FDG Web | Web Design & Development | Everett & Seattle WA

Buy Bamboo Flooring Online

FDG Web just launched a new online catalog system for Plyboo / Smith & Fong to allow their customers and installers to Buy Bamboo Flooring online. The program is called “Plyboo Direct” and both consumers and professionals can purchase all of Plyboo’s Clean & Green products for their projects.

Plyboo is the cleanest and greenest bamboo flooring & plywood on the market. Until now,. you had to go through special dealers or architects to access this product line. Have you even been to an Aveda salon? Much of the woodwork in a standard Aveda salon is made with Plyboo’s line of Bamboo Flooring & Bamboo Plywood.

Our catalog system we created represents a multi-faceted wholesale, retail and installer pricing system with a large system for delivering resources, custom CS-Cart shipping modules, a CS-Cart Estes freight module and add-on.

Christian Cycling Jerseys & Biking Sportswear

FDG Web recently relaunched this Christian Cycling Jerseys & Christian Biking Sportswear company’s website and ecommerce catalog. We added our enhanced SEO profile to the coding which now allows the website to show up consistently on page #1 of Google for many of its competitive searches.

The project consisted of: Custom CS-Cart programming, payment integration and advanced SEO header, TITLE or product-specific information.

We also made use of custom couponing and discounts, an AJAX-based rotator and did some creative for the advertisements. After launching their site we also created some Google shopping feeds and got the entire site re-indexed. All typical SEO work that many SEO specialists just seem to not be able to follow through with.. mainly because they’ve never touched a line of code in their life.

OSCommerce Point of Sale System

• Also know as – OSC POS, OSCommerce POS, POS Plugin for OSC
• POS System for OSCommerce
• Point of sale for OSCommerce

Figure 1 – posshot1.png – Creating POS Orders in OSCommerce.

This screenshot demonstrates the standard three-part sales order view. The very top bar indicates where in the system you currently are. You are logged in as a sales-rep – “Dan” and you are processing a new sale. Next will come the individual line items.

Basic product lines in this OSC Point of Sale (POS) example, including kilt types and belt types, are specified in the first dropdown. Each has a two-letter code. Once these codes are learned, you can enter them without having to click the drop-down.

There are two types of order as specified in “Product”. A stock item is usually scanned, which populates the entire line with the relevant data. But it can still be manipulated manually. Grabbing the drop downs in a Stock Order will indicate what options are available, based on what you have already chosen. Choosing added-cost options will cause the drop down to change color and an extra cost amount to appear in the Attributes pane.

Figure 2 – posshot2.png – Using SKUs in OSCommerce & access your OSC Database via the Point of Sale System.

The SKU field is what the scanner will populate. Each combination of options has a unique SKU, so scanning a tag will cause all of the dropdowns to automatically update. When manually configuring an order, the SKU field is not normally touched. Clicking “Clear” will clear the entire line.

Putting more than a few line items in this view will give the Items pane a scrollbar, but in the top right corner of the pane, you’ll see an Expand button. This will expand the Items pane to the entire visible browser window, moving the Customer and Payment elements below the fold. The scrollbar will transfer to the browser window itself, as is depicted in the next screenshot.

Figure 3 – posshot3.png – Accessing customer data (OSC) via the POS.

When the Customer field is visible, it can be used to enter a new customer as depicted in Figure 1, to search for customers as depicted in Figure 2, or to display or edit existing customers as depicted below.

Figure 4 – posshot4.png – POS & Payment information. Using a POS in OSC to fullfill payment and transaction.

This also showcases some of the Payment field functionality. Since this functionality is usually tied to your preferred Gateway / Payment processor, we will not go into detail on it. It serves to indicate at a glance what the payment method and details are.

This POS System for OScommerce & ZenCart is VERY robust and is not one of those things that just comes off the shelf. It is a custom install service we’re happy to offer. For more information – call us at 877-239-3063 or 425-482-7941 if you are in the Seattle-area.

Email us questions about our OSC POS!

Bamboo Flooring

Some of the best Bamboo Flooring around comes from a company called Smith & Fong. The product is called “Plyboo” and is a green, sustainable product line.

Smith & Fong’s Plyboo bamboo flooring, bamboo plywood and bamboo veneer are made from Moso bamboo. This is the giant timber bamboo pretty much right out of any scene in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Plyboo is harvested from forests requiring no irrigation, no fertilizers or any pesticides what so ever. Each and every year, only 20% of the plantation’s bamboo production, or what amounts to only the five-year growth–will be cut. This ensures that the forest canopy remains healthy, intact and that the ecosystem will not be disturbed.

Plyboo is also manufacturing its products using urea formaldehyde-free adhesives. (called PlybooPureâ„¢). This is available on its plywood, flooring and veneer lines. Both the Plyboo and Durapalm product lines are available UF-free. Unlike cheaper imitators or competitors – all of Smith & Fong’s product undergo independent lab-testing for compliance & certification.

If you are looking for Bamboo Flooring or Bamboo Plywood for your home, business, large-scale architectural project or just want to build “green” – check out their website here.

