Web Hosting Box

E-commerce hosting is perhaps one of the most popular types of hosting plans, and is specifically designed to accommodate the requirements of online business owners. Online shops have unique needs that must be met by robust hosting plans that include a plethora of necessary components. Perhaps the most important component of an e-commerce hosting plan, which sets it apart from other types of hosting, is the site builder application included within the control panel. E-commerce hosting plans are all-inclusive solutions that include shopping carts, payment processing capabilities, product catalog creators, and comprehensive site builders. Even the most experienced and novice webmaster can successfully build a professional web store with very little effort using the site building applications included with an e-commerce hosting plan.

Creative Convenience

In years past, one would have to have significant programming skills to create a professional looking website that would be successful in soliciting new clients and marketing products and services. However, with the advent of content management systems and template-based site builders, online business owners can now take every aspect of site creation into their own hands using drag-and-drop/ point-and-click interfaces that are specifically designed to be user-friendly. With this creative convenience it is possible to continuously establish new online storefronts, with each website taking only a couple of minutes to complete.

Portraying Professionalism

The templates included within an e-commerce hosting plan have been proven to increase conversion rates and portray professionalism. In fact, it is possible to build a website less than 5 minutes, make a couple of changes to the CSS/style sheet, and have a completely unique online storefront up and running by the end of the day. Perhaps even more important than the pricing and features of your products or services are the way they are marketed. The website can have the cheapest prices online and provide the best service, but to prospective customers this means nothing if the appearance does not portray professionalism. Online shoppers are especially skeptical and are very reluctant to spend their money on websites that look like they were created by amateurs. The site building tools within an e-commerce hosting plan give you the ability to create professional product catalogs and site navigation menus that are capable of impressing any customer.

Additional Site Building Methods

Aside from the included site builder applications within the e-commerce plan, there are also simple script installation utilities that allow you to easily install content management systems on your domain. These content management systems (i.e. – WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal) are specifically designed to simplify the process of creating a website within a template-based system. After mastering the conventional site builder in your control panel, it may be beneficial to graduate to one of these more comprehensive solutions that can be enhanced and expanded upon using open source plug-ins. Content management systems like WordPress not only simplify site creation, they also enhance the capabilities of your site by adding widgets, sidebars, and other features to the site navigational menus. Content management systems also facilitate search engine optimization tasks like link building and pinging.

In this article I’ve listed a variety of ajax polls available for you free of cost and tutorials to integrate it in your websites. I’m pretty sure if you are reading this post you are already aware of the term “ajax” and “poll”, for those who don’t know, ajax is not a language in itself but a group of various related ways with which you can create dynamically updating application for users. It heavily relies on XML and JavaScript for its inner workings.

Adding a poll adds interactiveness to your website, you can know more about your visitors, take their opinions and create a type of interactiveness in your website. Adding some juice of Ajax in polls helps the polls to dynamically show the results without any refresh so the visitors does not have to leave the page they are already viewing which adds user friendliness. Also Ajax help’s you to stay away from those SEO unfriendly flash polls.

I have tried to make the list short and include only the very best available till this time:

PHP Ajax Poll Scripts available for Free

Zoki Poll

Demo | Download

WRD Poll

Demo | Download

PHP Kobo Poll

Demo | Download

PHP Classes Poll

Demo | Download

Nettuts Poll

Demo | Download

Lukewallin Ajax Poll

Demo | Download

Dracon Poll

Demo | Download

AJOX Poll

Demo | Download

AJAX Poller

Demo | Download

Smart PHP Poll

Demo | Download

There are several other free poll scripts available which i haven’t tested , Script Bank Poll, WDP Poll, and many more. If you dont need specifically requite ajax based script i’ll recommend you try CSS-Trick Poll, it has already create superb design with a tutorial.

If you are looking for some basic script or tutorial you can even try W3C Poll. It is a pretty basic poll script and if you are new to Ajax this tutorial should be best for you to understand.

Paid PHP Ajax Poll Scripts

If you need something better looking, with greater flexible admin panel and features you need to look at paid poll scripts. And in this category i only found 2 script that were worth mentioning one was for its looks other was for its features and admin customization. Other script which i tested were at par with free counterparts so i don’t think there is any need of spending extra money for those.

EZ Poll

Demo | Buy ($10)

• Cross-browser compatible
• Multi-option polls
• Time sensitive polls (start and end both optional)
• Javascript and non-javascript display options
• Custom color coded bars
• Limiting votes per day, per poll lifetime per user (IP based)

Flipper Poll

Demo | Buy ($10)

• Good Looks
• Country Recognition
• 5 different styles
• Javascript and non-javascript display options

Of these two Flipper Poll has great looks and flip animation, where as the features of EZpoll are great for its price.

Scripts For Open Source Scripts & CMS

Though this scripts can be easily integrated in anytype of opensource or paid CMS or Blogs, there are also plugins and extentions available for free for adding poll feature easily.

For WordPress there are many plugins available, i recommend Poll Daddy or  WP-Polls, a good list can be found here.

For Joomla there’s a whole list of extension available here. I have not tested them all but i have used and liked Nice Ajax Poll and Fly06 Poll.

For Drupal Advanced Poll and Ajax Poll Looks good.

For other CMS out there i recommed do a search in there addon list and i’m sure you’ll find something, else you can always integrate some opensource script mentioned earlier yourself.

Comparative Study

Before i end this article i’d like you guys to go through this comparative study pic below so you can make your decisions and have a quick overview of the scripts. Also i hope you have enjoyed the article, please post your views or any scripts if i have missed them.

