Choosing Shopping Cart Software
In this article we’re reviewing open source PHP-based ecommerce solutions. PHP is chosen as there are many such ecommerce solutions available and they are cheap to customize. By using an open source solution you don’t have to reinvent the wheel and build everything from scratch and all these solutions can be customized to give your online store a unique look.
Statistics from odesk.com show that Magento has grown much faster than osCommerce during the past 2-3 years so it’s reasonable to assume that Magento is a more popular choice among those with no prior experience of ecommerce website development, while there is a group who is sticking to osCommerce, probably because they are used to the system. Statistics from Google shows that Magento overtook osCommerce in terms of search popularity in early 2009.
Magento
Magento is a modern ecommerce solution featuring with the following advantages and disadvantages:
Advantages:
Table-free, div-tag-based design which is easy to modify and search engine friendly Built on the model-view-controller (MVC) framework, Zend Framework, which provides clear separation between presentation layer and the logic (code) Supported by a company and not a non-profit organization. The company owning Magento is active in fixing bugs and supporting the shopping cart The system is neatly designed and looks very modern SEO friendly URLs from the get-go Advanced features such as abandoned shopping cart reporting, shipping estimator without logging in, set up of multiple stores from one admin login and more
Disadvantages:
Magento comes with a huge number of files and tables by default which takes time for a development team to learn. Customizations may therefore take more time. Magento is slower as its more complex Some estimates suggest that Magento has a 2-3 higher total cost of ownership which may not make it worth all the extra bells and whistles for smaller webshop owners
osCommerce
osCommerce has been around for a very long time (in internet context) which means there’s a lot of knowledgeable people around to support it.
Advantages:
A very well established community supporting the software Simple coding (no frameworks, which takes extra time to learn), even though the structure can be a bit of a mess, which makes it easy to jump in and edit even for less experienced PHP and MySQL developers The simple code base makes it run fast Requires just a simple virtual account when it comes to hosting There’s not so many features by default which may make it easier for small webshops to administer It has a huge number of contributions (add-ons) available thanks to its long history
Disadvantages:
Lack of features and sensible features installed by default which are required to run a big and serious ecommerce site Old type of coding structure (no MVC framework) making an osCommerce solution with lots of extra features difficult to manage
Uglier default design and table-dependent layout which is less search engine friendly.
Archive
Archive for September, 2010
What Is Forensic Accounting?
The forensic accountant calculates damage and helps in settling disputes before they reach the courtroom. If the dispute goes as far as the courtroom, the forensic accountant can double as an expert witness. In an investigation, they review the situation and come up with possible course of action, assist in the recovery of assets and work with private investigators and consultants.
As a part of the job, they may recommend the action that should be taken and the steps necessary to minimize future risk. They may also aid in the investigation of civil matters. For example, a forensic accountant may be hired to search for hidden assets in a divorce case.
Who Hires Forensic Accountants?
There are a number of industries that hire forensic accountants. Divorce disputes, investigation claims of business negligence and personal injury claims are a few fields that need the help of these professionals. Forensic Accountants find work in major accounting firms and are a part of investigating mergers and acquisitions, tax investigations and economic crime investigations.
Forensic Accountants work in all branches of the government, from the FBI, the IRS and the CIA to offices of the local authorities. Public companies are likely to increase the hiring of forensic accounting in the future, due to the need for strong internal control to comply with government demands for accurate financial reporting. More and more companies now realize that forensic accountants help in the detection and prevention of misuse of company resources.
How Can I Become A Forensic Accountant?
Most existing forensic accountants have a bachelor’s degree in accounting and a number of them have additional academic qualifications in fields such as law enforcement and criminal justice. To be a forensic accountant, you generally require a CPA designation. To increase your value as a forensic accountant, you can take the Certified Fraud Examiner Exam that is administered by the ACFE. By earning this certification, you can improve your chances of landing a better position.
How Much Can A Forensic Accountant Make?
You can expect to earn around $30,000 to $60,000 a year, in an average entry-level position. After acquiring a few years of experience, you could easily improve your annual salary to six figures. It is quite common for experienced forensic accountants to make more than $100,000 a year.
What Other Skills Do I Need?
A forensic accountant has to combine the skills of a record keeper, a paralegal and a detective. In short, forensic accounting requires you to possess the ability to think logically. A capable forensic accountant must possess curiosity, persistence, discretion, organization, confidence, professional judgment and creativity. In addition, the forensic accountant must have good communication skills and the ability to listen patiently. You must be updated on recent developments in the field in order to be effective.
Our food, water, air and soil are increasingly being polluted. As we breathe, drink and eat, we load our bodies with a variety of toxins. These toxins could cause disease. There is one super nutrient dense green alga that could neutralize toxic reaction. It also provides the body with a rare myriad of nutrients required for optimal health. This article discusses this richest source of nutrients in the aquatic kingdom.
Why is this algae graded the richest aquatic green food?
Unlike spirulina, which grows on top of water, this alga extends its root system into subterranean soil which hosts essential and trace elements. It gets its nutrients from both water and soil.
What are benefits derived from this super food?
It facilitates absorption of other nutrients. It releases special enzymes to accomplish this task.
Unlike other plants which utilize their nutrients for their own growth, Hydrilla accumulates nutrients. Its growth rate is 6 inches per day.
Used well, Hydrilla enhances absorption of other foods. It also helps build muscles making it an essential food supplement for sportsmen. It also enhances energy levels, making it a must-have for the aged.
