Mugo Web's blog

Google Maps is an almost ubiquitous tool and can be incredibly useful to integrate into your site. There’s a lot of versatility in its uses, but depending on how much you’re asking it to do, the results might not be optimal. When you have a huge dataset to display on Google Maps, the performance tends to slow down. When that data is spread across a large geographic area, the issue can be compounded. As you zoom out and more markers try to load, your map can slow to a crawl. What was a useful tool now becomes a point of frustration for visitors to your site. Let’s take a look at the technique that can be used to improve the performance of maps with large datasets.

One of the major selling points for Google Analytics 4, when it was released in late 2020, was the inclusion of predictive analytics metrics, a Big Data feature that until then had largely been the domain of enterprise analytics packages.

Now that Google has announced that GA4 will replace Universal Analytics for all users by July 1, 2023, it’s worth a second look at how GA4’s predictive analytics can impact your business.

The Mugo Web team recently worked with one of our long-time clients, FindaTopDoc.com, to execute a seamless migration from its existing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to a new platform.

This project was critical since FindaTopDoc relies on extensive use of CRM integrations to power its physician directory website. Applications range from updating doctors’ searchable listings to managing user-generated content, a pillar of the FindaTopDoc publishing strategy.

Events are the buzziest change between Universal Analytics (UA) and Google Analytics 4 (GA4). There’s a good reason for that — they mark a very substantial shift in how property owners track data on their sites. This is a daunting prospect and an opportunity. As a property owner, you will need to reevaluate how you use your analytics and how you can make the new system work for you. As you make the switch to GA4 before UA’s End Of Service date (July 1, 2023), you might be focusing on just recreating a familiar pattern and making your GA4 property look the same as your old UA dashboard; the better option is to clarify exactly what you need from your site’s analytics and leverage GA4’s superior flexibility to accomplish your goals.

We’ve discussed eep (Ease eZ Publish) several times over the years. It’s a powerful tool we at Mugo Web have used for innovative solutions. For the uninitiated, eep is a collection of scripts to support developers working with eZ Publish. Now that eZ Publish is a legacy product, we needed a new option for eZ Platform and Ibexa DXP. Introducing eep-bundle, a collection of Symfony commands specifically selected to work with the new system! We’ll dive in and look at some of the more useful functions eep-bundle provides, such as commands to work with cache, content, content field and type, location, section, and user data.

If you have a Google Analytics property, you’ve probably heard about the upcoming switch to GA4. You might have seen the banners across the top of the page when you log into UA. “Universal Analytics will no longer process new data in standard properties beginning July 1, 2023”, a polite yet vaguely threatening notification, easily ignored as a problem for next year. If you are proactive, you might have already started the switch to the new platform, having heard the recommendation to run both concurrently until the switch. And if you are like many, that might be as far as you’ve gotten.

Specialty presses have specific requirements that aren’t met by run-of-the-mill websites or standard e-commerce solutions. Their readers are among the most demanding consumers you’ll find online, and they want precise details about your publications, trustworthy reviews, and recommendations from a community of like-minded readers.

A retail shopping cart e-commerce system isn’t up to the standard these customers expect.

This is part of the reason why Mugo built ReaderBound, an all-in-one, a feature-rich website platform for publishers. The specific demands of this industry require an integrated, purpose-built commerce experience.

Libraries provide a myriad of services for their patrons, which requires a lot of coordination and communication. Patrons need multiple ways to interact with their librarians; in-person, via phone, social media, chat, etc. A modern library needs tools to quickly collect information and requests with an intuitive workflow for staff and the public.

When things go seriously wrong in a well-built but complicated system, the cause is often a cascade of small failures that pile up. Not that we’re building rockets over here, but an excellent example is the ill-fated Ariane flight V88. Solving the issues behind such failures can be problematic. Many things contribute to the difficulty, from the extensive use of caching to the need to convincingly reconstruct the failure in retrospect. Debugging this kind of failure, especially under pressure, is hard. We consider the ability to do this to be the hallmark of a senior developer. Even so, it is essential to have a team of experts working together to troubleshoot issues and find solutions promptly to help keep your site running.

