Online Store for a Local Manufacturer
One of web applications we built recently was a custom online store for Niche Professional, a hair product company in Vancouver, BC. Niche wanted a website that would sell their shampoos, conditioners and other products to consumers and inform potential business partners about options to buy bulk, get samples, and set up long-term relationships. The store site had to be scalabe, easy to maintain,...
Read MoreFirst page in Google search results!
Wow, according to Google, we’re #1 Django shop in Coquitlam! Design Practica is on the first page of Google search results for things like “coquitlam custom web development” and “django coquitlam”. Of course, “Coquitlam” sort of narrows it down a lot, but we still feel very proud. We should start boasting about our SEO skills! Just kidding. What got us...
Read MoreWhat To Do When Your Website Is Hacked: Recover in 10 Steps
[To skip to downloadable file for this post, click here.] So, my site got hacked. No, scratch that. All of my WordPress sites got hacked. No, that’s not right either. All of my WordPress sites got hacked twice. I’ve repaired it all, prepared the sites for the next vulnerability, and now I’m ready to share my regrets and shame, but mostly experience and tools. While nobody can...
Read MoreWhat does you restaurant’s website need?
A no-nonsense guide for restaurant and cafe owners Menu and Specials Make your menu the front page of your website. Let the customers see what food you serve right away, the first moment they open your web page. This is the #1 reason why people look for your restaurant on Google. They want to know if you serve what they like. Make it easy to get this info, and you’ll...
Read MoreNew Website for Local Cafe
The hardest part of working on a restaurant website is that you’re constantly looking at delicious food. You arrange photos, descriptions, categories in the yummiest way possible, and you can tell you’re doing something right when your own stomach tells you, “Give me some of that right now!” It was a fun little project to redesign the WordPress-based website of a...
Read MoreHosting on Google App Engine
After our first serious project with Google App Engine, it’s time for me to take some notes, based on our own experience. GAE is Great Google’s offer is very attractive: you can use their powerful infrastructure for free (up to a certain level of usage, which is fairly generous), integrate with other Google services easily, and take advantage of a rich set of site administration...
Read MoreTools & Technologies
“If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” – that’s how the old saying goes. This is decidedly not about Design Practica. We have much more than just a hammer. In fact, the set of tools we are using to build web applications and websites is growing all the time. Together with our customers, we are constantly coming up with better ways to make this more...
Read MoreNew Look for DesignPractica
We decided it’s time to give our own site a facelift. The new design is cleaner, quieter, and more focused. The new logo makes sense: we’re a Canadian company. We hope you enjoy the new look of the best web design shop in town!
Read MoreOutside the Box
Does your web application have to be able to do something truly custom, something special? Maybe it’s a new way for users to interact with each other, or maybe a background process that analyzes complex data before showing it on your site, or a sophisticated rich web-based interface. We have the experience and the tools for tasks like these. We’ve built web applications that do magic...
Read MoreFrom Customers’ Perspective
Once upon a time, I ordered an external DVD drive from a large computer store. I bought it online, to avoid downtown traffic. The product was in stock, and delivery was supposed to take 2-3 business days. “Two or three days is fine”, I thought. I felt calm and easy, I had accomplished something that would normally take hours, in a few seconds. How wonderful it is to live in the era of...
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