EVOKNOW, Inc. http://www.evoknow.com Trusted Web Experts @ Your Service Tue, 19 Jul 2011 23:55:16 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Open Source Tools We Know http://www.evoknow.com/open-source-tools-we-know http://www.evoknow.com/open-source-tools-we-know#comments Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:34:49 +0000 admin http://www.evoknow.com/?page_id=2900

E-commerce

Zen Cart

We have extensive expertise in customizing, tuning, securing and even hosting Zen Cart based e-commerce systems.

CyberSource / Authorize.Net

We have extensive SOAP API knowledge of CyberSource and Authorize.net for credit card processing services.

Trustwave PCI Compliance Suite

We have extensive expertise in maintaining PCI compliance for e-commerce systems using Trustwave Suite of Tools.

Sphinx Search

We can improve your in-site product / page search results using a true search engine like Sphinx.

General Business Tools

WordPress

We have extensive knowledge of WordPress blogging platform and can customize it to your needs. We also know how to write plugins.

ActiveCollab

We use ActiveCollab as a ticketing tool and can customize it using its API to interact with outside systems

Development Tools

Yii Framework for PHP5

We develop in Yii to take advantage of its lightweight, MVC-based PHP5-only codebase.

JQuery Framework for JavaScripts

We prefer to use JQuery as a JavaScript framework for all our projects.

Git Version Control

We use git version control for all our projects.

]]> http://www.evoknow.com/open-source-tools-we-know/feed 0 PHP and MySQL Best Practices http://www.evoknow.com/php-and-mysql-best-practices http://www.evoknow.com/php-and-mysql-best-practices#comments Fri, 29 Apr 2011 04:03:49 +0000 admin http://www.evoknow.com/?page_id=2864

Code Formatting & Care

No [TAB] Characters Anywhere!

Use three-space indentation.

Curly Braces Live Alone

Each curly brace — { or } — needs to be in a line of its own!

Insert a SPACE between Operator and Operand

Don’t be cheap, use SPACE generously between operator and operands.

Think Verb for Each Method Name

Each method name should contain a verb.

Spell Check Your Code Comments

Use command line speller like aspell to spell check your code/comment.

Code Quality

Keep Methods Short & Readable

If your method exceeds more than two pages (> 150 lines), rethink your algorithm!

Use Yii Migration Concept for Database Changes

Use Yii data migration concept for keeping track of database changes.

Submit Each Meaningful Change to Git

Push every meaningful single changes to git instead of pushing a bunch of changes at a time.

Database Conventions

Table name is a singular word

Use singular form of a word for a table name.

Use lowercase for Table and Column Names

Write table and column (field) names using lower case letters.

Use tableA_tableB name for relation tables

Create relation (link) tables by combining two table names using a underscore character.

Database Performance & Security

Index Conservatively

Don’t index fields that you do not use frequently in your query where clauses.

Avoid TEXT/BLOB in Frequently Used Tables

These data types and even VARCHAR can cause performance issues in frequently used tables.

Partition Large Tables

Use horizontal table partition schema to improve performance for large tables.

Limit Database Privileges

Do not make your app’s database user privilege equal to root unless it must need such privileges.

]]> http://www.evoknow.com/php-and-mysql-best-practices/feed 0 PHP Programmer http://www.evoknow.com/php-programmer http://www.evoknow.com/php-programmer#comments Fri, 29 Apr 2011 03:41:31 +0000 admin http://www.evoknow.com/?page_id=2848

What a PHP Programmer CAN do

Promise You Unrealistic Deadlines

Most one-man shop PHP programmers do not have the decipline or experience to turn a bunch of code and database into a production-ready system. A typical PHP programmer did not go to a great computer science school or have an world-class experience spanning over decade on Web technologies.


What a PHP Programmer CANNOT do

Run Parallel Tasks

A one-man PHP programmer cannot simultaneously work on multiple tasks by definition. So tasks that can be often run in parallel such as User Interface (UI) design, database design, QA planning, etc. are never done in a time saving manner or hardly ever done the right way.

