Hello Everyone,

This is my first post. I am having a problem with my website asking for a login page when I click on a category. It is almost like it is remembering people who have been to the site. Is it legal to immediately refresh the cookies when someone goes to the homepage.

I was going to try and put some code on the bottom to do so and see if that helps. I have been using their technical support for a few weeks to try and fix the problem and it has not helped.

The website is www.fibersolutionsonline.com Clicking on the categories after awhile and then going back to the page produces a login page. I am completely frustrated with the people that designed this. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Thanks so much.

By the way, I did see some code to erase the cookies, but I wanted to make sure that the code was what I would need to fix this issue.

Thanks
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Programming problems like this can't be fixed unless you yourself can do the coding and testing.

Otherwise you need to hire someone more competent to do this for you.

There are so many places someone can screw up, and do screw up, on web development projects, it's impossible to say anything more.

Just as some quick, professional feedback, your site is very poorly built and looks bad, so it's hardly surprising that the underlying code is equally bad.

In web development, the idea that lowest bid is one you should take is a VERY bad idea, and is virtually guaranteed to produce a mediocre at best outcome.

It's virtually impossible to fix poorly done code, and I have to admit the platform these guys put your site on is a new one to me, I assume it's one of those horrible 'build a site kit' things that run off the developer's private web server.

Sorry, can't help, you have to interact directly with the people you paid to build/develop this thing. I find that most successful people on the web might have one, possibly two, bad experiences like this, then decide to do the job right, keep the projects running under their full control, using standard web servers, languages, and so on. And of course, don't underestimate the power and efficacy of a clean, professional looking design.

Good luck with your site, we can't help.
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Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, the site was built using our MAS200 Ebusiness Manager Software. It probably cost us 5000 to build. I am pretty ticked about the backbone stuff messing up so early on.

The surface stuff, is easy enough to fix, but when it is basic foundational stuff that makes it hard. What is the "look" that you find not up to par. I guess I am looking for opinions so that I can address everything when ready. Thanks
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I've done this work so long that you can instantly spot generic junk backend code and programming by the way the site looks.

Contrary to popular sayings, you can in fact judge a book by its cover, since a clean pro interface is usually only achieved using some kind of underlying competence, especially in the code/css/design components of the site, although sometimes designers will fake a pro looking site with slice and dice graphics, but the underlying code is useless. This is why designers should design, and developers should build the site.

What's funny about these products is that they are generic, look generic, and I doubt would ever really work in any major way that's different from default.

I'm not at all surprised the backbone messed up, by the look of the finished product, clearly nobody with any pride in their work did the job, which would fairly strongly suggest outsourcing, specifically, Indian outsourcing. Their quality control tends to totally suck, and unless you ride them every single step of the way, the outcome will be junk, and at best, I've found, especially with lowend stuff, mediocre/barely works would be the best outcome.

Something like incomplete, incorrect, cookie handling, would be par for the course for Indian outsourcing, those guys are underpaid, overworked, and don't have a culture of taking pride in their work. Or any other people who churn out sites like this, you can't possibly have pride in your work and work in that way.

The 'look' that is lacking is any design whatsoever, it's totally lacking in design at all, it's just some stuff thrown onto the page, anyone can do that, it takes no skill at all. Good design is a separate process, and usually is not cheap. But sometimes you can fake it by just copying the look/feel of well done sites, with some slight tweaks in graphics and colors, layout, etc. This requires decent html/css skills, as well as an at least functional eye for color and graphics combinations, a smattering of color theory doesn't hurt either.

I'm not a designer, but I know what they do, and why they matter, they see and think about pages in a way neither you nor I do, they see an integrated whole, which is what makes a page 'work'. Information design is what makes a site flow, and is what makes your visitors and users stay, use your site, buy, and return. This site does not appear to have either graphic or information design at all.

Groan, where to begin... the horror, looping sound on the home page... that's bad, very very bad.

that stops being cute after the first visit.

web safe colors by the look of it in the page layout, that's the 255 color palette that about 15 years ago were required, but which haven't been needed or used for ages now.

bad header graphic image.

totally generic layout, with top nav cluttered with too much stuff, pointing to also bad information architecture, and lack of understanding of key components of information architecture.

$5000 is very low for a real site, especially if you have to pay a designer, it's the bare minimum you can get away with, but if and only if you are working with somebody both competent and honest, which is a very tough thing to find at random.

You can get basic shopping cart stuff up and running, but I have yet to see a non-vile generic solution, it seems to me that most sites that want to succeed end up building their own stuff, you can only go so far with out of the box solutions, if you ever hear of a good product let me know.

I wouldn't personally ever even look at, or work on, a site built in this way, since there's nothing there to salvage.

Anyway, good luck with your efforts, the web is a tough business, my experience shows that one mistake, maybe two, is normal, after that, you realize that shortcuts don't work. Or you move on to other activities; or the business is so niche that it simply does not matter at all what the site looks like, since the market is basically captive, no other choice than you.

I haven't even done a site review in ages, I used to do that all the time, but now I don't bother anymore, unless the site was built by someone quite good, the code is usually not worth touching at all.

Re Cookies:
There's nothing conceptually complex about setting/reading cookies, though you do need to understand the basic theory behind the stuff. And you need to execute the page code server side correctly, etc. Cookies just have to be done right, that's all. Ideally you have full control over the server, and you're using a real webserver like Apache, a real web hoster, and of course,. a real operating system, running real programming code, also under you company's direct control, you own it that is.

If the bug is server side, they need to fix it, if they are Indian outsourced, you basically need to forcefully make them fix it, if you are dealing non directly with the actual builders of the site, good luck, you'll need it.

I guess IBM does some good work with their web services stuff, but I've never used it, and don't know what the process really looks like, I prefer working on code I can actually control and maintain.
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