Delta Blog

This week, Delta Systems launched our first site utilizing the newest features in WordPress 3.0. The lucky recipient was a local Columbia heating & cooling company called Timmerman’s Maintenance Technology.

Tom Timmerman needed a simple site showing his phone number, a list of services, and a few customer testimonials. Delta Systems, working along with local media group Boxcar Films, gave him a fresh and fun design that did exactly that.

Not being overly experienced in web development and content management systems, Tom also wanted to ensure that he would be able to update his services list and insert new testimonials with ease. That’s where the new WordPress custom post type feature came into play.

The backend of Timmerman's website using the new WordPress custom post type feature

Delta Knows WordPress 3.0 Custom-Post Types

Using custom-tailored forms, Tom can now add, change, or remove items from his list of services with 2 clicks of the mouse. And when a customer pays him a compliment, he can just as easily add a testimonial to the page in the same way.   Either way, the output is instantly styled and published to his homepage, making this one of our most user-friendly content management experiences to date.

Check out the site at http://www.TimmermansHVAC.com

Need something done? Just Call Delta

Delta Systems is a full-service computer consulting company with a suite of development, design, and computer network support talent.

How is Delta different? The Only Way to Know is to Talk to Us

Building online applications and data management systems that are intuitive yet powerful is our specialty.

Do we build simple websites too? You bet. And we do it well using WordPress, Drupal, Expression Engine, and custom solutions.

We also have experts in Microsoft Access Development, EXE development, product commercialization, training on all major software, and more.

Give us a call and find out why over 800 companies have trusted Delta Systems with their networking, web, and programming needs since 1986. Ask around.

You’ll hear people say, “Just call Delta” so much that we made it our website – http://JustCallDelta.com

Visit Steelhead Entertainment.com

Steelhead Entertainment is an online community of artists, promoters, venues, and music industry professionals brought together in the name of metal. Utilizing a mixture of two off-the-shelf systems, Jamroom and WordPress, the team at Delta Systems created custom skins and templates to provide a seamless transition between the two.

This is not Delta’s first foray into the music business. Previously, Delta Systems helped to create AirPlay Direct – an online community of 5,000 radio stations and 24,000 artists from around the world.

Screenshot of the site

Need something done? Just Call Delta

Delta Systems is a full-service computer consulting company with a suite of development, design, and computer network support talent.

Building online applications and data management systems that are intuitive yet powerful is our specialty.

Give us a call and find out why over 800 companies have trusted Delta Systems with their networking, online, and programming needs since 1986.  Ask around.

You’ll hear people say, “Just call Delta” so much that we made it our website – http://JustCallDelta.com

Delta Systems Group Does Web Application Development and a Whole Lot More

Delta Systems is proud to announce the online availability of their new website at http://deltasys.com.

This new site was completely redesigned to not only showcase featured client projects, but also showcase advanced layout and JavaScript talents we have in-house.

New Website Features Include:

1. Completely powered by WordPress
2. Custom WordPress plugin to more easily handle content in the Featured Client Carousel
3. Custom WordPress plugin to handle client testimonials and quotes
4. An Online Portfolio showcasing some of the hundreds of websites and online systems we’ve built
5. An awesome new design using that trendy “wrapped ribbon” look you see everywhere
6. Completely integrated Google Map with custom pushpin and display bubble
7. Crazy Loco SEO features
8. Job Openings listing is fed directly from WordPress blog posts

WordPress Experts

We are WordPress Experts

As an early adopter, Delta Systems has the most experience building and hosting WordPress powered websites of anyone in the area. And just in case there isn’t already a plugin built to make WordPress do exactly what you need, we are experts in building WordPress plugins as well. Ask around and you’ll find out why we’re the best. We have an extensive list of references.

Need Something Done on the Web? Just Call Delta

Delta Systems is a full-service computer consulting company with a suite of in-house development, design, and computer network support talent.

Building online applications and data management systems that are intuitive yet powerful is our specialty.

Give us a call and find out why over 800 companies have trusted Delta Systems with their networking, online, and programming needs since 1986. Ask around.

