I recently had the opportunity to develop a small online booking system. This time round I was determined to make use of some development framework. Not for me the slow slog of writing all my code from scratch – surely we have moved beyond that now in web development?

The big question was – which framework to use? Since the advent of Ruby on Rails, development frameworks have become quite the flavour d’jour and there are now, well, maybe not thousands of them, but quite a few! The last time I heard there are about 80 development frameworks out there. I am not 100% user of this number, it could be a bit higher, it could be a bit more conservative (on the phpwact site you can find about 40 PHP frameworks listed). The point is, the web developer is now really spoilt for choice. Which is a problem in itself, since having too much choice can leave you dithering between different options.

This article is therefore about how I made my choice, which was CakePHP, and which factors I took into consideration.

Obviously, and certainly, I will get bombarded with “Why don’t you try X framework, it is really much simpler to use…” type responses. That is quite OK, to each his own! But this is the choice I made and I am sticking to it. Frankly, the idea of going through another learning curve gives me the heeby-jeeby’s….

I found that the selection criteria were not independent. In other words, once I have ruled out some frameworks due to some specific criteria, other factors came into play. It was therefore more a process of elimination than judging all the frameworks off a predefined set of criteria.

The first major selection point was: Ruby on Rails or not.

Obviously there is the attraction of using a brand new, hip, buzz-word hyped framework. You can’t go wrong with something that is getting so much attention… or can you?

Let’s look at some of the selection criteria that filtered out Ruby on Rails

1. Ease of installation and ability to run on shared hosting
The problem is that most of my clients make use of a shared hosting environment. Can Ruby on Rails run on common-or garden variety type shared hosting? The answer was, I soon discovered – no. One needs to either have access your own private servers or run on a shared hosting environment that has Ruby on Rails preinstalled. Admittedly, there are a couple of them now starting up. A comprehensive list of hosting providers that offer Ruby On Rails hosting can be found on the RoR Wiki – http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/RailsWebHosts.

2. Minimize the learning curve
Even though I knew that any new framework will involve a steep learning curve, I really did not have the guts to go through TWO learning curves – one for the language itself and one for the framework. I might still have been prepared to go through the learning curve though if it wasn’t for the fact that RoR requires special hosting.

So basically the decision was: Not RoR. And based on criterion 2, I decided to stick to a PHP framework, and not go for something else based on Perl or something else since I’ve been developing in PHP for the past two, almost three years. Having said this, it is all very well to say that CakePHP allows you to use your PHP skills – because it is an object oriented framework/MVC based framework it has its own rich language infrastructure. You still need to learn the CakePHP terminology and the learning curve is pretty steep!

3. Ability to run on PHP 4
Although PHP 5 offers more object oriented features, once again, not all shared hosts offer PHP 5 out of the box. I decided that I wanted to stick to a framework that will offer backwards compatibility and enable me to run on most of the servers that I, as well as my clients, host on.

My further criteria came down to:

4. Must have good documentation
Under good documentation I count the following:

- User manual

- Examples and code snippets

- Screen casts and videos – although I do not see these as essential

5. Good support by the user community
This, in combination with formal documentation is absolutely essential. All of these frameworks are pretty young and the documentation is also constantly evolving. Some documentation might be patchy in details. This is where the user support in terms of the community comes in. How active are the forums? Is there a bug tracker? Any other informal tutorials, write-ups, comments, blogs and other support?

6. Regular upgrades and bug fixes
..but not so close to each other that the software becomes unstable and unusable. Backward compatibility is also important.

Version number of the software can be used to indicate maturity.

Working off the following list (http://www.phpit.net/article/ten-different-php-frameworks/) one can see that the list has narrowed down to the following frameworks:
CakePHP Seagull Framework WACT – since ‘disqualified’ since the latest version now requires PHP 5 Zoop CodeIgniter

The next step was a bit less scientific – but still fitted in with point 5 – how well is this Framework regarded? How much support does it generate in the ‘community’.

I scouted through forums and followed links and surfed the net and tried to get a general feel – and overall, CakePHP did seem to come out tops. A similar check that one can do is the following – do a Google search for each of the frameworks and see how many results are returned. This will give you a good idea of the general support, number of tutorials, number of forum posts and general ‘talked about’ factor for the specific framework. The results for this exercise can be seen here: http://www.tm4y.co.za/cakephp/ruby-on-rails-popularity-for-web-development.html

In summary therefore, the support for Ruby on Rails and the amount of information available for it is astounding and you will probably not go wrong if you decide to go this route. But if you want to stick with a PHP framework – CakePHP seems to be the route to go!

