December 9th, 2009
This Wordpress Plugin is amazing. Great for the simple shopping cart. I am going to share a few great things about this shopping cart plugin, but I will also share some challenges/problems/limitations.
I don’t have any doubts that are friends from www.instinct.co.nz will provide “fixes” in their future updates for these issues, but currently you are pretty much your own if you are not a complete web coding genius.
Let’s get started with some great things that you will LOVE about wp-commerce
1. Variables for products. I love the fact that you can really control all the variables you want to set on a product. Feel free to give your customers the ability to add as many sizes, colors and details on to a single product. This is a great feature and well executed by wp-ec.
2. Quick set-up with PayPal. You can pretty much start accepting payments right away with the PayPal integration. With wp-ec your customers only have to see the PayPal page to enter their credit card number. Everything else is handled through your shopping cart website.
3. Shopping cart php code (shortcode). The smoothly animated sidebar widget is just a snippet of code that you drop into your PHP page. You will love the CSS Control. Having the ability to really control the look and feel of your site without having to worry about messing up the “shopping cart” is a major plus. Just design your WP site as normal and drop in your shortcode for the shopping cart elements.
Here are some things you WON’T LIKE
1. Coupon Code Limitations - If you plan on making a promo code you will be limited. The most you can do for a promo code is a basic % or $ amount applied to all products. If your client needs to get any more complex with the promo/coupon code. You will be in trouble.
2. Shipping Control within the wp-ec dashboard. You will be able to set a discounted/free shipping for orders over a certain price, but don’t get to excited about having much control beyond that. wp-ec has really done a great job at making the shipping part easy if you don’t need any special requests aside from standard shipping procedure. For example, if you want to make shipping an option because you offer in store pick-up. Don’t count on it.
3. Organizing products. You can list ascending/descending by “most recent added”, “price”, and “name”. You WON’T be able to arrange products by your choice. Example: If you have a popular product that you want at the top, you will need to either add it last, make the name start with “AAA” or make the price really low/high. The only workaround to this is using the shortcode:
[wpsc_products product_id='']
You would place the product number within the quotes and drop into your WP editor.
Good luck with your Gold Cart WP-commerce website. I’d love some feedback, comments, or questions.
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November 24th, 2009
Back in the day, it seemed like it took forever to set up a PayPal account, get verified and start selling. Today, I have to give them some props. My perspective has changed completely. You can literately set-up a PayPal account in about 10 minutes and be ready to start selling. The best part about PayPal is that it is almost entirely free. Yes, there are a few charges, but nothing like the common merchant account provider. Let me explain.
With a regular merchant account you usually pay a set-up fee, a monthly service fee and a transaction fee (like 1% to 3% per transaction). Regardless of how much you sell, you will still have to pay this fee. With PayPal, you don’t have to worry about any fee except for the transactions. Any fees you pay to PayPal are based on transactions. They charge a flat fee of 3% + 30 cents.
This is great for new/startup companies or companies that have inconsistent sales. If you don’t sell anything for a month, you don’t pay any fees. You can keep promoting your online store with out worrying about the overhead costs that come from an expensive merchant company.
Designers out there… check out gold cart and how smooth it integrates with PayPal. Sure, you will need some developing, coding and design experience/know how to put something like this together, but you’ll be impressed with simplicity of integrating these products together.
Don’t ever settle for a overnight online shopping cart like “Quick Shopping Cart” from Godaddy. You will be using the same template everyone else in the world uses, while paying way too much. You will also have to open up a merchant account through your bank (or whoever) and pay those fees on top of what you are already paying. Do your homework utilize some of the developments in the open source world today.
Our most recent site development using WP Gold Cart and PayPal was with an awesome christian clothing company A fully customized shopping cart website based on the C28 (NOTW) style. Still working out some details. But it is now officially launched! Leave a comment and give us some feedback.
If you need help putting together your WP Gold Cart website or/and integrating it with PayPal. Leave a comment and let me know. I’ll do my best to help you.
Tags: ecommerce, gold cart, online, paypal, selling, shopping cart
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November 20th, 2009
Lately I have been dealing with a ton of browser issues across the board. It seems like every website I’ve worked on in the last year has been loaded with issues on each internet explorer browser. I’m here to share some of those tips with you.
It would actually be very helpful if our virus developing enemies did something productive and created a virus that would destroy internet explorer 6 on every computer in the world. All joking aside, the seven year old IE6 has major issues that leave the best web designers begging for help. On most sites, I’ve decided to simply not fix IE6 and instead place a conditional statement on the top of the site when it is viewed in the outdated browser. I’ll show you how to do that later. For now, let’s look at the basics and deal with IE7 and IE8.
