So who's keeping up with the swirling waves of tech?

[Mike@TheWhippinpost]

Just a general discussion...

Website technology has come a long way since the early days of tableised websites and dial-up connections. Databases, XML, APIs, OOP, Javascript, AJAX, CSS, libraries, CMS... the list goes on.

A wave of higher-level abstracts has emerged, designed to supposedly speed-up development; rather than programming from the ground up, it seems we're increasingly interacting with other interfaces provided by 3rd party APIs (or whatever) to get the data we need in a format we can use. Paradoxically though, with that comes yet more stuff to learn - stuff we might only use once.

Learning something for one-time use is a drain on time (however interesting), meaning we never become expert in it. I often finish something knowing I've only scratched the surface but just don't have the time to dig deeper. It can be frustrating.

The last 2-3 yrs has seen an explosion in really clever and complex web applications - it really is amazing if you stand back and look at it. I have to admit it's happened at such blistering speed I can no longer keep up with it. In fact, it's difficult to know what one should try and specialise in these days; even Javascript has evolved into a complex beast to grapple with.

Has anyone else found themselves coming up against these thoughts? Or am I just getting too old for this now?

[slaughteredlamb]

I gave up trying to understand and do any of this just after tableised websites died a death. I figured that if I couldn't get my head around CSS I stood no chance with PHP, SQL, Javascript etc. So if all of that is going out the window, or when it does finally go out the window as it inevitably will, it won't make any difference to me, I'll still have no idea what you lot are on about 

[Tony]

I gave up years ago, and moved into other things. Now I just harass the developers which is a much easier line of business.

[orydian]

I still do all my layouts in tables, then have it converted by someone else if the client requires it. Was going to try and learn PHP, but the book I ordered months ago still hasn't arrived and that's a good an excuse as any to abandon it.

Like most others, I'm trying to move away from design for clients to other things. The market was saturated years ago, so anything new is insanely advanced. There's not much point trying to compete with the likes of stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap http://squarespace.com anyway. Customisable design and hosting for $15 a month. You'd be nuts to. *edit* Make that $8.

Tired of hearing "I can get it cheaper elsewhere" and trying to explain the point of a professional service. No-one's interested. Time to do something else.

ory.

[robbie]

I wasn't even aware of squarespace. Now I'm totally sure I'm doing the right thing by giving it up. It has brought in some much needed cash when it was needed over the last few years, and has set me up nicely with an ongoing client that I'll maintain, but I just don't have the time/energy/inclination to keep up with everything now. The choice available to people is just staggering.

I recently moved my design site to a new domain so as to free up my own name to reflect my new life, and I think my last site is going to be the one I just did about branding cows

One day I'll even get rid of toddlerart, which is what started it all off for me. It's been lying stagnant for a couple of years now. For those of you who've been around a while, the 5 years olds who submitted pictures when I started toddlerart are now 13!

[sickpuppy]

One day I'll even get rid of toddlerart, which is what started it all off for me. It's been lying stagnant for a couple of years now. For those of you who've been around a while, the 5 years olds who submitted pictures when I started toddlerart are now 13!

Start teenart, it'll be full of black no doubt

[net-curtains]

There's not much point trying to compete with the likes of stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap http://squarespace.com anyway. Customisable design and hosting for $15 a month. You'd be nuts to. *edit* Make that $8.

Ignore it, there's always been cheap template options for clients.

Design: Total Creative Control
Choose from over 14 templates and 60 professionally designed styles.

Wow, 14 templates to choose from.

Tired of hearing "I can get it cheaper elsewhere" and trying to explain the point of a professional service. No-one's interested. Time to do something else.

Most businesses understand the benefits of a professionally designed website, they don't want their site to look like the competition, they want it to look better (or at least how they perceive 'better' to be) and to take sales from their competitors.

Prove to your clients you can provide a more complete service than the template companies and bring in a good return for their investment and you'll get work. Reflect the quality of your service via your website and you won't have to go through it again when they contact you.

One of the joys of being a designer, web or otherwise is that you have to be prepared to continually update your skills and learn new technologies and techniques. As soon as you stop learning and adapting you die. The streets are littered with ex-designers working as civil servants and gardeners.

In response to the OP, my design career started with a scalpel and a tub of Cow Gum. The past 28 years have been a continual challenge, full of wonderful new tools to use and lots of new associated problems.

