Back • Internet applications • Websites • PC apps and utilities • Systems programming • Consultancy • Freelance support • Testing and QA • Data preparation • Screensavers • Odd jobs
Strange Software produces effective, dynamic websites. Our technical expertise allows us to create smart-looking sites with reliable and effective e-commerce, database or dynamic features. Our publishing experience allows us to write copy, design graphics and produce pages to a professional standard. And our business knowledge allows us to work with you to host, manage, update and run your site to ensure you get successful and effective results.
Being on the web is much more like broadcasting to your users, customers and visitors than it is handing them a static leaflet or brochure. Almost all websites benefit hugely from regular updating. A dynamic, regularly updated site...
We see dynamic pages and effective content management as an integral part of a website. Time, money and effort is far more effectively spent here than on fancy opening graphics, animation and videos.
Strange Software typically provides some content management and automated updating service with even the simplest or smallest of sites. We provide software that lets a small business owner or organisation easily publish news and notices on their home pages, update their price list or the range of products on sale or maintain a calendar or diary of events.
Web designers with little or no technical ability are often limited to offering third-party content management systems which can be awkward to use and limited in flexibility, so news pages look like classified ads or diary pages look like database listings. As programmers, we develop, customise and maintain our own content-management software and can therefore provide an easy-to-use solution that's tailor-made for the job in hand.
We provide the data entry features you need, from a minimal fill-in-the-blanks pages for updatable text or data to a full news publishing system. We then generate fully-formatted final pages appropriate to your website design with the relevant content inserted appropriately. Our content-management systems typically run over the web themselves so that pages and information can be updated at anytime from anywhere. Our software can also work with almost any web space and web hosting account.
We provide successful e-commerce solutions.
Our own shopping cart software has been installed for several sites, providing convenient and reliable on-line shopping with automatic calculation of postage and packing, e-mail notifications and secure order display. We can integrate with popular payment gateways, take and deliver orders securely and directly to the client's order processing department and assist with order picking and fufilment and stock control.
Having our own shopping software gives us the flexibility to address specific or unusual needs, such as multi-currency sites, trade and account sales with specific customer pricing or re-ordering options or to deal with awkward products, such as those sold by weight, volume or pack size.
We've also worked with a successful site based around the popular Actinic shopping-cart software and are happy to work with other third-party e-commerce products where appropriate.
We've met a lot of businesses that not only don't have a website but don't have the staff, time or expertise to create one... not just on the technical and design side but also in copywriting, illustration and photography. This makes much sense... why should someone whose business is theatre or manufacturing plastic bottles or looking after sick animals necessarily be equipped to produce and run a professional-standard website?
Our experience and contacts at Strange allows us, when appropriate, to provide a full-service including graphic design, copywriting and photography, making us a useful one-stop shop for many web projects.
What's more, we're more than happy to have an on-going role in managing and maintaining a website. For example, having supplied a news management system to one client, we found it best for us to produce regular news items for the client based on their notes or a verbal description. In another case, we regularly arrange and undertake photography for a client to illustrate new items without taking up the client's time.