Comments on: Start-up gives online shopping a makeover

Boston-area software start-up Allurent emerges from stealth mode, promising a better Web checkout experience.

[ragjunk]

RE: Start-up gives online shopping a makeover

If their software is as good as they show it in the demo, then God should save their company. It took a long long time to load on both IE and Firefox on a 2GHz Windows XP machine and just didn't work thereafter. Most of the times, using the shopping cart is frustrating because they are designed poorly. Some dynamic HTML/Javascript/CSS can produce slick interfaces where the user can go back and forth without losing anything on the shopping cart. Flash is not a good answer, since the online merchants cannot assume that their users have it loaded. Turning customers off because of the choice of technology is not an option for online merchants.

My 2 cents.

Peace.

[markdoiron]

Worked Fine on My Machine

the demo worked fine on my machine.

one positive thing i'll say about this flash shopping cart: finally someone is coming up with a purpose for flash other than to cause annoying eye-candy affects that detract from the web browsing experience. personally, i use firefox and i have a plug in that disables all flash until i click on it. much more preferable than ceding control of my computer to a programmer with a different agenda than mine.

mark d.

[ragjunk]

RE: Start-up gives online shopping a makeover

If their software is as good as they show it in the demo, then God should save their company. It took a long long time to load on both IE and Firefox on a 2GHz Windows XP machine and just didn't work thereafter. Most of the times, using the shopping cart is frustrating because they are designed poorly. Some dynamic HTML/Javascript/CSS can produce slick interfaces where the user can go back and forth without losing anything on the shopping cart. Flash is not a good answer, since the online merchants cannot assume that their users have it loaded. Turning customers off because of the choice of technology is not an option for online merchants.

My 2 cents.

Peace.

[markdoiron]

Worked Fine on My Machine

the demo worked fine on my machine.

one positive thing i'll say about this flash shopping cart: finally someone is coming up with a purpose for flash other than to cause annoying eye-candy affects that detract from the web browsing experience. personally, i use firefox and i have a plug in that disables all flash until i click on it. much more preferable than ceding control of my computer to a programmer with a different agenda than mine.

mark d.

[ragjunk]

RE: Start-up gives online shopping a makeover

If their software is as good as they show it in the demo, then God should save their company. It took a long long time to load on both IE and Firefox on a 2GHz Windows XP machine and just didn't work thereafter. Most of the times, using the shopping cart is frustrating because they are designed poorly. Some dynamic HTML/Javascript/CSS can produce slick interfaces where the user can go back and forth without losing anything on the shopping cart. Flash is not a good answer, since the online merchants cannot assume that their users have it loaded. Turning customers off because of the choice of technology is not an option for online merchants.

My 2 cents.

Peace.

[markdoiron]

Worked Fine on My Machine

the demo worked fine on my machine.

one positive thing i'll say about this flash shopping cart: finally someone is coming up with a purpose for flash other than to cause annoying eye-candy affects that detract from the web browsing experience. personally, i use firefox and i have a plug in that disables all flash until i click on it. much more preferable than ceding control of my computer to a programmer with a different agenda than mine.

mark d.

[ragjunk]

RE: Start-up gives online shopping a makeover

If their software is as good as they show it in the demo, then God should save their company. It took a long long time to load on both IE and Firefox on a 2GHz Windows XP machine and just didn't work thereafter. Most of the times, using the shopping cart is frustrating because they are designed poorly. Some dynamic HTML/Javascript/CSS can produce slick interfaces where the user can go back and forth without losing anything on the shopping cart. Flash is not a good answer, since the online merchants cannot assume that their users have it loaded. Turning customers off because of the choice of technology is not an option for online merchants.

My 2 cents.

Peace.

[markdoiron]

Worked Fine on My Machine

the demo worked fine on my machine.

one positive thing i'll say about this flash shopping cart: finally someone is coming up with a purpose for flash other than to cause annoying eye-candy affects that detract from the web browsing experience. personally, i use firefox and i have a plug in that disables all flash until i click on it. much more preferable than ceding control of my computer to a programmer with a different agenda than mine.

mark d.

MX is passe now

Don't ya guys think HTML/AJAX wud have been a better choice? I can see this effort taking off from the petstore demo, and it is a good effort, but I think flash is slowly fading away and AJAX is IN.

MX is passe now

Don't ya guys think HTML/AJAX wud have been a better choice? I can see this effort taking off from the petstore demo, and it is a good effort, but I think flash is slowly fading away and AJAX is IN.