FatCow is a reliable web hosting company that is firmly established on a Linux platform, Aplus.net is gaining prominence as a specialist in Unix based solutions. Both these companies have shown their trustworthiness over many years in providing web hosting services for personal and small business users. When these two giants battle it out for the business, the end customer is sure to get the savings from the price cuts which will emerge from the struggle.

FatCow has been over the years building a solid clientele through its one-plan-for all hosting package that is extremely successful. The plan is inexpensive and comes at $3.99 a month which is quite affordable to all. Aplus.net however offers a hosting solution that lets you run a well-designed website at a mere $4.46 per month. These hosting plans may seem to be evenly placed in terms of price but FatCow is more powerful than Aplus.net’s beginner plan. As a matter of fact, you will need a higher plan in Aplus.net’s range of packages to match FatCow’s basic plan..

If we were to evaluate these two companies purely on the basis of portfolio strengths, then Aplus.net will emerge a clear winner. Aplus.net offers you a choice of services like reseller accounts, dedicated servers and managed hosting.FatCow’s area of expertise lies in the shared hosting field but they also offer other services such as domain booing, add-on to websites and e-commerce solutions.

Both Adpus.Net and FatCow offer similar features but you must pick a costlier package in Aplus.net to match the raw power of a FatCow plan. This apart, you can get the regular features any web hosting service van provide such as multiple email accounts, spam filters and auto-responders. Some very good programs like Perl,Ruby on rails and PHP are also thrown in as an incentive.

Aplus.net is superior when it comes to using new technology in its hosting plans. They use the Windows 2008 server as platform and hence are able to incorporate much needed features like ASP programming and MS SQL database.

FatCow and Aplus.net are equally strong in the area of customer support. They both have a 24/7 customer service that is available any day and at any odd time of day. The customer support plan is designed to help users through a variety of ways. Users having issues with web hosting and web design can contact the companies’ staff, through phone or email. They can also get service through tickets, online knowledge base, live chat and tutorial videos. Both the companies have a high degree of commitment towards customer support.

After a detailed study of both the web hosting companies we must conclude that FatCow is the better choice on account of its reasonable pricing, ease of use, yet powerful hosting capabilities. Their single plan helps to complete a number of online tasks by giving us the resources that a website requires to boost its business.

On the other hand, if feel the need for a dedicated server or if you plan to resell web hosting accounts, you must look for a sturdier web host like Aplus.net.

Almost all webmasters (or at least “quite a lot of webmasters”) have heard about the significance of website testing before the production. Having developed a website or a web application, most authors want to publish it immediately and see how people like it. If they ignore prior website testing, the project may appear unprepared for real Internet activity and reveal awful performance. The lack of proper testing (due to laziness or inexperience of the webmaster) leads to bad user impression, what is deadly for the whole project.

Website testing is of supreme importance. It makes you sure that every visitor (including those with 28.8kbps modem connection – their number is still big enough to be neglected) will see something on the screen within the first 10-15 seconds. In other case, they will most likely close the window before the site loads. This is a common problem for all new projects: even if the website showed good performance at the stage of development, it can appear almost unusable under real Internet loads. Website testing is needed to find and optimize weak places, or otherwise a crowd of concurrent visitors can slow the site down to full unusability.

The good news is that today there are website testing services and utilities that allow testing website behavior in different conditions. Some of them (such as web-version of the “tracert” Windows service) provide online test of availability and load time of the website from different places around the world. And some of them (for instance, Testing Master by Novosoft) can perform thorough website testing that reveals all weak places of the website and shows where you should tune it. Using such utilities is much less expensive than hiring a team of testers, and the results they give are far more accurate as against manual website testing.

The concept of most website testing utilities is very much the same. A program creates multiple virtual users that produce huge loads on server applications. Each virtual user emulates a real visitor who works under a certain browser, operating system and within some testing scenario. Website testing scenarios must describe all user actions that can be performed on the site: reading of different descriptions, using onsite search, submitting orders, updating the pages, etc. They must also take into account all user mistakes that can occur: missing credit card info, bad email address, etc. This is essential for correct website testing results, since each new action makes server applications generate a new page and affects the overall website performance.

