Here is a sample of what we can do for you…

The following illustrates in more details the kind of services we offer.

Sites built with the WordPress.org framework

In all the projects listed under this heading, we created an entire web site using an original WordPress.org Theme. We then added or modified features like dynamic navigation, tailored menus, colours, styles and scripts, and modified or re-wrote sections of PHP WordPress theme code to match the client’s specific needs.

The nsc.ca site is a large and complex site described in the Web Site Support section below. It is a highly customized WordPress Theme we developed from an older static template also or our own design.

Author M.D. Benoit — mdbenoit.com

M.D. Benoit writes speculative fictions for a living. She wanted a look to match the mood of her stories.

This is an example of a major migration to Wrodpress, merging into a single WordPress custom-made theme an existing Blog and an existing static web site.

In July 2010, we converted the site to WordPress 3 Network (Multi-Users), using an old WordPress Theme as the base for a complete re-factoring to a new theme identical to the old static theme described below, and merged an existing mature Blog into the design, thus centralizing her Static pages and Blog while keeping a distinct flavour to both – visit the site and notice how the “Life is weirder than fiction” blog has a different navigation and title that the rest of the site.

Total effort to convert:

• on our part: approximately 10 hours.
• on the client’s part: another 5 hours.

In 2006, M.D. Benoit originally selected the Midnight RainForest design which we modified with new navigation, links and special interest features, and used a stock.xchng photo in the header and right sidebar. This is another example of a liquid design.

From this design, we created a Dreamweaver template which we used to rebuilt a few sample pages from the original Web site, and showed the author how to use Dreamweaver to do the same with the rest of the site.

Total effort:

• on our part: approximately 10 hours.
• on the client’s part: another 20 hours.

The author uses our services from time to time to solve formatting, coding and styling problems.

This site — admaris.com

Admaris Inc. needed a Web site that would exemplifies what it offers.

This is another example of a site conversion from a static to a dynamic, custom-made Worpress Theme.

In July 2010, we migrated to WordPress.org 3 Multi Users (Network) using the default TwentyTen Theme which we re-factored from HTML 5 to XHTML Strict and modified extensively to render the look and feel of the original static design that we liked so much.

Total convertion effort: approximately 7 hours.

In May 2005, we built the original Admaris.com as a static site using an Open Source Design from the I See New People design using a stock.xchng picture in the header. We added scripts and dynamic effects to the navigation menu, and more heading levels.

Total effort (excluding text composition): approximately 5 hours.

The effort to compose and write the content was about 20 hours.

Grim Hill Series — grimhill.com

Linda DeMeulemeester, the award winning author of the Grim Hill Series, contact us on the recommendation of a former customer, Janine Cross, to build her a website to promote her books.

Originally, she was looking at a static design because the main goal was to showcase her work, not to “blog”, but after a few emails and pointers to existing websites, she decided to go with a wordpress design of our suggestion, with the assurance that we could give the site a static look while keeping the functionality and flexibility of WordPress.

So we installed WordPress on her Godaddy hosted web site, modified the PHP theme code and style sheets to acheive the look she wished for, manipulated her high quality pictures to fit the “spooky” theme and dark background, and populated the pages with the content she provided.

Total time to implement the above: 10 hours over a 3-day period.

Easter Seals Regatta — nsc.ca/easterseals2

We converted an old, hard to maintain, not W3C compliant table based design into a compliant xhmtl based WordPress Theme, using the default WorpPress theme as a template.

We then cleaned up and ported all the old pages content into new pages, created a “Latest News” page to hold the posts, and a “Site Map” page to show the pages hierarchy since the design did not leave room for the standard WordPress Widgets.

Total time to implement the above: 10 hours.

Michael Power, Barrister & Solicitor — michaelpower.ca

We created this site from a WordPressThemeBase template.

The client wanted a web site to which he could refer colleagues and potential clients and that would serve as a business card for his law practice.

