No doubt many e-commerce entrepreneurs share your confusion. “It is challenging to make sense out of all that’s available now. Hosting, e-mail, and list management, content and customer relations management, e-commerce—there are so many choices. One can get it all in one place or put it together out of component pieces,” says Jeannine Parker, an Internet consultant based in Santa Monica, Calif.

Your decision will ultimately depend on the size and scale of your operation. Since you’ve already run up against limitations with your current vendor, you’ll want to make sure that you take into consideration your anticipated growth of sales and find new vendors that can support you as your business grows. “Many companies offer starter e-commerce solutions that work very well while an e-commerce venture is getting off the ground, but become frustrating once a business grows to the point where they want to start having features that are outside of the box in terms of what that starter package supports,” says Chris Kivlehan, vice-president of sales and marketing for INetU Managed Hosting.

It’s important to remember that Web site hosting and e-commerce are two separate things. A hosting company is something like a landlord that leases you space for a traditional store, says Janet Attard, a small-business consultant with BusinessKnowHow.com.

“The difference is that the space you are leased is the disk space needed on a Web server to hold all the computer pages needed for your Web site and e-commerce functions. Another difference is that you typically pay for Web site space a month at a time and aren’t tied into year, or multiyear, leases the way you are with a bricks-and-mortar store,” she says. 

Switching Shopping Carts

You can move your e-commerce site to a new location—a new Web host—just as you could with a traditional retail shop. Assuming that you own your domain name, it will stay the same, as will the basic functioning of your site. However, if you’ve built the site using storefront software provided by a particular Web hosting firm, you may have to recreate some portion of your site if you move to a new vendor. Be certain you understand this, and the potential cost involved, before you make a change.

If you are dissatisfied with something like the design, programming, or shopping-cart technology on your site, it’s possible you could upgrade or change that technology without changing Web hosts. “Find someone who can help you get the type of e-commerce function you want set up. That person would find out if there are any technical limitations to putting new shopping-cart software on the site at the existing hosting company,” Attard suggests.

There are some well-known commercial products, such as eBay’s ProStores (EBAY) or StoreFront E-Commerce you might check out, Kivlehan says. “If they have the features you see your site needing for the foreseeable future, then those are options to consider. If your ideas are very unique and specific, you may find that a custom-developed solution in a well-known programming language such as PHP or ASP is your best choice. In the case of PHP, there is an open-source e-commerce platform called OS Commerce that a developer can use as a starting framework for your custom solution, so they are not charging you to reinvent the wheel on basic functionality. That will save you money in the custom-development process.”

Considerations for a Good Host

Make sure that any host vendors know what kind of technology you’re using and are comfortable working with it, says Michael Weiss, a partner at Southern California-based Imagistic.com, a Web developer and software provider. Ensuring that a new host can easily work with your e-commerce fulfillment house—or give you access to data and tools if you’re shipping products yourself—is another major consideration, he says. “Costs could run from $50 a month to $500, depending if you are on a shared server or have your own managed server—meaning your site is on its own box and your hosting partner is watching and managing the box,” he notes. “Other things to consider are security, your ability to access the server to run reports and get to your data, and whether a new hosting partner provides software that allows you to track Web site usage.”

Jimmy Duvall, director of e-commerce products at Yahoo! (YHOO) Small Business, says his firm offers all-inclusive e-commerce packages from $40 a month (plus a 1.5% transaction fee) up to $300 a month (with a 0.75% transaction fee). “Small businesses don’t typically have the resources in-house to mix and manage all the components themselves, including domain management, e-mail hosting, and e-commerce,” he says. “For most small merchants out there, even if they have IT staff, they don’t want them to be worrying about server capacity, or wondering whether adding A plus B software will make a solution work.” Ask any potential vendors about security, credibility, technical support (are they available 24/7 in case your site goes down over a weekend?), and the availability of third-party developers and software providers, Duvall suggests (see BusinessWeek.com, 9/5/06, “Big Help for Small Businesses”). Good luck!

THE TERM open source software (OSS) may not be familiar to everyone - but you’d have had to be hiding under a rock over the past few years to have not heard about Linux, the operating system that’s made massive inroads into the corporate computing space and, thanks to the efforts of people such as Mark Shuttleworth, is also penetrating the desktop market.

