Blog Tycoon

I am looking forward to get new software in 2010. A quick top 5 of these software solutions is:

1. Firefox 3.6

It’s been in beta state way too long and it’s time to have it live.

2. WordPress 2.9.1 (maybe 2.9.2)

With a lot of bug fixes from a minor release, 2.9.1 should be ready by January 2010.

3. Server2Go 1.8.0

Again, a long time since a release, Server2Go should upgrade PHP, MySQL, phpMyAdmin, and provide speed optimizations.

4. Open Realty 2.6.0 (maybe 3.0)

A lot of bugs in the current releases, but Open Realty is the number one script for Realtors. I use it for 2 clients, and write 3 more from scratch based on Open Realty features.

5. jQuery 1.3.3 (maybe 1.4.0)

I don’t really hope for a 1.4.0 leap, but the current version needs more optimizations and simplification.

To be fair with myself, I’ll release in January fresh versions of Whiskey Air WordPress theme with 2.9 optimizations, Portable phpMyAdmin, Butterfly Query Admin, Butterfly Organizer and (em)phasis.

I also have several other undisclosed projects to be released sometimes in 2010.

What is the best online commerce software? What about the best online commerce script for developers? I am working for several clients and I have to use a flexible cart script to add and remove features, even turn some of it into a small content management system. While searching the Internet for an open-source solution, I found Zen Cart. I tried to use OpenCart and Magento before, but the source is really intricate and uses abstraction layers. When I bumped into Zen Cart and saw the readability and flexibility of its code, I immediately started working with it.

My first virtual cart sports banner administration, dealers and clients, enhanced image administration, downloads section, even an included changelog inside the administration section. The code is based upon osCommerce, but Zen Cart keeps it organized and well written. A lot could be improved, and this is really easy to do. As a minus, I might point out that there are a lot of options hardcoded, but the administration section is very rich feature wise and many options can be extracted there.

Moreover, Zen Cart has a large knowledge base, a large community and many plugins and addons.

Visit Zen Cart here, or stay tuned for more info and tutorials for Zen Cart.

Owning a website for your business is pretty much a requirement in this day and age. What good is a website that only shows customers what your company sells? Why not actually sell to them while they are there?

Use any of these 20 open source shopping carts to maximize your sales potential. Some of these aren’t open source, but they are all free. Create an online store and increase your revenue.

I am playing with Magento right now, to see what it offers, but I am still waiting for version 3 of osCommerce (it’s been 3 or 4 years since their 2.2 release), announced here:

Optimizing osCommerce Online Merchant v3.0 for PHP 5 now allows us to further improve and strengthen the framework and to pass the high quality level of coding to community developers to base their add-ons on. The performance of the framework will improve by removing the PHP 4 compatibility layer and by taking advantage of the new features PHP 5 provides such as SimpleXML, DateTime, Iterators, and new core functions. The design and security of the Object Oriented framework will also improve by utilizing the new features of the PHP 5 Object Model.

Another interesting cart is Instinct’s WP e-Commerce. What’s interesting here is that it’s based on WordPress platform. This reminds me of an older post about the ascension of WordPress on corporate sites:

Is WordPress suited for corporate sites? Will it handle the amount of different information and structure required for such a site? When web sites all over the world require more and more user interactivity, and WordPress is highly configurable using plug-ins, it might be suited for a large corporate site, an, moreover, easily updateable by a non-technical person.