Archive for category Featured
PrestaShop introduces PrestaStore
Note: I am reposting this announcement because PrestaShop asked me to and I’m a big believer in their product. Read on and let me know your thoughts!
PrestaShop Software
As you may recall, PrestaShop is open-source e-commerce software that allows e-merchants to sell their products on the Internet thanks to its powerful tool-set. The company was founded in 2007 by Bruno Lévêque and Igor Schlumberger. The solution has been downloaded at a rate of more than 25,000 times per month, and 15,000 are currently in production.
PrestaShop software stands out by its ease-of-use and the number of features it proposes.
PrestaShop has just made its version 1.2 alpha available, which brings many new features to bear such as:
Improvements in statistics with tracking and affiliation options.
New mail-alert functions.
Client groups.
Improved search.
Advanced tag management.
Possibility of attaching files to products (PDF, images, etc.)
And many others … you can find the complete list here: http://www.prestashop.com/forums/viewthread/17495/news___releases/liste_complete_des_nouveautes_de_la_1_dot_2_alpha
But the biggest news is the upcoming unveiling of PrestaStore, which was introduced via the Back Office in version 1.2 of PrestaShop.
PrestaStore: the marketplace at PrestaShop
PrestaStore is the marketplace for all things PrestaShop. The Website will be the meeting point between contributors who will submit their work. Submissions will be of two sorts:
The first will be in the form of modules, which extend functionality around the heart of the PrestaShop code.
The second will be in the form of themes, which allow users to personalize the graphic appearance of their online stores.
Revving up in 3 speeds
The site’s launching will be done in 3 stages:
First, we will target contributors who could make their works available as soon as the site is opened.
Second, we will open the site only to those same contributors in order to have time to validate their work.
Finally, the Website will be open to the general public.
PrestaStore, the place of choice for improving PrestaShop
The goal of the project is essentially to centralize information that is currently disseminated. It is also to lend visibility to numerous people who work on our software.
We also hope to facilitate the personalisation of PrestaShop stores by e-Merchants.
Our PrestaStore platform will therefore be the preferred place in order to find all supplementary functionality based on PrestaShop code.
We have greatly simplified the process for obtaining modules; customers will simply go to PrestaStore and choose the category in which they hope to optimize their PrestaShop online store. At the launching, there will be 5 categories: price comparators, logistics, payment tracking & conversion, and themes. Later, we will widen the choice according to the creativity of the community! In order to obtain a product, one simply adds it to the shopping cart and validates the order. The customer will then receive an e-mail containing a link for downloading.
At launch, about 40 products will be proposed for our team. Big names such as Fia-Net, Shopping.com, kelkoo, Amazon, etc., will be present. Contributions by the community will then be added.
Contributions will help to (for example):
- Automate customer management
- Propose various payment services by responding to the needs of merchants and customers, regardless of their bank
- Improve product and promotional visibility of a shop within numerous price comparators.
Security is something we are very concerned about; all submissions will be verified by our staff before being put online on PrestaStore. We are going to introduce norms, as well as an auditing service of all submissions made.
Two goals for PrestaStore
PrestaStore is a risk undertaken by PrestaShop. Of course, we wish to continue to attract new users to our open-source software.
In addition, we hope to unite in one place those contributors who provide quality work based on our software.
On one side, PrestaStore users will therefore be contributors (programmers, graphic artists) who work as freelancers or for Web agencies, and on the other side, merchants who use PrestaShop.
http://www.prestastore.com
The problem with playing with live fire…A New theme
StudioPress, created by Brian Gardner and others, is an incredibly success company that provides elastic themes for all sorts of WordPress blog owners. Many are cookie cutter and require very little design. Any of them however, can be modified to suit the needs of blogger with a mission.
I ran into a problem with the Featured Content Gallery not working properly. It took about 2 days but I found that the KPicasa plug-in was breaking the FCG. Keep that in mind.
I’ve elected to switch to the Corporate Theme because the entire front page is widget controlled. I’ve barely scratched the surface.
Check out STUDIOPRESS and let me know what you think.
2 sites are coming around
Posted by Michael in Blog, Current Project, Featured, OldStuff on January 8th, 2009
http://www.Freewordsofchrist.org is a work in progress but the Revolution Theme and some patience has brought us to about a week away of completion. The other site, www.zoomfmi.com/shop is less pretty but it has climbed in the search results ranks in short time. These are fun projects and I hope to continue working and tweaking them into full networks this year.
General Market Industry Survey
Posted by Michael in Blog, Featured, OldStuff, Semantic Web on December 29th, 2008
I’ve published a very short industry. The survey is one in a series designed to collect statistics and identify changes in the industry of the participant. The results are not published, at the moment, but it is important that I collect data. For each industry measured (and it’s fill in the blank), there are additional assessments sent to industry professionals and leaders as a cross reference to see if we are all on the same page. All information is strictly confidential and you may comment if you have decided to participate and I will be happy to share more information with you down the line.
