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The latest, highly anticipated 5.5 release of MIVA Merchant is now available. The new release includes a long list of enhancements that really smooth-out some of the rough edges that has dogged MIVA for the past few years. MIVA has always been a favorite of programmers and developers but many considered it lacking the back-end usability and ease of use that most non-technical business owners desired. Checking orders and performing simple day-to-day operations of your online business wasn’t as intuitive as some other shopping carts. MIVA has taken great strides to improve this in this latest major release.

Here at Durrani, we are still working our way through the latest features and how best to use them, but so far the admin interface is a welcome improvement.

The upgrade to 5.5 is free for current users of MIVA Merchant 5.0 and is only $99 for users of previous versions until May 31st. The upgrade is automatic on 5.0 installation when you run the upgrade wizard in the admin area. Customers running versions older then 5.0 who have heavily customized their store with modules and OpenUI configurations, should think through the impact of upgrading and make sure they take into consideration everything that needs to be changed for an efficient migration. Open UI modules, design templates and all modules from versions older then 5.0 are not compatible.

For a complete list of the latest features and fixes click the link below to view the complete post.

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Our preferred shopping cart of choice has always been MIVA Merchant. We develop and support several other carts, but if we are building an e-commerce site from scratch or have the option of switching a client over, we use MIVA Merchant. MIVA is much easier to configure and customize and getting a site launched is faster. MIVA is also very expandable for the future growth of an online business.

Last year we designed and constructed a completely new MIVA 5.0 storefront for our client, Walleye Direct (www.walleyedirect.com). We’ve watched Walleye grow from a side-job dream idea to a full-time business with sales rolling in every day. We continue to manage the Walleye MIVA website and also provide SEO optimization and marketing.

We’re exited that WalleyeDirect.com was this months featured MIVA site in the MIVA Merchant Galleria.

Click here for the complete interview with Walleye owner Jesse Ness. And for some fresh Walleye fish from the brisk rivers of Canada, visit www.walleyedirect.com.

A friend of mine sent me a photo he took today with his iphone while he was working at a coffee shop in San Diego. The photo shows a nice clean table, a quaint coffee with heart-shaped foam from the barista, a Mac laptop and mouse.

The quintessential life of a freelance web developer.

In contrast, I too snapped a photo with my iPhone of my desk and my work environment. Nothing in the photo was added or moved. This was my desk at that exact moment.

The quintessential life of a web developer in an office.

A picture is truly worth a thousand words.

Life as a Freelancer

Life in an Office

Announced at Interop New York, the e-mail feature synchs with Outlook Express, Outlook 2007, Outlook 2003, Apple Mail, Windows Mail, and Thunderbird 2.0.

Gmail users can now use IMAP to synchronize e-mail on their iPhones and desktops.

Matthew Glotzbach, product management director for Google Enterprise, announced the release of IMAP support in Gmail Wednesday at Interop New York. Glotzbach, a keynote speaker, said Gmail account holders can begin using IMAP immediately.

He held it up as an example of Google’s attempts at continuous innovation, saying it’s one of many new features Google has added since launching Google Applications in February.

“IMAP isn’t new, but bringing it together is,” he said.

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The following instructions provide a way to save your sent messages in a folder on the mail server so they can be accessed from multiple machines/clients.

So as not to ruffle anyone’s feathers, this information is (obviously) from the MIT helpdesk, although the steps are defined by Microsoft and are in the public domain.

So, by default, Outlook 2003 saves sent email locally within the Sent Items Folder. These instructions do not affect this behavior, so you will be saving two copies of each sent message (one locally and another on the mail server). If you do not want to keep a saved copy locally, go to Tools>Options. On the Preferences tab, click e-mail options and clear the “Save copies of messages in sent items folder”.

To configure Outlook to save a copy of your sent messages in an IMAP folder on the mail server:
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Mr. Matt H., one of the co-owners and chief designer here at Durrani, has submitted a design to Threadless (www.threadless.com). The design is called “Conventional vs. Unconventional”. At Threadless, the top voted-on designs get turned into printed t-shirts so jump over to Threadless and vote now! (click the image below).

Basecamp is a web based approach to project collaboration.  You can find it at http://www.basecamphq.com. The clean interface allows a company to coordinate and communicate project details.  One of the many great features that Durrani uses for basecamp, is the dashboard feature that outlines any upcoming to do’s that need to be accomplished, as well as give an overview of all upcoming projects.

Customizable

Unlike, most web based project collaboration software.  Basecamp by 37 signals has a clean interface that allows the user to customize the look and feel of the interface.  From customizing the color of the layout appearance to uploading a company logo, Basecamp allows the user to customize its interface for a greater aesthetic appeal.

