Category: PHP Development

Yesterday, we discussed about conversion of Drupal websites to WordPress. We all know WordPress offers great benefits which make it an easy platform for every beginner to develop a website or a blog.

There are several WordPress plugins available which can be used to make your website more powerful as it is now. However, these plugins will only be useful if you are using WordPress. So, let’s take a look at these plugins:

WordPress Plug-ins that can be used to make website more powerful:

• Shareaholic: It is an integrated internet marketing suite which is useful in increasing engagement of the readers and also increases social media traffic. With the use of Real Content App; one can drive targeted traffic to the best content.

  Now, the recommendations will compel visitors to stay on your website for longer time which will then help to increase page views on every visit.

• LinkPatrol: This Plugin is used to administer, control and check those outgoing links which guarantees that the readers can only click things which will boost their reading experience.

  This will reduce penalties from Google and will show which links are actually useful and helping to generate sales and drive traffic.

• WooCommerce: Your website can be easily transformed into an eCommerce machine by using this WordPress Plug in known as WooCommerce. This helps you to sell anything due to flexibility.

  With WooCommerce, one can easily manage payments, inventory, tax, shipping options and others. Using these features, one can quickly develop an eCommerce store which makes it easy for buyers to shop from your online store with safety and security.

• WPTouch: It is a wordpress plugin which is used to make your website responsive. According to Google’s mobile algorithm, it is necessary for every website to be responsive.

  So, with this plugin one can easily convert a simple website into a completely responsive web design. This means your website should be easily visible on various devices such as smartphone or tablet or mobile devices.

• Yoast: It is yet another plug-in to boost SEO and it is the most popular WordPress SEO directory. With this plug in; one can easily configure settings which are appropriate in optimizing the site for search engines.

  Here, SEO titles, meta descriptions, meta tags etc can be edited easily. The keyword suggestions are available from Google Autosuggest. This makes a thorough analysis of the content and also is useful in completely optimizing the content.

  Further, one can get the XML sitemaps automatically created with this plug-in.

• HelloBar and SumoMe: Hello Bar is one of the perfect options. With this plugin, one can set up a coloured bar at the top of the website to get immediate call to action. This call to action can be in the form of email subscriber form, social sharing button and similar ones.

  To make most use of these plug ins; one can opt for its paid subscription which is available just for $12 per month and all ads will be removed thus you will get unlimited benefit of this plugin.

  Apart from Hello Bar, another useful plug-in is SumoMe. It is similar as compared to HelloBar however its paid subscription is more expensive as compared to that of HelloBar.

  It also comes with Pro version that is used for list builder which is available for $20 per month.

  Both of these plug-ins have great functionalities which can be used to collect emails.

• Gravity Forms: It is a plugin which is used to include contact forms in the WordPress website. With this plugin; one can add any type of online forms in the website. So, now if you want to conduct an online survey or generate user submitted reports or create web directory; for almost anything this plug in is the answer.
• Optin Monster: Want to get more leads from your website? Then use Optin Monster. This WordPress plugin will help you to get maximum leads by helping you to develop amazing opt in forms and pop ups for your WordPress website.

  It comes with several useful features like as Page level targeting, analytics, split testing and exit intent technology.

  Exit intent technology is used to display an optin form when the user is about to leave your website.

• Soliloquy: With this plugin; one can include best responsive website sliders. Most of the slider plugins will slow down the website but Soliloquy solves this problem. It offers faster slide plugins which loads the websites quickly at blazing speeds.

  Try out this plugin with its available free plugin.

• Floating Social Bar: Most of the social media plugins for WordPress have unnecessary elements. With countless social networks and unnecessary scripts which slow down the website; we can say that Floating Social Bar is the best social media plug in for WordPress.

  With this plugin; one can add a bunch of social networks which actually matter. This is highly optimized for speed and hence it takes utmost care that in no case social buttons should slow down your website.

• Login Lock Down: A user can login into the website with several incorrect attempts. Most of the hack attempts are based on breaking into site’s admin area with the help of passwords lists.

  With this plugin; one can limit the number of times a user can try to login in their websites. This means after certain number of attempts the admin area gets locked down for a particular span of time.

• WP Mail SMTP: At times because of some improper configuration settings; wordPress mails don’t get delivered. WP Mail SMTP solves this issue. With this plugin; an SMTP Server is used to send WordPress emails instead of PHP mail functions.

  One can use Gmail’s SMTP Server to send WordPress emails.

Wind Up

We are sure that this article will definitely be useful to keep your WordPress website powerful. For more such tips and tricks; stay connected with Softqube Technologies; WordPress Web Development India.

