General
This is why you should hire us
Written by John Pitchers Wednesday, 11 August 2010 23:47
We are very good at building Joomla based websites but so are many other people. We are not the cheapest. We are probably not the quickest. But, there is one good reason you should hire us and it's not for our good looks.
From spark to roaring fire
Written by John Pitchers Tuesday, 03 August 2010 22:36
**GASP**
That's me coming up for breath. It's been over 3 months since the last post and what an awesome 3 months it has been.
Joomla 1.0 sites breaking as server technology moves forward
Written by John Pitchers Wednesday, 17 March 2010 00:02
As predicted in an article in July last year, old Joomla 1.0 sites are now starting to come into issues as web server technology advances.
Read more: Joomla 1.0 sites breaking as server technology moves forward
How to make a 10 page site look like an industry portal
Written by John Pitchers Tuesday, 29 September 2009 23:22
One of the challenges of small businesses is to make yourself appear bigger than you actually are.
Read more: How to make a 10 page site look like an industry portal
JoomStore is for sale.
Written by John Pitchers Tuesday, 29 September 2009 22:57
No, it's not. It was. But not any more. We've decided to keep it and use it for our own venture. The original article is still visible after the jump but Joomstore.com is no longer for sale.
C'mon people. Where's your brief?
Written by John Pitchers Thursday, 13 August 2009 00:34
A "Brief" is a written specification. Sometimes called a Project Doc, Client Specification, New Site Brief, et al. What it's called doesn't really matter. What matters is that you have one...
Viperfish is expanding
Written by John Pitchers Friday, 07 August 2009 00:06
There is a saying that goes something like "If you want to get something done, get somebody already busy to do it."
Read this before you build an e-commerce site
Written by John Pitchers Sunday, 26 July 2009 23:08
So, you want to sell stuff online? Excellent. Before you dive into the process of building an e-commerce site there are a few things you should consider.
Upgrade Joomla!1.0 to Joomla!1.5
Written by John Pitchers Wednesday, 22 July 2009 00:12
In a few hours of me writing this article, Joomla 1.0 will officially reach it's end of life.
Interesting Google results 4 days in
Written by John Pitchers Tuesday, 14 July 2009 23:56
It's only been a few days since I rolled out the new design for Viperfish. The Google stats so far are very interesting.
Viperfish gets a redesign
Written by John Pitchers Thursday, 09 July 2009 08:45
Today, I roll out my newly designed site. Version 3 of Viperfish.com.au finally sees an upgrade from Joomla!1.0 to Joomla!1.5.
Who is John Pitchers?
Written by John Pitchers Tuesday, 07 July 2009 01:52
I don't have a lot to say here.
I'm a a 38 year old husband and father of 3 awesome kids. A 7, 5 and 2 year old. That's my wife of 10 years, Nikki. She does all the important accounting work and keeps me well fed.
We work from our home in Port Kennedy in Western Australia.
I've been building and designing websites for about 7 years. Like most freelancers, I started out building sites in my spare time while holding down a day job. But when things started to get too busy I had to make a choice between the job that I did for the money, and the work I did because I enjoyed it. So, I quit my job, started Viperfish Media in 2004, and haven't looked back since.
Find out about what I can do for you here.
Want to say hello? You can visit me on Facebook, follow my very infrequent tweets on Twitter or send me an email.
What I do
Written by John Pitchers Tuesday, 07 July 2009 01:17
I build websites! Not static websites that stay the same as the day they were launched. No. Every site I build is built around a Content Management System (CMS) called Joomla. Joomla allows you to manage the content on your site via an easy to use interface.
But, Joomla is not just a CMS. It is a framework for developers to build powerful applications. From simple news tickers to complex e-commerce systems. What ever you might need it's probably already available. If not, it can all be built for you.
Joomla has been around since 2005. You can download a copy of it from www.joomla.org, get yourself a hosting account and with a little googling you can learn how to install it yourself and have a simple site up and running in a few hours. If you just want a simple CMS managed brochure site and you don't really care too much about the functionality and design then you really don't need me.
Now, this is the where I'm supposed to talk about "a collaborative approach to brand positioning" and how I use "my conceptual and design processes, combined with proven development methodologies...", blah, blah, blah. Don't get me wrong, it's important stuff, but I'm sure you've heard it all already.
Basically, I take your goals and visions for your online business and turn it into a reality! Joomla is just one of the tools.
Using web programming technologies like CSS, XHTML, PHP, Javascript and others, and my experience with Joomla and it's many plugins, I'll select the tools to get started on your site, modify them to suit your needs, design and template the output and add a little bit of "bling" here and there which everyone enjoys a little bit of.
Of course, there's more involved in the process than that. There's design mockups, revisions, content to gather and search engine optimisation to consider. But this isn't the article to bore you with all that.
