Stefan Mischook
March 25, 2009
There are plenty of articles on how to build an e-commerce website. The problem is that they speak to web-nerds and not to the business people who want to build on online business.
This article speaks to those not so tech savvy entrepreneurs.
What we want to do:
The goal is to create an e-commerce website that builds a business using all the cheap and free tools available in the market today. One great thing about the nerd driven computer revolution, is the strong sense of community and desire to give opportunity to the masses.
Because of this freely available cheap and/or free technology, it is just so much easier today to start a business than it was just 15-20 years ago.
These are some of the questions this article will answer:
- What are the components of an e-commerce site, and how do you best get those components into your web site?
- What makes an e-commerce website successful?
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February 2, 2009
With the economic crisis is in full swing, many have been laid-off or are about to be laid-off, and are now looking at new ways to make a living. Web design is a great choice.
Why is web design a good choice?
I imagine people could come up with many reasons (don’t be afraid to list them in the comments) but for me, it comes down to a few simple things:
- Web design as a profession is growing as quickly as the Web itself continues too grow. The future of business is on the Web, and Web technology continues to evolve as well. That means there will be an increasing need for web designers for the foreseeable future.
- Web design is an open market. No corrupt associations and fake certifications are required to jump in. All you need is dedication, a strong portfolio and a touch of talent. You got to love a true meritocracy!
- Web design does not require a huge investment to jump into the game. There is no need for expensive equipment or ultra expensive training. Your home computer and some free or inexpensive software … and you’re on your way!
So, how do you land that lucrative web design job?
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February 1, 2009
Some of you may know that killersites.com was originally founded by David Siegel to support his best selling book on web design: Creating Killer Web Sites.
What made this book important, was that it taught the web design community that design principles should be used in web design. Believe me, in those days, that was ground breaking!
So what is Dave up to these days?
Besides flying around the world taking pictures of orchids, David has been involved with something called the Semantic Web. I won’t go into details about it here, but suffice it to say that David is a strong advocate and he believes that it will shape the future of not only the Internet, but perhaps the way we do business and live.
That all said, the reason for this post is to help David get out the word that he is open to the possibility of helping to run Apple computers. Yes, he does have big ambitions … but why not? Apple is about forward thinking and innovation and David has a track record of both.
You can read more about his ideas on this personal web site: David Siegal
Thanks for reading,
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
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January 15, 2009
Hi,
Have you ever loaded up a web page and found funny looking symbols in your text where there should just be normal text? Take a look at this screen capture:
Those funky symbols are appearing because you are using symbols (in your web page) that fall outside the normal character space range … you need to tell your browser you want to use international symbols.
To do this, you need to add the UTF8 meta tag:
<meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=utf-8″>
And this is what you will get:
Hope that helps.
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
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January 14, 2009
Hi,
I’ve been using Paypal to process my credit card orders since 2001 and overall, it’s a pretty good service.
… In fact, I would argue that Paypal is essential for just about any e-commerce site since it is used by so many merchants and most importantly, just ordinary people.
Paypal’s main advantages are:
- Easy to set up.
- Can accept several types of electronic payments: credit card, e-checks and Paypal.
- Since Paypal is so well known, it will put your clients at ease. You’d be surprised at how nervous people still are of buying products online!
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January 8, 2009
Hi,
I’ve been a advocate of website templates in commercial web design for years now, because it saves the designer a lot of time and in saves the clients a good chunk of cash.
… There are occasions where from-scratch custom design makes sense, but for most web design projects, templates are a great solution – especially with a little customization to make it look unique.
How to use Templates in the Web Design BUSINESS process?
I was recently asked by a web designer how I would show clients the templates that are out there? Do you send them to a template site (free or commercial) or do you do something else?
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January 8, 2009
Hi,
This will be just a short post.
Someone recently wrote to me, frustrated about their web site, where the project seemed to never end … there was always something more to do. Basically, this person was wondering if they were up to being a web designer since they just couldn’t get it right the first time.
Web Design is an Iterative Process
The point of this quick little blog post is to remind you that web design is typically an iterative process. What I mean by that, is that a web site is oftentimes, built in stages where you ‘finish’ the design from a-z and then, you go back and polish the layout and the structure of the site in a second, third and sometimes even a forth pass.
