Sharp Stone is also available on a freelance/contract basis to help you get your project on track. Whether it’s acting as a temporary CTO to map out strategy, or digging in and slinging code, you can rely on Sharp Stone’s decades of experience to get the job done on-time and on-budget.

SERVICES

Open-Source

There was a time not long ago when having quality content management or web presentation software meant spending thousands, or possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars. No longer. Open-source and source-licensed technology is as good or better than the commercial products of several years ago.

Web Development

Development for the web is at once easier and harder than ever. The tools and technologies are now very advanced and mature, allowing an incredible amount of functionality. But knowing what technology to use and harnessing it’s potential can require a more experienced hand.

CTO-To-Go

The concept of “CTO To Go” is that many smaller or emerging companies need some high-powered help in the technology space. During their early or planning stages, but do not wish to shoulder the expense once they transition to Code Production mode and have project management in place.

UI/UX Design

An online presence in today’s market has to do more than just “look good”. It needs to function properly on a wide range of display platforms. This means using Responsive Frameworks where CSS and JavaScript work together. Staying on the crest of the wave of the latest design trends helps the final product look current without needing immediate re-touching.

Custom Development

Sometimes the thing a client wants simply doesn’t exist in the world yet. In these cases, using Ruby-on-Rails allows a custom application to be built quicker than the time it would take to adapt or alter some existing piece of technology to fit the requirements. The bonus for the client is they now have full control over the final product, with no ongoing licensing fees.

Consultancy

Many web designers are self-taught and/or come from non-professional or non-technical backgrounds. I spent decades in the High Tech industry before switching to consulting. This includes industry experience ranging from huge Fortune 500 corporations to start-ups. As such, each project and each client is given the level of expertise and professionalism you’d expect from an industry veteran.

CUSTOM APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

Don’t settle for having your web application cobbled into some other system. Get the functionality you want exactly the way you want it on a scalable platform, and immune to changes in technology you do not own or control.

Sharp Stone specializes in Ruby on Rails application development. While there are many development stacks now, and JavaScript frameworks have become quite popular, ‘Rails’ continues to be the best for quickly going from concept to prototype to production system. Rails incorporates a deep ecosystem of plugins, background processing, jQuery/JavaScript, integrated testing, and the awesome Ruby programming language. Once a Rails system is running, scaling it as your application grows is as simple as logging into a web console and adding resources. Rails hosting providers are all geared for this kind of flexibility, and for the business owner it means that there will be no need to do “rewrites” as the number of users grows as there can often be when trying to adapt another system to your requirements.

Your web application is core to your business. Investing a little more up front means years of stable of operation and the flexibility to make changes as business conditions change. Some of the Rails-based systems we have worked on have operated for several years without requiring maintenance or updates.

Any application we develop has all the source maintained in version control so there is a complete history of the codebase, plus the ability to easily roll-back any changes that end up not working out. Database backups and application error tracking are all standard with the service.

EXPERIENCE

Skill Years
Ruby On Rails 15
HTML/CSS 29
PHP 16
*NIX 37
MySQL 20
Adobe CS 24
Skill Years
Industry 39
Executive Management 12
Product Development 30
Consulting 20