Despite being more graphically oriented I can code the basics in HTML, PHP, ASP, XML, CSS, Javascript, Actionscript blah blah. But I only use what's relevant for my business, usually PHP and Javascript for customising CMS and shopping cart software. I'm not a 'proper' developer, but if I have to outsource bigger coding jobs then I'll know what's required so I won't get ripped off.

Pick the relevant stuff to your business and keep a continual eye out for new advancements and trends and you won't go wrong.

It's not the easiest of careers, especially when your ex-designer friends are retiring at 50 on two thirds of their annual civil service pay and pop over on a Saturday to tell you about their latest holiday - time you can't spare as you're supposed to be spending the day swotting up on Ajax.

It's not a career for the faint hearted.

[sarahA]

The technologies available now are quite advanced but that doesn't mean that there isn't room for good design and development. I know enough PHP and jQuery to do what I need to do, I learn anything extra as I and when I need to. Unfortunately the books that tell me a lot more have been gathering dust on the shelf for a while as I don't have the time to read them at the moment. I know I've only just scratched the surface of jQuery and don't think I've gone that much further with PHP (it is a big language IMO).

However, at some point I will get those books read

[orydian]

net-curtains, you might want to take another look at that site. The templates are so customisable that all designs become unique. You can plug-in WordPress, etc. and all updates are handled by them, staggering.

I understand what you're saying, but personally I think I'd be a fool to stick with a career that's caused me nothing but stress, worry and near death. Working on personal projects has shown me that there's better things out there. I can be creative without boundaries, earn a passive income and not worry about redesigning something a thousand times because the new guy thinks it should have more bells and whistles.

Each to their own.

ory.

[yawner]

personally I think I'd be a fool to stick with a career that's caused me nothing but stress, worry and near death.

Absolutely Richard. I'm pleased you're taking the 'chill' option these days. I used to work on live support for the National Insurance Recording project. Anything goes wrong and you're holding up the processing of 60M accounts. Then the Bank of England rings up asking where all the money is etc etc A girl who worked for me would get so uptight at times, the stress would manifest itself physically by her forehead popping out in a huge lump - just like the cartoons. She was a good programmer, but I persuaded her that she needed a career change - life is too short. I jumped soon after - Y2K was looming fast 

[net-curtains]

net-curtains, you might want to take another look at that site. The templates are so customisable that all designs become unique. You can plug-in WordPress, etc. and all updates are handled by them, staggering.

I can see there's more options than I thought, but the deeper you go into it the more skills and design know-how required. Bearing in mind 90% of the clients I've had over the past ten years have been nearly able to write an email I can't see them even getting past the sign up.

I'm sure some businesses will give it a go, but I don't think it'll affect the core business of web companies who deal with serious clients. They can already do any of this via Wordpress.com, there are thousands of perfectly good templates available, completely free, but serious companies want a bespoke site, not a template job...however good it is.

I understand what you're saying, but personally I think I'd be a fool to stick with a career that's caused me nothing but stress, worry and near death. Working on personal projects has shown me that there's better things out there. I can be creative without boundaries, earn a passive income and not worry about redesigning something a thousand times because the new guy thinks it should have more bells and whistles.

If you can earn a decent income doing something you love that's stress free then go for it, you're obviously not happy doing this. I wouldn't mind giving it up myself most days, but I've got a family and mortgage to support. To be honest though I don't think the dream job exists for me. Work is work.

There are other ways of looking at it though - if you're being asked to redesign something and it's not included in your quote/web agreement then the client has to pay for it, so you get more money. When clients try and give me the runaround I shrug my shoulders and say 'fine, I don't mind, I'll create as many more designs as you like...after all you're paying for them'. And if they want more whistles and bells they can have those too, and I'll provide them an updated quote for the additional work. It's amazing how this helps to focus their minds and they then decide to stick with the original spec.

p.s. I'm just looking through the 'showcase' sites on Squarespace, and when they eventually load (one's still spinning away doing nothing after 5 minutes...quality hosting) they are universally SHITE. No contest whatsoever for a decent web company, and certainly no better than a free Wordpress job.