Exception is Not the Norm

Of course, there is always an exception to every scenario. We wanted to acknowledge that there are very rare cases where a single PHP programmer has successfully built a decent size application because of unreliable attention to details and virtually at total sacrifice of personal life style. So we wanted to tell you that if you are so lucky to have such a PHP programmer in the know and working for you, GOOD LUCK!

]]> http://www.evoknow.com/php-programmer/feed 0 Why Partner With Us? http://www.evoknow.com/why-partner-with-evoknow http://www.evoknow.com/why-partner-with-evoknow#comments Thu, 28 Apr 2011 05:46:05 +0000 admin http://www.evoknow.com/?page_id=2813

+ Virtual CTO Service

When you choose EVOKNOW as your Web development partner, you don’t just get a bunch of engineers who write code and maintain your Web applications and databases. You get our virtual CTO service which includes:

  • Overall Web strategy for your company

  • Technology Guidance for your Web portfolio

Many of the small and medium size businesses that we deal with do not usually have a CTO in house. This means there is no in-house expertise to drive a technology vision for the company with any reliable level of expertise, insights and experiences. Can you imagine hiring a CTO that has the experience to run technical teams, drive technology visions for multi-million dollar companies, do technical do diligence in technology merger and acquisition deals? Such a pair of shoe would cost anywh

Our virtual CTO service includes access to our expert resources to help you make informed and best decisions regarding all your online efforts involving: Web applications, presence, reputation, performance and security.

+ Agile Development Process

Once we taken on your new or existing Web development efforts, we will create a comprehensive “Product Backlog” of all the features that you want to develop.

We will then complete them in two to four week long “sprints”. Each sprint deliver a usable list of features that both you and our QA team can test and sign off. By incrementally building your features into a fully functional product we are able to accommodate an aggressive yet realistic time-to-market deadline vs one that is pulled out of a magician’s hat. In other words, if your project is divided into ten sprints and seven of them are on-time, you know you have a fairly well established track record for time-to-completion for your entire project.

Also, unlike other approaches, an agile sprint based process allows us to accommodate changes — changes are welcome in the agile development process. As change requests are put on the Product Backlog and gets done in follow-up sprints. Everyone is clear about what is added to the Product Backlog and what impact it has in the time line of a the entire project. So no expectation mismatch creeps in in the middle of the project.

+ High Caliber Expertise

TBW

-

]]> http://www.evoknow.com/why-partner-with-evoknow/feed 0 Web Developer http://www.evoknow.com/web-developer http://www.evoknow.com/web-developer#comments Thu, 07 Apr 2011 03:55:35 +0000 admin http://www.evoknow.com/?page_id=2803

Looking for a Web Developer? Are You Sure?

  • Didn’t your last Web developer run out of steam?
  • Is your project overwhelming your current Web developer?
  • Tired of semi-professional Web developer?
  • Market opportunities fading away because of technology issues?
  • Want a reasonably priced fixed-cost retainer for your Web site?

 Call (916) 920.4730


 Send a Message

How Can We Help?

  • Take over any incomplete Web development project
  • Resolve performance issues & security risks
  • Perform on-going bug fixes and feature upgrades
  • Rewrite code for performance and scalability
  • Help you build a scalable Web site

Our Not So “Fine Print”

Here are some important “fine print” that we wanted to let you know in plain English:

  • Minimum project size: you must have an established budget for Web development & maintenance
  • We prefer a fixed-cost relationship over an hourly “consultant” rate.
  • We do not work with any company that degrades other human beings in any way
  • We do not work with outside consultants: all our engineers are in-house staff members
]]> http://www.evoknow.com/web-developer/feed 0 Ecommerce Experts http://www.evoknow.com/ecommerce-experts http://www.evoknow.com/ecommerce-experts#comments Mon, 04 Apr 2011 19:50:47 +0000 admin http://www.evoknow.com/?page_id=2786

Need Professional E-commerce Experts?

