Monthly Archives: October 2013

Walking the walk with Drupal Commerce

When a fair chunk of your household income is dependent on an eCommerce solution, any decision to make changes should not be taken lightly. bump_delivery_final1 (2)The online gifts business my wife established in 2008 has grown steadily through the recession of the last 4 years and the eCommerce website I built for it originally has been surprisingly and thankfully very robust. It was built using Joomla with the Virtuemart shopping cart module on a $3/month hosting package from Siteground.  There has only been one small outage on the hosting service during this time and only occasional minor issues with the website itself.  We have very much taken a ‘if it ain’t broke don’t try to fix it’ approach.

However, as the business has grown, ambitions have expanded and the online world evolved in new directions such as mobile and social media, the limitations of the Virtuemart solution, in particular, have become more and more apparent. Also, as eCommerce development is central to what I offer in my fledgling consultancy business – Webwiser, I feel it would be hypocritical for me to recommend a solution to fellow business owners and entrepreneurs that I wouldn’t be prepared to stake my own livelihood on.

I first started experimenting with Drupal Commerce in late 2011 and since then there have been some significant developments … Continue reading →

Lean, green and keen at Grand Designs Live

GDL_kevin3If you watched Gogglebox this week – the programme that watches people watching TV that currently follows the latest series of Grand Designs in the schedules – then the most memorable comments came from the posh couple who watch their telly in their 17 bedroom mansion through an alcoholic haze. In a hilarious moment Dominic observed that the long black gloves worn against a black dress by one of the characters in Downton Abbey made her look like she was missing most of her arms. In a not so hilarious moment Stephanie described Kevin McCloud as an ‘arse’.

Kevin McCloud is a personal hero of mine since watching the first series of Grand Designs back in 1999 and so I was suitably offended on his behalf. Two days later I came face to face with the man himself on the opening day of Grand Designs Live at Birmingham’s NEC.

The first encounter was while waiting at the entrance to the event with a vast crowd eager for the show to open. A giant image of Kevin stares down at you as you enter a calming blue tunnel to the atrium of the event from where you can choose to explore the wonders of Build, Interiors, Bathrooms, Kitchens, Gardens and Technology each of which was guaranteed to bombard the senses with grand and beautiful designs and some very clever ideas.

Continue reading →