Rae of Light

If you're paying attention you might be thinking "I'm at erin-briggs.com, what's all this Rae of Light business?" If you came here hoping to see a site dedicated to me, I'm very sorry to dissapoint you, but I've chosen instead to take this opportunity to tell you a little about my web development business dubbed Rae of Light.

Rae of Light originally started out as a one-woman web development business under the monicker "Apollo Graphic". Some people ask me how I came up with that name and to be honest it was out of a late-night frustration with not being able to find any domain names available to match up with any of the names I'd come up with so far. I quickly grew tired of that name and 2 years after starting my business officially transitioned to operating under a dba of Rae of Light. This name has much more significance to me as it's a play on my middle name, but as you can see, for the time being I still am not able to register that domain.

Education

My undergraduate work was done at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. Like many freshmen, I initially came to Taylor with no clue as to what I was going to major in. This did not change until late in my sophomore year. My mom had been "encouraging" me to consider Computer Science, but I refused, insisting on rebeling against my inner nerd. However, during my 4th semester I did take a low level computer science course and I remember thinking "Hey, I think I could do this". So, I declared Computer Science at the end of my sophomore year. Needless to say it was a struggle to try to fit 4 years of CS courses into 2, particularly with my limited background in computers. But in 2004 at the end of my senior year I was only 2 classes short of my goal. One of those I completed at Taylor, the other I took down the street at Ball State.

Work History

My foray outside the realm of education started with a small company in Muncie, Indiana called Ontario Systems. I started out as an intern while I finished up the last of my college courses and transitioned to full-time status immediately after I graduated. After 2 years at this gig, family circumstances called me back home to Pennsylvania. I was able to continue working for them remotely for about 6 months, but chose to not to move back to Indiana at the end of that time period and left the company.

I didn't have a job lined up when I left OS, so I started doing website development for some friends and acquaintances. This eventually grew into Rae of Light.

During my internship at OS, I met a man named Brian Carter who works for a consulting agency call TEC Services Group. Not long after I left OS, Brian caught wind of the news and contacted me to see if I'd be interested in doing contract work with TEC. Of course I said yes. This job allowed me to continue to work from my home and continue to pursue my web development business.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Domain Registration

Often the first step in getting a website is registering a domain. You can either register a domain yourself, or have me do it for you. I register all domains through GoDaddy. Domains are typically $10/yr.

Website Hosting

Once you have your domain name, you will need to have a server to store your site files. There are a number of hosting providers out there with a wide range of pricings. You can either take care of your own hosting, or have me take care of it for you. I buy my hosting through GoDaddy and currently charge my clients $30/yr if they choose to host their site through me.

Design

This is where the fun part of building your site begins. I have a few design tools at my disposal and have put together some sites of my own. But I don't consider this area to be my strong suit, and have a few designers I work with on a regular basis for this part of the project.

Development

This is where I get to play. With my computer science background and experience to draw on, there are a number of things I can do to make your site work for you. Many of my clients have content that needs to be updated on a regular basis and would like to be able to make these updates themselves. For this I can create a custom content manager that will allow you to make updates easily without having to wait on me.

The final cost of any website project varies depending on the purpose of a site. For a straight html site build I typically charge $100/page. For sites with content managers I charge an hourly rate as these sites are more complex.

I am also comfortable taking on an existing site if you have a site you'd just like to add pages to, make tweaks, or start over from scratch. Over the years I've developed a mentality of "If I don't know how to do it, I'll learn." So feel free to contact me with any website questions or potential projects. I look forward to working with you.