Vesess

Top 3 Cost-Cutting Strategies for Web Designers

lakshan — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 01:41:51 +0000

Given the state of the economy, it is important to recognize the declining value of the United States dollar. Without getting deep into this topic, note the 97% drop in dollar value over the past century. With numerous causes for inflation transpiring, including bailouts, government “stimulus”, and foreign spending, one can only expect a greater loss of purchasing power in the near future. So what specific steps can a web designer take to plan for continuous currency devaluation? The three strategies below can help cut costs in the long-term without sacrificing the level of work and service delivered to clients.

Top 3 Cost-Cutting Strategies for Web Designers

(Thanks for mentioning CurdBee as an option!)

Google’s PHP performance tips attract ire from PHP world

laknath — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:33:48 +0000

Earlier this week, Google posted on how to make PHP performance better as step of their campaign to “make the web faster”, but has given some noteworthy tips (such as avoiding SQL querying within a loop) as well as some insignificant ideas.

This may have been ignored if it was published in some other source, but since it’s endorsed by Google, PHP community has taken a special interest and rebuffed some of these so called tips.

A Note on Google’s So-called Best Practices
Make the Web Faster - Google groups
PHP performance tips from Google

CurdBee featured on FuelYourApps

lakshan — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:14:44 +0000

An interview on the behind the scenes work of CurdBee is published in FuelYourApps. If you are interested to know what inspired us, our workflow and decisions made during the process - this would be a good read.

An Interesting study on Twitter

laknath — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:13:19 +0000

A study on Twitter, with some very intriguing findings.

Just 10% of Twitter users generate more than 90% of the content, a Harvard study of 300,000 users found. Estimates suggest it now has more than 10 million users and is growing faster than any other social network.

Twitter hype punctured by study

Wordpress 2.8 - Looks Awesome!

sameera — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 06:30:34 +0000

The new Wordpress version 2.8 “Baker” represents a nice fit and finish release for WordPress with improvements would seem to be the ability to,

New drag-and-drop widgets admin interface and new widgets API

Syntax highlighting and function lookup built into plugin and theme editors

Browse the theme directory and install themes from the admin

Allow the dashboard widgets to be arranged in up to four columns

Allow configuring the number of items to show on management pages with an option in Screen Options

Support timezones and automatic daylight savings time adjustment

Support IIS 7.0 URL Rewrite Module

Faster loading of admin pages via script compression and concatenation

2.8 Release Jazzes Themes and Widgets

Top 20 in YouTube so far

laknath — Fri, 29 May 2009 07:39:46 +0000

From the Dancing Baby of the 1990s to the phenomenon that is Susan Boyle, the web has seen its share of viral video sensations. However, these 20 are the cream of the crop. They have been seen by millions and discussed by millions more. Many of them are part of not only Internet culture, but mainstream culture too. Here are the top 20 YouTube (YouTube reviews) and video memes in chronological order.

Top 20 YouTube and Video Memes of All Time

Going PRO

mahangu — Wed, 20 May 2009 17:24:03 +0000

Dear CurdBee Fans,
It’s hard to believe we’re finally here. After months of development and testing, and agonising about design decisions, we finally launched CurdBee PRO about a week ago. Even though we were confident of its quality, we wanted to start small with this release because we knew that our regulars would find little bugs that needed to be ironed out. Come to think of it, now’s probably the time to say thanks to them. So, thanks guys! We couldn’t have done it without you.

In any case, a week, and many squashed bugs later, we’re here, and ready to go PRO in style! In terms of functionality, there is a lot of new stuff in this version. Of course, while we certainly hope you will, you don’t have to upgrade to PRO to enjoy some new goodies. The FREE version also received several new enhancements, including access to all known currencies, the ability to export your billing data to a CSV file, and the option of selecting the unit of measurement for each line item, a feature that was requested by freelancers who charge on a daily or weekly basis. The FREE version also gets a brand new streamlined workspace, which includes smart invoice filtering, the quick preview of invoices, and a live preview feature during brand customisations.

As fun as CurdBee FREE Is, if you’re serious about your billing there’s a good chance that you’re going to want to go PRO. With SSL Encryption, PDF support, and the ability to have multiple contacts per client, CurdBee PRO has received a plethora of new features. The new Reminder and Thank You email feature is an option that many power users will find use for, and this, coupled with Customisable Email Notifications, will give you the ability to run a truly professional billing rig. With zero CurdBee branding, and the ability to account for taxes and discounts automatically, PRO is really packed full of new and exciting features, and at 5$ a month, we’d be crazy not to call this a bargain. I mean, it’s cheaper than a pizza, for crying out loud!

Of course, the beauty of PRO is far from skin deep. Thanks to some furious hacking by Lakshan, PRO also comes with support for Extensions, a feature that really opens up the platform for further development. So far, Recurring Billing is one of the more popular Extensions, and is a feature that will probably attract freelancers in particular, thanks to its easy tracking of daily, weekly or monthly billing options. The addition of an alternative payment gateway in the form of 2Checkout is also an Extension that is sure to draw interest, especially in countries where Paypal and Google Checkout are not supported.

Whether you’re running a SME, or are just a freelancer looking to move to a simpler billing solution, rest assured that CurdBee can adapt to suit your specific needs. As you go and sign up for the first time, or upgrade to PRO, please do drop by our forums and tell us what you think of your CurdBee experience. Since we’ve jumped this hurdle, and shipped out a major release, we’re now going to throw ourselves into developing the Extensions you need, so please do tell us what you’d like to see next!

Thank you,
The Very Happy Hackers at CurdBee

Usability of travel portals

laknath — Wed, 20 May 2009 05:37:09 +0000

Since we also have been in online travel industry for some time, something we have noticed is that most travel portals that offer online booking can be quite complex and frankly scary for a new user. That’s what compelled us to make Hotelotravel as simple as possible and convenient to use.

A new report by iPerception finds that visitors have real trouble completing basic tasks at hospitality sites. Most noticeably, 1 of every 2 visitors who came to a site to make a reservation reported being unable to do so.

Hotel website usability pitfalls drive down bookings

Getting Ready for PRO

lakshan — Mon, 04 May 2009 00:36:57 +0000

We are glad to announce you we are ready to launch the much awaited CurdBee PRO version. During the rollout period you will experience a downtime of the service.

We started the upgrade at 00:35 UTC on 04 May 2009.

Upgrade should be completed within couple of hours. Sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Embedding PHP In CSS

laknath — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 17:43:37 +0000

Interesting twist to CSS and PHP.

Perhaps one of the most frustrating aspects of using PHP with websites, is getting variables into CSS. Having variables stored in an ini file, config file or even a database can make the updating of the look and feel of a site simple, however, CSS files, by default, do not parse PHP.

Embedding PHP In CSS