This is a question I have been asking myself for a very long time, and even now more so than ever.
What platform should I build my e-Commerce site in?
In this post today, I will be researching the two e-Commerce platforms and detail my findings here, and there will be a lot of copy pasting from multiple sources.
WOOCOMMERCE - WORDPRESS
It is a popular plugin created for WordPress.
Out of the box, Woo Commerce isn’t as powerful as Magento but there are plenty of really good plugins available to meet additional requirements, including:
Very easy to install and configure
Highly customisable
Backend management and reporting is very easy and simple to operate, without the knowledge of any coding
Products and categories are easy to add and manage
It’s one of the most secured eCommerce solutions (and has been approved by Sucuri Security)
Search engine friendly
Some of the disadvantages and considerations include:
Frequently large updates may cause a significantly lower version to break your site
Some extensions come from third parties, and don’t have great support
Some extensions are also little pricey
WooCommerce is a perfect system for small to medium-sized online retailers, and of course for any developer or business that is already familiar with the WordPress interface.
If you’re starting out, then WooCommerce is definitely the place to start, as it’s very simple to use, however it does lack functionalities that may be beneficial for an enterprise eCommerce solution.
MAGENTO
Magento is the most popular eCommerce solution for most online shopping stores – mainly because the platform offers a lot of flexibility and customization. Like WordPress, Magento is open source, which means it allows developers to easily customize the look and functionality as required.
Magento development requires a higher level of coding skills, which means you need some experience with programming in order to setup your website. As a result, development costs can get expensive because of the complexities involved with customization.
There are many themes available to purchase for Magento, but like all websites, we always encourage clients to build a customized design from scratch – to create the ultimate experience for users.
Here are some of the main features and benefits of the Magento platform:
Open Source Solution – you can host Magento on your own server, however it’s recommended you try and find a Magento hosting specialist
Develop highly-creative and responsive web designs – Magento has great flexibility with all templates and themes
A large number of payment gateways and shipping options can be included – including integration with major Australian banks and Australia Post
It has a really good product and order management system – there are good bulk uploading features available to help manage catalogs
Good marketing and promotional tools – includes related products, coupons, multi-tier pricing and product bundles
Search engine friendly – ‘out of the box’ Magento needs a little configuration, however it’s very search engine friendly
Manage multiple stores from the same account – this makes multiple websites easier to manage centrally
Larger retailers and international brands choose Magento because it offers a stack of ‘out of the box’ features that can be enhanced with plenty of third-party apps and modules. It also provides endless possibilities for future growth.
What action would you take when your analytics showed a significant drop in visitors?
I've started off today to look into SEO for an e-commerce store which I recently started to be a part of. I started off with improving on-page SEO, which roughly includes the following:
Content
Title, description, and keywords tag
URL
Image ALT
Have you heard of the phrase "content is king" ? Well, it certainly is but successful content marketing is not simply about creating content, but creating content that will benefit readers. You will notice when you start creating good in-depth content you will see a boost in traffic from long-tail searches.
Content that drives traffic are practical, useful and valuable to the reader.
is interesting to read
is in-depth and well written
solves a problem
is written with the reader in mind
is optimized for high volume keyword
is easy to share
Content is the factor that creates a line of communication between you and customers. So effective communication increases customer retention and brand awareness by 90%.
Content that drives traffic makes everyone happy
Do you take meta tags seriously? Although effects of tags on SEO has changed a lot over several years, it is still a good practice to give attention to them.
The titles tag define the title of a web page. They are usually used to display snippets of your web page, especially when people searches on big G. It should be short, clear and descriptive. Ideal length is 50 - 50 characters otherwise it will be clipped by G in search results.
Meta description is another significant tag where many searchers visit a site based on what was written in the tag. It is also used by search engines to tell what topic you are writing about and show it to relevant audiences, so make it descriptive and not more than 160 characters.
Ideally ...
