Monday, December 10, 2012

Is Concrete5 The Right CMS For Your Website?

Is Concrete5 The Right CMS For Your Website?:


  


Back in October, I did an evaluation cum review article about MODX. The aim of the article was to assess the usability and feasibility of MODX as a Content Management System for your website. My sole purpose behind the article was to help the readers in their quest to choose which CMS to use for their websites. The response to the article was good, and I’d like to thank everyone who read the article and took time to share it and comment on it. Carrying on from October, today, I shall be taking a look at yet another CMS...
Is Concrete5 The Right CMS For Your Website?:


  


Back in October, I did an evaluation cum review article about MODX. The aim of the article was to assess the usability and feasibility of MODX as a Content Management System for your website. My sole purpose behind the article was to help the readers in their quest to choose which CMS to use for their websites. The response to the article was good, and I’d like to thank everyone who read the article and took time to share it and comment on it. Carrying on from October, today, I shall be taking a look at yet another CMS...

20 Awesome Wallpapers For Retina-iPads

20 Awesome Wallpapers For Retina-iPads:


  


The iPads with Retina display call for a different breed of wallpapers as pictures with low resolutions cannot satisfy the eyes anymore, once you have taken a sip from the cup of high density. The community accepted that challenge rather quickly and has already brought up a wide range of high-grade imagery. I have been checking the offerings, trying to find wallpapers to my own liking. Here is what I came up with.
20 Awesome Wallpapers For Retina-iPads:


  


The iPads with Retina display call for a different breed of wallpapers as pictures with low resolutions cannot satisfy the eyes anymore, once you have taken a sip from the cup of high density. The community accepted that challenge rather quickly and has already brought up a wide range of high-grade imagery. I have been checking the offerings, trying to find wallpapers to my own liking. Here is what I came up with.

Festive Spirit 2012: 50 Awesome Christmas Wallpapers To Santa Up Your Desktop

Festive Spirit 2012: 50 Awesome Christmas Wallpapers To Santa Up Your Desktop:


  
Christmas Snowmen

It is December already, and you know what December stands for -- festive season! Yes, that's right. Christmas is just a few days away, and everyone seems to be getting in the festive mood. Speaking of festive mood: We noticed that our older posts, in which we collected Christmas freebies, are much sought-after these days. Thus we decided to not let you stick with the stuff from yesterday and deliver a brand-new set of 50 awesome and fresh Christmas wallpapers.
Festive Spirit 2012: 50 Awesome Christmas Wallpapers To Santa Up Your Desktop:


  
Christmas Snowmen

It is December already, and you know what December stands for -- festive season! Yes, that's right. Christmas is just a few days away, and everyone seems to be getting in the festive mood. Speaking of festive mood: We noticed that our older posts, in which we collected Christmas freebies, are much sought-after these days. Thus we decided to not let you stick with the stuff from yesterday and deliver a brand-new set of 50 awesome and fresh Christmas wallpapers.

There Is No Getting Round These 40 Inescapable Fonts In 2013

There Is No Getting Round These 40 Inescapable Fonts In 2013:


  


We are sure that you will not even try to live without the following collection of inescapable fonts in 2013. All these fonts carry more than the basic character set, though mileage will vary. German readers will find all the special characters, others have to check by themselves. We have included the information, whether the creators of the font allow commercial use. These things should always be double-checked beforehand anyway. So do not only rely on our findings. Furthermore we tell you the format the fonts come in. To help you determine potential usecases, we have also included our rating regarding apperance and style of each font. Designers won't probably need that much, though...
There Is No Getting Round These 40 Inescapable Fonts In 2013:


  


We are sure that you will not even try to live without the following collection of inescapable fonts in 2013. All these fonts carry more than the basic character set, though mileage will vary. German readers will find all the special characters, others have to check by themselves. We have included the information, whether the creators of the font allow commercial use. These things should always be double-checked beforehand anyway. So do not only rely on our findings. Furthermore we tell you the format the fonts come in. To help you determine potential usecases, we have also included our rating regarding apperance and style of each font. Designers won't probably need that much, though...

Image Is Everything – Ask @aplusk [Infographic]

Image Is Everything – Ask @aplusk [Infographic]:


  


Okay, we are not going to argue about the image strategies of certain people maybe mentioned in the title. Instead we are going to take a look at Veer’s latest infographic on the ever-rising importance of images in the modern world. Veer, which you might know as a service for imagery, illustrations and fonts, has put together a compact fact-sheet with the most important things you need to know, whether you are a designer or not. Unsurprising for an image provider, you say? Well, maybe, but nevertheless true.
Image Is Everything – Ask @aplusk [Infographic]:


  


Okay, we are not going to argue about the image strategies of certain people maybe mentioned in the title. Instead we are going to take a look at Veer’s latest infographic on the ever-rising importance of images in the modern world. Veer, which you might know as a service for imagery, illustrations and fonts, has put together a compact fact-sheet with the most important things you need to know, whether you are a designer or not. Unsurprising for an image provider, you say? Well, maybe, but nevertheless true.

