New Years Eve 31.12.2009

And what a year it has been! Our businesses have had highs and lows, it has been a recession year but we have kept strong.

We expanded : The Web Chic Boutique

We expanded our Web design business www.breakofday.co.uk to include a stand alone department “The Web Chic Boutique” aimed at businesses that build their own online websites and ecommerce stores. www.webchicboutique.co.uk was launched in May 2009 it has been designed in the style of a shop front and sells website graphics, website concept designs and help and advice on how to make your website “Stand Out from The Crowd”. The new site has been well recieved online and has provided great feedback and new clients, we will be looking to expand this site even more in the new year.

Made Changes @ Rayfields

2009 also saw changes to www.rayfields.co.uk which has now merged into breakofday.co.uk where all Adrian’s accessibility and web development articles are now housed under one roof.

Moved Property Decorating Forward

We have developed the www.propertydecorating.co.uk business website which has almost doubled in size during 2009. Tools such as the wallpaper and paint calculators have been coded (by Adrian) and added to the site, which attracts a lot of traffic to the site. The Decorating Tips and Tricks of the Trade blog has more posts than ever, articles such as how to paint a panel door have proven very popular.

More to come

There are lots more to come so please keep visiting us at www.diybydesign.co.uk, we are moving server in the new year but if all goes well and it should (fingers crossed ) you won’t even know we have moved!
Happy New Year from Hazel and Adrian

Recently over at propertydecorating.co.uk I decided to code some calculators for working out how to calculate the number of wallpaper rolls required for a room, another calculator was to work out the number of rolls of wallpaper or lining paper needed for a ceiling and the final calculator was to work out the amount of paint required to paint a given area, such as a wall or a room.

On all three calculators I decided to supply a feet to metre converter as all three calculators are metric and some people measure in feet and inches, so supplying a quick and simple solution to convert imperial to metric units would make calculating far quicker and easier.

After some research on what figures I needed to know from the users I set about coding the forms. All three calculators are coded by me using PHP. Working out the formula is like Algebra, remember that? a+b=c etc.
Continue reading PHP and me

E-Cards For Christmas

Custom and Bespoke Email Christmas Cards

We have been making e-cards for Christmas for many years, they were very popular in the early years on the web, I made my first one in about 1998 I think!. They then seemed to fade in favour but have in the past year or two regained their popularity, as they save on paper, postage and are simple to send.

Christmas Card Designs

We offer custom and bespoke designs, we have lots of ideas and can make cards with many styles and themes, so if you want snowmen or Christmas puddings, or snowflakes and Christmas trees we have the solution for you – all the graphics are made / drawn by us. The e-cards can be personalised to include you company logo and /or name.

Sending an “E” Christmas Card

Our ecards are designed to be emailed direct from your email program, they are added to an email as you would any image – Simple!

Ordering your Christmas e-card

Simply visit us at www.breakofday.co.uk and use our contact form to get in touch or call us on 0845 0037 508.

Painting and Decorating Gallery Now Made Over!

Today sees the launch of a new photo gallery at www.propertydecorating.co.uk the gallery uses the lightbox technology to style the page as small thumbnail images are opened in the screen enlarged. The gallery is backward compatible as it uses javascript so if this is turned off, larger view images are still available, as they open in another window.

Adrian has built this feature into the gallery page as a way to better display some of the portfolio of work undertaken by the decorating business and show new clients some of the finished work.

View the new gallery : www.propertydecorating.co.uk/gallery.php