Though Linux is the most famous piece of OSS, it’s by no means the only one. There are literally thousands of computer programs out there that fall under the open source banner, some from large companies like Sun and IBM and others from small companies you’re never likely to hear of. The difference between OSS and software from a company such as Microsoft - called proprietary software - is that with OSS the licence to use the software allows people to freely distribute it and compels the company writing the program to provide not only the software but also the original code that makes up the program.  Imagine having your wedding photographs taken but having to go back to the photographer each time you wanted a reprint and being charged five times the cost of the print for the service. While you’d like to go to a cheaper option you can’t, because the photographer is the only person with access to the pictures. 

That does in fact happen. But it shouldn’t, because you paid for a service, having the software written or the photographs taken, yet you’re held hostage by the original service provider. While OSS isn’t always free, it does give its users the opportunity to do with it as they please and not be restricted by the rules imposed by the company that originally created the software. 

‘Longhorn’ improves security and management, but drops virtualization functions.

It’s been years in the making, but Microsoft’s next server platform is finally in the stretch run and while it doesn’t appear revolutionary, it’s looking like the final release will deliver a grab bag of goodies to users looking to ease management, network and security issues.

But it isn’t all good news since Microsoft released in April the Beta 3 of Longhorn, now officially known as Windows Server 2008. 

Gone from the planned final release by the end of 2007 are highly touted virtualization capabilities, designed to move users onto the next level with the white-hot technology. Virtualization was originally suppose to be baked into the server but will ship separately within 180 days of the server’s final release. On top of that, in May Microsoft cut three features from what is now called Windows Server Virtualization, including a highly anticipated live migration option. Even though users will have to wait for those capabilities, the Longhorn Beta 3 is feature complete, according to Microsoft, and comes with enough new features that IT executives will be forced to make a list of must-haves before they begin rollouts. 

Windows Server 2008 is focused on three primary areas: management, including Server Core technology; security, such as BitLocker drive encryption and Read-only Domain Controllers; and performance, including a redesigned TCP/IP stack. It also represents the gateway into the world of 64-bit-only server operating systems from Microsoft. The R2 version of Windows Server 2008 slated to ship in 2009 won’t include a 32-bit version. 

In addition, the server is the other shoe that will drop on capabilities intertwined with Vista, such as Network Access Protection (NAP) and new Terminal Services features. For IT architects at Quixtar, the top online retailer of health and beauty products, year-end is too long to wait and the company, part of Microsoft’s Technology Adoption Program (TAP), is running Windows Server 2008 in production. 

In the coming weeks, Quixtar plans to double its Windows Server 2008 deployment from four to eight servers that are running Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0. Quixtar handles 99 percent of its traffic through its Web servers and needs each one to be configured identically. 

“IIS 7.0 allows us to define a configuration using an XML schema architecture so we know how each server is configured without a doubt,” says Steve Cole, lead system support specialist for the company. IIS 6.0 required that each server be configured independently, which meant Quixtar had to create customized checks and balances around its ISS 6.0 deployment. “With IIS 7, there will not be human error,” Cole says. 

Cole also says IIS 7.0’s Failed Request Tracking helps pinpoint errors in IIS and applications, and allows diagnosis while the software is still running. He says it has streamlined troubleshooting and dramatically reduced support calls to Microsoft. In addition to IIS, Quixtar is focusing on Active Directory improvements around replication that help cut the time it takes the company to bring up a new directory server from eight days to less than four hours. Quixtar has nearly 3.5 million objects in its directory. 

“This is our Web directory and all our authentications and authorizations and all our apps that need a log-in go through Active Directory,” says Matt Behrens, supervisor for IT infrastructure at Quixtar. Like Quixtar, analysts say Longhorn’s list of features will force other users to focus on the handful of capabilities most relevant to them. 

“There are a lot of little things, it’s a grab bag,” says John Enck, an analyst with Gartner. “There are some good incremental improvements, but I still think Longhorn will trickle out into companies. I don’t think there will be people lining up to get the software when it is released.” Enck also cautions users that Microsoft could still pull features before final release as it has routinely done in the past with other products. But what seems solid is a core of features starting with a modular deployment architecture, called Server Core, designed to make life easier for IT right out of the gate. 

