More about website development

Dave Hrynkiw
October 15, 2019

A decent website is a core of a web-centric store like ours. Back in the early days, I hand-coded HTML (yeah, go back to waybackmachine to admire that work), and what you got is what you got. Since then, we rebuilt Solarbotics.com through 3 more iterations of totally refactored hand-coded platforms, and then 2 aborted attempts as re-releases on Magento and then WordPress/Woocommerce. Those last two attempts cost us the ball-park of a really really nice Tesla with nothing much to show for it, with a devastating website hack in-between to kick us in the nether-regions. Many expensive and painful lessons were learned in this process.

Since then, we've released unsatisfactory consultants, brought the development management in-house, and piece-mealed specific development aspects to consultants with MUCH better results. It's come at the cost of letting our internal R&D coast for the better part of a year while we focus our top-talent on getting the website reworked, but its something that needed to be done.

We are about to re-release Solarbotics.com on a WordPress/Woocommerce platform, with some new features added, and some others removed. We'll be staging out further enhancements as we get comfortable with the platform, and hope you'll continue being good customers of Solarbotics.com.

MORE POSTS

April 3, 2013
Wednesday Cool Links: The Best of April ...

Hmmm, April first has come and gone, and we've missed a chance to pretend we are now switching to selling electric squids powered by rabid honey badgers on brooms. To compensate for that disappointment here's an overview of the best April first stories. Underwater Basketweaving This is a new course where students explore the ancient […]

November 25, 2008
Winter theme, new distributor & Tha...

Just in time for the holidays we've come up with one more theme for the new HexPummer Lantern. Behold, the winter theme! It has a snowman, snow flake, a holiday tree and some holly to fulfill all your blinky festive needs. Better nab it quick - this design will only be around for a month […]

November 17, 2009
3D Printed frame for Line Follower

Ohhh, we like 3D printers. We're working with the local Protospace to fund-raise for a Makerbot. I want to see one of these Line Follower chassis (especially as some of the parts look particularly familiar!). LOVE open source hardware!

October 21, 2003
Sumovore Unleashed!

We're happy to announce the hotly-anticipated Solarbotics Sumovore Mini-Sumo! Check here for all the details! We have an introductory special of $10 off the regular retail of $89 USD ($119CDN), so get your Sumovore now for $79USD ($109).

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Solarbotics has been operating for more than 25 years, bringing electronics know-how and supplies to both the electronics professional and hobbyist. We'll be happy to help you too!

Solarbotics, Ltd. is not responsible for misprints or errors on product prices or information. For more information, please see our Terms and Conditions.

Warning: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.
Please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov for more information. This item was manufactured prior to August 31, 2018.