If you manage one of the millions of websites affected by the Google-mandated migration from Universal Analytics (UA) to Google Analytics 4 (GA4), you might be following the best practice of simultaneously running UA and GA4 scripts until you’re ready to adopt GA4 fully. One of the analytics features that needs special attention is cross-domain tracking.

The Toxics Use Research Institute (TURI) at the University of Massachusetts Lowell wanted to add memos to records in its Pollution Prevention Options Analysis System (P2OASys), a database for evaluating and comparing the safety of chemistries. TURI could have elected to simply add a field to its database structure, but it saw a bigger opportunity to reinvent a key system that had not been updated for more than five years.

A great deal is only “great” if it ends up paying off in the long run.

This truth is perhaps best expressed by author Terry Pratchett in his “Boots theory” of economic value, as laid out in his iconic Discworld novel series:

Business data is inevitably distributed across multiple systems. However, we know that customers are not prepared to deal with that kind of complexity, especially when they see little relevance or value to the task at hand. A typical location for this kind of friction is in the integration of the Content Management System (CMS) and the Customer Relationship Management system (CRM). Integrating the two can help provide a seamless experience for the customer and increase the overall usability of your website.

Websites are not static things; they are a dynamic part of your company and the actual storefront for all of your online customers. Most companies acknowledge the importance of upkeep on their brick and mortar branches, websites often aren’t given the same consideration. Your website should constantly evolve to keep up with current standards, trends, and the functionality your clients deserve. We often don’t realize what opportunities we are missing and what we are leaving on the table by relegating website maintenance to the bottom of the list.

Promoting events and managing attendee registrations is one of the key ways a modern website supports a public library's educational mission. Here at Mugo Web, we’ve developed a comprehensive Custom Event Registration System that lets library staff schedule recurring event series, create waiting lists for popular programs, and even manage sign-ups for multiple children from one family.

A major website project requires a lot of planning. You need to evaluate the tactics and resources needed to meet your launch date, but you also should be planning on how to select the right development partner to ensure that your initial investment in a site launch continues to pay dividends as your business evolves.

Virtually every company, from mid-sized businesses to large-scale enterprises, can benefit from working with a professional web development partner. Professional web developers understand how new features and workflows can elevate your business and can add valuable insight as well as reliable execution to your website projects.

But before you choose a web development partner, you have some homework to do. You not only need to clearly define the strategic goals and success metrics for your site project, but you also need to honestly evaluate how much of the project you can tackle internally – both in terms of bandwidth and expertise.

As the publisher of a successful online magazine, Carol Ott is always looking for ways to diversify her publication’s revenue streams. In fact, building and executing on multi-channel digital strategies has been the focus of the partnership of Ott’s Habitat Magazine and Mugo Web for the better part of a decade.

Libraries are much more than stacks of books that you can borrow. They are hubs of community activity; every library website should have features that make it easy for patrons to find and register for events and programs for their families.

One of the most common features in any website is the login system which validates a user’s credentials and grants role-based access to certain content and functions. The Symfony-based Ibexa DXP includes a standard login system which checks encrypted login credentials against user information stored in the CMS’s database.

Content management systems, including the Ibexa DXP, typically create a Content Name for each content item stored in the database. Content Names are automatically generated from attributes required for a content type, and so do not necessarily match other content attributes, such as Title, that users can edit directly.

Using on-demand compute resources from Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a great way to optimize the infrastructure costs associated with your site or application.

On-demand IT infrastructure is a great option for cost-conscious companies that want enterprise-class technology without investing in physical hardware or dedicated space in a datacenter. And Amazon Web Services (AWS) is as a leader in the on-demand infrastructure category with plenty of options for cost optimization.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) can be a great solution for businesses that want to host their data and applications in a flexible, on-demand environment.