At times, you wish to give your CMS a different touch or there might be several other reasons for you to get your Drupal CMS transformed to WordPress site. Irrespective of the reason; we can say that you have landed at the right place.

Here, in this blog post from Softqube Technologies, an IT firm having expert Drupal developers; we have covered here the complete process of transforming Drupal websites to WordPress. So, before knowing the process; let’s compare these two open source platforms i.e. Drupal and WordPress.

Comparing Drupal and WordPress:

1. Know the type of facilities offered: When you operate any CMS; there are several aspects that are to be taken into account. One should think about the required facilities and know how things can be done quickly thus reducing the efforts.

   At times, you will have the need to post the content, edit and completely change the data within minutes. Any CMS that has this facility will help you to make CMS better. A good CMS can be identified by its capacity to perform tasks quickly.

   

   So, it is necessary to choose such CMS from beginning which makes things easy for you. This means you must get very chance to switch to other CMS or migrate it from one to another. So, from the initial stage if you are using WordPress then it becomes very simpler and easier to do the tasks as compared to Drupal.

2. Drupal needs more hard work: More time is taken and more money is wasted to learn those basic programming skills and when using Drupal it is important to learn some programming basics.

   This can be one of the reasons why Drupal is quickly left by people and Drupal users prefer to migrate it to any other platform like as WordPress. No, I am not saying Drupal is bad or it should not be used.

   Yes, content management systems like Drupal can be used by people who have good technical knowledge. Further, if any technical issues occur then you must have enough expertise to solve them.

   Once your website goes above the average or from any basic blog to high level then another thing is to worry about investments that are needed for technical support. These are higher investments and one has to deal by paying as website problems are needed to be fixed.

   And suppose you don’t have those skills then you will have to hire experts and then again comes the question about investment as experts will not work for free.

   So, here we go:

The Need to Switch from Drupal To WordPress:

Well, there are many people who wish to switch from Drupal and opt for WordPress. What’s the reason of this Shift?

Now, talking about WordPress; we can say it is one of the widely recommended platforms used for developing websites. From SEO view point, it is useful in getting more traffic. It is simpler and thus needs less amount of time to get started.

As a result, for 90% of beginners WordPress has become a choice by default. For every feature you want in your website; there are several plugins available and most of them are free or are available at affordable rates.

With this platform any complex website can be developed easily.

So, what’s wrong with Drupal?

Well, nothing is wrong. It is good at its own place. But the thing is this platform is for those who wish to develop websites with several pages and users. It offers good flexibility and so from simple blogs to complex websites, everything can be handled quickly and easily.

However, the main drawback is that it can be easily managed by technical people who have some sort of development knowledge. It is for those high skilled developers who are completely capable of getting full advantage from the platform.

We can see many Drupal websites having good rankings in search engines. It can also deal with huge amount of traffic and hence it serves as a perfect fit for huge web development projects.

So, in a nutshell; we can say that the choice of CMS depends on what you want your website to do and how much efforts are you willing to put behind it. WordPress is considered as “Mini CMS”. The reason for its popularity is its ease of use and hence it is well known among beginners.

Hence, if you are really willing to shift to migrate from Drupal to WordPress, then here is the key:

Migrating Drupal CMS to WordPress:

For this task; you must have an automated plugin that is used to transform one CMS to another. It is available with WordPress. Using this plug in; you can easily transfer the site content from Drupal to WordPress within just few mouse clicks. Yes, no need of any coding skills. It is that easy.

The complete migration will cost you $39 and more based on the need. The contents which will be shifted are as follows:

• Articles
• Pages
• Categories
• Images
• Internal Links
• Users
• Comments
• Attachments
• Custom Post types
• Custom Fields

This plug in supports Drupal versions 5 and its sub versions, Drupal 6 and its sub versions, Drupal 7 and its sub versions. WordPress versions supported by this plugin are WordPress 4 and onwards.

This automated migration is simple and quick and complete migration can be done within 15 minutes or so. Free Demo is also available to know how it works and live support which helps you to get answers quickly.

Before initiating the conversion process, follow these steps:

• Install WordPress. Both websites i.e. Drupal and WordPress must be available live.
• Get Drupal website FTP access details.
• Set custom URL structure for WordPress for internal links.

Now, you can begin the conversion process.

Wind Up

Hope this blog post will help you to fulfill your task quickly and get Drupal website transformed to WordPress. For more such updates, stay connected with us.

Most of the web development companies use PHP to develop web applications. However there are others that prefer other programming languages rather than PHP. This blog post is dedicated to those who use PHP as a programming language for creating web applications.

Also, the information shared here will be useful to all the PHP developers including beginners as well as experts. Like every other IT field, PHP is also a sector that keeps getting updated every now and then.