Once the client picked a WordPress.org theme, installed it and populated the site pages, he asked us to customize the site to better match his needs and views. So we:

• Provided advices and comments on Web/ WordpPress issues, design elements, common web practices, etc. via emails,
• Redesigned the header to included a tagline and re-size the image,
• Modified the style sheet elements to match the client’s “image” requirements,
• Added various Widgets like Categories, Archive, Recent Posts, Twitter and button text boxes,
• Added PHP and Javascript code to show/ hide specific widgets in specific pages – e.g.: button and twitter only in welcome page, all Widgets in the “dot indicia” page, no widgets in other pages,
• Changed the Font family, font sizes, line spacing, blockquote, paragraph margins and text headers,
• Added and formatted photos and buttons, and
• Fixed/ added some element’s code in the style sheet to better comform to all modern browsers.

Total time to implement the above: 9 hours.

CYA Youth National Sailing Championships 2010 — ynsc2010.nsc.ca

We created this site from a WordPressThemeBase template.

The Event Pubic Relations director choose a ‘youthful’ theme for this major national sailing event. We modified elements of the Theme CSS and PHP to add the logo, selected navigation based on certain page IDs. We installed and modifed the login banner logo plug-in. We added PHP code to the header and footer page to cutomize the display. We customized the footer to include relevant links.

We showed the PR volunteer how to use WordPress Dashboard to administer the CMS, how to create Posts and Pages, and how to add images to same.

The total effort was approximately 10 hours.

Kanata Taekwondo — kanatataekwondo.ca

We moved this site content from a Microsoft IIS Server, ASP based site to a WordPress.org Theme on Linux.

The client choose a theme than matched the color palette of his old site. We modified elements of the Theme CSS and PHP to add the logo, selected navigation based on certain page IDs. We installed and modifed plugins for the Featured Post, the login banner logo, and the intranet "Members Only" login functionality which defaults to the WordPress posts page and displays exta navigation items in the right hand navigation column. We added PHP code to the Home page to display public posts, and we also fixed tables and texts to better fit the theme.

We showed the client how to use WordPress Dashboard to administer the CMS, how to create Posts and Pages, how to add images to same, and how to use the plugins.

The total effort was approximately 30 hours.

Sites built from Open Source Designs

In all the projects listed under this heading, we created an entire web site using an original Open Source Template. We then added or modified features like dynamic navigation, tailored menus, colours, styles and scripts, and modified or re-wrote sections of code to present an identical look and feel on all popular browsers.

Once the client was happy with the mock-up page, we turned it into a Dreamweaver template to quickly create individual Web pages that could then be populated with the client’s information.

Synergy Virtual Book Tour — mdbenoit.com/synergy

Author M.D. Benoît was using a novel approach to promote her new book, Synergy: a Virtual Book Tour. She wanted a bold design to support the background mood of her story.

She picked the open source Extreme Heat as her base design, from which we created a single main page (shown here) and a different looking template which the author used to create the individual Web pages.

Total effort: approximately 2 hours.

Zumaya Otherworlds — zumayapublications/otherworlds

Zumaya Publications was launching a new Web site for its Fantasy/ Science Fiction line and wanted a new design to match. The live site will be retired from Zumaya Puplications Other Worlds web site in the future, and so we link to the local copy used for development for this demonstration.

The publisher picked the open source Intersection as her base design. We fixed some cross browsers common look differences, added JavaScripts for roll-over effects and image pre-loading, and created a single template which someone else uses to create the individual Web pages.

Total effort: approximately 3 hours for the design and customization, and 50 hours to create and maintain the site content.

Shark World 2007 — www.nsc.ca/shark

As the main Shark World 2007 site is unilingual German, The Nepean Sailing Club (NSC) participants asked me for small site that would offer some translation of the important pages.

We created a new sub Web to the main Web by modifying the Summer Days design, changing the navigation, header image and the colour palette to fit the NSC main theme, and fixing a few “bugs” in the CSS to make the site look identical on all browsers.

We later recycled the template to create the permanent OYSTR (Ottawa Youth Sail Training Regatta) Sub-web for the Nepean Sailing Club. This site is now maintained by a Club’s volunteer.

Total design and development efforts: approximately 4 hours for the Shark Worlds, and 7 hours for the OYSTR (as the Registration form is quite dynamic).

Author Janine Cross — janinecross.ca

Author J. Cross approach me to build a Web site around her Dragon Temple Saga trilogy. She picked the open source All the Reds as her base design, which we modified to fit a book style format, tweaking some of the colours to match that of her books. We then created 8 new pages using the template and the author’s text and pictures.