Additionally, Hydrilla helps neutralize free radicals as an antioxidant. It has also proved to be an effective immunity booster and detoxifier.
This super alga does not only promote health of human beings. In one study, when it was cut as a troublesome weed, the population of fish decreased. When reintroduced the fish multiplied and meat was found leaner. The fat levels were remarkably reduced.
It was also found to be responsible for higher quantity and better quality of milk in cows. Added to chicken feed it facilitates increase in egg production.
Surprisingly when given to pigs, it made their meat leaner without compromising body weight! Imagine how tasty the pig meat or pork could be!
Hydrilla Verticillata is a super food that neutralizes toxic reaction. When you use it as a food supplement, you are using a toxin free ingredient. It may neutralize toxics that might be in your impure ingredients, making them harmless to your body. Even if some toxins find their way into your body, their reactions are checked.
A green algae dense in food nutrients could help in averting toxic reactions caused by drugs and chemicals. Hydrilla Verticillata does not only provide you with vital nutrients, enzymes, amino acids and a myriad of food compounds, making it superior to all aquatic foods, but also controls toxic reactions from drugs and chemicals. It increases energy levels, improves immunity, digestion, hair, nail, joint and skin health. It also increases mental clarity and reduces body fat.
Most of us use free email services to create email accounts and maintain them. Sometimes we use these email accounts to send very important emails. I also have experienced this. But there are times we hate these email services due to many reasons. I will describe some disadvantages of these free email services in this post.
The most important disadvantage is the security and privacy. We cannot control our privacy and security of our emails and profile data. All the free email service providers including Gmail, Yahoo and hotmail say that they guarantee the full privacy. But can we make sure that they actually do that. Most of us receive unwanted emails (spam) even if we don’t provide our email addresses to a third party. Some of you may know that many free email services sell their email addresses to various marketing companies. Therefore we can’t believe on the guarantees of these free email service providers.
Another disadvantage is most of these free email services provides simple web based email facilities where we can’t do many modifications. For an example if we use Gmail web interface to send an email, it is very hard to add a picture from our local machine instead of sending as an attachment. It also limits the customization of text and images. It is hard to add a customized email signature also.
Many companies provide free email services to make it as a good advertising and marketing medium. Actually that’s all they want and don’t care about how it affects the email user. For an example when you log into your Gmail or Yahoo email account, you will see advertisements in the right side and top. This is not a big headache in Gmail, but in Yahoo it is a real headache especially with their new webmail interface. I’m not comfortable with it and actually it is a headache for me. I think that most of you feel in the same way. It is possible to assume that we will lose our actual email workspace size in the coming future where more and more advertising and marketing methods are added to our web email interface. Up to now, there is one way that we can stop this by configuring an email client like Outlook or Thunderbird for our email account.
As far as I know, some companies and individuals pay less attention to the emails they receive from free email services addresses as they experience that most of them are spam. Due to this, there is a great possibility that they will miss very important emails sent to them. This will also affect us if we send important emails from free email services.
Therefore it is better if you can have a personal email account in your own domain (Ex. yourname@yourdomain.com) if it is affordable. If not, make sure that you use an email client and put an attractive mail subject where the receiver will put more attention to your email.
If you were an amateur blogger hoping to make it big on the arena, there are more subtle ways to do it rather than just plunging head-on into the marketing streams – fishing for traffic. Apart from some of the tips that we are going to run down your way, the golden rule to make money while blogging is to keep unique and interesting content on the Blog. Without it, pretty much any ruse – from SEO tips to paid surveys will fall flat on their face.
So what are the tricks of making your blog a complete money-minter? Well, for starters, here are some easy ones to experiment with –
1. Write for the Readers – Writing for the sake of writing and then expecting that your Blog will be up among the high rises is a major mistake that most bloggers fail to take into account while trying to make money online through such skills. Ensure that you are writing for the readers and delivering what your prologue for the Blog promises to. The more unique and interesting content that you keep on your Blog – the more traffic you hold onto as conversions – and the more money you make!
2. Search Engines Can Drive Traffic Too – Search engines can also be a great way to drive traffic towards your Blog. So if you think you will lonely depend on organic traffic and not work on your SEO tips and marketing skills – you will be languishing in the same position for ages! Take a cue from the bigger and more popular blogs and check out the SEO strategies they have implemented – and execute the same with you blog. It is better to hire a professional SEO operative for a few months to get the Blog on the online radar and then go ad-hoc with your marketing.
3. Monetize the Blog – Monetizing your Blog with Google AdSense or some other advertising tool can help you make money online – albeit indirectly from your blog. The best way is to write posts that can help you get popular ads up on it and then let people click on it. Good positioning and the right relevant adds with a riveting post is what can make this happen.
4. Help Sell Stuff – Help other people sell stuff through your Blog. This does not mean that you will be selling out your Blog but to provide a platform on a post or two for marketing messages to be attached or based upon. This will help you earn some easy money too – either through commissions or through a marketing-host-cost plan!
5. Perseverance is Key – Though all of these blogging tips are good to work on any Blog, remember, you need to stick to the task to actually reap rewards. SEO tips or not, perseverance will help your Blog be a money-minter – and not reams of Blogging tips and strategies for you to execute every other day.
If you have learnt the trick though these blogging tips and SEO tips, take a walk into the world of making money online through Blogging. If you are smart enough, we will see you on the Forbes’ list soon enough!