One-Click Magento 2 Installation
It’s not only Apple that had new things in store. At Cloudways, we have been busy too.
After launching our PHP 7 stack formulation, we have another addition for you.
In the final weeks of 2015, the ecommerce world witnessed an evolution. We saw Magento 2. After years of trial and testing, Magento Inc. finally released the final iteration of Magento 2.0, a whole new way of doing ecommerce.
Since that day, we have been doing our tests too. While testing, we did some cool experiments. We wanted to ensure that nothing breaks as this version was not an ordinary update. It was an overhaul.
This is why we had to find the best way to bring all the best features of Magento 2.0 on Cloudways Managed Magento Hosting Platform.
What’s new in Magento 2?
Over the years, the web has changed. A decade ago, opening a shop meant you will be serving only desktop users. The screen will be 13 inches or more. But, times have changed in the past few years. Mobile commerce has really picked up and this required for a more malleable solution.
While Magento 1 is responsive, it was not perfect. This is where Magento 2 comes into play. It’s a purpose-built ecommerce development solution based on the HTML5 and CSS3.
This version comes with a built-in responsive theme named Luna—which looks awesome in itself. For many, it can become their first-ever theme without much customizations.
Plus, there is a revamped backend. Gone are the days you were left scratching your head when you wanted to do something on your shop. The backend of Magento 2.0 is amazingly easy. You can get different types of report from it easily.
Product and tax management is easy too. Some of the things that were done by extension in Magento 1 come integrated with Magento 2.
The best thing about Magento 2 is its embedded cache mechanism. This means stores on Magento 2 are performance optimized. However, on Cloudways, we have ensured Magento 2 runs blazingly fast.
One-Click Magento 2.0 Install on Cloudways
On this blog, we told you how to set Magento 2.0 on our PHP stack. However, you do not get the best performance that way. This is why we have created a dedicated Magento 2 one-click installer on Cloudways. Whenever you launch a new server or add a new app, just hover on the Magento button and you will have a sub-menu asking if you want to install Magento 2.x or an older version.
Best Magento 2 Hosting Has Arrived
Hosting Magento 2 on cloud servers has never been easier. Just use our one-click installer for Magento 2 whenever you launch a new server or add a new app on Cloudways Magento Hosting Platform. If you are visiting Cloudways for the first time, you should test us out by launching your test server. We know you will like it here.
Source : Cloudways.com
Magento 2 Extensions for Advanced Search
Mirasvit offers a robust suite of Magento 2 extensions and are famous for its range of Search extensions which are also available for Magento 1 and 2 Versions.
Mirasvit has built Search extensions for Magento 2 based on merchant requirements and below are list of extensions
Download/Buy Magento 2 Extensions for Advanced Search from Mirasvit
Top Magento 2 Extensions
By default you don’t get features on Magento 2 which you are looking for eCommerce needs. I have listed Magento 2 Top extensions will help you to spend less on customizing Magento 2.
Here’s list of Top Magento 2 Extensions
Amasty Improved Layered Navigation for Magento 2
Mirasvit Magento 2 RMA
Mirasvit Magento 2 Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) is the powerful tool for managing returns and/or exchanges of goods. This extension is important, if you wish to build strong relationships with your store customers and win their trust and loyalty. RMA has intuitive, step-by-step user interface, which allows your online store clients to create return/exchange requests quickly and easily. Also extension lets you create backend requests through administration interface.
Click here for Demo of Mirasvit Magento 2 Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA)
Mirasvit Search AutoComplete & Suggest Pro for Magento 2
Magento 2 does not offer the robust search feature which has options like Auto Complete and Suggestions on the searches which your customers does, this results to loss in sales because your customer is not finding the right product based on there search. Mirasvit has provided the solutions by developing Search AutoComplete and Suggest Pro Extension which is compatible with Magento 2
Click here for demo of Mirasvit Search AutoComplete & Suggest Pro
Wyomind Magento 2 Simple Google Shopping Extension
Google Shopping is powerful tool which allows users to search for products on online shopping websites and compare prices between different vendors and get more walk ins to your products and generate revenues. Wyomind has developed Simple Google Shopping extension for Magento 2 which helps to feed the data from your Magento 2 Store to Google Shopping in XML Pattern and lists you product on Google Shopping site.
Click here to Demo of Wyomind Simple Google Shopping extension for Magento 2
Why do you need SSL Certificate for Online Business
What is an SSL certificate?
To create this secure connection, an SSL certificate which is also referred as a “digital certificate” is installed on a web server and serves two functions:
- It authenticates the identity of the website and this guarantees uses that they’re not visiting on a bogus site
- It encrypts the data that’s being transmitted from the website
Types of SSL Certificates
There are different types of SSL certificates based on the number of domain names or sub-domains owned, such as:
- Single – secures one fully-qualified domain name or sub-domain name
- Wildcard – covers one domain name and an unlimited number of its sub-domains
- Multi-Domain – secures multiple domain names
and the different type of level validation needed, such as:
- Domain Validation – this level is the least expensive, and covers basic encryption and verification of the ownership of the domain name registration. This type of certificate usually takes a few minutes to several hours to receive.
