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beck180

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Everything posted by beck180

  1. I Have to agree that this would not be worth your time and effort to pursue. At the very most you could get a civil judgement against this person that really does not amount to much, there is no debtors prison here in the US and they will not go to jail for not paying you! No judge in the US would extradite someone to Canada for $100.... Forget about hiring a lawyer for damages less than $100 dollars, pretty sure most would not even take a case like that and even if they did your fees would far out way any compensation you might (or most likely not) get. Best case scenario...if everything went your way it could possibly affect there credit rating, but if they are as untrustworthy as you say they probably already have poor credit anyway and would not care. Live and learn, and never ship without getting paid ahead. B
  2. By the way....That's what a lot of the big companies are going with these days as it offers the advantage of short run production, without the setup costs of flexo or offset, yet it has many advantages over other printing methods including the ability of variable data printing which is quite handy in the candle industry with so many different labels and fragrances. Yankee uses this technology for all of there labeling jobs now.
  3. "there isn't any equipment on the market that you can purchase to make a single sheet of custom printed, die-cut, laminated labels" That's not exactly true...Hp Indigo presses are quite capable of handling all these tasks and much more including, spot color, metallic foils etc. Find a friend (or company) with and Indigo and you can get custom short run labels, die cut, laminated and more pretty cost effectively, usually starting at just 1-1000's labels.
  4. I really like Shopify and Foxycart, especially if you want to have more control over the look of your site, easy integration and affordability! Seams like nowadays a one page checkout is almost mandatory to avoid abandoned carts and secure more orders. Here's a good link for you, a lot of choices... http://www.wilsonweb.com/wct/shopping-cart.htm Good luck!
  5. Hey, is there a script or something on your site that blocks your code from being displayed over the web? Was trying to take a look and all i could get was some simple HCM comments. BTW, you have some really neat stuff on there, really cute, you have done a great job with those products!
  6. Remember this though: Browser compatability really is not a popularity contest. Ask any good web designer that knows and they will tell you that you should always evaluate your sites appearance in a standards compliant browser first, and work your way back! This does not mean to ignore IE altogether, yes there are alot of users still with IE, but it is a well known fact that IE 4, 5 and 6 have the most bugs and quirks than most of the others. Backwards and forwards compatability is the real issue here, it is because of the fact that people are still using these browsers that the problem arises in the first place, not arguing who uses what more. Look at it this way. If you start with testing in firefox first, you will have a much better chance at getting a handle on the bugs and quirks of the microsoft browsers (there are many) and this is a very necessary evil on both fronts. If your designing for IE first, you will most assuredly set yourself up for faluring in validating, SEO and forward compatability in the future. Your site can look completely wonderful in IE, but break in other browsers.
  7. The fact remains...whatever your technical knowledge is on the subject, many of these people sign up with this type of service for the ease and hassle free ability to sell products! When in all reality if all of this customizing and tweaking, and learning is necessary, then it is anything but easy or hassle free! Can you please go post on the other topic that says: Unnecessary unwanted and sarcastic comments welcome... Thank You!
  8. Let me just say that DIY type stores are not all bad, and I'm not here to trash on them. It is a great way to get started in the business and get up and running quickly and easily, and with a little coding help they can be made functional. But...it sure is time for them to take a look at their technology and bring it up to today's standards, so they can feel confident that they are providing a valuable service to the masses, without just taking their money and letting those great products exist in nowhere land. Another thought... would be for them to even just change gears a little and add some good, easy to follow tutorials to their websites that explain the need for further customization on the webmaster end, that is needed to help them be successful. The hard part to understand is that many people don't really know that without adjustments to the code, people will never find them. For the most part these are good honest people trying to suplement their income and they have alot of cool products to be seen and purchased, but it saddens me that a ton of them will never be seen.
