Cage Data, Inc.

This post is part of a three part series titled "A Look Back at 2010".  Over the next couple of weeks we will be talking about the past year; the clients that we have taken on, projects that we have done, and improvements that we feel we have made in the past year.  In this, our final, post we will discuss web projects over the past year.

This past year has been a huge year as far as the web area of Cage Data.  We have seen an increase in clients, faster deployment rates using open source technologies, and better applications. We are really excited about the direct for the web business and equally excited about the great team which is developing within the web business.

Use of Open Source Technologies

In 2010 we began using more open source technologies to deploy client websites and applications faster.  The biggest open source application we added was the Mura Content Management System (CMS).  Mura is a fantastic CMS to provide many backend functions necessary to controlling a website.  Our own website is powered by Mura and we love using it everyday.  In the past months some awesome updates have been made to Mura including the use of CKEditor to build content, and a more elegant management interface.

Another open source application that Cage added in 2010 was the OpenCart E-Commerce system.  OpenCart is a freely available E-Commerce system designed for smaller businesses with fewer products.

If you are interested in getting either a CMS backed website or E-Commerce website contact us to get a quote.

Client Work in 2010

Cage Data has had new clients across multiple industries in the past year and also has revisited clients who have had websites done in the past that needed to be revamped.  Some of our largest clients to launch websites with Cage are:

Evergreen America

Evergreen came to us early in the year looking for an informational website and e-commerce solution.  After building a custom design we attached the design to both a Mura and OpenCart backend.

Evergreen's Mura based website ended up being a total of 177 active pages and 67 files, and with the help of the built in functionality of Mura we were able to make each page easy to access with only a few clicks or a small search.

Evergreen's OpenCart powered shopping cart now contains 28 products to help maintain the life of almost anything that would need lubrication, from guns to cars to construction equipment.

CT Academy for Education

Cage has worked with the CT Academy for Education to provide both IT support and website support since the early 2000s.  Their website was originally launched in 2003 with a basic content editing tool and not much else.  The navigation was one of the best that you could have at the time, with impressive drop down menus and being able to edit content on your own back then was almost unheard of.  Fast forward 7 years to 2010; the world has changed, drop down navigation menus are everywhere and it is almost unheard of not being able to edit your own content.

In mid-2010 Cage took on the task of moving CT Academy's website from a very basic custom built content management system in Mura.  The project entailed a basic site redesign to make everything a little more friendly and easier on the eyes, a new flash navigation on the home page showing a couple of popular pages, and a couple of listing of organization members.

Internal Work

We here at Cage are firm believers in the idea of not pushing anything out for clients that we wouldn't be willing to use for ourselves.  That is why our first Mura based website was actually our own website. In the beginning of they year Cage over went a complete overhaul of our web presence.  We started with a new website which included our new logo and a more modern up to date look and feel.  We will miss our good ol' cow, but we felt that in order to better connect with the level that we put our clients at we needed to do some massive upgrade.