Jolly Good Websites for Reading Businesses Established October 1999
Tel. 0845 6445513 (national) Tel. 0118 9507617 (local)

Monday 17 December 2012

Christmas and New Year Opening Hours 2012/13

Monday December 24th 10am to 4pm
Tuesday December 25th Closed
Wednesday December 26th Closed
Thursday December 27th Closed
Friday December 28th Closed
Saturday December 29th Closed
Sunday December 30th Closed
Monday December 31st Closed
Tuesday January 1st Closed
Wednesday January 2nd 10am to 6pm

Email will be monitored as usual throughout the holidays for web hosting tech support queries.

Thursday 1 November 2012

2013 Price Increases at inframes

 

Hourly Rate

As of January 1st 2013, our hourly rate for design, development and other consultative work will increase by 2.5% from £35.70 to £36.59 + VAT.

Hosting


Hosting fees will remain unchanged until further notice.

Linux/Windows Starter hosting packages are available for £45.00 - £75.00 per year + VAT (please enquire for further details).

Linux/Windows Advanced hosting packages are available for £9.99 per month + VAT, payable quarterly in advance.

Windows Professional hosting packages are available for £29.99 per month + VAT, payable quarterly in advance.



Please note: any project quotations issued before December 31st 2012 will be valid for 28 days.

Friday 5 October 2012

Holey sit!

I'm slightly embarrassed at how badly tattered I let my chair get before replacing it this week. In my defence, it was fine a few weeks ago, but a small rip in the leather got progressively worse and worse until half the seat had become a web of interconnected holes.

Having said that, it's a badge of honour, in a way - you only have to take a look at this before picture to see evidence of the many, many hours I've sat on my backside improving and enhancing other people's websites to help them save money and make even more money.

Nice to have a new one, though.

Evidence of the damage that can be caused by a Reading web designer hard at work

Thursday 4 October 2012

inframes is 13 Years Old Today

On October 4th 1999, inframes.com ltd was incorporated, which I suppose makes me a teenager today.

It hasn't always been easy, but inframes is still here and right now very busy with new clients both from Reading and further afield.

Website design Reading - 13 years of website design from inframes.com ltd, Reading, Berkshire In just this past week, we've helped Mark Butler Associates with the launch of the official VIP hospitality package for the forthcoming Robbie Williams shows at the O2 Arena in London; we've produced the copy for the first of a series of quarterly email newsletters for Wokingham-based physiotherapy company AM Physio; we've started work on a site-wide improvement to the image galleries for villas and hotels at Premier Connections; we've started work on a brand new site design for self-styled "sales specialist" Andrew Docker (aka Bridge Business Associates); we've been doing search engine optimisation for London nutritionist Emma Vanlint of the Nutritional Therapy Clinic in Harley Street; we've taken on the website hosting of specialist Mercedes dealer Binz UK and... well, you get the idea. We're keeping ourselves off the streets.


As an act of pure self-indulgence, and with a nod to the end of an astonishing and unforgettable sporting summer for this country, we've made a new logo and awarded ourselves a gold medal for what you might call long-distance running.

Here's to the next 13 and thanks to those who have kept us company on our marathon thus far.

Monday 1 October 2012

Reading Painters and Decorators Woodley Decor

We've just built a new website for Reading Painters and Decorators Woodley Decor

Like all of our work, the Woodley Decor website was designed from not from templates but from scratch, based on the needs of the business. The company has been in the painting and decorating business in Berkshire for more than 40 years and - despite its name - is now based in Hare Hatch. Their website needed bringing up to date, making better use of the full width of the browser window with more and bigger pictures of their work. Moreover, they needed to reflect the changing nature of their marketing, which is now targeting more residential work, with a little less emphasis on their commercial painting and decorating business.

Out with the old...
Reading Painters and Decorators
...and in with the new
Reading Painters and Decorators

We built the site using Concrete5, which is a very user-friendly content management system, allowing Woodley Decor to take charge of updating the site with new text and pictures. We find Concrete5 is very popular with clients and Dawn from Woodley Decor summed up her initial reaction with one word: "Brilliant!"