• Plyboo – Bamboo Flooring

Custom Molds & Tooling for Aerospace, Marine and Transportation Industries

Today we are working with Janicki Industries – a leading supplier for custom molds, composite tooling, 5-axis milled patterns and other composites for marine, transportation, aerospace and alternative energy. Janicki industries produces aerospace molds, marine molds and transportation molds for a wide variety of industrial clients.

Janicki Industries specializes in producing large precision-milled patterns, molds, plugs and tooling for aerospace, marine and transportation applications. The company is known for supplying one-of-a-kind manufacturing tools for superyachts and fuselages, machines tools from a wide range of materials including foam, fiberglass, carbon fiber, steel, Invar, and Inconel for companies throughout the world.

In addition to being a superior selection for composite manufacturing and machining needs, Janicki Industries’ services include: a highly equipped metrology department with state-of-the-art equipment, rapid prototyping capabilities and advanced industrial design and aerospace design engineering groups.

Products & Services include:

• 5-Axis Milling & 5-Axis CNC Machining
• Composite Tooling
• Rapid Prototyping 
• Metrology Services
• Engineering Services

The company is building a new, 150,000 square-foot manufacturing facility to keep up with increased demand for its aerospace composite tooling.

Janicki engineers & tool designers are skilled at meeting your most complex tooling challenges. Whether you need a quick turnaround prototype or a complete production tooling system they will meet your needs on time and on budget. With over 25 years of aerospace tooling experience their engineering team uses CATIA V5 and Unigraphics NX3 software to solve the toughest product development and engineering challenges. They use Primavera scheduling software to manage a project’s schedule for manufacture. In addition to CATIA V5 and UG our Aerospace Design group can provide support work for stress analysis and finite element modeling.

Virtuemart Destination Based Sales Tax for Joomla

We’ve just completed another Virtuemart Destination-based sale tax module for Joomla. You can see it in action here: Ozonegear.org

When considering Destination-based Sale Tax calculations for Virtuemart you need to deal with:

1. Solve the problem with getting your customers to give you their zip + 4 information during the registration or checkout process. Since most people, including myself, do not readily know our zip + 4 information – you need to have a method for suggesting to the customer what it might be. You see this on high-end systems such as Buy.com or Amazon.com.
2. We do this by taking the user input and when they enter in their address we make a call out to either the USPS Web Service or Yahoo Maps API and send the zip and map it to the missing +4.
3. Then, you present them with what you “think” is the +4 based on the info returned. When the customer selects it, it then writes to their customer profile in the database.
4. You can also make this call out during the registration process or anyt time that they update their address information.
5. Then, in our case we get the sales tax tables from the WA State Department of Revenue and compare it with the zip +4  information for that order, based on destination and then get the correct tax rate for the specific destination now based on the zip +4.
6. Then, it is just a matter of clean up in Virtuemart, Zen cart, OSCommerce or whatever other shopping cart you are using to calculate the tax against the order + shipping to arrive at a final total that reflect destination-based sale tax for your Wa State order – or any other state for that matter so long as the information is available.

It is not exactly a drop-in module by any means – but it does take care of your destination-based taxes, calculations and reporting in less money than a trip to your accountant for advice.

If you want more information on how we can work for you and solve your destination-based sale tax project, whetehr for Virtuemart or any other shopping cart – contact us today.

Seattle Skincare Services – Botox in Seattle

Madison Skincare and Laser Center provides skin health services, laser rejuvenation and dermatology services. They offer diagnosis and treatment of skin diseases and skin cancers as well as Seattle skin cancer surgery. They offer state of the art cosmetic services, including a full range of laser services, the Thermage non-surgical skin tightening, peels, Botox, Restylane, the new Aramis laser for acne treatment and prevention and Seattle aesthetician services.

Their cosmetic dermatology sessions provide cosmetic procedures to patients in a caring and professional environment. Services include several types of cosmetic procedures including Laser Services, Thermage for Skin Tightening, SilkPeel Microdermabrasion, Sculptra, removal of moles, Seattle Botox Injections, and Seattle Aesthetician Services.
You may also be interested in this skin care information and skin care resource website they provide to help you discover skincare treatment options and information available for different skin types. Of particular interest is their Guide to common Cosmetic Treatments.

Seattle Web Design

One of the markets we obviously target is Seattle Web Design & people looking for Seattle Web Designers & Seattle Web Developers.

We love working for Seattle clients on development or design projects. It is an easy hop down the highway, preferably made at off-peak times since Washington State does not believe in building roads or non-Boondoggle mass transit projects (Hear that “Big Dig” we’re coming for you!).

Seattle is a funny area for Web Design & Development. Take us as an example. We are a company. We have an office. We have all local designers and developers. You will probably talk to the same people year after year because we have had less than 5% turn-over since we started back in 2000.

We tend to get a lot of work from a certain breed of company. This breed basically has very nice offices, slick salespeople and puts a lot of time into fancy proposals and “the process”.

What they do not do, is the actual work apparently .. but you wouldn’t know that from talking to them. They in turn, sub out your projects to people like us. Want to confused this breed of salesperson? Just ask them who specifically will be working on their project and watch them either

1) Tell you the name of someone who will probably NOT be working on your project.

