Monday 4 July 2011

Internet Hero Saves My Technophobic Ass


Costa del Sol Image Credit: Kevin Poh

Review: Alternate Creations Web Design

Have you ever had one of those weeks where a 7 am phone call triggers a family crisis? You spend every minute on the phone and email trying to sort out something urgent and personal, whilst also juggling childcare and your working life, and through the chaos of it all an innocent little email pops up in your inbox requesting payment to renew your web hosting? You know that kind of week, where you’re about to move to a new boat, relocate to The Countryside and find a new nursery for the children? This is the kind of week I was having when I remembered that I definitely do not want to renew my web hosting agreement. The service was terrible; the design software included was counter-intuitive and frustrating. I urgently needed to relocate my hypnotherapy business website, and rebuild it before launching a new hypnotherapy practice in Hertfordshire. I told the hosting service that I was leaving and they said that I had 24 hours to get my technophobic ass out of their cyberspace.

It was time to ask for expert help from an old friend from art college. That’s right, I needed super-hero cyber-help from The Web Designer, at Alternate Creations. His speedy response was second to none.

So What did The Web Designer do?


Because my current website was expiring in the next 24 hours he immediately downloaded and saved all of the pages, text and pictures, zipped ‘em up small and sent them to me. Just like that.

He recommended a different web hosting service, introduced us online and got my domain name shifted over there.

He used Wordpress to create a simple template for me to build my new site on. But I’m just a simple Blogger girl so when the going got tough he gave me lots of technical support and advice via email, Facebook and Skype.

When I’d uploaded all of my text and pictures I’ll admit it looked a little messy. The Web Designer nipped in there and titled all the pages, tidied up the layout of the index page, made the top navigation links smaller so that they fit into one row and changed the page navigation order so it all made sense.

He did all of this from his office based on the Costa del Sol in Spain, so we didn’t even meet in Real Life!

So now I have my new on line professional work-space. I can sit back, put my feet up on the virtual desk and relax in my pixilated swivel chair, just waiting for the clients to come strolling in out of cyberspace.

The site that he helped me to create is www.hypnoticloop.co.uk ; simple and user friendly.

The Web Designer offers a variety of services at http://www.alternate-creations.com/ (Not just design.)

Pop over, take a peek. He’s very friendly. You may be surprised at what super-hero-cyber-help can do for you, at a budget to suit your pocket.

Disclosure: Alternate Creations provided their services to me free of charge. They did not ask me to write a review.

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Boat-Wife

xx



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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The new site looks great - really user friendly and "clean". Glad you got it sorted. I'm also a complete technophobe which makes it handy that I live with an IT teacher with a background in graphic and web design. Otherwise I'd be screwed. One of the main reasons I'm marrying him really...

Narrowboat Wife said...

Ha ha! That sounds like a perfect match for a writer/blogger. I think I need to start an illicit affair with an SEO/social networking expert! I love the pic of you at the top of your blog.