These are some of the things we've done for the Woodley Decor project:
  • Original, bespoke website design to client's specifications
  • Contemporary look and feel
  • Homepage image slideshow
  • Original artwork
  • Interactive image gallery
  • Photoshop enhancements to their photo library
  • Integration with a user-friendly content management system
  • Bespoke content management system programming to fit unique website design
  • Search engine optimisation throughout
  • Step-by-Step, customised website user documentation provided
We could do all this for you at a very competitive rate, so if you run a small business in Reading, Berkshire, and your site needs bringing up to date or no longer reflects your core business, then give us a call.

Monday 21 May 2012

BNI Business Networking, Reading

I've written elsewhere in this blog about BNI, the weekly business networking lunch in Reading town centre where I meet colleagues and share business opportunities.

But I've never really gone into any detail about what goes on at a meeting, so I thought this week I'd share a little snapshot of the agenda.

The core of every BNI meeting is the section where every member stands up for 60 seconds and tells the rest of the group a little bit about their business - what they have been doing this week and what makes them an expert in their field.

So here's a quick look at what the other people in my group had to say last Wednesday.

If you'd like to meet any of these people, then just get in touch with me and I'll make it happen. Or come along to a meeting at the Shehnai in London Street, Reading, from 12 till 2 on a Wednesday.

Robert Craigs of Mailboxes Etc said he was pleased this week that two customers described his print shop as "Large enough to cope, small enough to care". And he impressed us this week by bringing along a life-size cardboard cut-out of the Queen and a two-and-a-half metre party banner which are just a small part of his excellent-value Diamond Jubilee Party Pack, which costs just £99+VAT.

Laura de la Harpe is looking for introductions to female executives who would like to attend a two-day luxury retreat in Ascot this July called Wake Up and Love Your Life.

Mitch from AM Physio told us that the Olympic spirit must be in the air because he's seeing an increasing number of running-related injuries. He'd like to hear from anyone who has hurt themselves while running - he can fix you and more to the point he can advise you on how to stop it from happening again.

Deborah Heath announced that she's a regional finalist in the Design section of the International Property Awards. She'll be showcasing her interior design skills at a free champagne reception at the Lemongrove Gallery in Minster Street, Reading, this Saturday between 2pm and 4pm.

Amanda Aldred told us about a new customer of Big Yellow Self-Storage who had been let down by a rival local storage company. The lady in question had booked a forklift driver to receive a delivery, but the driver had not been able to come in to work. Amanda pointed out that all Big Yellow employees are qualified to drive a forklift.

Independent mortgage adviser Ben Sherville told us how he's been talking himself out of a commission. He met with a first-time buyer this week and the best deal he could find from his list of broker deals was 5.65%. When he looked into the same mortgages available direct from the lender, he found one for 4.39%, meaning that the customer would save £168 per month over the next two years. Undoubtedly he's one borrower who will come back to Ben in the future, knowing that he will always get an honest and independent review of his finances.

Bookkeeper Tracy Lewis warned us that any company that hasn't got its payroll year-end sorted out by this Sunday will have an instant £100 fine from HMRC.

Gary Martin of Sparkright Building Services promised that he'll give free building advice to anyone with questions about residential or commercial building. "You don't have to use us to get free advice," he said.

Photographer Claire Baggott remarked that three of her customers had commented this week that "time goes by so fast" and reminded us that a family photo shoot is a great way to treasure those precious moments, like special anniversaries or the arrival of a new baby, before they slip through our fingers.

Graphic designer Jon Baverstock is pleased to say that he's had successful talks with local water and building industry contractors Barnfield Engineering about designing a new logo and helping them open up new markets by developing their brand.

Mary Carter told us about two events next week being hosted by Business Fit Club, a training company that helps businesses unlock their potential. You can find out how they do it at a great value "taster day" on Tuesday at Henley Business School and again on Thursday in Twyford at Robertson House.

Social media marketing consultant Paul Allen asked us to take a look at the 28 independent recommendations he has received so far on his Linkedin profile and assured us that he charges a fraction of the rates asked by the big agencies to achieve great marketing results.

