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What is Softaculous?

August 10th, 2012

If you are looking for the easy-to-use, app-store model when building your website, then all you need is an auto-installer. An auto-installer is a software that helps you add a shopping cart, photo gallery, forum or any application to your website in just a simple point and click. One of the best auto-installers available is Softaculous.

Softaculous is one of the most comprehensive auto-installer available. With a library of hundreds of scripts, it is powerful yet easy-to-use. With Softaculous, you don’t need to download or upload any files.

And best of all, Softaculous is provided to Doteasy Unlimited Hosting clients completely FREE! You can try out the Softaculous demo by visiting this page.

 

Here is a video tutorial on how to install scripts by using Softaculous!

Softaculous Scripts Library

Softaculous has hundreds of scripts spread over the following categories:

  • Blog
  • Micro blogs
  • Portals/CMS
  • Forums
  • Image gallery
  • Wikis
  • Social networking
  • Ad management
  • Calendar
  • Gaming
  • Mail
  • Polls and survey
  • Project management
  • E-Commerce
  • ERP
  • Guest book
  • Customer support
  • Educational
  • Frameworks
  • DB tools
  • Music
  • Video
  • RSS

In other words, anything you need to accomplish with your website, there’s probably an application for it in the Softaculous library.

For example, if you need to create a blog or a website, there’s WordPress and Joomla. If you need a forum or discussion board, there’s phpBB or Simple Machines Forum. For those of you planning on using your website as an online store or product catalogue, there’s OpenCart, PrestaShop, ZenCart, osCommerce or CubeCart. Want to display your photographs with a professional touch? There’s ZenPhoto or Gallery. Other popular applications include Drupal, Dolphin, WHMCS, Moodle, Coppermine, PhpWiki, Magento, SimpleInvoices, Zend and hundreds more.

How to use Softaculous to install an application

To access Softaculous, click on the Softaculous icon on the main screen of your cPanel interface.

Once logged into Softaculous, you simply need to select an application from the list located at the left column and follow the steps given in the install tab. The chosen application will be installed on your Doteasy web hosting account within seconds. The Softaculous system is designed to keep these programs at their newest versions so that each time you install an application, you can rest assured that you are getting the latest stable version of the software and that it is installed and working properly.

How to upgrade an application

The Softaculous developers regularly release new versions of the applications that can be configured via the auto installer. When you access Softaculous, you will see the home page. If there are any updates for your installed applications, you will see a note on the top of the page. You can click on the note and you will be taken to a new page on which Softaculous will list all outdated software. You will be able to update them simply by clicking on the blue update icon.

How to uninstall an application in Softaculous

From the top right menu on the Softaculous home page, you will find the All Installations button which looks like a wooden box.  Click on the icon and you will see all applications you have installed on your account. To delete any of the applications, simply click on the red Remove button. You can also select several applications and delete them all by selecting Remove from the drop-down menu at the bottom of the page. By default the Softaculous software will delete the files, database and database user.

Can Softaculous take over software installed by Fantastico?

If you have already installed an application to your website using Fantastico, you may be wondering if you can manage it using Softaculous. Yes, Softaculous can take over any application installed by Fanstastico, allowing Softaculous to update and backup the application.

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Posted in cPanel, Doteasy Hosting, Scripting, Wordpress

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Redesigning your website and how to make the transition smoother?

September 15th, 2011

Whether you are redesigning your website because you are unhappy with the way it looks or function, or you need to improve search engine rankings and sales conversions, it is important to understand what it is you wish to accomplish during the redesign.

Other things to keep in mind when redesigning:

  1. People love consistency. For the consideration of your visitors, you might want to make sure your redesign is not so drastic that it is not recognizable to your regular visitors.
  2. Do not break your brand with your new design. Consistency is important, especially when talking about your business’ branding.
  3. Create a planning sitemap. Draw out every page on your website in a map format so that you can clearly see the interaction and navigation between pages.
  4. Avoid unnecessary bells and whistles. Keep your redesign simple.
  5. Don’t forget the small stuff: favicon, custom default gravatar, broken links, etc.

Useful Tools:

  1. Google Analytics – it’s always important to take a look at what’s working and what’s broken on your current website. With Google Analytics, you can see what pages are being viewed, how people are navigating your site and what browsers and screen resolutions are most popular.
  2. Theme Switch (for WordPress only) – If you are redesigning a WordPress site, Theme Switch is a plugin that you should consider using. It allows you to view a different theme then the rest of your visitors.
  3. Adobe Kuler – it offers a collection of color schemes that will help finding the perfect colors fast and easy, and best of all, all swatches are sortable and exportable right into Photoshop.
  4. Adobe Browser Lab – nothing will slow down a redesign more than spending hours browser testing. The Adobe Browser Lab allows you to test your site across all major browsers, including Internet Explorer, Chrome, FireFox and Safari.

When and how your launch your redesign can have a big impact on your traffic and in generating buzz about your new site and your product. A big relaunch around the holidays or at the start of a big promotion can draw traffic and general interest. For example, Smashing Magazine timed its redesign to coincide with the introduction of the Smashing Network.
Ways to make the transition smoother:

  1. Try to keep vital elements of your website similar to their existing counterparts (ie. the main navigation and header)
  2. Provide users a blog post or news announcement discussing the change
  3. Set up a 301-Redirect (permanent redirect) for all pages and URLs on the old website. This will ensure that visitors who click on indexed search results are still taken to the relevant pages and it also eliminates 404-Error pages from showing up as a result of your redesign’s new URL structure.
  4. Make sure error pages contain helpful, updated information

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Posted in Internet, Scripting, Web Design, Wordpress

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Google +1 Button

June 8th, 2011

Google introduced the Google +1 button recently and many of you might still be asking what is it? A new social feature?

