NewsForge: Free Software Transforms Web Service Business

“Robert Dayton owns CheckStatus.net, a network of process
servers that deliver subpoenas, summons, and other legal documents
for clients. One day in 2000, Dayton shut himself in his office
with a stack of books and taught himself to program in Perl and
PHP. He didn’t come out until he’d written a complete Web
application for his court documents processing service.

“Clients can create an account at the CheckStatus site, upload
documents, pay for services, and check the status of those
documents. Dayton’s application makes his own agency and his
nationwide network of partners more efficient because it creates a
workflow for each document and each client, and automates just
about every task related to the business…”

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