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marți, 30 noiembrie 2010
Ecommerce is growing. But how fast?
Everyone knows that the ecommerce industry is growing.
But do you know how fast? Or what percent of all the retail sales it takes?
United States Census Bureau published Quarterly E-Commerce Report on November 17th, 2010.
This is the latest statistics on ecommerce available for United States.
The U.S. Census Bureau, pre-eminent collector and disseminator of timely, relevant, and quality data about the people and the economy of the United States, conducts a population and housing census every 10 years, an economic census every five years, and more than 100 demographic and economic surveys every year, all of them evolving from the first census in 1790.
3rd quarter of 2010 shows rather good results with 41,5 billion USD retail sales in ecommerce. It accounts for almost 4.2% of the total retail sales in US.
What is interesting is that the estimated ecommerce sales increased 14.1 percent in Q3 of 2010 compared to Q3 of 2009 while total retail sales increased 5.8 percent in the same period.
This proves that ecommerce is growing much faster than the overall retail market.
You can follow the growth of the share of ecommerce sales over time in this graph:
Estimated Quarterly U.S. Retail E-commerce Sales as a Percent of Total Quarterly Retail Sales:
1st Quarter 2001 – 3rd Quarter 2010
Red line shows estimates that are not adjusted.
Blue line shows estimates adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes.
It will be really interesting to see how holiday shopping season (with Black Friday and Cyber Monday just around the corner) will affect these numbers for the last quarter.
Go Ecommerce!
luni, 29 noiembrie 2010
Bargento 5 : mCommerce, logistics, and payments
Don’t miss Bargento, the complete eCommerce event dedicated to Magento!
Bargento 5 * November 8 * CAP 15 in Paris
After four editions, Bargento has become a “must” for all those wishing to meet professionals and experts, forge new alliances and find new service providers. Whether you already use Magento or intend to migrate to this solution, your visit to Bargento will provide all the answers on the most popular eCommerce solution in the worlrld.
* 30 exhibitors will be at your disposal to obtain all information
* 16 presentations will allow you to learn all you need about best practices
* Over 750 attendees expected
* Topics included: Website creation, SEO, SEM, Optimization, ERP, mCommerce, Logistics and Payments.
Don’t miss this opportunity to hear Magento CEO & Founder, Roy Rubin. Roy will present attendees with the latest news, team updates, and Magento’s vision of eCommerce. He’ll also be able to provide direct anwsers to your questions.
For more information on Bargento and to register, please visit the conference website.
duminică, 28 noiembrie 2010
Git vs SVN A.K.A. Everyone likes control
Hi! Today I’ll try to make an objective overview of both SVN’s and Git’s pros and cons from developer side. I won’t go into depth of configuration of any of them neither will discuss specific commands, but rather functionality itself.
I’d like to point out that the two most famous types of version control systems are:
Centralized version control system – subversion (SVN)Distributed or decentralized version control system – GitAnd that’s the big difference, others are just a small smaller things that are based upon this main fact. I won’t say that they don’t matter, au contraire, like French would say, amount of that small things is greater in volume than you’d think.
And now, enough with the “general stuff”, let’s put everything on a list.
SVN is a powerful version control tool and many companies have been using it for quite some time. Over the history, it became the most popular version control system in the world.
The “Pros”
SVN is well-known, wide-spread solution that makes everyone comfortable.Its centralized repository makes tracking simplerThere are only two basic commands (used on daily basis):svn commit or svn ci. This command recursively sends your changes to the SVN server. It will commit changed files, added files, and deleted files.svn update or svn up. This command syncs your local sand box with the server. If you have made local changes, it will try and merge any changes on the server with your changes on your machine.SVN help is more organized and to the point. Even a quick Google search will get you much more simple examples than for GitThe “Cons”
SVN stores a pristine copy of every checked-out source file on the client side, in a subdirectory of “.svn“.Space requirement is much greater than with GitRequires Internet connection for many “daily” stuff – which makes it much slower compared to GitThe “Pros”
Stronger branching than any other Source Code ManagementFaster than SVN (in this example) – mainly because it does common tasks like “diff” locally, which includePerform a diff.View file history.Commit changes.Merge branches.Obtain any other revision of a file (not just the prior committed revision).Switch branches.Smaller complete “filesize” of repositoryThe “Cons”
Overkill on documentation (IMHO) – can’t easily find small examplesIt can get difficult to track branches and revisionsAlthough SVN is the popular choice, I’d go with Git any day. Not because I’m geeky (and Git would fit into that perfectly), but from the developer side. The fact is that when using version control system, you’ll mainly do a “push”, “pull” and “difference”. And If it has to be directly on server, it will get lagged sometimes (depending on the changes and connection). Git’s capability to create number of “commits” locally and putting it to server with one push is great. Combined together with “difference” locally its my choice of tool. Solely on those two facts.
On the other hand – you will hear that some clients require SVN, and you’ll almost never hear that kind of request for Git – that’s true. But you can always use SVN for specifics, and Git for your comfortability on other projects. And another relevant fact – when I looked into material for this article – I almost couldn’t find an article “SVN over Git” – it was the opposite way.
To “conclude the conclusion” – small example from “real life” I found on the Internet:
For example the Mozilla repository is reported to be almost 12 GiB when stored in SVN using the fsfs backend. Previously, the fsfs backend also required over 240,000 files in one directory to record all 240,000 commits made over the 10 year project history. This was fixed in SVN 1.5, where every 1000 revisions are placed in a separate directory. The exact same history is stored in Git by only two files totaling just over 420 MiB. SVN requires 30x the disk space to store the same history.