Lettings agent Sam Lee, who sent a substitute this week, used his 60 seconds to tell us that sometimes even the most complicated issues can be solved with good communications between landlords, agents and tenants - something they pride themselves on at Samuel James Properties.

Charlene Callender of Academy Insurance got a round of applause when she announced that she has been promoted to Renewals Manager at the Oxford Road branch.

Gary Thandi is looking for businesses with multiple premises because he can help them by saving them up to £500 a year on energy bills by moving to Utility Warehouse - and what's more they can have one bill for all their buildings, making their paperwork much, much simpler.

Independent financial adviser David O'Connor sent along his colleague Doug Cowan to talk about equity release. Being property-rich and cash-poor is a common problem at the moment, especially for older people, and David has been advising a client on how to use his property to generate cash to cover his living expenses and mitigate inheritance tax.

It's wedding season, according to Paul Sampson of Pangbourne florists Green Parlour (and he should know). He would like to hear from anyone who has just got engaged.

Russ Adlem from Caversham Coachworks is involved in the organisation of a vintage and classic car rally in Mapledurham on Saturday May 26th. If you have a classic or vintage car, scooter or bike and you'd like to show it off, he would like to hear from you.

We had three visitors today.

Barry Coxhead is a young sound engineer looking for opportunities. He has had some experience working in the theatre industry and he's also involved with hospital radio.

We had a visit from Colin Smith of Vectorsign. He is a BNI member from maidenhead and his company specialises in signage and vinyl coatings for glass. So whether it's a logo printed on a shop front or something to stop your conservatory from getting too hot in the summer, he's your man.

And we had a visit from Kathryn from The Kooky Cake Company, which makes cakes for weddings and occasions as well as cupcakes for commercial gifts and she promises prompt, free delivery to any address in Berkshire.

Our regular member Robin Thorn asked to be left till last, but very definitely not least. He devised a little quiz for us this week to help us pay more attention to his 60 second presentation about his company Great Wedding Entertainment. He hid a number of song titles in the wording and gave out a bottle of bubbly to Paul Allen who came closest to guessing the correct number - Robin had managed to shoe-horn 42 song titles into his 60 second presentation, which is no mean feat. And to make up for taking rather longer than 60 seconds of everyone's time, he donated a fistful of cash to Clare Franklin, who is raising funds for Guide Dogs for the Blind.

Wednesday 2 May 2012

Easy Content Management with SeaMonkey


There are some pretty sophisticated content management systems out there, but not every site demands a sophisticated approach, nor every customer.
If you don’t want to spend a lot of time learning how to use the back-end functionality of a content management system, but you do want to be able to change the text on your home page from time to time, you’d do well to consider using Seamonkey.

SeaMonkey SeaMonkey is a free, open-source web browser developed using the same code that powers Firefox. What makes it special is that it allows you to edit pages and publish them directly to a web server.
You’ll need three bits of information before you start.

1. FTP Hostname (typically something like ftp.yourdomain.co.uk)
    NB. SeaMonkey refers to this as the "Publishing address" (see Step Five, below)
2. FTP username
3. FTP password

Warning - Make a Backup First!WARNING. You should not be editing your website unless you have a backup. Use your FTP logon credentials to download all of your website files before you begin. That way, if something goes wrong, you can always revert back to where you started. I recommend downloading FileZilla, which – like SeaMonkey - is free, open source software

Right - got your FTP logon credentials? You’ve backed up your website? Downloaded and installed SeaMonkey? Then you’re well on the way to editing your own site.

NB. SeaMonkey is best suited to editing static HTML pages. If the file names of your pages don’t end in something like .htm or .html, you might need to tread carefully. If in doubt, ask your website designer.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to updating your website with SeaMonkey.
We don’t really edit the inframes.com web site using SeaMonkey, but let’s pretend we do…

STEP ONE

Browse to the page you want to edit and, from the File menu, select Save Page As...

Save Page As...

Save it on your computer.

When prompted, select “Web Page, complete” from the Save as type menu.

