Orthodox Biz Blog

One of the new and exciting advantages to the computer age is the ability for people to join, meet and share common interest online. This has lead to the phenomenal growth in online forums.

When was the last time that your image presentation in Virtuemart actually wowed a client? Okay, the default image handling isn't too bad. You get a thumbnail, which pops up into a lightbox. If you need multiple images, then you get a stack of thumbnails on the product details page - which also pop up into lightboxes.

Frankly, it's all a little ho-hum to say the least. Much of what we sell on our CorShops site is actually software, so we don't need the images so much. After all, we can demo the software and that helps sell the sizzle. But most of our development clients sell physical products, and they need to put these in the best possible light. And that light is usually not a 'lightbox,' which is why we created the FlyTabs Virtuemart Theme.

Virtuemart is a great shopping cart, but the core system has three big problems when it comes to handling images. First, the default option on a Category page is that clicking the product image thumbnail pops up a bigger image, instead of leading to the product details!

That just makes people mad. Online shoppers normally expect to get product details, not a bigger image. That is why our FlyTabs Virtuemart Theme has the option to link product images to product details.

I first started working on Web projects for the Orthodox Christian Network (myocn.net) in late 2006. At the time, OCN had one program – Come Receive the Light. Come Receive the Light was primarily a traditional radio broadcast, airing in many key markets once a week. OCN’s Website was important, but had always been considered a secondary delivery channel compared to terrestrial radio.

Content Management Systems are growing in popularity as a framework for running Websites. A Content Management System (CMS) automates many of the repetitive tasks associated with running a Website. Using a script framework and a database, a CMS lets organizations sponsoring Websites focus on publishing content to the Web. A CMS framework also comes bundled with all kinds of capabilities such as interactivity (discussion forums, comments, blogging), membership, syndication (RSS feeds), podcasting, and a whole lot more.

The old saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words" may be a cliche but in the case of technical training - it's absolutely true.

Every Web designer has that moment of grace at least once. A moment when you look at the layout, the colors, the text, and the images - and the page just works. Everything is just perfect. I had that happen recently. I remember how ecstatic I was. This was the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or at least so I thought.