Content management systems (sometimes referred to in the abbreviated term ‘CMS’) are systems that allow you to manage the content, and dependent on what options you have chosen for your CMS system, additional features which affect your website. If you plan to update both the content and design of your website on a regular basis, then your website is a more likely candidate for use on the basis of a CMS system; this is because most CMS systems provide you with a web based administration interface to help you manage the content and features which are relevant to your website on the fly from any internet connected computer or location. CMS systems are generally feature rich since there is normally a large community of web developers who actually develop these systems, which means that they are highly reliable in most cases; most high profile CMS systems are open source, which means that they are free for use by the general public and also means that the developer community which is behind the actual piece of software is normally one which isn’t paid, and the developers of that community generally give up their own time to aid in the development of the project. Most large scale websites are based on CMS systems, since the expanse of them is so large and new information is always being added to them - if they were to use regular static HTML pages then it would be more or less impossible for them to maintain the websites concerned to the extent that they do with the CMS systems that they use; you will also find that larger websites use their own custom built or premium CMS systems since they are after a system which is both secure and scalable so that it is able to keep up with the demand that their website will continue to get over time, and will also most likely increase. You will find that most smaller websites that are using CMS systems are using open source ones; this is because they are free, and the developer community behind them normally provides a good level of support for free through public forums - this also means that members of the general public are able to aid in the support of people who have problems with a certain piece or section of the CMS system, you will also find that open source CMS systems have a large add-on respitory which means that you can customize your open source CMS installation to the way you want it to be - this also means that you can carry out many activities from within one application which without would mean that you would have to install many separate systems to help meet the same level of functionality that the one CMS system is able to provide you with in terms of what you can do with it and scalability. CMS systems are generally written in the PHP server side scripting language, and are supported by a MySQL database back-end to ensure that all the data connected to them can be stored within one central and easily accessible location to ensure the greatest flexibility with your website.

Features

Many CMS systems provide you with a web based administration panel with a built in WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) editor to ensure that you can view and edit the content which you have added to the system effectively; the editor also means that you can add multimedia articles such as images and flash videos into your CMS pages and view them in real time without the need to have to save the content and actually reload the web page concerned to actually make sure that the content you have added will display correctly within the page that you have created - one thing to note if you are new to the concept of CMS systems is that all the information that you are adding to the system is stored in a central MySQL database which in some cases might be automatically generated when you install the system within your website hosting space. Most systems also allow for the functionality of add-ons which have been designed by third persons, although this will be discussed further on in the article; but in basic this means that you can extend the functionality of your CMS system install to ensure that it runs the way that you want it to run and that it contains the custom features that you want it to have. You will also find that the CMS system which you have chosen to use will allow for you to modify the links that are shown within the menus that are located within the system; this means that if you want to link to external websites or web pages that are not contained within your CMS system or under your domain then you can with ease, and can even place the links where you want if you style your system and manage it correctly. Most CMS systems provide some sort of login functionality which gives you the ability to create password protected areas for your website, which are only accessible if you have a username and password which are authorized for entry to the part of the website concerned; this also means that you can create multiple account to allow many people to add an edit the content of your website and CMS system, although this may prove to be a disadvantage if they end up changing something which they were not meant to have changed - one thing to note is that although not all CMS systems may provide a visitor login functionality for your website, all should provide a password protected administration interface which you can create many accounts for so that other people as well as yourself can manage the content of the CMS systen as well as the settings which it possesses. You will also be given the ability to theme or skin the CMS system that you choose, so that you can style it to look the way that you want it to - this feature is general of most CMS systems that are available, both open source and commercial; this means that even if you do choose to use a third party CMS system to base your website on, you can still skin it and theme it to ensure that it matches both the colour scheme of your company and is laid out the way you want it to be - this sort of functionality is normally achieve by the use of CSS, so knowledge of the CSS style language is a must have to theme or skin a CMS system.

