Their latest offering is a PHP cloud hosting service, which takes its place alongside a growing number of contemporaries such as PHPFog, Orchestra.io and CloudControl amonst others. They caught my attention above the others as they have their own UK based data centre, as opposed to using Amazon EC2 and/or being US based.

Anyway, I signed up to their beta; here are some screen grabs and notes on how I found the process of setting up my first vCluster.

Initial vCluster Setup

Upon signing up for a Fubra passport account (that you can take with you to their other services if you wish to do so), you will then be taken to your control panel area to create your first cluster.

The set up process is completely intuitive and takes you through step-by-step. The next thing it asks for is a prefix for your cluster. All subsequent virtual clusters will use this prefix within their hostnames.

Selecting a package

Having set a prefix, you can now add your first vCluster, choosing the package that suits your requirements (it looks like it's easy to upgrade any time and overages are charged per GB).

You'll then be taken to enter your payment details, whereby your cluster will be created.

Setting a credit limit

If you're concerned about your site getting BBC'd or Stephen Fry'd, you can set a credit limit so that any huge traffic spikes don't bankrupt you. Nice.

SSH Keys

All vClusters have SSH access which is great, so if the terminal is your thing, you can input your SSH key(s) here or come back and add them later.

MySQL Database

Each vCluster comes with a MySQL database, so the next step allows you to set your password for this.

Setup Complete

That was easy! That's the account ready to go, and you get a nice summary screen showing you all your details, along with a link to the public hostname. 

Enter the hostname in your browser, and there it is, your new vCluster hosting account ready for you to start uploading files:

Testing connections

A quick SSH connection test proves successful and you can see the root directories here:

And you can connect to the database remotely using your favourite desktop GUI if you wish. Here I am connecting via SSH in Navicat:

Multiple domains and databases

You can host mulitple domains and subdomains on each vCluster but as far as I can see, you can only have ONE MySQL database per vCluster. This does feel a bit limiting - it would be nice to have more than one. I did try creating another database via SSH but got an access denied error:

Summary

The setup process for the CatN vCluster couldn't be more simple. Their control panel UI is smooth, fast and easy on the eye; often you find new hosting providers have got great techies on board, but no eye-candy makers for putting the gloss on.

Ready-to-go PHP platforms like this do appeal to me. I've tried bare-bones VPS providers such as Linode and ServerLove and while it's very empowering to have complete root control over the server from the terminal, practically I've just found it's one extra thing to worry about when you're running a small agency. A PHP platform-as-a-service fills the middle ground between low-cost, bare-bones providers and managed (and expensive) hosts.

Obviously I've not given the vCluster a go in the real world so can't comment on this yet. I'll perhaps report back here once I've run a cluster for a month or so to see how things go.

EDIT: Rob Sanchez, father of Safecracker, has pointed out that Safecracker has a built in parameter to return JSON validation data. Clearly he's several steps ahead of me! ;-) You might still find this post useful reference though.

***

I'm hoping EllisLab may at some point include this hook to the core version of EE, but until then, you could always put in this hack yourself. No liability accepted on my part though! That said, it's only one line of code.

The hook

Find this file: system/expressionengine/core/EE_Output.php. Then in the show_user_error method (approx. line 326), add this new hook right after $EE =& get_instance();

// < --- START MOD 
// By Oskar Smith, http://www.oskarsmith.com
// Additional hook to allow processing of user error page
$EE->extensions->call('show_user_error_start', $type, $errors, $heading);		
//  END MOD  --->

The function should now start like this:

function show_user_error($type = 'submission', $errors, $heading = '')
{
	$EE =& get_instance();
		
	// < --- START MOD 
	// By Oskar Smith, http://www.oskarsmith.com
	// Additional hook to allow processing of user error page
	$EE->extensions->call('show_user_error_start', $type, $errors, $heading);		
	//  END MOD  --->
		
	if ($type != 'off')
	{	  

You now have a new hook to use in your extensions, which in my case I've used to hijack the user error page and give a JSON version.

The extension

In order to actually use this hook, create an extension with two methods; one that uses the new hook above, show_user_error_start, and one that uses entry_submission_redirect.