[robwhizz]

Squarespace is not actually the money saving web site it advertises. Some businesses will cotton on to this and some won't. Firstly, the $8 per month is for basic rubbish and no url. That's not realistic. A lot of businesses will want their own URL, so we hit the $14 or $20 a month packages.
So then the business wants to get their logo on. Do they have it as an electronic file? Will squarespace convert their eps? Probably not.
Who's going to put the site together? Perhaps a middle manager on £25k a year. Oops, he takes a whole month to sort it all out because he's not done anything like this before. Now, assuming he didn't voluntarily take a salary holiday the company web site has now cost £2,000, plus $14 per month. And whenever you need to alter anything or update, you have to take him off the job he's paid to do and pay him to build the website instead.

There will be companies will talented people who can pull this stuff off, but while they might not cost as much as my scenario above, they will have to cost something - assuming the company doesn't pay them to do sweet FA all day long - by the very nature that designing a site means they aren't doing their actual work.
And there will be companies that will do this to try and save money who don't have talented people, and you can bet you back teeth these are the same companies that phone every designer in the phone book until they find the new start up who promises the earth for peanuts.

This might be packaged differently, but it is still just cheap, naff design and that has been around forever. Good clients will still be out there, and the designer will still have to work hard to get them. Nothing really changes.

[net-curtains]

There will be companies will talented people who can pull this stuff off, but while they might not cost as much as my scenario above, they will have to cost something - assuming the company doesn't pay them to do sweet FA all day long - by the very nature that designing a site means they aren't doing their actual work.

Exactly. Most of the clients I deal with anyway think they can 'do design', they just get me in because they 'don't have the time'. Sometimes though they will try and do it themselves.

I know a company that followed Rob's scenario. I had a meeting with them and provided them with a quote for rebranding and a shopping cart powered website for £2k. The boss loves the idea but decided they'd 'save money by doing it themselves'. He, the Director, and his assistant manager then went on a series of web design courses. After about 6 months of this they then designed and built, over a period of around a year, their new website. Total cost? Well I don't know their salaries but I'm guessing as the owner/director he'd be expecting a hefty yearly return from his efforts, and his assistant was on at least 30k. She told me afterwards that the courses also cost them 'thousands'. A conservative estimate would be around £100k, and the result? Something a teenager with no design or coding skills or eyes would have knocked out ten years previously. It was a nightmare. And while the top guns were playing about with animated gifs and blink tags, and scaring off (with their new 'branding') the big names that had been hovering around and thinking of stocking their products (Harrods, Tesco etc) the business was effectively unmanaged, and it went bust a year later.

At the same time I built a shopping cart site, same spec, same price for a brand new business 100 yards away and the turnover for the first year was £250k.

It's all about getting a decent return on your investment. Even if the first company had been skilled web designers, they still should have outsourced the project as they were already working full time managing and running a large manufacturing business.

When I see new services and products such as Squarespace turn up (and they do, regularly) I don't think 'oh my god, how will I compete?' I think 'is that any use to me?', or 'how can I make money out of it?'.

I built my own CMS years ago as there was nothing decent on the market at that time. Then Wordpress pops up and wipes the floor with my system. Instead of giving up I now use that instead and boast about it's powerful features to my clients, which actually means I can charge more money for more features, and it's quicker to set up than my own system so my hourly return is higher than before.

By it's very nature website 'development' is dynamic, and you have to ensure your business model is just as flexible.

[orydian]

Client asked for site they could update themselves. Quoted £500 for CMS and moving of their current content (very low, but I could see the type of person I was dealing with). Heard nothing back. A few weeks later I get an email saying they want to move hosting. I ask why and they say they've found another guy that's cheaper and they've found cheaper hosting too.

Ten emails later after explaining until I'm blue in the face about professional design and reliable hosting they still left. The time I spent explaining meant my other work suffered and stress started to build as the 'why isn't this done' questions rolled in.

Repeat for all clients every week of the year, while my ad network makes up to £500 a day for answering a few emails. I totally respect net-curtains for supporting a family with his skills. Skills clearly beyond my own in both designing for and managing clients. My heart was never in designing for other people. I just wanted to be creative and get paid for it. Now I can.

ory.
Cheers Mr Y.

[Charisma Bypass]

Javascript is where the really big money is right now.  And porn.

[net-curtains]

Client asked for site they could update themselves. Quoted £500 for CMS and moving of their current content (very low, but I could see the type of person I was dealing with). Heard nothing back. A few weeks later I get an email saying they want to move hosting. I ask why and they say they've found another guy that's cheaper and they've found cheaper hosting too.

