Kilobites by Sanico

In one software audit a few months ago I worked with a small business here in Australia that hired software developers from a developing country. Within the first three hours of my analysis of the codebase I noticed I lacked the majority of the code necessary to execute the application. Not only that, I uncovered that the software developers hosted a significant part of the code on the internet, visible and accessible to the public. This decision is extremely poor practice and whether malicious intent, incompetence, an honest mistake or just laziness, it breached the trust of the owner of the company.

This situation left my client both happy and upset. Happy that they found a software auditor like myself that discovered and informed them of a serious issue with the code. Upset that the software developer overseas that they hired with a Freelance Platform failed to provide all the source code, as promised in the original agreement.

In the end it all worked out, I worked with the client to discuss the situation with the software developer and retrieve all the source code necessary to execute and maintain the application. I am still unaware if the developer failed to hand over all the code with malice intent or they made an honest mistake. I perform software audits, not criminal investigations. However, it serves as an excellent warning to anyone that utilises platforms such as …

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Did your Shopify store go down? You’ve tried everything but you are still unable to connect to your online store? No stress, we help fix, maintain, and create Shopify stores on a daily basis. Problems with Shopify stores happen regularly, you are not alone, I promise. Today I will share 7 troubleshooting steps to help fix your Shopify store and bring it back online. The steps range in technical ability from basic to advanced. If they fail to fix your problems then you may always reach out to an expert like myself to help but in my experience usually one of these troubleshooting steps fixes the problem.

1. Check your own internet connection

I know it might sound silly, but double-check that your internet connection works on the device that you tried to access Shopify. To test the internet connection on your device, navigate to a popular website such as https://www.google.com.au and see if it connects. If successful, attempt to go to your Shopify website again. If it fails to connect to your Shopify store, then the problem is with your Shopify store, not your internet connection.

A common error message in Google Chrome when the internet drops out.

2. Double Check the Website URL

A client of mine assumed their website went down, but after troubleshooting the issue we discovered that they wrote the incorrect URL address. For example, can you spot the difference between the …

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Emails: something almost everyone uses.

Love them or hate them, they reign as king of modern day communication. Tons of apps exist for communication such as iMessage, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Reddit, Google Meets, and many more. From phone calls and text messages to status updates and forum posts, and yet email, in my opinion, sits at the top.

As a website developer many clients of mine asked if I am able to help them with their emails. Some wanted custom emails but lacked the knowledge on how to set it up themselves, others pleaded for my help because their emails failed to send and receive.

The more I helped people with their emails the more I saw why people required help. An easy exercise, imagine your emails cease to work for one week. No sending, no receiving, nothing for one week. For most businesses and individuals this presents an unacceptable situation, yet for me I see it often.

Problems with emails occur for a multitude of reasons such as misconfigured email settings, expired domains, hackers that steal credentials, internet connectivity problems, and much more.

Due to the demand of requests I decided to offer email services. I choose the platform, I configure emails, I set up the email filters, I explain how to use the emails, and I contact the call centres for further support.

In the past I never managed emails, as a business we focused solely on websites. …

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Yes you read it right. I love Software. Software is my passion, something that I lose myself in. Call me a weird geek but I love me some zeros and ones. When I write Software I come to life, I feel exhilarated. Whether I program in the morning, afternoon or the middle of the night, time loses meaning. I write Software for work, for pleasure, and for a challenge. Whether paid or unpaid, I am writing Software.

Do I have a hobby? Sure do, Software.

Do I have a job? Sure do, Software.

Do I have something to do this weekend? Sure do, Software.

Call it strange or call it obsessed, I love Software.

When am I unhappy? When I am not writing Software.

When am I bored? When I am not writing Software.

When I write Software, I am not in competition with someone. Is there a better Software Engineer than me? You betcha! Does that matter? No, I love Software.

Think of a question and I will give you an answer: I love Software.

Just like any love, some days I despise Software. I am angry with it. I want to stop talking to it for a bit. When I calm down, take a breather, I come back and reluctantly apologise. Look… I am sorry… I love you Software. Oh, how you drive me up the wall sometimes. Oh, how you get under my skin. Oh, the countless arguments we have. But listen my old friend, Software, I love you. Every single line of you.

I love Software because it allows me to express myself and ideas …

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Shopify is a superior ecommerce platform that helps small businesses sell their products online. It has an ongoing cost to use but this cost is offset easily if you have a thriving store. If you are not a developer, you are required to use one of the several free template themes on offer which has its goods and bads. The major good is that you can have a passable website that allows selling online. However, the bad is that you may face issues changing, updating and even selling anything on this website. Getting Shopify support from a local expert should not be underestimated in solving these bad problems.

First and foremost, before sourcing a local Shopify expert, it is worth checking out the Shopify Help Center as Shopify provides worthwhile information on a lot of common issues.

Shopify Help Center quick options for support.

They also provide a great support chat online for paying customers. They will often help solve simple issues if you are willing to wait for instant message responses.

However, communicating through instant messages or reading online documentation can also become a headache for the business owner. They want to focus on their product and consumer side but are forced to liaise with support teams and spend time trying to fix issues that they are not experts in.