- Organization Validation – in addition to basic encryption and verification of ownership of the domain name registration, certain details of the owner (e.g., name and address) are authenticated. This type of certificate usually takes a few hours to several days to receive.
- Extended Validation (EV) – this provides the highest degree of security because of the thorough examination that is conducted before this certificate is issued (and as strictly specified in guidelines set by the SSL certification industry’s governing consortium). In addition to ownership of the domain name registration and entity authentication, the legal, physical and operational existence of the entity is verified. This type of certificate usually takes a few days to several weeks to receive.
Where should you use the SSL Certificates
SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, a global standard security technology which enables encrypted communication between a web browser and a web server. It is utilized by more than millions of online businesses and individuals to decrease the risk of sensitive information (e.g., credit card numbers, usernames, passwords, emails, etc.) from being stolen or tampered by hackers and identity thieves. In other words, SSL allows for a private “conversation” just between the two intended parties.
Any individual or organization that uses their website to require, receive, process, collect, store, or display confidential or sensitive information. Some examples of this information are:
- logins and passwords
- financial information (e.g., credit card numbers, bank accounts)
- Ecommerce Platform like Magento, Prestashop, Opencart, Magento 2
- personal data (e.g., names, addresses, social security numbers, birth dates)
- proprietary information
- legal documents and contracts
- client lists
- medical records
Market Leaders in SSL Certificates
4XL And 10XL Amazon M4 Cloud Instances Are Now Available
Cloudways is moving fast every moment.They believe the only way to survive in this cut-throat industry is by welcoming innovations on a regular basis.
In July, Cloudways infrastructure partner Amazon Web Service announced the availability of M4 instances, the new generation of Intel Xeon (Haswell) processors based cloud instances. The use of latest processors makes Amazon the most powerful cloud infrastructure provider till yet.
Since July, Cloudways have been testing this new generation of instances for our Cloud Platform. After many trial runs, we have successfully implemented the M4 family inside Cloudways. Now, every new cloud server launch via Amazon Web Services on Cloudways is from the M4 family.
Why M4?
Good question! Well, due to a new generation of Intel Xeon processors, the computing power of these servers have increased significantly. This means requests are processed in a mere micro-moment. Furthermore, M4 comes with 4XL (16 vCPU, 64GB RAM) and 10XL (40 vCPU, 160GB RAM). These new virtual machines are herculean in their computing nature. These are made to handle very busy websites or robust big data apps.
Amazon is slowly rolling out these instances in its datacenter. For now, M4 instances are available in the following AWS regions: US East (N. Virginia), US West (N. California), US West (Oregon), EU (Ireland), Asia Pacific (Singapore), EU (Frankfurt), Asia Pacific (Sydney), and Asia Pacific (Tokyo).
Is your cloud server on M4?
Well, if you launched a managed AWS cloud server on September 11, you will get an M4 instance. Servers before September 11 are on the M3 family. If your have an M3 instance and you want to harness the power of M4, you can either scale (or clone) your server. The renewed cloud instance will belong to M4 family.
For more information, please check our Pricing page. Lastly, if you have any suggestions for Cloudways, jot them down on our Feedback page and who knows it might get implemented soon.
Source : www.cloudways.com
Magento WebShopApps Freight Shipping
Magento WebShopApps Freight Shipping
Magento WebShopApps Freight Shipping extension retrieves live shipping rates from your chosen freight carrier for your Magento store. With the option to offer freight shipping only when an item marked as freight is in the cart, or if a pre-defined weight limit is exceeded, this extension is ideal if you sell a mix of freight and non-freight items.
INTEGRATES WITH OTHER WEBSHOPAPPS EXTENSIONS
Many customers use Freight Shipping with other WebShopApps extensions to form a superior shipping solution:
• Use with the WebShopApps Dropship extension to specify standard shipping rates on items from one location and freight rates on items from another
• Use with the WebShopApps Dimensional Shipping extension to send dimensions into the Freight Shipping extension resulting in more accurate rate quotes
• Use with WebShopApps Shipping Override to only offer freight shipping in specific countries/ regions
VIDEO
• Retrieve live rates from the following freight carriers: ABF® Freight Systems, Cerasis™, Con-Way®Freight, Echo Global Logistics, Estes, FedEx Freight®, Old Dominion Freight, Pro Star Freight, R+L®Carriers, Re Trans Freight (Formerly Newgistics®), UPS Ground® Freight, YRC® Freight (formerly Yellow Freight)
• Assign a store-wide freight class or assign freight classes on a per product basis
• Set a minimum weight value for shipping by freight
• Set a maximum shipping cost
• Option to offer freight shipping as the only shipping method when a weight threshold is exceeded
• Choose to display only freight options when freight items are in the cart (e.g. if one freight item is in the cart, ship all items via freight)
• Include accessorize charges if required
Click here to buy this extension
MySQL & Apache performance for Magento hosted on Amazon EC2 Micro Instance
MySQL & Apache performance for Magento Community hosted on Amazon EC2 Micro Instance
Recently, I have moved my client store from shared cloud hosting to micro EC2 instance. In the process, I switched from Nginx to Apache. I quickly realized that my instance was running out of memory (RAM) which was causing all of my Apache-hosted applications to fail. Therefore, I made a few tweaks to increase my micro EC2 performance. I want to share them in the hope they are useful to others.