Click on images to enlarge.

Organization

From the dashboard, that gives a breakdown of upcoming projects.

 Manage Your To Do Lists!

To the to do lists, that show upcoming to do’s for each project that specifies a to do that must be accomplished on a either daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

To milestones, that show upcoming events for projects, these milestones are useful as a project coordinator can see if they are on track of a project and if one can fulfill any and all deadlines and adjust accordingly.

Also, file sharing, allows different users to share files over the web that pertain to a certain project, where it can be accessed anywhere around the world.

The message board, allows users to communicate with one another and any notes that pertain to certain projects, without the hassle of emailing one another back and forth.

Finally the project overview, gives an analysis of the project to see if all to do’s, milestones, have been accomplished or is about to be accomplished.

Time Tracking

However, the best feature that seems to be of most prevalent use to Durrani, is Basecamp’s time tracking feature.  This feature allows workers to log-in time they spent on certain projects, of which reports can be drawn up to customers of Durrani.  So that the customers can see what they were being billed for, for an ethical price analysis.

Ever have the problem of coordinating sales leads, searching through emails, and then having to input that information into your contact list. Or do you have the problem of using multiple programs and software to keep track of your sales leads?

Well, problem solved… 37 signals brings a simple CRM, contact manager, address book, and task sheet with a clean interface that helps you track communication and conversations with leads, employees, clients, colleagues, vendors, or anyone else that matters to your business. With Highrise you know who you’ve talked to, what you talked about, and what you need to do next.

Click on images to enlarge

How? You ask?

Plays well with emails

Well, simple, Highrise, plays well with email, a user can forward, cc, or bcc emails to Highrise and Highrise will attach them to the matching person or create a new person on the fly.

Also, you can assign tasks or to do’s to people through email. Or you can assign a email as a to do.

Have attachments or files

Highrise will put files and attachments that you upload or send and put them under the coordinating company or person.

Finally Add tasks and get things done!

With Highrise, a user can add tasks that are related to companies. Also, you can coordinate tasks by call, email, or your very own category. As mentioned you can also email tasks to yourself or other users in your company to their Highrise taskbox.

Finally, you can add follow up tasks to companies to keep track of conversations that you’ve had with a lead and coordinate what to do next.

The Overview

The overview allows users to see a companies or person’s conversation history, to track what you’ve said, when you’ve said, and what to do next!

1. “Penny Wise, Pound Foolish”

Now more than ever its easy to make a cheap web site. The high school kid that can build your web site and the desperate designer looking for lunch money don’t have the business skills or monetary incentive to show you how to enhance your business.

2. “I have a web site; the Internet doesn’t work for my business”

 89% of the business world is online now but only 5% net returns from their web efforts. Drop your preconceived notions and find out how the 5% gain success online.

3. “My brother, the computer expert will build my site for cheap”

Approximately 5% of the company?s online report that their sites are successful, creating upwards of 8-15% of their revenues via the web. Experience counts more than ever in business, if your brother has built 50+ business sites and will do the work cheap hire him. If he is smart and plans to figure it out as he goes, he will cost you missed opportunities and you are risking your relationship with your brother.

4. “My web address is www.MyName-anothercompany.com”

Image is very critical especially online. Your own personal domain name says a lot about how you conduct business. Disposable emails are great for personal use and co-branded web sites can be nice supplements to your online business, but companies that go beyond these channels have far greater success online and have a much better vehicle to interact with a richer online demographic.

5. “I can get my web site hosted for $10 per month”

Its true, you can get a web site hosted for very little money. However, there is a big difference between hosting or storing your web files versus managing your web site for success. Not all hosting is the same and not all web sites are the same.

6. “I have a professional computer, print, or advertising background and will build our company web site.”

On the surface it would seem logical to let a computer expert, print expert or marketing guru handle your online needs. As a rule of thumb, if you go this route, at least choose a company that has developed a minimum of 50 plus web sites. Any honest expert from another industry that has made this many sites will be able to demonstrate how some golden rules from one craft do not work completely opposite in the web world.

7. “People have to touch and feel my product; the web won’t help me”

Ask yourself a simple ? If your product or service is so unique and consumers can find out more about it on their own terms before going through your sales cycle, do they benefit? This is one of the primary drivers of the Internet, if you adapt, not abandon, but adapt your old world way of doing business to the new economy, you will take your business to new heights!

