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

September 18, 2003
Solarbotics at RoboMaxx, Robothon

We're making the trip out to Robomaxx in Grants Pass, Oregon October 11-12. Gonna be there? Hunt down the dude in the cowboy hat wearing the "Solarbotics" Shirt. That'll be me. Maybe I'll have samples of our gearmotors burning a hole in my pocket. If it isn't me, tell him to give back my hat […]

January 19, 2007
Scheduled Website downtime

I suppose the Internet tubes need cleaning once in a while... Our ISP is scheduling some downtime for upgrades on January 27, 09:00-12:00 UTC (that's 2am to 5am Mountain time here where Solarbotics is). Sorry for the hiccup!

October 20, 2011
The Many Faces of SAFE

The SAFE (Solarbotics Arduino Freeduino Enclosure) is a marvelous contraption of laser-cut acrylic that makes a complete enclosure for your Arduino project. It gives you a protective shell with enough room for a basic shield, with knock-outs for power and USB connection. It even has a power switch. The big problem with Arduinos and Freeduinos, […]

September 5, 2012
Wednesday Cool Links: Flying Things and ...

Wednesday, the boring ol' hump of the week. What better way to pull through than with some distractions? Here's our latest batch of neat-o internet distract-o thingers: Sylvan Lake Robotics Club Looking for Members If you're around the Sylvan Lake area and what to dip your toes into the big ol' pond that is robotics, […]

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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!

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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.

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