I recommend to business owners to give it a go themselves but if it is taking too much of their …

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You may have heard of ChatGPT but if you haven’t, ChatGPT is an interactive generative pre-trained transformer built on advanced language models… WOAH, let’s make that a bit easier to understand. It is essentially an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that can provide human-like responses to any question you may have. For example, the image below shows the response if I asked ChatGPT to “write a product description for a montessori toy that is colourful and for kids”.

Asking ChatGPT to write me a product description for a Montessori toy.

All I did was write a question, make sure to mention a few important details and away it went. It actually generated more text but I cut the rest of the answer for simplicity’s sake. Yes, this tool is pretty powerful and could be used to automate a lot of menial tasks. It is no surprise that since its initial release on November 30, 2022 that it had over 1 million users after 5 days and now has over 100 million users to date. However, the tool has limitations and biases that need to be understood by the end user. It is important to quickly discuss who developed ChatGPT to understand its origins in a nutshell.

Who developed ChatGPT?

ChatGPT was developed by the company OpenAI who was co-founded in 2015 by notable names such as Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman and others. The co-founders pledged $1 billion to fund this project that …

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A majority of the businesses that I work with ask me if I am able to integrate their systems with Xero, the software they use for accounting. Most businesses manage several software systems for their daily operations such as a CRM, ecommerce website, inventory system, appointing booking system and much more. However, the software platforms fail to communicate with one another which leads to wasted company resources and inconsistent, incorrect and duplicated data.

Software integrations enable software systems to communicate and move data between one another without the need to double handle. Well-engineered integrations enable a business to save time, money and resources instead of manually moving data between systems themselves. Integrations also allow for new internal processes and automations that never existed before.

Why Xero?

Different businesses use various software products specific to their industry. However, every business, no matter the industry, requires software for accounting, therefore a significant amount of people utilise accounting software, especially services such as Xero, Quickbooks, MYOB and others. With a user base of over 3.5 million across 180 countries, Xero possesses a vast number of companies that utilise its software.

People want to integrate with Xero because they use it as the bedrock of their financial status as a business. To determine their …

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When my brother and I founded Sanico Software we started to freelance website design jobs. We began with websites because we knew a market existed for handcrafted, well designed, and well engineered websites. We immediately boomed with business and decided to double down harder on websites. However, the small businesses that we worked with began to ask for more than just websites:

• “Can you manage my domain?”
• “Can you set up my computer network in my home office?”
• “Can you filter my emails?”
• “Can you customise this off-the-shelf software?”
• “Can you transfer my Facebook business page that I sold to another business?”
• “Can you go to Sydney and Melbourne to set up the IT infrastructure in our new offices?”
• “Can you audit the software that someone built for me overseas?”
• “Can you connect our inventory system to Xero?”

Now, a quick pause here, I label myself primarily as a Software Engineer, even if I graduated as a Computer Scientist from UniSA. I say Software Engineer because I construct and architect software products, although many well respected people disagree with the use of this term, I stay out of the political and social debates. Long story short, I am a Software Engineer.

However, as more and more clients ask me questions like the ones I listed above, I find it difficult to …

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We recently worked with an Adelaide based electrician contractor that works on significant projects around South Australia to help customise their quotes, invoices, and job cards in simPRO. I heard several clients mention this software simPRO since I work with other local tradies in Adelaide such as SIMAC Air Conditioning and RP Connections. However, I never directly worked with the software myself.

simPRO allows businesses, in particular tradies, to manage their jobs much more easily. For example, to generate quotes with costs of materials and labour, management of client information, inventory management of materials, and much more. simPRO works great except the quotes, invoices, and jobs cards generated by the system show in a default output, not specific to how a business necessarily desires. It also shows information that a business might want to keep private from quotes, invoices, and job cards.

The company we worked with said they used simPRO for a significant amount of time but the quotes, invoices, and job cards failed to show the way they desired which meant they refused to use them. Instead, they copied and pasted information generated from simPRO into their own Word document with the styles and information they desired. This meant double handling of information which wastes time, effort, and money.

Instead of the double handling of information they decided to call …

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When someone starts a business they go straight on the internet and buy a domain name. Usually they buy both the general .com version and the regional version such as .com.au in Australia. They purchase the domain for a multitude of reasons but the major one of course, to prevent its purchase by someone else. Once they establish their business over time they use the domain for their website, to set up emails, and so on. The problems begin here.

The problem occurs when a business owner or their employee misconfigures a domain name that leads to emails, websites, and much more going offline. Over the last year alone I received over 10 requests for help with misconfigured domain names where a small business lost the ability to send and receive emails and for customers to access their website. Even worse, some of the businesses failed to realise their emails or website went down until their customers began to complain.

Cheap Domain, Costly Future Problems

Many small businesses manage their own domain names due to the cheap cost of $18aud to $25aud from domain providers such as GoDaddy, Google Domains, Crazy Domains, and many more. However, most domain companies offer these cheap prices with the hope that businesses subscribe to other services such as websites, emails, security tools, and much more. Make a loss on the cheap gateway product to make a profit on the addons, that sort …

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