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 27, 2005
Sumovore Upgrade Kit

What's new at Solarbotics? We've just released our Sumovore Baseplate Upgrade Kit which will let you replace the mounting tape & zip-tie restraints with a black powder-coated steel baseplate! This upgrade makes the Sumovore much more robust, and also increases the mass for a more competitive edge. Note that all new Sumovores from Solarbotics will […]

September 18, 2003
Solarbotics.net server v2!

Yup, the Solarbotics.NET server we sponsor for the BEAM community is now online, offering more storage, RAM, speed, and open-source software to make your .net experience... better! (Well, we think so). No teething pains to report yet, although I'm sure we'll see some come up shortly. Stay tuned for more functionality as work continues...

April 26, 2002
Guaranteed Results Workshop at WCRG

Solarbotics is again hosting a Guaranteed Results workshop at the Western Canadian Robot Games, on Friday May 10th, noon to 4pm. It works like this: Pick up any kits from Solarbotics before (or of the day) the workshop, bring it in, and we'll have tools and expertise there to make sure your kit goes together […]

October 31, 2012
Site Back Up; Cool Links Wednesday: Hall...

If you've noticed, our website had another slight weapons malfunction that happened last night. Our server in NYC is raising from the ashes as we speak and the hamsters are back to spinning their wheels. We're even able to process orders now! Please don’t hesitate to give us a shout if you have any concerns […]

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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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