whynotonline.com blog

New release of the Select Decorator plugin

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:18:00 -0500

Today we released a new version of the Select Decorator plugin. The first release of the plugin didnt support Internet Explorer as the IE's transparencies for Select items are not working. In this new release we used a new approach to make it look the same on every browser. To be more techinical the plugin creates a list and populates the list items with the options in the respective select item.

We are really exited because the previous version of the plugin has been downloaded nearly a hundred times, which means that it is used a lot on different websites. You will find that the new release is even more usable as it is working very well with the widely used browser IE as well as other browsers such as firefox, opera, safari, etc.

Check the new release at our open source software portal

http://open.whynotonline.com/select-decorator-for-jquery/

Some news about the open source website, as the site is having a reasonable number of hits and the software modules are downloaded at good rates we are planning to add a Forum for the website. This will open a means of communication between you and the developers at whynotonline.com. We wish to talk more about SilverStripe and jQuery there. Stay tuned, we will update you on developments of the new forum on this blog.

Marcus Joins whynotonline.com

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:42:00 -0500

We are proud to announce that Marcus Doherty joins whynotonline.com to serve the company as the Business Development Manager for Europe and UK. His presence ensures whynotonline.com can better serve our European and UK based commercial customers, closing the gap between our operations in Sri Lanka, Europe and the United Kingdom.

We believe Marcus’s appointment will create and develop new business relationships – giving whynotonline the opportunity to penetrate new and exciting markets.

Adding Marcus’s years of content writing experience to our exiting services and expertise, means we are able to offer our clients a fully comprehensive and professional service. As of immediate effect we are broadening our services portfolio to include content writing, where we will skillfully transform your ideas into the written word. Good content isn’t only crucial to conveying your brand, corporate identity or message, but also helps you maintain good search rankings.

We at whynotonline.com warmly welcome Marcus, and wish him all the best in his new role.

Stay tuned we will be writing more on our blog.

Translation services

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:53:00 -0500

We are excited to announce that we will be adding a new service to our varied services list. We have developed some multi-lingual websites where the translation services were provided by a third party or the customers themselves. In order to make the development and integration process more efficient we have decided to add translation services to the services we provide. Therefore you will be able to get websites developed in many languages without having to worry about finding translators yourself. With our background in content management systems and our new translation service we will be able to provide you with high quality, standard compliant multi-lingual websites with elegant designs.

So if you are trying to build a multi-lingual web site talk to us.

Template count reaches 50

Sat, 30 May 2009 17:08:00 -0500

We are proud to announce that we have reached a count of half a century in templates at our free templates portal. During the last couple of months we have been very busy developing some challenging web based applications, but we have not forgotten the free services we offer and have been quietly adding to our collections.

Now the templates portal houses 50 elegant design templates free for you to use. We are also working on our open source commitments in SilverStripe open source CMS and jQuery javascript library. Check back with us for updates on the newest open source contributions by us.

We would like to hear from php developers

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 03:20:00 -0500

With the success we have achieved over the past few months, we were able to expand our client base, and lots of interesting projects are coming our way. We are really excited to mention this on our blog.

With this rapid growth of business we are looking to hear from PHP developers who are willing to create solutions for challenging projects which would make the world sing praises.

What we are expecting from you.

1. Expericence in web development

2. Experience in PHP and Object Orient Programming

3. Good knowledge of web 2.0 standards

4. Good communication skills

5. Willingness to work

6. Experience in ORM / MVC and CMSs such as SilverStripe, Wordpress, Drupal will be an added advantage

If you can meet the above requirements we'd love to talk to you.

Please send your CV to Nivanka (nivanka@whynotonline.com)

Applications from only those who are currently available in Colombo will be accepted.

We launched our open source website

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0500

From the start of the company we had something in mind, also we included it to our policies. It is that we use open source software for our developments. We saw a lot of advantages over using open source, and we believe that our clients are safe with those rather than any bespoke software we do. That doesnt mean that we do not make any bespoke software, we do them but we explain our clients what they can benifit from Open Source.

We have been working with SilverStirpe Open Source CMS from the begining of our company, and SilverStripe has been helping us to make websites and to grow our business. As open source is something more about freedom and sharing we have shared some of the codes we did with the SilverStripe community. They includes modules, widgets, and templates which are done using the designs we have at our template portal. All these peices of software are there on the SilverStripe website,

As the maintainers of these software we thought of launching a new website to give you more information and to alow you to downloand the latest builds etc. You are welcome to visit and download the software there. http://open.whynotonline.com.

Also the website is designed and coded my me (Nivanka) and Dasun is feeding the content to the website. We'd love to hear comments about the design, and the arrangement.

Follow us on twitter

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 02:14:00 -0500

This post is to let you know that from today onwards you can keep in contact with us via twitter.com. Though all of us here are having twitter accounts where we post our tweets we never thought about having one for the company. But after releasing the twitter module for SilverStripe Open Source CMS, we got the idea that we have to create and manage a twitter account.

