The word social networking rose from obscurity to main stream last year. It could very well be the focal point of the second round of web. We see a number of companies creating huge virtual communities for social, professional and romantic interests. These companies like Myspace, Orkut, Tribe, LinkedIn, Friendster, Indiapage and Visible Path, rolled out new or improved services that let users create online identies with their circle of real-life acquaintances. The idea was mainly to let users build online profiles that advertised their interests and to help them connect with friends and friends-of-friends around one of those interests — whether it be finding a job, finding a new venture partner, making a sale, or finding a jogging buddy.
Majority of these companies except friendster and myspace had a sluggish start. However most of these companies grew exponentially recently due to the by nature of social networking. They have also incorporated a number of money making programs in these sites to make it viable in the long run. Today there is no doubt social networking is a real business with real business plan.
Most of the social networking sites are based on broad vertical markets today. For example LinkenIn as the professional group, facebook for college campuses etc.. We believe the next round of social networking would be for smaller closely knit groups. For example sites as part of communities exist in the real world. Examples are local youth groups, schools, colleges, business associations, and independent businesses. One of the main challenge has been the time and cost associated with the software required to create these web applications for smaller groups with limited budgets.
The user created content in the social networking sites is the greatest asset for the communities. Value creation at the edge is a great way to keep the user communities adding value to the main entity it serves, let it be a business or social organization.
iScripts has introduced a social networking engine called iScripts Socialware. This is a new open source software to create social networking sites in a few minutes. A highly customizable software which can be used to create social networking sites for different communities. The number of customizable themes are targeted for different communities.
This software is available for purchase at http://SocialWare.iScripts.com . An online working demo is also available at the site. This script is written in PHP with mySQL backend and is currently priced at $149.95.
A number of common modules like chats, forums, bogs etc.. are available. Also some unique modules virtual gift store etc.. are also available to make your site into revenue generating site. Few more of the modules are planned for the next product release, which are already into the planning stage.
Here is some of the main features implemented in iScripts SocialWare software:
· Private Mailbox iScripts SocialWare provides a mailbox for all its users with this a user can compose,   draft, check mails.  This is to allow private conversations between users without leaving the site. · Blogs Create a unique blog using iScripts SocialWare. Users can share thoughts, opinions, stories, favorite music, movies, books and anything else with others .Admin can add different blog templates for the users to select from. Chat Have online chat with other visitors on the live chatroom. Forum Create any number of discussion forums and make comments on others forums Groups Stay connected to friends who share similar interests or affiliations by joining a group .This will allow members to create a community within a large community. Gifts Send real gifts to other users by paying the amount to the site owner if payment is enabled or virtual gifts to other users by paying virtual money if payment is disabled. Events Users can post events and organize parties and get-together quickly and easily by using this event management. Classifieds Users can post any number of classified ads on any categories .They can send responses to classifieds posted by other users. Photo Album Users can create photo album and add any number of photos to these albums. Powerful search The powerful search lets users to search and find users matching various search criteria. Communities Users can build comminutes using “invite a friend” feature. Multiple Administrators The site admin can create multiple admins with different permissions so that the site could be managed by various admins with varying powers. Module Management The site admin can enable or disable decide which modules needs to displayed to the user. Centralized Site Management The settings panel lets admin to predefine user approval type, album approval type , payment gateway information etc Multi Themes The admin can set different themes so the site appearance changes. Currently there are 4 themes.  These themes include social, professional, romantic etc.. Switch Mode The admin can switch the mode between live and down for maintenance , so the user can understand if the site has been closed for maintenance.
As with all other iScripts products, iScripts SocialWare is an open source software product. This means customers can modify the software to meet their specific requirements. iScripts also offers customization services for customers. If you believe the software is close to your requirements, we can customize the software to meet your exact needs. This is true for both look and feel as well as functionalities.
A install wizard is available to install the software in few easy steps. However iScripts can install it for the customers, if you choose.
One of internet’s most successful area is in creating communities. Starting from the News groups in the olden days to the social networking communities at YouTube and Digg are the prime examples. Web allowed us to transcend the geographical boundaries when it comes to common cause.
