How Big is Their Team? The size of a development team can be important to you depending on the versatility of the team members. If they are all fluent in programming, then there really isn't much diversity. It is rare to find the jack of all trades when it comes to software development, which is why a team of 3-5 unique developers is often better than an individual themselves.

With Nerds On Site you have the expertise and knowledge of Nerds worldwide working together to better themselves and to provide their clients with fast, accurate and effective services. Our Development Team ranges in the type of projects we do, but in the end we are always available for one on one assistance. More often then not during our weekly meetings we are inquiring about potential problems with an ongoing development project, or offering solutions to each other. We are in constant communication which allows for a development project to be created more efficiently and accurately for you. We can run ideas off each other, or divulge a secret we used when developing a similar project in the past, our ability to assist is endless compared to that of an individual working by themselves. And in our case, just because we have a bigger team, it doesn't mean you pay more. It's just the way we do business.

Check back next week when we cover why "Services Offered", can be so important when hiring a developer.

Technology allows a company to thrive and grow forward, but what happens when it lets us down?

Websites are reliable but again they aren't impervious to unknown issues and errors that could potentially lose all your data. Therefore I recommend those users that use Joomla to install a Backup Plug-in such as Akeeba Backup Core

For more advanced users or non Joomla based websites a simple mirror of the httpdocs folder from your FTP server to a local directory works as well. Or if you prefer to have someone else take care of and monitor this so you can focus on the business end of things, we offer our NerdCare Hosting packages to suit your needs.

If your website went down today, and you lost everything, how would it impact your company's productivity and financial commitments?

Did you know hosting hosting companies do NOT offer these services:

• Availability monitoring
• Complete backups
• Disaster recovery
• Hourly hack detection

We do, and for a small monthly fee we can include these services in our Hosting NerdCare package. And if you have a Joomla site with us, we can include:

• Joomla upgrades
• Content updates

Yes, content updates - if you need to update your site every other week with new content, you just email us and within a business day we have the changes done.

This week we will take a quick look at: Pricing - Flat rate vs hourly?

You get what you pay for, but you don't want to pay extra to someone that is taking their time to get the job done (especially when you're paying hourly). With a flat rate structure, you know there will be no hidden surprises when the project is done. Just like all Nerds On Site services, we use a flat rate model - before we start, we provide the final cost to you. Of course, there are times that a new project feature is added, but we also quote those as a flat rate.

The main difference why a project should be hourly instead of flat rate is if the scope of the work can't be defined. There are clients that are unsure of what they need, and have constantly changing criteria. Stopping each time to redefine the scope would drastically slow down development so in turn, an hourly model can be used.

However, if you've defined the scope of work and and your developer insists on hourly, then there is a good chance the developer doesn't understand what you need. You may want to reconsider using them email us instead.

Check back next week when we cover why "Professional Manner", can be so important when hiring a developer.

The hardest thing about hiring a developer is determining their level of expertise so that you are not paying more money in the end to fix what you paid them in the beginning to do right.

Local Independent Developer:
- Just one developer, usually working alone
- Limited solutions they can deliver as a sole developer
- Project sizes are focused usually smaller because their reach is limited
Nerds On Site:
- Experience offered by a team of Nerds
- Vast knowledge, based on a large resource pool of collective Nerds experience
- Unlimited project sizes as we have Nerds around the world and experience with all project sizes (from a local farmer to a $100 million hospital construction project)

As you can see above, why hire an individual developer when you can have an entire team behind your development needs/solutions.

Another thing is to check out is their portfolio of completed work to help you understand the depth of skill. For example Nerds On Site has helped develop and maintain projects with companies such as; Elgin St. Thomas Public Health, Daintree Networks, and One Extra Guy.

Check back next week when we take a look at why "Pricing", can be so important when hiring a developer.

Over the next few weeks we will look into what you should be asking and looking for when deciding who is best suited for your company's development needs no matter how big or small. The 6 areas we will focus on are:

- Experience
- Pricing
- Professional Manner
- How Big is Their Team
- Services Offered
- Graphics/Visual Appeal

We are going to focus on the differences between why Nerds on Site Development is better suited for your business then a local development company you may or may not be thinking about using.

Check back next week when we take a look at why “Experience”, can be so important when hiring a developer.

I'm sure you're asking yourself how software development can help you go green. Look around your desk, see all those sticky notes, requisitions, forms you need to complete - all paper that needs to be completed and either archived, sent back to other team members or other companies.

We've helped many companies do this. One of our clients used 600 pieces of paper per project, with over 100 projects a year, they used 60,000 pieces of paper. We developed an application that helped them go paperless. This helped them save paper, reduce costs and better organize their data. As well, each team member could access the information from any location without having to drive to the company office to access it.

Let us help you - if you have paper piling up, or a wall of sticky notes, send us an EMAIL.

The Nerds On Site Development team has a few things on the go right now that we are pretty excited to release in the upcoming weeks. One of which is our streamlined approach to getting small businesses and even individual business owners web-ready at an affordable price. Imagine the simplicity in being able to search hundreds of web page layouts and picking the one that best suits your needs. Once that is done, you simply provide us with your logo the content for your site and we do the rest. We also give you the knowledge and power through basic training to then control the site and complete real-time updates without the hassle of waiting on someone else. Believe us when we say we will make you the master of your domain!

Whether you are just making yourself visible to the world, or you are looking at having more complex requests we can get you set up in a timely and cost effective manner.