As this is exclusively my opinion, I’m very interested in yours. Please express yourselves!
Cheers!
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The Top 5 Mistakes of Massive CSS
Just because you didn’t get to go to that awesome conference doesn’t mean that you can’t still watch the lectures! Each weekend, we’ll feature a recommended web development lecture on Nettuts+.
This presentation, by Stoyan Stefanov and Nicole Sullivan, primarily details the huge performance benefits to using Object-Oriented CSS, as well as a crop of other common CSS hurdles.
Magento Holiday Support Hours, We are By Your Side This Holiday Season
Hello! Paul Wallace here, VP of Customer Support at Magento.
This time of year, shoppers complain about the “stressful” holiday shopping period…. But who thinks about the stress on-line retailers go through during this holiday period? We do!
Holiday shopping accounts for a significant percentage of annual revenue for many retailers, which means making or breaking the year. Because of this, on-line retailers are stressed out and very carefully monitor their eCommerce storefronts spikes in site traffic, transactions and overall site health.
Here at Magento we understand these are critical times for our Enterprise and Professional Edition merchants and Solution Partners and we are ready to help. We are on full alert from now through the end of the year to help you if necessary:
Be assured that our support team will be readily available during Thanksgiving from 8am CET – 6pm PST on Thanksgiving Day, November 25 and Friday November 26.And in addition we will be monitoring our support system and alerts for any critical issues that arise during off hours.
In addition in the past few months we have made significant headway in creating a robust support organization.
We have:
Tripled our support team with fantastic people around the globe with the objective of better communications and resolutions.Just completed the installation of a new state of the art ticketing system and we can now get real time visibility and metrics.Just added a new support center expanded our talent in other centers including adding new people to our Los Angeles support center. Now we have support personal and offices in California, Texas, South America, Europe and we have more to go. Our goal is to create global coverage.Currently testing and implementing chat support.Further scaling our talent to expand our hours of operations and resolution time.… more to come!
We wish you a successful holiday shopping season and look forward to being at your side with any support issues. Happy holidays!
Magento LightSpeed Module – Review
In the last 7 years of my involvement with web development I have had an opportunity to open a great number of different “boxes“ when looking for web site improvement. After opening these “boxes” things often didn’t seem as it was specified – luckily this is not a case with Magento Lightspeed extension : )
Even though this time there was again a certain feeling of skepticism towards something which seems too good (I probably have been disappointed a lot before), this feeling quickly disappeared. In
this short article I would like to share my experience with Magento LightSpeed module, emphasize
its advantages and compare the results on the website in the creation phase – before and after installation. I don’t intend to go into technical details (such questions can be answered by the Tiny Brick team)
1. Installation
Following very extensive and precise instructions I finished with the basic installation and configuration in about 30 minutes (I have to emphasize here that I’m not a Magento back-end developer). Everything went on without delays.
2. Support
Being curious during the test period I had the need to get in touch with technical support in order to ask a few questions. I logged on live chat on their web site and immediately got an answer (although the status was offline : )) This deserves praise.
3. Results
Everything that had previously been promised for this extension was fulfilled in our test project. The difference in how fast a web site loaded was obvious, to test response time and content loading I used Firebug and YSlow, documenting the results before and after installation (this is just an example without additional configuration). As you can see, the results are far better.
4. Conclusion
- The product has fulfilled all expectations and requirements
- In e-commerce world any increase of speed is extremely important and can increase ROI
- If you are the owner of Magento e-commerce system, this extension can help you a lot, and
in case you are dissatisfied you can always refer to their 15-day guarantee
Cheers!
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Pizza Shop Business Plan Template
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sâmbătă, 27 noiembrie 2010
Setting up Magento debug enviroment using xdebug and Aptana Studio
I’m using Aptana studio for few months already.
It is Eclipse/PDT based so I’m sure all this can be achieved in any Eclipse based platform.
First you should have xdebug php extension installed. Installation instructions are slightly different
for everyone and that’s why there is a tool which will help you: http://www.xdebug.org/find-binary.php
I ended up with this php.ini config following their instructions tailored just for my config:
zend_extension_ts = C:\WampDeveloper\Components\Php\ext\php_xdebug-2.1.0-5.2-vc6.dll
But that wasn’t enough so you will need to add this lines to your php.ini as well:
xdebug.remote_enable=1
xdebug.remote_host=”127.0.0.1?
xdebug.remote_port=9001
Default port is actually 9000, but I changed it to 9001 since I had some problems on 9000, but it doesn’t mean you will have it too.
Restart your web server and you are good to go (fortunately).
Now we need to configure Aptana to use it.
At window->preferences->PHP->PHP server and add new server:
Go to window->preferences->PHP->PHP Executables and make sure you set something like this there:
Check window->preferences->PHP->Debug, mine looks like this:
Go to window->preferences->PHP->Debug->Installed debuggers and configure your xdebug:
You will need to accept remote sessions in case you want to debug application from external browser.
Don’t forget window->preferences->PHP->PHP Servers
Make sure your server is set there.
xdebug in Eclipse should be set up now.
Good luck!
P.S. Since this is very complicated theme to put in one article, I suggest that you try this too: http://www.eclipse.org/pdt/documents/XDebugGuideForPDT2.0.pdf
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Setting up Magento on Git repository
Hello everyone! Recently I wrote a short article Git vs SVN A.K.A. Everyone likes control. Now, I wanted to give you an “real life” example of putting Magento project into Git repository.
