web design news archive

December 2006
centraltoilethire.co.uk has gone live. The site caters both for those who need to hire portable toilets, showers and a range of other products as well as their plastic moulding business Jobec.co.uk.

November 2006
PetsPatch.co.uk has now gone live. It describes itself as a site "...for pet owners and animal lovers alike in the North Birmingham/Staffordshire area". Built as a complete Content Management Solution (CMS) it has a very wide set of features and functionality including: complete web-based administration section for the client where they can update all elements of the site. For the front-end user, there is a secure log in system so that members can add their own links, classified ads and news. There are also monthly polls, forums, an advanced search facility as well as Google Ads and banner advertisements to generate income for the site owner.

October 2006
As part of my work with City College Birmingham, the FIPSE Project website has now been completed. As the introduction for the site proclaims, "For the past three years City College Birmingham (UK), together with Deltion College (Netherlands) and TEC College (Denmark) have been working in partnership as the European arm of an EU-US FIPSE Project in electrical installation, along with three American partner colleges." This site is necessary as the documentary evidence of what has been achieved during the project and includes a wealth of supporting evidence, interviews and image galleries. I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Brussels Dissemination Event over the summer where I recorded all the interviews with students, educators and employers involved in the project.

September 2006
After a really pleasant and relaxing summer break, September has brought with it a number of exciting new projects. More details to follow soon...

July 2006
Many congratulations to International Events Management (IEP) for their staging of the very successful LG Amsterdam Tournament 2006. Congratulations also to Manchester United who won the tournament against such strong competition as Ajax, Internazionale and Porto.

July 2006
The Super Systems UK website has now gone live. They are a Sutton Coldfield based company specialising in control systems for carburising, nitriding, and all protective atmosphere heat treatments, as well as for vacuum heat treatment.

June 2006
In what has been a very busy few months, I'm glad to announce that the Derby Japanese School website has now gone live as has its special 15th year anniversary website.

May 2006
The Central Birmingham Collegiate site has also now gone live.

May 2006
The LG Amsterdam Tournament website has now gone live as has the organiser's own new corporate website, International Event Partnership.

April 2006
The Total Team Training website has now gone live.

April 2006
The first of what I hope to be many April launches of sites took place this week - Fisher Barrie Asset Management Recruitment. Fisher Barrie is a London based executive search boutique specialising in asset management recruitment. The client is very pleased with the site, so why not take a look.

There are another 4 or 5 sites that are in the very final stages and I hope that they will also launch in the next week or two. Check back soon for more details.

February 2006
The first of this month saw the launch of the new City College staff intranet. This was possibly the longest and most difficult project I have ever undertaken - in terms of practically everything. However, now it is out there, it is receiving very positive reviews and growing in strength and stature with each and every day.

After finally reaching the launch, I now feel something of a Microsoft Sharepoint oracle and have already discussed the possibility of developing more Sharepoint based sites for the college.

January 2006
Website launches...JH People went live at the weekend. It a financial recruitment company website I've been working on recently. The brief was for a professional looking website that had to appeal to a national audience. The client is very happy with the site and is convinced that this polished site will lead to more business.

The new City College Birmingham staff intranet has finally got the green light and will be launched on the first of February. I've spent most of the last week doing demonstrations of the Intranet to the great and the good of City College. There now follows a period of training up the users and developers to get the most out of the system. I'll also be making a number of video tutorials and podcasts to support the users. The Intranet is only available to staff, so I'll just have to get a few screen grabs up on this site.

The Derby Japanese School website is also ready to go live, I'm just waiting on the clients to finalize a few things.

The Central Birmingham Collegiate website is also pretty much ready for launch. I'd expect that to go live sometime in February.

January 2006
Search engine optimisation news revisited... I did another quick review of the search engines placements for andrewlowry.com and for the search term "Sutton Coldfield web design", I ranked:

• 1st for Google
• 1st for Yahoo!
• 1st for Ask Jeeves
• 1st for MSN
• 1st for Lycos

I have to admit that this really makes my bosom swell with pride. For more information on search engine optimisation, click here.

January 2006
I hope you all had a very good Christmas and New Year. As 2006 begins there are a number of new and exciting design projects already in development and when I have more to tell, I'll be sure to announce it here.

