Quality or Cost?
As a business, you want to put your best face forward, but you also work within a budget. You want to make sure that your clients see the best of what you have to offer, but where do you draw the line? Quality is expensive, but if you cut too many corners you risk looking cheap and can often miss out on clients that you’re perfectly capable of handling. So when do you go with quality and when do you cut costs? Is there a happy medium?
As an example, we currently have product boxes in our sidebar and on our web design services page. They’re decent, but we wanted something that really portrayed what we offer. Since we produce high-quality sites, we wanted our visitors to recognize that quality as soon as they look at our packages. As we looked into redesigning these boxes, we realized there were plenty of choices. For example, we could have gone with $10 software like 3d box shot all the way up to professional 3d software packages like Cinema 4d that cost thousands. That’s quite a range in price and quality, so what should you do?
Our current boxes were created from a template in Adobe Illustrator. With a template the price is obvious… cheap. Now it doesnt look unprofessional but it doesnt look like a real product you can go to the store and grab off the shelf. It fits the budget, but it isn’t exactly what we want. Although we don’t offer any physical products, the visual marketing tool adds to its appeal and value. Our brains are programmed that better packaging equals a better product. So how do we do that in a cost effective way? I mean, even after you purchase the software you still need someone to use it which means hiring a professional (expensive) or training someone (also expensive).
We ended up deciding to use Cinema 4d to create realistic boxes, but it made us think. Why can’t small businesses have their cake and eat it too? Why can’t they get the quality they want at a price they can afford? We think you can.
We are looking to create a new service that offers everyone the ability to have the quality they need for the price they want. High end 3d product design at better rates based on creating 3d model setups that are already animated and waiting for your designs to be applied to them by our professionals. Eventually this will scale to all sorts of offerings, but the product boxes are a great test bed to work out some of the kinks, which is where we need your help. We need to find out exactly where the proper balance is. We have a video that shows our product boxes done in 3d. They both look real, but one is hands down the winner. The only draw back is that the lower quality version took about 20 minutes to render whereas the high quality version took over 9 hours! That is a drastic difference, and would directly affect the price point. Please take a look at the comparative video below and then vote in the poll to let us know your thoughts.
Product Boxes – Quality Comparison from Aaron D. Campbell on Vimeo.
The lower quality video isn’t just darker, the high quality one does more calculations on the lighting, reflections, etc, giving it more realism. Unfortunately, that realism takes time. Please take a moment and share your thoughts:
[polldaddy poll="1543040"]
Press Release: Xavisys Acquires Attackr.com – Web Development News Blogs
Xavisys, a WordPress development company specializing in web design, custom module programming, WordPress themes, and ecommerce solutions, has recently acquired the website Attackr.com. Aaron Campbell, founder and lead developer for the company, has stated that he wants to continue and expand the great community already present on the site in the future. “I want to stress that I plan on making it the same great resource that Sean did,” he said. “Xavisys now has two such sites (Attackr & Web Dev News) and is committed to benefiting the community with them.” In making the announcement, Xavisys also has unveiled some changes to the site that should make it easier for bloggers to use and attract more traffic to the site through search results.
The first major change is an upgrade to WordPress 2.6, which will give the bloggers a more powerful and intuitive interface to work with when writing their posts. Plans are already in place to upgrade the site to WordPress 2.7 next month when the new release is made public, and Attackr will undergo constant improvements to keep it at the leading edge of WordPress design. Xavisys is also focusing effort on SEO, and the site will continue to be a good place for developers to link to their design sites in order to build Page Rank. Attackr bloggers are encouraged to cross-post their articles and links on Web Dev News, and it is hoped that more sharing of information and resources between the two sites will build greater community and business to business networking opportunities among Open Source developers.
Other improvements to the site include new support for tags on content posts. All of the old articles on Attackr.com have been tagged with the categories that they were listed in originally, and authors can log in and update the settings with new tags that they feel are appropriate. For readers browsing the site, the tags should assist with easily finding related content, as the tags will now be listed at the bottom of every blog post. “Article Contributor” links will now appear automatically in the sidebar for authors with more than three articles on the site. However, these links will disappear within one month unless the author posts another article. This is to encourage and reward regular contributors to Attackr, and will hopefully lead to a more active community on the site.
