Web development services is inseparably linked with online business. So our next two projects are connected with e-trade. Today no one doubts the effectiveness of online trading. Sales through the Internet shopping minimize costs, allows to enter new markets, and attract customers.
But before to make profit from website you must launch your customized online store. And this process will be related to the right choice of CMS. It is cheaper and safer to use a ready-made software for the most common and typical tasks of online business.
The best solutions among open source e-commerce systems are Magento and X-Cart. These products help to create e-shops and obtain multifunctional, high-tech sites for easy sales. Moreover they can be managed without special knowledge in programming. These are ready web sites for electronic commerce. You can add additional features or modify design according to the peculiarities of any specific business.
With the help of Oxagile software programming our customers obtained new online stores with pleasant look-and-feel:
An X-Cart based online store for a Canadian company that offers furniture, wall decor and home accessories.
As a result, we have gained experience in ecommerce and online business. So now we can easily attract more visitors and raise product sells for our customers.
What determines success in web development? Component of success are professional design, attention to customer’s needs and the correct choice of CMS. We have made certain of it from our own experience.
So we want to share the results of successful web development based on open source CMSes for our clients from USA and the Netherlands.
Let’s start with our favorite CMS Joomla. By the way, why so many webmasters choose this CMS for their projects? The answer consists of one word, and this word means “accessibility”. So accessibility has made CMS Joomla such a popular one. It is absolutely free of charge. But it does not mean poor quality or lack of functionality. In reality Joomla has incredible functionality and it was made as a software product of high quality.
So Oxagile has created two new fully functional websites and expanded its company portfolio:
CMS Joomla is very logical and consistent, developing software projects you can see it at all levels, starting with installation and finishing with text editing. It simplifies your understanding of how to work with site content.
With WordPress conditional statements your blog will stand out against thousands of others
Conditional statements can transform themes in something unrecognizable. Be sure, your readers will be amazed by such features in Wordpress blog design. There is nothing difficult in directory conditioned elements, they based on PHP code. So with the help of php programmers you will be able to realize your ideas. For instance, welcome block at the home page can be done with the following code: if (is_home()) {
echo ‘YOUR WELCOME BOX CODES HERE’;
} else { }
Theme framework is a timesaver for WordPress template customization
There are a lot of theme frameworks (Guerrilla Theme, Thesis, Thematic, WP Framework, etc.) that will help you to build custom templates in the shortest possible time. Use them with no hesitation!
WordPress widgets for better usability
With widgets you can easily customize the look of your theme, rearrange different blog areas (ad blocks, posts, headers, footers, etc.).
Say “no” to plugins and “yes” to PHP code
Using WordPress plugins you force end-users of your blog to download and install additional software. It’s not a good idea for quick and easy accesses to blog features and published information. PHP solves this problem and it also gives more know-hows for WordPress developers. Continuous learning is an indispensable condition of qualitative WordPress development
WordPress has a great blogging community, it’s even more then web community. So WordPress-as-a-CMS development can be just fun and easy work with some simple plugins, php code and official teaching material from tutorial sites. You can try a simple hack code that helps to reduce spam. It blocks all comments on your blog written by users who have come with “No referrer” result (for example, spam bots).
function check_referrer() {
if (!isset($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']) || $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] == “”) {
wp_die( __(’Please enable referrers in your browser, or, if you\’re a spammer, bugger off!’) );
}}
add_action(’check_comment_flood’, ‘check_referrer’);add_action ( ‘check_comment_flood’, ‘check_referrer’);
Oxagile developers love WordPress. By the way our own blog is based on this open source application. And today we are going to share our secrets of successful web development and Wordpress blog customization. Some pieces of advice will take only some minutes to realize them; others will require some more time and more development skills. But you may be sure that all these tips will allow you to provide more qualitative blog customization services for WordPress: Create your personal theme options panel
You definitely have noticed that WordPress blog themes and template development is one of the most popular services. People all over the world readily seek, buy and download paid, free and custom themes / templates. Moreover some of them want to change their blog design on regular basis. So your ability to provide such a possibility will be appreciated.
A theme options panel will allow you (your clients) to make changes in the current WordPress theme without code correction. This nice tool for quick and easy customization can be used by every theme developer.
Shortcode as a short way to users’ hearts
No one likes long and tricky code. All living creatures aspire to simplicity and harmony. So WordPress website developers can give them what they want – clear short codes for user themes.
You can write short code using theme’s file functions.php. The following function should be added and saved into it:
function wdl() {
return ‘Web Design Ledger rules!’;
}
add_shortcode(’wdlrules’, ‘wdl’);
After that shortcode is your little reliable friend, that definitely will help you to find a short way to your blog users’ hearts.