We can now be really closer to our clients, and partners, as they can read what we are doing even by their mobile phones. At whynotonline.com we mostly work hard to manage good communication with our clients and partners. So here again we took another step forward in-order to achieve our goals.

So welcome to follow us on twitter, here is the URL http://twitter.com/whynotonline

NCEA Economics site launched

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 12:28:00 -0500

Today 21st of March 2009 we managed to go live with a new website, which is called NCEA Economics. The website is sponsored by whynotonline.com. We met the owner of the website Marcus Gibbs a High School Student from New Zealand, at the SilverStripe Forums, and we discussed with him about his ambitions / aims and after that we decided to sponsor Marcus with developing and designing his website for free.

His view is that to fill out the need of a proper website which can support any NCEA Economics student.This is how he described his idea in an email which I got from him,

"Economics is a difficult subject, like a new language it is at times confusing, frustrating and annoying."
That's where my website comes in, 'NCEA Economics' is designed specifically with the newcomer to Economics in mind. NCEA Level 1 Economics, NCEA Level 2 and NCEA Level 3 Economic newcomers will find this site resourceful, as 'NCEA Economics' is a website containing, everything needed to pass exams.

We the team at whynotonline.com wish you all the best with your new website.

Calendar module relaunched as the Diary Module

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:49:00 -0500

Dear all,You might have seen and used the Calendar Module which we did at Whynotonline.com, and published on the SilverStripe.org website. The name of the module has been creating some Naming conflicts with some other modules, So we at Whynotonline.com and Ingo from SilverStripe discussed about how to aviod this conflicts, and planned to use a very generic name for the module we did. Now you can find our module with a new name called the "Diary Module". Also we noticed that the module is now in the supported modules list, lately it was there in the unsupported list.

Though this is a new name, all the codes and the functionalities are still the same, and now we are planning to make this more useable. Here are some points which we have in mind to integrate to the module with the next release.

To diplay the events for the hours of the days. (just like how google calendar works)
To add member subscriptions to the module (where people can be informed about the new events)
PDF or CSV generation (to get a PDF or a CVS file)

All of you are welcomed to use the form below to make your comments about the module, and as the name has changed now the URL of the module is also changed here is it http://silverstripe.org/diary-module/.

GREETS

Enjoy your Valentine's day

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 22:09:00 -0600

Dear all, We know a very special day is coming closer, yeah its the Valentine's day. At whynotonline.com we always think about how can we please our customers. So with that in mind we made some Valentine's wishes and posted them on our Greetings website. Try it out, wish your loved ones using our services, totally free :)

What our clients feel about us

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 08:00:00 -0600

Last month we at whynotonline.com were snowed under projects. I managed to publish the calendar module at the SilverStripe module directory. And we got a contract to build a website for the Sarvodaya the largest NGO at Sri Lanka, so all these things have been keeping us busy all the time.

While we were working on all these we recieved a good feed back for the newly created website which is also an implementation of the calendar module, so this is what we received.

We recently hired Whynotonline.com to do a development and design-job for our website. We needed a calendar-module, intended for our new Silverstripe-based website for our company. They did a very good job. Efficiently, precisely, focusing on our needs and spesifications, they delivered the product tailor-made for us, but at the same time generic, ready for others to use. They obviously are a very skillful, creative and highly competent webdesigners/-developers, and we do not hesitate in recommending their services.

Best regards
Øyvind

Thanks Øyvind for the very positive feeback.

Calendar Module for SilverStripe

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 13:02:00 -0600

We are proud to anounce that our very own silverstripe expert and chief designer Nivanka has been able to develop a complete module for the silverstripe CMS.

The silverstripe organization has accepted the module to their growing collection of modules and is now available at the SilverStripe Official Module Directory, click here for the demo website.

The module allows your silverstripe website to have a calendar as a web page enabling you to post activities, meetings, schedules or anything really, on a clear and easily understandable time line presenting your visitors the most important facilities "ease of use and clarity".

Nivanka has already implemented this module on a live website check it out.

We at whynotonline salute Nivanka's hard work and creativity, and are proud to have him at whynotonline.

Thank you Nivanka !

For the whynotonline team,

Dasun

40 website templates

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 08:59:00 -0600

Last Sunday (10/01/2009) Nivanka added the 40th template to the template portal.

It is called Bamboo. The template is named Bamboo as it has two bamboo turnks on its header, which makes it natural. The template can be used to any green project website.

We the team at whynotonline.com are really happy to announce about this template as we have done all these in some little time, and also we have seen that people are using our designs.

We are hoping to create more and more templates. Enjoy them.

New theme for the template website

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 02:09:00 -0600

Our template portal http://templates.whynotonline.com is redesigned and live from yesterday night. The team here have been working late yesterday, uploading templates, coding, designing and all. So many thanks go to the team.

What we always believe is that a good website must have a good user interface, where the users wont get lost inside the website, so our new template portal is designed again to achieve this ease.