Add-Ons

Most CMS systems allow you to create and add add-ons to them to help you expand the functionality of them, which means that you can get a lot more out of one system than you could with having multiple open source or commercial applications installed to carry out the different tasks which you may expect from both your website and the internet, and in some cases the web hosting that you have chosen to ensure that either you or your business has an online presence to sell products and services that you may want to provide over the internet. Add-ons for most CMS systems cover a wide range of categories, which means that you can use your CMS install to base almost any type of website on - the options are more or less endless when it comes to choosing add-ons for your installation; for example you might want to install a shop within your CMS installation - this should be easy since all you have to do in most cases is upload a few files and run a setup page that will then integrate the add-on into your CMS system in terms of databases and other functions which might be needed in order to allow the add-on to run efficiently. Add-ons don’t always have to be functions to help with the interactivity that users are able to have with either your website or your CMS install; some add-ons can help you on the administration side, for example in the case of Joomla, there are add-ons which are able to replace the advert management system within the administration panel - this is because it contains lot more features than the advert system that comes built in with Joomla, you might also find other add-ons which are able to replace certain features of the administration panel of the CMS system which you have chosen to use, the main reason being that they possess a lot more features than their counterparts which come built into the CMS system which you have chosen. Other CMS add-ons might also help you monitor the visitor activity to your website; for example there might be an add-on for use with the CMS system that you have chosen which can monitor the pages within your websites that visitors look at, the feature might also choose to log more intimate details about visitors such as their location and the IP address which has been assigned to either their internet connection or the computer that they have chosen to use.

Conclusion

In conclusion, content management systems provide you with many features which you can use to aid in the management of the content which you have displayed on your website; you can use them to edit and manage the content that you have contained within your website on the fly via the use of the web based administration panel that is provided with most CMS systems. If you feel the need to expand your website, then you can use the add-ons feature of the CMS which you are using to expand the use of your system via the use of add-ons which you have either developed yourself or have either purchased or downloaded from the websites of third party developers. If you have a static HTML based website which contains many pages, then you should consider a CMS system since it means that you and others can easily manage the content for your website without the need for any desktop website editor such as Adobe Dreamweaver or Microsoft Frontpage - it also means that the people who are managing the content require little to no technical knowledge since most CMS systems can be classed as ‘idiot proof’. You might also find with the ability to expand the use of your website, that you can expand the use of the administration area that you are using to manage your website; this is because the administration area and the features that it contains which are part of most CMS systems are very basic, and you can normally get third party add-ons which can improve on the built in features, and can help make the management of the system easier for you. If your website is only a small one, then you should only consider an open source CMS system if you are looking to make your website more dynamic; if you want a more scalable system because your website receives many visitors, then you should consider a commercial CMS system since these are normally very scalable since they can handle many users and are normally more dynamic and the support for them is normally much more helpful.

PHP and ASP.NET are the two main scripting languages used by web developers. PHP is a multi-platform open-source language whilst ASP.NET is a single platform language built and owned by Microsoft. Both of these languages are packed full of features and add-ons for both are available so that you are able to extend their framework to build feature rich applications. Although PHP is open source, it has a large active community which is there to support users of the language; ASP.NET is a product of Microsoft meaning that there is a large amount of online documentation and other community forums where you can get support.

PHP

PHP is a language which has been around since 1984 and powers many of the world’s websites. It is free and is known as ‘open source’ software meaning that its source code is available for download, at no cost. It widely used in conjunction with the MySQL database engine, but can be used with others such as Oracle and SQLite. PHP is generally easier to code in than ASP.NET, since it has more functions built in than its rival; however, ASP.NET has built-in AJAX functions which is something that PHP lacks. Since PHP is open source, there is a number of applications that are available for free based on it, most of these applications are commonly used and are very powerful; also, there is a greater number of community forums and blogs where you are able to find information regarding PHP since it is open source.

