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WebCommons–Specialties and Pricing

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——WebCommons Uses Open Source Software——

Ah the Possibilities…  What WebCommons Could Do for You!

Whether you already have a web presence that requires new/enhanced features (or even a full makeover), or if you’re just now aiming to have a site developed, WebCommons is highly skilled at plugging in the brains and dynamic mechanisms that present-day websites are expected to have.   Tell WebCommons about your dreams –they may very well be doable, and at a low cost.

Following are examples of web programming assignments WebCommons can take on:

  • Dynamic public websites and portals with rich, easy-to-follow content, obvious navigation, visitor interactivity, Google searchability, easy administration and high performance (even with shared hosting plans!). And they can be developed to run well on either a specific browser or most of the browsers in use today.

    WebCommons promises: No Dali-like surrealism. :) After WebCommons has delivered to you your finished website, if your site’s visitors don’t feel comfortable using your site or don’t find the site’s features to be obvious, then WebCommons has failed.   Usability trumps eye candy for repeat visits.

  • Blogs and Blog/Sites — Everyone and their cousin is talking about blogs these days, but have you realized that blog software can be configured to produce a dynamic website containing a blog (or not) for a low cost? WebCommons is especially skilled at using the open-source application WordPress for this purpose, integrating plugins and devising/extending themes to produce incredibly powerful web presences.  (Note: This approach is great for converting stale, static websites into highly dynamic sites, virtually overnight)
  • Discussion boards — Provide a public space for your customers (and potential customers) to talk about your products/services and related topics. Discussion boards can provide for valuable discourse within your area of business that can bring the business to your corner and keep it there. Of course, discussion boards work very well for open discourse in any community, whether based on interest or geography.  WebCommons is especially skilled at configuring and developing modifications/styles for the open-source application phpBB. (Note: WebCommons has been developing its own fork of phpBB with many useful features not ordinarily seen in similar discussion board applications)

    “Companies that do not belong to a community of discourse will die.”
    –Thesis #40 from Cluetrain Manifesto

  • Web-based “information management systems” — Also referred to as content management (CMS), records management (RMS) or data collection systems, usually with workflow, search/analysis, report generation and quality control components. WebCommons can design and develop an easy-to-use, high-quality information management application that makes your data entry personnel highly productive while ensuring data integrity and helping you meet your everyday business or organizational needs.
  • Professional accomplishment sites — Imagine an accomplishment site in place of an ordinary resume. With today’s web technology, you can now more easily be a step ahead of the competition when presenting yourself to prospective employers or customers. Web-based Google-searchable dynamic accomplishment sites help interested parties find out anything they want to find out about you and your entire career profile. Monster and other career websites provide limited ways to do this, but having your own site gives you a cachet that most of your competitors simply won’t be able to match. For an example, see the Bryan S. Bush Books site.
  • Pre-packaged websites, extended — If you have acquired a commercial or open source website template (or source code for a website feature) and have come to the conclusion that it doesn’t do quite what you need (even after you try all the configuration possibilities you can discover), WebCommons can review the code for further configuration options and also extend the code, if warranted, so that it provides what you want.
  • Collaborative document authoring and discourse — All web-based! For this purpose, WebCommons can extend and deploy wiki and other similar software.
  • E-Commerce — Catalogs, inventory, order-taking, shopping cart, integration with payment services, etc. WebCommons is especially skilled at configuring and developing modifications for the open-source application Zen Cart.

Other Website Programming Scenarios

Following are other common scenarios WebCommons can handle, although this list definitely isn’t exhaustive:

  • Making an existing site have more dynamic abilities with programming — call it a functional makeover. This usually involves the introduction or extension of session management, databases, client-side scripting and other approaches that lend to dynamic features.
  • Evaluating current navigation and searchability strategies and recommending/designing changes to help 1) your site’s visitors better find what they’re looking for, and 2) those yet to visit find what they’re looking for on your site. WebCommons will never push for anything but fully ethical SEO strategies.
  • Applying community modifications to PHP-based software. Oftentimes, modding can become too complex when mods conflict with each other, either functionally or aesthetically. On top of that, usually only a programmer can evaulate a mod to see if it truly fits a customer’s needs and if it will do what its author says it can do.
  • Aiding in content development and organization. Most often, this is the most difficult aspect of deploying and especially maintaining a website.
  • Reforming website aesthetics, with regards to content/widget/advertisement positioning, color scheme suitability, visual clarity, element styling, and so on.

  • Redesigning an existing site to aid in the analysis of your visitors and their interests, so that you can make decisions in redesigning the site to attain even more traffic and business.
  • Making a site meet accessibility guidelines and/or W3C web standards, while at the same time being able to find reasonable design compromises so that the requirements of your business or organization are also fulfilled.
  • Developing cron scripts — these are automated server-based scripts that run at periodic intervals that can be used in various ways to enhance your web application. Writing and deploying cron jobs that run reliably is not for the faint of heart, but WebCommons can handle them adeptly.
  • Addressing performance and scalability issues, employing solutions like caching, running cron jobs, redoing data access design, tightening algorithms and redistributing resource loads. Web applications can often be easily revised to run with higher performance, even if running from a web hosting server that is shared by other websites.
  • Fixing bugs in existing PHP-based websites and web applications.
  • Migrating a legacy application (perhaps in Windows or DOS) to the web.

Related Tasks

  • Relational Database Design for programmed websites and web applications. WebCommons has experience working with MySQL, PostgreSQL and many other databases.
  • Web Services and Syndication (RDF/RSS/Atom) creation and consumption
  • Website Migration. Migrating a web application (especially with a database) from one web hosting provider to another isn’t always that simple. WebCommons is adept at pulling all the strings to turn what could be a rough-and-tumble move into a seamless, headache-free transition.
  • Remote Webmastering. Don’t have time to mind your website? Or maybe you just want to take a vacation? Or you just need somebody to look at your database and make some adjustments? WebCommons can easily handle “babysitting” and completing various kinds of administrative work for websites.
  • Systems Integration. Some think that integration is merely doing configuration, or just tying together other programmers’ systems or objects with simple code. The reality is often altogether different. Gluing together disparate code with disparate ideas/implementations actually requires an elite level of programming skill which isn’t easy to find. On top of that, it’s rare that a complete system can be comprised wholly of reusable parts –there is always custom development involved.

Pricing

WebCommons strives to keep the hourly rates we use to figure price estimates reasonably low, but as with any consultant you will work with, rates will scale according to the complexity of the project as well as other usual adjustment factors. In any case, once WebCommons has arrived at a total price estimate, we are always open to negotiate with you in good faith until we reach a mutually beneficial agreement. Our current base hourly rate is $32.

Technologies WebCommons Works With

WebCommons is adept at working with the following web application development technologies on Windows and Linux.   Note that this list isn’t fully extensive.

Platforms / Languages

Databases

Markup and Syndication

Browser Support

Note: WebCommons can support virtually any browser.