Magento is the new improved e-commerce platform that gives a superior force to web traders to get rid of obstacles in the way of business process implementations. With downloads surpassing the magical figure of 600,000, Magento is easily the fastest growing commercially available tool for online business solutions.

Don’t be misled by the free and open source background of Magento—it excels the best commercial tools with its theme based structure and support for a panoply of digital products.

We at Maven Infosoft have solid expertise in working with all leading e-commerce and portal-building platforms and have managed and implemented heavy-duty enterprise-level content management systems. We can safely assert that Magento has outshone all of them.

There remain a few uncertainties, as with any growing and emergent platform, in the design and development capabilities that Magento has to offer. The high competence level required means that it is not for all and sundry. Having said that, Magento is by far the most adaptable and compliant e-commerce program to hit the online trading market.

In many ways, Magento is not a typical open source solution. It is free to download and use. It does give you the ability to create customize themes and module extensions. It has all the potential for swell in usage and gain in popularity. However, it has a dedicated company supporting its growth. Magento is the product of Varien, an e-commerce design house that seems to benefit from Magento by offering traditional web agency services.

Magento is based on a theme based framework with individual layouts, templates and skins, which in turn has greater look and feel customize capability. Once you get the hang of it, creating stores in Magento turns into a piece of cake. Unlike shopping carts and content management systems devoid of themes, this framework elevates Magento to a different level

The comprehensive features available reflect long years of e-commerce experience. Features such as advanced pricing rules, product image zoom, side-by-side comparison and inventory management indicate the strong relevance to marketing functions and requirements. Other features that we approve of are:

• Ready to go iPhone theme
• Single page checkout
• Availability of real time rates from UPS, FedEx and the US Postal Service
• Great analytics and reporting
• One administration panel and product catalog to manage  multiple websites/stores
• Customer reviews
• Flexible coupon rules for flexibility of campaigns
• Layered and faceted navigation for filtering
• Google Website Optimizer integration
• URL rewrites
• Newsletter management
• Easy integration of third party tools using Web API
• Choice of more than 50 payment gateways
• Option to up sell during checkout
• Self-generating site maps
• Full support for digital and downloadable products
• RSS feeds for customers and administrators alike

Though Magento does have simple usage rules including easy handling of the administration interface, it does require developers to have fundamental skills in PHP, MySQL, SOAP, XML, XHTML, Apache and CSS. This is indeed the case for most shopping carts or platforms, but Magento is much more application oriented. Even a standard implementation will have you accessing files and programming code that other simpler platforms do not ask for.

All said and done, Magento is an outstanding tool for online commerce and web marketing. It is no less than a boon for leading Internet retailers.

If you are looking to design and develop Magento ecommerce store for your business, Maven Infosoft is a one stop helping point for all your requirements. 

Maven Infosoft is one of the initial starters who work on Magento since its first version. The expertise of Magento developers at Maven Infosoft, serves Magento customers to meet their Enterprise requirements.

Maven Infosoft provides services for enterprise Magento theme development, enterprise Magento template design, Magento extensions like Vendor module, Purchase module, accounting module and Magento payment extensions like iVeri, Paymentec, Safepay, Secpay, Secpay 3D secure, DIBS DirectPay, Cardinal Direct, Cardinal 3D secure

As Magento is free open source application, Maven Infosoft also provides free Magento theme, free Magento templates, and free Magento extensions to help Magento grow in terms of ecommerce application.

Like Magento, Maven Infosoft is helping internet business to grow further to reach new heights.

For more information please refer http://www.offshoresoftwaredevelopmentindia.com/php-mysql-pgsql-programming/magento-customization-solutions.html

Or drop us an email at info@offshoresoftwaredevelopmentindia.com

info@offshoresoftwaredevelopmentindia.com

Author Name: – Anand Pandya

Resource: – http://www.offshoresoftwaredevelopmentindia.com/blog/

• Tools for dependable bootstrapping

• A command line client for creating and maintaining projects

• Devices for menus, sitemaps, breadcrumbs, and whatnot

• Full support for Amazon EC2 and S3

• A simple and reliable framework

• New additions and bug fixes

Check out Mathew’s blog for more detailed description.