Some advanced website testing utilities, for example the aforesaid Testing Master, allow basing test scenarios on your actual behavior. Testing Master has an integrated recorder that memorizes all actions as you browse the website in Internet Explorer and provides a quick way to define your website testing scenario. During the operation, it gathers statistics on load time and speed and in the end returns explicit information on what can be improved. Like other utilities of the same class, it allows performing a so-called stress load website testing, which shows breaking points and bottlenecks of the site. This kind of website testing gives an opportunity to predict the future performance, when the website will gain popularity and acknowledgement.

Website testing utilities vary in feature sets and user interfaces. Some of them can give only final reports, showing statistical information for each page, each virtual user, sizes of uploaded and downloaded data, etc. Other programs provide real-time reports and graphs, what enables the user to stop the test if the problem is identified quickly. In any case, they are helpful for web developers of all levels, allowing them to improve performance of the website and prepare it for high traffic strain. Do remember: this is all about user impression. The better your site works, the more positive image it leaves – and the faster it will grow to an authoritative, trustworthy and profit-making resource.

Are you born with a silver spoon in your mouth? If not, then I’ll show you how to bring the silver spoon into your plate. My point is, not all of us are naturally born rich. Not all of us have the quality of life where you can mix business with pleasure. Lucky for those who are, but for those who work so hard having more than two jobs a day just to pay numerous bills, I think it’s time for you to step up.

Making money online is your answer. It doesn’t require you to have mastery skills to be able to do so. As long as you are computer literate and you know how to use the internet, then you are qualified. You can start by having your own website where you can do a promotion for products that are made available by several merchant companies online to work with. Or you can have it serving as your own platform for your own-made original product.

Those are just few of the many ways to earn online through internet marketing. But one factor that matters as well would be having a profitable website. No matter what business you’re thinking of to start online, having your own profitable website is of the essence. You can make use of various options in building your website online. You can make use of several free web builders available or you can hire a professional web builder to do it for you. It’s up to you on which of both gives you more convenience. All I can say of this matter is that it is worth the little investment. Eventually, you will have what you have invested back to you in no time.

In terms of website content, you can start off by making it attractive as possible to draw more visitors. Add relevant content more and more each day that contains profitable keywords and keyword phrases. With this way, it will give your website the chance of being found in every search engine throughout the internet. But don’t stop there, you have to aim for higher rankings in every search engine there is. Having higher ranks in search engines would not only make your website found but would also give you more chances in driving massive traffic to your website.

If you can deliver all the things I have just told you then you’re good to start and kick off in making money online.

In a previous article, I talk about how having a web site is very important to your business. But just having a web site isn’t good enough. You need to satisfy the customer visiting your page. In this article I want to talk about what customers would expect from your website and how you can help fulfil those requirements.

Should I stay or should I go?

Within a few seconds of visiting your home page customers expect to be guided to find the information they seek. Your home page should be able to tell the customer in a sentence or two what the main purpose of the web site is for (eg: providing information, selling services, online retail) and guide the visitor to find what they are looking for quickly. You have 5 seconds to provide this information before they decide weather or not this website will be able to fulfil their needs.

Ease of Navigation

If a customer has decided to stay on your website after visiting the home page, they expect to find their way around your page easily. Navigation style should be easily identifiable and organized. It should be consistent throughout the entire site. Customers should be able to get to any page in your website by visiting at most 2-3 pages before reaching their destination.

Find and Purchase / Order a Product or Service

Customers visiting your website may be expecting to be able to purchase or order what you offer. The way that you offer your products on your website should be the same throughout the entire site. Additionally, some have expectations on how the order can be processed after they submit it to you.
Can they check the status (processing, shipping) of the order afterwards? Do they get proactive notifications of the order through every step? Can they order online, but pick it up at your store? Can they return goods purchased online at your store? Consistent Look and Feel

A customer browsing your web site expects to get comfortable and familiar with what they are looking at. The titles should always appear in the same area, as should the navigation and content of the page. Distractions such as pop-ups and excessive advertisements can reduce the level of comfort of the visitor and cause them to leave.

A Clear Purpose or Message

Customers expect a single, clear message from each page on your web site. Simple mistakes involving spelling, grammar and a tone inconsistent with the rest of the site are mistakes every website should try to avoid.

You may want to seek out the services of a local copywriter whose job is to write the textual content of your web site. They should write text that persuades the visitor with your message and also manipulates the wording to place your site higher in search engine rankings.

What do you Expect?

What do you expect when visiting another website? What attracts you to buy and what makes you leave?