If you are like 90% of people needing a new site, then you've already got ideas milling about in your head about how you would like your site to look and behave. You've probably visited other sites with layouts or features you would like to emulate. It's a great starting point.
Please contact me and share your ideas. Perhaps, I can give you some more. And together we will come up with a beautiful site that works.
Have a look at my recent work and when you've seen enough please contact me.
E-commerce with Joomla & Virtuemart
Written by John Pitchers Tuesday, 07 July 2009 00:50
Virtuemart is the leading e-commerce system for use with the Joomla Content Management System. More than 1.5 Million downloads so far and according to one estimate approximately 250,000 active online installations.
Virtuemart is Open Source software which means it is undergoing constant development by the very people that use it. It is secure, feature rich and easy to use. Being open source it is also free.
One of the benefits of an open source application is the freedom to develop and change the application to suit your individual needs. Here's an example.
Jubilog Distbution supply wholesale products to corner stores, post offices, news agents and the like. All the shopping cart systems they considered for their site followed the standard E Commerce model. ie;
- A customer chooses the category they wish to purchase from.
- Choose a product from the chosen category.
- Add it to the cart.
- Return to step 1 or check out.
This model is fine if a customer is only purchasing a few items. But what if a customer needs to purchase a few hundred products at a time? One of Jubilog's biggest movers is batteries. When a retailer purchases a stock of batteries they usually need a number of AAA size batteries, a number of AA's, a number C's, a number of D's, etc. Adding these items to the shopping cart one at a time simply takes too long.
The solution? Develop a custom modification to allow customers to view every product in a category, nominate the amount required of each item and add all the items to the shopping cart in one step. We used javascript to dynamically keep track of the dollar value of the selected items before adding them to the cart. See it in action here.
Here are more clients using Virtuemart;
http://mundabiddi.org.au/
http://foodwatch.com.au
http://yknotfashion.com
http://galafreywines.com.au
http://tacklenet.com.au
http://www.naturebase.net
http://zatini.com.au
http://samariasmanchester.com.au
Do you need E Commerce? Click here.
Following is an exhaustive list of features and benefits of Virtuemart.
Products/Categories:
- Unlimited number of Products and Categories and unlimited Category/Subcategory depth
- Catalogue Mode allows you to turn off the Shopping Cart Features
- Products can be assigned to multiple Categories
- Sort your Products and Categories the way you like
- Sell downloadable Goods like MP3s, Templates, Videos or Software
- Add Images and Files (e.g. Data Sheets) to every Product for your customers’ convenience
- Add Attributes like Size or Color to your Products to offer product variations
- Use Product Discounts (percantage/total, time limited or not)
- Show Details & images for every Item
- comfortable and flexible Product Import & Export using CSV Files
- Manage and control the Stock Level for Products and Items
- Automatically notify Customers when a Product is back in Stock
- Feature specific products by setting them “on special”
Shopper Groups / User Management
- Add Shoppers and assign them to different shopper groups
- global Shopper Group Discounts
- multiple prices can be added to a Product, each for an own shopper group or a quantity range
- Restrict “Display prices” to specific user groups
- Access Management: assign users to user groups like “admin”, “storeadmin”, “shopper” or “demo” to allow the administration by other users (assign products to vendors and allow those vendors to maintain only their products)
Easy Configuration / Customization
- Manage your shop through an easy and completely Joomla!/Mambo-integrated interface
- A “Welcome Screen” shows your daily Shop Statistics: A Summary with “number of customers”, “number of orders”, “5 newest customers” and so on
- capable of Frontend Administration (without having to login into the Backend of Joomla/Mambo)
- global Price/Currency Display Formatting
- Templates for Product Display Pages
- Extend the Shop with other Modules and Functions
- Manage different Currencies, Countries
Shipping Addresses / Rates
- Shoppers can add individual Shipping Addresses
- Add your own Shipping Carriers and Shipping Rates using the “Standard Shipping” feature
- Fetch Shipping Rates live from Intershipper, USPS, UPS, Canada Post, and more...
VirtueMart has a documented Shipping Module API so we can create your own custom shipping modules.
Tax Rates
- Product prices can be displayed “including tax” or not (set for each shopper group)
- Support for different Tax Modes
- Support for multiple Tax Rates (7% for food or books, 19% for other goods)
Payment
- You can use safe SSL encryption (128-bit) and Shared SSL
- Capable of Live Credit Card Processing
Virtuemart supports the following Payment Gateways:
- 2Checkout
- PayPal (IPN)
- Payflow Pro
- Authorize.net (AIM)
- eCheck
- eProcessingNetwork
- eWay (XML Transactions)
- Linkpoint
- Montrada
- NoChex
- Paymate
- PayMeNow
- Skipjack
- Worldpay
With the PayPal(IPN) module Virtuemart automatically updates the customers order details when payment has been processed by PayPal.