The show_user_error_start method will trigger:

/*
* Hijack user error page and output errors as JSON. Booyah!
*/
function ajax_user_error($type, $errors, $heading) {
	if ($this->EE->input->post('trigger_ajax')) {
		$return = array();
		$return['error'] = true;
		$return['errors_array'] = $errors;
		exit(json_encode($return));
	}
}
// --------------------------------------------------------------------

While the entry_submission_redirect hook will trigger:

/*
* If ajax trigger is enabled, sends ajax success response.
*/
function post_entry_submission_handler($entry_id) {
	if ($this->EE->input->post('trigger_ajax')) {
 		exit(json_encode(array('success'=>1, 'entry_id'=>$entry_id))));	
 	}
}
// --------------------------------------------------------------------

The Form

You'll notice that in both cases above, the method only executes if a post value has been sent for trigger_ajax. This means we can selectively use these hooks in our Safecracker forms simply by including a hidden field named trigger_ajax. So implement your Safecracker form exactly as you would normally, but add this hidden field, plus a submit button that you're going to attach a jQuery click event to.

You can now hijack the form with jQuery, serialize the data and post it via AJAX.

/*
* AJAX Posting and validation
*/
$(".btn_submit").click(
	function() {
		
		$.post('your_page_url_here', $('#your_safecracker_form_id').serialize() ,
			function(data){
				
				if (data.error) {
				    // process your errors here
                                     alert('error');
				}
				else {
                                   // process your successful post here (i.e. redirect etc.)
				   alert('success');
				}
				
				   		
		}, "json");
		return false;
	}
);
// --------------------------------------------------------------------

That should get your Safecracker forms validating via AJAX. Not bad for only one hack to the EE Core, and the best thing is this method means you can still set all your fields' validation properties in the EE CP.

This might not work for everybody by the way, and I've posted it for a proof of concept as much as anything.

Further reading

If you're looking to do AJAX validation of member logins, you can do it without hacking the core and just extending it instead. More info here >

I've also put in a Feature Request on the ExpressionEngine forums to encourage EllisLab to include the hook described above in the EE Core. If you would find this hook useful, perhaps voice your support on the forums. Post here >

Simply choose your desired Internet Connection under the Bridged Networking menu in Paralles. In my case, this was Ethernet 2. If you're unsure what connection your Mac is using, go to System Preferences -> Network and have a look:

You also need to add your Mac's IP Address to your Windows Hosts file for your local website hostname. Take a note of this from your Network Preferences (in the screen grab, mine is 192.168.1.102). Now go to your Parallels system and locate your Hosts file. The quickest way is usually by typing in the directory name to the Windows Run command, and is normally: C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc

You'll now see your Hosts file. Open this file up to edit it using the Open With command (Notepad is probably best).

Now enter your Mac's IP address and the name of your site.

Save the changes and you'll now be able to access your local sites in Internet Explorer or other browsers in Parallels.

N.B. If your Mac changes IP address, you'll have to update the hosts file again.

This uses the built in {exp:member:login_form} with a Jquery form handler that hijacks the post submission and sends the POST'ed data to a custom URL instead. This URL triggers a server side handler which is essentially just a modified version of Member_auth->member_login() that returns errors in JSON format instead of ->output->show_user_error().

I've recently been arguing the case the while Web Design isn't dead as an industry it is, however, dying. While in the late 90's and early noughties, Web Design was the buzz term and everyone needed a web designer to get online, nowadays the focus is more on how to market online. Web Design alone isn't enough, hence the rise of SEO and other related industries such as Social Media Marketing and the emergence of the Digital Marketing Agency.

Web Design, on the other hand, is largely being devalued due to the saturation of the market with designers and low cost suppliers such as 99designs et al. So if you're currently pitching yourself or your small web agency as a "Web Design Company," you should really start thinking about the long view and whether it is a sustainable business model (certainly for the SME market anyway; web design still has a home in branding agencies covering the larger enterprise market).