Armia Systems, Inc introduces SonicBB , a brand new message forum software for creating your own virtual community. You can create this community for your business or social causes. SonicBB<>/font is a user-friendly and fully customizable bulletin board package. SonicBB is compatible with any web server/operating system combo with PHP and mySQL. SonicBB is the ideal community software for all web sites. It provides maximum control for the board administrator without hindering usability of users. You can set up your forum in minutes thanks to the easy to use installer.
SonicBB allows you to effortlessly create, manage and promote your online community SonicBB is designed to meet all your community creation requirements.
Powerful search facility - find posts and threads quickly!
Fully configurable, categorize your forums into categories
Easy theme selection
Easy HTML editor for posting messages (allows bolding/italics/underlining etc.)
Moderator capability (can be used to monitor and prevent unwanted messages)
Unlimited Message capability
Smiley manager
Create “Sticky” threads
Some of the main features in the pipeline includes integration of image galleries with the forum, so that users can display the images. You can find more detailed information at SonicBB.com web site. You can download SonicBB and other open source, customizable software from Armia Systems at iScripts.com
As usual SonicBB is an open source bulletin board software. You can modify it to meet your specific requirements. We would be happy to customize it if you would like us to modify the software for a small fee.
In the recent months there was an influx of swapping platform focusing on different vertical / geographical markets. The reason for this increase in the swapping web sites is simple. For a lot of items in the consumer to consumer market place happen way below its intrinsic value.Â
For example if you try to sell a used text book you paid $100 to your college store, you would be lucky if you get back $20-$30. Try to buy the same book very next day from the same store; it would cost you upwards of $75.00. Why does it happen? It’s not because your college store is greedy. Well, that’s part of the reason.. also all the cost associated with the middleman. Same is the case when you sell your used car to the dealership. If you try to buy the same car from the same dealership, you will be surprised to find out the difference between the buying price and selling price is way off.
When a consumer sell something to a business, normally the transaction happen below it’s intrinsic value.
When a consumer buys a used item from a business it happens above the intrinsic value. Always there is a winner and loser. Unfortunately we have been doing business this way for very long time. Since we invented currency.. Before it we had the barter system. In the barter system, the trades are more equitable.
Recently Newyork times wrote about the new crop of swap websites in this articleYou can spend months of development and a lot of money to create a swapping website. Or you can use the software from Armia Systems, Inc. The software is called eSwap . It is a  complete swapping platform to get you to start a swap website within few hours. Â
eSwap allows you to set up a swap website with an escrow service. The administrator of the site can specify if the escrow is provided or not. Admin can also specify different categories, commission for listing items for swap. You can have any number of categories and products. It has built in support for paypal and credit card merchant account. The affiliate program allows you to market your swapping site through of referrals.
Users can post items to swap or sell. They can also list items in their wish list so that others would know what they are willing trade. Â
This comprehensive piece of software is developed in PHP with mySQL database and is piced at only $149.95. as always Armia Systems, Inc engineers are available to provide any customization and to install the software for you. You can purchase the software through iScripts.com store     Â
How do know, what somebody want? Ask them. It’s that simple. But ask yourself, how often you talk to web customers? How often you ask their opinion about the products you have? And about the products you don’t have?
Here is a small, yet powerful script for your you to ask your customers, your site visitors what they want, how they like something, and what else what they want.Â
This script is called iScripts.com easy surveys. It allows you to create unlimited number of surveys. You can have any number of questions in the surveys. Any type of questions, only limited by your imagination. Once you finish create the questionnaire you need to contact your potential audience. You have two options. One provide a link from your web page requesting your customer/ potential customer to take the survey. Or you can send the survey by email.
You can import your mailing list from a database, excel spreadsheet or cut and paste. You send the survey to your mailing and ask them to take a survey. They can respond and submit from their email client itself. No need to login to your site for doing so.
