Occasionally we offer equal payment plans for certain types of work.  You will need to contact us to find out if any portion of your project qualifies for an EPP.  If so, the following conditions will apply unless otherwise specified:

• if hosting is not separately prepaid for the first year, the annual hosting rate will be added to the payment plan amount, hence it is paid as part of the same plan (not separately) and on the same terms.  In the rare case of hosting increments, inclusion will be discussed as the situation warrants.
  
• payments are always due at the start of each payment period and we reserve the right to apply fines to overdue payments and to limit or withdraw web services on overdue accounts.
• making any payment in accordance with an EPP plan constitutes acceptance of a one year contract spanning the periods in that plan.
  
• The full amount of the plan (plus the plan fee as specified below) must be paid in full if the client cancels the contract prior to completion of the one year term.  The hosting portion (and applicable fees), if present, may be prorated as of the end of the payment period in which the cancellation takes effect.

The plans are:

• 4 Quarterly payments of $[add 2% fee to the plan amount and divide the total by 4] each.
  or
  
• 12 Monthly payments of $[add 5% fee to the plan amount and divide the total by 12] each.

One very good reason for demanding standards compliance is to ensure you are employing people who are staying current.  Standards are always changing and improving, so those who live by them must 'do thier homework'.

Aside from providing you with up-to-date skills and abilities, it means that the individuals will have common ground on which to work effectively together - especially if they come from different disciplines or work on the project at different times in it's life-cycle.

There are several types of 'web standards' involved, each providing important benefits to you and the users of your website.  Here's a quick overview of a few and how they matter to you:

• xhtml/css - critical
  
• helps to reduce most of the redundancy and human error that plague html sites, meaning your site is more reliable and much less expensive to maintain
• your site's design will have a predictable upgrade path, meaning a longer life span and less expense to update and/or upgrade. (Including compatibility with Plone's own upgrades).
  
• these standards are very structured so that software, especially the search engines, can read and interpret the pages accurately.  Without these standards nothing else you do will succeed for long (if at all).
• accessibility - courtesy
  
• this is a set of standards that ensure that your site can be used by disabled or elderly persons.
  
• For example: this site can be sensibly read aloud (and navigated) by programs for the blind
• cross-browser compatibility (aka AnyBrowser) - very important
  
• Every browser does things a little differently, even the standards compliant ones.  Some aren't compliant at all and do things completely differently (notably Microsoft's Internet Explorer)
  
• sites should operate properly in all browsers, including text-only browsers and browsers that have features disabled (such as Javascript/cookies) or that are behind corporate security (firewalls).
  
• why would you knowingly disregard even just 5% of your potential customers?
• this has traditionally been a very difficult and expensive feat to accomplish, usually leading to many compromises. 
  
  Ian's Notes:
  
• Plone has, by far, the most thoroughly tested standard layout I've ever found.  It has been used extensively since 2004, under every imaginable situation, by millions worldwide. It even supports right-to-left languages and themes.
  
• This is because Plone is a global community of developers.  It is virtually impossible for any small or medium sized design team to accomplish this level of quality testing.
• There's certainly no better 'starting place' for a website design, which is why I prefer to build on it whenever possible.  Though extensive customization may sometimes compromise the default layout, these errors are usually easy to fix. 

Standards compliance sometimes costs (a bit) more up front but it pays for itself many times over.

When we quote you a price to design your website or to develop customizations to your site, these terms and conditions are in affect unless otherwise specified.

Regarding deposit(s) for design/development projects:

For fairness to all parties we use a tiered development process.  Each tier or 'phase' is initiated by a 'deposit' for completion of that phase. 

When the next deposit (or the final balance) is paid:

• the previous deposit(s) is/are deemed to have become a 'payment received'
• the previous phase(s) of the project is/are deemed to be 'completed and delivered as promised'
• the applicable licensing agreement takes affect for the completed phase(s) of the project

During each phase, the deposit amount for that phase is fully refundable if (any of):

• project is cancelled by IanFHood.com before completion of the work
  
• project is cancelled by client before the work has begun.  (A partial refund may
  be deemed reasonable if the work done to date is not substantial)
  
• project is cancelled by either party because the expected prototype or version has not been produced within a reasonable grace period of its target date (as agreed-upon by the iterative process)
  
• project is cancelled by either party because the expected prototype or version is deemed inadequate
  and/or beyond repair within the reasonable confines of the agreed-upon price
  

The usual development phases for themes and/or software are:

• create alpha version (prototype): 30% deposit is required to begin work
  Typically this is a partially functional version that acts as a proof of concept and a basis on which to try out the system and from which to specify any major changes to the features and/or implementation.
  
