BlogEngine extensions are a great way to introduce custom functionality without touching the core code. Here 's an example of how to do that:

mosesofegypt.net

Following are some of the BlogEngine Themes we've found useful:

1. Official List of Extensions
2. Moses - Post View Count 
3. oberdata.com - SEO for BE
4. internetblu.com
5. my6solutions.com - Twitter, Social Bookmarking

BlogEngine (BE) is a popular .NET based open-source blogging platform. We recommend it highly and develop websites using it. Following are some websites that have themes that you could download and use for your own websites. Al Nyveldt's blog shows you how to create your own BlogEngine theme.

If you need something custom, get in touch with us and we'd be happy to be of service to you: sales@manipalsystems.com

Following websites have a collection of BlogEngine Themes:

1. BE Official Themes
2. blogenginetheme.com
3. themes4blogs.com
4. jankoatwarpspeed.com
5. mooglegiant.net
6. rtur.net
7. Unofficial BE Forum Themes

Following are links to individual BE themes that we've come across:

1. krishnan.co.in
2. webdesignmantras
3. thetechhub.com

Mobile BE Themes:

1. iPhone Theme for BlogEngine

Selling successfully online is as much science as it is art, and a continuously changing one at that! However here are some timeless tips to succeed with your online store:

1. Customer Reviews Are Critical - Reviews drive down your returns rate and helps make important product or service adjustments
2. Make Sure Customers Can Contact You - A toll-free phone number with store timings show commitment to customers
3. Bring Your Store To The Customers - Search engine optimization (SEO), RSS feeds, blogs, social networks, etc
4. Neat Site Design & Layout - The online storefront is as important as offline stores. Attention to details like product pages, color options, imagery are important to convert site visitors to customers
5. Good Product Photography - Skimping on product imagery will only chase away customers
6. Email Marketing - Automate emails to upsell to customers that have purchased products
7. Print Marketing - Effective, personalized mailers are a good way to get people to your store
8. Expanding Relationships - The quicker you can get customers to come back and purchase more, the better the long term prospects with that customer
9. Quick Shipping - Getting the product in good condition, quickly to your customer shows you have your act together
10. Business Plan - Online business are no different from offline businesses. Create a plan and identify the steps necessary to achieve targets.
11. Collect Metrics - There is a lot of business information that can be obtained by collecting metrics on your site.
12. Good Business Practices - Customers these days expect Free Shipping, Easy Returns & Reading Feedback as norms in good online stores.

Talk to MDS about how we can help you succeed with your online store. We are an end-to-end interactive services firm.

The problem is that the costs aren't nearly as much lower as you might believe. Here's one breakdown from Money magazine for a hardcover bestseller by way of Scott Laming of BookFinder.com Journal:

Based on a list price of $27.95

$3.55 - Pre-production - This amount covers editors, graphic designers, and the like
$2.83 - Printing - Ink, glue, paper, etc
$2.00 - Marketing - Book tour, NYT Book Review ad, printing and shipping galleys to journalists
$2.80 - Wholesaler - The take of the middlemen who handle distribution for publishers
$4.19 - Author Royalties - A bestseller like (John) Grisham will net about 15% in royalties, lesser known authors get less. Also the author will be paying a slice of this pie piece to his agent, publicist, etc.

This leaves $12.58, Money magazine calls this the profit margin for the retailer, however, when was the last time you saw a bestselling novel sold at its cover price.

One way to look at this is to look at the percentage of the list price that printing represents. That's 10 percent--plus at least a chunk of the wholesaler line item. So let's call it 20 percent in all.

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*ESPN* The Magazine becomes the latest print publication to try charging for its content online. The magazine announced on its website Friday that its online version, ESPNTheMag.com, was merging with the ESPN (NYSE: DIS) Insider service, which charges $39.95 a year for specialized sports content. “As of Friday June 5, ESPNTheMag.com ceased to exist as we know it, but the site’s signature pieces and voice continue to live on the Insider page,” the magazine alerts visitors. (Print subscribers can continue to access magazine articles via the Insider for free).