You can have one mailing list per survey or share the mailing list from survey to survey. Once the survey is completed, you, the administrator will have the aggregate information in very nice graphic reports. Of course you can drill down to more details, with a click of a button.
There are a number of hosted survey solutions in the market field. They charge you for each survey. Why pay every time to talk to your customer? After all they are your customer.
 iScripts.com EasySurveys software is listed for only $49.95 for unlimited surveys. As always, the software is open source. So if you want to make any changes, you can do it yourself. Or we will be happy to make any customization you need for a very small fee. It is a PHP software with mySQL databse.
Today , July 28th,third annual Systems Administrator Appreciation Day, when we pay  respect to a sometimes forgotten segment of the IT workforce. They work day and night, rain or snow to make sure the internet information super highway is humming along just fine.
Happy SAAD! To all system admins out there! And special thanks to our own SupportPRO system admins, who makes sure the servers which we mange are working like as they should and power more than 100,000 websites. Thank you and we love you!
SysAdminDay.com, host of System Administrator Appreciation Day, has a number of gift suggestions for your system admin. Main items are electronic toys, video games and free pizza. If you feel compelled to send gifts to our sys admins, you are most welcome. I doubt if Domino’s will be able to deliver pizza to our support center in Kochi, south India in 30 minutes or less:)
SysAdminDay was first celebrated on 27 July 2001. Now its pegged on  the last Friday in July.
SupportPRO will be participating the second annual HostingCon in Las Vegas this year. If you are not familiar with HostingCon, its the only trade show for web hosting industry. Last year HostingCon was in Chicago. This year it is in Vegas, baby.Since SupportPRO’s main clientele are web hosting companies we will be in the HostingCon 2006 to meet potential clients and partners. So if you are in Vegas this July 17-19 come visit us. We will be in Mirage, Las Vegas. Our booth is #604. You can learn a lot about the entire hosting/ISP industry from the conference.I booked the flight/hotel few weeks back. Now just wrapping with brochures, flyers, banners etc for supportPRO in the tradeshow. it looks like its too late for printing freebies to be handed out. So we are planning to give out an ipod or PSP to the visitors. I like the idea of giving out ipod better.
MessageCloud changes the way you communicate with your audience. It offers you an unsrpassed way to capture feedback from your visitors about specific issues. Unlike traditional applications, it transcends the media.
You can think of MessageCloud as a Guestbook on teh go. Instead of a guestbook fixed to a web site, you can take it with you for any application, site, web page, picture anything you want to get feedback from your audienece
It For example you have a new picture, article, music, post, etc.. in your site, myspace, a forum, blog, classifieds, craigslist you can easily obtain the feedback from your audience. You will know which places it was received well. Who thought it needs some more work.
MessageCloud is a Web 2.0 application from Armia Systems, Inc developed using AJAX. Of course it’s free for users.
There are few hundreds of shopping cart software out there. So why one more? Good question.
This is not a shopping cart. This is a business model in a package. A business model internet was supposed to be delivering - the aggregator business model.
There are a number of niche markets out there which cannot be supported by local shops. The reason is demand from the local region is not able to sustain the business. We have seen these types of businesses migrating to the web very successfully. There are some other businesses where the suppliers are scattered and  low yielding. One of the prime example is handcrafts market. There are a number of hand crafters out there. most do it as a hobby or part time business. for them marketing directly to consumers is an expensive proposition.
That’s where the iScripts.com Multicart comes. Multicart enables you to act as the aggregator, while giving full control to the suppliers. Take a look at HandCraftsWeb for an example of implementation of multicart in the handcrafts market. Suppliers can add products, enter the prices, descriptions, select shipping methods, provide their profile etc.. When user comes in, they view the see the store as a regular store with product from multiple suppliers just like regular retail storefront. Consumers purchase items from the store and they get, the products in the mail. For the consumer there is difference in the shopping experience. You the aggregator collects money from the consumer based on the price set by the seller. You keep a percentage for your efforts and service (say 10-25%). Credits rest of the amount to the seller. Seller can request money from you based on thresholds you set.
