AWR Web Design Blog

We are proud to announce that all clients of AWR Web Design now have Google Apps available as an option to the normal email offered through cPanel.  Google Apps allows clients to use the popular and advanced technology of Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Documents. Read More   Al RobertsAWR Web Design, LLChttp://www.awrwebdesign.com ...

With cooler tempuratures on the way, it's now time to start thinking about our heating systems. One of AWR Web Design's clients is a local HVAC expert. Connecticut Cooling and Heating in Bloomfield, CT services all brands of heating and cooling systems. Please check out their website at http://ctcoolingandheating.com and they will give you a ...

It's great to have your own web site for your business. Actually, it's a neccessity these days. Along with your site comes your personalized email addresses ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ).  Email has become a primary form of communication in today's business world, ...

The Town of East Granby, CT has contracted AWR Web Design, LLC to build and maintain the town's new municipal web site. The town provided a Joomla! template for the new site, which was modified to create the new town site.  The site is an ongoing project as the town will be adding more features in the near future, inlcuding the ability to pay ...

The St. Bernard School in Enfield, CT hired AWR Web Design, LLC to redsign their web site.  The school had a CMS site, but it was very difficult to update, forcing many teachers, who each have thier own page on the site, to not want to use it.  AWR Web Design installed Joomla 1.5 and rebuilt their site using much of the existing content. ...

AWR Web Design, LLC just launched a new web site for SheridanShea, LLC, based in Windsor Locks, CT.  This is an ecommerce site built using Joomla! and the Virtuemart ecommerce solution.  It consists of a product catalog and shopping cart with SSL as well as a system for customers to manage their accounts, order status and order histor ...

We just recently completed the overhaul of the Broad Brook Fire Department website. (bbfd.org) As we do with all of our projects, the site was built on the Joomla! CMS platform.  The department requested an area that only its members can access where they post training information, department policies and various other sensitive mater ...

The web is full of discussion about which CMS platform is the best for creating web sites.  A great deal of opinion is generated from people who are comfortable using a specific platform for building web pages.  Some prefer a CMS such as Joomla!, Wordpress or Drupal, while some purists are hand-coding HTML, CSS and Javascript.  I hav ...

There has been great discussion across the web about whether to keep your Joomla! 1.5 site or migrate to the newer versions of Joomla!, such as 1.6 or 1.7.  After a failed experiment of my own, I was even on the side of sticking with Joomla! 1.5 for now.  But that was until the Joomla! team released the new Joomla! 2.5 in January 2012. &n ...

Web designers love to build websites and often struggle to find new clients to build for.  Today, there are increasingly more and more web designers of all skill levels available for potential clients to choose from. This makes client retention even more important than it was even a few years ago.  There are several things that a web desi ...

Search Engine Optimization is one of the hottest topics these days in web design.  The reason is that everyone wants to know how to improve the ranking of their site in search engines like GoogleTM. Increasing your ranking will increase the likelihood that someone will find your website.  The purpose of this guide is to explain how you ca ...

Like many web designers out there, I am slowly beginning the switch from Joomla! 1.5 to Joomla! 1.7. I actually just completed a very simple site using 1.7 and a professional template and I had really no trouble at all. That experience lit a fire under me and I dove right into my next project, one that will feature Virtuemart 2.0, which is also n ...

Site speed is one of the most important things about creating web content, and web applications. In fact, it has been noted by various analysts at Google that people don’t often sit through the first 30 seconds of a video, much less the first 15, so it would be wise of you to get the content of your site loaded as fast as you can so that people ca ...

Written May 1, 2012 by Kimberly Myers Being a web designer is hard work. Sometimes, being the customer is even harder. Here are the top 10 things you should look for in your web designer: He Should Be Customer-Oriented Sometimes, IT professionals and web designers aren’t known for their friendliness. They may be short-and to to-the-point, l ...

By Eric Siu | April 24, 2012 | Sitepoint.com With over 93% of people using search engines as their first point of research, it goes without saying that search engine optimization is important for any web property. Here are some other interesting SEO-related statistics: Over 70% of clicks go to organic results. 75% of people don’t click pa ...

Written by Divya Rawat, April 11, 2012 A little R&R can go a long way to refresh the body and fill your mind with all the great ideas you need for creative success. In this article, Divya Rawat shares a series of things you can do during your off time to keep yourself productive, energized, and up to date! A designer friend with a c ...

By Sabina Idler Emotional design has become a powerful tool in creating exceptional user experiences for websites. However, emotions did not use to play such an important role on the Web. Actually, they did not use to play any role at all; rather, they were drowned by a flood of rational functionality and efficiency. We were so busy trying t ...