  • Are you still making pricing decisions manually?
  • Are you still using database query to let users search products on-site?
  • Are you still manually managing sales channels?
  • Market opportunities fading away because of technology issues?
  • Want a reasonably priced fixed-cost retainer for your e-commerce site?

 Call (916) 920.4730


 Send a Message

How Can We Help?

  • Help you optimize your pricing using custom decision support tools
  • Help your customers find products using real search technology
  • Resolve performance issues & security risks
  • Perform on-going bug fixes and feature upgrades
  • Rewrite code for performance and scalability

Our Not So “Fine Print”

Here are some important “fine print” that we wanted to let you know in plain English:

  • You must have a budget established Web development & maintenance
  • We prefer a fixed-cost relationship over an hourly “consultant” rate. Our minimum retainer is $5K/month
  • We do not work with any company that degrades other human beings in any way
]]> http://www.evoknow.com/ecommerce-experts/feed 0 Web Developers http://www.evoknow.com/web-developers http://www.evoknow.com/web-developers#comments Sat, 02 Apr 2011 15:53:48 +0000 admin http://www.evoknow.com/?page_id=2772

Need Professional Web Developers?

  • Is your current team failing to deliver on time?
  • Is your project overwhelming your current team?
  • Tired of semi-professional Web developers?
  • Market opportunities fading away because of technology issues?
  • Want a reasonably priced fixed-cost retainer for your Web site?

 Call (916) 920.4730


 Send a Message

How Can We Help?

  • Take over any incomplete Web development project
  • Resolve performance issues & security risks
  • Perform on-going bug fixes and feature upgrades
  • Rewrite code for performance and scalability
  • Help you build a scalable Web site

Our Not So “Fine Print”

Here are some important “fine print” that we wanted to let you know in plain English:

  • Minimum project size: you must have an established budget for Web development & maintenance
  • We prefer a fixed-cost relationship over an hourly “consultant” rate
  • We do not work with any company that degrades other human beings in any way
  • We do not work with outside consultants: all our engineers are in-house staff members
]]> http://www.evoknow.com/web-developers/feed 0 When We Are Not a Good Fit For You http://www.evoknow.com/when-we-are-not-a-good-fit-for-you http://www.evoknow.com/when-we-are-not-a-good-fit-for-you#comments Fri, 04 Mar 2011 01:26:46 +0000 admin http://www.evoknow.com/?page_id=2736 EXTERNAL RESOURCES

BE AWARE THAT WE ARE NOT ENDORSING ANY OF THE FOLLOWING SERVICES. WE DO NO HAVE ANY AFFILIATE OR ANY OTHER KIND OF RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM. EXPLORE THEM AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Magento eCommerce Platforms provide the scalability, flexibility and features for business growth. Magento provides feature-rich eCommerce platforms that offer merchants complete flexibility and control over the presentation, content, and functionality of their online channel.


Checkout Magento
Zen Cart is arguably the most popular open source PHP/MySQL based e-commerce platform with a very large install base around the world. If you are a startup or a small business that wants to put together an online store independently without spending tens of thousands of dollars on Internet consultants and Web programmers, you can consider Zen Cart as your entry-level e-commerce system.


Checkout ZenCart

Services

Others

]]> http://www.evoknow.com/when-we-are-not-a-good-fit-for-you/feed 0 Our PHP / MySQL Web Development Expertise http://www.evoknow.com/php-mysql-web-development-expertise http://www.evoknow.com/php-mysql-web-development-expertise#comments Thu, 20 Jan 2011 01:17:43 +0000 admin http://www.evoknow.com

PHP Expertise

We have standardized our new development efforts using the Yii Framework. We found Yii to have the right performance and clean core code base to be our framework of choice. This does not mean we do not like other frameworks to various degrees, its just our choice of tool at this time.

  • Framework – Yii framework
  • PHP5 – Object Oriented Programming (OOP)
  • Design Pattern – Model-View-Controller (MVC)
  • Design Pattern – Active Records

Our 10+ years of experience shows that most PHP projects done by a single developer or a small team do not start out with any framework, which is often the cause of many redundant code and confusion. We start every new project with Yii to introduce software life-cycle concepts and processes to the project from day-one!