Be hyper-relevant to a specific topic (usually a product or a single object)
include subject in the title tag
include subject in URL
include subject in image alt text
specify subject several times throughout text content
Provide unique content
Link back to its category page
Link back to its sub-category page (if applicable)
Link back to its homepage (website logo image link at the top should do it)
In conclusion, the site should be ready before starting to build authority inbound links (backlinks), because the foundation is what matters most when it comes to SEO. Always study Google webmaster tools and analytics, as both will educate us on what our ideal customers truly want from our site.
B2B and B2C marketers are starting to realize the need to implement basic SEO practices.
So here's a reminder for myself and you my readers to commit ourselves to the process, not just to the results we’re after.
OK, so although this isn't new, but I finally managed to disable the Ads in Skype that appears on top of chat windows, or any other Ad that appears in Skype for that matter. *happy face*
Instructions as follows (Windows Users):
Open Internet Options (Accessible through Control Panel)
Switch to the Security tab.
Click on the Restricted Sites icon, and click on the Sites button.
Type the following into the text box and then click the Add button:
On 10th August 2013, JCIKK and SLAMPTEA joint hands to organize a charity dinner to raise funds for TOLUMIS Care Centre. The dinner was a blast. The team organized so many entertainments, including a magic show, and performance from 3 local artists.
Overall, I had fun running around getting people to buy lucky draw tickets. Yes, lucky draw tickets. It was a last minute decision to do away with using the dinner tickets for lucky draw, instead, we came up with a decision to sell tickets for lucky draw, which costs RM10 each. So the more tickets you buy, the more chances you get. :D
So, most people would buy a few, around 5 to 10 tickets, but there are some who bought hundreds! Thanks to those who bought hundreds, because whether you won anything or not, all proceedings go to charity.
The planning part was fun, because I got to be acquainted with many people, especially the committee members from SLAMPTEA.
It was a blessing that we met Datuk James Hwang, who sponsored a 2 acre land to the Care Centre, along with many other sponsors who contributed generously. Utmost hratitude to them. Coincidentally perhaps, when we were scheduled to meet Datuk James Hwang in Karamunsing Complex, Datuk TC Goh was also there. Datuk James sat down with Datuk Goh and they discussed and an agreement was made that Datuk TC Goh would help TOLUMIS Care Centre be registered with the government as an official charitable organization. Double blessing!
Datuk James Hwang presenting his contribution to Madam Ching, patron of TOLUMIS Care Centre
Datuk Dr Yee Moh Chai (our Guest of Honor) being presented a token of appreciation from TOLUMIS
Our Co-Organizing Chairman, Jeff Lu, along with the members of the organizing committee
JCI Mem. Christina and I
Apparently the only photo of myself throughout the function, excluding the group photo at the end
Awesome members of JCIKK: EK, IPP 2013 Charles, Jin Yao, Aldric (left to right)
Members and Past Presidents of JCIKK
With JCIKK 2013 President Vitalis in front
I regretted not taking enough pictures of my own though, but I'm fortunate that my very good friend was there, going everywhere, playing with his very high tech camera.
Attended the 10th ASC 2013 signing ceremony at JCI KK's secretariat together with National president Kim, NEVP Safarina, President Vitalis, and witnessed by Florencia, JCI Penampang president, members n PP.
Web server was hacked multiple times for 2 weeks now. A few sites were compromised and resulted in multiple incidents of hosting account being suspended.
Conducted a clean install for a suspected site that might have malicious codes hidden in a script, which provided the culprits a backdoor to play with.
Hopefully this will eliminate all malicious attempts to compromise the site.
So, I've been very busy lately, trying to catchup with my work. Just recently completed my poster for the UMS Research & Innovation Awards 2012. Tomorrow is my meeting with my supervisor, and I need to prepare him a few things, as well as get my semester registration information and cash ready cos tomorrow is the last day I could find time to register.
My mom came back from Kuala Lumpur and brought back some really nice photos of my baby niece :D together with some snacks. Well, good luck to my brother and his studies and thanking him for the pants he bought for me.