This project was our first attempt at using an Open Source design, and it won me over right then and there!

Total effort: approximately 7 hours.

We also configured the author’s FTP server and email domain, and still maintain the site on an as-needed basis.

Daniel Servranckx — servranckx.admaris.com

For D. Servranckx’s personal Web site, we extensively modified and expanded the
Wide Open design, changing all the colours, fonts, page layout, and navigation view. In fact, we changed everything but the basic architecture. We then migrated the old Web pages to the new design.

This is a good example of how radically different a re-worked design can look from the original, and how, by a judicious choice of colours, a clear foreground over a dark background can be pleasing without the typical glare and eye-sore associated with such a colour scheme.

This site uses what is called a liquid design, i.e. one where the page always expands to maximum browser width.

Total effort to create the template and migrate the site: approximately 15 hours.

Ottawa Special Olympics — ottawaspecialolympics.org

Note: this is the static version used between 2007 and 2009. Official OSO Web Site has since been converted to a WordPress Theme by the local webmaster.

The Ottawa District Board of Director wanted to change their Web site from a home-grown to an integrated, easy to maintain site while keeping all the functionality of the original.

We used the services of Sierra-Dawn Web Creations to reformat the graphic of the Special Olympics Canada Web site and blend the Ottawa specific logo in the image. Then, using the colour theme of the header image, we re-formatted and re-styled the Multifex-2 design selected by the OSO Webmaster, added new navigation and links, and implemented JavaScript for rollover effects and non-spam email address generation.

We then rebuilt the whole site page by page from partial html files supplied by the Webmaster.

Total effort: approximately 20 hours.

The Webmaster also used our services to solve formatting, coding and styling problems.

Web sites built/ rebuilt from Original Template

Here is some of our original work:

Jack Meter Case Files — mdbenoit.com/jackmeter

Author M.D. Benoît, while writing her 4th Jack Meter Case Files book, needed a separate Web site to present this series.

She initially picked a free design on the Internet. However, this template was built using an out-of-date layout-table design, which proved to be too rigid and needlessly complex to be readily adaptable to her needs.

We therefore created a new modern design from scratch using the general look of her initial selection as a guide, which we turned over to her as a ready-to-use Dreamweaver template.

Total design and development efforts: approximately 7 hours – most of which was spent making the design cross-browser compatible (the curse of any web designer)!

Dr. Anna Drzewiecki, Plastic Surgery — AnnaMD.com

Sierra-Dawn Web Creations asked me to help with the creation of the structure and theme of an original one-page template based on the theme of Dr. Drzewiecki’s business card.

This design contains some dynamic features such as an expending drop down sub-menus.

Total time to create the design with functional menus and navigation: approximately 7 hours.

As you can see, designing a single Web page from scratch, even a simple one, takes as much time as using it to create a whole site!

Rivière du soleil — soleil.htm

As an alternative to the existing table-based design by Sierra-Dawn Web Creations, we completely revamped the internal structure using modern CSS/layer-based techniques.

Note the drop down menu structure derived from an open source Tigra
Drop Down Menu, which we customized, scaled and positioned in the design.

Total time to structure and re-design the template, and add functional menus and navigation: approximately 3 hours.

<

Web Site Support

We either fine-tuned, enhanced or completely overhauled the functionality of other designer’s templates:

The Nepean Sailing Club — www.nsc.ca

This is a large and complex site with thousands of files, hundreds of Web pages, dozens of scripts, dynamic functions,
on-line databases, server side scripts, etc. The site grows by about 300 pages/ year (mostly to accommodate race results).

In the spring of 2010, we imported and installed a MySQL multi-table Racing Volunteers registration database exported from another site, altered the tables structure and modified the PHP application code at the users’ request to add functionality such as reporting and checkbox driven updating. We then cloned this database system and added other functions to faciliate usage as a general event/ work party registration system.