PHP is a dynamic language since there are several different types of database that you are able to connect to, including: MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL and in some cases, Microsoft SQL Server. You are also able to edit the source of the language if you wish to speed it up or install custom modifications so that it is able to run as per your requirements; again, this is because it is open source - although ASP.NET is a free language, it isn’t open source meaning that you are unable to edit its source.

ASP.NET 

ASP.NET is a language based on classic ASP - both languages are owned and were created by Microsoft. Although it is a free language, it isn’t open source meaning that you are unable to view or edit the source code of it. Also, it is very limited in what database types you can use with it - Microsoft only invented it to work with Microsoft Access and Microsoft SQL Server databases, although developers can use it with MySQL databases with the help of third party components. Classic ASP, ASP.NET’s forefather, was created back in the mid-1990s and is the base which ASP.NET has been built on. One thing which annoys many ASP.NET developers is the fact that Microsoft is forever releasing updates to the system, and in its course, changing things along the way meaning that in some cases, developers have to keep on learning the changes as well as the new components and functions which are being added.

Ecommerce is the collective name given to online shops, or any online practice where products are sold. Many businesses are slowly opening there own eCommerce stores - in other words, an online shop; if you are a business wanting to setup one then the process of doing so can be a complex one. You can either choose to use an existing eCommerce store system, or you can develop an in-house one; there are both free (open source) and premium (paid) eCommerce store solutions available, before you choose a system you should be aware of all your needs as well as all the different systems which fit your needs. Before beginning, you should identify all your needs within an online shop so that you are able to make informed choices.

Universal Needs

Once you have identified your needs, you will then need to identify the available eCommerce solutions which are able to fit your needs; there are universal needs which you should always take into consideration; there are: end-user accesibility, administration accessibility and search engine optimisation. Making sure that your shop is accessible for the end user is of the utmost importance, since you could be easily sued if a disabled person, or anyone for that matter can’t find their way around your shop with ease. In order to make your shop successful you want to make sure that the systems you look at are good with SEO; SEO stands for ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ and is the processed involved with optimising a website to gain traffic from search engines. You want to make sure that the administration interface is easy to use and navigate, to that colleagues or employees can find their way around it as well, thus allowing them to add products and administer the shop as well.

Looking at Solutions

Once you have worked out all your needs and have found the systems which suit them, you will need to start looking at the different types of systems which are available to you. Free and premium systems are all available with different features, although many add-ons are normally available for free systems; if you are a new shop and aren’t expecting to earn much when starting off, you should consider using a free system as many of them can be quite powerful and should suit your needs for months, or even years to come. If you are going to be running a shop receiving thousands of visitors, or are going to be listing a large amount of products, you should consider a premium system since they are normally more scalable than free systems and should serve your needs for as long as your business is running. The following is a list of free eCommerce systems which you should take a look at:

• OSCommerce - http://www.oscommerce.com
• Magento - http://www.magentocommerce.com

Premium systems to look at:

• Actinic - http://www.actinic.com
• CactuShop - http://www.cactushop.com

Every web host uses some sort of web-based billing system to ensure that their customers are able to be notified of new invoices, be able to pay them online as well have the ability to edit and update their contact information; there is a market for web host billing systems, although some companies prefer to build their own in-house solutions. Some of the current market leaders include ModernBill, ClientExec and WHMCS; all these systems contain multiple features, but all vary greatly from each other. Choosing a billing system can be a hard task because almost every system has many features and gateways built into it; however, if you work out which features you need then choosing a system can be made easy. The core features of most systems include automatic WHM account setup, automatic domain registration and invoice generation if a cron is used.