We feel that our readers must stay updated with the latest hip and happenings of the IT industry and so every time we bring to you the information about new updates available in the market. Today, we will discuss about some PHP Design Patterns that are used to solve certain common problems which occur while developing an application.

These design patterns serve as a quick solution to the frequently occurring problems which may be small but sometimes these small problems can be a big hassle to finish the work. As a result, it is necessary to find the immediate solution to such issues.

So, here are the PHP Design Patterns that serve as immediate solutions:

1. Single Design: This is known as Singleton Design Pattern which is based on the idea of singleton set ({}) in mathematics. It is an implementation of the Responsibility Pattern. This can be easily understood by those who are aware about PHP patterns.This Singleton design pattern can be used to solve important programming tasks however it depends on the needs. So a Singleton Pattern is useful when you have a shared source such as a printer, file manager, database connection, loggers and so on.

Once you have developed a PHP singleton class template then the singleton PHP class can be developed with these rules:

• Describe any private static member variable for storing the class instance. This is known as object instance.

  “private static $_instance = null; “

• Now, the class constructor is to be locked down considering it as private and this will make the class uninstantiable.

  “private function __construct() { }”

• The external instantiation of copies of singleton class is to be stopped as to avoid duplicate objects.

  public function __clone() {
trigger_error( "Cannot clone instance of Singleton pattern ...", E_USER_ERROR );
}
public function __wakeup() {
trigger_error('Cannot deserialize instance of Singleton pattern ...', E_USER_ERROR );

• Use a public static method to create single instance of that class. This will check whether the single instance for that class is already available or not and if it is available then the same instance will be repeated every time it is called for.

  Or another similar instance will be created containing static member variable and returns it.

  public static function getInstance()
{
if( !is_object(self::$_instance) )
//or if( is_null(self::$_instance) ) or if( self::$_instance == null )
self::$_instance = new self;
//or, in PHP 5.3.0
//if (empty(static::$_instance)) {
// $class = get_called_class();
// static::$_instance = new $class;
//}
return self::$_instance;
}

  This completes the process of creating a singleton class template. Create a test to check the multiple instances of singleton class.

2. Factory: Another widely used PHP Design Pattern is Factory design pattern. It is mainly used in software development to cover all the processes that are used for creating objects and which allow object instantiation during run time.

   It is mainly responsible for object manufacturing. So, basically this design pattern is used when object creation prevents the reuse without duplicating the code. Object creation process needs information that is irrelevant to be included in the composing object.

   Factory pattern is used to create objects using factory method pattern as well as abstract factory pattern.

3. Decorator: This is also known as Wrapper. This pattern is used to elaborate the object behaviour without being affected by sub classing or behaviour of the objects from the similar class.

   This means this structural design pattern is used when we want one PHP object to perform several tasks at the same time. Such objects are known as target objects. This pattern is used in almost all languages in all platforms including UI to backend.

   Generally, this pattern is used to add flexibility and runtime specific behaviour.

4. Façade: The Façade design pattern is one of the PHP patterns that is used to make complex systems easy to understand as these systems have huge number of interdependent classes and it offers a simple interface to the client.
   

   This façade pattern relates to an object that offers a simple interface to a huge code like as class library.

   Hence, we can say that a façade object can be used to perform following tasks:

   • Making complex systems easy to use
   • Making library readable
   • Reduce dependency on outside code
   • Beautifully cover a certain collection of APIs with single well designed API.

   So, next time you want a complex system to be transformed into an easy one then you can take advantage of Façade pattern.

Wind Up:

So, that’s it for the day. More of such PHP design patterns are available. However, we have collected the information for those that are widely useful. Stay connected with us for more such PHP updates.

And in case you need any type of PHP assistance then get in touch with our experts at Softqube Technologies, PHP Development India.

Among the most popular content management systems available in the market; Joomla is the second most popular CMS having the web market share of 7.2%. It has gained such popularity due to its simple interface as well as advanced functionality and as a result it becomes beloved platform for many users and developers.

Navigation is the thing that is mainly considered while developing any website. But apart from proper navigation; proper placement of menus is also important. So, here in this blog post from Softqube Technologies; Joomla development India, we will discuss how website Menus can be organized using Joomla.

Organizing menus in Joomla:

The first and foremost thing is to add new menu in Joomla. To do this, login to Joomla Admin Panel and select Menus> Menu Manager and then choose Add New Menu.

Now, menu manager will appear. Just add in the details such as Title, Menu Type and Description and then fill in the required fields and then “Save” it. In case you have entered wrong details or wish to leave the form without saving then you can just click on “Cancel”.

If you wish to get more information about any of the fields then select keep the mouse over the name field and you will be able to get more information about the same.