Neither article is necessarily wrong, and my point mainly concerns the second of the two, specifically where the author says:

"…no company with any kind of budget would use a $49 packaged solution from Monster Template if it can afford to pay someone to address its particular needs and mold a website to its content."

The author uses Ford as an example of a company who would never give up their presence on a traditional website (i.e. ford.com) in favour of replacing it with a Facebook page or similar. This is true, and for the web designer, there will be always be jobs going in the in-house marketing departments of these huge companies.

The trouble is, for the vast majority web designers who work as freelancers or as part of a small team, our client base consists of small to medium sized businesses. Taking a quick look at the budget ranges of other local companies on a site like sortfolio.com confirms that most small web agencies or freelancers deal with budgets of under $10,000, and more typically much less than that. It’s these small clients paying $3-$5k that make up a lot of the “bread and butter” work for web designers, while the larger digital agencies (with a branding division) will suck up the clients with bigger budgets, where they act as an extension of the brand’s marketing department.

So while it is true that a company like Ford or another huge (or even largish) company will always have the budget for designing and building websites to meet their business objectives, smaller companies may well be tempted by template sites. And who can blame them; a lot of the templates out there do look pretty good these days, and a business leader from an SME might well be happy sacrificing a few of their online objectives to save themselves $4k or so.

End of the road for SME web design?

Well, no, I wouldn't go that far. But I would say if you’re currently pitching to the SME market, it’s going to get a whole lot tougher in the coming years as we get squeezed from both sides; digital agencies picking up the low hanging fruit and template sites and off-shore outsourcing picking up the SMEs. Not to mention the huge competition there is in our sector and possibly, as the first of the two articles speculates, that some small companies might not even bother with their own site and just use a Facebook page.

Having worked in the SME sector for the last eight years or so, I have witnessed first-hand the growing amount of work needed to win contracts. While back in 2003 a simple email and a link to our portfolio was enough to win over a client, now one must put together a full proposal, possibly attend a meeting or two and in some cases even *gasp* do speculative design work to get someone on board. All of which (apart from the spec design work) I don't grudge the client for in the slightest. Indeed it would be even better if the value of the projects had gone up with the amount of sales work involved, but that's not the case. What's more, the quality of the sites my agency and I produce now are of far higher quality than the sites I built eight years ago (experience is a wonderful thing!). So in short, we're now producing better quality work, spending more time on the projects (including sales and dev work) but without any increase in price.

"That's because you're a mug," I hear you say. ;-) Well, possibly; I don't claim to be any Richard Branson of business, but I'm certainly no slouch. I would say that all of this comes down to the reasons I mentioned above; that the client sector my agency and I have worked in for the last eight years is now experiencing huge competition; from other web design firms, from template sites, from offshoring etc.

Pass me the shotgun

No, don't do it! OK things can be tough, especially during the last recession hit year or so. But there are always new opportunities, and the key to staying in business (you are still solvent, right?) is to keep looking for new business avenues, diversify, keep up with web trends and continue battling up the client ladder to reach the low hanging fruit I mentioned earlier. It may mean you need to spend still more on sales work, but I think Yazz was right; the only way is up.

FURTHER READING: I highly recommend checking out this post by Chris LeCompte.

It's both a blessing and a curse. In many ways, it's fantastic that anyone can download a few free tools and teach themselves how to build websites; building websites is an accessible and rewarding skill for anyone to pick up very quickly. Would many of us who now work in the industry be where we are today if it wasn't for that easy learning progression during those first websites we built back in 1999 (or whenever you started). Even better, there are lots of individuals and small businesses that would leap at the chance to get a simple website constructed for the price of a few beers, so it's easy to get some basic financial reward for your website building efforts. So far so good, and let's get this straight; removing these first rungs of the ladder is not something I would condone or something that would even be possible to do.

So that's the blessing; now onto the curse. Having such a low barrier to entry inherently means that the overall quality of websites is dragged downwards. Of course there are plenty of highly-talented designers and developers out there (I'm not counting myself as one of them - that's for others to judge!) who have strived to reach the top of their game by reading, experimenting and continuing to drive their professional development through self-motivation. But back down on planet earth (where clients live), most people aren't really looking upwards and as a result, companies are paying over the odds for mediocre web solutions.

