Frequently Asked Questions ...

Why should I pay you to develop my website, when my hosting company will build one for me for only several hundred dollars?

Monsterbyte builds sites that take some of the work out of business. Much of what we sell is never seen by a visitor to your site, but will be quite noticeable to your business.

Monsterbyte creates Internet based tools that will make your work easier. Imagine managing your own web content or having access to your data stores, right from your website, using a custom-built interface.

I'm not located in Maryland, should I find a web development company closer to me?

Not at all, while face to face meetings are sometimes helpful, everything we need to complete your projects we can receive over email or over the phone.  In fact, only half of Monsterbyte is even located in Maryland with the other partner in Arizona.

What do you need from me?

As little or as much input as you want. The very baseline of what we need is some sense of what you want your site to do or “say.” What do you want to convey?

We can also work from the other side of the spectrum and build a site to your exacting specifications, following your every detail.

No matter how you want to approach the process, you can always rely on us to be forthcoming with our ideas and suggestions so you can make the most informed decisions possible.

If you use Open Source software on my site, does that mean I have to give the code out to anyone who wants it.

No it doesn't.  Your site design and content belongs to you and your business, however some of the tools we used to create your site may be released by Monsterbyte under an open source license. As an example, say you use a calendar of events on your site. While the appearance is totally unique and custom-fitted to your site, much of the behind-the-scenes code which makes the calendar work is usable by others for similar applications. Monsterbyte will NEVER distribute any client proprietary software or data.

My site is an integral part of my business model; I don’t want the code available for my competitors. Can you still design a site for me?

In most cases having a site built using open source code doesn’t matter. In the rare occurrence you need a proprietary application developed which cannot be open source, we have the talent and ability to do so. The downside to not using existing tools created and vetted by the open source community is longer development times and greater cost. However, if your application cannot be distributed, closed source products are not beyond our scope.

What is a Content Management System [CMS]?

A Content Management System is a method of maintaining materials on a website. Traditionally, websites consisted of a series of pages or files connected by links. To change something on one of the pages, someone needs to locate that file, open it in an external program, and know how to edit it. Our CMS allows all the page materials on a website to be stored in a database and be edited on-line by our clients. Check out our Chemical Demo page.

Why would I want to pay extra for a CMS when my end users will never see a difference?

It's a matter of control, cost and maintenance. If you don't plan to make changes to your website, then you may not need to invest in our CMS. In that case Monster Byte will build you a custom site suited to your needs. The downside to this is that if you want to change the site (add a new page, change a sentence, add a photo), and you are not familiar with HTML, you would need to contact us to make the change for you. Even small changes become costly.

With a CMS you have the control to make almost all content changes to your site without learning anything new. You can add or delete pages, add a sentence or a picture. If you wanted to change the content of your site everyday, you could do so at no additional cost to you.

I don’t have any real technical skill; will I be able to use your Content Management System to update my site?

If you are able to use a browser and word processing software, you have the skills needed to be able modify the content on your website. Chemcial CMS was designed to be EASY, and not just easy for bpeople who "know computers." Visit the Chemical Demo site. Try it out. We think you'll find that people of ANY skill level can use the power of Chemical to make their site exactly what they want.

If you are using the same CMS on a lot of different sites, won’t my site look like every one else’s who used the same code?

With a lot of other products the answer would be yes, but not with the Monsterbyte Chemical CMS. Most CMSs severely restrict the ability of a designer to create creatively crafted pages, in favor of rapid development. At Monsterbyte we believe that every site is a reflection of organization it represents. To that end, great pains were taken to make Chemcial CMS the most flexible product available.

I'm a hot girl, can I call Monster Byte to ask Dave out for a date?

Yes.

© 2010 Monsterbyte

about us   |   contact us   |   sitemap