Acting on the feedback from course tutors and participants, we have removed the interactive forum and replaced it with a password protected area for rapid e-distribution of course materials.

In addition to the website, ZuZu Web Solutions also created a corresponding Facebook page for the Dyslexia Support team.

If you wish to avail of this offer, you’ll need to be quick!  It runs for one week, from today until 25th September.  Please contact us if you require more details.

Due to the target market being largely female, the client wanted a feminine look, so the pink and purple pastel shades were an excellent fit.

Previously, sales were managed through Facebook; the client wanted to expand to a full-fledged e-commerce site, so it was important to integrate the existing Facebook page.  This was achieved by installing a Facebook widget that links to the relevant page, displays the number of “likes” and links to the profiles of some of the people who liked the page.

With over 160 initial products spanning 14 categories, this website provides a high quality showcase for this up and coming local retailer and entrepreneur.

This site has been designed with a clean and functional look per the client’s specifications.

In addition to the website, we also created the company logo and designed a complementary Facebook cover for the company’s Facebook profile.

The up side of making the move was that now we have much more reliable service, for us and our clients, as well as excellent customer care.  The down side?  Well, there was no down side as such, but moving all our clients’ websites proved to be a little bit tricky!  In particular, moving database-driven sites (e.g. WordPress) caused a couple of extra grey hairs to appear.

Of course, by the time we were moving the last website, we discovered a plugin that made the process much more straightforward; in fact it made the move pretty much seamless.  We decided to share our process with you for when you find yourselves in the same boat!

1.  Make sure you have the following to hand:

• Access to the Admin area of your WordPress site
• FTP details for both your old and new web host
• Access to your new web host management platform (e.g. cPanel)
• Access to phpMyAdmin (database management) on your new web host
• The DNS nameservers of your new web host
• The IP address of your new web server

2.  Pick a “low traffic day”.  It is best to make the move when you don’t expect to receive a lot of visitors to your website, just in case you run into difficulties.  For example, if your website receives a lot of hits at the weekend rather than during the week, it is better to schedule the move mid-week.  If you have Google Analytics (or similar) installed, you should be able to gauge when the quietest time of the day/week/month for your site is.

3.  Log into the Admin area of your website and deactivate any plugins.  When you are moving a WordPress site, most of your problems will involve plugins.

4.  Download the Online Backup for WordPress plugin, install and activate it.  Once you have activated it, go to Tools > Online Backup, then the “Backup” tab.  Under “Backup type”, select the “Download” radio button then “Start Manual Backup”.  Once the backup is complete (it can take several minutes, depending on the size of your website), download the backup to your computer.  This will be saved as a ZIP file which you can then extract.

5.  Go to phpMyAdmin on your new web host and create a new blank database.  Make a note of the following details as you will need them in the next step: Database Name, Username, Password, Database Host.  From your backup, locate the OBFW_Database.sql file (in the Database folder).  In phpMyAdmin, click on “Import” from the top menu.  Click the “Browse” button, select the OBFW_Database.sql file and press the “Go” button at the bottom of the page to upload the database.

6.  From your backup, locate the wp-config.php file.  Change the details for DB_NAME, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD and DB_HOST to the details you made a note of in the previous step.

7.  Connect to your new web host via FTP and upload your whole site to the public_html folder — if public_html does not exist, check with your web host which folder to upload to.  Once this has uploaded, you should have a new mirror of your WordPress site.

8.  You may be moving your website to a new web host but want it to be accessible from the same web address/domain name.  In this instance, follow step (a) below.  If you want to change it so that it is accessible from a different domain name, follow the instructions in step (b) instead.

(a) If your website has the same web address:  If you are a Windows user, go to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc and open the “hosts” file.  Go to the end of the file and create a new entry with the IP address of your new server and your website’s domain name, e.g. 123.45.67.890 exampledomain.com.  Save the file and close it.  You may need to restart your computer before the changes will take effect.  This change will enable you to see the new mirror of the site by going to its normal address (exampledomain.com).  The rest of the world will see the current website that is on your old hosting account, whereas you will see the new one.  This will enable you to make sure that your site is working properly before launching it to the public.

(b) If you want your website to be accessible from a new domain name:  There are a couple of changes that you will need to make to the database.  Go to phpMyAdmin and go to the “options” table of your database (N.B. The table names will often, but not always, start with a prefix such as wp_).  Change the values in the “siteurl” field (on the first page) and “home” field (on the second page) to point to your new domain name.  Once you have made these changes, go to the Admin area in WordPress, and double check in Settings > General that the WordPress Address and Site Address have been updated to your new domain name.  Go to Settings > Permalinks, make sure the new domain name is appearing in the settings and then click “Save Changes”.