Server Core is made up of the Windows kernel and a set of infrastructure “roles” that install only the components needed for any of eight specific functions: Active Directory, Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services, DHCP, DNS, File, Print, Windows Media Services and Windows Server Virtualization (when it ships). The idea is to make deployment less complex and more secure by eliminating unneeded services and installing only the parts of the operating system needed for a specific workload. 

Server Core is coupled with Server Manager, a management tool that provides a prebuilt Microsoft Management Console that includes reference to each installed role and feature, and links to tools for diagnostics, configuration and storage. Windows Server 2008 introduces Read-Only Domain Controllers (RODC), which are designed for branch offices to speed log-ons and reduce the exposure of the directory infrastructure to hackers or from physical theft of servers. 

Experts say the combination of RODCs, Server Core, the new Encrypting File System (EFS) and BitLocker combine to offer dramatic security improvements for branch office deployments. Windows Server 2008 also features Server Message Block (SMB) 2.0, a file sharing protocol that takes advantage of the new Transactional File System feature in the server and supports over-the-wire encryption of files. 

The server also aligns with Vista including NAP, which checks the health of computers before letting them on the network, and Terminal Services enhancements including RemoteApp, which makes remote applications appear as though they are running locally. Microsoft also has improved the scheduling and memory management capabilities to address the demands of multicore processing. 

“We have shifted to 64-bit in our core thinking and development,” says Bill Laing, general manager of the Windows server division. Vista and Longhorn also both support Microsoft’s new remote access Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP) that creates a VPN tunnel that travels over HTTPS. 

Microsoft hopes SSTP will help reduce help desk support calls associated with IPSec VPNs when those connections get blocked by firewalls or routers. SSTP eliminates issues associated with VPN connections based on the Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol or Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol that can be blocked by some Web proxies, firewalls and network-address translation routers that sit between clients and servers. Overall, Microsoft says the server should appeal to users on many levels. 

“We think the uptake will be similar to Windows Server 2003; it rolled out pretty consistently across enterprises,” Laing says. “We don’t think there are any big barriers that are going to be holding people back.” 

Sometimes you know exactly what you want your software to do. You can easily hire an offshore programming team or a freelancer if you have a small project, and direct them to develop what you need. 

Other times, you may not be so sure. You need someone to research what is best,or even possible, before software development can begin. Outsourcing of your research before you begin development takes a special type of engineering team. 

Woe to the company that outsources to one type of offshore team when they need the other! 

I have a couple of clients right now that are in “research-mode” as they use offshore outsourcing to create a software product. One requires some innovative software to run under Windows that communicates with a website. The other needs an efficient screen capture solution also running on Windows. 

In both cases, the desired software functionality can be described in a paragraph or two. But that brief description is just the tip of the iceberg. 

In both cases, there are three or more approaches that need to be compared and evaluated for practicality, performance and ease of installation. 

Now imagine hiring an offshore vendor with programmers who are waiting for an exact and detailed specification. And all you provide is a two paragraph description. 

Clearly, that is not going to work. You need an experienced software architector designer to play around with the various approaches and then identify the pros and cons. The research they do is an interactive and collaborative effort with you. 

The holy grail of outsourcing your research is to find a vendor with deep experience in the technology you want to use. 

For example, I worked for a company that found a small contract programming firm with a software application they had already developed for one of their clients. They retained rights to the software and were able to offer it to us as the basis of our first product. It was an exact fit for what we needed. 

But that’s not always possible. More likely you will find a firm that has experienced senior people with some knowledge of your target technology. 

Unless your vendor is going to provide these senior people, you will be wasting your time trying to get advanced work out of a junior team. 

Millions of people enjoy free Web-based software programs that deliver e-mail, news and many other services. But those programs are available to users only when they are online. 

Now Google is hoping to help make many of those programs, among them its own free Web applications like Gmail and Docs and Spreadsheets, available offline, say when a user is on an airplane. In doing so, Google will more openly challenge Microsoft and its office productivity tools, like Excel and Word, which users must buy for hundreds of dollars. 

That rivalry was heightened Wednesday when Google released a set of tools to software programmers, which it calls Google Gears, that addresses what is perhaps the single most critical shortcoming of Web-based software. The tools can be used by all programmers, whether they work for Google or not, to enhance their own Web-based programs for offline use. The company is making the technology available in an open-source model, so programmers can use it free, test its abilities and extend them as necessary to fit their needs. 