The advantage of the sidebar “Article Contributor” links comes through SEO, and the display name can be customized in the control panel of the user profile section. The display name can be a personal name, user ID, or business, and the link can be directly to a member’s home page or business site. Ads have been adjusted on Attackr.com to not display for regular users. If a member logs in frequently, the ads will disappear. This will hopefully increase the enjoyment of the site for community bloggers creating content, while retaining the revenue possibilities on the site that cover its operational costs. In any case, Attackr will strive to retain its clean and simple design ethic while avoiding the overloading of content with advertisements for readers in order to provide information and resources in a user-friendly manner for all visitors.
Community members can now follow Attackr on Twitter, as well as streams from Web Dev News using the “WordPress Twitter Widget Pro Plugin” designed by Xavisys. Users can also follow new posts on both sites via RSS feeds. To subscribe, simply bookmark the following addresses in your reader:
Attackr: http://www.attackr.com/feed/
Web Dev News: http://webdevnews.net/feed/
Both sites now include “Share This” buttons to simplify the process of submitting user articles to social bookmarking sites like Digg, del.icio.us, Technorati, Reddit, mySpace, Facebook, and others. Altogether, there is one click submission of articles to over forty social networking and bookmarking sites, as well as the ability to email or IM blog posts to friends. This should allow for contributing authors to easily network their articles on Attackr and Web Dev News online, and draw more attention to the information on the site.
Xavisys is also requesting user feedback and suggestions on how to make Attackr a better site in the future. Web developers and active contributors interested in collaboration and partnership on Attackr.com, or existing users with questions about the change-over and new features can contact the site admin through the Attackr.com contact form.
New users who blog about web development and web design issues can register for Attackr.com as well as register for Web Dev News.
To learn more about Xavisys, or to download their plugins and templates for WordPress, please visit http://xavisys.com/
Becoming a Freelance Web Developer/Designer
It wasn’t all that long ago (although in “web years” it’s been ages) that I was trying to break into web development as a career. Now that I’m more established, people are asking me the same questions I asked others when I was starting. They all amount to one thing: How can I take this from a hobby to a career?
In my experience, most web developers and designers (especially those trying to begin a career) enjoy what they do. They usually start building small sites or themes as a hobby, often getting together with other like-minded people at sites such as Open Designs. They do what they do because they like it, but who can fault them for wanting to get paid for doing something they love? It’s the ultimate goal.
So what do you do? First off, you need to understand that it’s a highly saturated market, and you’re going to have to put in serious time and effort to turn this into a career. You’re going to be putting in 40 hours at work to pay the bills, and another 20-30 hours laying the foundation for your future career. If you aren’t ready to put in the time and effort, you can stop reading right now. This is not a get rich quick scheme, it’s a plan that you can follow if you’re really serious about it.
Now that you’ve agreed to put in the necessary effort, here are some steps to follow:
Step 1:
Register a domain name, and get some inexpensive hosting. You can get hosting through GoDaddy for less than $5/mo, and if you do, you can get a domain name from them for $2 for the first year. Install something like WordPress or Drupal on the site, and put up some general info. As you go, you will build this out into a portfolio, but you need to start somewhere.
Step 2:
If you haven’t already, you should join a community like Open Designs. If you are a designer, create and submit designs. You’re not looking for quantity, you’re looking for quality. Your designs need to stand out as better than all the rest. Be unique. Find out what you’re good at, and perfect it. While you are aiming for quality, quantity DOES matter. However, that won’t be a problem since you’re spending 20-30 hours per week doing this right? I’m sure you can turn out a design every week or two, so you worry about quality, and quantity will handle itself. Release your designs as public domain, but keep your absolute best design for yourself. Creative Commons is more hassle than it’s worth, and you want your designs to be used.
