Hi all.
My name is Brenden Worley. I own a website design and hosting company called Mediart Solutions.
www.mediart.com.au
Having been in the Web Design industry for 10 years we have moved through many different methods for development of commercial websites. in November of 2006 we started researching CMS systems as an alternative to hard coding sites. At that time Mambo was a big word in the google searches. Joomla then became the best thing out there. Mediart started developing with Joomla soon after and we have not looked back.
I do not see how I could ever NOT use Joomla for the types of sites we do.
Not long after that we rebuilt our hosting environment to be best suited to Joomla implementation. Using Cpanel, Fantastico and a very good Datacentre we are able to host and manage Joomla sites very easily. Our hosting service now supports an additional 3 Joomla development companies. For end user support you cant go past this hosting service. (there is my little plug - but honestly it is a good system for Joomla people).
To date over 95% of our recent work has all been Joomla based. One of the biggest projects we have completed was
www.crazycow.com.au. This site uses a vast array of Joomla components that work together to produce a very powerful online community. (very similar to this site).
Some of the products used in the site include:
- Joomla - of course
- JACLPlus - extended member group customisation
- Community Builder
- AEC Subscription Manager
- Firboard Forum
- JCalPro - event listings
- JCE - wysiwyg editor
- Sigsiu Online Business Index
- Ads Manager - online classifieds
- Auction Fun - online auctions
- Virtuemart - online shop
- UtChat - online chat
- Eway Payment Gateways
The best part is that many of these features are all intergrated into the AEC paid membership system. We have custom built some payment interfaces for both AEC and Virtuemart to use shared payment method (no SSL required) and to date it is all working better than expected.
Mediart is based in Shepparton VIC which is about 1.5 hours from Melbourne. We would like to become more involved in the Aussie Joomla Community but to date, it has been hard to get to the Melbourne meetings. If anyone would like any further info about our Joomla experiences please feel free to drop me a line.
I am looking forward to the next few years of Joomla Development. I see it as a very big player in the development of commercial websites.