Here is the link: http://tinyurl.com/5mininfo
Why OSCommerce, PrestaShop or Magento? Go WordPress.
To review: Magento is the best, most functional and diverse shopping platform in the OpenSource world. It’s also the most complicated and bloated. When things go wrong, they go big.
PrestaShop is easy to use and install. If you’re a CSS master, you can make PrestaShop look like it’s your own. But, its slow. The back end is extremely slow to manage products and maintain.
OSCommerce opened the door fo PrestaShop and Magento to make things right.
However, I believe that every shop owner must maintain a dynamic website and a blog site is the easiest (in my opinion) way to do that. WordPress has matured into a fully functional storefront, business landing page, content management system and only lacks proper document management.
WordPress with the wp-e-commerce plugin provides small businesses with every feature that the others have to offer including built in payment gateways, shipping, tax, downloadable content, etc.
For my money, the themes at STUDIOPRESS, formerly Revolution (2) Themes, with the wp-e-commerce wordpress plug-in is the right starting point for anybody, personal or professional, to build an audience and start selling right off the start.
In addition, I am a big believer in ShopIT for distributers to leave their shopping cart everywhere they go.
Have questions? Please check out my new products page.
The Semantic Web
Posted by Michael in Featured, OldStuff, Semantic Web on December 10th, 2008
I’m introducing a new category to my personal blog site. So far, I’ve covered a few topics such as movies, a little web design and some system administration and reviews.
I’ve gotten passionate about The Semantic web and, in particular, how it will make life better for those individuals who need relevant information for progress but not have to know how it actually works. In my opinion, the most visible example of the Semantic Web and it’s affect on society is in Healthcare.
I’ve met several people recently on Twitter who are involved in building better applications for the industry and it’s extremely relevent for pulling information from vast resource pools such as cancer research.
So, over time, I’m going to continue adding to this category more than others in the past.
In addition, I am working with a team that will use the Semantic Web in conjuction with a … (secret, more on this later).
Webmaster Abuse
I helped a friend create a small scooter site (Scooter Shop) and forgot to actually hide the domain registration information. My bad. Unfortunately, a Craigslist user got my friend mixed up with another internet user and accused him of unethical conduct. Well, as savvy as they are, they found my mistake of not hiding the registrar information and called me at home and made some statements that I was entirely comfortable with.
Domain registrars provide a simple service for hiding domain registration information at a very reasonable cost. I suggest that you take advantage of that service. The service is not available for .us accounts – it’s the nature of the account.
Be careful out there and hide your identity whenever possible. It’s still the wild west…
MCSE, revisited
I got my MCSE a long, long time ago. I’m not sure it was fashionable when I got it but I do know that it’s not worth anything right now. BTW: MCSE = Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer.
A manager does not need to have passed the MCSE exams (7 of them), he just needs somebody who did on his staff. However, if the manager is never confident that his job is secure, then he, too, should obtain the certification.
Which leads me to the whole test taking part: they are tricky. The exams have changed since I’ve taken them last: adaptable, drag and drop, type the answer in, multiple choice, multiple selection, etc. It can get tricky. 3 hours long or something like that, basically 3 minutes a question.
I’ve decided to use study materials designed for taking the tests because I’ve already designed the systems themselves with thousands of computers, email systems, and domains. Now, I just have to get the paper to prove it.
My prediction is that I will fail the first test. The test software certainly thinks so. The questions are really difficult – to Microsoft’s credit.
By this time next week, God Willing, I will be saying: 1 Down and 6 to Go!
PlateSpin Product, part 2
I put a post up last week about a possible bug in PlateSpin. Fortunately, I was wrong and the product was working as designed. There are a few nuances about the product that need to be learned, with experience, but the product itself really can deliver as described.
However, I thought I had a bug and reported it on the blog. You’ll never guess who called? Yea, PlateSpin contacted me directly to address any concerns I had. Shortly after, we worked together on a particular problem and some kinks have been worked out of our system.
That’s incredible though. A rather random blog was posted about their product and PlateSpin contacted the author just as a matter of policy! I haven’t heard anything like it actually.
If the software industry follows the PlateSpin customer service policies, then we have a wonderful future to look forward to. Cheers!
Android & ShopSavvy
I just got a a first hand look at the new ShopSavvy, formerly known as GoCart, application for the Android. Yep, I’m impressed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a product deliver on the promise of the hype about it as I witnessed with the ShopSavvy application.
1. Get a phone with Android, right now the T-Mobile G1 and download the application, ShopSavvy.
2. Go to Home Depot and pick out a rocking chair. Notice that it is $150 and it has a barcode on it.
3. Using ShopSavvy, take a picture of the barcode.
4. Product search: Search the web and local stores with the same product for price comparison – right from the application! The application delivers user ratings for the product at the same time as the prices.
5. Didn’t find your price point? Create a price watch so the application alerts you when the rocking chair can be found at your price.
It’s that cool. Here’s a demo: ShopSavvy