If you are not a designer, try to network with designers. Offer to code their designs into themes for common CMSs, etc. You probably won’t make it very far as a freelance programmer if you don’t have some designers you can use. Build relationships with the quality designers, and remember that quantity will handle itself as you put in those extra hours. Also try to post helpful tidbits in the forums and answer people’s questions when you can. Networking is important.
Step 3:
Continue to build the site you started in step one. Take your best design and add it to your site. If you are a developer, ask a quality designer if you can barter work for a custom design. Document your work on there. Not just a gallery, post some content. Walk a visitor through your design process or make a tutorial on converting a design to a theme. Make sure to set up a contact page with your info so clients can reach you.
Step 4:
Do some inexpensive work for hire. Consider finding a charity or a socially proactive business and do some work for almost nothing. Get used to working with clients and doing things up to their standards. An alternative to the charities is to try out a freelance website. The competition is massive, because the market is global, but if you’re persistent you can get work.
Step 5:
Go for clients with a vengeance. Make a form-style E-Mail that has information about you, links to your portfolio (which should look pretty good at this point), etc. Leave room at the beginning (NOT the end, this is important) for a personal note that will let the potential client know that you personally read and replied to their request. Find places where jobs are posted for work that you are especially good at. Consider finding niche places like a WordPress or Drupal job list where there may be less competition.
Don’t limit yourself to job lists. More than 80% of jobs are never posted anywhere. Find local businesses that have poor sites or no site at all, and take them a proposal (in person) with specific ways they will benefit from it. If they have a bad site, make sure to be careful what you say, it’s VERY common to hear an owner say “my {insert relative here} made that site for us” and you don’t want to be insulting. Base your argument on facts and statistics, possibly taking mockups or printouts of sites that are similar to what you are recommending.
Step 6:
Make the leap. At some point, you have to let go of your regular job and switch to this full time. I haven’t really found a rule of thumb for when this is. It’s different for every person. If you’re having a hard time deciding if you’re ready to drop the 9-5, consider getting a part-time job elsewhere and doing this full-time. Maybe the extra income will help ease the transition. Mostly remember that freelancing is still a job, it’s just one you like. And it’s not against the rules to like your job.
More on Magento
Eight months ago, I was talking about open source eCommerce, and I asked Can open source eCommerce contend? At the time I was worried by the lack of quality and even more so the poor user interfaces offered in the open source eCommerce solutions. However, I talked briefly about a new solution that was soon-to-be-released, Magento. Well, it’s been released and in my opinion it is probably the best solution available.
Jeffery Scott posted a great article called Magento – The New Standard in Open Source eCommerce over at our recently launched Web Developer News site. Magento is making huge progress, and I hope that this new blood forces other eCommerce solutions to take action. A little competition could benefit us all.
Acquia Puts Drupal in the News
As many know, Xavisys recently launched a web developer resource site called WebDevNews. Jeffery Scott really helped kicked things off right with a great article: Acquia Gets Ready for Release of Carbon – Commercially Supported Drupal
He talks about Acquia, a new company that was launched by Dries Buytaert, founder of Drupal. It will offer commercial support for Drupal. It seems that Acquia plans on supporting Drupal much the same way that Automattic supports WordPress and SixApart supports Movable Type. With this kind of support available to our clients, Xavisys will now be offering Drupal solutions in addition to the WordPress and custom solutions already offered.
New Web Development Resource Launched
As a web developer, I know that there are tons of resources out there. I also know that many of them are outdated, contain limited information, or seem to only cover the very basics. I decided that we needed something better. A place where developers, programmers, and designers could share their knowledge in a variety of areas, and we could all benefit. I decided to launch WebDevNews – News For Web Developers. Web Dev News is a collaborative blog, where the content is generated by people who really know what they’re talking about.
If you are a professional in the web development field, please consider contributing to Web Developer News.
All Work and No Play
Many of you may have noticed that my responses to comments have slowed, and new plugin releases and updates have slowed as well. I’m sorry for the lag, but I do have some great new stuff in the works! The good thing is, the reason for the delays is that Xavisys has been dealing with a higher than normal work load. Why is this good? Well, because the income from the work is what allows me to continue developing and releasing free stuff!