• create beta version: 30% deposit is required to begin this phase
  Typically this will be a highly functional version that implements the essential features - can be used for actual data setup and in-house training, etc.
  
• live beta testing: 20% deposit is required for public trials (only)
  This is typically for membership sites or advanced products that have a public beta period.
  
• final release: the Balance is due upon release.  The product is deemed finalized when no serious flaws remain unresolved.  The licensing takes full and immediate effect upon receipt of the balance.
  
  We will continue to maintain, upgrade and improve software, as well as track and repair bugs (and/or other flaws) - at our discretion - throughout the reasonable lifetime of the product.
  

Free setup includes all technical aspects of:

• creating the configuring website (email, sidebars, etc.)
  
• installing and configuring addins (blog, calendar, etc)
  
• setting up your management account
• helping you get and activate a (free) google-analytics account
  with weekly or monthly statistics reports emailed to you
  
• transferring and/or registering the domain name, DNS setup, etc.
  
• an hour or two of hands-on orientation/training (usually via GoToMeeting)
  and follow up sessions if needed. 
  
• install one of the free 3rd party themes (subject to quality and compatibility issues)
  

Free Skin Setups

We currently include a very simple skin (aka theme) setup based on the Plone standard layout (which is similar to this website - depending upon which site service you purchase). 

The free skin setup usually involves inserting a background, photo and/or corporate logo into the site's header and adjusting the color scheme to match - on the condition that you provide the graphics (we include little or no artwork).

Our hosting is designed to always try to provide you with whatever resources are needed to meet your site's demands (I say 'try' because there are some limits to what can be done on the fly).  If you need bursts of bandwidth (either size or speed) these are granted automatically regardless of the hosting plan.  We will not knowingly 'crash' your site just because you hadn't previously agreed to over pay. 

Also, some sites use more computing power, some use extra storage, others need bandwidth. To make things a bit simpler, pricing wise, we base our pricing on a 'reasonable share' of the available resources overall.  This lets us balance out the servers fairly for optimum performance under most circumstances. 

Your site's hosting is initially quoted at a fair price based on typical sites of similar type.  IF/when your site's demands consistently exceed this 'fair share' you may be asked to pay additional increments.  Only those that substantially exceed the 'norm' will be asked to pay for a larger 'share' - typically in $20/month increments ($200/yr).  This is more likely to occur if your site offers a lot of video or other streaming media to a healthy flow of steady visitors.

It is our policy to charge less when our costs are less. 

Other than the resources described already, your hosting will include:

• hosting "in the cloud" on the same servers used by Amazon.com for thier own sites (EC2 & S3)
  
• one year domain name registration/transfer is included if hosting is prepaid annually
  (if paying monthly reg/transfer is $6.95/year per domain name - with the first month's hosting)
  note: domain name fees are non-refundable.
  This also includes a WHOIS privacy protection service for your personal information.
  
• free unlimited email support, free daytime phone support (within reason & if website related)
• automatic catch-all email forwarding to any one email account that you already have
  note: this is for all incoming email such as <anytext>@<yourdomain>.com
• all hardware, software and plone system(s) updates and upgrades that do not require 'refactoring'
  minor updates/upgrades are seamless to you, occur very regularly and are applied at our discretion.
  
• Refactoring is typically required for major releases (like 2.x to 3.x) that aren't backwards compatible.  Custom built software (addins) are also subject to this refactoring.
  
• Refactoring is much less expensive than a redesign since we can focus on just the parts that have changed technologies - the skin/theme and existing site content are 'migrated' as part of the refactoring process and should be (virtually) seamless to you.  Any orientation or coaching for the new system is included as part of the refactoring process.
• Refactoring prices can not be estimated until the specific requirements are known.
  
• How often does refactoring occur? Recent example:
  Plone 2.0 was released March 2004. Plone 3.0 was released August 2007.  A year later (August '08) most addins had been refactored for 3.0 compatibility and many 2.x web sites were being upgraded too. 
  
• Your site will be built on the most current version and it's fair to expect 3-5 years before a refactoring is needed (or available). 
  
• Managed DNS - we take care of this too - it's how web browsers 'find' your website

Additional services like full email boxes or multiple forwarding emails are readily available at low prices - please let us know what you need.