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| Posted on 12/31/07 at 12:44 PM | |
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I agree with hitching your wagon to Lance as his business model is to meet the web based needs of screen printers specifically. For total disclosure I must say that I don't work with Lance regarding web hosting, but from a conceptual standpoint I would at least TRY it out since it seems you'll get a lot more as opposed to talking with a generic hosting provider. You brought up a good point about WHERE it is you'll be updating your site. The easiest would be to just use the control panel from your host or joomla application. But true web developers would have their own local development environments where they can make edits and work out all the bugs (since they will likely be hacking the actual joomla engine or creating one from scratch). The problem with that is it takes some know-how. You'll need a bundle of software that is able to interpret "server side" code. Your typical web browser and OS can not do this. If you really want to read up on that you can go here: http://www.apachefriends.com This is not the most efficient package out there but it certainly is the easiest to set up. Lastly I wanted to comment on Lance's price estimates of $3,000 - $14,000 and YES that is indeed quite a lot of money. But to be fair about it, we are businesses expect others to value our printing work and everything goes into it, so its only logical to follow that advice regarding other businesses. "You get what you pay for". I trust that Lance was smart enough to receive a quote relative to his specific needs. That no doubt means a custom job and not some cookie cutter template that is going to sit there , static, and rot in the depths of web hell. But if thats what you want to pay for then you can have that for $200 or less. The truth is 80% of your competition is running static web sites because they don't know any better, but I'm also guessing because they cringed at what a dynamic, custom site would cost. That's where Lance comes in, again I have no experience, but what he says, is essentially bridging that gap. Just remember that any efficient web presence is GOING TO COST A LOT. But don't forget that if you are not paying in dollars, you are paying in time. You can save money by building your own site with joomla, but thats your time, an no matter how easy anyone says it is , THERE IS STILL a learning curve. That's not bad of course, just understand that web sites need to be consistently taken care of , nourished, and updated. All of which, cost time, effort, and money. This also brings me to the most important concept of web development. It comes before the budget, before shopping around, before even turning on your computer. WHAT DO YOU WANT YOUR SITE TO DO ? Yes DO, what does it DO. All the sites rotting in web hell are there because they dont DO anything. They sit there and look pretty - well thats not good enough. As I said you can get a pretty site for $200. If that's what you want go for it. If not, you'll have a lot of never ending work ahead of you, but at least it will be worth it! So what do you want it to do ? ____________________ Failure is Great | |
 
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