Will be leaving for Labuan on Friday for JCI Area Sabah team building camp. Will be back on Sunday, which is also Palm Sunday. Hopefully there will be Catholics in the camp so we can go to Mass together. My dad has also commissioned me to write an entry for Catholic Sabah, for publishing on Easter Sunday. Hope I could finish it on time.
Cant wait for another round of golf practice and fishing trip!
Note to self:
Add supervisor application form.
Experiment parameter list.
Papparoti China site
other planned projects!
Reminder for camp:
Air mattress / sleeping bag
Insect repellent
Shower gear
Plastic bag
Here is a sneakpeak of the poster I just completed
About 2 weeks ago, I was invited to submit an extended paper of the HIS 2011 conference paper I recently published last December in Melacca, to be considered for submission in one of the various Journals. I decide to go for it, and today is the deadline for submission.
I added a new set of experiments conducted using the Generation 2 Sigmoid Neural Network, and discussed about it as a benchmark for the Spiking Neural Network (SNN). Results are very good, if you ask me, as the Sigmoid NN performed poorer than the SNN in terms of computation load and time taken to improve itself. As after 1000 generations, the SNN still performed better. Albeit not much difference in the easiest track, but showed significant difference in the more difficult track.
Gosh, it took me so long to format the paper, but I managed. I used the IEEE Trans. and Journal paper format for it. The final product is 8 pages long :D and I'm satisfied with it.
Now, off to start on my UMS Research & Innovation Award 2012 poster! Hope to get it done by next week. Wish me luck.
Oh and my brother is going to Kuala Lumpur for his Bachelor's degree. My mom will go with him to settle school fees, accommodation and other stuff, soit'll just be my dad and I this weekend.
So, I'm currently serving in the mandarin CFC Christian Life Program (CLP), held in Good Shepherd Church, Menggatal. The program started on Thursday, March 15 until Sunday.
Gosh, the program is taking up my time. I have to complete the HIS 2011 extended Special Issue paper by March 20, 2012, but I have so many things to do in the CLP. *Chuckles*
Having less time to complete my paper aside, I've got so little chance to mingle around with the participants. What a challenge I'm having, which is cool by the way. At least I have some new friends that could keep me company. They are still young though, 14 to 19 years old in age, and Stephen just achieved 11As for SPM!! Congratulations to him!
As a brief introduction to what the CLP is all about, I will just quote Couples For Christ's Wiki:
The Christian Life Program (CLP) is an integrated course of Couples for Christ intended to lead the program participants into a renewed understanding of God's call to them as Christian couples. It runs for a total of 13 separate sessions, usually held once a week. Most sessions consist of three basic ingredients: a teaching, a group discussion, and a time for fellowship. Each session would normally last for about 2 1/2 hours. CFC holds the CLP for free; the only investment required of the participants is their time and openness.
The CLP has two basic purposes: evangelism and spiritual renewal.
To evangelize is to take the basic message of Christianity and proclaim it anew so that those who hear it can make a renewed commitment to the Lord in a way which will allow them to receive a fuller experience of the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
Spiritual renewal works in three ways:
For the individual, it brings a person into a stronger relationship with God by discovering and living more fully the power and gifts he or she received through the Holy Spirit.
For the family, it brings married couples to a renewed commitment to Christian family Life and it starts to build up a community of committed Christian families.
For the Church, it brings people within a particular parish to a fuller experience of life in the Spirit. Consequently it strengthens and revitalizes community life in the parish.
There you have it. For the full description of the CLP, you can click on this link here: CFC Christian Life Program
Busy busy, got to go back to work. Be posting some pictures soon. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, here is a video of Fr. David's address to everyone present at the CLP (It is in Hakka by the way).
Affirmations are positive thoughts or statements about some outcome you wish to achieve, such as wealth, success, or health. Instead of negative self-talk, you can use positive daily affirmations to direct what your focus will be. You can conquer your past and present fears, and enjoy your present or create the future by affirmation. Affirmations redirect your values, help formulate goals, or prepare you for situations, whenever or wherever they may occur.
