What I Do

Based in Auckland, New Zealand I specialise in:

  • Websites for all types of businesses and organisations
  • Custom Windows application development
  • Consulting and project management
  • Database design

Websites

Want a website, but don't know where to start? I can design and build a great looking website to suit your organisation. I can make websites that are easy to maintain and are cost-effective. All of the following features come standard with every site I make.

Great Looking!

I can create a great looking site that is unique to your organisation, using your own branding or creating a logo if necessary. Your website will be clean and simple to navigate - have a look at the portfolio for examples of my work.

Consistent Look and Feel

By making use of technologies such as cascading style sheets (css) and xhtml standards, we can ensure that each page on your website has a consistent look and feel. This also ensures that visitors to your website perceive your site to be of a professional standard and of high quality. Your website will be coded in such a way so that the text fonts, graphics and colours can be changed with a minimum of development effort, and will look great regardless of the resolution of the user's monitor.

Browser Compatibility Testing

There are a number of browsers in use on the internet today. Through the use of an automated testing tool we are able to ensure that your website will be viewable by the widest possible audience. Tested browsers include:

  • Microsoft Internet Explorer (versions 4 through 6)
  • Netscape Navigator (versions 4.78 through 7)
  • Mozilla Firefox
  • Opera
  • Safari

Content Management

We provide the ability for you to update the text based content of your website quickly and easily through your browser as a standard feature. Users with the appropriate permissions can log on to the administration area of your website and preview and update the content of any page or designated updateable area. In this way you have full control over the text based content of your site, without incurring development service costs. We can provide initial copy for your website on request.

Website Speed

Successful websites need to load quickly in visitor’s browsers. We achieve this by making sure all text and graphic content files are as small as possible without sacrificing quality. The web hosting companies that we recommend to clients all have direct "Tier 1" connectivity to the internet to ensure fast, reliable website responses.

Search Engines

Your website code will include "meta-tags" to allow search engines such as Google to categorise your website correctly. Meta-tags are key words on a web page that relate to your business. These are read by search engines such as Google to correctly categorise your website. Note that to be listed on Google, a website needs to be linked from at least one other website.

Printing

Visitors to your website will have the ability to print pages from your site in a “printer-friendly” manner.

Website Reporting

Web hosting companies provide tools that report on the number of visitors to your site, as well as a whole host of other information. As part of your website implementation, we will show you how to use the reporting tool that is specific to your website.

Standards Compliant

All of our web designs are made compliant to World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards. From experience we have found that this results in sites that are easier to design and maintain in the future. From a user perspective, W3C compliant sites also help ensure consistent quality across the entire site.

Resources and Development Tools

Essential Software uses the latest industry standard development tools such as Macromedia Studio MX 2004 and Visual Studio 2005 to produce our websites. Using modern tools ensures that the time we spend developing your website is productive and efficient. You will also benefit from a range of pre-developed modules to handle common basic website functions such as enquiry forms and content management.

Geek Speak

For the technically inclined, your site can be developed with any of the following tools and languages:

  • ASP and ASP.Net
  • PHP and MySQL
  • Perl
  • Oracle HTML DB
  • RSS and Atom XML feeds
  • MS Reporting Services

Custom Windows Application Development

If you need a custom application for your organisation, I've got years of experience with Windows application development:

  • MS Access - a personal favourite due to the speed you can put a fully functioning application together
  • Visual Basic - an oldie but a goodie
  • Visual Basic for Applications - aka macro programming for Microsoft Word, Excel and Outlook
  • .Net - C# and Visual Basic Windows applications
  • MS Reporting Services - A powerful tool from Microsoft that makes enterprise reporting easy
  • Powerbuilder - yeah, that too.

Database Design

If you get the design of your database right, you save countless hours in the development of your applications. Let me help you choose the right database solution for your needs:

  • MySQL
  • MS Access
  • Oracle
  • MS SQL Server

Project Management

Many information technology projects fail because of some fairly basic errors:

  • lack of organisational commitment
  • vague requirements from the outset
  • too much focus on technology
  • scope changing
  • no effective project management

Contact me if you would like some help with your projects, before it's too late!