Monday, June 8, 2009
To start with, my current weekend had been the most fruitful times which I had ever in my life. It's not due to the reason that I had another wonderful and enjoyable weekends of going out with friends or families but it's much more than that!
Basically, on Friday night when I could not sleep, I spent my time reading through few articles on how to edit an oscommerce site. I did that out of curiosity and most of us would have known, I have ZERO knowledge on IT related things! Apart from this, since I had paid quite a sum of money to my developers for the past few years - just to create, maintain and update few of my websites at any one point of time, I decided to try it myself and put the information which I had read to a practical test.
So, the first thing which I did was to get myself an FTP client. Basically the function of this File Transfer Protocol is to transfer files between computers on network such as Internet. In other words, you can use FTP to exchange files between computer accounts, to transfer files between an account and a desktop computer or to software archives on the Internet.
Anyway, I got myself two FTP clients to start my mission rolling. They are SmartFTP and FileZilla respectively. As soon as that is done, the test drive begins! I tried fiddling the FTP on my oscommerce site and following my instinct on how to use it without having much difficulties. Soon enough, I tried to read more information on how to edit some of the features from the oscommerce community forum and trusting each and every one of their points and recommendations, it proved to be worthwhile.
Hours after hours, I tried and soon, without me realizing, my oscommerce had lots of difference! By now, it had been heavily modified! To be honest, I myself could not believe that I am the one who modified it! Fair enough, now I understand what my parents usually told me are true - "New knowledges and skills are necessary. It will benefit you greatly and that's only IF you are willing to learn them"
For my case, the benefits which I will experience are not only the knowledge of using FTP and getting new skills to edit HTML, PHP and CSS languages but I will also be able to SAVE A HUGE SUM of MONEY in the future! Anyway, if you are wondering on how much money I will save, here are the costs breakdown.
#1. My Oscommerce site - Heavily modified site with my own detailed preferences and features in the website. For this aspect, developer will easily charge at least SGD $3, 200 for EACH SITE as normal market rate! Apart from this, I have heard from one of my friends who owned an IT company, he have charged a customer up to SGD $15, 000 before! Nevertheless, the developer whom I happened to know quote me about SGD $1, 600 only for each sites. It's quite cheap right? Despite this, I am unsure whether what they quote me can wrap up everything which I want, especially by the fact that I am those "Mah Fun" people when it comes to terms with my businss related activities.
Anyway, since I will be opening another 2 sites in weeks or months to come, this means that I will have 3 oscommerce sites. Thus, assuming that I have not learn this new knowledges and skills, and I decided to consult the latter pricing packages, it would easily cost me at least SGD $4, 800!
#2. My personal websites - For this website, my good friend Stanley have been helping me and doing my website since I was in Polytechnic Year 2. I owed him a lot as a result. This is because he never asked me for money for his work and time. He even told me that he wanted to do my website for free and yea! He kept his words and never asked me for a single cent!. Kudos to Stanley! God bless you always mate =)
Thus, as you all can see, the minimum savings which I can get for #1 is at least about $2, 500 if I pay myself SGD $700 for the two new oscommerce sites which I am planning to open in weeks to come. In contrast, for #2, I will be able not to disturb Stanley so much, especially when I need to make sudden and urgent amendments to my website! LOL!
Lastly, to those who wished to start an online website business, feel free to contact me. Even though I am new to developing my own oscommerce site, I am not new in business aspects. Thus, I am quite sure I am able to give a few tips and pointers to you too. Feel free to spam me if I am not busy :)
Something new ............... Written By Hafiez Ismail
