Primer...

US Army

October 24th, 2009

Here you'll find a collection of projects that have done recently for customers across the country. The reason these projects were selected were because I felt that they are good examples of a typical web design project that you are most likely to relate to. A lot of my work for the US government is located on private networks with limited to restricted access to the general public, but these projects more closely resemble the type of work that you are likely to be interested in...
 

My web design...

 

As of: October 24th, 2009

Web design is a process that intimidates most folks. It involves programming languages, servers and tools that most people don't know how to use. Web designers are also notorious for playing that card as they pretty much write their own ticket and leave you feeling ripped off after bleeding you dry for seemingly very little work. Not all web designers are this dishonest, but whenever you here one talking over your head despite your pleas that that please speak in plain English, you can rest assured that the techno speak is for a reason... they like you in the dark.

I assure you that every step of the way in my web design projects are above board, transparent and every single item that has a price tag attached to it will have a line by line description of cost and services rendered. I start with a flat setup fee that includes registering your domain name, finding a suitable internet hosting company at a reasonable price, an analysis of your needs and your budget, search engine optimization and thousands of template to chose from at no additional charge. From tip to tail I keep you in the loop, informed, and abreast of how your project is coming along. No surprises, and I guarantee that my work will come in on budget. There are no hidden fees, and in fact the only way that your bill be higher than my initial estimate is if you specifically hire me for services that were not covered in our initial contract.

 

// Information System Professionals
     Website: http://www.isprofessionals.com

Information System Professionals (ISP) specializes in servicing government entities, small to medium sized businesses, and individual home users with world-class computer training and network support. In addition, ISP is a Premier Services Provider of Computer Systems Management/Maintenance, Computer Networking, PC/Laptop Repair, and computer software training. We work within each customer’s budget, no matter the size, whether their requirements are on a per incident basis or an ongoing managed services solution.

The ISP website is a mixed bag of a lot of things, but a very good example of a website that was custom made without a commercial graphical template. The use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is standard for all of my work, but when you have a customer that you know will be constantly changing the look of a website that needs to be applied to each page, CSS is essential.

All of the graphics on this website are custom creations in whole or in part, as well as many of the graphics you'll find on the graphics page of this website. Mark Salazar, the owner of ISP runs a full service computer and network system business in Kitsap County in Washington state (across Puget Sound from Seattle), and was looking for a fresh look to the previous website that was last updated in 2003. It's a relatively plain website in regards to it's look and feel, but it is a reflection of what a business needs in today's market place... ergonomic design, functionality, tasteful elegance and a navigation system that is very intuitive for visitors.

// Creative Bible Study Methods
     Website: http://www.biblestudystuff.com/lifegroup/

This project is a perfect example of my use of low cost tools to produce an amazing product. The Creative Bible Study Methods website was created for a small (about a dozen people) website to pass along information about a group Bible study for Life-Pointe Church in Homestead Florida. What I liked about this project is that it piggy backed off an existing website (which I also created), so the cost was actually $0 of out of pocket expenses to produce a very elegant blog.

The mother site, Bible Study Stuff, was created in response to requests I had been receiving for where I was getting free quality information on the Internet to put together Bible studies. I have friends and family that live spread out across the United States so it seemed to be a no brainer to stand up a website to share the information with everyone. A few months later I volunteered to lead a Bible study in my church that used free curriculum from an online Bible college, so I simply used tools that were available for free with my hosting service for the  Bible Study Stuff website.

My favorite hosting service is Host Monster, and they offer a full compliment of free software services that include:

  • Simple Scripts
  • CGI Center
  • Word Press

I chose Word Press because it is a popular blogging tool that has a lot of support, including a lot of free templates that I could use to take a plain old blog to a fully functional blog using PHP and JavaScript to add the finishing touches. Another benefit of using Word Press for a small group like this is that it allowed me easily update our group with the latest instructions on how to print out the lesson for the next Bible study each week so that member s could avoid having to print out the entire several hundred page PDF file.

A calendar and message board was added to the website (both also free tools offered by Host Monster) and the end result was a website that even novices found simple to navigate and use, as well as... did I mention everything was free?

Of course I am running a business and I do charge for my services even when the tools are free, but you can rest assured that you will be paying only for my services and not for expense tools that are complete overkill for simple tasks. When you hire me as your web designer one the benefits you'll receive is that you're contracting a person who knows all the good deals on the Internet, and defaults to suggesting the right tool for the right job. This saves you a lot of money that other web designers will gouge customers for almost instinctively, and as I am sure you have gathered by now I am a man of faith who is deeply committed to bringing Christian values into every project that I take on.

 
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