So, let’s begin. First of all, I assume that you wish to start with fresh project and that you’ll be doing only back-end programming. This is important because I’ll set up repository only for /app/code/local/ folder. It will keep the repository lightweight and enough for this practical example. At the end, I’ll explain .gitignore file so that you can make modifications to folders you wish to include.
There are two steps you must go through before you start working with Git:
To get started, you need to install Git on your machine – you can find instructions by going on this page.Next thing you need to do is to find yourself a Git repository that you’ll use for your projects. For this example, I used free private repository located at http://gitfarm.appspot.com/.Registering (and auto-configuring) of Git repository is extremely simple with gitfarm.appspot.com
Now, when you have your repository ready, all we need to do is add our files to it. In my example, I’ll add only 1 Magento directory (/app/code/local/) I accomplished that with following commands:
Navigate to your “workspace” directoryWrite to console: git clone http://repository_name@gitfarm.appspot.com/git/repository_name.git – we cloned our empty repository to local machineNavigate to directory named “repository_name” and if you see .git directory inside it, copy your Magento project inside itWrite to console: git add app/code/local/ – this line added our first directory with its files to repositoryWrite to console: git commit -a -m “Initial repository setup” – with this line executed, we made our first commit with message “Initial repository setup”
Write to console: git push http://repository_name@gitfarm.appspot.com/git/repository_name.git master – and finally we pushed our initial setup folder to repository. When this command is executed, you’ll have your files online in this example.
Now, that wasn’t so hard you should agree. At the moment if you followed these few steps, you have your first Magento Git repository ready for work.
At the moment, anyone with repository location (and password in case of gifarm) can repeat steps 1. , 2. ,5. and 6. and do his/hers share on the project.
Notes:
If you haven’t used gitfarm.appspot.com as your repository, steps 2 and 6 might differ (depending of repository setup)if you’ve used any private repository, you will have to authenticate via password or ssh key (depending on setup) – when promited in any of the stepsYou can add more than one directory to your Git repository by repeating step 4 with different location (all files and folders under that directory will be added).gitignore is Git file that contains a list of files/folders that you wish to keep untracked on repository itself. So, on Magento, as in any other project those are files and folders that depend on your local setup like downloader/, errors/, config.xml,… and so on.
Generally I don’t think that you need whole Magento project on repository, but rather files you edited/added. That’s why I suggest that you put your git project files inside a local copy.
That’s all from me in this one. I hope you learned something new today!
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Bargento Spain 1st Edition
On November 11th, for the first time in Spain, Ydral E-business Solutions in collaboration with Eventos E-commerce (Expo Ecommerce), Magento Inc., NBS System and Madrid Tecnologia are organizing Bargento Espana.
Bargento Espana will be a unique opportunity to discover all the secrets and trends of the eCommerce solution, Magento. Don’t miss this Spanish event as it is sure to bring you knowledge and insight on:
- How to develop you eCommerce business
- How to increase your sales
- Best practices about Magento
- Social shopping
Remember that the event will take place on November 11th at Madrid On Rails – Lago Titicaca, 10, Madrid. For any help you can contact: info@bargento.es or info@ydral.com.
To participate, register today!
20 Food and Drink Magento Templates
Last week we reviewed 20 Food Websites that are powered by Magento. We hope you found them inspiring and today we’re going to share some Food and Drink Magento Templates. Each of these templates is a quick and convenient solution to build an online store that would sell food or drinks. Also, as you may guess by the title, Food and Drink Magento Templates are to be used with the Magento eCommerce platform.
Please note, the following Magento Templates are created by different companies, including TemplateMonster.com, Templates-Master.com, Mage-World.com, MageSupport.com and eCommerce-Themes.com. In other words, all you have to do to see the most amazing Food and Drink Magento Templates is scroll down and click the images you like.
vineri, 26 noiembrie 2010
Come one! Come ALL—Magento HQ Open House Party!
Greetings Magento Community,
We've got a surprise for you! We're welcoming 100 community members -- to our Headquarters in Culver City for our first ever Open House party! We're celebrating a FANTASTIC year at Magento and YOU are invited. Our Open House will feature a DJ, drinks, food trucks, and a super hot guest list. This promises to be one of Magento's most memorable events that you won't want to miss.
When Is It?
Thursday, November 18, 2010 from 6:30 PM - 10:30 PM (PT) in Culver City, CA
Come meet the Magento Team, and experience the Magento Vibe. We're preparing for a whole new era and welcome you to be a part of it. There are only 100 spots available, so reserve your ticket today. We look forward to seeing you on November 18th!
View the Eventbrite Invite for More Information.Magento Team
20 Food Websites That Are Powered by Magento
It has been often mentioned that Magento can be applied to different eCommerce websites, but it’s better to see once than to hear hundred times. So, we’ve made a list of online stores that sell food and drinks. Of course, all websites featured in this article are built with the Magento eCommerce platform.
Please scroll down and learn how Magento adds to the Food Websites. It’s not only about design, but also functionality and usability. So, why don’t you check the following websites as if you were a customer? This is a great way to see Magento in action and decide if it’s good for food websites.