Several menus can be created and placed on different positions. Hence, if you want the newly created menu to be displayed on the page then it is necessary to add a module for the same. To add the module,

1. Go to “Menu Manager” and then select “Add a module for this menu type” next to the menu you wish to display. Now, Module manager will appear. Give a proper name to the module and then select the position where you wish your menu to be displayed on.

Apart from adding menus, the basic element of menu management is Menu items. Adding menu items is similar to that of creating menus. So, let’s see the process for adding menu items:

2. Go to “Menus” and then choose the menu where you wish to add the item and then select “Add menu item”. Here, you can select a menu from 11 available menu types which are as follows:
• Articles ( Archived articles, create Articles, Featured articles, Single Article)
• Configuration Manager ( Site options, Template Options)
• Newsfeeds ( List All categories, List Feeds in a Category, Single News Feed
• Search
• Smart Search
• System Links ( External URL, Menu Heading, Menu Item Alias, Text Separator)
• Tags ( Compact List of Tagged Items, List of all Tags, Tagged Items)
• User Manager ( Edit User Profile, Registration Form, User Profile)
• Web links ( List all Categories, List Links in Category, Submit a Link)
• Wrappers ( Iframe Wrapper)

A very convenient drag and drop feature can be used to reorganize the menu items. Now, let’s see how a Drop down menu can be created in Joomla:

Developing a Drop down menu:

Do you want your Main menus to have sub menus then here drop down menus are useful to you. Adding a drop down menu is very easy and is quite similar to that of adding regular menu items. So, the process to add Drop down menu is as follows:

• Go to “Menus” and select a desired menu and then choose “Add New Menu Item”.
• Then New Menu Item Manager appears, select the item type and then press “Select” button next to the Menu Item Type Field.
• Now, a light box with necessary menu items will appear. Choose the appropriate item type from those 11 item types mentioned above.
• Now once the item is added then select the Menu Location as well as the Parent Item which is available from the drop down lists on the right of Menu Manager.

This completes the process of developing menus, sub menus as well as drop down menus in Joomla. Now, you can easily navigate to the user facing part of the website and then bringing the mouse cursor near to the relevant Menu item, you can see all the sub menus as well as drop down menus that are newly created.

Wind Up:

This blog post truly serves as Self start guide where if you have little coding knowledge then you can easily do things on your own. Further, here as the process is explained in detail, we can there’s very little need of coding and everything is accomplished quickly just with a click of a mouse.

So, next time you wish to add menus or sub menus or create a new menu then you can easily refer to this guide.

On the other hand, if you have found some of the easiest ways then do share them with us as we all love to do things in a manner that saves time. So, keep in touch, stay connected with us. If you wish to get your website developed on Joomla platform by experts, then this is the right place for you.

Have a look at our portfolio to know our expertise.

Joomla is a very popular open source platform that is widely used by developers. It is by and large preferred by most of developers and so like we have separate tags for every occasion, every drive, every campaign in the same way Joomla also has some of its well known hash tags which are widely used on twitter.

Here, in this blog post from one of the well known providers of Joomla development services; Softqube Technologies; we have provided some hash tags that can be used while discussing Joomla matters on Twitter and the list is as follows:

Popular Joomla Hash tags:

• #Joomla: This tag is used to discuss almost anything and everything about Joomla. Be it any normal update or be it any general news about Joomla; everything is described with this hash tag only.
• #howtojoomla and #how2joomla: These two hash tags are used to ask questions about Joomla.
• #jpositiv: This hash tag is used to tweet about any good things about Joomla as well as its community in general. It is very popular hash tag and is used regularly by the entire community to share positive news about Joomla.

  For e.g.: If any Joomla developer has achieved something new or any new Joomla version is launched then it is indicated with the hash tag #jpositiv.

• #jnegativ: Like Joomla has positive things it has some negative things too. So, it is important for Joomla users to accept both positive as well as negative. One should not get carried away by the negative news.

  Always be realistic. To make people more realistic; #jnegativ tag came into existence. So, from now on if you find something is not going well with Joomla; you can use this tag to mention that news on Twitter.

• #joomler: This hash tag is used for those people who are very enthusiastic to work with Joomla and love to find out new things. We can say those who are very passionate about Joomla can be called as real Joomlers.
  

• #jselfie: This is again related to Joomla lovers, who are deeply involved while working with Joomla and love to carry on endlessly. Click a selfie with just Joomla enthisiastics and then post it on twitter with a tag #jselfie.
• #joomler spirit: This hash tag was developed by Joomlashine in order to celebrate the determined spirit of Joomlers all over the world. #Joomler spirit is used to express the feeling of togetherness as well as being as a whole.

