Paul Donley:  

I'll use my usual introduction to new friends or even clients. I'm a Web-vangelist. Someone who really believes in the power of the Internet. I've been developing commercial websites and marketing them across the Net since 1995-96. Amongst my many weaknesses are a good cup of coffee and coffeehouse conversations. Sitting at with a cuppa in a mall, I might say to someone: "OK, let¿s take this shop over here. They¿ve got a lot of products on those shelves. I imagine they have a database of products, with prices and costs, descriptions of the products, etc. When they sell something, there¿s a barcode reader at the cash register that checks that product out of their inventory and generates a receipt for their customer." If they wanted to put that shop on the Net, they¿d want to do pretty much the same thing. A customer would be able to pay for the product online, and the inventory would be decreased by the number of items purchased. The online customer would want to know that the product was in inventory, and when they could expect delivery. The online customer would pay about the same way as in the shop. They¿ll pay for the item with a credit card, PayPal, or will want to send the money from bank account to bank account. They'd want to know their information was secure; and the shop owner would want to limit their exposure to that information. I do all of that. I tie the online shop to the store inventory using the same database. I can design the database, and even tie it into accounting packages. I set up the secure connection for the purchases. If the shop is part of a franchise or a group of local shops, I can link them all into one network. In addition, I set up the online shop to be found on the Net by search engines, and other ways that the shop can be visible to customers: SEO and SEM. I¿ll work with the shop owner to lay out an online marketing plan and set some realistic goals for the number of visitors to their website and the number of sales they expect. I¿ll also work with the shop owner to try to increase sales or figure out why they aren¿t making their sales goals by analyzing the way people use their website. That¿s what I do: I design the databases and set them up to be accessible to the online shop, then lay out the website to be visible to the Net. I¿m not really a website designer; I¿m a web programmer or developer. I work with a web designer to accomplish the goals of the business (or organization, school, whatever.) Unlike a web designer, my first questions are: ¿What are the goals of the site?¿ and ¿How does the website integrate into your business?¿ Before I came to STHS, age 14, I had lived on both coasts and many places in between. I estimated at the time that I'd lived in 23 states: NYC, Philadelphia, Dallas, Los Angeles, and many more. The family in Texas always wondered if we would ever settle down. I've pretty much kept up that wanderlust throughout my life. After high school, I took a year to work at the casinos, then j...Expand for more