Has it really been two months since we updated the website to let you guys know what is going on? Wow I guess it has been. In the last two months we have had our heads down developing some really great software and building some new websites for clients all over the Central Arkansas and Conway area. The good news is that several of these sites will go live in the next few weeks. Stay tuned, we will post the new goodness as soon as it is out of the oven.

We recently launched a new website for A & J Collision Repair in Conway Arkansas. A & J Collision Repair is a full service auto body repair shop servicing the Conway area.

For this project we utilized existing open source tools to allow them to better manage their web content. We also created a custom tool that allows A & J to post photos of their client’s vehicles while they are being repaired. The tool is completely integrated with their new content management system.

In addition to launching the site we are working with A & J to bolster their online presence by utilizing social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook.

Every year the Faulkner County Supporters for Sustainable Communities (FCSSC) has a public forum to discuss sustainability issues. For the last two years we have had the privilege of creating the flier for the event.

We stuck with the same color scheme and basic design from last year, mostly because folks recognize it. We did try to make the logo more prominent this year by moving it to the top of the document. The group was very pleased with the work and we expect to see these all over town this week.

Terri Files Photography recently shot photos for a bicycle event in Conway Arkansas. After the event Terri needed a way to publish her photos on the Internet to allow customers to place orders. We looked around at all the commercial and open source applications available. Finally, we settled on installing and customizing Gallery. We are no stranger to Gallery, over the years we have used it for several projects. A while back we even worked on an open source photo manager to enhance it’s support for exporting to Gallery.

In the end, we provided Terri with a professional, sleek photo gallery that is easily managed and e-commerce ready. Her customers can view photos from the event and easily place orders. The setup allows them to pay for their orders using PayPal, or by mailing a check. The Gallery also allows instant download access when a customer purchases a full resolution digital photo.

The Gallery setup takes care of the photographer as well. It automatically watermarks all of her images and protects against unauthorized full size image downloads. The API also enables her to publish photos directly from her management software.

This project was fun for us. It allowed us to provide a top notch setup for our customer and support an open source software project. Everybody wins when we use open source applications: the customer gets a finished project faster and cheaper, we lower our time of development, and the software project gains another new user.

It should also be noted that every time we get paid for a project, and use an open source software application as an integral component we make a monetary donation to the project. It is just a little something we like to do.

Hello one and all and welcome to the new website! The last few days I have been working on the site as I have had time and I finally feel like I can publish it. There are still some warts that will have to be shaken out over time, please bear with me.

As you can probably guess, the focus of the site is going to change a bit. It is going to morph out of my personal website and back into a site that has to do with my work life. If you are still interested in reading what I am up to outside of the work world vist my new personal website — www.cfiles.org. The new personal site has all of the old content from this site, I even left the design the way it was. For those of you using RSS, please update your reader to the new feed.

I have big plans for this site so I would like to invite you to stick around and see what I have in store.