ESPN Publishing General Manager Gary Hoenig tells Business Week that it is a move other publishers should make as well.  “Why is it, in this business, we are apologetic when asking [consumers] to pay for what we give them online?” he asks. “It’s not like people in the milk business who think ‘we should give it away for free—we can make money on the cartons.’”

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The reinvention of the news gathering industry is being engineered -- at least in part -- in Chicago. Companies like automated news feed service EveryBlock and The Printed Blog (just as it sounds) are drawing international attention for their inventions. Two-year-old aggregator Newser is banking on its tabloid-oriented and venture capital-backed approach to covering stories.

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At its MIX09 interactive design conference in Las Vegas, Microsoft has released a beta version of its Silverlight 3 rich Internet application (RIA) technology and a Preview version of its Expression Blend 3 interactive design software.

Microsoft says that Silverlight 3 helps designers and developers build RIAs that work faster with a new set of over 60 controls that boost its graphics, animation and 3D capabilities. Silverlight 3 also offers true high-definition video in full-screen mode, with stutter-free live and on-demand video, according to the company. Silverlight 3 gives users more video format choices than ever before, including H.264, along with enhancements such as deep linking, to improve navigation in Silverlight content and automate search engine optimization (SEO) tasks.

Silverlight 3 also enables interactive teams to create lightweight Web application experiences that can exist outside the browser.

FORBES, 10 Mar 2009: Kurt Vonnegut said that he wrote his books thinking of how to please one person: his sister. By focusing on one person's taste, Vonnegut was able to create books that had wide appeal. This same idea has been employed to create software. Alan Cooper, father of programming language Visual Basic and a leading proponent of the principles of interaction design, has trumpeted the idea of designing for one specific type of individual.

Cooper formalized the idea of focusing on a specific class of individuals through the concept of personas, which are detailed descriptions of hypothetical people who are going to use a software system. In interaction design, these personas are used to guide brainstorming and evaluation of the user interfaces and functionality. The perspectives that have proved useful in analyzing several problems are as follows:

The individual perspective: People using software to perform specific tasks in their work and daily life.

The team perspective: People using software to collaborate and communicate as a group.

The department perspective: People using software to track and coordinate the activity of multiple teams.

The organization perspective: People using software to track and coordinate the activity of a corporation, government agency or large organization.

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INTERNET RETAILER, March 2009: A well-designed web site is more important than ever now that retail sales are slow, but few e-commerce managers are likely to get budget approval these days for a top-to-bottom site overhaul. The good news that came out of the Internet Retailer Web Design ’09 conference is that small tweaks can add up to big results—and have the advantage of not confusing customers.

“Constantly evolve through incremental changes, without changing too much at once to risk customer frustration or confusion,” said Rawlinson, vice president of web operations and new business at Neiman Marcus Direct, the direct-to-consumer arm of the department store chain. “Let the customer get used to changes to the site one at a time.”

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NETWORK WORLD, 4 March 2009: Designing Web applications is complicated and one area in particular where painstaking, expensive, iterative development occurs is user interface design. Get it right and your Web application will stand or fall due to its underlying functionality. Get it wrong and it doesn't matter how good the underlying service is, the chances of success will be seriously reduced if not short-circuited altogether.

In Web design circles they talk of “wireframing” or as it is sometimes called “Web wireframing” – that’s the technique of graphically depicting a user interface layout so that those involved in approving the design can reach agreement on direction and style.

Typically, the wireframing process begins on a white board for the initial “blue sky” thinking and then gets formalized using an application such as Microsoft Visio (if you’re looking for a Web wireframing stencil library for Visio check out the Visio Wireframe Toolkit for Download). Note that the wireframes you create with this toolkit will have a Microsoft Internet Explorer “look.”

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