  This keeps Joomlers powerful and flexible. You will find innumerable tweets on Joomla with the hash tags #Joomla spirit.

• #Joomla 10: When Joomla successfully completed its 10 years; this tag was created to celebrate its 10th birthday! and the tweet contained a birthday cake with the hash tags like #joomla10, # celebration and lots more.
• #JFeedback: This tag was developed by Joe Campbell. He was not a developer but still he felt that he can contribute something to Joomla which will be used by the entire community.

  Using this hash tag; one can give quick feedback as well as register complaints. Apart from being just a hashtag ; it has become a source that boosts and inspires us all to keep on improving Joomla and make it one of the most well known open source platforms to work on.

Apart from those mentioned here; there are many more hash tags related to Joomla. Let us know if you find any rather than those we have mentioned here. Try out these tags to tweet about Joomla and let us know what you get.

Wind Up

Stay tuned with us for more of such tech updates that will help you in any way. Feel free to contact us if you want some more knowledge about Joomla services.

loud development is in demand these days. Even in PHP, developers opt for cloud development as well as other virtual environments. Below is the work flow that reveals several of the options available for PHP developers and shows how simple and productive the cloud development is.

Here, in this article we will explain how to deploy the newly available Zend Server 8.5 instance on AWS as well as the installation of Joomla application on Zend Server and then developing any application using Z- ray.

Basic Requirements:

Here, we will learn how to develop an app using Z-ray and for this, first of all let’s discuss things that are damn essential for the development process:

• Amazon Account
• Active pre configured AWS RDS.

Step 1: Launching Zend Server Instance

The first step is to launch Zend Server 8.5 instance on AWS. The process to install Zend Server is as follows:

• Go to AWS Marketplace and find “Zend Server”. Here, you will get a complete list of all available Zend Server AMIs.
  

  Several Zend Server editions and versions are available. You can go with Zend Server 6.3 along with PHP 5.3 LTS support. Here, we have chosen Zend Server 8.5 with developer edition with PHP 5.6 on Ubuntu.

• Once the Server version is selected, you will get the complete details of the selected AMI and then you can click on Continue.
• Now, you can select the type of launch method that can be used for deployment.
• To select the method; one of the easiest ways is to Launch with one click option. It is also a default option and another option is to go for manual launch. This one is an interesting option for those who wish to use advanced features like as using EC2 Console, APIs or CLI.
• One can also opt for EC2 instance type, group settings as well as SSH keypair to access the machine. After completing the entire process; go for Launch with 1 Click.

Now, the Zend Server Instance is launched on AWS. Just click on the link AWS Management Console and then click on the instances from the left menu.

Step 2: Launching Zend Server

After launching Zend Server Instance, now is the time to install Zend Server user interface. Choose the instance from the list, from the Description tab at the bottom page, then copy the public IP along with Zend Server UI port and then paste them in your browser.

Here, it is required to add instance ID when the security dialog box appears. Here, you can see Zend Server launching wizard.

After you have completed the wizard then you can click on the Finish button and the installation of Zend Server is successful. Now, you will find Zend Server Get Started Page.

Once the Zend Server instance and user interface are successfully installed then you can proceed ahead with Joomla deployment.

Step 3: Deploying Joomla

After installing Zend Server Instance and Zend Server; the next step is to deploy a sample Joomla application. Let’s say you are having a Joomla app which you wish to install on this server then for this the code can be uploaded to AWS with SSH.

To know more about the process; take a look at Sample Apps section; Here we can find sample apps that are similar to Joomla. Once you select the Joomla app; you can see Deploy application wizard and then Joomla application package will start to get downloaded from Zend Server.

Once the package is uploaded then you can proceed ahead with various deployment steps. These are the predefined stages that can be the part of application package. Hence, it is necessary to provide special attention to user parameters step. Once you select Deploy then Zend Server will start the deployment process. Now, just open the application in the browser.

Step 4: Debugging with Z ray

Once the Joomla app is successfully deployed on Zend Server that is running on AWS then Z ray will be useful to know about the software. Initially Z ray will display all the information about all the PHP elements that are useful in developing various web pages like as request information, functions, errors and warnings as well as SQL queries.

It will also provide information related to applications and frameworks based on the application we are working with. This information will be available once the Zend Plugins are installed. These plugins are available in the new Zend Gallery.

Zend Gallery is an online market place for plugins which is developed by Zend Server community. Among all the plugins available, one is Joomla plugin. It can be accessed in Zend Server UI. Once the plugin is installed; then refresh the app in the browser and then you will find a tab that is added on the right side of the bar.

If you select that app then it will open the Z ray plugin for Joomla with sufficient Joomla specific info.

