The new site went live about two weeks ago, but I’m just now getting around to posting about it.

I have been consulting for South Coast Copy Systems — a copier dealer in San Diego — for over the last 11 years. I’ve done 5 or 6 website redesigns for them over those years, and each time I do, I learn more and apply new techniques and skills picked up over the years.

Each time I redesign the website, I build it atop a custom CMS I developed for them, utilizing a custom PHP framework I also developed. The framework I developed was a bit long in the tooth and didn’t have the features of the bigger and more up-to-date frameworks available. And I haven’t even mentioned the weak security throughout the framework that I never got around to fixing.

When they contracted me to redesign their website again, I knew I would have to rebuild it all from scratch using a more established framework. I chose to build the new site in CodeIgniter. I chose CodeIgniter because it’s the framework with which I was already most familiar, it was the fastest of the PHP frameworks, and the community support was pretty solid. I made this decision well before EllisLab announced they would be offloading CodeIgniter.

The good news is, even if CodeIgniter languishes and they don’t find a new owner, the current website isn’t going to just stop working. The site is built on a solid foundation for me to build up. Right now, it’s merely just a redesign and restructuring of the back-end code, but in the coming months I will be expanding the features available to their current customers.

Now that the website is done, time to get started on an iPhone app …