Today is Safer Internet Day! This annual event is organised by the UK Safer Internet Centre as a means of promoting online safety for children and young people; the slogan for this year is 'Let's create a better internet together', and we at Designer Websites want to do our bit!

Here, then, are a few simple online security tips that will help your kids (and indeed you yourself) to stay safe and secure while you surf the web:

• Create a strong, unique password. When helping your children to set up online accounts of any kind, encourage them to think carefully before selecting a password. Avoid obvious sequences like abc123, qwerty and 1234567 and popular phrases like batman, football or dragon. Oh, and NEVER use your own name as a password!
  
  
• Use different passwords for different accounts. Once you've thought of a good password, it can be tempting to use that same password for every account you set up. This is a big mistake; using the same password for everything means that, if somebody breaks into one account, they can easily gain access to all of the others. Try to think of a different password every time.
  
  
• NEVER share or publish your login details online. You never know who might see them!
  
  
• Parents: research adult content filters. If you want to make sure that your children don't view any adult content while they use the internet, there are a number of plug-ins that can help you. Adult Blocker is a highly-rated plug-in for Google Chrome, and FoxFilter is the #1 parental control for FireFox. Internet Explorer, meanwhile, has built-in parental controls; just click on the cog in the top-right corner of any IE window, then select Internet Options > Content > Family Safety to set parental guidelines for your children's internet use.
  
  
• Parents: use the sites your children use. One last tip for parents (and teachers, too) - get to know the sites your children are using. For example, if they have a Facebook page or a Twitter account, set up a profile of your own and learn how to use it; this will ensure that you understand what your children are doing online, and help you to advise them when it comes to privacy settings.

Entertain-ment supply all sorts of entertainment packages for events throughout the UK. They specialise in hen and stag parties, and so you can probably imagine the sort of thing they're usually asked to provide!

Still, it's not all about strippers and dwarfs; Entertain-ment also provide a huge variety of other activities, ranging from the chilled-out (perfume making classes, relaxing massage sessions) to the utterly intense (salsa dancing workshops, dominatrix lessons, and the extremely challenging stag night boot camp!)

With such a wide range of services on offer, Entertain-ment needed a website that would appeal to all users, giving bridesmaids, best men, and everyone in between an easy way to put together the perfect party. To start with, we came up with a great-looking responsive design that would function well on screens of all sizes; the company wanted their new website to be accessible from smartphones and tablets as well as from desktop computers, and the finished site allows users to research ideas and make enquiries on-the-go.

The enquiry form was a crucial part of this project. Aside from the usual fields (name, location, telephone number, etc.), we included a 'Service Required' field that allows customers to specify up to 6 Entertain-ment services along with their enquiry. This feature gives the company a good idea of what each customer is looking for before they've even picked up the phone.

If you'd like to see the work we've done for Entertain-ment, visit www.entertain-ment.co.uk today.

Gibran is a not-for-profit organisation based in Monmouthshire. They work with female (and, more recently, male) offenders throughout Wales, helping and supporting them while they rebuild their lives.

Gibran approached Designer Websites because they wanted their website to look more modern and give visitors a better experience. They wanted a good place to talk about their projects and events, but more importantly, they needed to give vulnerable people a quick, easy way to get in touch with the Gibran team.

The new Gibran website is now live, and we feel that it fulfils every aspect of the brief we were given. The responsive design is equally easy to navigate on all screen sizes, allowing those who need Gibran's help to access and use the organisation's site via smartphone, tablet, desktop computer, and any other device - whatever is easiest for them. Information about Gibran's work is laid out clearly on all pages, and every page has an enquiry form in the footer, allowing quick contact from any point in the website.

Gibran's cause is a very worth one indeed, and we hope that this new site serves their purposes well. Click here to see the website and learn more about Gibran UK.

Back in 2013, we created a website called PorcelainPaving.co.uk. Owned by outdoor specialists Greensquares, this site was specifically designed to show off the company's stylish range of porcelain tiles and paving slabs to potential customers.

PorcelainPaving.co.uk has proven extremely successful indeed, receiving a very healthy amount of traffic and allowing Greensquares to make these paving products a much larger element of their overall business. In fact, their porcelain range now has a brand name of its own: PrimaPorcelain.

Of course, a new brand calls for a new design, and we have recently been working hard to turn the old porcelain paving website into the new PrimaPorcelain website.

This doesn't just mean that we've been changing a few bits of text - the site has been given a complete overhaul, and PrimaPorcelain.co.uk now has an elegant responsive design and an intuitive new 'Product Selector' tool that allows customers to filter PrimaPorcelain's range (which has grown exponentially since 2013!) by colour, texture, and indoor/outdoor use.

The new PrimaPorcelain website is a big step up for the brand, and we hope that it will be even more successful now than it was in its old guise. Click here to visit PrimaPorcelain.co.uk.

As you're probably aware, it's very important to stay hydrated throughout the working day. Drinking lots of water keeps you active and alert; if you ever feel tired, headachy, or unable to concentrate at work, it could simply be because you aren't drinking enough water.

But what does this have to do with Designer Websites? Well, we've just completed work on www.go-hydrate.co.uk, a brochure website for a South Wales company called Go-hydrate. Go-hydrate specialise in mains-fed water dispensers (such as water coolers, drinking fountains, and hot water boilers), and as such, they know more than anybody about the dangers of dehydration. The new website even has an entire page dedicated to the benefits of staying hydrated!

Go-hydrate offer a wide range of products and services, all of which are geared towards keeping you and your workforce hydrated. They mainly provide plumbed-in dispensers that draw water directly from your building's main supply, but if this is not a viable option for you, they can also supply bottled water coolers to stave off your thirst. And their products aren't just for the office; if you want to install a water boiler or an undersink purification system in your own home, they can do that too!

The new Go-hydrate website is full of clear, concise information about the company and what they have to offer. If you want to stay better hydrated, we strongly recommend that you visit the Go-hydrate and use the enquiry system to get in touch!