May 24th, 2010
Of late Magento open source Ecommerce is gaining tons of popularity. Wonder why? Well here is an article that was published on net.tutsplus.com. Let me share some of the important highlights of Magento. Hundreds of ecommerce systems exist, but very few can match the power of Magento.
Why Use Magento?
Well there are quite a few very good reasons to use Magento:
- A Simple Intuitive Interface
- Easy To Download, Install & Maintain
- Built on current technologies unlike other systems.
- Multiple Site Functionality
- And best of all…It’s free and open source!
The Benefits of Magento as an Ecommerce Solution
[via - Newearthmarketing.com]
More and more of our clients have been expressing an interest Magento. Magento is robust, scalable, rich in features and user friendly. It has ecommerce features that in that past would have cost prohibitive. Now our clients are able to use a free opensource platform with minimal customization to create a first-rate online shopping experience for their visitors.
We love Magento for the following reasons:
1. Open Source: Open Source platforms are free and the code is open to the public. This allows us to understand the how the software works to fix things and add new features.
2. Features: The standard version of Magento contains all the features required to implement a good ecommerce store. Basics such as the shopping cart, catalog management, search, checkout and administration functions are all included. (Features of Magento )
3. Flexibility & Conversion: Magento’s flexibility allows us to modify existing features or add in new ones. Drupal now has an extension for Magento which helps integration of Magento into a Drupal based website. If you are converting from another platform, there are tools which allows you to import products, customers and order information from other carts such as OSCommerce and X-Cart.
4. Active Community: Magento has a growing community of developers who continue to report problems, provide suggestions and share. Many write open source extensions that add to the features. Varien, Magento’s creator has provided a roadmap which helps users upgrade their sites more easily.
5. Architecture: The basic structure that Magento is built in is excellent. This makes for a stable reliable platform.
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January 20th, 2009
Founds this interesting article at alledia.com.
Joomla and Drupal
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Joomla |
Drupal |
| Community Features |
Community Builder. A solid component, but one that really needs an SEF extension to enable Youtube-style URLs. |
Very impressive. Users can form groups and expansion of the registraion form is native to Drupal. |
| Shopping Cart |
Joomla has Virtuemart and an integration of OSCommerce, both of which beat Drupal’s ecommerce addon. Use OSCommerce if you need multicurrency options or if you have a payment gateway not supported by VM |
Not recommended as it lacks tax and currency options. However, watch out for Ubercart which looks promising. |
| SEO |
Poor out of the box. OpenSEF is OK and improving fast. SEF Advance is roughly comparable quality but costs 50 Euros. Code is not very well adapted for SEO. |
The out-of-the-box URLs work well and can be improved with one easy addon. The code is generally lightweight and well-optimised. |
| Forums |
Use Joomla with Simple Machines Forum, which is the path taken by Joomla.org. Joomlaboard integrates natively to Joomla but lacks many key features. |
A native and very smooth forum, but lacking in the high end features of the best modern forums. VbDrupal is the best way to avoid this (a Drupal Vbulletin hack) |
| Multimedia |
Yes, plenty of podcast and video options. |
Yes – Drupal Video and podcast options also available. |
| Photo Galleries |
Yes. The best are integrations with Gallery2 and the Flash gallery Expose. |
Has a default module and a Gallery2 integration. |
| Event Calendars |
Several native plug-ins and integrations. |
Not great. There are options but they are far behind those available for Joomla. |
| Template / Themes |
Joomla has a wide selection of free and commercial offerings. Once installed they can be assigned to different pages. |
Only one commercial developer. Off-the-shelf choices are very poor. Currently, Drupal assumes one template for all pages, although this can be adapted with effort and will 5.0 will allow templates to be assigned according to URL. Developing your own is the best bet. |
| Blogs |
Some out-of-the-box capability. A good overview is here. Joomla.org uses a port of WordPress. |
Good capabilities, although not a natural blog in the manner of WordPress. |
| Document Management |
Yes – DocMan. |
Not anything worth considering. |
| User Permissions |
Some very major forks can work with Joomla, but this is a very poor area. Joomla is very admin-orientated. A small group of people are going to control and run the site. A lot of members can contribute by adding content, forum posts etc. but it is difficult to increase their permissions further. |
Drupal wins hands-down. However, you still can’t manage single members. You need to add them to a certain group. |
| External Integration |
Joomla 1.5 will help greatly with a much improved API and more hooks. |
Currently Drupal wins easily with plenty of hooks |
| Content Management |
In the core only Section >> Category >> Content is available. That’s it. No cross-categorization. |
Unlimited categories and subcategories. Also allows for cross-categorization of articles. |
| Multisites Management |
Commercial component. |
Out-of-the-box. |
| Documentation |
Poor, although work on this is progressing. There is however a wealth of useful information on the Joomla forums. Joomla 1.5 promises to be much more thoroughly documented.(Click here for 1.5 documentation. |
Not too bad. (Click here for documentation and here for an API reference guide |
| SSL Compatible |
With hacks. |
Yes |
| Standards Compliance |
Not great. Accessible Joomla is a fork necessary to move Joomla towards compliance. Mambo/Joomla dates from before standards were even considered (1999). |
Yes. Excellent out-of-the-box. |
| Internationalization |
With Joomfish. Not an easy or straight-forward solution |
Yes, Excellent. (via i18n module) |
| Commercial Community |
Very strong. Perhaps the best in the Open Source CMS world. Try Try Joomla Yellow Pages or Joomla.org. |
Weak. Difficult to find strong Drupal developers in any quantity. Try Drupal.org, Drupal Yellow Pages or Drupalancers. |
| General Community |
Great. 100s of extra components available, both commercial and open source. Many companies now offering services. |
Good community. Often more non-profit than business driven. Excellent forum support at Drupal.org. |
| Ease-of-use |
Joomla has a great graphical interface in separate area of website. |
Administrator tasks on the current Drupal version are done via a menu on the frontpage which confuses many. Drupal 5.0 will solve this and also provide an online installer. Still, installing many modules needs technical knowledge. |
| Learning Curve |
Shallow. One of the very easiest CMS systems to learn and customize. |
A little steeper than Joomla, but still relatively easy to learn. |
| Speed |
A default installation of 1.0.11 loads in 0.90 seconds.
