In an earlier era, BeareWare’s move to Gladeville might not have been seen as an ideal business location. But as internet access expanded rapidly, it became possible to build and grow a business online from anywhere – and that’s exactly what we did!
With the advent of content management systems and then mobile websites coming later in this era, we saw a period of technology that was simply revolutionary. It opened up a world of opportunity for BeareWare that would range from teaching an excited classroom of Wilson County business website owners to engaging with Joomla developers & designers all around the world.
With the state-of-the-art web design work we were producing, we quickly connected with key business organizations in Wilson County, ranging from Chambers of Commerce, Government Agencies, News Media Companies, Civic Organizations, and several Realtors and Law Firms, who were all moving to website technology quickly.
Some of our dearest and longest-lasting clients were established in this era.
From Hillsboro Village to the Glade! With the Internet becoming fully accessible in both rural and city locations, BeareWare set up shop in Gladville in Wilson County, and Peter quickly adapted to country life as a local “Web Farmer”.
It’s easy to look back and understand why our slogan during this era was “BeareWare is Everywhere.” We truly felt that way. There was an energy among our clients – a shared belief that together we could accomplish big things online
Joomla!
BeareWare launched its first Joomla! Website in January 2006, and this would be the start of a tremendous design and development era as we established ourselves as an expert custom website designer.
Joomla! officially launched in August of 2005 as a powerful new open-source CMS, offering greater flexibility, a stronger community, and rapid innovation. Its enhanced template structure, expanded extension capabilities, and commitment to open development quickly made Joomla!
The first version, Joomla 1.0, was released on September 22, 2005, with Joomla 1.5 being released in January 2008.
We launched our first Joomla Website in January of 2006 for our client “Heart Of Tennessee Tennis”, a tennis association based out of the Centennial Tennis Center in Nashville, TN. In the spirit of this new content management systems we immeadiately created a users manual for our client so they could see how to update their website content. (see our first CMS Users Manual).
Fun Fact – the CMS Users Manual was 30 pages long! I think you can imagine the level of excitement we had by the manuals length!
BeareWare began building websites with Mambo in 2004, choosing it as their first CMS for its simple installation, intuitive templates, built-in content tools, and growing plugin ecosystem. Launched in 2003 as an open-source PHP platform, Mambo made it easy to create dynamic websites with minimal coding, and although it was widely adopted, a major split in 2005 led to the creation of Joomla!, which many developers—including BeareWare—later embraced.
BeareWare continued to use Microsoft Publisher until we had established our expertise in building websites with CMS systems. Our last Microsoft Publisher website was developed in 2004.
Rochen
BeareWare established one of its most important relationships as a technology company when it moved its web hosting to Rochen, a leading hosting company heavily invested in Joomla! Having a dedicated server opened up many great opportunities but also required significant partnerships to ensure our server (and client websites) were also up and running at all times.
Rochen is a web hosting company founded in 2003 in Scotland, with a history of providing innovative, simple-to-use hosting services on a global scale. The company’s operations now include data centers in Dallas, Texas, and London, UK, and a support team spread across four continents. Rochen is known for its support of open-source platforms, including being a long-time hosting partner for Joomla, and has developed its own fully owned and managed infrastructure for services like WordPress, Joomla, and Magento hosting.
BeareWare Hosting set up its first dedicated server with 1&1 Hosting in late 2004. This allowed us to manage existing client websites as well as add new clients quickly on the same server. It was a great experience learning to manage websites in this type of dedicated environment with the support of 1&1 engines.
During this period, 1&1 hosting was a major, rapidly expanding international provider, known for its affordable “all-inclusive” packages and a significant global customer base. It was a great match for our first dedicated server.
BeareWare continued hosting websites with Earthlink until late 2004. With our customer base growing and almost 20 websites under our management, we now needed to move to a dedicated server, and in late 2004, all of our websites moved to our first dedicated server with 1&1 Hosting.
Postcard Campaign Put BeareWare On The Map!
BeareWare joined the Lebanon Wilson Chamber of Commerce in 2008 and decided to send out a postcard to the Chamber Membership. Without a doubt, this was the start of BeareWare becoming a permanent web design agency in Lebanon and Wilson County, and to establish a wonderful business relationship that has lasted the test of time, as we are now a very proud 17-year member. We also currently manage the Chamber’s website and serve as their current webmaster & host.
2006 Product & Services Guide
In 2006, our Product & Services Guide was the primary document we would review with a client or prospect to share and promote our services. No laptop (which were bulky and heavier in 2005) and certainly no mobile device, as we would review our clients’ business & marketing models and identify detailed pages in our services guide that could help them achieve their website goals.
Peter Beare
Sales & Support
Vicki Payne
Design Director
Dana Bryson
Web Designer
Glenda Langford
Social Media
Rosemary Goodman
Bookkeeper
Take the Mobile Challenge
In November of 2010, our website promoted the campaign “Take the Mobile Challenge,” which saw a revolutionary change to websites when Mobile devices started providing direct access to websites through browsers. Joomla websites were not responsive and would not be until the release of Joomla 3.0 in January 2012, but there was a mobile version of Joomla that was currently available for clients. Joomla websites generally used the same core content but often displayed it using a separate, dedicated mobile template or layout.
Joomla! Day DC
We attended our first-ever Joomla! Conference in Washington, DC, in October 2010. It was held at Microsoft’s conference center in its Mid Atlantic District office in Washington, DC. In 2010, Joomla! events were starting to be held in the United States, Europe, and Australia as Joomla! system was becoming one of the most powerful CMS on the web! Ryan Ozimek, Open Source Matters’ President, gave the keynote speech with Joomla co-founder Brian Teeman, also flying in from London for the event.
Peter Beare, preparing to present the new Wilson County CVB website to the Wilson County Board of Commissioners – Circa 2010
Joomla! CMS Training Classes
From 2004 to 2011, education was a cornerstone of BeareWare’s website services. We offered Joomla! CMS training classes that empowered clients to manage their own websites – something nearly unheard of at the time.
Classes often included up to ten clients from various industries, supported by our team members. Joomla!’s structured admin panel made it easy for business owners to learn and confidently maintain their websites.