In the fall of 2009, We migrated the main NSC page to the WordPress.org framework to allow key NSC players (directors, committee chairs, office staff) to do their own postings by mean of an easy to use Content Management System (CMS) as well as to allow them to sollicit comments, and to offer users extended search capabilities on keywords, categories, tags and months. We converted the html 4.01 design to an xhtml strict Template, created our own template (PHP and CSS files) to match the look and feel of the old site – a corporate requirement, and modified plugins and the theme PHP code to increase or match the functionality of the old site. This activity required approximately 40 hrs. Also, with the help of the NSC web tteam, we converted all the static html and pdf calendars to a set of integrated Google Calendars, giving key people the option to make their own calendar entries.

In 2007/ 2008, we converted the site from an Microsoft’s ASP/ Coldfusion/ MSSQL environment to a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) environment. This effort alone required about 70 hours of work as databases had to be converted and imported from Microsoft’s SQL to MySQL environment, many scripts had to be re-written from ASP and Coldfusion to PHP, a new access to the member’s private area had to be devised and implemented, and hundreds of broken links caused by file names upper and lower case mismatch (Microsoft being case insensitive but not Linux) had to be tracked and fixed. Also, we modified some of the header Javascripts to make the site Google Chrome compatible.

In 2006, with the coming of MSIE7, we combined the two “browser-dependent” Style Sheets developed in previous years into a single IE ready, “browser-independent” set. We also re-designed the pages backbone using modern coding and styling techniques, converting a table-based layout into a table-less, Cascading Style Sheet Positioning (CSS-P) layout.

In 2003, using the services of a graphic artist, we completely re-designed and rebuilt the Web site structure and backbone to it’s current W3C HTML V4.01 / CSS Level 2 compliant standards that present a common look and feel on all major Web Browsers. Two different style sheets were used for IE and non-IE browsers.

In 2000, We converted the site from a loose collection of Web pages to HTML V3.2
compliant standards.

Some of the unique features we implemented over the years are:

• sub-Webs for food services, sail training, provincial, national and international regattas;
• interactive on-line reservation, registration and volunteer’s sign-in systems;
• fees and other dynamic calculators and complex form pre-processors and validators;
• members’ private login areas;
• extraction and display of database-stored Members’ private information; and
• a “poor man’s” portable site management tool that permits a site-wide build of Web pages
  from simple text files.

We spend 30+ hours per month maintaining and updating the site.

Jay’s Chalet — jayschalet.com

Sierra-Dawn We modified the design by Web Creations, itself derived from an OSWD
design, to give it the same look and feel in all modern browsers.

We also created the dynamic javaScript-based mouse over image viewer in the Chalet Photos page.

Total time to modify the design and create the photo viewer: approximately 2 hours.

We also offer programming and support services such as Web development, server-side programming, site maintenance and administration:

Ohm Networks — www.ohmnetworks.com

A short but difficult code migration project

Ohm Networks Web site was re-designed by a junior Web designer in late 2006. The Career page, written in PHP / MySQL, had not been migrated because the designer had moved on to other projects. The original code was written entirely in PHP by a seasoned programmer, with all the HTML code dynamically generated on the server by various PHP scripts following a logic flow based on parameters extracted from a MySQL database. If by now you are totally confused, don’t worry, so was I!

As there were no design notes and only a few in-code comments, our first task was to study the structure and organization of this large site (over 1300 files and 350 folders), trace the processing flow from the bottom up, and document the multi-steps PHP/ MySQL sequence of events leading to the construction of the career page as seen on the browser.

Once we understood what was going on "under the hood", we used the new site Dreamweaver template and original old PHP code fragments to create a new dynamic html page (show above) with embedded PHP/ MySQL code.

While doing the above, we also fixed problems with the Dreamweaver template and html/ CSS code for cross-browsers compatibility, and added a User Login function to the
ohmnetworks main page.

Total time charged the client: 11 hours, 9 of which to familiarize myself with the client’s Web site organization and code, and document the complex server-side page building process.

A tricky server migration project

In February 2008, the client asked to have his web site migrated from a home based WAMP (Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP) server to a managed ISP based LAMP (Linux) server.

We guided him through the registration process, configured the new site, moved all the files, exported the databases from the old server, imported them into the new server, modified the PHP code to handle server variables under PHP 5, and modified the MySQL user validation code to handle a different password encryption algorithm under MySQL 5.