… So don’t get too flustered if your site is not turning out exactly the way you want the first time you take a crack at it. Eventually, you will get it were you want it to be and then … it will be time to redesign again!
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
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December 28, 2008
I’ve been critical of web design zealots for years now and have gotten into some pretty heated battles over what I would consider to be overly zealous interpretation and adherence to the all not-so-mighty Web Standards.
I don’t want to argue the issue again, but in a nutshell: I always felt it unwise to ignore the practical realities of the browsers actually being used in favor of the Web Standards. I argued that the Web Standards, though noble in thought, were not reflective of the reality on the ground. As such, I advised web designers (years ago) to pay much more attention to browsers that people used, rather than to the Web Standards and the W3C validator.
Heresy!!
“… When people start surfing the Web with the W3C validator, I’ll start testing my sites with it. In the meantime, I will test with IE and Firefox since that’s what people use!”
The forward compatibility myth and the Web Standards
One of the big arguments put forth by the Web Standards zealots was that if you follow the Web Standards, your pages would be “forward compatible” … your web pages would more likely render properly in web browsers that have yet to be created.
Well, recent evidence is showing me that these academic shills were wrong once again.
The PS3 web browser prefers tables!
Being a hardcore nerd, I went out and bought the best blu-ray player on the market: the PS3. One of the reasons I got the PS3, is that it is equipped with a web browser. Yes, I like to surf the Web on my big tv.
Anyway, what I’ve discovered is that the PS3 browser screws up only on ‘forward compatible’ Web Standard compliant web sites. Whereas with old school table based layouts – never a problem.
It seems to me that the fine people at Sony (like so many others) realized that there are hundreds of millions of pages that are built with old school techniques and that they better support them. One thing academic nerds can never understand: pragmatic business decision making. Instead, they are defenders of the faith and thus, are very dogmatic in their decision making.
… Reminds when IE7 came out and it broke all these ‘forward compatible’ websites because they were using CSS hacks rather than safe and sure (non standard) IE Conditional comments. Man, many CSS books had to be corrected and reprinted!
Conclusion
I think this post is best summed up by what one my assistants (and formally Web Standards zealot) said when he started actually having to produce web pages in the real life:
“It’s hard to believe that these zealots are actually building web sites!? … When you’re trying to follow the strict standards in real day to day work … it simply isn’t always practical.”
Happy new year!
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
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December 25, 2008
I just wanted to first wish everyone a merry Christmas and a happy holidays.
I haven’t been posting new blog entries … but I have an excuse! I’ve been busy working on putting up a brand new forum.
The old Java based forum was becoming a little too dated in terms of it’s features and the way it worked overall. It was showing its’ age.
Why not just update the forum software?
Believe me, I tried several times but for reasons I was not easily able to figure out, the new version of the forum just did not want to run on the live server. I could get it to work on my local development/testing machine … but not live.
So I then contacted the people who built the old forum and asked for assistance. To my surprise, they wanted 10-15 hrs of billable time to install their own forum software!
… I was willing to pay to have them do it, but 10-15 hrs to install a forum!! That’s nuts! Another classic example of Java’s tendency to over-engineer everything.
Sometimes it just makes sense to move on …
So I decided to start researching for a new forum given all the problems I was having, given that the forum had serious flaws to begin with and finally, when the people who built the thing want 10hrs+ to install it … it’s time to get the hell out!
Anyway, I researched and researched and finally found something that I liked. It is fast, modern, built with PHP and only takes 3 minutes to install … even if you never used it before!
I invite you to check it out: the new web designers forum at killersites.com.
Thanks,
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
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December 10, 2008
When looking at building web pages for cellphones, you have to consider a few options these days. Why? Because it is a moving target.
Moving target … what the heck does that mean?! Read on nerds to learn!
Way back, a long time ago …
In the old days, cellphones were only able to read pages built with a language called WML. WML is short for: Wireless Markup Language.
WML is basically HTML for cell phones. Along with WML, the nerds in power also came up with a Javascript-like language for cellphones called WMLScript. I am mentioning WMLScript for no particular reason other than to be complete. Anyway …
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