I’m assuming you made your designed your site looking at Firefox. If not, you can do similar fixes described below. You should be able to make all the corrections using your CSS files (creating conditional style sheets/css files) Look below at the different solutions. You might be able to fix it pretty quick if it just a problem in Internet Explorer 8. Find out where you are and follow my instructions.
THE WEBSITE WORKS IN IE7 AND FIREFOX BUT HAVING PROBLEMS IN IE8
You’re lucky. This fix is easy because Microsoft figured out that IE8 was gonna cause problems for sites designed in IE7.
Here’s what you do:
1. In your headers below the “meta keywords” or “meta description” paste this code:
<meta http-equiv=”X-UA-Compatible” content=”IE=7″ />
2. If your working in Wordpress just paste this in the header.php file. You’ll be good to go on all your pages.
DESIGNED THE WEBSITE IN FIREFOX HAVING PROBLEMS IN IE6/IE7/IE8
This one is a little more complicated. So we will start with IE7 since it is the most used today. Here are the steps:
1. Create a file called ie7.css and copy all the code from your style.css file into it.
2. Drop this into your FTP directory next to the style.css file
3. Open your index.html page (or if working on wordpress/cms website open your header.php file)
4. Put this code immediately before the </head> tag (change the directory to match your directory and replate “yoursite” with the appropriate domain.
<!–[if IE 7]>
<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”http://yoursite/directory/ie8.css” type=”text/css” media=”screen” />
<![endif]–>
5. Begin adjusting items like padding, margin, color, etc. in the ie7.css file. Save and refresh your browser. The changes should only be happening in the Internet Explorer 7 browser.
6. Repeat this same process for IE6 and IE8 (or use the force compatibility meta for IE8 described above)
Tags: Firefox, fixes, force compatibilty IE8, forced compatibilty, IE6, IE7, IE8, internet explorer bugs, Issues, Problems
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November 9th, 2009
New website coming soon vtjclothing.com. This is an concept design. The project included a shopping cart and custom design. Pretty cool? Give us some feedback.
Tags: C28, christian shirts, custom, design, ecommerce, murrieta, san diego, shopping cart, site, t shirts, temecula, website
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October 27th, 2009
After many moons of working with Cal-Pac Annual Conference, part of the United Methodist Church, we are officially launching the new Cal-Pac Young People website. Some of its features include integrated blog/news page, dynamic event calendar, gallery page, and a monthly newsletter page.
Our work with Cal-Pac started with just a logo and then their letterhead, envelope, and business cards. The website now completes the package and gives them a complete, unified brand. Check out the site at calpacyoungpeople.org.
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July 6th, 2009
Did you know updating text on your homepage at least once a month can dramatically improve your ranking in search engines? Crawlers continuously make their way through the web searching for updated content. Having a website is like owning a pet. You need to continuously feed it, groom it, and give it plenty of attention (metaphorically of course).
When we design and build a website for your company we take the extra steps to get you recognized by search engines. Some of our “SEO” services include search engine submission, keyword generating and keyword insertion. Shoot us an email or give us a call if you need some more tips on how to opimize your website for search engines.
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June 11th, 2009
Beautiful logo. From the creators of the Amazon brand and the Tab logo. Oh yeah, and they redesigned the CocaCola Brand. 
http://www.turnerduckworth.com
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June 8th, 2009
About three weeks ago we launched a new part of our company that will handle hosting and domains. Check it out: http://apwebsolutions.com
Tags: .com's, domains, graphic design, hosting, murrieta, shopping cart, temecula, web design, website template
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June 7th, 2009
Rumors of a new Apple store coming to the Promenade Temecula have graphic designers twitching with excitement. For us Temecula, Murrieta, and Lake Elsinore residents, the commute to San Diego, or Orange County for an Apple Store is coming to an end.
The Promenade Temecula recently opened an upscale style shopping area with outdoor resturants and shops. According to an article in the ifoapplestore.com newsletter, the apple store will occupy a space in this outdoor shopping area.
At AP Design Studios, we are 100% organic Apple. The computers serve us well while we create websites, logos, and much more. But Apple computers are not just for us. They are ready to serve just about any facet of industry (even Jack Bauer).
This screenshot of a page from the Apple website confirms the new store is opening. As you can see, there is a position opening for the Promenade Temecula.
Tags: apple, graphic design, mac, promenade temecula, store, temecula, web design
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June 7th, 2009
Here are some photos:
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