With time and innovation, WordPress has undergone a lot of changes and is now completely refurbished from what it was when it started. It is not just a platform for blogging. You can use it to start an online shopping page. Small scale businesses and corporate companies alike are using this platform to set up their online shopping site. With unlimited options to grow a business and gain popularity, the companies are looking to impress their targeted audience. WordPress provides a chance to do just this in the most professional and fun way possible. It offers a wide range of plug-ins to make the theme you choose extremely functional. They are meticulously designed and developed by professionals who make sure only the best quality is offered for the shopping sites.

What is the most important feature of an online shopping site? They are the shopping carts. One in two shoppers is likely to buy more than one product from an online website. It is time-consuming to buy every product and make payments separately. When a consumer wishes to buy more than one product, he or she can simply add the products to the cart and continue shopping. Once he is done, he can click on the cart and make payments for all the products he bought in a single payment. This saves time and all the unnecessary hassles for a customer. They also browse across different categories. To offer them a smooth shopping experience, you have to choose a theme that offers excellent e-Commerce support.

There are a lot of shopping cart themes available exclusively for online shopping pages. Here are a few simple shopping cart themes you can consider for your page:

Velvet Sky:

It is ideal for both private and commercial use. It offers a charming and pleasant atmosphere at the same time retaining the professional look. It offers a lot of customization options and a neat layout. The shopping experience will be smooth for the customer who visits the site. The key features of this theme are:

• It offers a personalized home page.
• Horizontal and submenu options.
• Separate unit for the custom slide show.
• Home page option with combo slider.
• Support for one-page checkout and guest checkout.
• Compatible with all the leading search engines.

http://dapurpixel.com/theme/velvet-sky

Dangdoot:

Though the name may not sound so professional, it is one of the best shopping cart themes to choose from. There is the free and premium version of this theme. It is an excellent theme for any music-based company. It has myriad features to simplify your work. The custom panel of the theme is user-friendly and you can set up your online website in a matter of minutes. The key features of this theme are:

• An easy-to-use layout with a professional look.
• Slideshow supported by JavaScript.
• Categories are denoted by thumbnails.
• Featured products or recent albums appear on the home page.
• Product view can be categorized.
• A lot more ad spots and sidebar widgets.

http://portfolio.icreativelabs.com/free-wordpress-e-commerce-theme-dangdoot/

Beauty Store:

Do you want to start an apparel or beauty store online? This is the theme to go for! It is a two-columned theme with a simple and neat look. The shopping cart available on this theme provides a smooth shopping experience for the customers. You can download Beauty Store for free. It is a perfect theme for clothing boutiques, beauty stores, books, and music stores. The key features include:

• A customized page for the Home page.
• Supports threaded comments.
• XHTML 1.0 support.
• Widget ready

http://themes.rock-kitty.net/shopcart-beauty-store/

These are a few themes you can consider for your E-Commerce website. However, it is difficult to highlight a single one and call it the best. Each theme is compatible with a particular kind of business. A theme that is suitable for a music store may not be the right one for a finance company. There are myriad other options like Online Clothing Shopping, TeeShirt, Aventura, Dealers, The Vineyard, etc. The names give you an idea of the type of business it can be used. Decide on what kind of business you are going to start and your branding strategy. Are you going to go for a typical corporate look or are you going to take the fun and innovative angle? You will find all types of shopping cart themes online.

This is a guest post by Lance Goodman of www.dishtvoffer.com, a site that offers savings and current information on Dish TV.

P.S.S.  These are outdated I will add updated ones at a later date

With the recession taking over the majority of economies across the globe, securing your job has become the topmost priority. The scenario is the same across different verticals and for programmers, it is even worse. As the resource pool of PHP developers is expanding, the crunch of right projects and jobs is also deepening. Organizations are paying emphasis on quality rather than quantity. It’s all about the survival of the fittest.