MX is passe now

Don't ya guys think HTML/AJAX wud have been a better choice? I can see this effort taking off from the petstore demo, and it is a good effort, but I think flash is slowly fading away and AJAX is IN.

MX is passe now

Don't ya guys think HTML/AJAX wud have been a better choice? I can see this effort taking off from the petstore demo, and it is a good effort, but I think flash is slowly fading away and AJAX is IN.

[bit-looter]

what happen to sessions?

I thought sessions (java's HttpSession and others), where suppose to deal with the whole statelessness of HTTP thing. I don't know anything about flash from a developer stand point so I'll reserve judgement on its use, but the article talks about the losing of data in shopping carts being a major problem for e-tailers. If you implement (via cookies or url-rewriting) sessions that shouldn't happen. As for the back button issue, a clever javascript could track what a user has typed so far and save (via cookies or on the server) it when ever they click a link to leave the current page. Isn't flash also proprietary, which would make me a little nervous to use it on the web.
Given that thier aim is for deep-pocket e-tailers, it may not be bad, i liked the demo.

[bit-looter]

what happen to sessions?

I thought sessions (java's HttpSession and others), where suppose to deal with the whole statelessness of HTTP thing. I don't know anything about flash from a developer stand point so I'll reserve judgement on its use, but the article talks about the losing of data in shopping carts being a major problem for e-tailers. If you implement (via cookies or url-rewriting) sessions that shouldn't happen. As for the back button issue, a clever javascript could track what a user has typed so far and save (via cookies or on the server) it when ever they click a link to leave the current page. Isn't flash also proprietary, which would make me a little nervous to use it on the web.
Given that thier aim is for deep-pocket e-tailers, it may not be bad, i liked the demo.

[bit-looter]

what happen to sessions?

I thought sessions (java's HttpSession and others), where suppose to deal with the whole statelessness of HTTP thing. I don't know anything about flash from a developer stand point so I'll reserve judgement on its use, but the article talks about the losing of data in shopping carts being a major problem for e-tailers. If you implement (via cookies or url-rewriting) sessions that shouldn't happen. As for the back button issue, a clever javascript could track what a user has typed so far and save (via cookies or on the server) it when ever they click a link to leave the current page. Isn't flash also proprietary, which would make me a little nervous to use it on the web.
Given that thier aim is for deep-pocket e-tailers, it may not be bad, i liked the demo.

[bit-looter]

what happen to sessions?

I thought sessions (java's HttpSession and others), where suppose to deal with the whole statelessness of HTTP thing. I don't know anything about flash from a developer stand point so I'll reserve judgement on its use, but the article talks about the losing of data in shopping carts being a major problem for e-tailers. If you implement (via cookies or url-rewriting) sessions that shouldn't happen. As for the back button issue, a clever javascript could track what a user has typed so far and save (via cookies or on the server) it when ever they click a link to leave the current page. Isn't flash also proprietary, which would make me a little nervous to use it on the web.
Given that thier aim is for deep-pocket e-tailers, it may not be bad, i liked the demo.

[educateme]

It did take time to load the demos, whats a Comsumer?

I found the demos slow loading, would hope that is more about
code refining and too much demo candy, but I think it needs
improvement there. I agree, that AJAX would seem like a natural
evolution of simplicity in HTML, rather than more preloading of a
Flash player, and then loading a Flash module for the cart each
time.

Something makes me guess that AJAX & HTML would run more
universally in most browsers, and would load faster than Flash
code. I guess it depends on how complex the display
information needs to be, as to whether this cart demo is enough
to entice big name retailers to use it.

On another note: I often make spelling errors in my posts as I
quickly type things, but in my Demos I usually proof read them,
with others. I wondered if they invented an new term, or
accidently typed in Comsumers. It could be the new thing -
ie: .Com sumers? I wonder. See the demo again for this minor
part.

[educateme]

It did take time to load the demos, whats a Comsumer?

I found the demos slow loading, would hope that is more about
code refining and too much demo candy, but I think it needs
improvement there. I agree, that AJAX would seem like a natural
evolution of simplicity in HTML, rather than more preloading of a
Flash player, and then loading a Flash module for the cart each
time.

Something makes me guess that AJAX & HTML would run more
universally in most browsers, and would load faster than Flash
code. I guess it depends on how complex the display
information needs to be, as to whether this cart demo is enough
to entice big name retailers to use it.

On another note: I often make spelling errors in my posts as I
quickly type things, but in my Demos I usually proof read them,
with others. I wondered if they invented an new term, or
accidently typed in Comsumers. It could be the new thing -
ie: .Com sumers? I wonder. See the demo again for this minor
part.

