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by Admin via jQuery Rain
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Why Your Business Needs to Be Online
According to a Clutch survey, 26 percent of small businesses don't have a website, 9 percent say they have plans to build a website in the near future, and 10 percent say they're unlikely to go online anytime soon. This means that more than one in four businesses are losing online customers to their competitors, as well as losing brick and mortar business generated online.
If you're one of the companies that still hasn't gone online, here are some reasons your business needs to make that move sooner than later.
by Guest Author via Digital Information World
HTTP vs IPFS: is Peer-to-Peer Sharing the Future of the Web?
The Inter-Planetary File System (IPFS) is a revolutionary model that could change the way we use the Internet. Unlike the typical server-client model we’re accustomed to, IPFS is something more like BitTorrent. Does that grab your attention? Then read on!
The Problems With Today’s Web
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the backbone of the World Wide Web. We use HTTP to access most of the Internet. Any website we visit, typically, is via HTTP. It’s essentially a server–client mentality, where our computer sends requests to the server hosting a website, and the server sends back responses.
HTTP, though, lends itself naturally to a narrower and narrower subset of services. It’s natural for large services to emerge as the sort of structure of a large portion of the Web, but that sort of centralized environment can be dangerous. If any of the large hosting companies and/or providers of services – such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Dropbox, Rackspace, and the like – were to suddenly falter, the results to the Web would be disastrous in the short term. And herein lies the problem (at least one of them).
In addition to the natural process of centralization that’s occurring, there’s also a troubling reliability issue with today’s web. Most websites and applications are hosted by a single server, or by a redundant array of load balanced servers, or whatever the case may be. If the owner of those servers, or the datacenter’s management, or even a natural disaster, takes those machines out, will the application continue to run? Backups and redundancy can be put into effect by organizations with enough resources, but even those can’t stop a company which simply decides to take down their website or application.
Reliance on Hosts
If and when the server hosting a site goes down, we’re now reliant on the hosting company to have fail safes, redundant systems, backups, etc. They must recognize that your service is out, and assist you in restoring it. If it’s a hardware issue, they should have alternative systems they can port your setup onto. They should have backup networking systems, and they should be keeping at least a backup of your data, whether they advertise it or not, in the event of a data loss situation that is their fault.
What if they don’t?
Reliance on Site Administrators
Now the impetus falls on site administrators to keep a service going and data backed up. If you’ve ever been an avid user of an application that was suddenly removed, you know this feeling.
Movements to open source help tremendously, allowing multiple forks of a project to take off, and allowing things that are more static – like documentation – to be preserved in multiple locations and in multiple formats. But the fact remains that the majority of the Web is controlled by people like you or me, maintaining servers.
Some freelance developers even manage the hosting and maintenance of some of their smaller clients’ sites. What if they forget to pay their bill? Get angry with a client and lock them out of their site? Get hit by a truck? Yes, the site owner may have legal options in any of these cases, but will that help you while your site is completely inaccessible?
Reliance on Users
Yet one more problem is that of the users of any web application. Content often must have a critical mass of users or visitors to even merit hosting. Often low-traffic applications or static sites are shuttered simply because they aren’t cost effective to run. Additionally, the reverse problem is also very real. Users of the modern Internet are still clustering together. Facebook – which is a single social network – has somewhere in the ballpark of one out of every five persons on the face of the Earth reported as active users. There are countless businesses who entirely depend upon Facebook to exist. What if it shut down tomorrow?
Of course, Facebook won’t shut down tomorrow, and neither will most of the apps you love and use. But some may. And the more users that have flocked to them before that happens, the more damage that will cause to everyday workflows, or even to personal and business finances, depending on what kind of applications you use and for what.
The Answer is IPFS
So, you may be asking, how does IPFS solve these problems? IPFS is a relatively new attempt to solve some of these issues using distributed file systems. The IPFS project is still fairly low on documentation, and is perhaps the first of many different solutions.
