CMS is an acronym for Content Management System. Your website can be built upon a Content Management platform which allows you to modify your own web site content directly in a browser. You just bring up your website in Internet Explorer or the browser of your choice, log into your website and edit away. You do not need to know html or any programming. Editing your website is just like working in a Word document. You can add bold text, color, italics, and bullets – just about anything you can do in Word – without having to contact your web designer for help. Read More
Drupal CMS Web Site with Forums
April 17, 2011 By
Schaefer Power is a leading power supply manufacturer, specializing in custom power solutions. They wanted their new web site to have content management abilities to allow them to keep their own web site content up-to-date in an ever-changing industry. In addition to content management, another major requirement for this site was to have interactive discussion forums. They wanted their customers to be able to create an account and post questions to be answered by other customers or by Schaefer’s engineers.
This second requirement was the reason why Drupal was chosen as the Content Management Platform for the job. Drupal has a Forum module integrated with the core code and strong user-management features for customer account management.
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Custom-Designed WordPress Blog
April 17, 2011 By
In September 2010, Penelope James published her book, “Don’t Hang Up! Dialing my way to a new start…” She needed a web site to publicize the book, but was also interested in keeping a blog so that she could communicate with her readers. The blog was an important requirement that necessitated the site being built with WordPress.
WordPress was originally a blogging tool that has evolved over the years into a powerful content manangement system (CMS.) The blogging functionality is therefore integrated into the core of WordPress.
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Law Websites on WordPress
April 17, 2011 By
Attorney Daniel Dalton is a family lawyer in Chelmsford, Massachusetts whose practice focuses on divorce and other family law matters. He has been practicing law for over 25 years, and his practice is undergoing some changes. With this in mind, he wanted the ability to update his own website content so that changes could easily be made to the copy as needed. He also wanted a more updated look and feel for the website – a professional-looking site, but not your typical “stuffy” law website. Dan Dalton’s honest and straight-forward approach is refreshing, and the new site needed to capture this feeling.
A WordPress Content Management System was the ideal choice to meet Attorney Dalton’s needs.
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Nine WordPress Web Sites in One!
April 17, 2011 By
The Quabbin Regional School District’s web site is one-of-a-kind and a prime example of how WordPress development is only limited by one’s imagination. At first I was unsure that it could be done — nine web sites, nine blogs and nine different calendars — all under “one roof.” But with a little ingenuity, we made it work.
QRSD wanted a web site for the overall district, one for the High School, one for the Middle School and one for each of the six elementary schools. Each one would be maintained by their respective staff. Each one required different pages with different content, their own news blog and their own activity calendar.
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Custom WordPress Web Site
April 17, 2011 By
WordPress was the perfect solution for the new Hudson Public Library web site. They wanted a new look & feel for their web site as well as the ability to update the web site content themselves. The web site needed to be interactive and engaging as well as informative, so that their patrons would find it useful and would want to frequent the web site.
The library staff also researched a number of special features that they wanted to include on the web site. After a careful review of their specifications, we determined that WordPress not only met all of their criteria but would also give them many options for future growth and enhancement.
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Custom Designed WordPress Websites
June 15, 2010 By
I saw a tweet this week asking if anyone knew of a WordPress website that didn’t look “bloggy.” I thought that was a strange question, especially since custom designed WordPress sites are what we do best! So I tweeted back with a link to my portfolio but that question has been on my mind ever since.
Most CMS software is ugly right out of the box. Simple. Boring. And just plain ugly. Do people really think that they are stuck with the look & feel of their CMS software right out of the box?
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Buyer Beware: CMS Templates
June 8, 2010 By
Cheap templates may end up costing you more in the long run
I recently received a call from a small business owner who purchased a $50 template for his Drupal web site. He already had an existing Drupal installation but wanted to “upgrade” the look & feel of it. His website had well over 50 pages including blog articles. The template company offered to install the template for an additional fee and requested that he provide them with a backup of his database.
Three days later his website was a mess and he was on the phone with me.
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Choose your blogging software wisely
May 11, 2010 By
You may have noticed a 2 month gap between this post and the last one. Wish I could say I was on an extended vacation, but I wasn’t. And I haven’t given up on blogging either. The reason I stopped blogging 2 months ago, is that I came to the realization that I was not happy with my current Content Management System and it was time to move on. Since I was blogging on a weekly basis for about 9 months, that meant not only moving my web site but also moving all of the blog articles as well. The more I blogged, the more pages I had to move, so I stopped.
The process was more painful than I thought and so this is why my first post back is to warn you – Be Picky. Be Well Informed. Choose your blogging software wisely.
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Keep Your CMS Up-To-Date With a Maintenance Plan
February 24, 2010 By
As I work on more & more content management systems, I’ve come to realize that keeping your CMS up-to-date and in good working order is critical to a properly functioning web site. A nice feature on most content management systems is that the admin program warns you when the core program or any installed modules require updating. Sometimes these are minor updates to improve features and other times these are major updates that affect the security of your web site.
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