HTML 5: Speed Up Your JavaScript-Animations with requestAnimationFrame

HTML 5: Speed Up Your JavaScript-Animations with requestAnimationFrame:


  


Thanks to CSS3 we no longer need Flash to produce good-looking animations. In general we do not even need JavaScript. But CSS3 falls short for some use cases. If you need to calculate or recalculate your animations, there's no getting round JavaScript. You do not have to use setTimeout and setInterval though. These do carry the disadvantage of simply repeating a function in defined intervals. Looking at animations, defined intervals are not the best way to make them work. If you have been using these two functions, you probably already experienced difficulties in finding the values for intervals in match with the required animation steps. Furthermore, setTimeout and setInterval rarely are in sync with the display refresh rate, which leads to the effect, that animations cannot be precisely presented. It doesn't have to be that way, though...
HTML 5: Speed Up Your JavaScript-Animations with requestAnimationFrame:


  


Thanks to CSS3 we no longer need Flash to produce good-looking animations. In general we do not even need JavaScript. But CSS3 falls short for some use cases. If you need to calculate or recalculate your animations, there's no getting round JavaScript. You do not have to use setTimeout and setInterval though. These do carry the disadvantage of simply repeating a function in defined intervals. Looking at animations, defined intervals are not the best way to make them work. If you have been using these two functions, you probably already experienced difficulties in finding the values for intervals in match with the required animation steps. Furthermore, setTimeout and setInterval rarely are in sync with the display refresh rate, which leads to the effect, that animations cannot be precisely presented. It doesn't have to be that way, though...

Friday, September 21, 2012

IzzoNet: Create Your Own Shop Easily



Posted: 20 Sep 2012 12:57 AM PDT

  
Selling things online is something I think a lot of us have considered doing. And even if you haven’t considered selling things yourself, it’s likely that you’ve had clients who were interested in doing so. But getting an ecommerce site setup, even for designers and developers, can be a pain. It’s often time-consuming, frustrating, and requires a lot of administrative-type work that’s not very much fun. Instead, a service like IzzoNet can really make it simple to get your online store up and running in just a few easy steps.

IzzoNet: Few simple steps and you’re good to go

First, start with a theme for your site. IzzoNet has tons of themes you can use, to suit just about any type of storefront. You can make modifications and customizations to the CSS of any theme you choose, and you can even download the CSS file as a backup (which you’ll want to do before making revisions).
IzzoNet themes
Once your theme is installed and customized to your liking, you’ll want to add content. You can start with things like an about page, add additional pages, or edit the system-generated content pages (which include things like order thank you pages and help pages).
IzzoNet content
Next up is adding products to your online store. It comes pre-populated with products so you can see exactly how the product listings work. The product list includes an image, SKU, product name, category, price, sale price, cost, revenue, quantity, the date of the last update, and options to edit, copy, or delete each item.
IzzoNet product list
Adding a product is simple. You can include up to twelve images per product, as well as plenty of information about the product. IzzoNet even supports downloadable products (just check the box at the top and you’ll be able to upload a file). You can include as much or as little information as you like about each product; the only required fields are the product name, price, and category.
IzzoNet add products
Products can include a lot of extra info, too, like shipping info, additional price info, product promotions, search engine optimization, Ebay information, Facebook info, and more.
You can also access the product category listings from the products section of the backend, where you can activate or deactivate categories, as well as add new product categories.

IzzoNet: Flexibility in payment methods, local taxes, your own domain. What else?

A number of payment processors are supported by IzzoNet, including:
  • Authorize.net
  • BeanStream
  • CreditGuard
  • DirecPay
  • EBS
  • eWay
  • Google Checkout
  • Moneybookers
  • NetBilling
  • Offline Payment
  • PayLeap
  • PayPal
  • Secure Trading
IzzoNet payments
Once your content, products, and payment types are set up, you can move on to set tax information. You can even set it so that tax is included in the product price, or disable taxes and VAT all together.
IzzoNet tax
After everything is set up, you can set your store’s domain. You can keep the IzzoNet subdomain from the original setup, or you can use a custom domain. Options there include registering a new domain name through IzzoNet, transferring your domain name to IzzoNet, or using a domain that remains registered elsewhere.
That’s all there is to getting up and running with IzzoNet. It doesn’t get much easier.
But that’s not all IzzoNet can do for you. There are various sales reports you can generate from your site’s sales figures. That includes financial reports, products, suppliers, email addresses, and more.
One thing IzzoNet includes that isn’t included in a lot of ecommerce solutions is dropshipper management. IzzoNet includes supplier integration where your suppliers can actually log into your IzzoNet account and get updates about your products. You can create a supplier database, and even run an analysis on your suppliers to determine who’s best.
IzzoNet will also automatically send your customers tracking numbers for their orders, whether they’re sent from your or directly from a supplier. This greatly simplifies your order workflow.
In addition to managing your dropshippers, IzzoNet makes it easy to establish yourself as a dropshipper, too! You can manage everything right from the same control panel, provide your clients with their own unique logins, and even present special pricing to individual clients.

