Services
Domain and hosting management
Your website and domain name(s) will either be hosted on your own servers or you will have a hosting services provider such as GoDaddy.com or Register.com, etc. If you are not hosted on your own servers and you do not have a technical staff, I can provide complete hosting provider management services. I can establish and maintain your account and services and operate the online tools provided on your behalf. If there is a problem with your service, I can be your technical interface to your website and to your providers technical support services.
Whether you have existing domain names or are aquiring new, I can manage the entire process using the online tools provided by your selected domain registrar. When establishing a new domain name as well as new hosting services, it is often best to purchase both from the same provider. No matter the technical details, I can manage all aspects of domain and hosting acquisition and/or transfers.
There are some search engine optimization considerations when selecting an appropriate hosting service provider and the services to purchase. Typical low-cost web hosting uses a shared “IP” or internet address with other customers. If other customers who share your address are banned from search engines, the search engines will count that against your ranking. A dedicated IP address is always recommended to avoid this “bad neighborhood” syndrome.
Coldfusion programming
The name ColdFusion refers to a commercial rapid application development platform and the programming language used with that platform. In 1995 it was designed to connect simple HTML pages to a database. By 1996 it had become a full platform complete with a robust scripting language. As of 2011, ColdFusion (owned by Adobe Systems since 2005) includes advanced features for enterprise integration and rich internet application development.
I first encountered CF in 1996 when it was a brand-new product and was referred to as “middle-ware”, or software in the middle of a web server and a database. I began writing custom CF applications for client websites in 1997 for Ads-Online, a Massachusetts-based web development firm. My first large-scale ColdFusion project was the website for Centerline Software.
WordPress technical services
WordPress started in 2003 with a single bit of code to enhance the typography of everyday writing and with fewer users than you can count on your fingers and toes. Since then it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.
I have become rather proficient with WordPress. This site is a great example!
Hand-coding is not a thing of the past
Frontpage, Dreamweaver, GoLive, even Microsoft Word, have become the defacto standard tools of the trade for web designers today. These applications all claim “WYSIWYG” what you see is what you get. The fact is they are all “WYSICTWYG” what you see is close to what you get. When the pages created with these tools don’t perform exactly as intended the blame is placed squarely on the application. After all, it was the application that generated the code behind the page. And since that code is two miles long, don’t think for a minute that little quirk in the page display can be easily fixed. If that’s the application does it, then that’s the way the application does it.
My web page code is generated by keyboard, in Notepad. Notepad is the simple text editor that comes installed with all versions of Microsoft Windows. It doesn’t do anything on its own but accept keyboard input. That leaves me in complete control of what my page does. And I have no scapegoat when my page doesn’t display as intended. The only limitations are those imposed by the web technology being coded. HTML 3.2, HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0, CSS 1.0, CSS 2.0, XML, XSLT whatever the standard allows can be hand-coded in Notepad. And should be.
Service summary
I am primarily a website programmer/developer. I work with HTML, CSS and various other technologies to present content on a web page. In a best-case scenario, I will work with a writer/information architect and a graphic designer to create the content I will display. While I can provide the full range of services, including copy and graphic design, these tasks are not the best use of my skills.
One of the first services I typically perform are hosting-related. I will open an account on your behalf with a hosting service and set up your domain name(s) and website hosting plan.
Comprehensive services outline
This document is a fairly comprehensive description of the services I offer.