Custom Web Development

From startup to enterprise solutions

Wit’s End is pleased to offer website design, development, and hosting services, including accessibility auditing and remediation and consulting and optimization for existing websites.

Accessibility is a core value at Wit’s End.  Accessibility audits are always free of charge.  

WordPress 

WordPress dominates the website market, and for a good number of reasons.  It suits a lot of needs out of the box, and can be built upon for future requirements.

A starter WordPress package, with basic content management, theme customisation and development is available from $500, including managed hosting for one year.

Drupal

The new Drupal CMS platform incorporates a lot of the user-friendliness of WordPress with the robust and scalable features of the drupal platform.  The aleveny profile from Wit’s End features multiple accessible components out of the box.

A starter Drupal CMS package, with basic content management, theme customisation and development is available from $500, including managed hosting for one year.

Affordable hosting solutions

witsend.cc offers customised managed website hosting

Wit’s End provides professional web services including domain and site hosting, secure email services, and managed site updates.

If you are paying too much for managed hosting, come on over.  It’s inexpensive and satisfaction guaranteed.

 

Enterprise hosting solutions

Amazee.io offers managed hosting for large businesses

My colleagues at amazee.io can offer solid solutions for managed hosting on most platforms. 

Wit’s End web services can help your business grow and save money with enterprise-level services.

Testimonials and Portfolio

I have had some excellent experiences with some really great clients and awesome projects, please take a look at these for a start:

My client required a team leader in BazaarVoice reviews integration with industry-leader OPI Products website. I provided server-side integration of the BazaarVoice API as well as embedding of required software into the drupal framework.

Arne jumped into a pretty complex Drupal situation and handled some complex Bazaar Voice work for us. His communication is great, skills are top notch, and I’d be happy to hire him again. Highly recommended.

Ben Valdmets, DSIRE - OPI

Client provided Sketch files for mobile and desktop, with functionality implied by the layout.  My task was a full site build from scratch in the Drupal Lightning profile and Cog theme, i.e. to create all required functionality and layout to reflect the elements in the artwork. All theme and development requirements were transferred by git and daily db snapshot to their staging server. I leveraged various contrib modules and custom code to create functionality for multiple template layouts using Atomic design principles.

Arne is responsive and was willing to work with us on a project with a short deadline and demanding spec. He communicates well and delivers on time. From a developer perspective, Arne is an experienced Drupal dev and helped us build a site config and theme.

I worked with Derek over the course of a year or more to help improve the Society for Intercultural Education Training and Research (SIETAR) organisation’s CiviCRM integrated Drupal website.  They do good work, and the content was all in German, which made it more fun.

Our association was looking to revamp its Drupal website. We had a complicated setup with an integrated CiviCRM database that required in-depth knowledge of Drupal / Civi integration. At the same time, we were looking for someone who could program our custom design ideas into Drupal 7. Arne did this quickly and with limited guidance. The constant feedback we gave him was implemented promptly. He also helped us out with a load of little technical questions we had. Just when we thought we were done, members would come up with new little ideas they wanted to implement. In the end, we just left the job open and Arne sort of became our defacto webmaster, making quick changes for us every few weeks. And after all that, when the association decided to move from Drupal over to a WordPress website, Arne was able to help us with that, too! I would highly recommend his services.

Derek Tronsgard - SIETAR Deutschland

I worked with Isaac over a few years, both on his own website, and on several websites that he managed for his clients, spanning platforms from Drupal, WordPress, NationBuilder, and custom-developed.

Arne is a consummate professional who can take general directions and turn in superior deliverables. His skills stretch across a broad set of scripting, programming, and web technologies, and he is very quick at evaluating existing configurations and environments and navigating towards a solution. 

Isaac Shalev - Sage70

This was a complete artistic overhaul of an existing WordPress site for Singular.net, an industry leader in marketing analytics and attribution.