  9. Here is a great read explaining this concept further. James Opiko July 23, 2006 Google currently is reported to have indexed 8 billion pages and counting. Google utilizes an array of bots A.K.A. spiders or crawlers. Among the specialized bots Google uses include: The web spider Googlebot, the Adsense spider MediaBot, the image spider ImageBot, the AdWords spider AdsBot, the RSS feed spider FeedFetcher-Google, and Googlebot-Mobile spider for mobile devices. MSN & Yahoo, the other two of the 'big three' have their own proprietary versions of spiders. Why is it important for an Internet Marketer to know how spiders crawl your website? A search engine crawler is your best visitor. Giving a crawler easy and uninhibited movement in your website is necessary for good search engine rankings. Your website must be spider (search engine) friendly if you want any traffic from the search engines. A search engine spider does not read your website the way we humans do. The spider reads web-page source code (HTML) that renders your page, therefore ‘bad code’ can be an impediment to the spider, sometimes causing it to give up crawling your website. Spiders love content (text) and do not read JavaScript at all, therefore a website that is packed with images with no ALT tags to assist the spiders, and heaps of JavaScript may not be indexed successfully. So, when designing your website you must incorporate structural website design principals that elicit search engine friendliness. An astute marketer should also desire to see how search engines see his or her site. This may be accomplished by a Lynx Viewer which is a text-mode web browser. Additionally, a Lynx Viewer can help you determine if your web pages are accessible to the vision impaired, an assemblage of visitors that should not be ignored ---yes, there are millions of visually impaired people surfing the Internet regularly. A quick search in Google for "Lynx Viewer" will yield numerous sources from which you can download this important tool for your use. Even though you must design your website with your visitors in mind first, it is crucial that you accord the search engines top level priority too, since the vast majority of these visitors will arrive via search engines. Practice good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) but not at the expense of your visitors' experience -- it is a balancing act that must be accomplished with prudence. Also of significant importance is the fact that web browser standards are not yet fully harmonized. A web page that looks great in Internet Explorer might look atrocious in a Mozilla based browser like Firefox or Netscape. Additionally, with the proliferation of hand held devices for browsing the Internet, compliance with W3C standards is becoming more and more critical. A marketer must therefore be conversant with the intricacies of cross-browser design -- designing for one browser (IE) is no longer ideal, as the Google backed FireFox is eating up Microsoft’s browser turf at an alarming rate. Anybody can "whip up" a web page in FrontPage without sufficient knowledge of HTML, but may not be able detect and correct the messy code that FrontPage generates underneath the page, some of which is proprietary to Microsoft. Consequently a website that looks superb in Microsoft Internet Explorer may look and load dreadfully in Opera and/or some other browser, denying you visitor traffic. Never use a Word Processor to design your website. Word Processing software generate tremendous amounts of code that is not search engine friendly. If you cannot hand-code using a text editor then it is necessary that you use authentic and industry standard web design software that incorporate the most up to date design principles. Macromedia's Dreamweaver and the latest version of Microsoft FrontPage are good candidates with Dreamweaver getting my partisan nod. A first-rate design strategy should include the use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and valid XHTML, the most current in the HTML generation of standards. Websites designed in strict W3C standards tend to be lighter, faster and cross-browser compatible. This is not to insinuate that table based design is going anywhere anytime soon, for it is my humble disputation that if strict W3C standards were to be enforced in browsers, 95% percent of websites would go out of business, furthermore the lack of inter-browser synchronization just worsens things. According to some surveys, more than 86% of all people arrive at websites through search engines. In 2006, PC World, arguably the most authoritative and widely-read computer and business magazine, reports that Google remains the site of choice for most surfers. The double-digit increase in online search activity marks a significant milestone in the evolution of Internet consumer behavior," says Ken Cassar, senior director of analytics at Nielsen/NetRatings. "Online search is the primary tool most people rely on to do everyday research," he says. A top ranking in the search engines can bring you highly targeted traffic. If someone visits your site after searching for a product or service that you are selling, it means that he/she is interested in what you are selling and hence is a potential customer for you. Thus, search engines send pre-qualified customers to you. You can sell virtually anything on the Internet, but in order to succeed you must bring "targeted traffic" to your website....people who are ready to buy your products and services, the vast majority of who will arrive at your website through search engines. If your website is not designed suitably, Google and other search engines will disrespect your website. Respect brings in traffic which translates into the all important Dollars, "Kwacha," Euro or whatever you wish to call money. Remember, search engine bots are your most important visitors, you must seduce, "open your doors" and accommodate them in order to gain any measurable success in your Internet Marketing endeavor.
