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Portal Flare takes pride in giving our clients the best web solutions possible at affordable prices. There are lots of web developers out there and there are many ways to spend your money on developing a web solution. You can easily spend tens of thousands of dollars and still end up with a poor solution that costs more to maintain than it's worth. Or you can probably find a cheap solution that will have you pulling your hair out after a few weeks.

Custom-made software doesn't have to mean extrodinary costs, re-inventing the wheel, or rolling the dice on your web investment. Portal Flare offers the best of both worlds: quality solutions at affordable prices. We have this capability because we utilitize and support Open Source Software.

What is Open Source Software?

Open Source is simply software that other developers have created and provided to the developer and user communities free of charge.

Why use Open Source Software?

There are several good reasons that Open Source development platforms are the best choice.

  1. Software Developer
    Open Source Software allows a developer to contribute to an already existing product or application, it also provides a rich set of library code (basic functionality) effectively giving you an almost unlimited amount of blocks upon which to build your applications. The OS community fosters reuse so there is no need to re-invent the wheel - a major problem for all developers before the dawn of Open Source. Open Source for developers translates into a huge savings in development time.
  2. Business Consumer
    Open Source Software allows businesses to utilize enterprise-level and department-level software applications without prohibitive licensing costs. The availability and commoditization of software that OSS provides and encourages drives down the cost of software that corporations and users would normally consume.

The Bottom Line

Open Source Software provides us with a stable foundation and excellent building blocks that we can use to create reliable, quality, custom-made software without the prohibitive costs of closed platforms.

 

 


 

 

The Tools We Use


Linux is a free Unix-type operating system originally created by Linus Torvalds with the assistance of developers around the world. Developed under the GNU General Public License , the source code for Linux is freely available to everyone, causing a revolution in the world of computers.

 


PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML. According to the Netcraft Survey, PHP is the #1 Apache module world-wide.

 


Joomla! is one of the most powerful Open Source Content Management Systems on the planet. It is used all over the world for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. Joomla! is easy to install, simple to manage, and reliable.
Apache has been the most popular web server on the Internet since April 1996. The November 2005 Netcraft Web Server Survey found that more than 70% of the web sites on the Internet are using Apache, thus making it more widely used than all other web servers combined. The Apache HTTP Server is a project of the Apache Software Foundation.


The MySQL® database has become the world's most popular open source database because of its consistent fast performance, high reliability and ease of use. It's used in more than 8 million installations ranging from large corporations to specialized embedded applications on every continent in the world. (Yes, even Antarctica!)

Not only is MySQL the world's most popular open source database, it's also become the database of choice for a new generation of applications built on the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP).


Simple Machines Forum - SMF in short - is a free, professional grade software package that allows you to set up your own online community within minutes. Its powerful custom made template engine puts you in full control of the lay-out of your forum and with our unique SSI - or Server Side Includes - function you can let your forum and your website interact with each other. SMF is written in the popular language PHP and uses a MySQL database.
 
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