• Request and Configuration: Here, the request panel provides general information on the request as well as the layout, view and components used. Talking about adjacent configuration panel shows the complete overview of Joomla configuration like as Joomla version or template.
• Modules: Joomla modules are available in this modules panel. It helps to quickly identify the module that is loaded by Joomla core irrespective of the output. The module title, position as well as content and other such modules can be easily seen.
• Events: This displays all the triggered Joomla events on the page. One can see how many times these occur as well as the arguments that they get involved with.
• Plugins: The plugin panels provide you with the list of all the provoked Joomla plugins on the page. Hence, Z ray will provide complete assistance to see the performance of every plugin on every event when used with events panel.
• Files: With this files panel; one can understand what files are used and from which directory.

Wind Up

Here, sums up the process of developing Joomla on AWS with Z ray. Hence, this will make it easy for every developer to install Joomla application on Zend Server and make use of Z ray to examine the issues and enhance the Joomla apps.

To get more such updates about Joomla, stay tuned with Softqube Technologies, offering development services at nominal rates.

When it comes to web application development, MYSQL is the most commonly used database software. Apart from this, there are certain database systems which are very popular and offer good solutions in many cases.

Here, in this blog post; we will discuss about some of the most preferable systems that can be used with PHP. We will also learn about their advantages and disadvantages.

So, let’s move ahead…

• Oracle: Oracle is relational database management system which is widely used in most of the enterprise information systems. Most of the big corporations and government bodies prefer to use oracle.This can be used on most of the platforms like as Windows, Unix, Linux as well as OS X operating systems. This represents a very complex solution. It supports many advanced features like as partitioning, offering material views and many of such index types as well as parallel queries.Oracle offers good database security measures like as brute force protection and various rules to create difficult or we can say tough passwords. It is only suitable for huge databases. Small and midsized companies that possess very small databases are asked to make most use of such simple solutions.
• Microsoft SQL Server: This is asoftware that is especially designed for business. It offers various business intelligence tools as well as enterprise data management tools. This software provides perfect assistance and contains maximum documentation.It excels in providing perfect data recovery support and in case the computer shuts down or loses power then the complete database can be easily recovered. Its price compensates the features offered. This is available only for Windows operating systems.
• IBM DB2: This is a database software solution that is available for huge databases that have workloads in bulk. It is a very cost effective system. It shows that a company can reduce the costs by 30% when it switches from Oracle to IBM D2 and a very useful advantage is it can be used on several platforms viz. Windows, Linux and Unix.However, when compared with Oracle; the later one has more features but it is very slow on bulky databases.
• Postgre SQL : It is an open source Database Management System similar to Oracle but possesses different features. This system is basically used for various gaming and data centre automation applications.It is less popular as compared to MYSQL but still it is a system that is available at less cost and has innumerable feature rich database solutions. This can be well programmed and is extensible thus allowing programmers to write custom procedures which can make execution process of complex database operations an easy task. One of the main features of this database management system is the complete support for secure transactions. Prostgre SQL is not for those who need quick operations because it is very slow as compared to other softwares.

Various other databases that can be actually used with PHP

• Cubrid
• DB++
• dBase
• Informix
• Paradox
• SQLite
• SQLite3
• SQLSRV
• Tokyo Tyrant
• mSQL
• Ovrimos SQL
• Ingres
• MaxDB
• Mongo
• FrontBase
• FireBird
• And lots more.

So, after reading this post; we can say that only MYSQL is not the only database that can be used with PHP. There are several other databases which are easily compatible with PHP and here we have included all the possible ones.

Still, there might be some that are not included in the list and are still compatible with PHP. If you are aware about any of such databases then you can easily share your experience with us and let us know something about that database.

And in case you were searching for those databases that are compatible with PHP then I hope you search might have ended here.

Wind up:

PHP is an easy to use programming language offering sufficient flexibility and hence it is mostly preferred by web developers. Expert PHP developers can help you to create amazing web applications.

So, if you are in need of any expert PHP developers who can help you to get your web application developed then stay get in touch with Softqube Technologies, PHP Development India where you will meet a team of PHP professionals who are willing to fulfill your needs.

Would you like to do any online business? Then, it is necessary to have an eCommerce Platform. This is one of the important as well as basic decisions as the entire business is dependent on the same. One must select such an eCommerce platform which offers necessary tools for managing back office.

There are thousands of eCommerce platforms available in the market and here the thing is to choose the best among these. Retailers sticking with current solutions face problems to keep up with the industry.

Due to increase in the competition, it is necessary to select right platform which leads to the success of the business. For many traders, small electronic store can be a way to promote physical store. When we have an online shop on a very difficult platform then it is impossible to get sufficient profit.

Why there’s a need for top eCommerce platform?