  10. MissMary - Thanks for sharing. That's quite true what you said, design for your audience not for yourself. A lot of people miss this important fact and make their pages all about what they like, i've even seen people design site themes around their children or pets. While that stuff is great for personal sites, it has no place in business... unless you were in childcare or dog grooming! :smiley2: It only makes you look cheesy and unprofessional. As for Internet Explorer being a horrible browser and not designing for that, what i mean is to make internet explorer your last priority when checking how your site will display in other browsers. You should build your site to be consistent in all browsers for sure wherever possible, but IE is ignorant to many warnings and errors that may come about with the better browsers such as Firefox. Designing a site to look good in IE first will set you up for a ton of headaches down the road! I do promise not to give complete web design instruction and training here on the forum, just trying to give people some tips to improve their chance of success.
  11. I was afraid to post on this topic even though i have thought about this for some time. The way i remember it this place was a great resource for people to discuss and exchange information and knowledge, just hope i don't get whipped and beaten too bad for trying to do so. My husband offered the advice and i was interested in passing this along to the community. He's been in this line of work for quite some time and a computer geek forever! If i can help some, guess it will make up for those who will disagree and get angry. Not all news is good news, I really am just trying to help, not trying to sell anything to anyone...honest! I think i also said those who were not interested could pass on reading this as well....maybe I'm losing it???
  12. The first thing that will help you if you want to stay with your store the way it is, would be to install the Firefox browser with the Firebug plug-in. This will give you a set of tools right in your browser that will enable you take take a good look at your page, the markup and coding, and even let you validate your code right from there. It will show you a lot of the errors in your existing markup. That's a good place to start. Firefox is great, and by the way never design for Internet Explorer, it's the worst browser on the planet. As for the site you mentioned i would have to look into that, never heard of that one before.
  13. Seeking attention or business from whom? just trying to help sorry, used to be able to do that here! I don't live my life on the boards so i don't know all the rules of the road, i do apologize for that.
  14. Teasing is good, keeps me sane ! This whole thing came about because everyone says business is so slow, and i remember when candltech was like a mob, now it's more tame, i miss those days! Lets start the Open Source Revolution!!! Oh, it's already started.... seriously tho, people just need to learn a little more and they can compete with anyone, i really believe that!
  15. That's crazy! There lies the value really building it yourself and aquiring your own host. Most good hosting accounts offer like 98% uptime or better! I'd put my foot down with that! Truly Unacceptable!
  16. Webmasters are starting to realize the value of a true CMS for ecommerce and more, big thing is just realistically evaluating your needs. There is so much great stuff out there cheep, or even free! GO Open Source!
  17. People have alot of success with different platforms, Joomla and PostNuke are good, just depends on who's coding it, or if you are using templates plug-ins and such. Installation can be a little tricky for some.
  18. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong and add anything that might make people realize how important this issue really is. Not bashing anyone, just trying to help people on here succeed!
  19. Nope, not selling anything, just trying to inform those who may not know better!
  20. Yeah, That's a whole other topic, these guys are charging a fortune for logos that have absolutely no use beyond the web. Photoshop logos for $299 or more...just crazy! That's one thing about the web that sucks, everyones a designer now and the quality suffers for the whole!
  21. Please!!! Do not give up. This is a simple problem to fix! I am going to pick his brain for all the info i can get! For some the DIY is convenient and easy, especially for those who are not computer savvy. I just hope I'm not starting a firestorm here! I really don't mean to. I just have a passion for Soap & Candles and have always enjoyed this place even though i don't post all the time. It just bothers me that everyone is talking about how bad things are.... I like to help fix them!