Feel free to comment this article if we’ve missed some amazing Food Websites that have been created with Magento.
joi, 25 noiembrie 2010
Secrets of a Handcrafted Jewelry Shopping Service
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Finz.It - Social Promotion Tool for Magento
Finz.It allows retailers to share their brands with their customer's social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and more. Finz.It works by offering customers free shipping, or a discount for allowing Finz.It to update their social streams of choice, thereby exposing your store and brand to your customer's peer groups.
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Magento L.E.S.S.
Sometimes its all about title, right?! So, what is LESS? Well, its my fancy acronym for something utterly simply but very practical. It stands for (L)ocalhost (E)mail (S)erver (S)imulator. Basically its neither email server or simulator in the real sense of word. Its just a little trick you can apply on the “app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/Email/Template.php” file to compensate for lack of the local email server in your development environment while developing for Magento.
Magento hadles lot of email sending, for various cases such as: Register new customer, New order created, Forgot password, etc. One of the downside of not having email server set in your local environment is that you cannot easily test all the transactional emails Magento handles. So if you are assigned task of lets say customizing email templates, possibly adding new variables to email templates, etc., then you need a good testing ground.
Basic idea behind what i call LESS is “find the main/root method for sending emails then add a few lines of logging mechanism to log what is suppose to be send in email”. This way you can easily have a .html or .txt file created with the exact email content that is suppose to go to customer or store owner.
With a little bit of code tracing, you can easily see that the email sending function is located in the previously mentioned “app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/Email/Template.php” file. Now the easiest, and a bit dirty, way to override this file is to simply copy it into the “app/code/local/Mage/Core/Model/Email/Template.php”. Surely we could create our own module that would implement the changes I will now mentioned, but I don’t think there is a real need, as this is something you can do easily within 5 minutes and you only need to have this locally on your dev machine.
Inside the “app/code/local/Mage/Core/Model/Email/Template.php” file, locate the below shown lines of code, around line 374.
try {$mail->send();$this->_mail = null;}catch (Exception $e) {$this->_mail = null;Mage::logException($e);return false;}And convert them to something like shown below.
/* START LESS - (L)ocalhost (E)mail (S)erver (S)imulator */$time = date('dmY_His');/* END LESS - (L)ocalhost (E)mail (S)erver (S)imulator */try {$mail->send();/* START LESS - (L)ocalhost (E)mail (S)erver (S)imulator */if($this->isPlain()) {Mage::log($text, null, 'inchoo_less_email_ok_text_'.$time.'.log', true);} else {Mage::log($text, null, 'inchoo_less_email_ok_text_'.$time.'.html', true);}/* END LESS - (L)ocalhost (E)mail (S)erver (S)imulator */$this->_mail = null;}catch (Exception $e) {$this->_mail = null;/* START LESS - (L)ocalhost (E)mail (S)erver (S)imulator */if($this->isPlain()) {Mage::log($text, null, 'inchoo_less_email_exception_text_'.$time.'.log', true);} else {Mage::log($text, null, 'inchoo_less_email_exception_text_'.$time.'.html', true);}/* END LESS - (L)ocalhost (E)mail (S)erver (S)imulator */ Mage::logException($e);return false;}Important changes/additions are outlined/surrounded by the START/END LESS comments. As you can see, I am simply adding a Mag::log() call for both successful and failed email sending, just setting the full log name accordingly, with exact time sufix and the appropriate extension suffix. File extension suffix simply depends on the condition of email template being set, either text of HTML format. In case of HTML format I am generating HTML file in he /var/log/folder upon which you can simply double click and it should open in your web browser, where you can see how exactly email should look like once it gets into the customers or site owners mailbox.
Please note that if in our current environment we do not have real email server, code abbove will always generate file with “exception” in the file name. Don’t let this worry you, cause generated log file still holds the valid template content.
Hope this approach helps some of you testing emails in Magento without email server.
I have no doubt there are other quick solutions that one can apply, but this one works for me .
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Answer a Few Questions About Magento and Get a Reward!
We bet you know how passionate we are about Magento. We’re truly exited to provide you with useful Magento tips and we do our best to keep you informed about Free Magento Templates as well as premium ones.
And now we’d like to hear what you think about Magento and Magento Templates. We want you to know that your opinion is very important to us and our partners.
That’s why everyone who participates will be rewarded. The rule is simple: answer the questions listed below and get a 10% discount on Premium Magento Templates. The discount is offered by our partner Template Monster, so it’s valid on any Magento Template created by this company.
Ok, here are the questions that we’d like to know the answer to:
1. Why did you choose Magento as your eCommerce platform? 2. If you could improve Magento, what would you do? 3. Have you ever used Magento Templates? If so, were you satisfied with them?4. Would you recommend Magento to others?Feel free to answer these questions and get the discount! The only requirement is that you have an experience with Magento and you speak from your own knowledge.
Please enter the correct email address when you leave a comment. This way you’ll get the discount code successfully. Of course, your email will never be shared, that’s a promise.
miercuri, 24 noiembrie 2010
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30 Kick-Ass Premium WordPress Plugins and Themes
The WordPress platform is an integral part of the Envato™ ecosystem. Regardless of whether you need a hand with design or development, the Envato™ marketplaces have you covered! You can purchase premium WordPress plugins and templates to hit the ground running with each new project.
Today, we’ll review only a handful of the newest and most popular templates and plugins on sale at CodeCanyon and ThemeForest.
FLER combines what’s best in usability with its modern and elegant design and its administrator panel features.
Synergie is a powerful WordPress theme that can be use for everything. With a really innovative system, the home page can be modified to really fit your need. You can turn on/off any of the 5 modules and stack the the way you want in 10 seconds. Give it a try!