You’ll hear people say, “Just call Delta” so much that we made it our website – http://JustCallDelta.com

Screenshot of sabew.org featuring an image carousel and rss feeds from other blog sites

The Society of American Business Editors and Writers has partnered with Delta Systems for over 10 years. In the early days, Debin Benish trained Carrie Paden and her staff on the use of Microsoft Access.  Seeing that their time would be better spent on serving their thousands of members, SABEW turned to Delta Systems to build a membership management system, a conference management system, and a system to handle the hundreds of entries they receive to their annual “Best in Business” (BiB) contest.  The latest iteration of these systems is now online at SABEW.org. Members can now renew their membership directly online, view member-only content, as well as submit entries to the BiB contest as well as handle the judging all online.

Based on WordPress, Custom Built Plug-ins

Delta Systems used a unique blend of off-the-shelf and custom designed systems. WordPress was used to handle the front end content displaying. A custom WordPress plug-in was built to handle the image carousel on the homepage.  Another custom WordPress plugin was built to handle the contact form.  The site also directly integrates RSS feeds from Talking Biz News and several other business journalism related blogs.

New Website Features Include:

1. Completely powered by WordPress
2. Membership management system
3. Conference management system
4. Online Contest Submission system
5. Contest Judging system
6. Custom WordPress plugin to more easily handle content in the image carousel on the homepage
7. Completely integrated Google Analytics
8. Great Search Engine Optimization features

WordPress Experts

We are WordPress Experts

As an early adopter, Delta Systems has the most experience building and hosting WordPress powered websites of anyone in the area. And just in case there isn’t already a plugin built to make WordPress do exactly what you need, we are experts in building WordPress plugins as well. Ask around and you’ll find out why we’re the best. We have an extensive list of references.

Need something done? Just Call Delta

Delta Systems is a full-service computer consulting company with a suite of in-house development, design, and computer network support talent.

Building online applications and data management systems that are intuitive yet powerful is our specialty.

Give us a call and find out why over 800 companies have trusted Delta Systems with their networking, online, and programming needs since 1986. Ask around.

You’ll hear people say, “Just call Delta” so much that we made it our website – http://JustCallDelta.com

The Tiger Quarterback Club is the Official Booster Club of the University of Missouri Tigers Football Team. When their website was sacked and knocked out cold, they called Delta Systems in to revive it.  Things didn’t look good, so Delta called for a stretcher and had it hauled off the field.  Two days later the website was back on its feet, only this time it had an updated look and was now powered by a whole new, modern content management system. Members and visitors will now score big with an improved event calendaring system, RSS feeds, timely blog posts, a photo gallery, and more. Come take a look at http://www.tigerQBClub.com and sign up for the TQBC Black and Gold Golf Classic

Ok, ok. Enough football analogies and bad puns.

About Delta Systems

Delta Systems is a website system development company located in Columbia, MO.  For the past 23 years, Delta has helped over 800 companies maximize technology with computer training, computer network support, website design and hosting, application development, and more. These days, about 75% of what Delta does is custom system development. Delta builds data and information tracking systems. Delta converts Excel spreadsheets into online systems. Delta improves Access Databases. Delta builds custom programs. Delta can add search engine optimization to your website. Delta can help to improve your Google ranking. Delta hosts websites on a dozen servers in the top data centers across the country. Delta builds electronic invoicing systems.

Give Delta Systems Group a call today.

Delta Systems is proud to help announce the launch of http://www.iAskEmma.com

Several months in the making, this financial assistance website is poised to explode onto the scene with some innovative ideas in personal financial planning.

About iAskEmma.com

Emma helps you set a budget, create a long-term financial plan, get organized, track your cash flow and progress toward meeting your financial goals utilizing her personal finance website.

Emma’s educational resources include easy-to-understand financial video tutorials and an interactive on-line financial support community. Emma’s unbiased tutorials cover all the information you want and need. The iaskemma.com online financial community is safe, comfortable, and here to help you achieve your goals.

In addition to the educational, planning, monitoring, and budgeting sections, you will benefit from Emma’s bill pay reminders, calendar, and important financial to do lists.

As the print edition of Columbia Business Times (CBT) evolves, Delta ensures that the digital version keeps pace. In many CBT issues, a spread at the center of the issue provides a wide space for such things as photos, time-lines, ariel views, maps and a more dynamic layout.