You can say your positive daily affirmations silently or aloud to yourself. Repetition of affirmations will also counteract negative thoughts that may stream through your mind, automatically sometimes. You may write affirmations on a card ─ carried in your pocket, taped to a mirror, or placed where it is always visible to you. Repeat your positive affirmations at intervals throughout your day, to reinforce the positive belief and to maintain a positive state of mind.
It takes constant practice to focus on an affirming thought. Initially, you may not find it easy to hear the affirmation above the internal noise of negative thoughts and feelings. Given enough time, however, you can change most of the basic ideas about yourself by positive daily affirmations.
Positive Daily Affirmations Video
How To Develop Your Own Postive Daily Affirmations?
Self-developed affirmations (the ones you compose yourself) are the most effective positive daily affirmations. If you couple them with clearly defined written goals and applied faith, their power is unlimited.
To be truly effective, you must write your own affirmations and believe in them; they must have a profound impact on you emotionally. Your firm belief that what you are affirming is possible is crucial, because once you start believing that something is possible, it becomes probable. Without that firm belief, further repetition of your affirmations will just be futile. An affirmation should be a belief in yourself. The desires and dreams that your mind can conceive bear seeds of possibility, and possibilities ultimately become realities.
The emotional dimension of each affirmation should never be overlooked. When you can actually ‘feel' your affirmation, not just utter or read them, their total impact increases immensely. The written affirmations (thus your goals) must ignite an emotional reaction in you, else they simply fall flat.
You should state your positive daily affirmations in the present tense, that is, use "I am..." rather than "I will be..." Saying things in the present tense will program your subconscious mind to believe that what you affirm is already fact. When the subconscious believes that, it will start arranging for bringing what you affirm to you. In other words, the subconscious will drive you to perform the actions needed to live out what you affirm; and, acting thus, you will create the circumstances that make them actually happen for you.
Another important guideline in formulating your affirmations is to write them in the positive state. Many people have the tendency to write affirmations in the negative state ─ which immediately defeats the purpose and the effectiveness of the affirmation. Affirmations written from the negative perspective will never work.
When you convince yourself not to follow certain behaviour, you only bring yourself from the negative to neutral, but there is no movement forward to the positive. When you underscore the positive, you automatically start from a positive note, and you naturally shift your mind-set to forward-looking, positive thinking.
Abundance Affirmations
I am wealthy and abundant
Positive Daily Affirmations for Abundance
All the things I want and need come to me.
I always receive more than what I need.
I have a bank account with more than enough.
I am an abundant person.
I create abundance in all that I say and do.
I accept abundance.
I welcome, and am open to receive all abundance that comes.
I draw abundance to myself today and every day.
Success Affirmations
I am Successful
Positive Daily Affirmations For Success
Examples of positive daily affirmations for success include:
I am successful.
Everything I do turns into success.
I am filled with success.
Success comes effortlessly to my direction.
My success is contagious, other people like it, seek it and respect it.
I attract positive-minded people to me; I draw all things positive to myself.
I am very fortunate to work at what I love to do.
I make powerful and enjoyable business relationships and many of my business contacts are now my friends.
Relationship Affirmations
I have happy relationships.
Positive Daily Affirmations For Relationships
Examples of positive daily affirmations for relationships include:
I am a confident and positive person, and confident and positive persons gravitate toward me everyday.
I know who I obviously am and what I like in personal relationships.
I am attracting powerfully positive and healthy people into my life.
I am caring, smart, supportive, loyal, and fun to be with.
I feel completely at ease and comfortable with all types of people.
I am winning in all my relationships.
I am a positive and valuable contributor to my relationships.
I possess complete ability to articulate my thoughts and feelings to everyone, and I express myself wisely.
Self Esteem Affirmations
Positive Daily Affirmations For Self Esteem
Examples of positive daily affirmations for self esteem include:
I am sure of my ability to do what is necessary to improve my life.
If I make mistakes, I am able to give myself the benefit of the doubt.
I feel basically worthy as a person.
I am able to take risks and try new things without fear.
I feel good about the way I do my job.