Hundreds of hours in development, WP Pro Real Estate 2 is the most advanced real estate theme for WordPress on ThemeForest if not in the industry.
Prestige is an unique and advanced WordPress theme. It comes with a big pack of various skins, shortcode
s, widgets and fonts. Thanks to massive CMS options panel you can fully customize this theme to your needs. Prestige is the ultimate package with functional and powerful features.
Jing is the flexible portfolio, business or photography template (WordPress version). With 12 possible style variations, built-in slider inside portfolio page, 2 blog styles and more
Alchemist is a powerful wordPress solution for you Portfolio or Blog. Various content objects as well as interesting ways to showcase your portfolio are integrated into the theme. You can use shortcode
s to generate a slideshow or thumbnail galleries through the content editor using shortcode
s The theme is designed to showcase your products focusing on a front page that can easily act as selling point and lead to various product showcases.
Striking is a Powerful Professional Premium WordPress theme made for your Blog, Portfolio, Business or almost any other kind of website. It is incredibly easy to use with the admin panel, and give you full control over every major design element throughout your site. With the color and font options page, you can customize you website more than you could ever imagine.
As you may expect from a premium WordPress theme, Screen delivers an extensive package of features with which you can design your website quick and easy. Most features and options are built directly into the Edit page, for great ease of use. Screen offers lots of possibilities to present your business or brand. Screen also includes SEO options on the Edit page, where you can enter a title, description and keywords for each Page or Post, without needing to install an additional plug-in.
PowerPhoto – A clean, powerful WordPress theme for photographers and other creative professionals looking to showcase their portfolio.
KIN is a minimalist magazine style photography template (WordPress version). With 2 style variations and support both image gallery and videos
PhotonWP features everything that Photon already offered but now with the option to be managed with WordPress
Stuff is a horizontal-oriented WordPress theme created mostly for portfolios and blogs.
“Xero WordPress theme is one of the most powerful WordPress themes on Themeforest.”
Pushed is a highly functional WordPress theme that has a custom homepage with a featured area powered by jQuery, and lovely homepage design as well as many other page templates.
Dandelion is a Powerful Premium WordPress Theme. This theme provides all the main functionality you will need to present your products, work and yourself in an elegant and professional style.
The Events Calendar Premium plugin for WordPress enables you to rapidly create and manage events using the post editor. Features include Google Maps integration as well as default templates such as a calendar grid and event list for streamlined one click installation.
DDSliderWP features EVERYTHING that the jQuery plugin already offered PLUS a custom admin panel, with total management of slides.
Lightbox Evolution is a tool for displaying images, html content, maps, and videos in a “lightbox” style that floats overtop of web page. Using Lightbox Evolution, website authors can showcase a wide assortment of media in all major browsers without navigating users away from the linking page.
uBillboard is a slider for WordPress We have been developing sliders for our WordPress themes for over a year now, and all that experience has been distilled into this one slider plugin. It is a premium quality jQuery-based slider with a nicely polished WordPress admin.
With WordPress 3.0 a new feature was introduced called custom backgrounds for WordPress themes. This feature gives you the ability to add custom backgrounds on your site, which will your site a unique touch.
Have you ever wanted to show different Widgets on Pages or Posts or even inside your content?The plugin lets you create your own widget areas, configure them by adding widgets, and then place them directly inside the content of Pages and Posts by simply using shortcode
s
The Avia Feedback Box is a feature request system for visitors and customers. They can suggest new ideas, vote on existing ones, and track your work progress.
presentation of bulleted content,multisteps forms,provide a description of products,viewing photos,loading content from files via AJAX ,anything that comes to your mind.
Dynamic Step Process Panels is a lightweight plugin for WordPress. It allows that any content can be represented in any number of tabs / steps. Can be used to:
If you’ve always fantasized that WordPress would fix their search results and return something actually relevant (not ordered by date), but are let down on every new release. You’ve found the plugin to make that dream come true.
The Simple WordPress Gallery plugin overrides the standard WordPress gallery with a film-strip style one. Our goal here is to finally present a version of the WordPress gallery that’s useful and not a pain in the butt. This plugin installs in a minute and is a breeze to use; it’s as simple as it it awesome!
Jigowatt’s WordPress Premium Content plugin allows you to easily set up a web site with content which is only accessible to users registered with an active PayPal subscription. You can easily manage your subscribers, change subscription prices and set up custom membership renewal options (annual, bi-annual or just month by month).
A WordPress Plugin which enables you to show your registered users locations on a frontend map from Google Maps.
The WP Geo Tagger plugin can be used to add your current location to posts or to add an event location, so your readers can get directions in a snap. It even integrates Google Maps right on your posts!
This WordPress Gallery Plugin gives you a simple and extremely customizable way to create a gallery on any post or page. You have the option to use widgets or shortcodes to insert your custom gallery into your web site. As well, the look of your gallery is fully customizable through the WordPress admin interface.
This is a jQuery based AJAX powered HTML / PHP contact form with Twitter Direct Messaging, easily integrated into WordPress via shortcodes and functions.
If that still doesn’t quench your awesomeness thirst, be sure to check out our sister-site, Web.Appstorm for fifty-eight more killer themes.
Happy Halloween - from Magento
It was all quiet throughout the offices of Magento, not even a mouse was stirring... wait, wrong holiday.
Our first official Halloween party at Magento's New Headquarters in Culver City -- and it was all spooky, weird and fun. There was a good turn out of people dressed in costumes.