Object Oriented Programming (OOP) without classes C++, JAVA, PHP and Drupal. OOP’s Power in Drupal, an Open source application for content management system (CMS) and using Oriented Programming features without classes.

As all the OOP languages use CLASS or similar data structures for Object Oriented Programming, we have considered that without a “CLASS”, OOP is not possible.

Object oriented programming (OOP) is quickly taking place over the traditional procedure oriented programming (POP). Programming languages like C# and Java are successful because of OOPs Power.

After gone through the code of “Drupal” – One of the most popular open sources content management system and framework built with PHP language, summary is – Drupal doesn’t use a single Class in its code base. Whole Drupal code base is based on just functions. As PHP, with which programming language Drupal itself is built, is also implementing many powerful OPP features, but Drupal is not using these features.

Actually, the OOP concept is not based on uses of data structures like CLASS. It is based on the fundamentals of features like Objects, Abstraction, Encapsulation, Polymorphism, Inheritance etc. If these fundamental features are included in programming then it can be considered in OOP.

There is no keyword ‘class’ in Drupal code. Drupal is as non-OOP as many programmers do. But that is not true. Drupal doesn’t contain any class like data structure; still it is still Object Oriented.

Drupal covers all these features without classes. Power of Drupal is hardly depends on this programming structure only. The way, how the hook system has been implemented in Drupal would never been possible with the use of Classes.

See more details about how Drupal implements Object Oriented Programming (OOP) without using Classes, visit: http://api.drupal.org

See More Articles: – http://www.offshoresoftwaredevelopmentindia.com/blog

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Offshore Software Development India offers to Php development, .Net Development, programming, search engine optimization, web Design, Web Development, Content Management, B2B B2C Portal, Software Development article, news and information | Offshore Software Development in Ahmedabad, Gujarat India.

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Resources: – http://www.offshoresoftwaredevelopmentindia.com/blog/2008/06/04/object-oriented-programming-oop-without-classes/

I mean, ultimately, if no rankings exist (I’m talking about the first page of search engines) for keywords that are searched for (try Google Suggest), you are not using natural, organic results to drive traffic, or you have just started.

You may be employing other strategies for driving traffic, which is good–you should have a blended approach–but you *must* track everything you do, and Google Analytics is most often the starter analytics package of choice. In fact, since it’s easy on your wallet (free), many opt to use this system. It is used on websites from static to dynamic. There are even free WordPress Analytics Plugins, easy to set up. Check out Joost De Valk and his wordpress Google analytics plugin (he’s a great SEO tool builder in the Netherlands; contact him if you are reading from Europe).

Rankings are important. But after ranking and traffic comes the critical (and often underused or misdiagnosed) web analytics. What questions should you ask? What’s important?

Recently, at a publishers convention, I discussed SEO, search marketing trends and tracking (wpa-online.org), and it was apparent that many knew the basics of SEO and had analytics running on their sites, but did not necessarily know what were important metrics to track.

Learn more about page views, user behavior tracking, average time on site, importance of understanding bounce rates, unique visitors, referrer traffic and optimizing landing pages here

Search Engine Optimization using proper KPI (key performance indicators) analytics is a must-do, don’t-miss situation.

Many SEO firms are now ROI-based (not just rankings anymore), like my new friend and SEO expert Gab Goldberg. I recommend you check him out.

What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a free web-analytics package that offers compelling features and benefits such as keyword comparison, custom dashboards and AdWords integration for everyone from senior executives and advertising and marketing professionals to site owners and content developers

Source=http://seoworld.entrepreneur.com/

There is obviously lots of discussion about copyright around things like music and video on the Internet, but another area that is going to be very important that is only recently getting attention is the ownership of comments.

