CMS is the abbreviation for "Content Management System." So what does this mean to your business? Back in the dark ages of the Internet (B2K, or "Before 2000"), unless a business had huge resources to invest, the information content of most websites was static. This means that each page was written as a complete HTML document by a programmer and uploaded to the website.

HTML is the acronym for Hypertext Markup Language, the basic language of the Internet, in which text is enclosed between tags which give format to that text. A simple example of this would be bolding text. This bold text would be formatted in HTML as <b>This bold text</b>. Of course, for a web page with a lot of content and a lot of formatting, this meant that all of the HTML formatting was time consuming and tedious. The limitations of this method meant that most small businessmen had to pay a consultant to re-write each web page as it needed updating. A few hardy souls took it upon themselves to invest in HTML editors and learn the language so that they could keep their business websites current. Of course, while they did this, none of their other affairs got handled.

Then along came open source languages like PHP, open source databases like mySQL, and the blossoming of the open source online programming community. PHP is a server side scripting language that writes HTML on the fly. The page literally does not exist as formatted HTML until you, the viewer, call it into being. The content is stored in the database. When you click on a link on the page, PHP queries the database for the content relevant to that link. The database serves the content up, and PHP takes that content and formats it as HTML, which is then displayed in your browser window. All of this seems complicated, but it actually takes place in milliseconds, and you, the viewer, are not aware of all of this going on in the background. In fact, every page on this website comes into being exactly this way.

So how does all of this relate to your website?

This website is made possible by a CMS (Content Management System). Instead of our having to re-program each and every page every time we make an update to the content, and then upload that page to the server, our CMS provides an administrative "back end" that the website administrator (or his representative) logs into to control the content. Writing a new article and publishing it, or updating or deleting an existing article, is simply a matter of using the built in word processing tools, right in your browser, to write the text, and then clicking a "submit" button to publish it to the website. All the tools necessary to format text, create links, new menu items, new sections, etc., are all contained in the administrative section. You can even move parts of the website around the page simply by clicking a few buttons. For example, moving the "Accountability" section that is currently located on the right side of the front page can be moved to the left side of the page with just a few clicks of the mouse - no programming knowledge necessary.

Incidentally, all of these concepts apply to how open source shopping cart systems work, as well.

The power and flexibility of a CMS or shopping cart, driven by PHP and mySQL, open up great possibilities which were previously "unobtanium" to the small business website owner. The power of the open source community and the full potential of the Internet is now available at affordable rates.

For more information, contact us.