8. “I’ve been in business long enough to know making a site costs nothing”

You don’t want a web site, you want a team of people who will help your business using technology. If you understand that a lot of people know how to play golf and a lot of those who play think they are great but only a few play well enough to make a living, its even more true online. Don’t trust your business to pretenders. Begin your research by adding up the primary ongoing costs for your business, utilities, payroll, sales and advertising, insurance, bookkeeping etc. Ask yourself what it would cost to open another one of your locations? Consider the same investment devotion you would to opening another physical location. With that perspective in mind, your investment for a fair web presence and marketing plan will still be a fraction of the cost of opening another location. A good rule for web investment should at a minimum be similar to the cost for a � page ad in the yellow pages in a major city. Reputable design companies will command professional fees usually because they have a more complete set of skills to help your business.

9. “I predicted the dot com fallout, now its gone and I’m still here”

Most people only read the headlines and feel they can sort out what is valuable online and what is not. Congratulations if your business is thriving but if you are looking at how the web can help enhance your business, you should understand the web is vastly different than it was a few years or even one year ago. The architecture of the Internet is just now showing its real promise with more concrete tools and proven ways to help your business grow and run more efficiently. Success stories abound online if you know where to look.

10. “I don’t trust young kids out of college who think technology has all the answers.”

This is very true, technology and textbooks alone coupled with inexperience won?t help your business and is why if you find a company that has young, talented, professionally trained technologists who are teamed with experienced business owners you may have found the winning team. Many companies get fooled by hiring designers who figured out how to make a web site and have some design skill; again lots of people play at a sport, but few play it well enough to do it full time as a profession.

If these tips seem sensible to you as a business owner its because our team blends formal educations with new and old world business experience and we know how to help companies tap into the web to augment sales and reduce costs.

If you want a web solution, people will brag about, talk to the Durrani Creative team.

I have a great looking website, I have a product to sell, I have a shopping cart, I have a merchant account that accepts Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover, I have an account with UPS? BUT, I HAVE NO SALES!.

Sound familiar?

Our staff of experts at Durrani, have been building successful e-commerce sites for over 4 years. We not only understand that you have to make it easy for customers to find the product they want but you also have to give every customer a piece of mind when they go to checkout. The Creative staff knows exactly what customers want from their sites when they decide they are going to submit there private credit card information and mailing address to some website that they have visited only once.

This is why we have outlined the top 12 things everyone needs to know before offering products for sale online:

1. Visibility – Just because you are the only one selling solar powered flashlights don’t think that customers can find you. You must strengthen your site for Search Engines using the proper SEO, or search engine optimization.

2. Navigation – Make it very easy for anyone to find their way around your store. They can get to the product they want, the contact page, the policies page and checkout with ease.

3. Security – In some states it’s the law that you offer protection to your customers against identity theft. Today, the number one thing customers look for is an icon of a lock in the lower left corner of the browser window or an “s” in the URL before offering sensitive credit card information.

4. Contact Inform
ation – A good rule of thumb is always have the customer support phone number visible on every page. If not then make sure the “Contact Us” navigational button is very easy to find.

5. Check Out / View Cart – Whenever someone is shopping and wants to verify what they have placed in their cart have it very easy to find. Typically, both “View Cart” & “Check Out” will be somewhere near the top of the sites navigational menu.

6. Products in 3 clicks or less – Make it easy to get to what they want by minimizing the amount of clicks it takes to get what they want. 9 times out of 10 customers know what they want when they walk into your store and they want to get it and get out so help them through the process by eliminating useless clicks.

7. Shipping Details – Have a menu selection on your site that is dedicated to the shipping details. Your shipping policy will let someone know if they are going to buy from you. It is important to customers to know that your using a reputable parcel carrier, can overnight it if needed, and it is insured.

8. Customer Service – Not that this isn’t the number one priority but when it come to customer service you cannot offer more support than you do when online. Use logos of companies you use to assist with customers support such as: Verisign, Geotrust, Better Business Bureau, Hacker Safe, etc.

9. Return Policy – Whether you allow for returns or not, it is important to state your policy. Customers convert to sales if they know they can return an item if it wasn’t what they wanted.

10. Have a good looking site – Don’t appear like you’re a trunk slammer. Offer a well groomed site that is styled to your business name or product you sell. You get more credibility with your customers when it appears as though you take pride with your online presence.

11. Today & Tomorrow – When building your online store be sure to build it on a platform that can grow with your customers demands. If you allow your customers to see the same home page or same products then they will not come back. They will think you have lost interest in your store thus losing interest in your customers.

12. Product Details – If you carry a product that needs some explaining, then give a product detail. Don’t get too wordy but done leave out the important things like “batteries not included”. Let your customer know the benefits of your product if you want to move it off your shelf.

If you want to be successful with your online store then don’t cut corners. Don’t think just because you have an online store and not a regular “brick & mortar” that you eliminated your expenses. You still have to market your site and pay for online utilities. So, go ahead and build your online store with Durrani that specializes in optimizing your site to increase sales!