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Fast Track provides a full range of website and application development services:

Our Expertise is Your Advantage

Fast Track has deep experience with .NET, SQL Server, Azure, Windows, Internet Explorer, Visual Studio and TFS.  Our primary areas of expertise are:

We’re also experienced with HTML 5, CSS3, and with a number of .NET based CMS systems, including DotNetNuke, Sitefinity, mojoPortal, Community Server, Umbraco, and SharePoint.

.NET

The .NET Framework is a software framework developed by Microsoft. The .NET Framework is made up of two major components: the common language runtime (CLR) and the framework class library (FCL). The CLR is the foundation of the .NET Framework and provides various services that applications can use. The CLR also forms the “environment” that other applications run on.

Benefits:

• Interoperability: The framework provides means to access functionality implemented by programs outside the .NET framework. 
• Common Language Runtime engine: All .NET programs execute in the same engine and so concerns like memory management, security and exception handling is taken care of.
• Language independence: The .NET framework introduces the Common Type System, because of which the framework supports communication between libraries and applications written in any .NET language.
• Class Library: The framework provides a powerful class library which empowers developers to write less code while taking care of the application’s security, performance and other factors.
• Simplified Deployment: The framework includes features and tools that help manage the seamless installation and management of the software.
• Security: The framework design addresses vulnerabilities exposed by usual software built on general operating system. 
• Portability: Cross platform implementation of the framework are available for other operating systems making it easy to build software using this framework and targeting many users.

Azure

Windows Azure is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure, created by Microsoft, for building, deploying and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters. It provides both platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) services and supports many different programming languages, tools and frameworks, including both Microsoft-specific and third-party software and systems.

Benefits:

• Provides high density hosting of websites. Customers can create web sites in PHP, .NET, and Node.js, or select from several open source applications from a gallery to deploy. This comprises one aspect of the Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings for the Windows Azure Platform.
• Windows Azure Virtual Machines comprise the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering from Microsoft for their public cloud. Customers can create Virtual Machines, of which they have complete control, to run the Microsoft Data Centers.
• The Cloud Services for Windows Azure comprise one aspect of the PaaS offerings from the Windows Azure Platform. The Cloud Services are containers of hosted applications. These applications can be internet-facing public web applications (such as web sites and e-commerce solutions), or they can be private processing engines for other work, such as processing orders or analyzing data.
• Data management is provided through SQL Database, Tables and BLOB storages.
• Business Analytics is provided through SQL Reporting, Data Marketplace and Hadoop.
• Identity is provided by Active Directory and Access Control Service.
• Messaging is using Windows Azure Service Bus and Queues.
• Media Services and Mobile Services are some of the additional services.

Ajax

AJAX stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. AJAX uses XML, HTML, CSS and Java Script for more interactive web applications. General web applications transmit information to and from the server using synchronous requests which is visible to the web user. However with AJAX the request to the server is made using JavaScript and the result served asynchronously which the web user is made aware of only when the page content is updated.  The web user does not have to wait for the result to be received from the server to continue with other actions on the web page.

Benefits:

• Open standard: It is supported by almost every web browser and platform.
• The server is not required to process all the form elements and only necessary data is sent back to the user. 
• Performance improvement: The page components are loaded faster with the help of Ajax. Lesser bandwidth is required to transmit only limited data and not whole page data. 

Silverlight

Silverlight is Microsoft technology to write and execute rich multimedia content on the web. The run-time environment for Silverlight is available as a plug-in for various web browsers running under Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Unlike ASP.NET, the bulk of Silverlight processing occurs on the client machine thus decreasing server resource utilization and improving the Web experience on the client. Silverlight was designed using the same design paradigm as ASP.NET. Each page of a Silverlight application includes an associated code behind file that includes the code that handles events fired by the page. Silverlight resembles WPF in that it uses Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) to construct the user interface (presentation layer). As Silverlight applications are composed of text-based files that include markup and code, they can be created using any text editor; however, more advanced tools and development environments such as Visual Studio or Expression Blend simplify the task significantly.

Benefits: 

• Provides cross domain support for applications.
• The environment is available as a small sized plug-in for many browsers.
• Provides good quality video streaming.

Dynamic Data

ASP.NET Dynamic Data is Microsoft’s web application scaffolding framework. It is shipped as an extension to ASP.NET and can be used for data driven websites. The general idea behind is that once the database is ready, we create a data context for this database. Once the data context is ready, the web pages that perform the database operations will be generated on the fly. Note that the dynamic data website generates pages at runtime and it is not some auto generated code by Visual Studio. It uses some template pages and controls to render the actual data.