IPFS Nodes
First and foremost, you should understand a few things about IPFS. IPFS is decentralized. Without a typical server providing web pages for every client that arrives at the website’s domain, a different infrastructure must be imagined. Every machine running IPFS would be a node
as part of a swarm
.
Consider the way torrents currently work. You choose a file to download, and when you use a torrent application to do so, you’re essentially sending out a request to all of the computers attached to the same torrent network as you, and if any of them have the file you’re requesting, and are able to upload at the moment, they begin sending pieces of it to your computer. That’s a condensed version.
So how do IPFS nodes work? Each machine that’s running IPFS is able to select what files they want their node to serve.
Continue reading %HTTP vs IPFS: is Peer-to-Peer Sharing the Future of the Web?%
by Jeff Smith via SitePoint
How I Launched My eCommerce Store in Less than 30 Minutes
I’ll be honest, I tried to launch my first store for 12 months! I followed the usual way to begin with.
I incorporated myself, looked for wholesalers, underestimated my marketing budget need, developed a great looking store, manually added thousands of products, …
… and never made a sale.
Today, after just selling my eCommerce project with $3M annual sales and 7 eCommerce stores in my CV, I understand what I did wrong and found a way to fix it.
[author_more]
I did what most people do — I concentrated too much on creating a great looking store instead of actually trying to make a sale.
People think that if you are launching an eCommerce business that you should do it the hard way. They think that you should never launch a poorly developed store, or that you should try to land a super deal with a wholesaler long before making any actual sales.
But what I have found is that it’s much more productive to learn and create along the way. Your first step is to simply create you store. Once your store is up and running, you can explore ad campaigns and logo designs at a later time.
As my favorite quote says: “Get going, get better”.
Below I’m sharing a detailed tutorial on how you can launch your first eCommerce store in under 30 minutes with dozens of products. It won’t be perfect, but it’ll be exactly what you need to get going.
In this example, I will build a full category women’s clothing shop that sells non-branded funky clothes. I strongly suggest that you follow the guide as it is written and try implementing additional features and ideas later after your launch.
Set Up a Store (~5 minutes)
1. Pick a Name
Picking a name shouldn’t be a huge concern right now. Think of something random and simple. For my women’s clothing shop I came up with: Forest Store, Hill Hill Store, MarsIn1999.
I recommend adding ‘store’ or ‘shop’ because you will need to find an available internet address (domain), and it’s easier to find an available one when there are several words in the name.
2. Create a Shopify Account
In the olden days, you had to get a server, upload an eCommerce system to it, hire someone to change it according to your needs, and pay to maintain it. It was expensive, time consuming, and the final result was still a slow and ineffective website.
Thankfully, Shopify and other alternative softwares has simplified the process. You can create your store in just a few clicks and all of the server setup and maintenance is taken care of for you.
Go to Shopify.com, click ‘start your free trial’, enter your store name, and create your shop.
Your store is now ready!
3. Fine Tune Your Settings
3.1. Add Your Store Payment Option
Add your PayPal email address under the Shopify Settings, Payments Section. Later, you can change, remove, or add additional payment options.
If you don’t have a PayPal account, registration at PayPal.com will take about 5 minutes.
3.2. Generate Required Policies
Shopify offers a handy tool for generating terms and conditions, standard privacy, and return policies. Just go to Shopify Settings, Checkout, and scroll down to the Refund, Privacy, and TOS statements section to generate each policy sample.
3.3. Add Free Shipping Rate
The sourcing tool I will recommend to you will offer most of the products with a free delivery option. So I suggest adding a free shipping rate for all of your orders as well.
Go to Shopify Settings, Shipping, and delete all shipping zones that are non-international, and edit the international zone rate to Free.
3.4. Create an Online Store
Shopify allows you to sell your products across multiple channels like Online Store, Facebook Store, Brick and Mortar store, etc.
We want to create an online store now. Go to Shopify Settings, Sales Channels and add Online Store as your sales channel.