The work load has actually increased so much, that I’m looking for good, reliable help. I need a developer that I can count on who has knowledge and experience developing PHP. If you have experience with WordPress it’s a plus, but not required. Please contact me if you are interested.
Free Template: Minimalist
Minimalist is an extremely light weight, configurable template, with no images at all! It’s completely fluid, so no matter what the user’s screen width, you don’t waste any space, browser font resizing is completely supported, and it is source-ordered. It includes stylesheets to display main content on the left or right, as well as many alternative colors including grey, green, blue, purple, red, and brown! It validates as XHTML Strict 1.0, and is released as Public Domain. It is available for download over at OpenDesigns.org.
I just converted Minimalist to a WordPress theme, and uploaded it here for anyone that wants it. I was lazy, so it defaults to green/grey with content to the left. If you want to use a different combination, edit the header.php file to use whatever css files you want (all are included). I also included a contact page template, but again was a little lazy, so you will need to edit contact.php and put your contact info on lines 73-75, as well as your E-Mail address on line 17. The only other real changes that were made was styling for comments (as well as unique styling for admin comments), and I added a pencil icon to use for “editing” (it’s still image free for your users).
Free Template: BlueBox
BlueBox is an extremely light weight template. It has no images at all! It’s completely fluid, so no matter what the user’s screen width, you don’t waste any space, and browser font resizing is completely supported. Changing the color of this template should be very easy, since it has no images simply modify the colors in the stylesheet. It validates as XHTML Strict 1.0, and is released as Public Domain. It is available for download over at OpenDesigns.org,and you can see it in use at a few sites:
Can open source eCommerce contend?
It seems that sometimes work comes in waves. I haven’t dealt with setting up a shopping cart on a site in quite a while, and now I have three clients that I’m setting up shopping carts for. The clients want a PHP based solution (good thing, considering that’s what I do), and as usual the less we spend the better. I started by looking at the available FOSS options, fully expecting that this would be a simple task. Little did I know…
The first application I looked into was osCommerce. The best way I can describe it is as an old dragon. It may be free and open source, but it’s big, bulky, and outdated. I was looking for something much easier to use, and much more current. Something that would be easy to manage once it was set up, as opposed to taking two hours to add color options to a product.
Not to be discouraged, I moved on another possibility, zenCart. ZenCart is a huge step in the right direction, but it still seemed to lack the intuitive interface that you might expect from web based software. I may be too hard on them, but a quality user interface makes the difference between happy customers, and customers that never return. All in all, there is a lot of really great technology which zenCart doesn’t use, and while it’s free and open source, that doesn’t make up for it’s lack of usability.
I continued to look around at free alternatives, but didn’t find anything noteworthy. Now I was discouraged. I decided to check into some commercial products, most notably cubeCart. It costs $130 – $180 and it’s not 100% open source, but cubeCart makes up for all that with the interface. It has an intuitive admin section, better support, and plenty of available add-on modules (for shipping, payment, even affiliate programs). In the end, we went with cubeCart, deciding that the benefits were worth the cost. I was almost ready to admit that the available FOSS options couldn’t touch commercial products in this market. Just then, a glimmer of hope! Magento.
Magento is a new up and coming PHP shopping cart, built using the Zend Framework. It is young and currently still in beta, but it shows great promise. According to their roadmap, the production version is due out first quarter 2008. It’s current drawbacks are it’s lack of support for certain payment and shipping gateways, and it’s lack of support for popular affiliate programs. However, much of this is in the roadmap, and should make it into the production version. In my experience, what they currently have out is stable, and extremely user friendly. I can finally breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that there will soon be a FOSS option that will be able to compete with their commercial counterparts.
In the end, if you need something right now, cubeCart is for you. While it will require some up front investment, you will save it back just on the Tylenol you won’t be buying for the headaches you will have with osCommerce or zenCart. However, if you don’t need something for a few months, or you are trying to keep an eye to the future, check out magento. You’ll be glad you did.
