc. Along with this will be an integrated photo gallery allowing members to submit photos from their geocaching expeditions.

I’m hoping it will go live soon, at which stage it will be up to me to encourage a few of the local geocachers to get involved and spread the word. It will be nice to keep in touch with like-minded people around here and no doubt a few ‘drinks-nights’ will be organised too.

I don’t expect the site to become huge, there are after-all only a few of us in this area at the moment, but it will be open to walkers, ramblers and anyone who enjoys the ‘Great Outdoors’ in this part of the UK. This area does have huge potential for geocaching and other similar activities and it is hoped that the site will promote geocaching and encourage people to do it in a responsible manner. Aber-Cachers will be the place to visit to find out about geocaching in Wales.

The weekend is over (they never last long enough) and for once I didn’t do any work over the weekend, but I am back to it now. I have quite a few update and maintenance tasks on the go at the moment. These include a few updates to the Brecon Beacons Tourism website that I built last year. All seems to be going well with that site, the owners are pleased with the take up on membership and the current updates are to add a new main category to the site and a few little SEO tweaks.

I’m also doing various updates to Fairies World and I’m continuing some SEO for a Shropshire based Adult Lingerie Shop. I’ve also just finished a few little updates to Storm-Riders, an online Surf/Skate shop built for a local business by Pixelwave Web Design.

In addition I’m continuing work on a few other projects, including an eCommerce solution for a running shop, a website for a local ME charity group and have a personal website project in the pipeline, which I shall be posting about here soon.

Most of the updates and maintenance jobs are quick and easy to do and it is always good to get repeat work from existing clients. Most websites could really do with at least some regular updating and I’m always happy to help existing clients by offering a free website review service where we get together to discuss the performance of their website, analyse traffic stats and formulate new plans to take their website and business forward. As always, if you need any helpful, jargon-free advice please feel free to contact me.

Note: I’ve just had an e-mail from the University of Wales, Estates Office too, so I have a few updates to make to their website as well. It’s nice to be busy.

Pixelwave Design has recently been working on various aspects of the design and production of a new headphone and speaker shop and is delighted to announce that the online shop goes live today.

HeadCandi is an online store and Weblog specializing in headphones, mp3 speakers and other digital audio devices for your home and mp3 players. Their product launch range includes Sennheiser, JBL and Shure and they will be adding more products to their catalogue every month.

Their product range include speakers, headphones and earphones to suit every application and every budget, from the beginner to the professional. The perfect place to buy your idea digital audio device or gifts for friends and family.

Pixelwave Web Design would like to take this opportunity to wish HeadCandi much success.

A new website for High Leas Farm designed by Pixelwave Design has just gone live.

The website presents the history of the farm, the people who have lived and worked there and the farming techniques used. It charts its transformation over recent generations to its current status. The website also poses questions considering its feature development and sustainability and raises awareness of the many issues related to the running and success of a UK farmstead.

As the farm undergoes a major rethink considering its future sustainability the website will be updated regularly with new ideas, latest news and information regarding new projects. The website has therefore been built in such a way as to allow maximum flexibility for the owners and allow them to update the content, organisation and images within the site via an easy to use administration panel. It is hoped that this will provide the owners with a cost effective way to maintain a lively, up to date website that will be an asset to the Farm and the people who live and work there.

Pixelwave Web Design wish them all the best in their continued efforts to improve and build on the past successes of High Leas Farm.