I feel about myself pretty much what others think of me.
I have compassion for myself and the way my life has developed.
I am deserving of all the good things in my life.
Health Affirmations
I am healthy
Positive Daily Affirmations For Health
Examples of positive daily affirmations for health include:
I am glowing with health and wholeness.
I behave in ways that promote my health more every day.
I deserve to be in perfect health.
I am highly motivated to exercise my body because I find exercise as fun.
I love nutritious healthy food, and I enjoy eating fresh fruits and vegetables.
I am healthy since my practices are healthy.
I let go of the past so I can create health now.
I create health by expressing love, understanding and compassion.
Put Careful Thought Before Affirming
I am intelligent and know what I want.
Additional Considerations For Positive Daily Affirmations
Because your experience will create the conditions that allow affirmations to manifest, word the affirmations carefully to make them crystal-clear. State your real, innermost desires and articulate your most expansive sense of self. Affirmations based on a narrow self-concept deliver results that fall short, cause suffering, and further diminish the sense of self.
Be deliberate in your affirmations. Spontaneous thoughts voiced out in an intense emotional state may produce undesirable effects, so consider many possible alternatives before choosing the affirmation to silently intone. Silent affirmations are more effective than spoken statements, because they entail more intensity of concentration and resonate through your entire body instead of in your surroundings.
Link your affirmations to actual daily actions to lay the ground for their manifestation. For instance, affirming that you will win the lottery can only be set in motion when you play in it.
Find a way to make it easy for you to do positive daily affirmations. You may find that it is not a habit for you to make these statements on a regular basis. To circumvent this problem, I have been using Subliminal Power, a software that sits on my PC, flashing out subliminal affirmations subtlely as I work. I figured this to be a better solution for me than using an audio, since I am on the PC more often and am not in the habit of listening to a music CD.
You can of course, choose to do a screensaver, using powerpoint slides, with all your positive affirmations in there. This is how my husband does his, on his laptop.
However, I feel that the effect is different. My affirmations get flashed unobstructively on my screen as I work, whereas my husband only gets to see his list of affirmations when he is not on his keyboard for a couple of minutes.
Below is our recommended list of basic and affordable survival supplies:
Survival Food and Water-Long-lasting and good-tasting
Water purification-tablets or filter
Rechargeable waterproof flashlight
Long-lasting candle
Multi-function survival whistle
Mini radio
Lighter and waterproof matches
Emergency sleeping bag or blankets
Emergency Poncho
Survival Knife
Rope
Signal mirror
Extra medication and eyeglasses
Dust Mask
Hygiene Kit-alcohol pads, toiletries, etc
First Aid Kit and Guide
Plastic garbage bags
Survival Guidebook
Notepad and pencil
Maps of your State and the US
Again keep in mind that this is a basic affordable survival supply list. It is often much cheaper to just purchase a commercial survival kit and add extra emergency survival items you think you may need.
So, I just got back from presenting my paper at the HIS 2011 conference in Melacca. What a trip!
Arrived at KL and took a shuttle bus to KL Sentral. Took a LRT ride to Tmn Bahagia, where Michael was waiting for me. Thank God for good friends. I had a pleasant stay with him at his place for the week while I was at KL.
Received many opportunities from this trip. Met Samantha Ong and had dinner with her. Mentioned about Junior Chambers International (JCI) and she helped us spoke to Terry about it so we could join. Leong Seng Tat, from JCI E-Metro KL called and met with us. He called a member from JCI Kota Kinabalu, forwarded me to them, and gave them my cell umber to reach me. My uncle has also asked us to build his company's site. Apart from that, Michael and I registered our company, NinetyEight Solutions.
Although at the conference, no one asked me any questions besides the session coordinator. I was hoping for some criticism but received none. What a disappointment. haha.