Higher quality, higher prices?

Well, that's how it should work! Though in reality, this is not always the case. This is due to the low client level understanding of the web. And who can blame them; for those outside the industry, it's generally all a mystery and the only thing that clients are generally bothered about is their search engine ranking; to hell with all that baffling talk about copywriting for the web, usable interfaces, calls to action, semantic hand coded HTML5/CSS etc. etc. If you're lucky, clients will choose agencies on reputation (although this could be on price-busting reputation rather than any reputation based on results or quality). But all too often clients will simply be swayed by a sales pitch. Which, it could be said, isn't something unique to our industry.

How do you sell quality?

Or in other words, how do you convince a client to choose your company over that agency up the road who charge the same, but who stopped bothering to move with the times and are still building blocky-looking, random stockphoto-fest-excuses-for-websites? Well the answer is a lot of talking, demonstrating and client-relationship trust-building. You'll also often see agencies gathering industry authority by nominating themselves for various local web awards set up for the very purpose of building reputation. Which is all fine, but it makes for a very expensive pre-sale process. Could there be an easier way?

An Accrediting Professional Body?

Other professional industries have them, could the web industry follow suit? Take Accountancy for example; in order to even start an accountancy practice, you have to have completed a qualification from one of several internationally regulatory bodies (CIMA, ACCA etc.) and gain several years of industry experience. It doesn't stop you book-keeping for a living before you qualify, but in order to get your own clients as a Chartered Accountant, you've got to have some hard-fought-for letters after your name. This sets the bar high, and also means that people looking for an accountant can see whether a person is qualified to practice. Admittedly, there's still plenty of room for ending up with a qualified but incompetent accountant, but it does at least mean the person you're hiring has experience and it reduces the chance of landing yourself a lemon.

So could it work? Could a regulatory and accrediting body be set up for the web industry to set a "gold standard for demonstrating professional competence and commitment"? If properly implemented, it would certainly help those truly committed to furthering their professional development to differentiate themselves from the has-beens. I fear there would be some obstacles to overcome though, not least the problem with many web design and development courses which are out-of-date before they've even started. How would a body stay relevant to the ever-changing technologies and trends of the internet? And how would it accommodate the multi-faceted nature of the web industry these days, which encompasses everything from graphic design communication and marketing to software development and usability.

Certainly food for though, but don't sack your sales team just yet.

Meanwhile, this site has become my personal space for blogging etc. I'll be offering commentary and opinions on everything from design and coding to marketing, running a web agency and photography (and perhaps even music...)

Hope you like the new design! No doubt there's plenty more tinkering to be done, but that's for another day.

Ever had this error? No me neither. It's pretty cryptic, but with a quick bit of Googling, it turns out that:

PAAMAYIM means "twice" in Hebrew while
NEKUDOTAYIM means "colon"

So in other words, you've got an errant double colon in your PHP code. Or in my case, I'd just missed off a $ on a variable name. PHP3 used the Israeli developed Zend Engine, so apparently there are still some elements of the original language in there all these years later in PHP5!

Interesting fact? You decide.

I often use DOMPDF for PDF generation from my PHP based applications and it's great, particularly as it interfaces well with CodeIgniter. It's also easier than some other PDF libraries, as you can simply send an HTML file to it and it will do the conversion to PDF format. The only problem is that you have to be careful how complex your HTML layout is. In fact I've found the simpler, the better (and yes, that means the use of HTML tables quite often).

The Error

One problem I've run into is this error:

Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'DOMPDF_Internal_Exception' with message 'Frame not found in cellmap' in /home/xxxx/public_html/system/plugins/dompdf/include/cellmap.cls.php:237

The Fix

I didn't see what was wrong immediately, but I soon found out that the reason this error was occurring was because I had a DIV tag that was spanning onto two pages. The fix was super easy; I simply changed the DIV tag to a SPAN.

This also seems to occur with <strong> tags; again I replaced these with a span tag.

Hope this helps other PHP developers!

Attempting to paste a banknote image into photoshop results in the above message. Clever eh?