Be sure to use the correct file name because in STEP FIVE you will be publishing the file to your live web site and if the file name is different, the old file won’t be overwritten.


Save your web page - make sure you use the same file name as the live version

Usually, you can see the file name in your browser’s location bar. It will say yourdomain.com/about_us.html or something like that. But the home page is different. You usually won’t see it written out in full in the location bar. And if someone else made your website for you, you might not know the name of the home page file name. If you’ve made a backup using FileZilla, then you should be able to pick out the home page from the list of all the file names. There’s a good chance it will be index.htm, index.html, default.htm or default.html. If in doubt, try typing yourdomainname.com/index.html into your browser location bar and see if it works.

STEP TWO

From the File menu select Open File… and browse to the file you just saved

Open the local copy of your page ready for editing

STEP THREE

Now select Edit Page from the File menu:

Select Edit Page from the File menu

STEP FOUR

You’ll now see a version of the page that should look very much like it did before…

Step Four (1): Web Design, Reading

But now you can simply click on the words in front of you and start typing…

Step Four (2): Hello World!

And when you’ve finished, click the Save icon:

Save your web page ready for publishing

STEP FOUR

Of course, at this stage, the page is still on your computer and the rest of the world cannot see your changes.
That’s where we need SeaMonkey’s Publish function.

Click the Publish icon.

Click the Publish icon

STEP FIVE

The first time you do this, you’ll need to click on the Settings tab and enter the FTP logon credentials you should have ready.

SeaMonkey Publish dialogue box - Publish Settings

In the Publish tab, make sure you have got the correct file name. Remember, you are going to overwrite the file on the live server, so the file name needs to be the same.

SeaMonkey Publish dialogue box - Page Settings

I recommend you uncheck the box marked “Include images and other files” unless you have added new images to the page.

NB. You may need to fill in the field marked "Site subdirectory for this page". On a Windows server, your site might be in a subdirectory called wwwroot and on a Linux server it might be called public_html. If you've already logged on to the server using Filezilla (see above) you will have been able to see the full directory structure of your web server.

Finally, click the Publish button and your page will be uploaded to the server for the whole world to see.

SeaMonkey is not a professional web page editor, but for the enthusiastic amateur who simply wants to be able to edit a web page without learning all about the inner workings of the internet, it's a pretty easy entry-level tool that gets the job done.

Thursday 1 March 2012

10% off .com domains

Register your domain hereOur preferred domain name registrar 123-reg has a special March offer that will save you 10% off .com domains names till the end of the month.

We really like 123-reg at inframes. They charge low prices and give you complete control over all your domain settings like name server updates, domain transfers and DNS records. And this month they're even cheaper than the usual £9.99, which seems especially appealing when you consider they were already offering much cheaper domain renewals than other registrars as we reported last month.

Friday 17 February 2012

Cheap Domain Renewals

I feel well and truly ripped off today.

But I also feel like I have put my money where my mouth is, which is something of a consolation.

For a few years I used UK Domains (which was latterly purchased by Names Co) for purchasing domain names and handling DNS management and they provided a pretty good service, but now I feel a mug when I compare their prices to 123-reg.

I just had a renewal reminder from Names Co telling me that inframes.co.uk needs to be renewed at the end of March. The cost? £19.99 + VAT for two years.

So I am transferring my domain to 123-reg. Transferring a .co.uk domain to 123-reg is free and when the renewal date comes along, they charge £2.99 per year + VAT.

When I renewed the Spa Deluxe domain in October last year, Names Co only charged me £9.99 + VAT for two years, so the price has doubled in the meantime and it was already more expensive than 123-reg!

What a liberty!

To add insult to injury, Names Co have charged me £10.00 + VAT to transfer my domain to 123-reg!

But the joke's on them because even taking their £10 fee into account, I will still save money on my next renewal at the end of March.

Free .co.uk domain transfers
Yes! Transferring your .co.uk domain to 123-reg really is free - or it would be if those skinflints at Names Co didn't charge me £10 to transfer it from their wicked clutches.

So don't be a mug if you get a renewal notification for a .co.uk domain. If you are paying more than a tenner for two years then move it to 123-reg.