Moreover, this field is also expected to recover first from this global melt down. So, if you have an idea of stepping into this field, better master the C and C++ programming, before you move onto Java, PHP, Oracle, and the new technologies like ADF framework, Ruby-on-Rails and the likes of them.

Is learning C and C++ so very important? Well, yes it indeed is. They form the basis of your logical reasoning and programming skills. Many boards of education incorporate these two languages as early as their eighth or ninth grade because these are the languages that can help you determine the learning, observatory and programming capabilities of a student.

More than it, if you are well versed with the data types, the programming syntaxes and semantics, the naming conventions and other basic concepts, you can make up to learn any other language very easily. This is the main reason why many companies test you in C and C++ if you apply for a programming position.

Data Structures is the subject that deals with the concept of using the in-built templates very efficiently to help you know how well you can actually manage the data in an efficient manner. And this data Structures is best learnt with C and C++ only. This is because of the fact that C and C++ programming involves ease of use of the variables and the more you learn them, the more you master the IT field.

Give it a try, and start learning C-C++ programming today!

Examining what top web host services have to offer will allow us to make more educated decisions and choices for our web developing needs, so let’s look at a few right now. The first one we’ll look at will be the web host called Host Monster. At the top of the list of the technology they provide for e-commerce hosting options are programs such as Ruby on Rails, Perl, PHP and Angora shopping cart software to suit anyone’s needs online. They also offer high quality systems of redundancy in order to insure that your data is always available at any time you need to retrieve it.

Other factors that make this web host provider among the top companies is their over delivery in the amount of disk space and data transfer bandwidth which exceeds anyone’s realistic needs. However, this does provide for the ability to host an unlimited number of domains and sub-domains even on a single hosting plan. This is even offered on their least expensive plan which goes for less than $6 per month, and they also provide a 30 money back guarantee. This can be quite a valuable choice for your web developing needs.

Next among the top providers of web host services we’ll look at is a company called GlobAt (or, “Globe@”), which offers plans as low as $4.44 per month for the first year when signing on for a two year plan – the second year is less than $7 per month. The reliability of this company seems wonderful, with their B2 hosting platform. This offers a superb redundancy for the backup of data. This system features additional disk drive and online backup machines, Cisco Catalyst Switches and Network Appliance Raid 4 Filers to ensure backup of any and all data you input.

The next top web host provider to examine will be BlueHost. What this provider offers is hordes of disk space and data transfer bandwidth, which is arguably way more than clients ever need, even for vastly trafficked e-commerce websites. However, when you consider the amount of space, this can allow you to host an unlimited number of domains and sub-domains.

This would provide for future growth, if you ever decide you need to expand your websites further. If you wish to publish e-commerce websites, this service provider will offer nearly every programming add on option there is, including Perl, Ruby on Rails, Angora and PHP just to mention some of them. These are just a few of the top web host providers out there to consider.

Where do you turn to find the best website services and supports for your website that’s not performing as well as you hoped?

Or how do you find the help you need when you want to build an online business website but don’t know where to start?

You’re stuck.
You don’t know where to turn for help.

For some, you might just have a quick question that has had you stumped for a week. No matter what you try, it simply doesn’t work. Your code, your graphic, your ad, your marketing strategy, or your table just isn’t behaving properly.

Where do you turn for help?
Well, there are tons of website services and webmaster supports all over the internet!

The best website services and supports range from peer-to-peer right to full-fledged “do everything for you” professional web site building services and web site management.

Let’s start with peer-to-peer site building support.
Site building forums are one of the very best resources you can use in order to get a quick and accurate answer to almost any question you have or to give you advice on resolving your issue(s). A quick search produces a gazillion website help forums. Many forums actually specialize in a specific site building area such as design, traffic, marketing, website services, graphics, tools, e-commerce, and so on. When you find a good one that meets your needs you are golden!

Ask and yea shall receive help!
Though, if truth be known, many of the most popular site building forums do charge a fee. Although, the fees are generally quite reasonable. What you get in return is instant access to all the help you might ever need. It can be a huge time saver to fill up your favorite’s folders with a treasure trove of helpful site building forums that you can access as fast as you can click your mouse.

Then of course, there might be times that you need more.

Then it’s necessary to consider using the expertise of professional website services. . .
You can always go the other route of purchasing one-to-one professional site building assistance. Although it can be more difficult to find the right or the best website services that will fit your needs, it can be the most valuable support for your particular needs in the long run.

The services of a professional site builder or a webmaster consultant are tailored to specifically meet your needs and level of expertise, (or lack of), so that you get through the sometimes painful website building learning curve much faster.

