News

Improved Corporate Class Inc.'s downloadable file purchases, Captcha protected forms, and integration with Constant Contact API

April 7, 2010

The original Zen Cart based solution did not support password protected file downloads. As per client's request the admin can now specify a username, password, and a file location for each downloadable file. Due to the monolithic plug-in architecture of Zen Cart this new functionality could not be packaged into a self-contained plug-in.

The hosting provider had also temporarily disabled access to mailing servers due to countless email injection attacks originating from Corporate Class Inc.'s site. It is unfortunate that the web programmers working previously for this client were not aware of the most basic security issues. We had to ensure that the information inserted in various forms on the site was cleaned up properly before being inserted into emails. ReCaptcha was also added to all the forms to prevent automatic submission by bots.

Our final task was to connect all newsletter subscription forms directly to Constant Contact which the client uses for managing newsletter subscriptions and mailing. Constant Contact provides a nice API, so we integrated this functionality on the site's backend. Now the client no longer has to manually add new newsletter subscriptions.

See: Corporate Class Inc. Website

Future Global Leadership Now Supports Cyrillic

March 4, 2010

There was an urgent request to add a Serbian-Cyrillic version of the content to the Future Global Leadership website. It was kind of redundant to add Serbian-Cyrillic content to the site, since Serbian-Latin was already in place and because the character mapping between the two alphabets is 1:1. However, because Serbian-Cyrillic is considered to be the true Serbian alphabet, a lot of the visitors wanted a truly Serbian version of the content made available on the site.

There were 2 options: One was to treat Serbian-Cyrillic as a completely new language and manually take all the existing text written in Serbian-Latin, run it through some sort of an offline Latin-to-Cyrillic converter, and copy the result back into to the site. This would obviously create a large overhead in terms of maintaining content, because now we would have three languages to maintain (English, Serbian Latin, Serbian Cyrillic), instead of just one.

So we decided it would be best to go with the second option: Build a Latin-to-Cyrillic convertor into the website backend, and when Serbian-Cyrillic is selected, fetch the content in Serbian-Latin, run it through the convertor, and then render it to the user. This meant no extra overhead when adding or updating content. Of course it was more involved in terms of development and testing, but the end result was a long term solution which can be reused for future content and websites.

See: Future Global Leadership Website

Future Global Leadership Website Launched

January 25, 2010

Using PHP & Symfony as a platform for rapid application development the content from the existing site was extracted and turned into an easy to manage CMS solution.

The website supports multilingual content, includes an XHTML compliant WYSIWYG editor, and can be easily extended in the future.

By building on top of open source technologies (Linux, PHP, Apache, Symfony, etc.), the client is never tied down to only one vendor.

See: Future Global Leadership Website

Integrated CMS into the New Meadowlands Stadium Website

January 13, 2010

After a successful launch in November, our team was engaged in completing the second phase of the project. The main requirement here was the ability to administer key parts of the website using a CMS.

Symfony was used to build this CMS since it can easily integrate into an existing PHP website without requiring all the content to be migrated to the new CMS.

A module was created for each part of the website that was meant to be administered (News, Events, Banners, etc.) in a standalone administrator website to ensure maximum security.

The client was very happy with the ease of use of the new CMS and the fast turnaround time.

See: New Meadowlands Stadium Website

New Meadowlands Stadium Website Launched

November 6, 2009

After the original contractor left the website half finished, we took on the responsibility to implement the remaining changes and launch the website.

Considering that the new Meadowlands Stadium (for which the website was built) is the second largest NFL stadium, a lot of attention was giving to the tiniest of details.

The site was not only made compatible with all the major browsers (FF, IE6/7/8, Opera, Safari, Chrome), but also made accessible to those who are visually impaired.

Much programming was also done using ActionScript3 in Flash and JavaScript, as there were a couple of unique interactive components that enhanced the overall user experience on the website (e.g. Godzillas at the top of the page).