This won't be very interesting or useful to anyone except other developers I'm afraid but I thought it was worth a quick blog post to help others. Essentially I was reading a remote gz file using gzread and streaming it into a local file;

while (!gzeof ($in_file)) {
   $buffer = gzread ($in_file, 4096);
   fwrite ($out_file, $buffer, 4096);
}

But that was just getting stuck in a loop for some reason. I have to say I didn't ever work out why (bug in my coding or bug in PHP), but I did find a workaround by using this method instead:

while ($line = gzgets($zh,1024)) {
   fwrite($fc,$line);
}

Other web developers beware! Hope this helps.

When you're accounting for the expense of a website design in your accounts at the end of the year, what expense category do you put it under? Computer Software? Asset? IT? I believe the answer to that question should be "Marketing". In some respects this makes sense, right? A lot of people think of a website as an online brochure of their company, and in many ways this would be correct. But while a traditional paper brochure is printed once and can be used by prospective customers to reference what your company can provide them with, a website can actively engage with visitors and drive sales to your product or service.

Driving visitors to a site

Of course visitors can reach your website through multiple channels and it's commonplace to run several different campaigns at any one time to drive traffic to your site. These could include click-throughs from Search Engine results, referrals from a link someone's posted on Twitter or Facebook, an email newsletter and many more.

So then... what is a website?

We've established that a website is an extension of your organisation's marketing strategy and that there are multiple channels through which people can reach it. Now visualise your website at the centre of your little digital universe with traffic streams coming from all these different sources. Now let's ask that question again... what is a website?

A website is the hub of your digital marketing strategy

Conclusion

There are no doubt lots of ways you could consider your website's purpose, but this is currently my preferred way of defining a website. It gets away from the mindset of just throwing up an online brochure and ticking it off your list: far better to treat it as a marketing hub which you can use to leverage sales. Besides which, it has a nice ring to it.

It's been widely reported today that the European Commission is launching a preliminary probe into Google's dominant position as a gateway to internet browsing as allegations have been made by competitors claiming that Google is demoting their websites' positions in the SERPs.

The first I heard about the news was on Radio 4 this morning where a spokeswoman for Price Comparison site Foundem claimed that results from Google's Product Search (formerly Froogle) appear in at the top of the SERPs, while other price comparison sites' pages are pushed down the listings and out of sight. She claimed that while Google presented itself as neutral, that actually "this is increasingly untrue, as in the last couple of years Google has started to use its search results as a marketing channel for its own services."

As I commented last week, it must feel pretty terrible when you find out Google has just entered your industry, but it should also be said that relying on a single advertising channel such as the SERPs is not generally a good business tactic. Google points out that websites such as Foundem don't provide much original content, as it's mostly scraped from other sources, and as everyone knows in the SEO industry, original and unique content is one of the keys of good ranking in the SERPs.

A justified compliant?

The Price Comparison market is, in most sectors, pretty saturated anyway and also, as far as I am aware, listing products in Google is free. Google states: "inclusion of your products is completely free. There are no charges for uploading your items or the additional traffic you receive."

The reason Google provide the product search service is to presumably drive traffic to their core AdWords product. Therefore it is perhaps arguable that because Google doesn't earn commission from product click-throughs (as Price Comparison websites do) they aren't directly competing anyway. (UPDATE: apparently Google do earn commission in some cases)

Potentially large fines...

The European Commission could fine Google as much as 10 per cent of their annual turnover which would amount to around $2.3 billion, so it will be interesting to see how this pans out.

Google's rise and its dominance of the Search Engine market has been quite incredible. In terms of its multinational reach and host of related spin off services, Google is arguably the dominant company of the Internet at large. At current count, there are 522 product listed that Google offer aside from its core web search business.

It's sometimes hard to imagine a world without Google and the gamut of its incredibly useful web services and applications. Google Search aside, you can now look up satellite images from your own street in seconds, watch and share videos with people on the other side of the world, create 3D architectural drawings, write and host blogs, view who's visited your website and where they were from plus lots, lots more; and all free at the point of use. That's right: for FREE! It's fantastic from a user's perspective; never before has technological empowerment been so accessible and so cheap.

