Website Development (Highlands Media)

We develop and maintain Internet websites using technology appropriate to suit our clients' needs.  In addition to site development and maintenance, we provide web hosting services.

Our web development skill set includes experience with PHP, CSS, MySQL, XML, Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP), VBScript, JavaScript, Microsoft Access (for simple databases), Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Acrobat.  In addition, our staff are experienced in graphic layout, editing, composition, and photography.

We employ varying problem solving techniques when it comes to building a website.  Requirements solicitation and analysis are the cornerstone of any work we do.  Some sites are best built using a straightforward CSS framework; others require full-blown database-backed solutions.

If you are interested in contracting Highlands Media to create a new website, revamp your current site, or provide existing site maintenance, please contact us at info@highlandsmedia.com.   

To give you a taste of the kind of work we have done to date, listed below is a portfolio of active websites we have developed and currently maintain.

www.wendellmessimer.org

Dr. Wendell Messimer is a long time board member at the Johnson City Public Library and has served as a commissioner in Washington County, Tennessee for several terms.  Messimer, aware of trends in the information age, decided to take a component of his campaign online this year. Messimer sought a professional website that he could use both as a campaign tool as well as a means to disseminate information to citizens in his capacity as a commissioner. Thus, I designed a framework wherein pages and menu items could be easily added, replaced, and deleted. Other highlights include personalized, database-backed page counter with no ad-driven encumbrances through those canned counters one finds everywhere, and, through August 3, 2006, a countdown to election day.

www.jcpl.net/frankenstein

The Johnson City Public Library was selected by the American Library Association to be one of the stops for its "Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature" traveling exhibit.  The library wanted a special website to handle all promotional and informational aspects of the six week event. The site design incorporates a fixed background on the left, featuring art of the Frankenstein monster by librarian Robert Swanay and vertical text.  In the center is a dynamic content block that automatically adjusts in size to fit the text and photos therein.  The menu is similarly dynamic, as the library expected to add links during the exhibit period (such as photos, interviews, etc.)  I also created some publicity materials for the library based on the same theme, including posters and newspaper ads.  (Visit the Download Poster choice on the website for an example.) The artwork incorporated in the publicity and as the site content background involved recasting my photograph of an urban forest as a moonlit scene and positioning Swanay's monster drawing as an overlay.  In this way, we avoided copyright issues by creating our own original art. All of this was accomplished using ASP and Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) technology.  The site is compatible with Internet Explorer and Mozilla-based browsers such as FireFox. Susan Brandehoff, of the ALA, said of the site:  "Your website looks just great!  It's one of the best we've seen on the entire tour."

www.elkriverevergreens.com

Elk River Evergreens is a wholesale and choose 'n cut Christmas tree growing organization that exclusively grows the Fraser Fir that is native to the mountains of east Tennessee and western North Carolina. Gary and Pat Edwards, founders of ERE along with David Ellis and his wife, Kathy, approached us about creating a website for their business.  They were looking for an Internet presence that would promote their choose 'n cut operation to a wider audience and provide their customers with informative and useful resources about Christmas trees.  When we asked them what kind of look they wanted, Pat expressed she wanted something warm, homey, inviting...with lots of photographs.  (Ah, customers after my own heart!) One of the most rewarding aspects of doing web development is getting to know small business people, to see the care and pride they put into their work, and to witness the passion they have for their trade.  We saw in the ERE people a sincere desire to create the best experience possible for their choose 'n cut customers.  They have two locations in Elk Park where you can walk around the farm, pick your tree, have it cut, shaken (to remove loose needles), baled and loaded on your car.  But that's not enough for these people: they'll warm you back up with hot chocolate and refreshments in a cozy and interesting gift shop environment to keep you more than occupied while you wait.  We could go on and on about this.  Please take the time to visit their site at www.elkriverevergreens.com.

www.ponderautorepair.com

Brian Ponder asked us to make a website for his business that would have unique visual appeal, provide useful information to his customers, and load quickly for dial-up users. Our response was to create this building block-style layout to echo the block elements found in the shop building.   (Visit the Summer 2003 notes to learn how we extracted the anchor photo of his shop from a visually chaotic landscape.) Ponder was especially pleased with the capitalization of and uniform use of the red in his building's color scheme.  He believed, and we agree, that his website is unique and stands out on the Internet.  His customers use it more and more, and many have download, filled out and printed intake forms before bringing their vehicles in for repair.

www.jcpl.net

The Johnson City Public Library is an example of the power of a database-backed website.  This library's site runs on an internal Microsoft IIS server using ASP and an Access database.  Each web page is dynamically generated on the fly.  ASP scripts ensure that all pages have a consistent look-and-feel.  Elements, such as the page title, the sidebar background picture, CSS styles and text colors are derived from information stored about each page in the database. The design of the site was the work of a committee formed within the library.  While a consistent wrapper (heading, sidebar, and trailer) ensures site consistency, each area is free to create the block of content within the wrapper.  Staff who maintain the site use Microsoft Frontpage and Access. We're especially fond of the Clubs and Organizations section.  All the information for this section, including the category list on the first page, is derived from the database which is maintained by Reference department staff.

catalog.wrlibrary.org

The libraries of the northeast Tennessee region cooperatively operate a consolidated online catalog (through the Watauga Regional Library).  Our involvement with their catalog website was to personalize their  vendor's "canned" system.  The highlight of the project was creating the initial page, shown to the right.  With it, regional library patrons can quickly narrow their searches to their local libraries with a simple radio button click. Many software companies market customizable web products that require changing HTML and scripts to tailor them to a client's unique needs.  Such is the case here with Endeavor Information Systems' WebVoyage.  WebVoyage has dozens of customizable HTML pages, code segments, and image files that can be altered by the end-user as needed.  However, the alterations have to consider that the final web pages are dynamically created on the fly by WebVoyage.  Thus, WYSIWYG editors are useless and knowledge of the underlying language of the web is a necessity.