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

August 18, 2012
New Product: Limerick Edition

I've been wanting to post in limerick, and today I think I'll give it a kick. My co-workers think it's dumb, but I think it's kinda fun. And I'm sure it'll turn out quite slick. In order to avoid some tough restrictions, I won't use limerick for product descriptions. It'd also make some people sick, […]

August 3, 2018
Closed on Monday August 6th

That's it. We've had enough. The weather is just too darn nice outside. So nice, in fact, that we quit. That's right, when Monday rolls around no one is even going to bother coming into the office. You heard us - we'll be closed on Monday, August the 6th. Go ahead and email and leave […]

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, […]

May 1, 2009
More PICAXE Goodness

Boy oh boy, it's been a busy week for PICAXE stuff. We actually got a big ol' shipment in late last week, which included the new 40X2 chips.  And by now we've receiveded everything, including even more X2 chips. But this time they're of the 28-pin variety. (Don't worry,  the 28X1's haven't gone the way […]

Solarbotics Ltd Logo
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.

cart