FCS Websites recently launched another of our heavily customised Zen Cart shops for a Nottingham business selling organic skincare, jewellery and baby products. The front end templates have been completely changed, social networking links and attractive icons added and the admin system has our Paramita theme applied to make it more pleasant to use.

We have had great feedback on the modified system and have recently added lightbox style popups for information links instead of standard pop up windows. With all these modifications made, Zen Cart is able to compete with commercial shopping cart systems in terms of usability and attractiveness – a far cry from the standard templates which came from the 1990s!

This is what makes our Zen Cart ecommerce sites a cut above the rest – customised templates, bespoke designs and a much more usable control panel. Contact FCS Websites to get a quote on a new or upgraded Zen Cart.

Ferret’s Domain is now running on WordPress 3, which seems like a significant increase in smoothness since the last version. All the plugins I use carried on working much to my relief.

I’ve also been checking out theme frameworks. This month I have seen:

WooThemes
commercial framework and template – extremely slick and transforms the control panel/front end. Uses the 960GS grid system CSS framework. Very high attention to detail and the admin interface is very pleasing. The front of the site was changed to an events based format, which really impressed me.

Atahualpa
Difficult to spell, very easy to use, free and everything can be dealt with from the control panel with no file editing required. SEO improvements over a standard WordPress install. Atahualpa saved me some serious hours on a client project this week so comes highly recommended.

Thesis
Commercial, very powerful framework that allows you to replace anything in your WordPress install with a different layout or coding. Good for SEO too. Probably a bit over the top for most projects, and a more flexible CMS would possibly be better in some cases.

BuddyPress
Install WordPress with Buddypress and you have a ready made social network in about 5 minutes. Seriously impressed with Buddypress, which saved me hours of customising a normal WordPress install. Good community behind it too, so a big thumbs up.

Our first Trading Eye shop was completed and launched this week for Bolton based homeopathic remedy suppliers The Natural Remedy Company. It is hosted on our green web hosting and features a completely rebuilt front page from the Trading Eye default along with a custom programmed “Product Finder”.

The system was easy to install, great to style using CSS and very easy for the client to use in the control panel. Trading Eye includes a ton of features that make it easy to develop and use – we liked it so much FCS Websites is now a Trading Eye reseller! We have two more Trading Eye ecommerce sites in production at the moment – both launching very soon.

The Web 2.0 Surgery is a FREE drop-in event in Nottingham where independent businesses, freelancers and community groups can get advice from web experts on developing a new or existing website. The project has already helped a start-up business to sell online, a charity to use social networks for free promotion and a performance group to use live web video streaming to engage with audiences.

Web 2.0 Surgery celebrated its first birthday in June, and also moved to the Broadway Mezz bar which offers a great range of beers and food. As it’s on a Wednesday, you can also take advantage of their Orange Wednesday 2-for-1 film offers and great film and food special offers too.

Future events are as follows – no need to book, just turn up!

Wednesday 14th July, 5.15-6.45pm
Wednesday 11th August, 5.15-6.45pm
Wednesday 8th September 5.15-6.45pm

Mezze Lounge, Broadway Cinema
14-18 Broad Street, Nottingham, NG1 3AL

Website: http://www.web20surgery.co.uk/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/web20surgery

Last night’s web industry social event Second Wednesday was the busiest ever with 26 Nottingham web geeks nestled into our new venue at the Broadway media centre Mezz bar. Derek O’Brien gave a great talk about HTML5, CSS3 – what it is, how it works and where we can use it (slides and source files here). Broadway don’t offer Erdinger, so Staropramen may well become the new Official Beer of Second Wednesday

We also discussed potential hash tags for Twitter and #2w is looking favourite so far. Our account is http://twitter.com/secondwednesday. The new Second Wednesday website is now live too at http://www.secondwednesday.org.uk/

Join us next month for a talk by Alexia Leachman on personal branding and clearing your “Head Trash”!

Second Wednesday (June 2010) at Broadway Mezz bar Nottingham - photo by Nick Walker