I'll also be announcing a number of new web packages very soon, including e-commerce packages and content management solutions, so whatever your want to accomplish with your website I'll have a solution for you.

November 2005:
The final project I am currently working on is the Central Birmingham Collegiate portal website. This project has also gone the route of a customised content management system. Again, this is primarily to ease the workload of those responsible for the site once I have passed it over.

November 2005:
Work is also progressing nicely on the Derby Japanese School site. For this site (made entirely in Japanese) I'm developing a customised content management system (CMS) to allow the clients to easy maintain the website once I have passed it over to them. As part of the package, i will be giving them on-site training in the use and administration of the package and producing instructional documentation. The site will hopefully be complete before Christmas.

November 2005:
Work is progressing well on the new City College intranet. The integration of Microsoft's Sharepoint technology with the college's existing Microsoft network is proving very popular amongst those who have been trialling the system. Authentication and permissions seamlessly integrates with the existing Active Directory set up and I the systems will go live in early January.

October 2005:
According to a BBC report, 2005 was the Web's biggest year of growth. In the year to October the web grew by more than 17 million sites and one of the main reasons for this "...was caused by small businesses going online...".

In particular, he said, the last few months have seen small businesses going online in the manner many expected them to do five years ago. Part of this has been driven by new tools and services which make it easy and cheap to launch a web business.

"A website is now seen as indispensable for small businesses," he told the BBC News website.

"Domains have become the base for anything else folks want to do on the web," he said. "That's your brand."

September 2005:
A busy week at the end of the month. Renew Kitchen Doors, of Sutton Coldfield, commissioned us to create a web site for them. The task was to faithfully reproduce a web site from an existing 30 page Powerpoint presentation that the client has designed themselves.

September 2005:
Search engine optimisation news... I did a quick review of the search engines placements for andrewlowry.com recently and was very pleased with the results. For the search term "Sutton Coldfield web design", I ranked 1st for Ask Jeeves, 2nd for Yahoo! and MSN and third for Google. For more information on search engine optimisation, click here.

September 2005:
Work has begun on the new City College staff intranet. To tie our existing systems together more effectively, we are moving from Oracle Portal technology to Microsoft's Sharepoint 2003. This promises to be a massive yet exciting project and definitely my biggest undertaking thus far.

September 2005:
I've been commissioned to undertake a complete re-design of the Derby Japanese School web site and, in addition, create a special 15 year anniversary micro site in the new year. As the site is almost entirely in Japanese, the whole andrewlowry.com team will be drawn in for this one and I'll have to polish the dust off my Japanese/English dictionaries.

August 2005:
Work is also now complete on the kokeshishop.co.uk website. The clients are very happy with the overall site including my contribution of the e-commerce functionality and database integration.

August 2005:
Work is now completed on the City College CD ROM. The finished product looks really good and is a big hit with all that have used it thus far.

June 2005:
Work is nearing completion on a project for City College. The personnel department have asked me to create a CD ROM for new members of staff to introduce them to the college and supply them with all the documentation, policies and procedures they will need during their time at the college. The Flash driven CD ROM will also boast an interactive guide to the many centres the college has as well as extensive use of video and bookmarked PDF's.

May2005:
Work has begun on adding e-commerce functionality and database integration to kokeshishop.co.uk, a beautifully designed site selling Japanese kokeshi dolls online. The results should be online very soon.

April 2005:
Work has now been completed on the Discovery Funds website. Again the site includes database integration and a secure members only section.

March 2005:
The new City College website is finally live although it's still very much a work in progress and will develop and evolve quite a lot over the coming weeks.

February 2005:
The re launch of the City College website is just days away. Mostly just waiting on the "official" sign off on the new text.

January 2005:
I've been commissioned to add some database integration and a secure "members only" section to an existing website. The results should be online soon.

December 2004:
The St. Edburgha's church website is now up and running in time for it's busy Christmas period. Click here to take a look at the site.

October 2004:
I've been commissioned by the Central Birmingham 14-16 Collegiate to create a website for them including such features as secure areas for teachers, events calendars for both teachers and students and potentially a lot more. It's early development stages now, so check back later for details.

September 2004:
Work has started on the re-design of the City College Birmingham website.

July 2004:
St. Edburgha's Church in Yardley Village has commissioned us to create their web site to accompany their £1.5 million restoration and development work.

July 2004:
Welcome to the launch of my new website.