3.5. Buy a Domain (Optional)
Buying a domain is optional. Currently, your URL looks like [storename].myshopify.com. But you might want to change it so it will look more normal: [storename].com.
You don’t have to do this right away, and there will be a cost (about $13 per year). You can set this up later once you decide if you want to invest further money into your business.
It is important to note, however, that a custom internet address provides social accountability when you start advertising your site, which can increase your sales significantly.
To buy a domain, go to Shopify Online Store, Domains Section, and click Buy New Domain.
P.S. You’ll need to confirm the domain before it starts working. The confirmation letter is in your email inbox.
Continue reading %How I Launched My eCommerce Store in Less than 30 Minutes%
by Tomas Šlimas via SitePoint
Create a Text-to-Speech Chrome Extension
This article was peer reviewed by Marc Towler and Ralph Mason. Thanks to all of SitePoint’s peer reviewers for making SitePoint content the best it can be! Converting text to speech, also known as Speech Synthesis or TTS (text-to-speech), is an artificial way to produce human speech. It is not something new, as people have […]
Continue reading %Create a Text-to-Speech Chrome Extension%
by Ivan Dimov via SitePoint
Do You Know These Eight HTML5 Tags?
As a web developer, you will probably take advantage of a whole range of different tags when putting together your next site build. Chances are high that you are already well versed in some of the commonly known tags introduced in HTML5 such as <article>, <header> and <footer>, however you might not be aware of some of the lesser known / edge case tags you could be taking advantage of.
Some of these tags are either brand new in HTML5 or have been repurposed from the HTML4 specification. Tags repurposed from HTML4 may look familiar, however they have been given new meanings and have had changes in how they should be used.
For each tag, we will go through what the W3C specification says and apply a practical example to showcase how you might use it. Let's roll!
A Quick Word on Interpretation
While the W3C specifications are great for conceptual overviews, sometimes they lack practical examples, which makes it challenging when searching for the best way to use some of these tags.
You might have used some of these tags before — perhaps just not in the same way. There often are no hard and fast rules about what is considered good practice. The following are some examples of how I recommend treating and using these lesser known elements.
1 - Contextual Highlighting With <mark>
The specification for the <mark> tag says that this tag should be used to denote "relevance" or "scrutiny".
“Relevance’ is hard to describe. Elements and text are relevant when we are performing an activity and they are useful to us at that moment (or could be useful in the future).
For example, if you searched a site with the keyword “jQuery” and several articles showed up, you could wrap the resulting matches inside the <mark> tag. The purpose of the mark tag is to say to the browser “hey, this thing right here is relevant to what you are doing”.
Practical Examples
We can use the mark tag for highlighting content that is relevant. To illustrate, consider the following scenario:
We are on a page called “Cheapest Holiday Packages” and it shows us a grid of holiday packages sorted by price range. It starts off from the cheapest at the top to the most expensive at the bottom.
For the top level holidays, the price itself could be highlighted with the <mark> tag because we have come to this page for cheap holiday deals and these are the cheapest the page has to offer — they are the most relevant.
[code language="html"]
<section class="deal-list">
<article>
<h2>Vanuatu Cruise</h2>
<p><mark>$499</mark>- 5 Nights</p>
<p>A relaxing cruise around the southern most
parts of Vanuatu</p>
</article>
<article>
<h2>Fiji Resort Getaway</h2>
<p><mark>$649</mark> - 6 Nights</p>
<p>Includes all you can eat buffet and
entertainment</p>
</article>
<article>
<h2>Pacific Island Hiking</h2>
<p>$1199 - 5 Nights</p>
<p>Hike your way though several pacific islands
on this exercise focused holiday</p>
</article>
</section>
[/code]
See the Pen Mark Tag Example by SitePoint (@SitePoint) on CodePen.
For the first two results, the price (which is what we are focused on) is wrapped within the <mark> tag. However the third result — which is much more expensive — isn’t marked as it isn’t as relevant as the others.