“The whole idea of extending browser capabilities to offline is something that a lot of people are going to get pretty excited about,” said David Mitchell Smith, a vice president at Gartner Research. 

Google is introducing Gears during a coming-out party of sorts. 

The company is playing host to what it calls its first “developer day,” an event held around the world at which Google will present itself not as the world’s most-used search engine, or as the biggest Internet advertising company, or even as the creator of applications like Gmail, but rather as the provider of tools that others can use to build their own programs. 

It is an event that underscores Google’s evolution from its roots as a search engine into a company that hopes to become central to a new way of computing in which software is delivered over the Web, often free and supported by ads, rather than bought and installed on users’ PCs. 

This evolution sharpens Google’s rivalry with Microsoft and others who are trying to provide both new Web-based software and technology building blocks for Web programmers. 

Google has been among the most enthusiastic proponents of this new computing model, and its executives say it will help usher in faster innovation because many Web applications can be created quickly by cobbling together existing components created by others. “It is a different model,” Google’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, said in an interview. “The rate at which you can build applications is an order of magnitude faster because the components all fit together so quickly.” 

Google hopes other companies will use Gears to extend their own software and services. Some Microsoft rivals, including Adobe and Mozilla, which is behind the Firefox Web browser, are collaborating with Google on the technology. 

But it could also help Google’s rivals. If the Gears technology proves effective, scores of software programs, including Yahoo Mail and Microsoft’s Hotmail, might one day be used offline to read e-mail messages and to compose new ones. The new e-mail messages would be sent the next time a user connects to the Internet. 

Google said Gears was in early stages of development. “This is not a solution that is going to work with everything on Day 1,” Mr. Smith said. 

For now, Google itself has applied Gears only to one of its own programs, Reader, which is used to track blogs and news sources. But the company plans to use Gears to make other programs like Gmail, Calendar, and most notably, Docs and Spreadsheets, available offline. That would make those programs more competitive with Microsoft’s Office suite of programs, one of the software giant’s cash cows. 

Google has begun marketing a package of these productivity applications to businesses. But many analysts say these products, unlike Microsoft’s competing software, lack the support or functions that most businesses need. 

“I don’t think Google is a serious player in personal productivity applications, certainly not for businesses,” said David Card, an analyst with Jupiter Research. 

This is not the first time that Google has offered tools to developers. Indeed, the company, much like many of its competitors in recent years, has long opened up many of its own programs to others, in hopes they would use them as building blocks for their own software and services. 

For instance, when Google allowed others to build map-based software and services on top of its Google Maps product, an explosion of creativity ensued. Online travel and real estate companies used the maps to enhance their own Web sites or to create entirely new businesses. And even individual programmers used data from multiple sources to “mash up” new applications. 

Some of these companies and Web sites, in turn, are supported by advertising that is sold by Google. 

Microsoft and Yahoo have opened up their own map products to developers with similar results. 

In putting on its first developer day, Google hopes to lure even more programmers into its camp at a time when many Internet companies are competing for their skills by offering them new tools aimed at making Web programs more capable or easy to assemble. Microsoft, for instance, recently released a product called Silverlight, which allows programmers to deliver high-quality video and other features to Web applications. 

“We see an emerging market that combines what people love about the Web with richness and interactivity of full desktop application,” said Brian Goldfarb, senior product manager for Silverlight.

Welcome to 1websitedesign.net. We are helping our customers build successful online business by providing services like custom website design, custom web development, ecommerce websites and internet marketing services. 

Unlike other website design companies, we don’t just create websites, but we create them to sell. The reason behind this philosophy is that we are a website design company that understands the marketing strategies that can help you generate targeted traffic to your website, convert that traffic into prospects and ultimately convert those prospects into sales. 

The secret behind any successful website is not how beautiful it looks, but how effectively it has been designed. If you ever had an experience of working with a website design company, you must have good idea of how difficult it really is to communicate your marketing mind set to those designers. You have to really have to struggle to convey your ideas properly to the guys who only know some HTML and nice graphics. Well, not any more… 

Package prices have no hidden costs or reoccurring fees. The turn around time mentioned for each package doesn’t include the delays from client’s end during approval and content provision. It is not mandatory to host your web site with 1websitedesign. If you already have a domain name or hosting, once complete we will put your web site live on your existing domain and hosting.