Similar to the “Like” button on Facebook, the Google +1 is a simply way to like Google search results. When you’re signed into your Google account, every Google search result will have a +1 icon next to it. If you like the search result, just press on the +1 icon. By hitting the +1 icon, you are giving the search result a recommendation, or a stamp of approval.

So, the Google +1 is definitely a social feature. You can see what your friends +1’d, which in turn will more likely encourage you to click on a search result.

Check out the Google +1 button video on YouTube

If you haven’t noticed, the +1 button is now added to YouTube videos, under “Share”.

Adding Google +1 Button to your website

You can create your +1 button using Google’s creation tool.

Once ready, copy the script tag and place it onto your web page. You can place it between the <head> tags or in the footer before the </body> tag.

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js”></script>

Next, copy and place the button script where you want the +1 button to display on your webpage.

<g:plusone></g:plusone>

 

For more information on creating the +1 button and/or the advanced options of button, please refer to Google’s +1 Button API

Adding Google +1 to Your WordPress Blog

If you do a search on the WordPress.org Plugin Directory, you will see there are currently 500+ and counting plugins that adds the  Google +1 button to your pages, posts, sidebar or anywhere you want on your blog.

However, if you want to add the scripts in manually (in fear of incompatibility between the +1 plug-in and your existing plugins), you can also do so by adding the +1 script and button codes to your theme file.

1.     Go to the Appearance section in your WordPress dashboard and click on “Editor”.

2.     Find the “footer.php” file in the template you’re using.

3.     Add the following line just before the </body> tag.

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js”></script>

4.     Click on “Update”.

Then, add the button code wherever you want the +1 button to appear. For example if you want to add the button to your blog sidebar, you can simply add it as a text widget via the “Widgets” section.

You can also add the +1 button to individual posts by entering the button code in the body of the post, or by adding it the post.php template file.

Things you need to know about the +1 Button

1.     The +1 button will influence search rankings, as confirmed by Google’s David Byttow: “We expect that these personalized annotations will help sites stand out by showing users which search results are personally relevant to them… We’ll also start to look at +1’s as one of the many signals we use to determine a page’s relevance and ranking, including social signals from other services.”

2.     Once you click on a +1 button, a link to the content will appear under the +1’s tab in your Google Profile.

3.     The +1 Button is not the same as Google Buzz – 1’s do not allow for comments.

4.     By placing the <script> tag at the bottom of the document, just before the body close tag, Google says you may improve loading speed of the page (which is another factor Google takes into account in terms of ranking).

5.     Google says by adding +1 buttons to your pages can help your ads stand out: “By giving your visitors more chances to +1 your pages, your search ads and organic results might appear with +1 annotations more often. This could lead to more–and better qualified–traffic to your site.”

6.     The button is not available on mobile search results yet.

For more information on the Google +1 Button, you can visit Google’s website.

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Posted in Blog, Internet, Scripting, Search Engine, Social Networking, Web Design, Wordpress

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WordPress Drops Support for IE 6 – What you need to do?

June 3rd, 2011

Maybe you’ve had issues with your website with IE6 and you’ve been trying to fix the errors or even to the extent many designers have gone – use complex coding trickery to make things work. WordPress has been doing just that for some time and finally, it announces an end to IE6 support on their hosted WordPress.com blogs and soon the self-hosted WordPress installs with WordPress 3.2 .

What’s so bad about IE6?

IE6 is outdated technology – many of the new web technologies are simply incompatible with IE6: CSS v2, HTML 5, PNG transparency, general security.  In fact, Microsoft has recently launched a website, IE6Countdown.com, to ask users to move away from the IE6 browser. Currently IE6 usage is 12% worldwide and Microsoft hopes to drop that to less than 1%.

So why are people still using IE6?

IE6 is the standard browser of Windows XP, which is still the most used operating system worldwide. Also, many people do not see the need to upgrade. So, unless a significant company like Google not loading in IE6, people will remain content with their browser.

Other companies dropping IE6 Support?

Both Digg and Youtube (http://garmahis.com/tools/ie6-update-warning/) have announced that they are cutting back (http://about.digg.com/blog/much-ado-about-ie6) on IE6 support and Facebook advices you to use a newer browser if you try to login with IE6.

Beginning of the end for IE6?

What it means to you and your WordPress blog?

Seeing big names like WordPress drop support completely might make you rethink your own battles with IE6. WordPress 3.2 is available in June, which means many of us will be upgrading our WordPress blogs. But this new WordPress version does not support IE6, so you will need to advise your site visitors. There are two ways:

  1. The “IE6 Upgrade Option” plugin for WordPress will display a warning screen if your visitor is using IE6 when they visit your website. The warning simply informs them that their IE6 browser is out of date and insecure and provide links to sites where more a more modern browser (such as FireFox, Chrome, IE9) can be downloaded.
  2. Microsoft has provided a simple code on their IECountdown.com website that you can copy and paste within the <body> tag of your website. For more information you can visit their website at: http://ie6countdown.com/join-us.html

 

 

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Posted in Blog, Web Design, Wordpress

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