This issue came to the fore recently when Robert Scoble commented on a post from Rob La Gesse’s blog. The problem is that Scoble commented using Friendfeed instead of the standard blog comments. La Gesse and Scoble had a discussion where Scoble wanted him to move the discussion to Friendfeed. La Gesse did not want to do that, and at some point deleted his feeds from Friendfeed. This prevented the discussions about his blog from happening on Friendfeed. Unfortunately, as Mathew Ingram explains, this had the effect of deleting from public view Scoble’s comments on LaGesse’s blog. Scoble was upset that his comments had been deleted because he feels like he owns his comments

The details of this story are laid out in more detail in Ingram’s account of the matter, but the whole discussion got me thinking about the broader implications of who owns the copyright to your comments. Does the blog owner? Do you? What about when one comment will be viewed and under the control of more than one party, as in the case of Disqus. For example with Disqus you have the ability to edit your comments. And in some sense when you add a comment you are building a site for yourself (your collection of comments) and you are contributing to someone else’s site.

While it is unlikely a commenter is going to sue a blogger over something like this, at least in the short term, the lack of clarity is unnecessary and will at some point cause trouble for someone. Services like Disqus and IntenseDebate make the issue more complicated because they clearly provide control and display rights to two parties, the commenter and the blog owner where the comment is made.

This is a complicated problem with a simple solution. I would like to call for all comment systems to provide a mechanism to clearly indicate to users what rights they have and what rights they are giving out when they write a comment. Specifically, all that would be required is some clarifying text above the comment editing area or in a confirmation dialog box. This would be simple to do since a small number of blog/comment platforms handle most of the comments on the Internet including Google (Blogger), WordPress, Typepad, Disqus, and IntenseDebate.

I would strongly suggest these major players address the issue, since right now we are in a comment copyright no mans land, and that can, over time, only lead to trouble.

source=http://www.alleyinsider.com/

 SAN JOSE, Calif., May 23 /PRNewswire/ -- SDForum, Silicon Valley's
leading source of information and education in the technology community, in
collaboration with Accel Partners, today announced speakers for the
Consumerization of Software event to be held Wednesday, June 4, 2008 from
11:30am-5pm at Cooley Godward Kronish in Palo Alto. The event will focus on
how the software industry is undergoing a structural change as new business
models and new strategies for customer acquisition supplant the Y2K era of
enterprise software models.

    "We are seeing a new generation of software companies that are
beginning to disrupt the traditional incumbents," said Rich Wong, Accel.
"The rise of open-source and the growth of software-as-a-service (SaaS)
companies are creating a next generation of players that deliver value in a
new go-to-market approach. Accel Partners and SDForum are pleased to host
some of the most innovative new software companies and have them share
their ideas."

    At this Accel-SDForum event on next generation software, attendees will
hear next-generation leaders in the software space discuss how centralized
buying decisions driven by the CIO within the enterprise has given way to
democratic, consumer-like adoption behavior. They will also discuss how
SaaS and other "bottom-up" rather than "top-down" models are exploiting
this trend.

    "Shifts in the consumerization of software are happening rapidly in
this ever evolving industry," said Susan Lucas-Conwell, CEO of SDForum.
"SDForum is proud to host the first event of its kind where thought leaders
and decision makers will discuss what's ahead for enterprise software in
terms of challenges and opportunities for the key players as well as
startups."

source=http://www.prnewswire.com/

SOA Software, a leading Integrated SOA Governance Automation vendor, and Solidsoft, the UK’s premier SOA and BPM Consultancy for the Microsoft platform, today announced the appointment of Solidsoft as Consulting Partner and Value Added Reseller for SOA Software’s suite of products.