Enjoy the freedom, you dont have to pay, no-restrictions, nothing we would be great if you can give us a link saying that you got the template from us (still this is optional).

New web plans

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 09:57:00 -0600

We are proud to mention that we have been in business for 8 months. During these 8 months we have achieved a lot, considering the higly competitive nature of the web development field. We have completed more than 10 web based projects successfully, while maintaining a free design templates portal, contributing to silverstripe through templates, widgets, etc. With the real world experience we have gained, we are introducing three web plans for your convenience.

They are-

Basic Plan

Plus Plan

Miscellaneous Plan

We believe that with these plans it will be much easier for you to work with us as you would have a better idea of what your needs are as well as a clear idea of what we can provide you with. We have analysed the clientele we have met and gotten to know during these last few months and have realised that they fall into three basic categories, small business owners, medium business owners, and large business owners. Therefore we have planned out these new web plans to serve all of these clients.

As always we would love to hear from you, have a look at what we offer, talk to us if you have any project.

We would love to handle any project you need from a simple website to very demanding web based solutions.

Getting ready for the new year

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 23:58:00 -0600

This is to let you know about our website's new look and feel.

We have been thinking of a way in which we can be more and more attractive, as the result we all agreed that our website needs to be changed.

Earlier the portfolio is messed up, the images were not the same size, in this new theme we created a new module to manage the portfolio. And on the home page we show some of our work, as a fading slideshow, which gives the user some sense of our ablities.

And the blog, ~~we are working towards it and it will come soon (probably within a day)~~ we managed to complete the work before we expected, thanks for the team for making it really neat and tidy.~~Our designers are working really hard to get this done soon~~, and many thanks goes to all of them for putting extra hours on this new venture.

Thank you team!

Also we would like to hear what you think about our website, just email your ideas to Nivanka (nivanka@whynotonline.com)

Launching the Greetings site

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 10:40:00 -0600

On our last newsletter we mentioned that we have something special to for our visitors during this Christmas season

We launched a new website. Yes! as you might have guessed it is a FREE greeting website. For the time being we have knocked off some professional Christmas cards for you. You all can now send your warm Christmas e-greeting cards to your loved ones through our servers.

Go and post your card

Nivanka has been done all the coding, to get the site ready, also Dasun has been making a lot of effort to get the content ready for the new site, and now we are looking forward for our visitors to start greeting their loved ones.

Many thanks goes to both of you!!!!

If any of you have any idea about a nice Greeting card contact Nivanka, he will help you to get it on our website.

Bilingual website development

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 10:38:00 -0600

We are proud to present to you a new plugin for the silverstripe CMS developed by our resident silverstripe expert Nivanka. This is a very useful plugin for developing web sites that have a broader potential viewing public, which is achieved through the use of more than one language.

Unlike other multilingual plugins out there this one is very very easy to use, and build websites with. This plugin allows you to switch between any two languages you prefer. For example you could have a combination of a global language like english,spanish,etc. for the target global audience and a local language like polish, hindi,sinhalese,etc. to cater to a local audience.

We are extremely proud and confident of this plugin and you will soon see our developments using this plugin. We hope that you too will be aided in your online efforts by this plugin.

Get it free here

This plugin is also available at the official silverstripe site :

http://www.silverstripe.com/extending-hacking-silverstripe-forum/flat/225382

Congratulations President Elect Barack Obama!!!

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:37:00 -0600

Our heartfelt congratulations go out to President elect Barack Obama on this momentous occasion of becoming the first african american to become the president of the United States of America.

Even though we are not citizens of the United States of America we have been inspired by President Barack Obama and his story. We too share his vision of singular stories of nations having a shared destiny, "a sense of common purpose" that drives us all, "the spirit of a people YES WE CAN", and most importantly "an unyielding hope" for change towards a better tomorrow for all.

A great day a great mission

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 10:35:00 -0600

This past Friday the 31st of October Nivanka and Dasun participated on behalf of whynotonline.com in an educational program for underprivileged students in a rural school. The program was conducted in the Vidulipura Maha Vidyalaya .

The participating students were from the grades of 10 to 13 who are taking the subject of ICT for their O/L's and A/L's.

The program was conducted in a highly practical oriented fashion where the students were encouraged to try out building web pages and adding simple functionalities such as hyperlinks.

The program was organized by Miss Himali Education Consultant, and Mr. Roshan who is the ICT teacher for the school. Both Nivanka and Dasun were pleasantly surprised at the eagerness, and ability of the students to pick up knowledge quickly allowing the completing of the entire syllabus on html in one day. They also had high praise for Mr. Roshan who cared enough about his students to acknowledge his lack of knowledge in a specific area and then bring in outside help to allow his students the best knowledge; he also showed great humility in sitting with his pupils and learning with them, a true role model for any educator. Whynotonline.com will engage in other programs like this in the very near future with the goal of bringing the students of the rural areas the same opportunities students in the townships take for granted.