2) Make up a name.

3) Tell you that will be decided later.

The last time we competed against a firm like this, after seeing this firm in the waiting room, I challenged the client to ask them this question. Apparently they did and they fumbled it bad. Sorry folks, no points for second place. Honestly rules.
In our area there also seems to be a large number of single individuals “faking” being a larger firm than they really are. Now I know this is common in other industries, especially whenever the ambiguous word “consultant” is invoked, however with Web Firms it seem to be more prevalent. Selecting a vendor is an important decision. It can make or break a project or even a business if you are building your business around a new application, portal or website.

A lot of people in our industry have full-time jobs doing something else, but still act like a 9-5 firm. This is a huge disservice to their clients.

Here are some examples and patterns to watch out for:

• Any firm that uses the words: Studios, We, Our, Staff, Employees, etc.. – yet doesn’t have a page devoted to Staff Bios or Resume. (To be fair – here’s our Seattle Web Developers bio page and I need to add recent hires.)
• Any firm or individual that lists portfolio pieces or clients by name, but does not link to the website or describe in detail what they did. This usually indicates that they were either employed at that Company or we not 100% responsible for the project.
• Any firm that does not list a mailing or office address.
• Any firm that seems to have a half dozen email address yet they are answered by the same person.
• Any firm that cannot tell you “who” will be working on your project – this means they take all jobs and then scramble to find people to do the work. These are called unnecessary middlemen in the real world.
• Any website that uses a non-professional email like AOL, Yahoo, Gmail, etc.
• Any firm that talks about their multiple locations or offices, yet doesn’t list addresses. These are probably apartments.
• Any firm with a poor looking website; a website or portfolio that consists mainly of web templates or that can sell you pretty much the same solution no matter what you tell them you want. When all you know how to use is a hammer, everything is a nail.

Well, I am out of time for now. What do you think?

Tom

Plyboo Bamboo Flooring & Bamboo Floors – Client Project

Plyboo is in the business of Bamboo Flooring & Bamboo Floors, along with Bamboo Plywood and sustainable green flooring and other “Green Building” materials. We were called in to aide in correcting certain Joomla navigation and site structure requirements. We also added SugarCRM and worked on some lead generation & sample request forms that piped data directly into SugarCRM to integrate their website workflow and process with their back office systems. Our Everett, WA Office is currently covered in SugarCRM manuals and print outs.
Their products are fantastic. They have nearly every possible bamboo flooring product or derivative you could possibly want, including Bamboo Veneer & Durapalm Woven Paneling

Check out the Joomla build and product portfolio to see a content rich website using Joomla, custom components and SEO rich content.

Custom Zen Cart Build – Each Catagory has its own Specials & Featured Module.

We’ve recently completed a new modification to a West-Coast Satellite Radio retailer – JJIElectronics.com that is working really well for them. We’ve added the ability to define the specials and featured products on a per-category basis.

Example #1 -XM Satellite Radios

For the admin, it really is as easy as assigning special or featured products with a few selection boxes and both the design styling and information shows up within the design template. Your clients do not have to mess with the description box or define_mainpage – it is that easy.

Zen Cart Feature – Displaying Zen-Cart Sub-categories in the Main Menu.

We’ve also built a dynamic menu system that displays all the the categories & sub-categories on the same menu – this is great for providing customers the ability to see all of the types of products you offer rather than force them to search. You can see the Zen Cart Dynamic Menu examples here. This helps your main page get spidered for all top-level keywords (which for an ecommerce site should start with your categories of products that you sell at the very least.

Zen Cart Feature – Multiple Shopping Feeds and “Referral Network” Integration.

Feedburner, Yahoo Shopping, Google Base / Froogle and Bizrate. We set up this Zen Cart build so it would detect the inbound referral and pop the correct survey box based on whether they came from BizRate, Shopping.com, etc. Most of these services give you their code to integrate and it really does nothing except pop the survey after you have successfully checked out. If you are a business as large as this client – and make use of several networks – then you either have to dynamically detect the referral and trigger the appropriate code – or you are stuck with popping all of the various surveys and letting the user fill out whichever one is relevant. Since JJIElectronics.com cares about their user’s experiences – they went with the auto-detect.

Additional Zen-Cart Modules

In addition to the stock build, we also added:

• Custom Shipping Tables & Rules
• Google Checkout & PayPal Express (that conforms to the above – just try that… we dare you.)
• An AJAX Sidebar Manager – to allow the various advertising, banners, buttons and tables they display throughout their site (ala DeepDiscountDVD.com & TigerDirect)
• A Zen-Cart to QuickBooks Exporter
• An advanced order manager that allowed batching of functions and printing.
• An advanced reporting module that allowed for reports to be generated on keywords and stock control.
• A total Zen Cart SEO overhaul.
• and Special Holiday Headers for a nice friendly touch!

All in all – a very effective website and relationship. For more information on our custom Zen Cart Developers & Zen Cart Development Services – just visit our website. Whether you need a Seattle Zen Cart Developer
or just want to outsource your problems to us – we are ready to help you. [We do not outsource ourselves, the buck stop here.]