We can help you build your organization web site, with or without e-commerce, and do it with open-source software that saves you big money!  We specialize in building state of the art web sites that are easy for non-techies to use.

If the focus of your site is building community you need to give us a call.  We can have you up and running really fast.… Read more

WP-eCommerce is one of our favorite commerce platforms.  It offers a flexible infrastructure that let’s you manage product variations that may have attributes more complicated than just size and color.  If most of the time all you need for your store is product size and color the WPEC variation structure, and the user interface needed to manage it, can become very complicated to oversee.  The large number of product variations can also slow down your store, and may even  require a more expensive server than would otherwise be necessary.

Our sizes and Colors add-in addresses these specific needs and greatly improves the product management interface used to update inventory and adjust prices.  If you use Pye Brook Company to build … Read more

We have created a number of  add-ins for WordPress.  Notice we didn’t call these plug-ins, because they are more.  Some of these are very general use like our mail queues , but others are very specific. Two examples of our special purpose plugs are our product options pricing add-ins for WordPress and WP-eCommerce or our Yahrzeit Manager.

These add-ins are available for license, or can be included as part of your package when you engage us to build and/or manage your internet presence.

 … Read more

We have been doing some tuning work on the 80,000+ product Sparkle Gear WP e-Commerce store and wanted to share one experience with the WordPress SEO Plugin by Yoast.

Unless you are a SEO expert, Yoast’s WordPress Plugin is a a tool that will save you alot of work, and keep much the SEO process understandable and accessible to mere mortals.  It’s a great addition for any WordPress site, and especially useful for WPEC that create lots of posts (products are posts) and have lost of taxonomies (variations and categories are taxonomies). IMHO. the dynamic sitemap generation feature of the WorpPress SEO plugin alone makes it a must have.

However, there are some details about how WPEC is implemented … Read more

Sparkle Gear, a retailer of premium customized rhinestone bling clothing and accessories engaged us to build their e-commerce site!  The site www.sparkle-gear.com is up and running.

Created completely from open-source software and our own custom WordPress plugins, including a product templating and generation plugin, this site rocks.  It is fully integrated with Facebook and Twitter, processes Paypal and credit card transactions, and tracks orders from start through shipping.

One of the best features of our integration is our WordPress plugin that manages giveaways.  Check out http://www.sparkle-gear.com/giveaway/santas-little-helper-martini-glasses-handbag-giveaway/ to see it in action.… Read more

If you are considering building a new web store, or upgrading your existing web store, you have a very simple choice.

Choice 1:

Find an online e-commerce provider and pay them a monthly hosting fee to use their store infrastructure.  Do the work that is required to upload products in the format they require. Force your vision of your store to conform to one of the provider’s existing store templates.  You must rely on the provider to get your store indexed in the google and bing search engines, and the important online e-commerce directories.

Choice 2:

Pay to license commercially available e-commerce software and host it yourself. Pay for the development of your store, even though you never really own … Read more

Send mail using SMTP without exceeding the the rate allowed by your mail provider(s). Mail can be sent using multiple user logins/passwords to give fault tolerance and make each mail message somewhat unique so that it is less likely to be flagged as SPAM/UCE by either your or the downstream mail providers. Messages can be automatically reset when the plugin detects Non-delivery messages (NDRs) returned from mail sent by the plugin.

Email can be throttled per outbound SMTP account. Limits can be set for maximum number of recipients per hour and per day.

Non-Delivery Processing

Non-Delivery (NDR) messaging processing note: plugin should recognize common non-delivery formats. But, because non-deliveries are free form, and can be highly customized or specifically localized … Read more