DOWNLOAD COMPARISON CHART

In 2011, many unemployed individuals are looking to open-source content management system development as a source for employment. The information technology industry is slowly recuperating from the global economic recession. Unfortunately, many companies are hesitant to invest in new projects, technology and staff. However, on the Internet, there are many opportunities to develop and implement content management systems like Joomla, WordPress and Drupal.

Open source content management systems typically have the advantage of being user-friendly. However, to create that advantage, programmers must have a highly skilled technical resource. Industry professionals have seen a 40 percent increase in demand for open source content management system work like Drupal. The good news for those with Drupal technical training is the demand is there but the supply is lacking.

There are multiple roles to implementing a content management system platform which include:

• Programmer
• Front end designers/themers
• System administrators
• Site builders

Programmers create the code that powers content management systems. Most use programming languages like Ruby, Java and PHP to create components, plug-ins and modules for the content platform. Front end designers and themers center their efforts on the aesthetic features of the site. They use tools like CSS, JavaScript and HTML to improve the look and feel of the platform.

System administrators put their effort into infrastructure and platform maintenance. Typical administrators have web server skills and knowledge of the platform. Finally, site builders are experienced with the features of the system as well as the architecture. The main focus of site builders is the site configuration.

Further developing skills in these fields or any of the aforementioned programming languages will not only help you in many information technology fields, but also with the growing open source content management system industry. It is feasible to develop these skills through training and certificate programs in six months to a year. There are plenty of online courses that fulfill this need.

Another option is to focus on independent study which is of fairly low cost. Online tutorials, books and conferences that offer intensive training can be effective. All you need is time, a small amount of money and extreme discipline.

The growing open source content management system field is an excellent way to make a part-time (through freelancing) or full-time paycheck once the necessary knowledge is obtained. These types of jobs could significantly decrease the unemployment rate in the coming years.

Content management systems, also known as CMS, are powerful and robust software solutions that allow you to easily create, manage, organize, and promote websites. Professional grade e-commerce sites, personal blogs, and business portfolios can quickly be set up and marketed utilizing pre-made templates that simplify site design and put supreme creativity at the hands of even the most novice webmaster or aspiring online entrepreneur.

In years past, website owners either needed extensive web development skills and programming knowledge, or the funds to invest in outsourcing these tasks to a professional developer or an Internet technology team. Fortunately, with the development of content management systems like WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal, even the most inexperienced website owner can enjoy the following three productivity boosting attributes.

Diverse Development & Design

Content management systems are open source server-side software, which means they are constantly updated and improved by an open community of web developers that routinely enhance the functionality and capabilities of the CMS. This community of developers is constantly expanding, with each new member being a possible creator of a new theme or plugin.

Themes, also known as templates, are premade designs that can be instantly applied to every page on a website, without changing the content or backend administration settings of the site. The diverse development community and subsequent ongoing creation of new templates allows website owners to quickly and easily change the look and feel of the site, with minimal effort and risk. By greatly reducing the amount of time that it takes to build and fully design a website, content management systems effectively eliminate the usual temporal restrictions of site development.

Ongoing Organization

After facilitating the creation of the website, the content management system can then be used to continually maintain ongoing organization, by giving the site owner the ability to quickly and easily create site categories, product catalogs, and other administrative interfaces within the control panel. With a content management system you can quickly access old posts, as well as edit them, and move them to different areas of the site. You can also get a better overall picture of how the site will look when it’s finished by using the preview feature that is included within the publishing module of nearly every major content management system.

Entrepreneurial Expansion

The same open source development community that is primarily responsible for creating new templates and themes for content management systems, also regularly contributes to the ever-expanding plugin library. Content management system plugins allow you to instantly change and improve the functionality of the CMS administrative interface by adding new modules and features. By utilizing a CMS that has a large repository of plugins available at the moment, you can ensure that the capabilities of your website and administrative interface are not limited in any way. Installing plugins within a content management system is typically a simple process that can be completed in under 2 minutes with a couple of clicks of the mouse.

Creating static websites and changing the content can be difficult and time consuming. A Content Management System or CMS can be used to make this much easier. CMS systems have become increasingly popular because they make it very simple to adjust the contents on your site without needing to change the code or other settings, nor do they require that the webmaster possess coding related knowledge.

What is a CMS?

A CMS is also known as a Content Management System. This is a very popular piece of software which can be installed on your website. Common examples include Joomla, Microsoft SharePoint, WordPress.

Change Content Without Changing Code

CMS are very useful for websites because it makes it possible for anyone to edit the content. Not everyone who wants a website will be able to edit the code themselves. By using a CMS it’s possible to allow anyone to easily change the information on the website

Fast

Simply changing a small spelling error or piece of information would normally involve changing the website offline and then uploading the files again via FTP This is very time consuming. It’s much faster and easier if you change the details utilizing a CMS package, as there is no need to re-upload the site files once again.

You may also perform modifications without waiting for a web developer to make the changes you request at additional fees.

Cheaper

Designing a CMS might initially be slightly more expensive than a static website. However, actually maintaining it will be much cheaper. You will not require any special skills to maintain the website.

Better Control

Another reason why CMS software is very popular is because it gives people much better control over websites. It’s easy to write content and then save this as a draft. Additionally it possible to control who can write and who can approve content. It also ensures that all content is approved before being posted on your website.

Growth and Expansion

CMS makes it simple to keep track of all the pages on your website regardless of how many you add. This means that you can minimize the risk of any errors affecting your website.