Keren, our CFO and Magento Wonder Woman, opened up the floor for the lip-synching competition. The first team from professional services (David, Steve, Andrew, and Aaron) performed "I'll Make Love to You" by Boys II Men, followed by Indian musical performed by the Finance department (Keren, Shonnet, Efi, Aleza, Shaundra) with Richard as the lead man wearing a karate uniform. Udi and the angels (Tess, Shanon, Natalya) did a great reenactment of Charlie and the Angels and the Support Team (Sheila, RJ, Anthony) were in full force too -- performing "Time Warp" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. We think the most memorable performance was the Development Team (Dima, Anton, Sergey, Lindy, Tanya) performing Barbie Girl! Move those hips Anton.
After the performances, we headed down to some gourmet pizza and pumpkin carving. Several carvers were very much into their pumpkins. Shanon seemed to be having the most fun digging deep in her pumpkin and cleaning out the soft flesh and the seeds. Sergey, one of our developers, carved a pumpkin with Magento's logo. Turned out great. On the showcase table, there was a pumpkin throwing up, an owl sitting on a window, a spider web, and a howling man, among others.
Bob, our President as Jean-luc Picard of Star Trek. He'll of course prefers Riker.Keren, CFO, as Magento Wonder WomanAndrea, marketing, as French MaidJonathan, product manager, as an army officer from the movie Inglorious BastardsShelia, support, dressed as pirateAnthony, support, dressed as Aladdin
Click image(s) to expand
See photos of the event at Flickr.
We're also posting Youtube videos of the event! Check out this video, of the Indian Musical performed by Performed by our Finance team! Tune into our Youtube channel for more!
We all had a great time.
- Magento Team
Misuse of helper classes in Magento?
In its MVC structure, Magento allows you to throw in additional classes that might not fit in strictly under the MVC “letters”. One example of these classes are helper classes. These are usually used to isolate a certain, possibly useful, algorithm. Algorithm whose usage would be overhead to write a model as it is more static and general in nature, meaning there is no point in applying it to given instance of an object.
Calling a helper class from almost anywhere in your PHP code is extremely easy.
$helper = Mage::helper('catalog');//which is same as$helper = Mage::helper('catalog/data');Most helpers in Magento inherit from Mage_Core_Helper_Abstract class, which by itself has several “different responsibility” methods implemented.
If you remove the fancy “helper” name out of the context of thinking, helper is just a class like any other on OOP. So, how do helper classes conform to the 5 principles of class design within the paradigm of object oriented programming?
Witouth going to deep into this, I would like to point out single example/principle that caught my eye.
The SingleResponsibilityPrinciple among other things states: each responsibility should be a separate class, because each responsibility is an axis of change.
Let take a look at Magento’s core helper classes like app/code/core/Mage/Core/Helper/Data.php, where you have methods like formatPrice($price, $includeContainer = true), xmlToAssoc(SimpleXMLElement $xml), getStoreId($store=null), etc. Clearly this breaks the “each responsibility should be a separate class” logic.
This however does not play any significant role in your Magento development as one can look at helper classes simply as “place it here if you do not know where”. My reason of mentioning the above is to simply point out some paths one can consider when giving the “Magento is designed good/bad” statements.
Depending on the way you use them, helper classes can be truly useful. For example, code reuse in a company modules. Lets say a company has a certain policy on how its modules will behave in certain situations and what information they will share across various modules, etc. This is where you can throw in bunch of mini task helper functions/methods that do not seem to fall under any strict model definition, but preferably each helper class with its own subset of methods.
On the other hand, they can turn out to be a real mess of spaghetti code leading to bad application/module design. Seems like in Magento development it usually comes down to how much time you have on hand.
So, final questions: Are Magento helper’s good or bad thing? Where do you draw the line between block/view or model “level” helpers?
Looking forward to your replies.
Cheers.
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Black Magento Templates on Sale
We don’t mean to scare you, but Halloween is getting closer. So you must be ready for a Halloween party as well as Halloween specials. These days many companies are offering discounts and coupon codes. If you use the discounts wisely, you’ll be amazed by how much money you can save. Please read on and you’ll learn about the Halloween promotion that might be interesting for designers, webmasters and online retailers.
Starting today you can enjoy great savings at TemplateMonster.com. To put it simple,
all Black Website Templates, including Black Magento Templates are 25% off.
So it might be a good idea to buy a Magento Template now and save $45.
Please take a look at the Magento Templates that are available at special prices and remember
that this offer will expire on November 1st, 2010.
marți, 23 noiembrie 2010
Stream Online Movies - Top Tv Product
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Check it out!Book Store Magento Templates
No matter how busy we are, we always have time for reading. That’s why more and more online
book stores are popping up on the Web. And, if you’re one of those who want to launch a successful online book store and you feel that the best eCommerce platform for your business is Magento, then you have a few choices. The first choice is to order a custom design and the second one is to get a Magento Template that would fit your needs. Although, both of these solutions are not free, you should be ready to pay more for the custom design.
If you go with the second option, then you have a variety of Book Store Magento Templates to choose from (See the images below). Each template has its own style and is different in its own way, but all of them are meant for building online book stores.
In fact, the Magento Templates listed here are created by some of the largest template companies such as TemplateMonster.com, MagentoMagik.com, MageSupport.com, Templates-Master.com. This means our list saves you the trouble of searching for Book Store Magento Templates.
