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Too many idiots and need some good advice!!
Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 10:30 am
by bokken
Hello
If there is anyone that can provide me with some help I would be grateful....made too many mistakes and struggling to sort out the mess now.
Situation is that i had this web site all based on being a income for me whilst I was at home with the kids and it was going very very well.
Our host/designer at the time vanished and I mean vanished, ut up a sign on their home page 'we have ceased trading and you need to move your site by june 5th otherwise you could lose your site'.
We only knew of this when another company contacted me an so to move quickly we went with him and he upgraded our site etc....Since this bad upgrade with problems galour he has now become impossible to get hold of.....
So a friend of ours wanted to try this new format magento and we thought seeing as we cannot get hold of our current host then we could use magento and get this to take over our oscommerce site, which he started and we have been spending the last 3 weeks uploading items to it.
Today got a msn from the magento guy to let us know he is out of his depth and cannot adjust things etc.
So i have 1 site that has problems and is losing traffic and sales and I cannot gt hold of the designer and I have another site that has 3 weeks + of hard work and is unfinished!!!!
Can anyone help....I am sorry to waffle I have tried phoning some companies but my budget is very minimal now and cannot afford to keep changing and some expert advise would be great......
Re: Too many idiots and need some good advice!!
Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 10:49 am
by pickle
The only advice I can give is to not repeat your past mistakes. Don't just jump to new hosts or new technologies because "some guy called & told me about it". Do research into your providers, get references for the designers & coders you employ. Don't just do this off the cuff.
Re: Too many idiots and need some good advice!!
Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 11:32 am
by Maugrim_The_Reaper
Don't panic, take a deep breath (or a hundred) and set out a plan to find a recommended programmer with references. Since you're using Magento why not locate their forums and see if there are any available qualified programmers there. Failing that there are dozens of online PHP job contract sites you can put your job on to invite quotes.
Most importantly of all check if they can provide references and are willing to sign a contract. You could risk uncontracted work as a once off but that tends not to work out very well as you've experienced, but in the future you absolutely need some legally binding assurance that a programmer can't just skip town without consequences. One requirement of any contract is to seek a reasonable quote which is where getting someone who's genuinely familiar with Magento customisation would be valuable (though it may also mean they'll charge a premium for their expertise maybe it's worth it to you to get over this hump in the road quickly).
Just to repeat Pickle, don't select programmers just on their own words. If they can't provide references or contracts it's a warning sign.
Re: Too many idiots and need some good advice!!
Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 12:05 pm
by josh
Don't listen to what they said. I'm the best programmer you will find. You can stop looking.

just kidding
Re: Too many idiots and need some good advice!!
Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 12:22 pm
by supermike
I really advise against Magento. It looks pretty, but:
(a) It's still waaaay too beta.
(b) It only has a few modules for it, probably not enough for your tastes.
(c) It's built on the Zend Framework. Ew.
(d) It's mega slow. Don't believe me? Load in the sample data. Oh wait -- you'll discover that's broke and you have to read the forum tweaks to get the sample data loaded. But once you do, you'll see Magento is mega slow compared to alternatives out there.
Re: Too many idiots and need some good advice!!
Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 12:52 pm
by josh
supermike wrote:(a) It's still waaaay too beta.
What do you mean by that specifically?
supermike wrote:(b) It only has a few modules for it, probably not enough for your tastes.
maybe not enough for your tastes, but I'm sure others found it useful. What modules specifically were you looking for in it? I develop commercially not opensource unfortunately right now ( gotta pay the bills ).. and I'm always looking for new suggestions on modules to develop
(c) It's built on the Zend Framework. Ew.
Again your opinion, but what don't you like about im interested if you have an actual reason or have heard bad things about it?
(d) It's mega slow. Don't believe me? Load in the sample data. Oh wait -- you'll discover that's broke and you have to read the forum tweaks to get the sample data loaded. But once you do, you'll see Magento is mega slow compared to alternatives out there.
fair enough.
Re: Too many idiots and need some good advice!!
Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 2:05 pm
by bokken
I have made myself seem really thick havent I.