Ten emails later after explaining until I'm blue in the face about professional design and reliable hosting they still left. The time I spent explaining meant my other work suffered and stress started to build as the 'why isn't this done' questions rolled in.

That's not down to any inherent problems with web design work though, that's down to a bad business model. Accepting such a low rate for your work will attract either the type of customer that doesn't appreciate a professionally designed website, or one that does and spends the £1500 he's saved on a golfing holiday, then trying to get save even more on his hosting as he's identified you as an easy touch.

And for that hourly rate you certainly don't want to waste even more time trying to convince them to stay.

I'm as cheap as chips compared to a lot of companies but even I wouldn't produce a bespoke CMS based site for £500. That's not saying that I didn't in the past, but like you my services weren't appreciated and I spent my working life dealing with scrotes so I now charge what I think my services are really worth.

I didn't know any of this when I started though - my design and coding skills were fine, but my business model was crap. Actually I learned a lot from forums, and realised early on that I was desperately undercharging.

Repeat for all clients every week of the year, while my ad network makes up to £500 a day for answering a few emails.

If I could make that sort of money from ads on my site I wouldn't be building websites for anyone else either. Tell you what - you tell me how you make £500 a day from your ads and I'll teach you how to get a bit more respect from your clients

[vee]

I will have my best ever return this year for designing "simple" websites and stores from my office at home. Around £40k (clear) which may not be stunning but given I'm my own boss and can be flexible with my time, not too bad. The thing limiting growth now is basically me - there's only one of me! I have orders for the next 3 months and just about keeping on top of it.

I offer CMS stuff but most of my clients don't have the time or skill to use it - so they still tend to come back to me once they realise its not "Powerpoint". I still get some ecomm work and the odd small business site but 2/3 of my work is in a professional niche I started exploring 5 or 6 years ago.

So you can still make decent money from straightforward web design as long as you know what you're targetting. Knock on from the niche I'm in is advertising e.g. Adsense, links etc which is reduced but still brings in £450 + per month. I also now have 4 reseller server packages with the recurring income that brings plus other benefits like SEO commission for referals etc.

So there's still decent cash to be made from "straightforward" web design without lots of bells and whistles. If I need any fancy custom development I outsource it to an excellent and cost effective guy I've worked with for years - and then charge the client double. They still get good value.

I'm currently happy and won't be turning my back on it just yet. Actually its due to lots of help from a couple of guys on here in the early days that I'm doing ok - cheers, you know who you are 

cheers
Vee

[sarahA]

First year for the company is almost coming to an end and it's cleared a reasonable profit this year. Whilst we don't make an amazing amount of money we're both happy and the bills get paid (plus we did take about 2 months off for the wedding, honeymoon and then an easy few weeks and christmas).

However, after suffering from a few weeks of what can only be described as insane crap from an ex-client's new developer, which has caused a great deal of stress and upset, I can completely see Ory's point! I must admit, if I had the time I'd love to do a PGCE so that I had the option to teach Maths instead (and there's a shortage of Maths teachers!). I love my work but some bad clients really make you wonder if it's worth it sometimes.

Either that or we just need a good business relations person who won't take any crap and frees up our time to do what we enjoy, creating websites!

[net-curtains]

However, after suffering from a few weeks of what can only be described as insane crap from an ex-client's new developer, which has caused a great deal of stress and upset, I can completely see Ory's point! I must admit, if I had the time I'd love to do a PGCE so that I had the option to teach Maths instead (and there's a shortage of Maths teachers!). I love my work but some bad clients really make you wonder if it's worth it sometimes.

The thing to bear in mind is that at least when you have a bad client, it's only going to be for a short period of time - if they're really bad then make it even shorter and give them the elbow.

What's worse, and I've been in this situation myself a few times, is when you're stuck in a full-time job and have to spend 40 hours a week with a bad boss or manager. Getting a new full time job can be a lot harder than finding a new website client.

In the last full-time web job I had, the two directors regularly had fist fights in the room behind me - I was separated from their fights by a glass wall partition, 6 inches from the back of my head. One time they took a client in there and gave him a kicking, and he nearly came through the glass wall and onto my lap. The office manager was even worse, a total bully. The final straw came when my wages didn't appear in my account, and then a few days later I was forbidden from taking a days leave the day before I was due to take it, which had been booked for months. I took it anyway, as I'd decided to leave, but called into the directors office when I got back where he exploded, and kicked the door into my back as I was walking out. As you know I'm not the smallest, daintiest of creatures but that was the final straw for me.