View the original article here
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5 Free Copies of Test-Driven JavaScript Development
In addition to donating an excerpt of his excellent new book to Nettuts+, Christian and Pearson books have also been generous enough to provide us with five digital copies of the book to give away.
Despite the fact that the JavaScript language has grown in leaps and bounds over the last few years — in both features and popularity — it’s still one of the most least tested languages. Why do you think that is? Leave a comment and let us know your honest opinion. On November 22nd (EST), we’ll choose five winners, and send them a free copy of the book! That’s all there is to it.
Tired of console.log-ing your way out of trouble? Weary from constant fear of cross-browser issues? Scared of making even the slightest change to production code? Test-Driven JavaScript Development teaches you how to solve those issues and more using unit tests and TDD. Rich with examples, the book provides a solid foundation on automated testing, a test-driven walk-through of JavaScript’s unique qualities, and five practical examples of building solid, reusable, cross-browser JavaScript using TDD.
View the original article here
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LA PHP Developer Meetup at Magento a huge success!
This past Tuesday evening a handful of interested groups-- LAPHP, Magento HQ, Los Angeles Magento Developers Group and SoCal Magento Meetup Group-- came together to talk about Magento! The event started with an overview of Magento’s code base and moved on to a demo on writing a small extension properly without touching core files, hence allowing future upgrades with little or no concerns. There was a great Q&A session afterwards.
This meeting was kindly hosted by Magento HQ at their new office space in Culver City.
View the original article here
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The principles of SOLID programming
Hello there! Today I’ll be explaining The principles of SOLID programming. When I first got serious about OOP, I jumped to design patterns, but then I realized that everyone need a good grasp of the SOLID principles before you’re ready to tackle Design Patterns – in more of an Architect role – that is. So, to conclude this short introduction, I’ll try to explain this in as low-level of knowledge as possible.
Well, yous should know that SOLID stands for:
Single responsibility principleOpen-closed principleLiskov substitution principleInterface segregation principleDependency inversion principle
Those are five basic patterns used in OO Programming and OO Design Those are the principles that can be used in agile and test driven development. Also, those are a good principles, good advices, but it’s not pure truth, nor is it a rule.Just a quote of a sentence I ran into internet: “They are common-sense disciplines that can help you stay out of trouble”. That’s why it’s a good idea.
Let me introduce you to them one by one:
It states that every object should have a single responsibility, and that responsibility should be entirely encapsulated by the class. All its services should be narrowly aligned with that responsibility. In other words the meaning of this phrase is that when you’re adding features to your application, two different, unrelated stories to implement should not affect the same class.
The meaning of this principle is that when a get a request for a feature that needs to be added to your application, you should be able to handle it without modifying old classes, only by adding subclasses and new implementations (in pure OOP language – extending old ones ).
The meaning of this principle is that every time you extend a class, you have to make sure it is substitutable in every place where you use an instance of the original class. Extended class must respect the contract of the parent class. Meaning that you should edit it in a way so that it will stay recognizable compared the the parent class.
This one means that you should avoid getting your classes included to other ones if only small portion of it will be used (say 3 out of 12). Often you will see classes with too much methods implemented in it which it’s not a good idea because it conflicts with Single Responsibility Principle in a way. Basically, if you don’t listen to this one, its considered to be a “bad design”.
Well, as last principle, I find it most valuable. It says that you should decouple your software modules. To achieve that you’d need to isolate dependencies. Why you might ask? Well, the answer is simple – for code re-usage. This way you’ll get more efficient and affordable at the same time. That’s why I find it most valuable.
In our environment (around 20 people) – this helps. It helps because when we have to do additional work on project done by other developer, you don’t have to trace code line by line, you only need to think logically, and you’re there. Besides the “Dependency Inversion Principle”, this I value the most in SOLID programming.
I’d like to conclude this one by repeating myself: “They are common-sense disciplines that can help you stay out of trouble”, they aren’t rules.
Cheers!
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Free Magento Templates Beyond Your Dreams
We are here to introduce 3 Free Magento Templates that look really awesome. So please read on and make sure that the title of this article is 100% correct.
Not only the following Magento Templates are free to download and use, but so well done that it is hard to figure out whether these templates are free or premium ones. Even if it’s hard to believe this, the Magento Themes listed below are available free of charge to web designers, webmasters and online merchants. As each Magento Template looks quite neutral and may be easily customized, it can be applied to any online store you have in mind.
Let’s thank the guys behind MagentoThemedTemplates.com and EMThemes.com who created such great freebies. It’s a real pleasure to spread the word about the Free Magento Templates that are simply amazing.
Do you also offer Free Magento Templates? We’ll be happy to review them here and of course provide a back link to your website or blog.
Please keep in mind: we have also completed an ultimate list of Free Magento Templates .
View the original article here
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luni, 22 noiembrie 2010
50 Ways to Get Your Site Noticed
This article aims to show you how to attract users and make them hungry for more. Who is this post for? Anyone with a website. Not all of the items listed below will apply directly to you and your business; however, they are, at the very least, an excellent source for inspiration.
If you have good content, people will always come back for more. One of the most important things about content is to keep it fresh and up-to-date. But, just like Smashing Magazine, make sure to archive your content for people to refer back to.
If you are already lucky enough to have a community—even just some regular users—listen to them. You can do this by emailing your users directly, setting up comment forms, live chat, or even user feedback systems such as UserVoice, which allow users to vote on site issues and functionality. By listening to your community, you can determine exactly what they want.