The best website services may cost a bit more, but if your time translates into money, then you’ll have not only the specialized help you need but you’ll have realized a huge savings in the efforts you would have had to put into plodding along the rather long and arduous site building learning curve.

Turning your website into a successful online business takes work!
At times, a lot of very hard work. But you can get the help and support you need to keep your ecommerce goals and your online business on track with the assistance of forums or professional site building intervention.

And for those who just don’t have the time or the inclination, the ultimate website service is to have your entire website built and managed for you! In the scheme of business expenses, professional website services can be one of the most productive business expenses you allocate in your budget.

It makes a lot of sense to use the Best Website Services and Supports you can to propel your eBusiness to success!

There are a number of essential steps for you to make the correct choice for cheap web hosting. Missing a step will cause untold problems eventually, so follow the strategies closely.

Choose Carefully

Cost is, by far, not the most important consideration. Reliability is. The dirty little tactic among web hosts is that once they acquire you, they have you. It is a huge pain for you to move to another small business web host company. So you must to get it right from the start. Avoid free sites. Do you really want competing advertisements on your web pages? Would you like your business constrained by small allocated disk space and bandwidth? If you can not manage to pay for the unbelievably low web hosting costs these days, then you have a hobby, not a business.

So how do you confirm reliability? The exact same way you do for any other purchase. You research and test. Do a Google search for web forums. You will uncover a lot of posters with clear strong opinions. Invest an hour and a half to discover a solid base of recommended host sites. When you have 5 or so potential candidates, it is time to test. Get in touch with their customer support. Verify their live support. Time it. Send them a message. If they do not respond promptly now, you can bet that when you have a concern, they will be nearly impossible to reach. You will want to find out about both web server dependability and mail server reliability.

Know What You Are Going To Need

Do you have big plans for your online enterprise? It is better to pick a web host package accordingly. Two key measures are disk space and bandwidth. If you will host video or expect tremendous traffic, then bandwidth is the most important thing. If you will host reams of pictures, disk space is key. Other things to consider are what cutting edge applications are provided. Ask your friendly web geek if you are likely to ever want such applications as Ruby on Rails or Fantastico.

Features To Include

You will want to have these extra features from your small business web host. You need a useful interface. Cpanel is typical. Beware of highly unique control panels. It will mean a learning curve for someone. You will want guaranteed up-time of over 99%. A lot of companies, these days, are promising 100% up-time, but the risk on their side is meager. A 1 day payback for a $7.95 monthly charge pales in comparison to you losing 50 orders because your website had gone dark. Investigate those forums for real-world experience! Do insist on daily backups and 24/7 free customer service. Check the small print for hidden support fees.

Selecting the right small business web hosting is not too hard, but you do want to invest half a day to get it right. Do the research, anticipate what you will need in the years to come as well as right now, and demand on the key things you want. You may even want to become a reseller. Do the math. If you could sell $7.95 a month web hosting for 100 people, that is about $10,000 a year. That tells you why there are so many cheap website hosts around and why it is so difficult trying to pick the right one.

Well, whenever you plan to opt for a web hosting plan, you must ensure that you check all of its features, right from the type of hosting offered, down to the monthly bandwidth, traffic, and MySQL databases as well as FTP account quotas. Moreover, you must be wary of the term “unlimited”, which is often disguising in such context.

Nobody in this world can provide you with endless storage space, so when you web host says unlimited monthly bandwidth ask what figure does it signify? Usually, people consider anything above 500GB to be unlimited.

Moving on to the type of hosting, you must also be careful enough that you don’t end up opting for a hosting plan, which doesn’t fulfill all your needs. For instance, if your web host provides you with only the Windows hosting services, there’s no way you’ll be able to set-up a WordPress blog. But, if your main purpose of opting for these web hosting services, was to launch a killer blog, the mere purpose would be defeated!

There are several other considerations like the compatibility with the latest technologies like Ruby-on-Rails, which powers the sites like Twitter.com, freshersarea.com, backed-up by the RailFrog CMS. You must not end up paying for web hosting services that don’t allow you to make use of these technologies.

Lastly, make sure that you check the customer support team of your host, because unless the support team gives you prompt replies, you’ll soon get sick and tired of sending repeated emails, and not getting a response in turn, even when you’re in dire straits losing your traffic, due to some silly issues with the hosting services.

So, keep these factors in mind, and do the homework before selecting your next web host.