Previous job - director blamed me for his mistakes and I got a rollicking from another director as a result. Job before that - despite making the company 8x profits with my redesign of their website (an additional £500 million over 2 years) they made me and some of the web team redundant once the work was done and we were escorted out of the building by security guards/heavies.

etc etc...in my first job, as an apprentice engineer, my trainer used to punch me hard in the stomach each morning...etc etc.

Web design on a small business/freelance basis can be stressful, but you don't have to put up with it. If a client acts like a pig, as they sometimes do, then bin them without hesitation - the next one will probably be a sweetie.

[sarahA]

oh I know working for yourself is far better   and yes it's easy to drop a client but sometimes the stress gets a bit too much. Luckily Mr A deals with the clients as he's far more thick skinned than me (I was always told I was too soft to do well in business!)

PS. I don't like teaching kids anyway! Adults I can cope with, but not school kids!

[SLEE]

I know what you mean Sarah, I had a client who has given me second thoughts but I still like the freedom it gives me. I've been dong this full time for over a year now and overall it has been the best move ive made in years. I have brought in enough money to pay all the bill managed to go to Kenya for the charity thing i do and more work is coming in. There are sites out there that can do things on the cheap but firstly not everyone knows about them, secondly they are usually not all that they care cracked up to be. Hidden costs, having to rely on them for hosting etc. Most of the clients I have managed to have would no t consider such sites as they perceive them as being bad for their image. I know I have been fortunate in having that type of client and I have come across clients who want everything for nothing and blood for a stone but you have to decide if they are right for you.

Learning new skills is a part of this, showing the client what they can have on their site and how it will be good for their business and image is a good start. I dabble with a few different things like Flash, PHP, Jquery, CSS, HTML etc but my roots were in design. over the years I have learnt to bridge the gap in my knowledge and using that I get to charge the right prices (most of the time). Of course if there is a skill I need then I have a few select people I know i can call upon. The biggest strength for me has been creating sites that are usable by my clients so they don't have to get all techy to edit the website as they do not want this as it scares them. They also like the fact they kow they can call me get help if needed where as with sites that do it all for you sometimes there is no real person for them to call on when they need help.

[suedenem]

Vee and Net Curtains have hit the nail on the head.  You don't need to be an expert in every field, indeed it can be a weakness if you think you are (the old adage "Jack of all trades, Master of none" still rings true).

It's important that you're aware of the latest technology in order to be a full-service provider to your clients, but either outsourcing to or employing experts in these fields is a far more appropriate use of time for the business owner.  I'm also a strong believer in collaboration - getting together with other experts provides a far more creative environment, which is more enjoyable to work in and provides a better final product for the client.

Many start out as freelancers because they feel their creativity is being stifled in employment.  It's a fallacy to think that you'll be freer to indulge in your technical speciality - be that design, dev or welding - if you go out on your own.  You're still constrained by clients' requirements & budget and above all your time - spending too long doing the things you love will mean you're ignoring the other (boring) aspects of building a successful business (accounting, networking, marketing etc).

Finally, if you compete on price and go for the low level clients, you'll never compete with the likes of Squarespace.  As good a product it might be, there's always room for premium bespoke development.  One of the clients we've got a close working relationship with recently required a fairly basic multi-page questionnaire setting up on their site.  It would be beyond them to set it up, if indeed the likes of Squaresoft (or Mr Site, or the 123-reg site builder) even had these capabilities.  Wufoo or Google Apps would have done a job, but they'd have been left with a horrid Frankenstein of a site. 

As Mastercard might put it; Questionnaire on site - £~1500.  Client knowing they can call us and rely on our expertise - Priceless.

[Jeep Stone]

Javascript is where the really big money is right now.  And porn.

Very true. For several years I was (I felt) at the top of my game, but you can't sit still, and unfortunately you need a lot of time/enthusiasm to stay on the curve. My skills have nestled in a place that lets me build site for clients and get my hands dirty when I need to. With the move to object orientated, API driven, js library powered sites, the level of abstraction for new technology needs to be quite high for me to be able to warrant me looking at it, otherwise I'll not use it.

With that in mind, I'd been trying to get into Mootools, but it'd never clicked. I'm picking up jQuery quite easily, as the implementation seems somewhat simpler.

