Evolution of Websites

In the last 2 decades Internet has become a new media for giving information to customers. Before contacting a company about their products and services, clients would like to visit their website. Thus website became an entry point to get an overview about the company and its offerings. It is imperative that any new information is updated on the spot without contacting a Web Manager or Web Programmer. For example if the company phone number changed, the information should be updated immediately on the web.

What is a Website ?

A website is collection of documents written in HTML Lanaguage. Any application which understands the HTML language can show / display the documents. And all browsers are nothing but applications which understand HTML Language. Browsers are just applications which read the HTML pages and show them the way it is to be shown.

What are static Websites?

A website which contains information in pure HTML pages is called a static website. It is typically called static because if you want to change the content / information on the website, you have to change the HTML document / page or write a new page. It is like a new paper which is delivered to you in the morning. Once a news paper is printed, its contents cannot be changed and a new news paper has to be printed. Similarly when a Static website needs to be changed, a web master familiar with HTML should edit the content.

What are Dynamic Websites?

In Dynamic Website the content is generated whenever the site is loaded on to the browser. Dynamic websites empower their owners to change and manage content on their own without having any knowledge of HTML. Dynamic websites are designed and developed by Content Management Systems(CMS). CMS provides a easy to use administrative log in to create, edit and modify the content. The Administrator can also give permission other people to edit the content. The content editors and administrators need not be techy with any programming language skills or HTML skills. If they have word processing skills and know how to use a browser they can change the content dynamically.

What is the change with Dynamic Websites?

The Dynamism of your company should be reflected in the dynamic content of their website. CMS helps you to change your website dynamically to reflect changing strategies and business ideas. Sometimes updating could be on a day to day basis. A Dynamic Website build through CMS makes it a reality.

Relevance to Small and Medium Businesses

Most of the times when a company is being started or just started, a single person or a few people do most of the work involved in running the business. So an administrative assistant or a receptionist can be the key person for creating, editing and updating your website, if you work with a dynamic website.

Affordabiliy for Small and Medium Businesses

Creating a static website for a small company is cheap and affordable. However creating a dynamic website with traditional technologies is quite expensive and need a technical person to manage it. Open Source Content Management Systems provide an excellent opportunity for SMBs to create dynamic websites at lower costs. And they also facilitate incrementally adding new features and facilities to the web sites. There are many open source CMS solutions which SMBs can experiment with. Some of them are Joomla, Plone, Drupal which are based on Linux, Apache, MySQL? and PHP. DotNetNuke? provides a good ASP based Content Management System working on window platform.

Joomla Open Source Content Management System

Joomla is the leading open source Content Management System (CMS) that helps in building websites and web applications. Depending on the convenience users can comfortably change a simple website built on Joomla into a comprehensive online portal. The flexibility comes from the add on modules provided which can be easily installed as and when required.

Joomla also comes with a user friendly administrative system that allows a layman to alter the content and the layout as and when required. Non-technical end users can easily add or edit content, change images and manage critical data. The skills the end user needs to have are basic word processing and comfort with one of the browsers like Internet Explorer or FairFox?. The Joomla CMS framework has been designed for extensibility. The framework has been supported by huge community of developers who designed and developed independent modules to add new features.

For further information people can see www.joomla.org.

So look at Joomla and how you can develop and maintain your own website without any major technical skills. 

Ram Kumar Lanka is the CEO of Rhea Technologies which specialises in providing software products and solutions for small businesses. Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Issue BG69 Dec06

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