Identifying Your Needs

Identifying your needs is important when looking for a web host billing system; many systems have many features so it is important you know what you want when you are looking. Most web hosts require a billing system which has features such as a helpdesk, knowledgebase, downloads section and a client area where a client can manage things such as packages and invoices. You should also make sure that the systems you look at allow for styling and customisation so that you can change the design to match your site; if you choose to stay with the default design then clients are going to be more cautious about entering their personal details. You should also take security into consideration when choosing a system; some systems have known vulnerabilities, and warez copies are also available meaning that a hacker could easily hack a system by take advantage of one of the vulnerabilities, or by finiding a vulnerability in the package themselves; security should be something that is at the top of your list whilst looking for a billing system as you should always consider the confidentiality of the data which it will be storing. All web host billing systems come at a cost, but there are a few which are free as long as you don’t remove their coopyright notice from the footer of the pages; the following is a list of free web host billing systems:

• PHPCoin - http://www.phpcoin.com
• Adore 2.0 - http://freedownloadscenter.com/Web_Authoring/Automated_Web_Publishing_Tools/Free_Billing_Software_from_Adore.html

The following is a list of the most popular premium web host billing systems which are worth a closer look at:

• ModernBill - http://www.moderbill.com
• WHMCS - http://www.whmcs.com

The Final Choice

You should make your final choice based solely on your requirements; you don’t want to end up buying a package with not enough features, or one too feature packed you don’t know what you’re going to do with half of it. There are some features which all systems come with which can be easily waived, these include helpdesks and built-in knowledgebases; most hosts have another system for support features, such as Kayako or SupportTrio. When trying out billing systems, most web hosts only trial the administrator panel and not the client panel; your final decision should always be based on the client since you want to make sure that you keep your clients happy; it is for this reason that you should always trial the customer control panel as well to see if it is easy to use, if you find it easy to use then your clients will most likely find the same, which should keep them happy. If you are to use the built-in support solutions then you should always make sure that it is easily accessible from the client control panel; you should also ensure that you have email piping and cron jobs setup so that you are able to support your clients in a organised and respectful manner.

CMS stands for content management system; these are systems where you are able to create and modify web pages on the fly since they are database driven applications, most of the best known CMS solutions are open source meaning that they are free. By using a CMS you are able to create and edit the content on your website with easy from any internet connected location; with most CMS applications, add-ons are available allowing you to extend your system to cover many different functions. All systems come with a default design, but theming a CMS to suit the design you want can be done easily through the use of templates. You should only use a CMS if the content on your site needs regular updates, or if your site is a rather large one with alot of content; if you have a small website then a CMS will be of no benefit to you in anyway, it could become an annoyance in certain situations, for example if you’re not going to update your content regularly then you could end up forgetting the administrator password.

Choosing a CMS

Choosing CMS can be either an easy task, or a hard one; the decision of where it is easy or hard is based upon your requirements. If you have fairly simple requirements, for example what operating systems it can run on and whether it is XHTML compliant then you could be in for an easy search since there are CMS solutions available which will run on any operating system, and if the chosen system’s default template isn’t XHTML compliant then you can easily code yourself a custom template which you can make XHTML compliant if you wish. However, if your requirements are much more strict then you could end up having to pay for a premium CMS, or face a hard search for an open source CMS that fits your requirements.

There are universal factors which you should also take into consideration, such as whether the systems you are looking at are SEO friendly and how secure they are. SEO friendly CMS systems will convert your pages to friendly URLs such as ‘http://www.my-cms-site.com/new-article/cat-falls-down-drain-after-slipping-off-tree-branch’, in that case the CMS has taken the article title o ‘Cat Falls Down Drain After Slipping Off Tree Branch’ and converted it into a URL which search engines will consider friendly - these types of URLs can end up with a search engine such as Google giving you a higher rank. Security is also a big factor concerning CMS systems; open source systems are remarkebly insecure since they are available to anyone meaning that a hacker can easily get a copy and find the exploits within, once they have found the exploits they can then go on to targeting websites based on the system concerned; SQL injections are also easily executed on open source systems.

The following is a list of open source CMS systems which you should consider trying out:

• Joomla - http://www.joomla.org
• PHPNuke - http://www.phpnuke.org
• Drupal - http://www.drupal.org

You will find that all of the ones listed above are powered by PHP and MySQL; these two systems are used in most open source CMS, and both are available on most operating systems.