[educateme]

It did take time to load the demos, whats a Comsumer?

I found the demos slow loading, would hope that is more about
code refining and too much demo candy, but I think it needs
improvement there. I agree, that AJAX would seem like a natural
evolution of simplicity in HTML, rather than more preloading of a
Flash player, and then loading a Flash module for the cart each
time.

Something makes me guess that AJAX & HTML would run more
universally in most browsers, and would load faster than Flash
code. I guess it depends on how complex the display
information needs to be, as to whether this cart demo is enough
to entice big name retailers to use it.

On another note: I often make spelling errors in my posts as I
quickly type things, but in my Demos I usually proof read them,
with others. I wondered if they invented an new term, or
accidently typed in Comsumers. It could be the new thing -
ie: .Com sumers? I wonder. See the demo again for this minor
part.

[educateme]

It did take time to load the demos, whats a Comsumer?

I found the demos slow loading, would hope that is more about
code refining and too much demo candy, but I think it needs
improvement there. I agree, that AJAX would seem like a natural
evolution of simplicity in HTML, rather than more preloading of a
Flash player, and then loading a Flash module for the cart each
time.

Something makes me guess that AJAX & HTML would run more
universally in most browsers, and would load faster than Flash
code. I guess it depends on how complex the display
information needs to be, as to whether this cart demo is enough
to entice big name retailers to use it.

On another note: I often make spelling errors in my posts as I
quickly type things, but in my Demos I usually proof read them,
with others. I wondered if they invented an new term, or
accidently typed in Comsumers. It could be the new thing -
ie: .Com sumers? I wonder. See the demo again for this minor
part.

[ahzzmandius]

Flashisn't theanswer

Asanotherposter said, flash isn't the only answer. Ajax/javascript/xhtml/css2 combination is also capable of this and is far easier to guarantee browser compatibility with.

Client/server communications in shopping carts can be fast if the company invests in a properly deployed server setup.

And for my last point, browsers can save form information and re-fill the form easilly. Users are paranoid of doing so because of weak encryption of "saved data" in their browser. I use 128bit encryption option on Firefox and save my common information like shipping/billing details. Firefox fills in most forms for me automagically.

In conclusion, flash isn't "The Answer(tm)". It's proper use of the tools that exist (which most "webmasters"and programmers seem incapable of using properly).

[ahzzmandius]

Flashisn't theanswer

Asanotherposter said, flash isn't the only answer. Ajax/javascript/xhtml/css2 combination is also capable of this and is far easier to guarantee browser compatibility with.

Client/server communications in shopping carts can be fast if the company invests in a properly deployed server setup.

And for my last point, browsers can save form information and re-fill the form easilly. Users are paranoid of doing so because of weak encryption of "saved data" in their browser. I use 128bit encryption option on Firefox and save my common information like shipping/billing details. Firefox fills in most forms for me automagically.

In conclusion, flash isn't "The Answer(tm)". It's proper use of the tools that exist (which most "webmasters"and programmers seem incapable of using properly).

[ahzzmandius]

Flashisn't theanswer

Asanotherposter said, flash isn't the only answer. Ajax/javascript/xhtml/css2 combination is also capable of this and is far easier to guarantee browser compatibility with.

Client/server communications in shopping carts can be fast if the company invests in a properly deployed server setup.

And for my last point, browsers can save form information and re-fill the form easilly. Users are paranoid of doing so because of weak encryption of "saved data" in their browser. I use 128bit encryption option on Firefox and save my common information like shipping/billing details. Firefox fills in most forms for me automagically.

In conclusion, flash isn't "The Answer(tm)". It's proper use of the tools that exist (which most "webmasters"and programmers seem incapable of using properly).

[ahzzmandius]

Flashisn't theanswer

Asanotherposter said, flash isn't the only answer. Ajax/javascript/xhtml/css2 combination is also capable of this and is far easier to guarantee browser compatibility with.

Client/server communications in shopping carts can be fast if the company invests in a properly deployed server setup.

And for my last point, browsers can save form information and re-fill the form easilly. Users are paranoid of doing so because of weak encryption of "saved data" in their browser. I use 128bit encryption option on Firefox and save my common information like shipping/billing details. Firefox fills in most forms for me automagically.

In conclusion, flash isn't "The Answer(tm)". It's proper use of the tools that exist (which most "webmasters"and programmers seem incapable of using properly).