Content Management
A content management system (CMS) is designed to ease the publishing and organization of a website's content. Most blogs use a CMS: login to the site, add a new post, click submit and you're done. The date of the post, who posted it, adding the post to the page, that's all done by the CMS in the background. You can do all this manually, but why not have a computer do it?
Our current favorite CMS is Drupal, winner of the "Best Overall 2008 Open Source CMS". Tasks that used to require hours of work have been simplified so now they take only minutes.
Websites serve many different purposes. Drupal is easy to customize because of its add-on modules. Modules enable additional functionality for a particular purpose. If you only have 10 pages of simple text and images, then the default install is probably sufficient. But if you require a discussion forum, visitor tracking, custom image gallery, etc. then install a module for that function and it's done, you just have to add the content.
Web Applications
Even with all the great add-on modules available through a CMS, sometimes a custom module or enhancement is required. In this case, someone has a need and writes a custom web application to solve it. The end product may or may not utilize a CMS, it may integrate with your office database, or a spreadsheet.
Many projects are simple and can be written within a couple of days. The ambitious projects could take 6 months or longer. It just depends on the vision and scope of the application.
We have written dozens of custom web applications with a variety of tools to bring the designer's vision to life. Unfortunately we are not able to demonstrate many of them because they contain sensitive client data. However, we will demo interesting components from projects on our labs page:
- Client side JavaScript encryption
- Web form that inserts data into a spreadsheet
- Access an internal database away from the office
- Custom graphs and reports
- Google Gadgets
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Template Integration
Several options are available when deciding on a website template:
- Pre-designed template licensed for personal or commercial use
- Design created by Praetus with the customer's collaboration
- An existing design provided by the customer
The next step is to customize the design to create a unique and professional template. The finished template will be used as the base for all the content: the logo, header, body content, navigation menus, footer, etc. The template is "chopped" into these blocks to be edited by the content creators. This process provides a high level of editing flexibility, but keeps the website within the original design style.
If you have an idea, finished design, or have three designs to combine into one and would like to use it in a CMS, give us a call.
Smart Phone Apps
Almost everyone has seen an iPhone and Apple's "there's an app for that" commercials.
Smart phone apps are native applications for phones like the iPhone, Google Android, Blackberry, Palm, etc. They can also be web applications with a view that is tailored for a small screen.
Either way, they can be a lot of fun and very useful since you carry your phone with you.
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