PSD to Joomla

April 27th, 2010

The internet has become the famous and most popular platform for millions of websites which mainly advertises different products and services. Many of them provide some of the template which you can download and use it on your own site. The common with these themes that the same themes are available throughout the internet so there is competition about to create their own individual website. You can develop your own photographic theme for your own website which enables you to provide unique look to your website. Here we will describe the method how you can convert PSD to Joomla templates.

Adobe Photoshop creates an image file in PSD format and allow the user to convert that image in a number of different ways. A PSD file is a layered file on which you can add or subtract the layers and you can also change the colors of theme. When you have finished with all of the editing then you can convert it into Joomla and use it in your own website. You can adopt different methods to convert the PSD file to Joomla according the knowledge you have about the web design. If you have confusion that how to convert the files then you can go for various web design companies that can convert the files for you in real time. You just have to provide them the PSD file you want to use on your web site and then they will give you the respective Joomla template that you can start to use for your website. Absolutely you have to pay certain amount of money to these web designing companies for the conversion.

You have to take care of certain issues while converting the file. Each layer of the PSD file must have unique name so that Joomla template can be easily obtained. The advantage of giving unique name to each layer is that you can convert your file very easily and effectively. After providing the names to each layer log to one of the conversion site and send them their image in PSD format. After getting the converted file open the zip file and copy the content into Joomla website folder of WAMP server. Go to your template manager in admin panel and view your newly created template in list box of templates. Make this template as default for your website and finally you would have your own unique website. You have to choose experienced web designers for the conversion process otherwise a small can make your task very difficult. There are some points which you have also consider while converting the file. These points are defined as, first is W3C compliance which means website should be well structured and formatted. Second is semantic coding which refers to completing matching of templates and tags. Another point of consideration is cross browser compatibility which means your website must be run on all the browsers like opera, Mozilla, IE and safari etc.

These conversion services are becoming very popular so you can have your conversion at very cheap and effective manner.

Silverlight Training in Ahmedabad by Sharma Infoway

April 13th, 2010

Silverlight 3.0 & 4.0 Workshop

SilverLight Training Ahmedabad
Organized by

Sharma Infoway and Dotnetchaps User Group

Speaker: Mrityunjaya Kumar, Dotnetchaps User Group Lead

First time in Ahmedabad


Registration on first cum first Serve Basis


Batch 1 : Date: 8th and 9th May 2010. 10 AM to 2 PM.

Batch 2 : 15th and 16th May 2010. 10 AM to 2 PM

Fees: Rs. 2500/-

(Pay by Cash, Cheque or Paypal)

Register before 20th April and get 20% discount.


Call for Inquiries:  079-30220292, 9328666371

Email us at: info@sharmainfoway.com

Hurry….Register now and Book Your Seats Today

Please send your registration request with following information

AGENDA


Day 1


  • Silverlight Overview
  • Anatomy of Silverlight Project
  • Silverlight Basics
    • XAML
    • Layout
    • Input
      • Mouse
      • Keyboard
      • Camera
      • Clipboard
      • Drag-n-Drop
  • Printing
  • Resources
  • Styles
  • Out-of-Browser support
  • Silverlight Controls
    • Controls & Control Toolkit
    • Dialog Boxes
    • Control Style

Day 2:

  • Silverlight Graphics
    • Graphics
    • Deep Zoom
    • Animation
    • Audio & Video
    • Data Access
      • Data Binding
      • Isolated Storage
      • Xml Data
      • WCF Data Services
      • Networking & Communications
      • Debugging, Error Handling & Exceptions

Offshore Development – 3 Challenges and 3 Solutions

April 7th, 2010

I have been researching on the topic of offshore development to find out why several people are skeptical about this model? Even after huge cost saving why certain small and medium size companies are not ready to adopt this model? Let me put up some points here with possible solutions of them.

1. A Clash of Expectations and Delivery, this is a very common problem

A client expects a project of software development to perform certain things, the developer works on it and delivers it and at the end of the project neither the client is happy nor the developer is happy. Let me put some points to resolve this.

A. The client should understand that though he has hired a software developer, he is a technical person and he needs domain expertise through client's inputs. A good document regarding requirement can avoid the surprises.

B. "Clone this", this is a killing dialogue by some of the clients. As a developer I always ask my clients to be specific about requirements and I suggest them to write it down on paper. Because cloning some sites is difficult job; you cannot define boundaries of the project for a cloning version of sites. At the middle of the project the client starts asking questions and modifications that are not present in original site and the result doesn't please any of the parties. So avoid the word cloning, request for details or prepare details on your own.

C. Changes in requirements can be another factor that could end up in misunderstanding between two parties. There should be a clear discussion right at the beginning that how the changes in software development will be managed. Who should approach for changes and who should signoff with proper price and time tags?

2. Communication issues between client and software development companies

In offshore software development model, the communication plays a vital role, none of the party should take it easy for this particular process. If the communication between developer and client is not frequent and clear, the end result of software project could be not as expected. Let me highlight some points to avoid the communication issues.

A. The developer, designer and client should have each other's email id, messenger ids and telephone numbers. Either of the medium should be frequent and efficient for both of the parties. Sometimes Indian developers are not so great in voice communication that should not stop them doing their job well, they can communicate by emails and chat. Likewise clients should also understand that English is a foreign language of Indians so they should encourage developers to write emails and do texts chat.

B. Scheduling a Chat session or telephone conference is always a good idea for asking questions to each other, updating each other on project and planning for future update. Setting a schedule is psychological advantage as well, because both parties agree on same time and they make each other available by 100% during that time.