A default installation of 1.5 loads in 1.33 seconds. (Scores from http://sitescore.silktide.com) |
A default installation loads in 1.05 seconds.
(Score from http://sitescore.silktide.com) |
| Size |
1.0.11 is 16.4 MB
1.5 is 16.7 MB |
Version 5.0 is 2.89 MB |
| Current Situation |
Unclear. When will Joomla 1.5 be out? Which version should people currently buiding sites use? One developer recently warned about relying on any firm deadlines or easy upgrades to the new version. |
Clear development path. Currently working on Drupal 5. Beta 2 came out at the end of November and a Release Candidate is probably next. |
| Overall |
Joomla 1.5 will be the crucial leap for the platform paving the way for the resolution of many old limitations. Producing a good-looking site with plenty of functionality is a relatively easy task with Joomla. |
Drupal is more community-oriented and the current live version is more extensible. That advantage will be greatly shortened once Joomla 1.5 is stable. |
Tags: Drupal, Joomla
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January 20th, 2009
Joomla Development and Customization
Joomla! is one of the most powerful Open Source Content Management Systems. It is used all over the world for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. Joomla! is easy to install, simple to manage, and reliable.
Build your Business Website on Joomla
Joomla allows you to organise and update your website content regularly using a web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox or Opera) – without needing to know any of the technicalities behind the scenes, such as HTML (the language used to create web pages). Joomla can take care of all future scalability needs of your business. Joomla can manage your shopping cart, newsletters, calendar and much more with just a click of a button.
Why StrApp?
StrApp has been providing CMS solutions to its clients from past 4 years. We are now authors of many Joomla CMS implementations, many of them including advanced customizations. Our job is not just to apply Joomla templates, but to develop a user friendly and highly effective website.
If you already have a Joomla site of your own or plan to have a new one and need customizations or you are missing some functionality, fill in the Quick Contact form on the right panel now.
StrApp Joomla CMS Offer
- Complete customization of Joomla including core files
- One-click Template Selection and Joomla Customization Solution
Click here to know more
- Customization of 3rd party modules (such as VirtueMart, Calendar, Photo Gallery, Discussion Boards, etc.)
- Development of new components, modules and mambots
- Advanced site SEO (search engine optimization)
- Layout and template adjustments and tuning of existing websites and making it Joomla friendly.
Joomla Websites starting from US $699
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Tags: Joomla, Joomla CMS
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January 20th, 2009
Drupal CMS Development and Customization
If you’re going to spend the time and money to develop a website then you should develop a website that is built to last. StrApp’s Drupal website design, consulting, and development services help you implement user friendly website and maximize your website profitability.
Build your Business Website on Drupal
Drupal CMS allows you to organise and update your website content regularly using a web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox or Opera) – without needing to know any of the technicalities behind the scenes, such as HTML (the language used to create web pages). Drupal can take care of all future scalability needs with its modules like user administration, publishing workflow, news aggregation, metadata functionalities using controlled vocabularies and XML publishing for content sharing purposes.
Why StrApp?
StrApp has been providing CMS solutions to its clients from past 4 years. We are now authors of many Drupal CMS implementations, many of them including module level customizations. Our job is not just to apply Drupal templates, but to develop a user friendly and highly effective website.
If you already have a Drupal site of your own or plan to have a new one and need customizations or you are missing some functionality, fill in the Quick Contact form on the right panel now.
StrApp Drupal CMS Offer
- Complete customization of Drupal CMS
- One-click Template Selection and Drupal Customization Solution
Click here to know more
- Customization of 3rd party modules (such as administration, publishing workflow, news aggregation, metadata functionalities, etc.)
- Development of new components, modules and mambots
- Advanced site SEO (search engine optimization)
- Layout and template adjustments and tuning of existing websites and making it Drupal CMS friendly.
Drupal Websites starting from US $399
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Tags: Drupal, Drupal CMS
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