SOA Software is recognized by its customers for providing enterprise-class, platform-independent, integrated SOA Governance automation solutions. The company’s products provide comprehensive, centralized SOA planning, lifecycle and operational governance automation through a single integrated solution. SOA Software is focused exclusively on enterprise SOA, delivering a fully integrated set of standards-based, high-performance products.

Recently SOA Software was positioned in the Leaders Quadrant of the 2007 Integrated SOA Governance Magic Quadrant [1]. SOA Software provides enterprise-class, platform-independent, integrated SOA Governance automation solutions. SOA Software’s products provide comprehensive, centralized SOA planning, lifecycle and operational governance automation through a single integrated solution. SOA Software is focused exclusively on enterprise SOA, delivering a fully integrated set of standards-based, high-performance products.

According to Gartner, “Most SOA Governance Technologies are not integrated into one suite but are provided from very different technology code bases. Policy management and enforcement engines seldom share the same integrated code base as registries and repositories.” [2] In addition, the report states that, “Gartner evaluates technology providers on their ability to convincingly articulate their current and future market direction, innovation, customer needs and competitive forces and how well these map to the Gartner position.” [2]

“We are excited to be able to bring SOA Software’s products to the UK,” comments Solidsoft’s CEO, Garth Pickup. “For a long time we have been advocating the need for design time governance to our customers as they seek to maximise the ROI from their SOA investments. With SOA Software’s Workbench and Service Manager, our customers get the powerful ability to monitor and enforce in run time the policies and SLAs defined during development.”

Paul Gigg, CEO of SOA Software, comments, “Solidsoft is a great addition to our partner community. They not only bring local support and consultancy services to our UK customers but they are already known for excellence in their field.”

“At Microsoft we are always pleased to see our partners get together to bring extra value to our mutual customers,” says Clive Donaghue, Solution Channel Development Manager for SOA and BPM, Microsoft UK. “It is particularly exciting to see SOA Software and Solidsoft building momentum for the Microsoft BPM Alliance.”

In addition to reselling SOA Software’s products, Solidsoft will be providing training, consultancy and local support for SOA Software’s products. For further information, please contact SOASoftware@solidsoft.com or call Juliet Heathcote on 01256 375700.

[1] Gartner, Inc. “Magic Quadrant for Integrated SOA Governance Technology Sets, 2007″ by L. Frank Kenney, Daryl C. Plummer, December 31st 2007.

To read the full Gartner report, please visit http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=153858&format=html.

[2] Gartner, Inc. “Criteria for Integrated SOA Governance Technology Sets, 2008″ by Daryl C. Plummer, L. Frank Kenney, January 8th 2008.

About Solidsoft

Solidsoft is the UK’s leading provider of Microsoft based SOA and BPM solutions. Microsoft’s Global Partner of the Year for Business Process and Integration 2006/7, Solidsoft has the most extensive experience in deploying enterprise scale solutions based on Microsoft BizTalk Server and the.NET Framework. Solutions include Trading Partner Integration, Enterprise Application Integration, SOA and ESB design and delivery. Members of Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Advisory Council for SOA and BPM and Microsoft’s UK Architect Council, Solidsoft are a Gold Sponsor of Microsoft’s Insight Conference. Please visit www.solidsoft.com.

About SOA Software

SOA Software is a leading provider of comprehensive, enterprise-class integrated SOA Governance solutions. SOA Software products provide a comprehensive closed-loop SOA Governance solution (Workbench), a high-performance, scalable SOA security, mediation, and management solution (Service Manager), and a mainframe Web services solution for CICS applications (SOLA). SOA Software products process over 500 million mission critical transactions a month and are used by the largest Fortune 1000 corporations, including Merrill Lynch, Verizon and Pfizer. For more information, please visit http://www.soa.com.

SOA Software, Workbench, Service Manager and SOLA are trademarks of SOA Software, Inc. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their registered owners.