A perfect eCommerce platform helps you to add tools which will aid in the growth of the business. Various platforms are designed for assisting an online store up to a certain point. After that particular level, one needs a more advanced platform to handle the business.

Well known e business platforms like Shopify and Magento provide a set of additional functions which can be installed on the shop. For most of the platforms, such functions are known as extensions.

Some of the well known functions are as follows:

• Sales and Marketing
• Shipping Fulfillment
• Order Management
• Customer Service
• Accounting
• Reporting and Analysis

The accounting function can combine the online shop with accounting software that is used to maintain the complete accounts of the organization. This is the easy way to link financial data and it will save many hours of work per month thus reducing the chances of mistakes being made.

If we talk about order management then these customer orders are shifted in excel sheet and then finally returned to warehouse to ship the order. Certain extensions or we can say applications offer the function of printing labels including all the customer data along with the date on which the product is to be delivered.

With this function, online store can easily communicate with warehouse delivery centre to convey the required information. Hence, product delivery can be done easily without any hassle. There are also cases when the application combines all the data including shipping address, printing software and then the labels are printed automatically.

These tools reduce the manual labour thus making the work process quicker. When an order takes place, all of the functions are performed by itself and there’s no need of any order follow up. Such tools are important for any business that has grown to an extent.

Hence, while selecting any particular eCommerce platform it is necessary to keep in mind whether it will be able to perform all the functions easily or not.

Further, one must know few things to ensure whether an eCommerce platform is perfect or not:

1. Cost: A small business or we can say any start up may need a very small platform to cater its needs. There are various types of platforms available which one can select as per the need. Also, budget is an important thing that one must keep in mind while selecting the platform for your online business.

   Initially, it is advisable to go for free plan or any particular platform that offers free tier. Platforms like Hybris can also be considered. Such eCommerce grounds levy costs based on the proportion of sales generated by its assistance.

   For this, it is necessary to take out the estimated cost that you will be able to afford for basic software every month. This will include all the expenses like as hosting fees, payment card fees as well as transaction fees.

2. Time taken to get started: Various Software as service programmes can be used while will help to take business live within few hours. While there are other solutions available that take months to make the project live.

   So, here you must be aware how much time you need for setting up your eCommerce site as well as developing your eCommerce store. Platform is only a small part of an online business start up but it is very important as if the base is strong, the building is definitely going to be stronger.

   An online store requires product photos, descriptions, proper content for about us page, payment gateway and many more. Hence, it is advisable to identify an eCommerce solution which will be ready when the entire business is ready to be set up.

3. Will your store look attractive and have smooth functioning: Success of an online store depends on factors like store functioning as well as its look. Usually first time shoppers will trust any online business if and only if its design is good.

   Yes, we can say this may not be the right thing but actually this is the real scenario because majority people believe in the concept of ‘Seeing is Believing”. If you the layout is good, business is good and if it is bad then business may be doubtful.

   It is like the look matters a lot whether it is an offline or an online store. Well, will you love to purchase things from any shop that has broken floorings or is situated in very congested place? Definitely not, instead you will prefer to go to any showroom that is fully furnished with AC.

   Same is the case with online store. The better the look and feel, the more visits the website has and also now days, an important thing is that it must function well on mobile devices. Hence, this thing must also be borne in mind.

Wind Up

Well, these were some important things that one must keep in mind while selecting an eCommerce platform. Apart from this, there are few more factors that must be considered such as Page load, Hosting, flexibility with other solutions etc.

Hope this blog post will be useful to you. For more such tips about eCommerce platform; stay tuned with Softqube Technologies, eCommerce development Company India.

Be it education or any field, Internet is now used everywhere. People prefer to study online using internet. Today, e-learning has been the main source to get the required knowledge. Several E learning softwares are available in the market.

Here, in this blog post how well known web content management systems like Drupal can be used to develop useful learning management systems. We will also explain why Drupal is effective as compared to other content management systems.

Well, before we begin; let’s understand what exactly a Learning management system is?

What is Learning Management System?

It is a software application that is used for various documentation, administration tasks such as tracking, reporting and also for various education programmes. Some of the well known learning management systems are Black Board, Moodle and Canvas. Now, let’s understand how Drupal is useful in creating such systems.

Drupal – Well Known Web based Content Management System

Using Drupal, one can easily manage and organize the content. Various types of content can be developed, designed and administered with this content management system. Let’s see some of the benefits of using this CMS.

Benefits of Using Drupal:

1. Open source software with strong community including 10000 developers and over 6 lakh users.
2. Supports 55 languages including all the major languages of India.
3. Provides more than 15000 free modules and themes to increase functionality.
4. These are as follows:
   • Book Module
   • H5P (HTML 5 module)
   • Content Construction Kit
   • Scorm Cloud
   • LTI Tool Provider
   • Exercise Planner
   • Instant manager
   • Forum
   • Event Module
   • Course Credit
   • Drupal Distributions and more.