9.  In the WordPress Admin area, activate the plugins that you deactivated in step 3.  If you are having problems, activate them one by one and then view your website after each activation.  If one (or more) of your plugins is giving you problems, it’s best to contact the support team of your new web host and ask them for guidance.  After you have activated everything, test the basic functionality of your site, e.g. fill in the contact form, make sure your pages/posts/pictures are appearing as expected, leave a comment on a blog post, etc.

10.  Once you are happy that everything is hunky dory, change the nameservers to point to your new web host.  To do this, you need to contact your domain registrar or log into the registrar’s website and use the online tools provided by them.  This can often take up to 48 hours to change.  Once the change has taken place, your domain name will now point to the website hosted on your new web hosting account.  Any changes that are made to your site after you backed it up (e.g. if someone leaves a comment) will not appear on the “new” site and will have to be added to the database manually once the switch is complete.  N.B.  If your website has the same domain name and you followed step 8(a), go back to the “hosts” file and delete the entry you made as it is no longer needed.

11.  Install the Online Backup for WordPress plugin again on your new website and create a fresh backup.  It is a good idea to do this regularly, in case anything goes wrong.

12.  Once you are happy that everything is working as expected, you can safely delete your old website.  It is a good idea to leave it for a few weeks, just to make sure there are no unexpected glitches.  To do this, “drop” the database (in your old web hosting account) and then use FTP to connect to your old account and delete the files.  Now you have a single instance of your website stored on your new web hosting account.

Thankfully, there are a number of open source alternatives out there that can be downloaded and used for free – a great alternative for designers on a budget.

• 1. GIMP (Graphics Software)

  http://www.gimp.org/ (Windows)
  http://gimp.lisanet.de/ (Mac)

  GIMP is a free graphics program that can be used to create and edit almost any type of graphic.  It has a reputation for being the free “Photoshop Alternative”, and comes with everything you’d expect to see, from typography editing to image manipulation tools and filters.

• 2. FileZilla (FTP Software)

  http://filezilla-project.org/

  FileZilla is one of the best free FTP programs available online, and can be downloaded as a client or server version.

• 3. Notepad++ (Code Editor)

  http://notepad-plus-plus.org/

  Notepad++ is a free source code editor for Windows, supporting several languages including HTML, XML, CSS and JavaScript.  It comes with lots of neat little plugins, including one for FTP.

• 4. OpenOffice (Content Writing)

  http://www.openoffice.org/

  OpenOffice is a world renowned office suite, offering content writing, spreadsheet and presentation creation tools for free as an open source alternative to Microsoft Office.  It is perfect for creating client proposals or billing spreadsheets.

• 5. KompoZer (Web Authoring)

  http://kompozer.net/

  KompoZer is a fully-featured web authoring system that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG web page editing.

• 6. Apollo (Online Image Proofing)

  http://www.useapollo.com/

  Apollo provides a great way to provide proofs of web pages for your client to comment on and approve.  There is nothing to download and it’s free to register.

Honourable Mention

Sometimes, however, free is not always best!  There are open source alternatives out there for things such as billing, project management, and client management.  It can end up being a false economy, though, when the time involved in setting them up is extensive and the user interface is too confusing to use.  Money spent on software like this can be money well spent.

At ZuZu Web Solutions, we use Pancake App – it handles invoices, estimates, project management, proposals, file delivery and CRM.  It is an absolute steal at only $49 (around £32), especially as we fully expected to have to spend at least £100 for such software.  This is a one-off payment – no recurring fees – for the self-install, self-hosted version.  They also give you options to have it installed for you (Pancake Instant) or hosted for you (Pancake Supreme) – they have a special offer on these options, so don’t delay!!

After looking around and trying out comparable free versions of software, this is the best and cheapest we have seen that covers all the bases.  Visit their website to get your copy today!  (Please note, this is an affiliate link.)

What is your experience of free/open source vs. paid software?  What are your favourites?

As some web designers often comment, “How long is a piece of string?“

Sometimes, after giving details of their requirements and receiving a quotation, we hear: “My mate/cousin/next door neighbour/milkman knows someone who can do that for forty quid…”  (Grace Smith has a wonderful blog post that explains exactly why web design doesn’t cost £40.)

While it is possible to get a website created for next to nothing, professional web design doesn’t work that way.

Your website is often the first thing your potential customers will see.  It is vital to make a good impression.  As we point out on our home page, your website is your 24/7 shop window and sales team.  If you are running a business, you can’t afford a website that provides a poor impression to your potential clients.

Your web presence is an investment, and it is well worth spending a little extra now to ensure that it is well-built, instead of spending more later on to fix it up.  As the old saying goes, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

The design of the logo and website was heavily influenced by this client’s wish for an overall theme incorporating the colours of the American flag.

The client wanted a clean, fresh design, with the capacity to showcase photos of recent events with greater ease than previously.  The home page was built in a blog format in order to accomplish this.

The Newsletter and Calendar sections of the website can also be updated more easily, and the reader has the choice to download the current newsletter and calendar as a PDF document or to view it with Google Reader.