C. Communication should start with a prior plan. Unplanned communication can end up in disaster. Offshore developer should have a list of questions and suggestions for client, similarly client should have list of issues and plan to be discussed with the developer.

3. Payment terms & Development model could prevent the ongoing issues in offshore software development

Payment terms play a major role in any kind of business, the whole system of business works on payments. If there is not clarity then a good project could also go on long ending delay or sometimes such efforts go in vein if the client doesn't go online with given web based solution. Let me describe some tips to avoid such issue.

A. A client and developer should discuss in detail about payment terms of the software project. Both parties should agree on how the full and partial payments will be sent to developer, at what stages the payments will be received by developers.

B. Certain projects cannot be estimated with exact time and delivery terms, in that case the projects should be done in hourly development model or monthly fixed payment model. Such monthly or hourly model is suitable to ongoing projects, very large projects or maintenance projects.

Finally some quick advises only for micro, small and medium size businesses for offshore development.

1. Don't just run after a cheap quotation. A cheap can cost you more, do proper due diligence before selecting a software company or software developer.

2. Please accept that developer is not physically present to you so he cannot understand your feelings or expectations unless you put everything on paper.

3. Define good terms of payment and delivery, so you can attract good offshore development companies, they will save your cost and time both.

ASP Net Developers Can Do Miracles For Your Software Company

March 15th, 2010

With the passage of time, demand and expectation of business has changed drastically. Before, people put emphasis on desktop applications but now they run after web application development!

With laps of time, Microsoft has changed its gesture and developed an especial language for web development that is ASP. As offshore software development company, hiring remotely, an ASP developer is greatly beneficial to your business.

Benefits of ASP development

Benefits of ASP development are immense and some are illustrated here:

1. With ASP, you need less code as compared to other languages to build up enterprise applications.

2. ASP has advantage of early binding, just-in-time compilation, native optimization, and caching services right out of the box. Thus, it can give better performance.

3. ASP framework is a rich toolbox. WYSIWYG editing, drag-and-drop server controls, and automatic deployment are just a few of the features this powerful tool provides.

4. As a simple platform, it can perform simple tasks such as form submission and client authentication to deployment and site configuration.

5. ASP pages are easy to write and maintain because source code and HTML are together. It is powerful and flexible to the web pages because source code has executed on server.

6. ASP application is constantly available to handle request because if one process is dead a new one created to replace it since all the processes are closely monitored and managed by ASP runtime.

7. ASP is purely a server side technology so codes are executed on server before it reaches to browser.

8. It allows you to choose language that best applies to your application that means it is language independent.

9. With ASP, there is no need to register components, as the configuration information is built-in. thus; it is easy to make deployment.

10. Web server is smart and continuously monitors the pages, components, and applications running on it. If there is any memory leak, infinite loops, other illegal activities, it immediately destroys those activities and restarts itself.

11. Using data binding and page formatting features, ASP easily works with ADO., an application which runs faster and counters large volumes of users without any performance problems

Once you realize these benefits of ASP you may think of your next project in ASP and definitely you will try to hire a good ASP.net Developer who will do miracle by developing robust application on behalf of your company.

Web Designers Are Made In Heaven

March 12th, 2010

Web design is the skill of creating presentations of content that is delivered to an end-user through the World Wide Web, by way of a Web browser or other Web-enabled software like Internet television clients.

The intent of web design is to create a web site—a collection of electronic files that reside on a web server and present content and interactive features/interfaces to the end user in form of Web pages once requested. Such elements as text, bit-mapped images, and forms can be placed on the page using HTML/XHTML/XML tags. Displaying more complex media (vector graphics, animations, videos, sounds) requires plug-ins are also embedded into web page by using HTML/XHTML tags.

Once you understand the term web design you might be able to differentiate between website graphic designer and web designer. Another thing is clear that web designers have acquired skills which they are not gifted so naturally; some have acquired good and some have less skills. Now, as a project owner, it is your job, to decide who is good for you.

Let us see qualities of good web designer. Here we will see interpersonal skills of web designer, not technical aspects as technical aspects depend on the nature and demand of your project.

Good Planner

Good web designer need to plan ahead the goals of website they are going to build it. Web designer can put focus on possible people who might be interested in website.

Good Organizer

Web designing needs to deal with lots of stuff at a time. Designer should organize code files, images, texts, videos, audios, and a lot more. If designer don’t put all in well-labeled folders and organize it in a good manner then some elements might be misplaced.

Good evaluator

Your web application is one kind of sales representative for you; therefore it needs constant faultfinding eyes so that final shape would be a robust design. Your web designer need such eyes so your site can catch maximum traffic and you get maximum customers for your business.

Good Partner

Your web designer should have proper understanding of your business just like a partner so he/she can formulate effective design strategy that gives your business a maximum benefit.

Good Portfolio

Your website designer should have good a portfolio means he/she should have past experience in related fields or technology so he/she can perform challenging tasks with a confidence. For instance your project need Ajax based application and designer’s portfolio don’t  see any usage of Ajax at all then there are less chances to implement it correctly.

Good Relationship

Once your web design project is finished and after some time you may require updates or your business improves due to website and now you want to expand it. In such scenario, you again need the services of your previous web designer because he/she is the person who is most accustomed with your project. In short, your web designer should be relation oriented and believe in long-term relationship.

Good Communicator

Finally, your website designer should be good communicator since communication is a vital aspect from the beginning to end of the project. Project designer should extract all needed information from the clients, convert it into coding, and deliver results as per clients’ desires.

All of above the qualities of good designer or rather a good professional, that’s why I believe that good web designers are made in heaven.

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