Best Practices and Considerations
While people generally associate this tag with a quick way to style something, that isn’t correct. It should not be used just for styling purposes, you should be another element like a <span> for that.
Do not use this tag to denote textual importance or to highlight strength — that is what the <strong> tag should be used for. Use <mark> when you want to pinpoint something of relevance to the current user.
As a side note for accessibility, mark highlights are shown by the browser when using Windows
High Contrast mode, so it works well in that regard too.
2 - Lower Importance With <small>
You have probably used the <small> tag before. It does exactly what you think it would do, which is make your text smaller. While browsers might make your text smaller, that is actually a byproduct of using the small tag, rather than its semantic meaning.
The specification for the <small> tag explains that this tag should be used to lower the importance of text or information. Browsers interpret this by making the font smaller so it has less visible impact.
This tag should be used to denote low importance when it comes to content or information. Information of low importance is generally used in the footer of a website or in a sidebar (away from the main content of the page).
Practical Examples
Overall your usage of the <small> tag should say to the browser — “This content right here isn’t really important in the grand scheme of things”. For example, in the footer you could use this for your legal attribution and copyright:
[code language="html"]
<footer>
<small>
Designed and developed by Simon Codrington.
</small>
<small>
© 2016 My Company - All rights reserved
</small>
</footer>
[/code]
You can even use the <small> tag inside regular content to denote that the content is not as important as the content surrounding it. For example, in a product listing you could include the legal disclaimer “Excludes tax” near the price of a product as follows:
[code language="html"]
<section>
<article>
<h3>Woolen Llama Print Jumper</h3>
<em>$65.99</em><small> - Excludes tax</small>
<p>
A warm, woolly jumper made from 100% llamas.
You will love the warmth.
</p>
<button>Add to cart</button>
</article>
</section>
[/code]
See the Pen Small Tag Example by SitePoint (@SitePoint) on CodePen.
Overall if you want to make something have a perceived lower importance use <small>. Don’t just use it to control the size of elements.
Best Practices and Considerations
You cannot lower the importance or emphasis of content that has been affected by the <strong> or <em> tags. Styling the <small> tag might affect its visual look (depending on the browser), but it will not affect its semantics.
3 - Quotations With <q> and <blockquote>
While you might use a styled <div> or <span> to enclose your quotes, a better way is to use either the <q> or <blockquote> tags. Both of these are meant to be used for external quotations (when you are quoting something), but they differ in how you should use them.
According the spec, the <q> tag should be used to define a "short inline quotation" of text.
The <blockquote> tag on the other hand should be used for large spans of text.
In practice, you should be using the <q> tag for smaller quotes and using <blockquote> for everything else. Keep in mind that these are for quotes or resources only, they should not be used just for stylistic purposes (use spans for that).
Practical Examples
Lets look at how we can use both of these tags.
If you have a small quote, use <q>:
[code language="html"]
<div class="big-banner">
<h2>Try our latest sandwich!</h2>
<p>Come and try our latest, biggest and tastiest
sandwich. John Smith told us <q>he hasn't eaten
anything as good in his whole life!</q></p>
</div>
[/code]
If you have a longer quote, or something more complex you can wrap it inside <blockquote>
[code language="html"]
<div class="motivational-quote">
<blockquote
cite="http://bit.ly/1pbvjsL">
Infuse your life with action.
Don't wait for it to happen.
Make it happen. Make your own
future. Make your own hope.
Make your own love. And
whatever your beliefs, honor
your creator, not by passively
waiting for grace to come down
from upon high, but by doing
what you can to make grace
happen... yourself, right now,
right down here on Earth.
<cite>Bradley Whitford - Author</cite>
</blockquote>
</div>
[/code]
For the above example we’ve wrapped a long quote withing the <blockquote> tag and supplied both the cite attribute (the link to the resource) and the <cite> tag (explaining what this resource is).
Continue reading %Do You Know These Eight HTML5 Tags?%
by Simon Codrington via SitePoint
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