Who suffers?

But is there another viewpoint to all this? It's quite possible that there is, and one should probably spare a thought for the companies with whom Google is in competition with. Not that you should necessarily feel pity for all of those in Google's sights; in many ways you have to accept that technology and markets move on and if you don't keep up with it as a business, you're history. Witness Microsoft struggling to keep up with Google and Google's direct competition with both Windows (Chrome OS) and Microsoft Office (Google Apps). Apple are also now in direct competition with Google as the Google Nexus One hits the shelves next to the iPhone, a development which forced Google's CEO Eric Schmidt resign from the board of Apple.

Google's business model

While Google doesn't always "win" when it enters a new market (note its failure to dominate the Social Networking market as Facebook races ahead), Google's Ad-funded business model means that it can offer services for free, which in turn means that any new market into which it enters and where paid services once ruled, it stands a pretty good chance of seizing a large market share by competing on cost alone.

And this is where Google sometimes worries me. If a company with such a monopoly and business model can come along to virtually any internet based product and start offering it for free as a loss leader for their core AdWords product, is any internet or communications business actually safe?

Robert Thomson of the Wall Street Journal once remarked "Google devalues everything it touches". He was referring specifically to how Newspapers and journalists were being devalued by Google dividing "content quantitatively rather than qualitatively." My thoughts extend to not just content providers but to service providers. Take SatNav company Garmin for example, whose shares fell 18% in October 2009 on news that Google was launching a free satnav for it's mobile devices. Great news for users like me who will be able to get satnav without paying for it as an extra service, but one wonders how I would feel if I were on the board at Garmin or TomTom. One could argue that in the face of competition these companies will need to update their business models, but they don't have the ad-funded infrastructure to fall back onto, so where do they go from here?

And if I had shares in Rightmove, I might be worried about the news that Google intends to launch a UK Property Portal soon. Estate Agents will be able to list their properties on the portal for free, while Rightmove charge around £325 a month. But again, for the users (in this case Estate Agents and house sellers) this is great news of course, as it lowers the overheads of selling your home.

Best start hoping your industry isn't next...

While I am tempted to compare Google's expansion into new industries to a company such as Tesco, who are widely lambasted for causing small high street shops to close, as they themselves expand, I don't think the comparison would hold entirely up to analysis. In many respects a lot of the companies that Google go up against perhaps follow business models that had potentially short shelf-lives anyway and one shouldn't worry but instead rejoice as more and more services become free thanks to those clever souls in the Googleplex.

That is, of course, until it's your industry into which Google has just entered.

**UPDATE**
Google has caused upset in the Travel industry over the announcement that it is buying ITA Software.

Apple was formed in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. Their byte-mark logo is now one of the most instantly recognised symbols in the world.

Ford

While the Ford logo has evolved over time, it's actually very striking how similar the original 1909 logo's lettering is to the current logo.

IBM

You can see IBM's logo changing as the company's structure changes over time. Originally known as The International Time Recording Company the company first merged with the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company before adopting the name of International Business Machines Corporation.

Nike

The Nike "Swoosh" logo is often referred to as an example of how an incredibly simple visual cue can be so easily identifiable.

Nokia

The Nokia logo changes drastically over the years, mainly due to the fact that Nokia itself has been in so many different industries. It first started out as a wood pulp mill!

So there you go! Incredible stuff, eh?

For logo design, try: logo designer in Sheffield

These are exciting times and the new HTML standard brings with it a host of new possibilities that have the potential to turn "boring old HTML" into a far more feature rich markup language.

However, like all new technologies, just because HTML5 is here, it doesn't necessarily mean that it will suddenly become the de facto standard. For instance, it's taken this long just for some browsers to become fully supportive of things such as CSS2; a standard that was first born in 1998! That said, there are lots of exciting facilities available in HTML5, and if all browsers magically became compliant tomorrow, there would be a very good reason to start using some of them.

