CSS or Tables

BOTH! A lot of designers have jumped on the all-CSS page bandwagon, we believe that hybridization is the best technique. CSS is magnificent for certain special effects and layering and a very important aspect of maintaining accessibility standards, but there's no reason to completely discard other methods of design.

A lot of effort is put into certain layout structures and getting around incompatibilities between browsers when working with CSS, when simply reverting to the old standards of HTML would work just fine. We are not proud. We use the best tool for the given situation, without worrying about being trendy.

Open Source or Custom Software?

Custom software. While we will install or use a software package is specifically requested by a customer, we do not use open source code for our designs, instead relying on either previously designed software by Avant 5, or writing something from scratch.

Why? Several reasons. First, while open source software develops faster and gains more improvements, it's also available to everyone, including those with malicious intentions. And when there's a security glitch in open source software, the community finds out when someone's website(s) get hacked. And once a hacker finds the glitch, every website using that software is vulnerable.

Second, flexibility. When we have to use someone else's software, we have to mold the website to fit that software and it's capabilities, which means when a customer requires a certain feature for their particular website, it may not be available. And having to reprogram someone else's software can be dangerous. If mistakes are made, security or operational problems can arise. We know our own software. We can make changes quicker and with less potential for problems.

Third, cross compatibility. Suppose you want a forum on your website. And you want personal blogs for your users. And you want an online store where customers can buy your merchandise. If you use third party software, your customers will have to login seperately for each. They might have to register on your website for each area. By writing our own software, we can have all these programs communicate with each other, so a single registration and single login can give a customer access to all areas of your website. Smoother and far better for the end user, leaving a better impression about your organization.

Browser and Resolution Flexibility

Ever been to a website that was "Best viewed in Browser X at Resolution Y?", but those weren't your browser or resolution, and the site didn't look quite right, or had problems working correctly? We don't believe in building a website that only looks good if you use the exact same computer with the exact same settings as we do. We test our sites in a variety of browsers and on different operating systems, to make sure you can connect with the broadest range of potential customers and please all of your visitors, not just the select few.

Hosting Platforms

Ok. This is the one area where we are picky. We really really prefer not to build websites hosted on Windows servers, choosing Linux or UNIX servers because of better stability and security. Because we are not Windows developers, we do not do ASP pages, or code in VB Script. We can still build websites fully compatible with Windows servers running Apache.