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Software Development

In addition to helping with operating system and packaged applications installs; we also offer help with porting applications from Windows to Linux.

You will probably realize even greater savings moving from Windows Server to Linux Server. Windows Server alone can run $810+ (plus per user and device licenses called CALs $179.99; plus SQL Server - ANOTHER $810 to $3,000+) whereas Linux Server and PostgreSQL server starts at $ 0 with no concept of extra bilking via extra CALs licensing.[1]

So, if you would like to go from...

Windows Server
.NET Framework
SQL Server
Access
VB/VB.NET/C#
to→ Linux Server
Python Frameworks
PostgreSQL Server
Maria DB
Python/Node.js

    ... we can help. In fact, this is what we like to do the most.


[1]
* Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard OEM (2 CPU/2 VM) - Base License, $810 on Amazon.
* Microsoft CAL 2016 5 Pack Device $149.99 on Amazon
* Microsoft SQL Server Standard 2017 10 Cal $2,995.95 on Amazon
  All prices as of July 2019.



Javascript

Just a few thoughts on Javascript, a client-side browser-based scripting language.

Web pages can be created in a wide variety of ways, but one distinction is whether there is client-side coding added to the HTML, or not. In the old days pages with complex content were largely done with back-end (aka server-side) coding; using technology like .ASP/ASPX and PHP.

Often today, a lot of the coding work is done on the client-side using javascript frameworks like React, Angular and VUE.js ... and there are hundreds of other such frameworks.

There are pluses and minuses to both approaches.

One of the minuses to client-side coding is that everyone (everyone) has access to your code. This is described below in more detail, together with an example.

Another of the minuses to client-side coding is that the code can be stopped from running with blockers like uMatrix or by completely disabling scripting altogether.

For security reasons, we will advise you to have javascript disabled in browsers by default. Then you can enable only those websites that you know and are comfortable with.

If javascript is disabled on our pages you will see this message displayed, where the javascript code would normally execute.


EXAMPLE:

This is just a tiny, trivial example of what happens with scripting enabled or disabled — but it demonstrates a much larger problem if your interface is done completely with client-side scripting.

In addition to some CSS styles for color and placement, there is a small bit of javascript code on this page that is used to transform the blue menu icon below. That javascript is the following onToggle routine; which executes when you click the blue icon.
<script>
   function onToggle(x) {
      x.classList.toggle("change");
   }
</script>

This is used to click on this blue menu icon to change it from 3 stacked bars into an " X ". This is just a little animation to spice up the user interface. If browser-side scripting is disabled then nothing will happen when you click on the " ☰ ". (However, you *will see* a yellow message from us explaining that).

click me
If you create your web pages primarily from client-side javascript — you will be forcing users to accept your scripting — together with the ills that can come with that (viruses, cross-site scripting attacks, etc).

If the user chooses to disable scripting for security reasons or for ad-blocking or both; then major sections of your web page may fail to work as expected.

Also — anyone (ANYONE) will be able to get to see the javascript code on your page.

Example:
Click for javascript code on this page
(anyone, anywhere can get to it too.)

The client-side javascript code can be obfuscated (that is: jumbled around, and made less-readable) — but anyone with sufficient time can reverse-engineer it. This is much harder to do with backend-generated pages, where the code for the page creation remains on the backend-server and never gets to the client's computer.

On the other hand, client-side code does bring a richer, flashier interface and one that can be quicker to work through for the user.

This is just a topic to consider, when developing new web pages and one that we will be happy to help you with.
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