  22. OK, if you came back for post #2 you are either interested in learning more, unsatisfied with your current sales or just really bored enough to hear me ramble on about web technology, spiders, google and the whole ecommerce marketing world. Or...you are sincerely interested in finding out why your ultra beautiful, handmade, great smelling products that you invested tons of time money and heart into, are not stacking up to what you had hoped for. So... with my husbands guidance we took a look at 3 websites built with this technology, and what we found surprised and angered both of us in the process. None of these sites were HTML or CSS valid, which in layman's terms means that the code was dirty and not compliant with today's standards. The first included 64 errors alone, anything from no document type declaration to missing tags, scripting errors....on and on... Ok...what's this got to do with you? Well, if you care about people reaching your site and purchasing from you...EVERYTHING! To start with, if you don't have a generous existing client base on which to survive you need the search engines to generate traffic and sales. This is not an exception. People will not find your site if you are not indexed by google, yahoo or other search engines. The trouble is...when the spiders, or bots, or whatever you like to call them (the technology that scans and indexes your pages and content) reach your site full of errors, with no doctype and on and on...they will not index all of your content, will not index it properly, or even worse will flee in terror, or... as one web master so eloquently states "search engine bots like valid code, or rather, they hate invalid code as it may cause them to barf and miss half your site" Improper code and invalid pages result in poor indexing by google and others. Or worst case, no indexing at all which means no traffic, and no sales! Let's break this down. I don't believe anyone is out to purposely rip you off and take your money when they offer such a service, it's just the fact that a lot of this technology is built by well meaning companies on old standards and technology that is prone to mistakes. Hubby says you would be better off building your store on Wordpress technology for free! Than to build a site no one will ever find. I will continue this post as long as people are interested in learning more, or when someone objects to this commentary and pulls them down. I hope that doesn't happen as we all have a right to know what we are paying for, and if we are wasting time waiting on spiders that will never come, so to speek. Stay tuned for post #3 Hubby says you can build a successful website for next to nothing, with minimal effort...the real DIY way!!! Beck ~
  23. I know I will most likely ruffle some feathers here with this post, It is only in the best interest of the community that I approach this topic. I have learned a lot here and appreciate all the help I have received. If you are currently operating a webstore on a DIY networking platform, how is your traffic and sales going? Are you generating the interest you expected? Are you pleased with your current performance? If you really care at all about your business, your products and are truly interested in making a good profit from your store, there are some things you should know. If not, then you can skip this post. For those of you that stuck around, please read on... First off, this is not a solicitation but just a general FYI for anyone who currently operates a webstore under a DIY network or platform. This is not directed at any one service or business, but more about the technology in general that makes up a DIY type of platform. My husband has been in web developement for twelve years and is quite knowledgable about the aspects of ecommerce developement and when investigating opportunities and solutions for my own online candle shop (when I first found the Candletech community ) and In reading and learning, pouring and perusing what others had done before, I noticed that quite alot of you here have a webstore with a DIY type of network. You should know that this could honestly be hurting your business, your sales and your bottom line. With a little investigation you will learn that alot of DIY networking platforms or do it yourself web builders are far behind the technology curve when it comes to successful performance and web traffic generation that it takes to compete in this tough market. That the web pages and code generated by this technology in most cases, is not search engine friendly and not up to par with todays standards. If your not in this to make good money or you get alot of sales through your own client base or just word of mouth, this will not really affect you. But...If you know you have a great product and are dissapointed with your current sales performance and web traffic in general, and you know you should be doing a whole lot better than you have, this could have alot to do with that. I have seen alot of talk on here from those of you who are ready to give up and throw in the towel, those that blame the the slow economy for poor sales margins and still more of you who feel that the market is too saturated or there is too much competition to make any money... I'm here to say... that my friends, is totaly untrue. If you have a great product presented in a professional way and distributed through with the right methodology and technology, there is absolutely no reason you should not be making a profit from your business venture. I'm not talking about the get rich quick without any work involved type of profit, but rather just genuine reoccuring consitent sales margins every month, a decent second income, or even just recouping what you have invested over the years in candle supplies and turning it into positive numbers. There is no reason you can't do this unless something is holding you back! Is DIY the culprit? Maybe, or maybe not, I'm sure there are some who would disagree. But lets check it out in the next post, I will cut this off for the sake of brevity here. Read on in post #2 and I will show you some things that may just open your eyes and give new fire (pun intended ) to your candle business. If you are thinking of hanging up the pour pot, or think I'm just crazy stick with me and I will show you some things that may change your mind. Thanks go to my husband for helping me put this post together, we are sick of seeing people throw there money away with no results...he really knows his stuff, and he's a great guy! Beck ~
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