But of course, that's not the case, and old non-HTML5 browsers will stay in existence for some time to come, while new ones will fail to implement the new standards properly. For that reason, I won't necessarily be deploying HTML5 on my clients' websites in the near future. I'll certainly be keeping abreast of the developments though, and it's going to be interesting to start experimenting on pet-projects.

When to start using HTML5

The time it takes for HTML5 to become viable for deployment on client websites completely depends on the speed of uptake in the browser industry. News such as the launch of the Apple iPad has brought much more pressure on the early adoption of HTML5 for instance, as the iPad (and iPhone) don't support Adobe Flash and therefore can't play the majority of web-delivered video. However HTML5 has built in video streaming support, so any websites that deliver their video in HTML5 will be playable on the iPad or iPhone once they are fully supportive of HTML5. Worrying news for Adobe shareholders perhaps and it's been widely reported that Steve Jobs isn't too impressed by Adobe (or Google for that matter!).

Anyway, HTML5 is here and it looks great. But it's only one for the geeks at the moment.

UPDATE: I've since started building sites in HTML5...! 

Following the high profile news that Google plans to stop supporting IE6, here's an encouraging screen grab for all web designers and developers. There are plenty of ditch-IE6 campaigns out there, but ones that hit the homepage of big news sites like the BBC have got to be good news!

Read the article here

So then, how much?

The answer that I give you will of course be dependent on a number of variables and if you're shopping around for quotes, you're also likely to see quite a lot of variation in prices. But why is this? Why should one web designer or developer be charging £500 for a website while another is charging £5,000? How are these quotes calculated and why would you ever want to pay £thousands when you can apparently have the same thing for £hundreds?

While there are no hard and fast answers to these questions, there are plenty of indicators that you should be taking into account. And even at this early stage, it should already be fairly clear that a balance needs to be found between;

• the price you're being quoted
• the quality of the work
• the experience of the designer/developer
• the potential return on investment
• the availability and knowledgeability of staff
• the features and functionality provided

Web design & development is a service, not a product...

All web design & development companies are providing a service, not a product. And for that reason all pricing is based on time. As soon as one makes that distinction, it should quickly become apparent that in terms of raw price, it's often best to look at the designer's hourly rate when reviewing and balancing quotes.

If you balance the hourly rate with the amount of experience the web designer/developer has and the quality of their work, it may become easier to see which is going to provide the best service for the best price. Generally the more experience the designer has, the better the work and the higher the price. The exception to the rule is when you get quotes from the web designers who built their first websites in 1995 and are still using 1995 techniques and technologies! For the most part they're easy to spot though! It's worth noting that I spend hours every week reading, learning and generally keeping abreast of new technologies - in this fast moving industry it's terribly easy to get complacent and wake up one day to find that you've become the dinosaur!

What do you get for your money?

Should you be going for the lowest quote or highest quote? If you cast the lowest quotes adrift and start looking at the slightly higher priced quotes, what are you actually paying for? Just a nicer design? What are the concrete advantages of paying more? Of course I wouldn't expect you just to pay more because I've told you "yes, but I'm more experienced than him/her". The answer is that you should be going for the one that will provide you the greatest Return on Investment.

While this article isn't supposed to delve into the questions of what makes a good website, I must make it absolutely clear that when I talk about things such as effective communication through design, standards compliance, accessibility, usability and search engine performance, these subjects really do matter in terms of the ability of your site to create sales for your company. These aren't just features that "would be nice to have" - contracting someone with the skills and experience in such subjects actually makes financial sense. And that's before we've even got onto the subject of integrated Content Management Systems, bespoke programming, ecommerce etc. all of which full service digital media consultants such as myself can provide as an integrated solution.

What do I charge?

All of my work is bespoke, so I quote for projects on a case-by-case basis. My hourly rate is £40/hr (if you're an agency employing me as a freelancer this rate is lower though, as of course I'm not handling the account management side of things). If you're shopping around you're likely to find designers/developers charging from anywhere between £10/hr (amateur developers/designers) right up to £100/hr or more (full service city digital marketing agencies).

And if it sounds like I've waffled on in this article a bit, then there is of course a simple and widely used cliche that concisely condenses this blog post into just six words: You Get What You Pay For. ;-)