Month: March 2006

ip:Hostmaster shopping cart systems

The folks over at ip:Hostmaster needed a shopping cart for their new website and asked me to create it. They had some specific requirements:

  • fast and easy to use
  • easy to integrate into the ip:Hostmaster site
  • interface with ip:Hostmaster’s payment gateway provider

Shopper Experience:
ip:Hostmaster, just put something in my cart, (screenshot)

When a shopper adds an item to his or her cart they are notified with a simple Javascript pop-up window. There is no other page to go to, nothing else to distract the shopper from his or her shopping experience.

Looking in my shopping cart, (screenshot)

At any time a shopper can view his or her cart contents and make changes to it. In this case, since we’re dealing with web hosting, the shopper can specify the domain name to be hosted by each hosting package.

Go see ip:Hostmaster.

Windows Live beta

So, I’ve been using Windows Live mail and messenger for just over a week now and I must say I’m impressed, especially by the mail component. There is now a preview pane in for mail messages and E-mail management is MUCH faster than it was in the old Hotmail.

The other day Microsoft did an update as that made mail even better, you can now choose the layout, (I really prefer to have my preview pane below my list of messages, as opposed to beside it), among other things. Now, if only Windows Live mail worked in Firefox it would be perfect, (well, at least pretty good), and they do say that they’re working on it.

As for Windows Live messenger, I’m indifferent. When I first downloaded it it was terrible. Since the update, however it’s better. The icons have been re-added so I can see the status of my contacts properly however I am no longer able to tell how many contacts in each group are online, {ie: Family (4/6)}. I’d like that back. My other gripe is the videobox at the bottom. When I click a video to watch it instead of playing it right there it opens my default web browser, (Firefox), and sends me to a page telling me to use Internet Explorer.

Conclusion: The updates are good, especially the mail update which was long overdue. Now they just have to make it all work pretty well accross all browsers.