Archive for September, 2009

Magento

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

Coming from a Zen Cart background, I was amazed at what Magento had to offer when I implemented it for sendaquran.com earlier this year. Heads and shoulders above any other shopping cart out there.

Now looking back at Magento after 6 months;

1. Key lesson: always disable cache before changing settings

2.Con: very very slow, poor technical support, website breaks down easily

3. Suggestion: Different shipping profiles for different types of products to accomodate different product dimensions (thus different shipping rates)

4. Pro: Using one backend with multiple frontend websites – does wonders for marketing; flawless integration with Paypal’s Website Payments Pro

Accidental Romanticism

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

Critique on Muslim romanticism of Andalusia http://www.fiqe.org/2009/08/the-rise-and-fall-of-muslim-spain/

Why youtube still has the edge

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

Youtube has been flooded with underhanded marketing and ever stricter copyright laws. Despite its vast audience, the sheer junk on Youtube once turned me into a huge proponent of Blip and other newer services that offer flexible video lengths and resolutions. That was until recently I left the States, I realized how slow Blip is, likewise all the other video-sharing sites like dailymotion, vimeo and metacafe. Blip, in fact, is practically useless in the region I am in now. Youtube on the other hand, still almost smoothly plays any video here and is the only place I go for videos now. And that is why, Youtube will continue to have an edge internationally.

Looking for a Wordpress theme?

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

If you’re going to stick with free themes and tweaking the heck out of it, you’re wasting precious time. Using free illegally distributed premium themes, is, sorry to say, stealing. Fighting the tempation to steal, I purchased a $20/yr subscription unlimited access at elegantthemes.com many months ago. So far very happy. Good community, responsive technical support, cheap price (compare, $175+ per theme at woothemes), a lot of custom options, easy to modify, loose usage stipulations. Only flip-side is, since its such a good bang for the buck, chances are those themes start becoming ubiquitous like the free ones. But for those who can customize it, I highly recommend elegantthemes.

WP site

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Here is my latest wordpress-based website -> http://www.fiqe.org

I employed a similar magazine theme style frontpage to my previous work at al-furqaan.org. I did learn a lesson with that site, that the graphics was too heavy. Thus FIQE was designed with lightness in mind.

Twitter

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Problem: I can follow other people’s tweets, but how to get hundreds of people to follow your marketing tweets?
Answer: A bit new to Twitter, so I’m still looking for a practicle answer lest I strike twitter off as a marketing avenue. Anyone know?

CMS

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Drupal is impractically flexible.
Joomla is sluggishly powerful.
Wordpress is simply amazing.

How to “spam” with Facebook

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Time required: Couple of days side-work
Learning curve: Very easy

Problem: You can’t send a message out to more than 20 people at one time. How do you send a message to hundreds of people?
Answer: Create facebook group page and add all the hundreds of people to your group. Use “Message All Members” function.

Here’s the rough steps if you dont understand above answer:

1. Identify facebook groups that are relevant to your target audience. Ex: In my case, I am promoting a dawah site, so I look for facebook groups related to dawah like Fans of Ahmad Deedat or generally Islamic like university Muslim Student Associations.

2. Search for the above facebook groups, then click on members. It will pull up list of members of that group/fan page. Add each name to your friends list. This is tedious work, but doesn’t require concentration or mental energy. You could be listening to e-books, watching TV or listening to the Quran while doing this.

3. Keep searching for other relevant groups and keep adding people till facebook tells you’ve reached your limit.

4. After a few days, you should have at least a couple hundred people in your friends list. Now go to Profile > Info > Click See All under Groups title. Setup a facebook group for whatever you are doing.

5. Click on Friends, then Create New List. Add everybody to your list.

6. Go to your group page and select invite people to join. From there, find Filter Friends and select your custom list. Click select all.

7. To send mass message, go to your group page and select Message All Members.