IzzoNet comes with full support for social shopping

IzzoNet also includes a number of social media tools that are sometimes lacking in other ecommerce solutions. While sharing your products to Facebook is pretty simple, IzzoNet goes a step further and makes it easy to set up a Facebook store. There’s also an online store mobile app, a store management mobile app, and even a “webcam social shopper”, which lets your customers see how a desired item will look on them.
Pricing for IzzoNet starts at less than $20 per month for their Gold plan, and with many more features available for just twice that amount. Certain features (including the ability to become a dropshipper) are only available in their top-level account, which is significantly more expensive at just under $300/month.
Conclusion: IzzoNet has some definite advantages over other hosted ecommerce platforms, making it a worthwhile service to check out. And their 15-day free trial (of the Diamond plan, which is $99.97/month) makes it easy to do just that. Feel encouraged, check out their plans and start the free trial
[Disclaimer: This post is a sponsored review. The opinions expressed are the author's only.]
(dpe)


Posted: 20 Sep 2012 12:57 AM PDT

  
Selling things online is something I think a lot of us have considered doing. And even if you haven’t considered selling things yourself, it’s likely that you’ve had clients who were interested in doing so. But getting an ecommerce site setup, even for designers and developers, can be a pain. It’s often time-consuming, frustrating, and requires a lot of administrative-type work that’s not very much fun. Instead, a service like IzzoNet can really make it simple to get your online store up and running in just a few easy steps.

IzzoNet: Few simple steps and you’re good to go

First, start with a theme for your site. IzzoNet has tons of themes you can use, to suit just about any type of storefront. You can make modifications and customizations to the CSS of any theme you choose, and you can even download the CSS file as a backup (which you’ll want to do before making revisions).
IzzoNet themes
Once your theme is installed and customized to your liking, you’ll want to add content. You can start with things like an about page, add additional pages, or edit the system-generated content pages (which include things like order thank you pages and help pages).
IzzoNet content
Next up is adding products to your online store. It comes pre-populated with products so you can see exactly how the product listings work. The product list includes an image, SKU, product name, category, price, sale price, cost, revenue, quantity, the date of the last update, and options to edit, copy, or delete each item.
IzzoNet product list
Adding a product is simple. You can include up to twelve images per product, as well as plenty of information about the product. IzzoNet even supports downloadable products (just check the box at the top and you’ll be able to upload a file). You can include as much or as little information as you like about each product; the only required fields are the product name, price, and category.
IzzoNet add products
Products can include a lot of extra info, too, like shipping info, additional price info, product promotions, search engine optimization, Ebay information, Facebook info, and more.
You can also access the product category listings from the products section of the backend, where you can activate or deactivate categories, as well as add new product categories.

IzzoNet: Flexibility in payment methods, local taxes, your own domain. What else?

A number of payment processors are supported by IzzoNet, including:
  • Authorize.net
  • BeanStream
  • CreditGuard
  • DirecPay
  • EBS
  • eWay
  • Google Checkout
  • Moneybookers
  • NetBilling
  • Offline Payment
  • PayLeap
  • PayPal
  • Secure Trading
IzzoNet payments
Once your content, products, and payment types are set up, you can move on to set tax information. You can even set it so that tax is included in the product price, or disable taxes and VAT all together.
IzzoNet tax
After everything is set up, you can set your store’s domain. You can keep the IzzoNet subdomain from the original setup, or you can use a custom domain. Options there include registering a new domain name through IzzoNet, transferring your domain name to IzzoNet, or using a domain that remains registered elsewhere.
That’s all there is to getting up and running with IzzoNet. It doesn’t get much easier.
But that’s not all IzzoNet can do for you. There are various sales reports you can generate from your site’s sales figures. That includes financial reports, products, suppliers, email addresses, and more.
One thing IzzoNet includes that isn’t included in a lot of ecommerce solutions is dropshipper management. IzzoNet includes supplier integration where your suppliers can actually log into your IzzoNet account and get updates about your products. You can create a supplier database, and even run an analysis on your suppliers to determine who’s best.
IzzoNet will also automatically send your customers tracking numbers for their orders, whether they’re sent from your or directly from a supplier. This greatly simplifies your order workflow.
In addition to managing your dropshippers, IzzoNet makes it easy to establish yourself as a dropshipper, too! You can manage everything right from the same control panel, provide your clients with their own unique logins, and even present special pricing to individual clients.

IzzoNet comes with full support for social shopping

IzzoNet also includes a number of social media tools that are sometimes lacking in other ecommerce solutions. While sharing your products to Facebook is pretty simple, IzzoNet goes a step further and makes it easy to set up a Facebook store. There’s also an online store mobile app, a store management mobile app, and even a “webcam social shopper”, which lets your customers see how a desired item will look on them.
Pricing for IzzoNet starts at less than $20 per month for their Gold plan, and with many more features available for just twice that amount. Certain features (including the ability to become a dropshipper) are only available in their top-level account, which is significantly more expensive at just under $300/month.
Conclusion: IzzoNet has some definite advantages over other hosted ecommerce platforms, making it a worthwhile service to check out. And their 15-day free trial (of the Diamond plan, which is $99.97/month) makes it easy to do just that. Feel encouraged, check out their plans and start the free trial
[Disclaimer: This post is a sponsored review. The opinions expressed are the author's only.]
(dpe)