SugarCRM Setup Tips

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Mike

SugarCRM is a great open source tool that I’ve been using lately. I’ve been running into some odd problems and I’ve documented them here:

Formatting Issues – When I first installed Sugar, it seemed as though the CSS was empty. The pages looked terrible. Very odd. Turns out the permissions in cache were wrong. The link explains it in detail. Quick fix: cd sugar/cache; chmod -R 755 *

‘Undefined’ in alerts – This appears to be a cache permission problem as well. My guess is that the problem above is the same problem here, but the fix I found is to change permission settings in config.php and do a cd sugar/cache; rm -r *:

‘dir_mode’ => 1533, // 1528,
‘file_mode’ => 436, // 432,

Customizations Not Taking – I was creating module customizations on my local machine and trying to move them to my prod machine with the module loader. The changes weren’t taking. I kept exporting the module customizations with the same name and reuploading the new package to the prod server. Nothing.

Until I thought “maybe it’s caching the package by name somewhere”. So I exported the customizations as “package 2″ and uploaded again. The changes took.

 

 

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CSS Quick Reference

Posted on July 31, 2011 by Mike

Here is a really fantastic quick reference on CSS. A to Z. Everything is covered. Absolutely love it.

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Dathorn: For Those About to Rock, We Will Host You

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Mike

If you’re pulling your hair out trying to find a great host for your website or simply don’t know where to start, I’m going to save you countless hours of searching and comparative analysis. Dathorn is hands down, the best web host on the Internet. Am I serious? How do I know?

I’m damn serious.

I’ve been hosting my websites with Dathorn for over 6 years! So I consider myself to be a very capable advocate of their services.

Here are 7 reasons (among hundreds) why Dathorn rocks:

  1. Support Response Time – Want to see something astounding? Go to Dathorn’s website and look at the bottom for “Live Average Response Time.” 10 minutes? 5 Minutes? That’s my definition of Awesome. And this isn’t BS. On the few occasions that I’ve had to submit a ticket, I’ve submitted it, gone to get some coffee from the kitchen and come to find support’s response. Excellent! When (not if) there’s a problem with your site, you’ll appreciate hearing back as fast as possible.
  2. cPanel - You simply need cPanel to run your website. There are many rip-offs, but cPanel is the winner. cPanel is an interface that allows you to quickly monitor your website resources, setup email addresses, subdomains, databases and gives you the ability to install numerous software bundles quickly. We’re talking software WordPress, Joomla, vTiger CRM and many, many others. cPanel puts nearly all administration tasks you could ask for in your hands.
  3. Cost - Their introductory package, which I’ve been using the entire time I’ve been a customer is only $13.50 a month! This price point provides an exceptional value considering everything that you receive as a Dathorn customer.
  4. Multiple websites – I can host as many websites as I have space for. That means I can host 10 websites for $13.50! The only thing I would have to pay for is a domain name! This is a perfect value for a small business who seeks to tackle many niche markets (and thus, create many niche websites).
  5. Disk Space – The disk space is ample for blogging, email, storage of my files and many other purposes. And the best part is that they upgrade packages occasionally so you end up with more disk space for the same amount of money!
  6. Ongoing Upgrades – As I said above, there are always upgrades going on. Andrew and his team are constantly adding memory, upgrading servers, CPUs, motherboards, all that stuff.
  7. Support Forums – The forums are a great place for all of Dathorn’s customers to interface with each other AND with Andrew and his team. If you have a question, ask it in the forum. Most times you’ll find that Andrew responds himself.

Did I mention an awesome amount of bandwidth, high up-times, transparency of what’s going on in the environment, ability to resell your unused space and getting paid to refer new customers?

The Moral of the Story? Dathorn ROCKS!

These are just a few of the reasons why Dathorn rocks my socks. Check out the forum to see what customers are saying and then take them for a test drive yourself . If you have any questions, I’m here to help :)

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Your Business Just Had A Baby!

