Web Design - Programming

We develop web sites. We are not graphic designers. We work with our favorite graphic designer, Julia Waks, if you want a turn-key job or we can work with your graphic designer. We translate the graphic design into pure, efficient, light-weight, HTML/CSS and add any programming functionality on the server side. Increasing this mix is increasingly including advanced client side functionality such as AJAX and COMET techniques and server side CMS technologies such as Drupal and Ruby on Rails.

Client side

We have extensive web page development and client side experience using the following standards and technologies:

• HTML 4.01
• CSS (1 and 2)
• XHTML
• XML
• Javascript
• W3C DOM
• Microsoft's DOM
• AJAX and Comet

We maintain our own HTML page and 'lightweight' javascript script libraries covering mail, printer-friendly pages, roll-overs, pop-up and pop-out menus, banners and other effects.

We have alsways used liquid page layouts whenever we can. We converted our own sites and new customer sites to CSS based liquid layouts in 2003 - among the very first web sites to do so. We have used CSS pop-up/down menus - again since 2003. We maintain an extensive 'tech Info' section on our site as a community service and have published a number of articles describing our reasons and experiences in converting out own site to 'pure' CSS layouts.

We use HTML editors to write pages, Javascript and other languages. This takes no more time in the hands of a skilled professional than the 'high level' packages such as Dreamweaver and Frontpage. There is no comparison in the quality of the HTML and CSS output.

We are increasingly trying to reduce site dependence on Javascript for page effects and progressively converting as much as possible to use increasingly powerful CSS effects. While AJAX and Comet (so called Web 2.0) techniques are putting javascript back into the spotlight after years of decline - theye are doing so in a carefully controlled manner.

You may wish to look at our policy notes on cross browser support and how much effort and dollars are wasted in futile efforts to achieve 100% compatibility.

We have developed in-house a unique approach to serving browser specific pages from our web server to reduce overheads (and user cost).

Server Side

We have sever side experience with:

• Apache Server Side Includes (XSSI)
• PHP 4
• Ruby
• Python
• CMS systems including Drupal and Ruby on Rails

Notes: We write and maintain our own PHP and increasingly Ruby libraries which can significantly decrease pricing for standard features.

We have experience with the following database systems:

• MySQL
• PostgreSQL
• ODBC interfacing to SQL server, MS Access etc.
• LDAP

We run a mixed Windows Windows 2000, Linux and FreeBSD operation with BSD (FreeBSD and OpenBSD) being our strategic direction.

Like many other developers we are big PHP users but increasingly we see Ruby as our future direction.

There are a number of superb CMS systems now available such as Drupal and Ruby on Rails. We are more than happy to use these systems where the solution is right for the client.