We are excited to announce the launch of our newest custom website design for Serenity Hair Design. The design features an online content and photo management system including the ability to create multiple galleries. The website elegantly displays a photo and bio for each hair stylist. The contact us and guest book forms are used for clients to receive and provide information. The design incorporates a blog themed after the website for branding and name recognition. The blogging and posting new events and specials will help get the word out to the community and their local customers. Please visit our website to see more about our custom website design services.

Paragon9 is proud to announce our collaboration efforts with South Mountain Community College to participate in the Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC). NGLC is partnering with the Bill and Linda Gates Foundation, EDUCAUSE and many others in an effort to improve course completion, persistence, and college completion through sustainable, broad‐scale technology‐enabled products or service‐based solutions.  

NGLC is a unique collaboration among philanthropists, educators, innovators, and technologists focused on scaling today's most creative and innovative IT solutions to improve college readiness and completion, particularly for low-income young adults. In addition to providing grants, NGLC seeks to spark dialogue and community building through a social network and community engagement designed to catalyze new ideas, foster solutions, and form unique collaborations that span institutions and disciplines.

Paragon9 is proposing to develop a custom Social and Mobile Web 2.0 Technology solution that will take the existing iStartSmart and Blackboard concepts to the next level. The Social and Mobile Web 2.0 Technology concept is similar to an approach by Lisa Fraser’s that focuses on preparing our students for a lifelong career journey when we help them develop these essential skills. Students often perceive that they do their schoolwork “for the college” and to get good grades, rather than for their own long term benefit. Changing that perception helps students see the relevance of their studies and motivates them to be successful. There’s a huge difference between doing schoolwork to meet college requirements, and approaching college as professional development for career success and future employment.

Institutions and technology experts need to identify and address the positive emotional hook that gets students to want to look at high performance learning. This approach helps students connect to something that they really want.  Studies indicate that first generation college students including low income students who need to work to support themselves, often have persistence problems. By offering solutions that can fit into their schedule allows students to be part of an engaging learning environment.

Adapting this concept will help us develop a unique Social and Mobile Web 2.0 Technology solution that will advance the best uses of technology and help improve college readiness and completion.

BlogEngine.NET is an open source asp.net 2.0 blogging project that was born out of desire for a better blog platform. A blog platform with less complexity, easy customization, and one that takes advantage of the latest .NET features.

BlogEngine.NET was designed using the current .NET framework and focused on simplicity, ease of extendibility, and innovative features. With BlogEngine.NET, we hope to create the natural blog of choice for all .NET Developers world wide.

BlogEngine.Net Features:  

• Plug’n play BlogEngine.NET is very easy to setup and customize for a .net developer. To make it work, just upload the files to an ASP.NET 2.0 webserver and you’re ready to start writing. No database configuration, just plug ‘n play.
• Full featured - BlogEngine.NET comes with all the features you would expect from a modern blog engine as well as new unique features such as AJAX comments and screenshot trackbacks.
• Web 2.0 - BlogEngine.NET features social bookmarks, OpenSearch support, XFN tags, AJAX, FOAF, SIOC, APML, Gravatars, coComments, tag cloud, Google sitemap and other so called Web 2.0 features.
• Referrer stats - The referrer statistics enables you to see which websites link to you, so you can follow up with comments or just to have fun. This feature is a real time killer that you cannot live without.
• Cool widgets - There is a variety of cool widgets that such as an AJAX post calendar or a blogroll that automatically retrieves the latest posts from each blog and displays the title beneath the blog. Most of the controls are configurable from the admin section.
• Advanced comment system - Comments are a very important part of a blog, so BlogEngine.NET features a very advanced commenting system in AJAX that supports country flags, live preview, Gravatars, coComments – all of which can easily be modified in the admin section.
• Full syndication suite - BlogEngine.NET supports syndication feeds in any possible location. You can find feeds on comments, categories, authors and a main feed. Both RSS 2.0 and ATOM 1.0 are fully supported.
• Trackbacks and pingbacks - All outgoing links from the posts is tracked- and pinged back, so your blog will get listed in the comments on the linked website if it supports it. When a new post is created, BlogEngine.NET automatically pings Technorati, Feedburner, Ping-o-Matic etc..
• Search - The search capability of BlogEngine.NET is one of the most advanced and it even allows the visitors to search in the comments. Everything about the search can be configured in the admin section.
• Standalone pages - Besides regular blog posts, BlogEngine.NET supports the creation of static pages that exist outside the blog chronology. Pages are useful for all kinds of information about you or your blog.
• Multi-author support - BlogEngine.NET fully supports multiple authors to write posts on the same blog. Visitors are then able to subscribe to the individual author’s RSS feed or view only the posts from their favourite author.
• Cool themes - BlogEngine.NET comes with some very cool themes for you to choose from. If you want to modify or create a new theme you can do so easily with just a basic understanding of HTML and CSS.
• XHTML compliance - All the controls in BlogEngine.NET are 100% XHTML 1.0 compliant. All posts you write automatically become compliant thanks to the tinyMCE text editor.
• Extendable - BlogEngine.NET is built from the ground up using nothing but C# and ASP.NET 2.0 all with simplicity in mind. It means that you can write new controls and themes by using the skills you already have as a .NET developer.

A proposal should include a detailed scope statement that clearly outlines the following:

Objectives - Outline the requirements for the project to communicate that we understand what the objectives are and what the client is looking for. 

Approach - Communicate the approach by breaking down the requirements into deliverables and milestones and stating what steps will be taken and in what order.

Description - Describe the features in detail and what technologies will be utilized in the design and development process of the entire project.

Deliverables - Define what will be delivered upon completion of the project.

Out of Scope - Clarify what is not included in the project proposal.          

Estimated Schedule - Establish an estimated time line to complete the project. This is broken down by milestones indicating the span of effort, resouce level of effort and completion date.

Estimated Cost - Cost is broken down to show the total hours required, the charge per hour, and a total cost.

Management - Site maintenance includes both technical up-keep such as server upgrades, and updates to content or design on the site itself.

Experience - State relevant experience to the project.

References - Include references for each project to assure customer satisfaction.

Terms/Conditions - This will include the terms of the contract including payment schedule, changes to scope of work and other related legal matters.