Frequently Asked Questions

This page gives answers to some of the questions that I often get asked about RyeTEK CMS. I have also added some extra questions (and answers) that I predict may be asked at some point in time.

What could RyeTEK CMS do for me?

If you are a small business, charity or individual and don't have the skills, knowledge or time to develop your own website then RyeTEK CMS may suit your needs. RyeTEK CMS will give you a professional looking website that you can keep up-to-date in your own time and all for a reasonable price. No technical skills are required and the application is very simple to learn. The RyeTEK CMS software is provided in a totally pre-configured state and is instantly ready to use.

I have written a separate page listing some of the reasons for why you might choose RyeTEK CMS for your website.

How does RyeTEK CMS work?

Basically I host RyeTEK CMS on my web server. I develop a website template that's specific to your needs and requirements. This is done in order that your website does not look like all the other RyeTEK CMS websites and is individual to you. Finally I put in some basic default content to serve as both a starting point for you and to test the template that I've created. You are then free to build up your website content as required.

Do you offer any support for RyeTEK CMS?

Sure but not only that. Whenever I issue bug fixes, enhancements or new functionality I'll update the web server thus keeping you up-to-date with the latest stable version of RyeTEK CMS.

What if RyeTEK CMS doesn't have a feature I need?

Firstly, tell me what your looking for. It may be on my list of things to do and therefore coming along soon. If the feature is not on my list and would be important for you to have then we can discuss it.

How much does RyeTEK cost?

You never pay anything for RyeTEK CMS because you never actually own the software; it's provided as a service only. You simply pay a one-off cost for the template creation and a recurring annual fee for the hosting costs. These hosting costs are no different than those that you would have to pay with any web hosting provider.

I have written a separate page that contains my pricing structure.

What if I want to stop using RyeTEK CMS?

That's not a problem however you would not be able to take the RyeTEK CMS software to another hosting provider. This essentially means that you would loose your RyeTEK CMS website. I would be prepared to give you the website template that I created for you and a SQL dump of your website content. You would then need a person with good technical skills to port these items over to another content management system if required.

Is RyeTEK CMS just an amalgamation of code from other content management systems?

No it isn't. RyeTEK CMS has been written from scratch. It does however follow some of the concepts and ideas found in other content management systems as well as implementing and extending techniques that I have learnt from books and other media.

RyeTEK CMS currently does use three different third-party components to enhance it's functionality that have been written by other software developers. I have written a separate page about these third party components and their licensing implications however briefly listed they are:

• fckeditor
• RJS PopCalendar
• Html Agility Pack

RyeTEK CMS also has the ability to connect to various different database management systems. These currently include Microsoft's SQL Server, Sun's MySQL and the public domain SQLite database system. When connecting to MySQL or SQLite further third party components are needed. These components are totally optional on whether I decided to use MySQL or SQLite. I have written a separate page about these third party components and their licensing implications however briefly listed they are:

• MySQL Connector/NET - only required when using the MySQL database management system
• System.Data.SQLite.NET - only required when using SQLite
• SQLite Providers - only required when using SQLite

Why use RyeTEK CMS? There are loads of Free Content Management Systems available!

I can't argue with that. If you have the time, knowledge and skills to install, configure and skin a free content management system then that's what I would recommend. After all that's what I would have done had I not written RyeTEK CMS. I'm not trying to drive anyone away from using RyeTEK CMS but the fact remains there are some excellent good free-to-use Content Management Systems available and if you've got the time and skill they're worth investigating and comparing.

Here are three popular content management systems worth looking at:

• mojoPortal - Written in C# and based on Microsoft's ASP.NET framework
• Joomla! - Written in PHP
• Drupal - Written in PHP

It's also possible to test-drive fully working demos for most of the freely available content management systems at this website (and there are lots of them):

• Open Source CMS