Order Management
- Complete Order Management
- Automatically notify your customers when the Order Status changes
- Order Change History
- Custom Order Status Management
"Nice" Features for Customers...
- Let your customers easily search for products through a search form
- Shoppers can see, in what time a product will usually ship, on product-details page (with nice images!)
- Shoppers can manage their user accounts
- Shopper can view all their orders (and order details)
- Order Confirmation mail (customizable!) is sent to shopper and store owner
What is Joomla?
Written by John Pitchers Tuesday, 30 June 2009 01:11
Joomla! is an award-winning Content Management System (CMS) used all over the world to power everything from simple, personal homepages to complex corporate web applications. Here are just some of the ways people use Joomla software:
Who is Joomla right for?
Written by John Pitchers Tuesday, 30 June 2009 00:18
Joomla was designed to make management of your website easy. It's financially viable because it is open source. The templating and tremendous range of 3rd party plugins mean it can be customised in infinite ways.
Joomla. Is it secure?
Written by John Pitchers Tuesday, 30 June 2009 00:18
In the past, opponents to open source technology would state a lack of security as the first reason not to use it. The source code is freely available to every hacker on the planet to analyse, strip apart and find security holes. This is true but it's a good thing.
Half Price Australian Hosting
Written by John Pitchers Saturday, 27 June 2009 01:47
Would you like 50% off Australian hosting? If so, check out Unlimted Space.
Drastic changes in the name of productivity
Written by John Pitchers Wednesday, 27 May 2009 01:42
From now on, in the spirit of productivity and better service, I'm making myself less available.
Thank you to my agency clients
Written by John Pitchers Wednesday, 13 May 2009 01:40
Of the 7 new projects I've just added to my home page, 5 of those are sites that I've worked on in conjuction with other design and marketing organisations around Australia.
Project price or hourly rate?
Written by John Pitchers Monday, 27 April 2009 01:29
There are various web design and freelance developer forums out there in web land and invariably on most of them this discussion comes up and is debated with fervent vigour as each developer has their own opinions on what is right and what is fair
Canon in D Guitar tab
Written by John Pitchers Monday, 23 March 2009 01:23
Due to the constant requests from viewers of my Youtube vid for the guitar tablature to Pachelbel's Canon in D, I've decided to upload it here.
Number 1 on Google
Written by John Pitchers Friday, 23 January 2009 01:23
6 weeks ago, rather than just preaching to my customers the value of Search Engine Optimisation, I decided to take a more proactive approach to SEO for this site.
BEWARE! The part-time developer!
Written by John Pitchers Wednesday, 17 December 2008 01:06
I'm inspired to write this article because I'm currently working on more jobs which involve finishing other "developers" projects than new projects of my own.
The Halo Effect
Written by John Pitchers Tuesday, 07 October 2008 01:06
Check out this article by the ABC. "Internet users quick to judge". It outlines a theory that I have been an advocate of for quite some time. It's the theory that people indeed DO judge a book by it's cover.
Website owners want bling, but content is king
Written by John Pitchers Wednesday, 10 September 2008 01:06
A client recently contacted me saying "I might as well stick a picture of my @$$ up on my site - It'll probably get more hits." He's absolutely correct.
It's your first impression
Written by John Pitchers Wednesday, 25 June 2008 02:09
Your website may be the first point of contact that many potential customers have with you. If you want your visitor to stay you've got to do a lot to impress them in a very short period of time. In fact, a recent article on ABC News says we may have as little as 50 milliseconds to make that first impression.
HACKED
Written by John Pitchers Saturday, 17 November 2007 08:45
It happened again today, I was contacted by a Joomla user who's site had been hacked...
Content Management?
Written by John Pitchers Wednesday, 17 October 2007 08:45
After finishing another Content Management System, or CMS, for a client, I decided to write this article to help people understand what a content management system actually is and describe exactly how useful one can be.
Freelancer vs Agency
Written by John Pitchers Wednesday, 17 October 2007 08:45
If you're pondering on whether to choose a Joomla freelancer or a larger organisation for the development of your site then please read on. There are many reasons why a business should choose a freelance designer over an agency.
The Business of Websites
Written by John Pitchers Wednesday, 17 October 2007 08:45
Every day, over 20000 people launch websites. Recent statistics state that if you're not in that group, you are missing out on 250 million people who are probably buying stuff directly on the internet, or basing their decisions on what they will buy online. These 250 million people are your business.
Making the right offer
Written by John Pitchers Wednesday, 17 October 2007 08:45
Making the right offer... Isn’t the only purpose of any business to make money? Yes! So, if you have a polished, well designed website using all the latest technologies but it doesn’t generate any addition cash flow, is it an asset or a liability? The question is - Do you want your web presence to make you money or cost you money? It's all about the offer...
