I recently checked the progress on Ecommo, a business set up by an ex-colleague and friend Alex Barton. The idea behind Ecommo is to allow people to sell online but without the usual hassle, problems and expense this can cause.
Many people, myself included, might look for an open source (free) content management system (i.e. osCommerce), but that’s not exactly the easiest system to use and I’d probably find setting it up a bit of a pain. I’ve seen a few sites using osCommerce and it’s a reasonable solution but it doesn’t eliminate the need for some geeks to install and set it up.
Ecommo aims to make selling online a lot easier. You don’t have to download and install it, you don’t have to pay a designer to build a template for it to look good, you don’t need to worry about servers going offline and taking your shop with it and it doesn’t take weeks to get it online. What it does do is provide is an easy to use solution which allows the owner to get on with the actual selling.
I’m really impressed with the progress Ecommo has made and it’s good to see they’re already attracting customers. If you’re after a professional online shop solution, Ecommo is definitely worth a look.
Update: Since writing this, Ecommo has shifted focus towards holiday accommodation providers. Good luck in your new direction guys!
There is actually quite a lot of reasons why Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) should be banned and if you really wanted a list I’m sure you’re probably better of visiting the wikipedia entry for IE. The problem I have with it at the moment is the fact it can’t display websites properly as it doesn’t fully support the standards that form the foundation of how web pages are created. That coupled with the fact that almost 75% (estimated) use IE as the browser (firefox anyone?). That means that even when I managed to get the first page of MyNewReg.com working correctly it still took 2 days of tinkering to get it to work in IE. The good thing is that it finally does!
One of the great ways you can find out what your page looks like in lots of different browsers is by using Browsershots. I’m a very proud Mac owner so testing in IE was a bit of a hassle but I’m pretty happy with the results. I still have the front page and the search results page to do. I can reuse parts of what I have already which should speed the process up a bit. It’s a great feeling to finally be able to interact with a real website. Feels like a good step forward.
After a week (and a bit) I’ve decided on the design for MyNewReg.com. Congratulations go to the designer, Luke Burns. I’m really looking forward to getting on with turning the design into real HTML. It’s a bit step in the right direction. Hopefully I can’t implement the design myself, we’ll see when I get the final artwork.
After a discussion with James Barlow, CEO of the Scottish Institute for Enterprise at the weekend I think I’ll use a website called 99designs to contract the actual site design out. I’ve had a few goes myself and while I think it’s getting better, I’m getting more bored/frustrated with my lack of talent. This is the latest attempt:
99designs looks like a great place to get a value for money design. It’s not just about web design, you can get logos, business cards and even t-shirt designs. I haven’t done it yet but it works by someone putting up a request, designers submitting their creations and the client choosing the one they like. The major benefits are the competitive nature that keeps the cost down whilst getting excellent quality and the ability to choose from a number of different designs. I’ll give it a go and let you know how I get on.
Today’s task was a bit of web design. I’d sketched an idea out on paper and I wanted to do a mock up in photoshop. That’s where the problems started. I’m not that great at photoshop and it also quickly became apparent that the design looks rubbish (at least with my present skills of replicating what’s in my head. A lot of people seem to think that creating a website is easy and that one person can do all of it. This was a misconception I first experienced when doing a Shell Step work placement 2 summers ago with a company. It seemed that websites were quite popular things for people on their placements to be doing and unfortunately that’s what I ended up doing. A similar miss conception is that computer scientists will be good at it too. We’re not. Don’t get me wrong, we can understand how they work but it’s not exactly part of the skills set.
I’m not even after anything complicated. It’s basically a search engine homepage e.g. google, altavista (remember them?) or ask.com. Maybe I’m over stretching myself and should pay someone else to do it. I’m acutely aware of how important the appearance of a site is, especially when it’s the only shop front. I’d still like to have a go at it (and not blatantly copy someone else’s!).