METHOD 3: Payment by wire transfer (For Local Participants Only):
Please send the payment instruction to BIMBMYKL by SWIFT with the following details: Payment amount: Please mention the exact amount. Please pay all costs/bank transfer fees etc, so that the conference account gets the full amount. Reimbursement instruction: HIS 2011 and paper ID
Beneficiary bank's name: Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad (Cawangan Bandar Melaka)
Beneficiary bank's address: No. 50, Jalan Cempaka 1, Taman Cempaka, Peringgit, 75400 Melaka, Malaysia. Benificiary's account number: 04-015-01-004888-6 Benificiary's name: Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka
So, the registration fee for the HIS 2011 conference in Melacca is $400 ≈ RM1240
Sign Copyright form
Revise paper:
Add a flow chart the size of Fig.2
Take out unnecessary citations.
Put Fig 3 & 9 can be put together, and smaller.
Comparisons will be done in future work.
Below are the comments I received from my reviewers of the paper, which I recently submitted to HIS 2011.
PAPER: 159
TITLE: Evolutionary Spiking Neural Networks as Racing Car Controllers
AUTHORS: Elias Yee and Jason Teo
REVIEW 1
OVERALL RATING: 1 (weak accept)
REVIEWER'S CONFIDENCE: 4 (expert)
How relevant is this manuscript for HIS 2011 attendees? Please explain under Public Comments:: 4 (good)
Is the manuscript technically sound? Please explain your answer under Public Comments:: 4 (good)
How would you rate the organization of the manuscript? Is it focused? Is the length appropriate for the topic?: 3 (fair)
Please rate the readability of the manuscript. Explain your rating under Public Comments below:: 3 (fair)
This paper employs evolutionary programming to improve the control of open racing car simulator. It is interesting.
However, several revisions should be done. First, lots of cited references are lost in reference list, such as Figueira and Roque (2011), Vázquez and Garro (2011), Daun-Gruhn and Büschges (2011), Munoz, Gutierrez, and Sanchis (2010), and Jakobsen (2007).
Secondly, please clearly introduce of your models and provide some necessary figures or flowchart with some essential brief explanation vis-à-vis the text to understand the implementing procedure.
Finally, please provide some necessary comparison among the proposed model and other alternatives.
REVIEW 2
OVERALL RATING: 2 (accept)
REVIEWER'S CONFIDENCE: 2 (medium)
How relevant is this manuscript for HIS 2011 attendees? Please explain under Public Comments:: 4 (good)
Is the manuscript technically sound? Please explain your answer under Public Comments:: 4 (good)
How would you rate the organization of the manuscript? Is it focused? Is the length appropriate for the topic?: 4 (good)
Please rate the readability of the manuscript. Explain your rating under Public Comments below:: 4 (good)
Below is the copy-pasted text from the document "izhikevich and ffnn.docx"
Reason for pasting it here is so that I could delete that doc file and refer to the text here.
Abstract
The Izhikevich spiking neural network model is investigated as a method to develop controllers for a simple, but not trivial, car racing game, called TORCS. The controllers are evolved using the Evolutionary Strategy, and the performance of the best individuals are compared with the hand-coded controller included with the game.
racing competition is a wat wat wat, and since networks of spiking neurons have been gaining popularity in recent years, a great curiosity emerged to want to find out if a spiking neural network could perform as well or better than the other techniques used to train the driver. This paper investigates the performance of the Izhikevich spiking neural network model applied to the TORCS racing game, and trained using Evolutionary Strategy. The evolved driver is compared with the hand-coded driver included in the TORCS championship platform.
Introduction
Many methods have been used to optimize the TORCS game driver for the cig competition, curious if spiking neural network could also perform well in it. Hence, compared the network with the simple driver provided with the competition client.
Results – the spiking neural network does perform better.
Machine learning methods can be used to solve any simulated control problems. In this paper, an evolutionary optimization technique is used to evolve a controller to drive a simulated racing car. The car control is handled by an artificial neural network, using Evolutionary Strategies for the tuning of the weights. Different experiments are run in order to explore combinations of training parameters.
Tried running the experiment of Sigmoidal ANN on PC2's native OS, Vista, and surprisingly returned no error. Will duplicate it and run the experiment on PC3 and PC5, which also runs Vista.
