Website Creation Advice

I'm a big fan of PHP. I have recently (1 year ago) picked up a frame work that I'm finding to be extremely easy. Symfony. www.symfony-project.org. Right now it's on version 1.0 but they're getting ready to release 1.1 I do believe. .NET is always a good route to go as well but I'm not much of an IIS fan.

But those obviously, you'd have to program the entire thing yourself. So I'm not sure if thats something you're looking for or not but is the only way I know of being able to add a shopping cart/login system and customizing it w/o having a company do it for you.

I'm not a great web builder but I can help you with your credit card setup and integration when you you get their. I have access to lots of gateways that you may want to use. Also my wife and I are champioship wine drinkers. I'ld love to come out and see your winery. When are you open for tastings. Art T.

There are plenty of opensource shopping carts, which can give you some flexibility and allow you to save money. You could look at existing content management systems (CMS) such as Joomla or Drupal.

Otherwise, Cube Cart, osCommerce, or Zen Cart are also very well regarded.

Make sure you read their forums and see the types and levels of problems that people are having with it. Also, see how quickly there is a response from the veterans and experts. Is it well supported and does it have an active community.

You could also hire a good designer to give you a custom look.

Yeah feel free to ask me questions. Though I do have to warn you I'm just a college student that happens to be programming. My major is actually Computer Animation but Programming seems to be my life right now. But if you're looking into symfony then I'd most defiantly do the askeet tutorial they have on their page. Feel free to ask me questions though!

Find sites you like and get someone to make similar ones for you. Focus on wine and your core business. A skilled programmer can have you up and running in a blink while DIY's will still be reading books. BTW, check out www.wisdomactivation.com/images/winetasting.png for a portrait of an event.

If you like our work let me know and I can throw together a quote for you. We are three guys who live at our computers so we're very easy to get a hold of. We do the hosting too, bonus! ;)