Content Management System Experts (CMS)

So first of all what is a Content Management System? It's a piece of online software that allows you to update your web site without spending two years training to be a web designer.

You simply login with a username and password and then edit your pages using a WYSIWYG editor. Technically, it's easier than working with a Word Document.

For the faint hearted we offer training sessions too so you can start adding content straight away, and content is what it's all about. You absolutely have to get content on your web site on a regular basis. Read more about this in the Search Engine Optimisation(SEO) section of our web site.

We offer a number of CMSs, all of which are Open Source. At least in the case of small to mid-range companies, we think Open Source is a much better option than a proprietary in-house solution for the following reasons:

• You, the client can access support from a global community of developers, free documentation and tutorials, which makes you not dependent on us. We may be the most convenient option for you but it's your choice. It would relatively easy for you to bring in another company to manage the site. There are plenty of businesses that support Open source CMSs
• The life cycle of the CMS isn't dependent on one company and its internal resources.
• It's extendable and subject to continuous improvements and upgrades by the global development community.
• It's secured, tested, and debugged. Every day.
• It's cost effective. We're not trying to recoup our investment in building a CMS in house. We are just selling our expertise.

We don't just offer PHP/MySQL content management systems either. There's a lovely open source CMS called Umbraco using the .Net platform. See below.

Drupal

Drupal offers possibly the greatest flexibility of all our CMSs and is a favourite with the developers. It can be used as a development framework for a multitude of online applications which are more than just web sites. With Drupal we can develop intranets, extranets, forums, chat modules, project management software, invoicing applications and more. Drupal is used by the Whitehouse, Nasa, Greenpeace and many other large organisations.

WordPress

One of the most popular blog tools currently in use, WordPress, combines a host of features with sheer simplicity of use. You'll be surprised to know that WordPress can be used to as more than just a blog tool. We've now completed several web sites that use WordPress to update them. Our clients have been amazed at how easy it is to start adding and editing pages on their own site. The sheer number of free plugins available for WordPress is one of its strongest features. You can quickly add videos, galleries, calendars - you name it, there's probably a plugin for it.

Joomla

A step up from WordPress, the award winning Open Source CMS, Joomla! 1.5 has greater flexibility, more features and is also very popular.

• Flexible
• Simple
• Elegant
• Customisable
• Powerful

With 60,000 registered users, 890 extensions for the CMS, 1168 projects by third-party developers, Joomla! has little left to prove. It can handle huge amounts of traffic and is used by both small and large organisations some of which receive 1 Million Unique Visitors Per Month and 1000 simultaneous hits.

Umbraco

This a .NET CMS for Windows servers that has a lot of fans in the developer community. So what about users? It's very easy to use and very quick too. It's our favourite Windows CMS.