Posted on July 19, 2011 by Mike
Your website is like a babyPhoto from EveryStockPhoto via this license

Starting a website for your business can be exciting, demanding, scary and down-right nerve wracking – just like having a baby. The thing is that the more you feed it and help it grow, the better and bigger it becomes. Hiring a New York Web Designer can help make this process less complicated for you.

In today’s world of technology, a website is a necessity if you want your business to stay competitive in the market. A website can be used as a visual display of your business, sharing with your customers and potential customers the different goods and services that you offer. It is an excellent marketing tool that can pull in many customers, if used right.

When starting a website, be sure that you know what purpose you want your website to serve. Your site can be used to inform, sell to and draw in customers, but it can also be a great tool for you to receive customer feedback. A Small Business Web Designer can help you set up your site to accomplish everything you need.

Just like when raising a baby, you must be patient with your website and wait for it to grow. Your website will not just take off overnight, but it will overtime if you plan right and guide it. A New York Web Designer can help you set up your website and show you the right steps to take to make it successful.

Understanding the world of SEO or Search Engine Optimization, can help you build your website ranking and get more visitors to your site. The right wording and the right information on your site can make the difference between success or failure. If you are unfamiliar with this method, a Small Business Web Designer can help you.

Web hosting is a good idea for many small businesses that do not have their own IT team. This will help keep your website running 24/7, safe from hackers and keep all of your and your client’s personal information secure. Web hosting will cost a little extra, but it is well worth it to keep your site fully functional.

As long as your treat your website like a baby and nurture, guide and be patient with it, it will grown into an effective marketing tool. Websites have been used to help transform many businesses and help them stay competitive in today’s changing market. Patience and time are the keywords when starting a website; you just have to wait for it to grow.

One of the prime strategies for any website is to attract as many visitors as possible. A New York Web Designer can help you design and plan for the future of your site. A professional  can help you with any of your website designing and strategizing needs, to help you get the ranking and growth you deserve.

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7 WordPress Plugins You Need NOW!

Posted on July 16, 2011 by Mike

These are some of the most important plugins you will ever need for WordPress in a variety of categories. This list is a work in progress, so check back often.

WordPress Social Plugins

  • Add Link to Facebook – This plugin lets you automatically create a link on your Facebook page whenever you create a post and/or page. This is hugely important, because if you’re a one man show like I am, you have to update your site, your blog, your Facebook page and your Twitter page at a bare minimum. Any one of them can drop off the radar if you don’t have a great system or a great plugin. There’s some setup of a custom app (no coding required though) at Facebook to get it to work.
  • Contact Form 7 – This is the most popular WP contact form plugin that is quick to install and configure. Create a new form or use the one that’s installed. Use the short code supplied by the plugin in any of your pages.

Website Health Plugins

  • Broken Link Checker – This is a great utility that will check all of your posts and pages for broken links.
  • Plugin Update Notification – This plugin emails you each day if any of your plugins are out of date. It is extremely important to keep your plugins up to date. I’ve learned the very hard way that forgetting to update your WordPress plugins can open security holes that a**holes can use to hack into your server and abuse your privileges. YOU DO NOT WANT THIS!
  • Update Notifier – This plugin is similar to Plugin Update Notification above, except it emails you when your core WordPress install is out of date. Why should you care? Every time WordPress updates their software, it is to add features and/or address security issues. The security issues are usually published on the Internet so any hacker can figure out what version you’re using (not as hard as it sounds), lookup security vulnerabilities for that version and hack the hell out of you. Bam, your hosting account is suspended or terminated. And you are no longer accepting new customers.

WordPress SEO Plugins

  •  SEO Ultimate – This is a really great plugin that allows you to change all of your site’s title tags for posts and pages, descriptions and keywords. There are many more features, but these are some of the important ones.

General Utililty Plugins

  • Enable Media Replace – This is a great plugin that allows you to replace a media file by re-uploading. Why is it so great? Because normally when you want to replace an image in your post, you have to do the following: delete the image, upload the new one, add the title, caption, description, etc. Then re-insert into the post. With this plugin, all you do is go to the media file, re-upload and BAM! You’re done.

 

http://mansjonasson.se/wordpress-plugins/enable-media-replace/

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