Charlie's Blog

I am usually a tea drinker (one or two cups per day).  However, sometimes I find coffee necessary to get me through some of the larger, deadline driven, projects that we work on here at ALP. 

I think I drink tea primarily to get my caffeine fix which I developed a "need" for during college for the all-nighters. But, let's be honest, tea cannot entirely replace coffee when it comes to really needing that extra boost. Or, can it? 

The part that bothers me the most about coffee is that when the caffeine wears off, I feel worse than before I started drinking the coffee (even when the coffee is weak and full of creamer).  This can't be good.  In fact, I would argue that the combined work effort during the caffeine rush and following the rush probably is about equal to not having drank any coffee at all. 

This brings me back to realizing why I switched to tea in the first place.  I get just enough caffeine to get me going, but not so much that I experience a huge crash. I am thinking office desks should just come with a caffeine drip installed.

About one month ago I launched an e-commerce website for my family’s business, Southern Distributors, Inc.  www.southerndistributorsinc.com.  Southern Distributors is a general merchandise wholesale distributor. Based in Richmond, VA, they have been providing distribution services for nearly 60 years.

Although it is not YET the prettiest site I have produced, it is definitely getting the job done.  Phase one was simply getting the site available to the public and loading their inventory of over 5,000 products.  After the site gains some traction, we will revisit sprucing up the design :)

For this project, I chose BV Commerce by BV Software www.bvsoftware.com.  This is a Richmond, VA based software firm.  I personally worked with the creator of this software during college and it was a treat to get to try the software out a few years, and versions, later as a professional web developer. 

I am pleased to report that I have enjoyed working with BV Commerce.  The user interface is intuitive and easy to navigate.  The software with the source code is a modest $500 bucks.  It is fairly robust and is developer friendly if you are accustomed to .NET 2.0+ programming standards.  Competitors sell comparable software easily for over $1,000.  If you do not require every last bell and whistle on the planet, BV commerce is a very practical and economical option.  It includes all the fundamental e-commerce functionality to get your business up and running on the internet.

Today, 60 years after opening its doors, Southern Distributors sold its first product using an e-commerce website!

I have worked with AspDotNetStoreFront (DNSF) before, but not Interprise Suite (I/S) and I am in the middle of developing an e-commerce solution using I/S 2007 with DNSF.

So far I have been very frustrated with the I/S software and the customer support, which is based out of the Philippines and has yet to return my calls at the agreed upon times.  In addition, each service call usually involves multiple representatives that all have to “get back to me later.”

At a glance the software appears to be quite robust, but using the I/S interface on a client/server setup has been challenging.  We have had issues with the software and its documentation dating back to the installation.

For starters, the software initially needs to be fully installed on the server although it does not specifically instruct you to do so.  The client interface uses web services that have been unreliable, at best.  The software bypasses the old way of accessing DNSF via a web browser and you now HAVE to control all of the DNSF settings from the I/S interface….that is, IF (big IF) the web services are working. Otherwise, the software will not communicate with the DNSF options.  Also, it crashes all the time.  I can’t get it to stay open for very long, especially when the web services are acting up.

I called customer service at DNSF to see what they had to say about this (great customer service, by the way…and great product).  I spoke with a sales rep. that said this is not the first time they have encountered a caller like me.  They actually went as far as to tell me that they have recommended to customers that they should try using a different version of DNSF and switch from I/S to Great Plains.

In summary, although this software has good intentions and seems like it should be able to function as viable ERP software, I would recommend researching alternatives until they get the kinks worked out.  Maybe the next version will be the one to get.