Tuesday 14 February 2012

Will You Join My Network?

For the last year-and-a-half I have been working with a group of local businesses in Reading who help each other to get new customers by meeting every week. It's been a big help to my business, so if you're in the Reading area and you're looking to grow your business, get in touch.

Better still, come along to our Visitors' Day on Wednesday March 7th 2012 between 12pm and 2pm at the Shehnai in London Street, Reading.

I've put a list of our existing members at the bottom of the post.

We are particularly looking for visitors from the following business categories:

Accountant
Public Relations Consultant
Architect
Signage
Banker

The event cost just £10, which covers the cost of lunch and a cuppa at the Shehnai. There are no strings attached - just come along with a tenner and a fistful of business cards. We'd love to meet you.

If you'd like to find out more, just drop me a line or give me a call

A few of the people you will meet at the Shehnai on March 7th:

Amanda Aldred
Big Yellow
Storage Containers, Reading

Ben Sherville
AFP Partnership
Mortgages, Reading

Charlene Callender
Academy Insurance
Insurance Broker, Reading

Clare Franklin
Dexter Montague
Solicitor, Reading

David O'Connor
Blue Sky
Independent Financial Adviser, Reading

Dean Weller
Dean Weller Associates
Careers Adviser, Reading

Deborah Heath
Design by Deborah
Interior Designer, Reading

Gary Martin
Sparkright Building Services
Builder, Reading

Gary Thandi
Utility Warehouse
Discount Club, Reading

Jon Baverstock
Studio 18
Graphic Designer, Reading

Jon Ewing
inframes.com
Web Designer, Reading

Laura de la Harpe
Nutritional Benefits
Nutritional Therapy, Reading

Mary Carter
Business Fit Club
Business Adviser, Reading

Paul Allen
Paul Allen Media
Social Media Marketing, Reading

Paul Ashton
The Business Development Consultancy
Business Development, Reading

Paul Sampson
Green Parlour
Florist, Reading

Robert Craigs
Mailboxes Etc
Printer, Reading

Robin Thorn
Wedding Entertainment Services
Wedding Entertainment, Berkshire

Sam Lee
Samuel James Properties
Residential Property, Reading

Terry Walker
Walker & Worley
Health and Safety Consulting, Reading

Tracy Kane
Make More Time
Virtual Assistant, Reading

Tracy Lewis
TLC Bookkeeping
Bookkeeping, Reading

Wednesday 18 January 2012

An SEO Success Story

BNI

Each week in our BNI lunchtime meeting, I am expected to get up and tell other members and visitors a little bit about my work in a sixty second snapshot.

If you want to find out a bit more about our weekly meetings, skip to the bottom of this page.

Here's what I had to say this week:

"My name is Jon Ewing and I am from inframes.com ltd, a website design and development company from Reading established in 1999.

"You should refer business to me because I build websites that succeed in the Google rankings.

"This week I’d like to talk about one of those successes – Heart to Home, a website selling quality kitchen and dining room linens which last year was all but invisible on Google.

"After completely rebuilding the site, in collaboration with graphic designer Jon Baverstock from Studio 18, Heart to Home has shot up the rankings. If you search Google for a 'carrier bag holder' you’ll find Heart to Home on the third page of the listings; and you’ll see them on the all-important page one when you search for 'check apron'.

"These results were achieved within a month without any formal, structured search engine optimisation programme – simply by following a few simple rules during the creation of the site.

"Next week a great referral for me would be a company that sells cotton clothing or anything made from fabric, either retail or wholesale.

"So please find me a company that needs new material for their fabric website and send them to inframes dot cotton... er, I mean dot com."


What's BNI?

I am currently the Membership Coordinator at a growing new chapter of the BNI business networking group and we're looking for other Reading-based small business professionals to refer business to.

We meet between 12pm and 2pm on Wednesdays. If you'd like to come along to a lunch, please drop me a line or give me a call.

There's absolutely no commitment required – you just pay for the cost of lunch at Shehnai - and you'll have a chance to meet existing members and other visitors, introduce your business and of course hand out business cards.