Application testing is a process involved in all life cycles of software development. It implies review and planning of the product requirements, preparation and performance of changes. As a result testers reveal inadequacies and errors. And trying to get a systematic view, every person in software development company actually plays the role of tester. If you look at IT-project as at a person, then roles of different specialists can be described in the following way:
• Project Manager is a backbone and the autonomic nervous system
• Programmers are a skeleton and motor nerves
• Analysts are organs of sense
• Testers is conscience
Software Quality Assurance is often considered as a synonym of testing, but this method actually was called upon to prevent errors beforehand, rather than finding and fixing them. Quality in this sense should be considered as a characteristic of finished product (software or web-application).
So, testers have to verify even requirements specifications, project plans and analysis, not just program code and interface. Software testing is particularly important in critical systems. For example, the Therac Radiotherapy apparatus (1985) irradiated 6 people with lethal dose of radiation due to the lack of code verification and validation. Or Mars exploration rover (1999) brought the loss of 125 million dollars because of crude common measurement system between developers. And even during the electronic elections in Estonia there were some problems because of poor high-load testing. These examples and practice of software and web development companies shows that all testers should follow basic principles from ISTQB test documentation and other sources.
My expectations were justified - it was the most interesting part of conference “Microsoft DevDays“: the presentation of the first demo of Visual Studio Team System 2010.
Approximately in a year we’ll be able to see all new features ourselves, but now only announcements and demos. According to the company official information it will be the largest release in the history. All graphic interfaces will be rewritten using WPF. That will allow to accelerate work of visual editors and to reduce the size of required free space. By the way, rumors that the installation will require 75 Gb of disk space, are just rumors.
Usually the term Web 3.0 is used to describe the derivative step of web development that follows Web 2.0. Web 2.0 software is associated with social networks and services based on the content generated by users. According to popular search engines, keywords, which are connected with the term web 3.0, are semantic web, commerce-on-demand systems, SOA architectures and 3D spaces.
Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt considers that Web 3.0 is a marketing term the same way as Web 2.0. And also, Web 3.0 is a new approach to web development, when different it services will be pieced together. The applications will be small, very fast, customizable, multiplatform and will be distributed by wire. The data will be in a cloud (According to IEEE Computer Society: “It is a paradigm in which information is permanently stored in servers on the Internet and cached temporarily on clients that include desktops, notebooks, handhelds, etc”). The model of development of such applications greatly differs from the existed development models. It requires new development tools which are being developed now.
The term Web 3.0 has a marketing nature, but involves innovations and new approaches to web development.
Visualstudio2008 and language C# on the .NET platform is often used for software development. The .NET absorbed all advantages that were available in the market of software development. The .Net platform uses the opportunities of XML and Web in full. It can be called one of the best platforms for development, especially when web-services are concerned.
The sight into web development is completely revised in .NET programming, powerful and suitable in use is given to our attention technology of ASP.NET, that noticeably avoids developments of rivals. To write code on ASP.NET is simpler , much quicker, and decision is got excellent on productivity.
C# is an object oriented language of programming for the .NET platform. It was developed by a group of developers under the aegis of Microsoft Research (SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH INSTITUTE at the Microsoft company).
There is an opinion that only web developers can become project managers (certainly if they choose such a career). This is not so.
This post will change the opinion to another one: testers are the best project managers. Funny? Let’s think about it a little.
Who is a tester? A tester is a special person, who stands at the last point of the web development lifecycle. He is the last person between the web developer and the customer.
So at first, to be a tester means to be responsible for not only quality software, but almost for the success of the whole project.
Let’s think more. A tester is a person, who doesn’t develop anything himself. He just checks. So he knows better than the whole project team, how the things should be and almost the only one who sometimes is not afraid to say what is incorrect.
At last, a tester is the only person who knows how is will be better for the end-user to work with the product. This is not the web usability question only. As a tester himself uses the product thousands of times while testing it, he is the only person who can say, what is done conveniently or not. So a tester tells how it should be.
Do you see here much alike with the project manager’s work? Same as a tester, a IT project manager doesn’t develop anything himself, always knows, how the things should be, checks the result and is responsible for the project success.
I know a project manager, who started as a tester. For now, everybody is happy to work with him and his projects are always a succes!
Current version of Lightbox (widely used in web development) has an intricate navigation in the image gallery. At first a user trys to guess where to show “previous” or “next” buttons. This navigation isn’t user friendly. Here are some small modifications for creating a simple navigation:
The best way for creating it in your image gallery is overriding the code without direct changes in the lightbox source code. It’s profitable when it is necessary to update the source code.
Let’s think more. A tester is a person, who doesn’t develop anything himself. He just checks. So he knows better than the whole project team, how the things should be and almost the only one who sometimes is not afraid to say what is incorrect.
Print
Send