Create your Website

Creating a website depends upon a lot of factors and your requirement.
If you want  to create a website with 3-4 basic pages then you can have it setup and going in a day's time. However, if you want a website which involves user interaction or where lots of content will be uploaded on a daily basis then you will have to go for a content management system (CMS).


You can opt for a static website where the content doesn't change frequently, for eg: a website with only few pages such as About Us, Contact Us page.

Step 1: Decide your domain name

Choose a domain name that is related to your business, company name, or that relates to the content of the website. Once you have decided on the name, check if the domain name is available. You can refer godaddy.com for checking website availability.

Step 2: Register your domain name

Once you have finalized the domain name then you will have to register the domain name. Almost every registrar provides this service.

Step 3: Web Hosting

This is where your website will be hosted and your web pages will reside. Here, you can setup your emails and use the services provided by the web hosting company like blogs, forums, chat scripts etc.

Step 4: Start Building

If you have decided to make a statuc website, then only HTML is required. However, if you want to have a blog or content driven website then you will have to use a CMS and supporting technology like PHP/Mysql etc

If you need help or have any questions related to making a website then Contact me and I can answer your queries.

Advantages of having your e-commerce website

Ecommerce website or an online store has many advantages. 

• You can setup your online store quickly and at a very less price compared to the overhead of a brick and mortar store.
• It can be easily managed from home, office or even while you are travelling.
• You can reach to millions of customers at once resulting to expanded customer base
• Since your store is online, it is open 24 x 7 
• More number of products can be added on the site which is not possible if you have space limitation or a small store.
• It reduces your advertisement and marketing cost
• The automation of billing, order details, shipment tracking,customer details reduces both time and personnel required to manage the processes. 
• You can provide detailed information about the product

The advantages from customer point of view are many:

• Customers can easily browse the products from anywhere and anytime
• It saves customer's travel time and cost
• E commerce facilitates comparison shopping. Customers can compare prices and get the bets deal in lesser time

Set Cron for a url without using CakePHP cron_dispatcher.php

If you have a url which you want to schedule to run daily, weekly we can use the below command in the control panel cron job settings:

1. Login to your control panel
2. Click on Cron Jobs
3. Add a new cron job
4. Schedule it for the time you want to run it
5. In the command tab,  put wget http://cron_url_to_run

Australia Post eParcel Integration module with your shopping cart

Interspire Add on:


I have created a module for Australia Post eParcel and Interspire shopping cart API integration for BigCommerce


It returns a csv/excel files in the format required by Australia Post eParcel  to be submitted into their system.


Contact me if you want to discuss the module in detail.

BigCommerce API SSL error

While using BigCommerce API  if you are getting the below error:


" Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'BigCommerce_Api_NetworkError' with message 'SSL certificate problem, verify that the CA cert is OK. Details: error:14090086:SSL "


This is because by default it checks to verify the SSL certificate used by the BigCommerce store.


Adding the below line of code will disable the check.


BigCommerce_Api::verifyPeer(false);

Can't connect to database in Prestashop

If you are trying to setup database details for Prestashop locally and getting the following error:

"Database server was not found. Please verify the login, password and server fields."

Then try replacing localhost with 127.0.0.1 as hostname. This worked for me.

Include file in CakePHP

To include a file in your .ctp files, make the path is given from webroot. So if you have placed your file outside the "app" directory then the path will be set as include("../../file.php");

550 SSL/TLS required on the control channel

When trying to connect through FTP, if you get the following error:

"550 SSL/TLS required on the control channel"

then try adding prefix to the hostname with ftpes://

This worked for me.

Adding additional product attributes to display in Interspire shopping cart

To add additional product attributes in product details page of Interspire shopping cart we need to add an inteface in admin section to enter those details. I tried the following:

1. Admin Section: code changes
1. Open admin/templates/product_form.tpl
2. Add additional fields attribute in html format as required.
3. In admin/includes/classes/class.product.php, include the post data for inserting into database and add the fields in database as well.
4. Search for AddProductStep2
5. Add entry under lib/entities/entity.product.php

Hope this will work for you.

Customer Rewards Point Module for Interspire

This is a very interesting feature to bring customers back to your site. I have worked on a rewards point module for Interspire shopping cart.
It works on all the interspire themes and very easy to integrate.


There are 2 sections in the module:

• Admin Section
• Assign points to each product
• Check the status under Orders tab whether orders are paid or customers have redeemed points against their purchase.
• Admin can also assign loyalty points to users and assign it to their account
• Admin can also set the minimum points against every order or amount spent.

• User Section
• Users can see the points earned in their My Account section
• Users can redeem points against products

Contact me if you want to know the module in detail.