MySQL tuning
To reduce the memory footprint of MySQL, I decided to reduc the Innodb memory pool size. This will impact MySQL performance.
I opened my MySQL configuration file:
Vi /etc/my.cnf
Next, I added this to the end of the file:
innodb_buffer_pool_size=15M
Later, I restarted MySQL:
/etc/init.d/mysqld restart
Apache tuning
Apache was consuming most of micro instance’s memory. This was slowly causing my instance to fail over time. To adress this, I decided to adjust the server process (prefork.c) pool/settings.
I opened the Apache config file:
vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
Next, I found the prefork.c section in the file and changed the section to match the following settings:
StartServers 1 MinSpareServers 1 MaxSpareServers 5 ServerLimit 50 MaxClients 50 MaxRequestsPerChild 5000
Then, I restarted Apache:
/etc/init.d/httpd restart
Linux swap space
Finally, I added some swap space to EC2 instance which is not there in EC2 instance by default. If micro instance is low on memory in the future or exceeds the swap should hopefully help keep the system online.
To add the swap space, I ran these three commands in sequence.
/bin/dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/swap.1 bs=1M count=1024 /sbin/mkswap /var/swap.1 /sbin/swapon /var/swap.1
Finally Reboot Instance.
WordPress Continues To Dominate The Blogosphere
By Corey WordPress has long worn the laurels as the most popular content management system in the world. With its 10th birthday …read more
Source: nexcess
More Tips To Keep Your WordPress Site Secure
By Aaron Update, Update, Update! Everybody has seen this over and over again, and with good reason. WordPress is one of the …read more
Source: nexcess
Using WordPress As An ECommerce Platform
Using WordPress As An ECommerce Platform.
WordPress was originally designed as a blogging platform and eventually grew into the comprehensively featured content management system we know and love today. It was never intended to be used as a platform for retail. For serious online retailers, the open source Magento platform, which occupies the same preeminent position in eCommerce that WordPress has in the CMS world, is far better suited, with a range of features that WordPress can’t hope to replicate in full.
However, for small scale retail ventures that don’t require the level of professional features that Magento offers, WordPress is amply capable. There are a number of eCommerce WordPress plugins that range from the very simple to the quite well featured.
One of the major reasons for choosing to use WordPress for your store instead of Magento is that Magento can have quite a high learning curve for someone who is firmly embedded in the WordPress world. If you want to start a store, and use the tools that you are already familiar with for adding and managing products, then take a look at the WordPress options we’re about to suggest. However, you should bear in mind that the WordPress dashboard and its workflow are really not designed to used in quite this way, and the processes that fit publishing brilliantly are not quite so well suited to managing a store.
We’re going to have a look at a range of shopping solutions that will enable you to add retail functionality to your WordPress site. While there are premium plugins available, we’re going to concentrate on freely available plugins that can be quickly downloaded, configured, and set up, without requiring much integration with third party software outside of the need for a payment processing service.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is one of the more popular eCommerce plugins for WordPress. It is developed by the people behind WooThemes, and one of its major benefits is the range of eCommerce appropriate themes that WooThemes have produced to work with their plugin, although it will work with any theme.
WooCommerce sticks fairly firmly within the traditional posts and pages model of WordPress, so anyone familiar with publishing on WordPress will have no problem getting to grips with managing products. WooCommerce includes everything you need to start an online store, including various payment gateway integrations, shipping management, marketing and promotion tools, and retail specific SEO.
WP-eCommerce
WP-eCommerce is the granddaddy of WordPress eCommerce. It’s been downloaded over 2 million times and has a great community to help out neophyte store owners. WP-eCommerce has many of the same features as WooCommerce, but it can be somewhat less intuitive to use.
Easy Digital Downloads
If you’re selling digital products like software or music rather than tangible goods, check out Easy Digital Downloads. It has many of the features of the other two plugins we’ve mentioned, but is specifically tailored to digital goods, with licence generation and management built in.
Source – Nexcess.net