 Media Contact: Lisa Blank Director, Marketing Communications SOA Software Tel: (310) 570-4104 or (310) 570-4162 Email Contact

SOURCE: SOA Software

Watching Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates go through the paces during his last Microsoft CEO Summit keynote on May 14, I couldn’t help but ponder again why Microsoft thinks it needs to be both a business and a consumer software vendor.

From May 13 to 15, Microsoft officials are hosting 115+ CEOs from the Global 1000. Topics on the agenda include, according to Microsoft,”decoding financial markets, establishing cultures of execution and exploring how the Internet will evolve over the next five years.

After watching Gates’ Webcast CEO Summit keynote presentation — where he extolled the virtues of SharePoint, unified communications, business intelligence, scorecarding and other topics of interest to business customers — I can’t help but wonder whether Microsoft might have been and will be able to grow its business better by focusing on the arenas it knows best. (And the ones where it has the most customers.)

The wall-size, vertical touch screen (a Microsoft Research-Office Labs joint venture known as “TouchWall”) — which Gates touted as the “whiteboard of the future” — looks a heck of a lot more compelling than the Surface consumer-focused prototypes I’ve seen.

Microsoft undertands ERP, CRM and desktop-productivity software far better than it does gaming consoles, digital media players and consumer-focused mobile-phone services. In fact, I’d throw search-based advertising into the “why is Microsoft here?” category, too. Ad-funding is just one way of offsetting the cost of online services. Microsoft is building a whole family of subscription-based services that it is hosting itself and won’t be cluttering with ads — Exchange online, SharePoint Online, CRM Online, SQL Server Data Services, BizTalk Services, etc.

Tech innovation is coming first and fastest from the consumer, not the business, side of the market, according to Microsoft’s brass and a handful of other tech vendors (most recently, Sun Microsystems, whose execs voiced last week at JavaOne the same sentiment). That’s Microsoft’s main justification for why it’s dabbling in areas where it doesn’t have the right people, technologies and marketing.

But I can’t help but agree with “MattyDread,” who posted on the Silicon Alley Insider blog yesterday (in response to an item on Microsoft’s vs. Google’s monopoly power). MattyDread said:

source=blogs.zdnet.com

The epic forum thread spawned by the CB 1.2 Update article has been a fascinating thing to read.

The thread has been a mix of congratulations to the CB team for its hard work on the upcoming release, along with whining from some users about the long wait until the release. The occasional negative post has been met with irritation from the CB user community as well as the development team. One could argue that this infighting could have been eliminated by not providing the platform for it, as well as not giving a tentative April release date (for Document Subscribers).

But it is hard to argue that the CB Team could have done anything else, the Community Builder extensions for Joomla and Mambo are among the most popular extensions in the world (the CB page on JED has been viewed over half a million times). This level of user-ship is always bound to attract impatience as well as excitement. I encourage you to read the full thread to get the entire picture.

The upside of the epicness of the thread has been that the number of Document Subscribers has seemed to increase dramatically, with the promise of an early RC download being available to subscriber, I include myself in this number

The other advantage has been the increase in communication between the developers and the users. A recent example of this is this quote from Beat:

CB 1.2 is coming with some major new features…

More on those new features after some hours of sleep…

Teaser-Hints:

“No Preference”
“exactly”
“Between”
“Select image”
“Lost username?”

This kind of information is very interesting, but one can’t help but wonder what is gained from such secrecy on such a widely used extension.

Source=http://myjoomlanews.com/

iJoomla.com announced the release of iJoomla Ad Agency version 1.0.6 for Joomla 1.0.x.
iJoomla Ad Agency now includes two ways to spread your banners and gather data:

• A special module that you can install on any Joomla site, specifying the zone number and the site URL.
• A piece of code that you can copy from the zone page and add to any web page or newsletter.

This new function and other improvements make iJoomla Ad Agency much more powerful and allows you to use it in any site with just one license. That’s a massive saving of time and money!

souce = http://news.ejoomla.net/