I am just a tad frustrated at the moment so my detailing of what I am trying to get across is coming out all wrong....I just know nothing about the technical sides and this is where I am falling on my doo dah!!!! Thank you for the pointers though
Re: Too many idiots and need some good advice!!
Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 2:10 pm
by alex.barylski
What do you mean by that specifically?
Have you tried it? I barely got it installed...then I couldn't login. The source code is a mess and a horrible example of best practices IMHO. Sure they use Zend but clearly do not understand the idea of good software design.
Again your opinion, but what don't you like about im interested if you have an actual reason or have heard bad things about it?
Bloated. Everything is way way way to complex.
Re: Too many idiots and need some good advice!!
Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 2:32 pm
by josh
bokken wrote:I have made myself seem really thick havent I.
Not at all, I just want to understand the market needs better.. you said it didn't do enough / didn't have good modules and I was just trying to get specifics so I could maybe create what is missing from it
Hockey wrote:Have you tried it? I barely got it installed...then I couldn't login.
It needed mbstring and dom-xml libraries on my PHP installation, but after that I was able to set the default login and log right in.. not only did I try it I taped the database schema up on my wall with 25 sheets of 8 1/2 x 11
Hockey wrote: The source code is a mess and a horrible example of best practices IMHO. Sure they use Zend but clearly do not understand the idea of good software design.
Hmm, I guess you're entitled to your own opinion. No software is perfect but, specifically what bad practices do they use? I thought it was pretty good for open source
Re: Too many idiots and need some good advice!!
Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 5:07 pm
by Christopher
bokken wrote:I have made myself seem really thick havent I.
I am just a tad frustrated at the moment so my detailing of what I am trying to get across is coming out all wrong....I just know nothing about the technical sides and this is where I am falling on my doo dah!!!! Thank you for the pointers though
No you don't seem thick and your problems are pretty common in business. I think "don't panic" is always good advice.
The first question I have is whether you have a copy of the original website that your vanished host/designer built? I assume that was working. The two "forced upgrades" have not worked from what I can tell. I would find a competent developer to take a look at the original application and see if they can get it working.
A second question is whether your business can use an e-commerce package or whether you have specific needs and need a programmer to build something custom for you. Most e-commerce package require a good amount of technical knowledge, so if they do match your requirements it is no more work to build something custom.
Where are you located? Perhaps a developer here is local to you.
Re: Too many idiots and need some good advice!!
Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 2:16 am
by bokken
I am in the UK, Kent. Our current designer host is not contactable so what we have as a site is all we have!
Re: Too many idiots and need some good advice!!
Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 6:30 am
by josh
You don't have to host with the guy that does your site. In fact if you have a high profile site I'd even go as far as to not allow the developer access to the main site / product data.
My advice to you would be to get a VPS with cpanel, $50 a month tops... and pay someone for an hour of their time to set it up, if you are unable to install it yourself. Also, you could look into a hosted cart provider ( too bad my project isn't done yet or I'd recommend that

, I'm working on a hosted service myself ). However with a hosted provider don't just make sure you'll be able to import / export data, I'd recommend having a backup plan in place in case you need to migrate your data to a new platform in an emergency
Re: Too many idiots and need some good advice!!
Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 8:14 am
by bokken
Great thanks for that I will have a look around
Re: Too many idiots and need some good advice!!
Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 8:25 am
by josh
Yeah, you have no idea how much of the business i get is people that got screwed over by their former website agency / developer. Always have everything in your name and change passwords after your developer is done, its your server and your business.. noone is gonna look out for ya, its tough out there.. best of luck
Re: Too many idiots and need some good advice!!
Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 10:09 am
by matthijs
Some good advice I think. I would also consider checking around in your area for a good developer. Being able to visit the office of the developer, meet in person, knowing who you are dealing with, are all important I think.
In developing your website/app, it's a necessity to develop a good relationship with the developer(s). You need to meet a few times, understand each other, etc. Remember that the trust is both ways. A good developer needs to find the good clients as well.
I'm happy to have good relationships with all my former clients. I make sure they register their own domain and get their own hosting. At the same time, most often they don't have to change the passwords after I'm done. In case something goes wrong or something has to be changed quickly, they can always send me an email or phone call and let me do what's needed.