Why Drupal is used to develop LMS?

Several learning management systems are already available which can be used upon need. So, why should we use Drupal to develop a LMS?

Specialized LMSs offer lots of resources and require separate infrastructure to manage. These offer huge server space and are sometimes very complicated. Drupal is used by most of the universities as well as higher institutes to develop websites, intranets and other such development tasks.

With Drupal, one can get easy learning curve as compared to any other learning management system. Drupal is light in weight and take very less space. Drupal can be used to achieve anything one wants.

Be it any website, web 2.0, intranet or any kind of community based websites, discussion forums , weblog platform, content management system or anything else; drupal is used for all of the development tasks.

It’s huge community offers variety of drupal themes which support the E-learning modules. So, it is advisable to use Drupal for developing learning management systems and other such softwares.

Wind Up

Would you like to get your website developed using Drupal? Then get in touch with Softqube Technologies, Drupal Web Development Company in India. You would get amazing web applications developed at affordable costs.

For any further guidance about Drupal regarding its features, advantages and disadvantages; you can take help from experts.

For developing a creative website; there are two important things that must be borne in mind; it must have attractive as well as user friendly design and well functioning website code. A website cannot be said complete without these things.

A good website is necessary to increase the business. A good design showcases the creativity that varies in every designer. Writing proper design code requires proper knowledge about PHP, HTML, JavaScript and CSS. Most people can create a PSD file of their design however coding is a challenge.

Those who are not good at coding can use well known open source sites like WordPress. It is an open source website that helps business owners to create a website or blog without any proper coding knowledge.

However, expertise is still needed to develop a custom website using WordPress. Here, we have provided some of the steps that will be useful to transform a PSD design into a WordPress template.

Steps to develop a WordPress Template from PSD Design:

• Dividing the PSD design into different parts: An important thing is to divide the image design into different design files and every part will have a separate design component. This means every single piece of the entire design must contain some definite design.

  It is very necessary because the entire design cannot be coded in a single image. While developing the website, several images are combined together where every component and feature has its own functionality and use.

  This image is divided in editing software and Adobe Photoshop is widely preferred to do image slicing. The main thing here is to cut the image pixels properly and hence the need for software arises.

  However, some designers use graphic software that has the features like layer image creation to develop the designs which are divided in different components in the layers. This sometimes makes the slicing process outdated.

  It entirely depends on the designers and the coders as to what designs are designed dynamically and which ones are not.

• Creating index.html and style.css: Once the slicing is done then it’s the time to write the code for these sliced images. This code can be written into HTML or XHTML format and then it can be styled using CSS.

  This needs a deep knowledge of CSS and HTML. This is one of the important things for which coders use various softwares like as Dreamweaver and Firework. Any software can be used based on the developers’ choice.

  The main thing is to code the sliced images in HTML as well as CSS format having rollover effects and pixel perfect placement. CSS styles are created based on the need i.e. if the client needs responsive design then the CSS must be modified accordingly.

• The index.html file is to be now framed according to WordPress structure: Now is the actual time where a simple PSD design is to be converted into WordPress theme and adding functionality to it using various WordPress plugins and themes.

  So, here the important thing is to have a proper basic HTML file which is as per the WordPress structure. A normal WordPress theme has several PHP files like as archive.php, header.php, Footer.php, Index.php, Search.php, 404.php and lots more.

  Among these, index.php and style.css are the two main files useful to develop a WordPress theme. Here, index.html is to be converted into index.php and all other such required html files are transformed into php files.

• Adding WordPress Tags: Once the index.html file is developed as per the WordPress structure then is the time to add some amazing features to it such as WordPress tags. It is very simple. Instead of adding complex HTML codes, one can add WordPress inbuilt function tags in the theme files so that the required functionality is available.

  Several WordPress pages are to be referred to get the required WordPress tags. These are as follows:

  http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags
  http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference

  Once this step is over, then the custom theme is ready to be uploaded in the WordPress software and then it can be activated via WordPress dashboard.

Wind Up

This completes the entire process of converting a normal PSD design into WordPress template and now you can also enjoy all the benefits given by WordPress. In case you wish to add any other functionality into the website or wish to change the current functionality then there’s a need to install a simple plugin and then modify the current structure with the help of user friendly WordPress dashboard. Hence, the time is not wasted to alter the complete HTML code.

Hope this guide will be useful to all the WordPress developers as well as those who are interested in doing the process on their own. For more such guidance, stay connected with Softqube Technologies, WordPress development in India.