[Matt]

When I decided to start Mattian back up and try and get some work, I had to make a decision doing what.

I had done a few basic websites - nothing special - but decided that whilst I would still offer it - I wouldnt be able to try and make the money I needed soley from it.

Obviously my job is supporting IT, so doing it for home and a couple of business customers is ideal. And in a way its worked out really well because I am now designing websites for businesses Im supporting - because I have had that key opportunity to sell the websites too them.

Ive also had Dave (Ap4a) badgering me for years telling me I dont charge enough, and now I do. Its taken a long time to sink in, that I dont have to do any work if it isnt worth it, if I say no, Ill soon get some more, probably better and more money, I find its as true for IT support as web design, if someone phones me up and asks me to lower the price, or argues the toss, I just dont bother. Ill soon get a phone call from someone willing to pay the rates Im prepared to do the work for.

I try to learn new stuff as much as I can, Im lucky in that Ive taken on the school website, as Im on a salary I dont get anymore for doing it, but Ive used it as a testbed and learning curve for new ideas and technology which have allowed me to get personal clients. A unique situation, which works out well for me!!

[Charisma Bypass]

Note that it is possible to make a very nice living from simply doing £50 type jobs day in and day out.  Don't rule out the tiny jobs (sometimes as little as 1 line of code for £50)...rule out the problem clients (even if they are spending 10 grand).

[sarahA]

Note that it is possible to make a very nice living from simply doing £50 type jobs day in and day out.  Don't rule out the tiny jobs (sometimes as little as 1 line of code for £50)...rule out the problem clients (even if they are spending 10 grand).

WHS. I don't like taking on large projects as they're often more stress than they're worth and ties us down to one client for perhaps a month or so. Most of our work besides our main contract (which is just hourly rate and ongoing) are smaller jobs, but it all adds up.

[net-curtains]

I love the little site amendment jobs, they're usually the most lucrative.

I've noticed recently a lot of web design companies are now pushing the SEO/promotion/maintenance side of things on their company sites more than their design services, or at least just as much, presumably for the same reason.

[MattC]

My income now comes from how many products we sell on-line so I don't really care if I'm using the latest technology unless it's really necessary.

I learn what I need to learn to get the job done.

My main web site done in classic ASP and virtually all of my internal systems are built using VB6 and they all work very well. I've never seen the benefit of rebuilding it using the latest technologies. Clearly I make sure the web site is valid XHTML and CSS though.

[net-curtains]

I've never seen the benefit of rebuilding it using the latest technologies. Clearly I make sure the web site is valid XHTML and CSS though.

If you're using a shopping cart system (if you're not then ignore this bit!) then it's even more essential that you keep it up to date. Not just for potential security issues, but you could be missing out on SEO benefits, promotional and networking opportunities (once again without seeing the site you might be doing this already).

I'm not suggesting learning how to rebuild the site from scratch, but you might find you can increase website traffic, and then sales by transferring your products to an off-the-shelf shopping cart system.

[MattC]

I've never seen the benefit of rebuilding it using the latest technologies. Clearly I make sure the web site is valid XHTML and CSS though.

If you're using a shopping cart system (if you're not then ignore this bit!) then it's even more essential that you keep it up to date. Not just for potential security issues, but you could be missing out on SEO benefits, promotional and networking opportunities (once again without seeing the site you might be doing this already).

I'm not suggesting learning how to rebuild the site from scratch, but you might find you can increase website traffic, and then sales by transferring your products to an off-the-shelf shopping cart system.

I fear you may have misunderstood me.

Yes, the site is up to date in terms of valid XHTML and CSS and my SEO is not too bad (#1 in the organic listings for many keywords including the most relevant).

I have rebuilt the site from scratch a few times over the past 8 or 9 years and I only use my own shopping cart system, I use very little off-the-shelf systems as I often want my systems to do something specific. This is what I meant when I said "I learn what I need to learn to get the job done". I didn't mean that I learn the bear minimum to get the job done.

The point I was making was that I won't spend my time or money on new technologies just for the sake of it, I need to see a real benefit first. If I do see a real benefit then I'll embrace it and tackle it with both hands.

The second time (Not the last time) I rebuilt the web site was in 2004 and this was done to get rid of the tables for layout and reduce and tighten up the code. This was done as I knew I'd see a benefit in page load times and SEO/Traffic.


Matt