In recent issues, the center spread has included an overview of Columbia’s Natural Resources Inventory with side-by-side heatmaps showing geographical features; it has been used to display a city-wide map of Columbia’s expansion, a time line and map of the future developments, and a photo time line of the City Hall renovation. It provides a more flexible and visually rich media for a variety of subject matter.

When the center spread article is converted to a digital text version to fit the website layout, the special layout is lost.

In order to preserve the layout of the center spread while still offering the consistency and readability of the text version, Delta updated the CBT issue to include a 2-page wide, seamless PDF of the spread featured prominently right along with the cover story and featured articles. Each issue homepage now showcases the center spread article and links to the PDF for the user; graphical concistency with the print edition, and readability of the digital edition are both available.

The Columbia, MO Chamber of Commerce recently switched to using Delta Systems for website hosting and support.  As we blogged about back in August, previously the site at http://www.columbiamochamber.com was suffering from a dismal 20% outage rate. 

Since then, the site has been up 100% of the time, has been monitored 24/7, and is backed up daily; just like every one of the dozens of websites Delta Sytems provides hosting for. 

Site Navigation Improved

In the past few days, Delta quietly rolled out some website usability and layout improvements that better utilizes the amount of space dedicated to website content, replaced a homegrown content management system with WordPress, and applied some search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to increase the searchability factor of ColumbiaMOChamber.com. The site can now easily be administered by several people with little to no training required.

About the Chamber

Since 1905, the Columbia Chamber of Commerce has been a voluntary, member-supported organization of business, industrial and professional people who are dedicated to developing, promoting and maintaining a sound and healthy economic climate for Columbia. The Chamber is a non-profit organization with over 1,500 members working together to enhance the Columbia business community.

An all new Callaway Bank web presence went live this week at http://www.callawaybank.com. Delta Systems was hired to create a fresh, clean, updated website for the bank as well as provide secure hosting. A third party will also be updating the online banking portion of the website in the weeks to come.

callawaybank.com screenshot

The site features

• A branch and ATM locater that incorporates the use of Google Maps
• Search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to allow Google, Yahoo, etc to find content quickly and index it properly.
• An EV-SSL certificate which is designed to ensure an extra level of trust when viewed from Internet Explorer or Firefox
• 5 different homepage graphics that are randomly displayed during subsequent site visits
• Google Analytics statistics collection and reporting
• An easy to use content management system (CMS) so the client can add/edit pages as well as the content on those pages.
• A blogging system that the marketing department will use to update the list of currently available promotions and possibly update interest rates on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis
• An internal, password protected newsletter that employees can now publish

In addition to that. . .

• The site was tested for use in IE7, IE6, Firefox, and Safari browsers.
• “301 Redirects” were put into place to avoid dead links while search engines re-index the website

Delta Systems delivered the site on schedule and on budget.

Putting the site live was intentionally delayed for 2 weeks by the client due to this crazy stock market and financial crisis.

“The team at Delta Systems was great to work with throughout the entire design and production of our new website. They provided guidance and support as we stepped through the process. We were especially impressed with their quick response to our questions and their dedication to reaching every deadline and going LIVE on schedule.” -Debbie LaRue, Director of Marketing

“We asked Delta Systems to help us completely overhaul our web site and rebuild it from scratch, and they did a great job for us! They stayed on schedule and within budget. Plus their team made the process extremely easy for us. We are very pleased with the site and how well they worked with us.” -Jeff Jones, V.P./Director of Sales

Thanks Debbie and Jeff! We’re glad to help.

We have a weather status message at the top of a website we built for a luxury beach rental home on Captiva Island, Florida. When a user visits the page, we pull the weather information from Yahoo’s weather RSS feed, and then we parse out the information we want to display.

Once the information is parsed, we compare to a database of images and weather types and then show an appropriate icon for the weather type. We use tango icons, because they have transparent backgrounds and are a higher resolution than the Yahoo images in the feed. This provides a better look and a more site-specific integrated feel to the weather portion of the page.

When Yahoo throws us a wrench, and we don’t have an icon for the weather type, the system immediately sends us an email and are able to go in and associate the appropriate icon for the weather type. We have some defaults in place, but sometimes you just don’t know; for instance, they added ‘Strong Thunderstorms’ and then ‘Wind/Rain’.  We’re waiting for ‘hurricane’ to be added as well.

Visit www.AlmostHeavenCaptiva.com