For you the aggregator, your responsibility is to run the site, do marketing, get sellers sign up. Sellers responsibility is to make products, list them for sale and ship the item when they receive an order from you.Naturally the script accepts payment, it has categories. It has interfaces for consumers, sellers, and administrator.
Take look at Multicart for details about this unique web software. It is done using php/mySQL.
As always, we can customize it to meet your specific requirements. Drop us a line.
Aaahh hard drive backup. It is up there with flossing, balancing your checkbook. You know you should. But you don’t. There are number of excuses. And one day it happens. It always happens when it’s most inappropriate. You stare at the computer for some time at the blue screen. Try rebooting it. Twice. Now you start panicking. Then you are into denial. No, this cannot happen to me.. You kick yourself and the reality slowly sink in.. your hard drive is fried. AND YOU DON’T HAVE A BACKUP
What is the probability a hard drive will fail? It is one hundred percent. All hard drives will fail. No matter how important data you have on it. Only question is it fails on you. But you know that already. Don’t you?
If its so damn important to back up why people don’t do it? I will agree it is really difficult. Everyday or every week to remember doing the backup. And wait doing nothing your computer is actually backing up. We all have lives. Who has time to do it?
Well its changed. Now spend 5 minutes to set up automated backup with Backup2Net, you don’t have to remember it ever again. This new automated powerful software will keep doing it for you. How do you want to set up the backup? You can backup your hard drive to the same drive, another drive, a network drive or an online server. The security of the backup is in the order of same drive, another drive, a network drive or an online server. Which method you want to do depends what if you loose the data? What’s it worth to you?
Backing up on the same drive has some protection. If you delete something by accident you will have a backup to go back. If you only one drive on your computer that’s one way. But if your hard drive fried you loose your data and backup. But its better than nothing.
You can download the software from Backup2net.com and set up to do a backup every day, every night, once in two days, once a week, month whatever.
If you have only one drive, Go buy one. Hard drives are pretty cheap nowadays. So if you have 2 drives use one as the primary drive and other one as the secondary drive. Download backUP2Net from HERE and select the folders you want to back up. Then select the backup drive as the destination. Select a when you want to do the backup automatically. It would be fine if you select to do the backup every day say 2 am. If you are a night owl lets make it say 5 am. Point select is a time when you are not using the computer.
Backing up to another drive offers more protection than backing up to same drove. If one drive is hosed you have the other one to protect your data. Still there are some situations when you can loose both drives. If operating decides, its time, you are in trouble. So you need to protect some of your valuable data in another location. Information that must want to retain. Things like financial info, home works, creative works, emails etc..
For that added security you need an online backup solution. Surprise… surprise.. Backup2Net can help out here too. If you don’t have much of the junk you can select the free backup plan, which gives you 100MB server space. You can sign up for the free plan HERE. If you need more space you can select from different plans and choose enough space.
In the same Backup2Net client you can set up online backup also. If the previous example you set up daily backup at 2 am to the backup drive. Now lets set up an online backup. Select a new backup job in the software. Select the folders you must protect as the source. For the destination select online backup. Now select to do the backup say every Wednesday at 3am or 4 am .
That’s it you are all set. The automated software will take backup of your precious data every day to the secondary drive and every week to online server. If something backup happens you can restore selected files with a click of a button. Happy backing Up!
Today we got two media enquiries. One from Chicago Tribune . They seem to be polling all the local businesses to see which way the IT spending is going to be in the new year. If the new year so far is any indication, it should be a very good year for IT companies. Now the economy going up again, small medium businesses are coming out of the woodworks. They are getting ready with all those projects that were postponed, cancelled due to lack of budgets. It is a very good sign of things..
Crains Chicago also contacted us today. They are compiling their list of largest IT consulting/Web development companies in Chicago land. After looking at the list I am sure there is no way we will be in the main list. Other local companies sharing the list are IBM, Accenture etc.. Not exactly our cup of tea. Not yet But I think we will be in their full list, which is online only. So far Armia Systems, Inc. was not able to get into the list. I am sure we will get some leads from Crains.
