Freelance
Overview
I do freelance web design for small to medium sized projects. Given that I do not have a large amount of free time available, I try not to take on huge projects. I can host your website but I am usually able to work with an outside hosting provider which can be easier for all parties involved in the long run.
After reading the following details of what I offer for web design, if you are pleased with what you see and would like me to work on your website, please fill out the contact page with any details about your project and I will get in contact with you as soon as I can.
When designing websites, I offer the following services:
- Basic Graphic Design
- Standards Compliant Designs
- Search Engine Optimization
- Dynamic Content
- Database Design
Basic Graphic Design
Though I am not a graphic designer, I have many years of experience working with graphic designers and I have learned how to make a clean and functional site that is not offensive to the eye. If someone requires a site with more graphical flare than I can do myself. I do have outside resources that I can consult for advanced graphics work.
Standards Compliant Designs
When I build a website, I design it to conform to standards created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). These standards are not always easy to employ, but taking the extra time to make websites conform to these standards makes for the highest possibility that your website will render correctly on the largest assortment of web browsers. I built websites to the “XHTML 1.0 Strict” standard which is currently supported by many web browsers (not just the current generation, but even a generation back).
I keep any plug-in based content to a minimum, such as content that is displayed using the Flash plug-in. Flash has become very popular in recent years for adding “Flashy” content to websites. However, in many cases it is overused and JavaScript (which is built into all major web browsers) is usually capable of doing a lot of the “Flashy” content that people require. What is nice about using JavaScript is that it requires no download of an external plug-in and also allows the design of the site to stick with W3C endorsed standards.
Some of the biggest problems with Flash is that websites which are built entirely in Flash cannot be indexed by search engines such as Google. This makes it very hard to find your website by using a search engine. If you have a website that is built entirely in Flash, usually only a search for your exact domain name will produce any results. They also do not have all of the handicapped accessible features that most web browsers have for reading XHTML based websites. Also, just like web browsers, Flash has many different versions so if you have Flash content, not only do you have to check that the site works in all major web browsers, you also have to test to see that the Flash content works in different versions of Flash.
Search Engine Optimization
I will also work with you to come up with keywords that will hopefully get your site ranked with with Google and similar search engines. There are many things that can be done to increase rankings in Google and other search engines, once I know what the focus of your website will be, I will work with you to come up with a good strategy to get your ranked well.
Dynamic Content
I have been using Perl and PHP for many years now to create dynamic content. This can be anything as simple as an e-mail form to something as complex as a blog or shopping cart. Perl is still a more powerful and mature language than PHP, but PHP has become so popular and its feature set has grown so significantly that it has become a better tool to use for dynamic website design.
There are a huge number of Open Source projects that are written in PHP which means that, for many applications, you don't have to write everything from scratch. There is usually an Open Source project for anything you need from blogs (Wordpress) to shopping carts (osCommerce).
When I say Open Source, I mean that these products are available free of charge and are usually built by a team of volunteers. Though development of Open Source projects is (typically) much slower than software you pay for, many of them are mature enough for small to medium sized businesses to use with little modification (something that couldn't be said just five years ago). If the projects are lacking in specific features, you can freely edit the code they are built with and add the features that you need. This situation is very good for small businesses because they do not have to pay for this software, only the development time needed to implement or modify them.
There are other languages out there that are popular for dynamic web content, Java and .Net are two other popular languages. Java is a language that I have done web development in, but I do not prefer to use it because development in Java is usually painfully slow compared to PHP. I have no experience with Microsoft's .Net, however, usually when dealing with a Microsoft technology, it will end up being more costly than any other alternative.
Database Design
I have been creating fully normalized databases since I was in college. I can write a database from scratch for any custom content that is needed, however, as mentioned in the “Dynamic Content” section above, there are many cases were there are Open Source projects that already have normalized databases set up for a specific need/project.
I only work with Open Source databases. My favorite Opens Source database is PostgreSQL, it is the most powerful and most mature Open Source database. However, PostgreSQL is not nearly as popular as MySQL. Though MySQL is not as mature as PostgreSQL, it is wildly popular for powering blogs, photo galleries, and shopping carts.
Because of this popularity, there is a huge community which is causing this database to progress quickly. MySQL usually poses the “path of least resistance” when it comes to setting up many Open Source website applications. Because of this, I usually will use MySQL for websites, not because it is the best Open Source database out there, but because it is the most popular and will give my clients the least number of issues if they ever decide to migrate to something else.