Getting your hands on a handsomely paying project is not just a matter of luck. It also readily depends on the quality of services rendered by you as a developer. A PHP web development project requires you to have in-depth knowledge of the language and deploy industry best practices. As you scan your clientele in hope of grabbing onto the next breakthrough project, here are some coding best practices that can get you through the stringent quality evaluations of even the daintiest clients:

1. Get Friendly with Single Quoted Strings: Using single quotes over double quotes gives you a marginal performance benefit, especially if you are coding some intricate project. A PHP string that is surrounded in double quotes is misinterpreted as variables and special characters by the PHP interpreter. If you want a single-string output, it is best to use single quotes. It enhances the performance of your PHP application as the string doesn’t get parsed.
2. Don’t Use Regular Expressions Unnecessarily: Keep a safe distance from ereg and preg function groups as and when possible, especially if you are performing basic string operations. When str_replace and strtr functions are faster than preg_replace, why do you wish to stick with old school functions? Move on and save your application from those crunch cycles.
3. Short Open Tags are a Big No-No: Are you still torturing your PHP application with short tags? It’s time you show some mercy. <? Is just a bad code form and creates conflict with XML parsers. It will also annoy people who will try modifying your code in PHP directives. So, you won’t find even a single justification for using open tags. Use full tags instead and let your application breathe.
4. Keep Functions out of Loop Declarations: Using functions inside loops is not a great idea. It is annoying to see how some developers stake the performance of the application to save an extra line of code. If you use a function inside a loop, it will get executed as and when iteration initiates. If you have a bigger loop, this will mean you are increasing the execution time, which is not a bit user-friendly.
5. Document Your Code: You might have heard it a hundred times, but it by no means depreciates its value. Documenting your code means you value your hard work as well as your client’s investment in the programming phase. Many organizations will hire you just on the basis of your documentation habits.
6. Variable Initialization is a Must: If you don’t initialize a variable, PHP will create it automatically, but it is best not to rely on this feature. The code becomes sloppy and God forbids if you have to track down the initiating point of the variable, you will have to scan through the entire code. Moreover, incrementing of an uninitialized variable takes more time than that of an initialized variable. So, it’s best to initialize a variable.

PHP web development can be a tricky job, especially when so many others are keeping a watch, waiting to grab any opportunity that comes their way. It is best to follow best practices and adhere to stringent quality standards, to rapidly increase your client base.

Author:- Steve Graham is an expert in PHP Web Development, who has been blogging on the niche for the last 6 years. Currently, he is associated as a freelancer with a PHP development firm that deals in PHP Development Outsourcing.

The Christmas spirit is often one that takes a little while to get into, however, iOS devices and the Apple store have your back with a range of amazing Christmas apps that will put you in the mood for the holidays and put the happiness back in your heart.

Fortunately, Christmas usually coincides with the arrival of a new phone, meaning many of us will have the new iPhone 5 for Christmas apps. So, what are the best fun iPhone apps available for Christmas?

Blabber Box – Christmas Edition

There’s nothing like a bit of a laugh to lighten up proceedings and the good people at blabber box have provided a giggle or two with the Blabber Box Christmas Edition. Choose from one of four characters and then record and animate your vocals over some half-minute cartoons of Santa, a nutcracker, Rudolf, and of course an elf. It’s silly fun, but a great way to lift those Christmas blues.

Christmas Fire

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire – it sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, many of us don’t have the liberty of an open fire at Christmas. However, for those who fall into the aforementioned category, there is an answer – Christmas Fire from the App Store. The app creates the crackle of a fire and even has a number of Christmas tracks included. The perfect alternative to the Christmas fire – well, maybe not, but cool nonetheless.

White Christmas

We all dream of a white Christmas and with this app, you can have it. The live photo-taking app will create the effect of snowfall on your iPhone, allowing you to create a snowy Facebook profile photo. There’s also the option to add Santa and a number of other festive templates to the image. It also uploads directly to social media.

Santa GPS

If you have little ones then you will certainly have to await the excitement of Christmas with eagerness. Of course, it can be hard to know how Santa is doing and where he is. Fortunately, there is an answer with the Santa GPS. This app shows you where the man himself is on the night in question. The app even has a Good and Naughty list that allows you to check your position.

oChristmas Tree

This app really encapsulates the feeling of Christmas. From the crackling fire to the snow falling outside, this app has it all and even allows you to choose from up to 63 ornaments for your tree. These also include a range of animations and sound effects with ornaments and you can then send your tree with festive lighting and all to friends and family.

Festive Holiday Baking

Christmas is about food and this festive app has a wide range of great baking recipes that are made with less than 8 ingredients – most of which you will have. It’s a nicely laid out app that will provide a festive feel for your stomach.

Christmas Music

This app has over 10,000 free songs for you to play throughout Christmas and with this sheer number, we would say you can play without repeat from November to January.

Christmas apps are a great way to get into the spirit of things, so why not download a few and have some fun?

Cormac Reynolds writes for Festive-lighting.com a UK-based company that supplies all your decoration needs for the festive season.