Installing a CMS 

Installing a CMS can be a very easy task; all you have to do is download the system, upload it to your web space via FTP, setup a blank database and then set permissions on some files to ‘777′ - thats the technical part done. Most systems have specially built setup wizards ready made to make the installation as easy as possible. There is also a range of open source CMS available for instant installation from the CMS category within Fantastico, if you are on cPanel based website hosting. The following is a list of free guides which you can use to help you install some of the most popular open souce CMS:

• How to Install Joomla - http://www.joomlatribune.com/joomla-tutorials/how-to-install-joomla-cms.html
• How to Install Drupal 5 (Videocast) - http://www.lullabot.com/videocast/installing_drupal_5
• How to Install PHPNuke - http://www.trap17.com/index.php/how-install-php-nuke_t22493.html
• How to Install Mambo - http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/mambo/mambo_installation.htm

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets and is the language behind the design of most web pages. In order to achieve a good looking website desifn that is XHTML 1.0 compliant, you should always build your pages using CSS. Its structure is similar to that of both PHP and Javascript, meaning that if you already develop using either of these languages then you should find CSS realtively easy to learn. If you are new to the concept of coding, then you will need to start by learning the basic structure of CSS.

The Basic Structure

CSS elements are normally contained within a code structure which normally takes this form: ‘[element type]#/.[element name] { style properties }’. The element type is the type of element which you want to style, such as a div; the element name is the actual name which you want to give the element, such as ‘bob’. An element which is an id can only be used once within a web page, and in the CSS code is defined by using ‘#’ before the element name; elements which are defined as classes can be used multiple times within a web page and is defined by using a ‘.’ before the element name within a CSS document. The actual properties of the element are contained within the ‘{} tags, ‘{’ being the opening tag and ‘}’ being the closing tag.

You can also style elements without using a name. This is useful is you want the same style to be applied to the same element type throughout a web page. To do this you don’t need to use the id or class symbols since no name is being specified; all you need to put before the opening tag is the element type as seen in HTML format, for our example we want the paragraph element to have the same style properties throughout the web page, so we define the style in this way: ‘p { style properties }’ - we used the ‘p’ element since this is the HTML for a paragraph within a web page. Each style property is defined in the following format: ‘property: value;’; as you can see a colon is present after the property name is defined - this is important as browsers are only able to read elements which are set out with the colon; the semi-colon is present to represent the end of the property - without this present at the end of each property, browsers won’t be able to read the rest of your style sheet.

Style Properties

There are many different properties that you can use within a style block to make an element look good; however, the likelihood is that you will never use all of them. The most important properties within a style block are the ‘width’ and ‘height’ properties since they control the size of the element. However, if you only want to style a text element, such as a ’span’ or ‘p’ element then you will not need to use either of these properties since they are only used to control a box object; in your case the most important properties would be the ‘font-family’, ‘font-size’ and ‘color’ elements since they control how the text will appear.

With CSS you can control how far away other objects on the page must keep from a certain object - the property to control this is called the ‘margin’ property; it has four ’sub-properties’ for each different side of an object, these being ‘margin-top’, ‘margin-bottom’, ‘margin-left’ and ‘margin-right’ - these ’sub-properties’ provide margin styling for each separate side of the object and can be defined individually.

One problem which many people face when building websites using CSS is getting their pages centred. Achieving this is quite simple, all you have to do is define the ‘text-align’ element of the body tag within the CSS document as ‘center’, and each element which you want to centre must have their ‘margin-left’ and ‘margin-right’ properties set to ‘auto’.

Other CSS Resources 

The following is a list of resources you may want to visit if you want to extend your knowledge of CSS:

• http://w3schools.com/css/default.asp - W3Schools is the learning medium trusted by most. This site gives you an extended knowledge base of tutorials which should help you learn CSS.
• http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/Web-Style-Sheets/Learn-CSS-part-1/ - This is the first part of a serious of articles discussing CSS.
• http://www.utexas.edu/learn/css/ - This article is perfect for beginners and covers the higher up basics.