Introduction to Digital Tool Factory
Our goal — nay, our mission in life — is to make websites and web applications that are mindlessly operable; there should be no extra thought required. We've pursued ruthless simplicity since Steve French started the company.
Steve French started Digital Tool Factory as a pure ASP.NET web shop in the summer of 2002 under the name Creative Plumbing Web Development. For the curious, the “Creative” part referred to the advertising and graphic design industries, and the “Plumbing” part referred to the portion of websites that existed, but no one ever saw — for example, the database and e-commerce code! The name was a mixed success, and Steve changed the name to Digital Tool Factory in the spring of 2009.
Since then, Digital Tool Factory has grown from its ASP.NET roots into a full-service Microsoft stack development shop, while also embracing WordPress and the latest in AI-powered solutions. The mission hasn't changed — just the toolkit.
What We Build
- Custom web applications across the full Microsoft stack
- AI-integrated applications and intelligent automation
- AI agent development and deployment
- WordPress websites, themes, and custom plugin development
- Database-driven web applications
- E-commerce solutions
- Graphically rich boutique websites
- Custom server programs that automate common business tasks
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
Please note — there can be a tradeoff between the look and feel of a website and search engine optimization. Many of our clients have chosen the former over the years.
Our Technology Stack
Microsoft & .NET
- ASP.NET Core / ASP.NET MVC
- C#
- Blazor
- Azure cloud services, including Azure AI Services
- Microsoft SQL Server
- Entity Framework
- Visual Studio / Visual Studio Code
AI & Intelligent Solutions
- OpenAI API integration (GPT, assistants, and custom models)
- Anthropic Claude integration
- AI agent development — autonomous workflows, tool use, and multi-step reasoning
- Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)
- Machine learning model integration
- Intelligent process automation
- AI-assisted content, search, and chat tools
WordPress
- Custom WordPress theme development
- Plugin development and customization
- WooCommerce
- WordPress performance optimization and security
Web Technologies
- HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript
- jQuery, React, and modern front-end frameworks
- REST APIs and custom Ajax
- Responsive and mobile-first design
Database & Data
- Microsoft SQL Server
- MySQL
- Stored procedures, triggers, and database functions
- Data modeling and migration