Total time charged the client: 11 hours, 5 of which to track and fix differences in PHP and MySQL versions.

Enterprise Sites

As a contract professional web developer and programmer, Mr. Servranckx, our Web Developer and Programmer, also develops, enhances and maintains Enterprise size Web projects.

The scope and level of work of such projects is far beyond the needs of a small business, and we present this section only as a further demonstration of our knowledge and expertise.

Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) — File Exchange Program

Between mid-May and mid-August 2010, Mr. Servranckx provided Web Development services for the Release 2 of the bilingual Online NRCan File Exchange Program, an in-house file sharing tool which allows authorized employees from within the department to share electronic files with non-employee stakeholders from outside of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), and share files with other employees in the department. He also creates bilingual technical documentation and user guides, and provides technical Database management services for other projects when and as needed.

He used CodeIgniter (a CMS based on the Model-View-Controller or MVC paradigm), Object Oriented PHP, XHTML, jQuery, MySQL, MySQL WorkBench, myPHPAdmin, and Unix Shells in a Unix/ LAMP production and development (Ubuntu) environment to add several user administrative and database management functions, and enhance and expand the FileExchange applications user interface in accordance with the Release 2 specifications, and the Government of Canada Common Look and Feel (CLF2) web content policy.

File Exchange requires a user name/ password to access.

Banking Site — Desjardins Integrated Payment Solution

From April 2008 to January 2010, Mr. Servranckx provided Web development, programming and maintenance services for the MAT (Merchant Administration Tools), SAT (Server Administration Tools) and WEB component of the Desjardins Group – Integrated Payment Solution. These components are accessible by merchants over the Internet, but require login credentials.

Mr. Servranckx was a member of a multi-disciplinary team of employees and consultants responsible for the development and maintenance of banking solutions. He was the team’s Javascript, DHTML, HTML/ XHTML, W3C Standards and CSS/ DOM resident expert. The Desjardins servers operate in an Apache, PHP and AJAX environment.

At the explicit client’s request, no screen shots are publicly available.

Overview of work done

Using PHP (both Object Oriented and procedural), XAJAX (a PHP/ AJAX framework), AJAX, JavaScript, JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) XML, CSS, and the DOM (Document Object Model), Mr. Servranckx developed new applications, and modified, maintained or expanded existing applications that allow administrators, merchants, Quality Assurance personnel and validators to perform web-based on-line banking, reporting and administrative transactions. All database transactions were performed by remote procedure calls to dedicated, highly secured Oracle servers via XMLRPC calls.

In particular, he:

• Developed complex dynamic form validation scripts,
• Developed login scripts and applications, and incorporated open source CAPTCHA scripts,
• Developed dynamic data driven accordion menus,
• Re-factored and adds new functionality to  a Web Test Tool suite using PHP, JSON, JavaScript and AJAX to facilitate new merchants’ site accreditation and validation, and to help local developers and QA people with testing,
• Re-factored xhtml pages to enforce strict adherence to the XHTML 1.0 Transitional standards, the W3C standards, and the Desjardins common look and feel standards while supporting the IE 6 and 7+, and the Firefox 2 and 3 browsers.,
• Developed error and information display handlers,
• Implemented formal Change Request documents by analyzing the requirements, evaluating alternatives and their impacts, and writing the proposed solutions in official Change Request Reply documents.
• Effected adaptive and corrective maintenance on existing production modules in response to Requests for Changes,
• Analyzed recommended and affected internal html and coding changes.

Note: The MAT, SAT and WEB environments live on the Desjardins private network and are not available to the general public.

Government Site — DND/ CF Support Web Portal

Mr. Servranckx and a junior webmaster developed an information Web Portal (hosted on a private network) for the Department of National Defence/ Canadian Forces. The Portal was built, maintain and expanded over a 31 months period. The portal serves documents and incidents from a large SQL database containing hundreds of tables and thousands of records.

Contrary to the other projects presented in this page, this portal used the server-side Microsoft .NET framework (ASP and ADO) -which provides a large body of pre-coded solutions to common program requirements, and manages the execution of programs written specifically for the framework.

Click on the thumbnail to view a more detailed description of the portal.