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          This issue contains important information about Applegreen in 2017.
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Stephanie Boucher

Applegreen away for two months in 2017

Applegreen's founder Stephanie is following her husband on his sabbatical in Sri Lanka! We leave on 13th February and return on 20th April.

What does this mean for Applegreen clients? First, we are taking on no new projects in January because we cannot guarantee their completion before our departure. This frees us to polish up existing projects and make updates where required.

So please contact us with any update requests as soon as possible, so that we may complete them before our departure.

While away, Stephanie will remain contactable by email in case of emergencies.

Bigger and better WordPress

In 2016 we focused a lot on WordPress, the website system that enables our clients to carry out their own updates. WordPress is becoming ever more versatile, and we have been able to create webshops for online selling of products from dog agility aids to hand-crafted bags.

WordPress has a choice of themes that govern how a website looks, but they can be a bit generic if they are not modified and adapted for the needs of the client. We have become very adept at bending the native themes to our purposes, but we can also  create entirely bespoke themes for WordPress, such as this one, publicising a specialised library of acacemic materials on the Holocaust.

We will be expanding this aspect of our work on our return from Sri Lanka. Please ask us about this if you are interested in blogging, online selling or any other form of website that you would like to update yourself.


 

Give us your WordPress project from the start

Because WordPress is so user-friendly, we have found that some designers are setting themselves up professionally in web design with barely any understanding of the technical aspects of websites. Setting up a new WordPress website is a very different proposition from being its end user! So When these projects get into trouble, clients turn to us to sort them out.

Some unscrupulous 'designers' are content to hand over to the client a botched, half-built website, insisting that this was what they paid for. Others simply refuse to answer calls or emails when clients makes requests they don't know how to fulfill. Sometimes it is the client who has tried to set up in WordPress, and then called us in when they ran into problems with the design.

We write code, and so we have been able to improve these situations for many people. But the result of such mixed efforts is often a compromise. In one case we rebuilt the design entirely, an expensive option for the client. All projects go better if you involve us in your project from the begnning!

We wish our clients and friends a happy and prosperous 2017.