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

June 1, 2017
Interactive String LED Floor Mandala at ...

Because... of things... Solarbotics didn't do a booth or official presence at this year's Bay Area MakerFaire. We opted to do something fun this time, building a custom just-for-the-fair piece of sorta-interactive LED artwork. Following on the success of the quickie LED floor mandala resting area we did at the NYC MF, we turned it […]

May 26, 2009
We are at the Maker Faire!

Solarbotics and HVW Tech will be at the Bay Area Maker Faire this weekend!  If you have a chance to come out be sure to stop by and say hi, we'll be in our booth all day Saturday and Sunday.  Also Dave will be doing a presentation in the workshop area over the weekend, so […]

January 9, 2019
What's New At Solarbotics

We've added new products to our website! Here's a quick look! ESP-01 Programmer / Adapter Module Programming an ESP0-01 (or any other ESP8266 variant) can be a bit of a button-toggling dance even after you get it wired up correctly. This handy little module makes it so much easier, by making completely buttonless and comes with a usb connector […]

November 5, 2008
Sumovore Brainboard - the PICAXE!

It's been a bit long in the coming, but it's finally here: The Sumovore PICAXE Brainboard for the Solarbotics Sumovore! One of the biggest tripping points we see from going from the pure digital/analog  realm of BEAM to microcontrollers is learning the ins-and-outs of microcontrollers. The PICAXE nicely fills this void by offering a programming […]

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.