There were many requirements, including custom slider, advanced custom fields applications, and custom css3 animations, as well as a custom javascript parallax application in the front page header. It also features a custom ajax Search and Filter application for Job listings, in use at: https://www.singular.net/careers/

Singular - singular.net

Client required overhaul of Member page sections, as well as event content integration. The process involved theming from provided artwork, leveraging Advanced Custom Fields configuration and coding, and use of CSS3 and flexbox for responsive behaviour. Implementation of custom code from external APIs into the php template engine allowed seamless display of external feed content within existing the website theme.

Arne was a pleasure to work with. Very skilled WordPress/PHP developer and also very efficient. He was able to offer a solution to improve the functionality and reliability and was able to solve every problem. I can highly recommend Arne for your custom WordPress/PHP project.

My client wanted a cutting-edge review site with vector graphics for page elements, and custom services for optimising images and video for all devices. I led the development and theming for the site, which features the Kraken.io optimisation service for uploaded image media, and the Scald library for managing all media content. It also features a Masonry layout that re-arranges itself on page-width changes. The custom UI for Content editors resulted in an easy to follow UX for the end user.

Arne span up two Drupal sites for us, and helped with troubleshooting and updates across the portfolio. He’s a very knowledgeable Drupal developer and very good with front-end theming too. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend him for full-stack Drupal work.

off-road.cc - Off-Road.cc

Full-stack development and theme improvements including migration from hand-edited posts to Woocommerce product displays. Leveraging the WooCommerce platform functionality allowed the client to have consistent layout among products and categories as well as saving time by automating display of custom attributes and categories.

Arne worked on a very tight deadline, and went the extra mile helping with other “mission critical” issues to our online business while deploying the scheduled fix’s we hired him for. He is an exceptional developer, and was great to work with. Will be working with Arne in the future for other projects. Highly recommend.

Savaria Concord Lifts Inc. - Savaria.com

GSAP – Animate Everything

Now free for everyone, thanks to Webflow’s support

If you are leaning towards Webflow or another DIY website builder, please take a moment to consider that all of the GreenSock Animation Platform components are now available for use anywhere by anybody.

This means that if you want the fancy animation offered by the proprietary software providers without the strings attached, you can have it.  And take your website anywhere if you decide to leave.

Both WordPress and Drupal packages have unlimited access to the GSAP libraries for fun presentation.

a11y means Accessibility

It’s just a lot easier to spell

Accessibility is a core value at Wit’s End.  Accessibility audits are always free of charge.

Whether it is applied to web services or fabricated products, every attention to detail is made so that they can be enjoyed by as many people as possible.

The ‘aleveny’ brand arose from a playful way of saying ‘a11y’ the common abbreviation of the word accessibility.  It is meant to be used as an adjective, i.e. “Nice and aleveny” as a verb, i.e. “We need to aleveny this whole component” or as an adverb and noun, i.e. “If we work together aleveny, we improve the aleveny of it.”  It is intended to playfully expand its own use for the purpose of improved understanding and implementation.

The core principles of the WCAG a11y project are:

  • Perceivable
  • Operable
  • Understandable, and
  • Robust

They are available here, and it is ongoing:

https://www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals/accessibility-principles/

There are automated tools that help identify common failures for a11y, but it takes human sensibility to provide strong support for the entirety of these principles. 

See the Pen MorphSVG - a11y by Arne Olafson (@arne-olafson) on CodePen.

Do you need your own Private Social Network?

You’re in good company.

Wit’s End web services has experience setting up private social networks with the Discourse.org platform.

Online communities are secure, private, and affordable, starting at $7/month plus a one-time $150 setup fee.

Discourse servers are not managed by Wit’s End, merely set up.  The discourse platform is almost entirely self-sustaining with automatic upgrades and integration with free mail services that can handle a lot of communication before requiring a subscription.  As a client, you will own it entirely, and it is surprisingly easy to manage.

Discourse websit

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