Common Projects:

  • Code Rewrites for Performance – yes
  • E-commerce Web Site – yes
  • Complex Web Apps – yes
  • Memcache Performance Upgrade – yes
  • Zen Cart Migration – yes
  • WordPress Customization – yes
  • WordPress Plugin Development – yes
  • PHP4 to PHP5 Migration – yes



We wrote our own framework when we wrote this book a few years back. Now a days PHP frameworks are abundant. We wrote this book and wrote fifty different applications to prove that it is better to write code using a single clean framework than the spaghetti code that were (and unfortunately still is) so common in the PHP developer community.

 yiihacker.com

MySQL Expertise

We tune and tweak MySQL databases for performance using various techniques including: query caching, read/write I/O splitting, replication, etc. We also use various storage engines such as InnoDB, MEMORY, MERGE and the good old default MYISAM intelligently to maximize performance and thus responsiveness of a MySQL database.

  • Transactions – using InnoDB storage engine
  • Caching – using MEMORY storage engine
  • I/O Splitting – using MERGE storage engine
  • Replication – binary log based replication
  • Triggers – high performance automation

However, often it is the poorly developed SQL queries that are the bottlenecks in a Web application. By rewriting the queries and including in-memory caching technology such as memcache to reduce read requests from the database, we can significantly speed up the database performance, which truly enhances the end-user experience of your Web site.

Common Projects:

  • Design – relational database design
  • Performance Tuning – configuration, replication, etc.
  • Query Tuning – query rewriting
  • Data Mining – custom decision support apps

 mysqlhacker.com

Apache Expertise

We use hardware load balancing, direct-routes, and Apache and Apache-derivative servers to host high-performance Web sites ranging from e-commerce sites, ad networks, cable-channel Web sites, etc.

When working with Apache and similar Web server solutions, we focus on performance and security.

  • High Performance – Millions of Hits / Day
  • Security Audit – PCI Compliant

Common Projects:

  • Load Balancing – hardware load balancing
  • Security Audit – PCI compliance risks
  • Benchmarking – Measuring request/second

 apachehacker.com


Linux Expertise

  • Distribution – CentOS & Red Hat Enterprise

Common Projects:

  • Web Hosting – Dedicated Web Servers
  • MySQL Hosting – Dedicated MySQL Servers



 centoshacker.com



JavaScript Expertise

  • Framework – JQuery

 javascripthacker.com


XHTML/CSS/HTML5 Expertise


 uihacker.com


]]> http://www.evoknow.com/php-mysql-web-development-expertise/feed 0 Small Company – Peace of Mind Service Plan II http://www.evoknow.com/small-company-peace-of-mind-service-plan-ii http://www.evoknow.com/small-company-peace-of-mind-service-plan-ii#comments Wed, 19 Jan 2011 19:27:22 +0000 admin http://www.evoknow.com

What is a Peace of Mind Service Plan?

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How much does it cost?

Recurring Fees: $5000.00/month
Setup Fees: $3000.00

Is This Plan For Your Company?

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

What is Your Commitment?

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

What’s Catch?

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

What’s Covered?

  • Ongoing Web development – yes
  • Dedicated Web server hosting – yes
  • PCI Compliance – yes

What Kind of Server / Bandwidth?

This package includes one web server and one dedicated MySQL database server. Both have similar hardware specifications as listed below:

  • CPU – quad core Intel processor
  • RAM – 16 GB or more
  • DISK – 100 GB RAID-1 SAS @ 15K RPM
  • Bandwidth – 20 Mbps – Burstable to 100 Mbps

Who Will Work on Your Project?

  • Project Manager – has 10+ years of experience
  • Development Team – a three-person team
  • Response Time – Same business day

Getting Started

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.



Smaller Plan starting @ $3K/mon

Larger Plan Starting @ $10K/mon

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