Benefits:

• It is helpful to generate admin level website/pages which typically retrieves, inserts and updates data.
• Since there are default template pages available, the entire application is ready comparatively quick after the database is ready and populated with data.
• Customization of the web page generation is possible to achieve more complex needs.

WCF

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is a framework for building service-oriented applications. Using WCF, one can send data as asynchronous messages from one service endpoint to another. A service endpoint can be part of a continuously available service hosted by IIS, or it can be a service hosted in an application. An endpoint can be a client of a service that requests data from a service endpoint. The messages can be as simple as a single character or word sent as XML, or as complex as a stream of binary data.

Benefits:

• WCF can be configured to work independently of SOAP and use RSS instead.
• WCF is one of the fastest communication technologies and offers excellent performance compared to other Microsoft specifications.
• To improve communication, transmission speed needs to be optimized. This is achieved by transmitting binary-coded XML data instead of plain text to decrease latency.
• Object life-cycle management and distributed transaction management are applicable on any application developed using WCF.
• WCF uses WS specifications to provide reliability, security and transaction management.
• Messages can be queued using persistence queuing. As a result, no delays occur, even under high traffic conditions.

MVC

Model–view–controller (MVC) is an Architectural design pattern. The Model is the part of the application that handles the logic for the application data. The model objects retrieve data (and store data) from a database.  The View is the part of the application that handles the display of the data. Most often the views are created from the model data. The Controller is the part of the application that handles user interaction. Typically controllers read data from a view, control user input, and send input data to the model. The MVC separation helps manage complex applications, because one can focus on one aspect a time. It also makes it easier to test an application. The MVC separation also simplifies group development. Different developers can work on the view, the controller logic, and the business logic in parallel.

Benefits:

Respects “Separation of Concerns”. Provides clean separation of concerns (SoC). So it is good for project with large team of developer and designer and both wants full control over there area.

• URL that enables SEO.
• Easy integration with JavaScript frameworks
• Lightweight (Minification, Bundling, Optimized html response)
• Enables the full control over the rendered HTML.
• Good for applications which would be used on mobile as well desktop
•       -   Responsive design (can opt style as per the calling device)
•       -   Can detect device and automatically choose appropriate file
• Test driven development (TDD), highly testable.
• Easily combined with other Architectural design.
• Fewer configurations are required (Convention over Configuration).

HTML5  

Click HERE for a preview of our HTML5 Showcase.

HTML5 is the latest hypertext markup language for websites. It primarily aimed to improve the support of multimedia, where earlier it was dependent on plugins like Flash, Silverlight and Java. It includes detailed processing models to encourage more interoperable implementations; it extends, improves and rationalises the markup available for documents, and introduces markup and application programming interfaces (APIs) for complex web applications. HTML5 is also good for cross-platform mobile applications. Many features of HTML5 have been built with the consideration of being able to run on low-powered devices such as smartphones and tablets. However HTML5 cannot alone be useful for animation or interactivity, it must be supplemented with CSS/JavaScript.

Benefits:

• All major browsers like Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer supports HTML5. Even device independent (i.e., available on all devices and providing the same end experience).
• HTML5 introduces many new markup elements like <header>, <footer>, <nav>, <video>, <audio>, <embed>, <canvas>, etc.
• HTML5 specifies scripting application programming interfaces (APIs) that can be used with JavaScript. For example the API used for canvas element for 2D drawing, rich multimedia games, timed media playback, offline we b application, document editing, drag and drop functionality, browser history management, web storage, Geo location,  etc.
• Less dependence on plugins for functionality.
• HTML5 along with CSS3 helps in getting advanced effects with less effort and cost. Eventually helping in improved website performance with reduced number of files and images. 

Responsive Web Design

Responsive web design is an approach to build website so that it has a better reading, navigating, viewing experience across a wide range of devices. A website built using responsive web design uses the fluid grids, flexible images, CSS3 media queries styles. In the fluid grid style the page element sizing is in percentage of the screen dimension instead of absolute units. Flexible images are also sized in relative units as per the screens. Media queries use CSS style rules to display the site based on the device. The idea is that when a user switches from their laptop to tablet or mobile, the website should automatically switch to accommodate for resolution, image size and scripting ability. 

Benefits: 

• One site for every device. The website would be configured for optimal viewing based on the device thus increasing the website’s reach to tablet and mobile audiences.
• Optimal design for the device. All the images, font and other HTML elements would scale as per the device the website is viewed upon.
• Avoid redirect for the users and easy & understandable navigation helps in increase sales and conversion rate. 
• Save time and development cost for the business by avoiding building separate websites for specific devices including mobiles. Even time and cost is saved for website maintenance.   
• Enhance user’s online and offline browsing experience resulting into increased visits.

Our Process:  We Work Hard To Make it Easy For You