Knowing how users use your site is vital. This allows you to target their needs better. The best way is to keep a close eye on your analytics data; check what country/area your users are coming from, what search terms are working well for you and what sites are giving you the best referrals.
Find out how users navigate your site via heat maps. These help you alter your site so that it is easier for your visitors to use and find what they want. This keeps your users happy and more likely to return.
When you read your favorite blog or read an article of interest, leave a comment with your name, email address and website link. Ensure you are an active member of a relevant forum discussion or networking group. Of course, make sure you are an active member of your own site’s online community sector.
Smashing Magazines commenting system making it easy to take part.
This should be an ongoing process since there are many local, national and worldwide directories. Your first stop should be DMOZ.org. Following this, submit to the local directories and those specializing in your site’s business sector.
If you are designing web sites and are proud of your work, submit your site to web design galleries. These directories—such as CSS Beauty and CSS Elite—feature beautiful and creative designs and ask users to comment on and rate each design. Once people see your work, they may become your visitors.
Whenever you send out an email, make sure you have your URL in the email signature. It’s a simple idea, but it’s effective.
Ensure you always have business cards to hand out. If you meet someone needing your services, it always pays to have a striking and memorable business card to exchange. It is worth spending time on your business card to make it creative and memorable, otherwise you may just be left at the bottom of the pile with the rest.
Put your website address on everything: pens, letterheads, flyers, and anything that represents your company. Make sure it is clear and pushes people to visit your web site. For example, you could say, “For more information on our new product, check ourwebsite.com”
Winning an award is not easy, but it can lead to a flood of new visitors for your site. Even if you are a runner up, people will be curious and want to find out who you are. The winner of the .net magazine Interactive Site of the Year in 2009, www.ecodazoo.com, received huge amounts of visits from the www.thenetawards.com site. Choose your competition wisely and remember, winning is not everything, but getting your URL in front of as many readers as possible is.
Ecodazoo pushes the boundaries of 3D design on the web
On the flip side of winning an award, running a competition can be just as beneficial to your analytics stats. This could be as simple as coming up with a new name for your latest product, or as complex as designing a new logo. Either way, this will attract more users to your site and show that you are giving back to your users as well as taking.
The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet.
Effective SEO, common sense and web standards go together. The idea is to create semantic, valid code that uses the right tool for the job. This means using the right HTML tags and having a unique title and appropriate meta data for each page. Ensure search engine spiders can correctly index your site. And don’t forget that good content is a must. Remember, the most important way to climb the search engine ranks is through quality links. For more information on this, visit the Google Webmasters/Site owners guidelines.
Pay per click advertising can drive a great deal of traffic to your site, if you correctly target your keywords. Placing your banner or link on relevant sites will vastly improve the chance of you getting noticed.
The most effective advertising gets your message to a relevant audience.
Writing articles for other sites as well as your own is a fantastic way to get noticed. If you work with web technologies, consider writing a tutorial for Nettuts+. If you sell power tools, consider writing an article about the best router for making coffee tables. Target the niche that you’re after. Just make sure you add your URL next to your name. If it’s well-written, people will want to know more about you.
As you know, blogs are big and they are continuing to thrive as people want quick, useful information about a product, service or general news. WordPress has been at the forefront of blogging and gives us the tools to make rich, search engine-friendly blogs with beautiful designs. Of course, it is up to you to fill your blog with fresh and catchy content.
In the past year, we have seen the social web boom and many sites have reaped huge benefits. Creating your own Facebook page, uploading your work to Deviant Art or creating your own Squidoo page all help build your online presence.
We all know the power of Twitter by now, and much has been said on the subject of using Twitter as a marketing tool. But the fact remains: it is a very effective way of getting noticed. Get the most out of Twitter by choosing one of the many tools available. Keep inside your niche area, follow people that matter to your website, and make it personal. Do not just spout marketing spiel or you will quickly lose followers. If you are part of a niche area consider setting up your own Twibe (a group of Twitter users) or use Twitter’s list feature.
If you have something to say and you think others will be interested, then consider making a podcast or videocast. Boagworld.com has been a leader in this area for the web design field and Paul Boag has said that the majority of his new clients have come through the podcast. Here are eight tips to remember when thinking about podcasting:
Invest in a good microphone.Reduce background noise.Prepare, but do not read a script.Follow a consistent format.Invite guest speakers.Have regularly-scheduled podcasts.Enjoy the process and relax!Users sign up for your newsletter and you have your captive audience. If used properly, newsletters can be very effective tools for driving people to your site. Check out Smashing Magazine’s best practices article before embarking on your campaign. When you are ready, use a service like MailChimp to monitor your success.
Similar to newsletters, having an RSS feed of your content is another way to keep users noticing your web site. They are easy to set up and a good way to keep your users up-to-date on your website. Make sure you keep your feeds relevant, interesting, informative and easy to find.
Send out cards to your clients either by snail-mail or email. This is not only a nice gesture but also keeps your website address firmly imprinted in their mind. Using services like Cards Direct is a quick and easy way to spread the holiday cheer with your website address attached to it.
Running an event is a fantastic way to both market your business and connect with your customers, clients and experts in your sector. For example, the Future of Web Design events are run all around the world featuring many professionals from the web design community. Your event does not have to be about web design; it can be focused on your site and your business’ sector, in order to to raise awareness of you and your site.
Alternatively, you can be one of the speakers. This form of marketing has worked very well for people like Brett Welch, Danny Somekh and Folkert Gorter who spoke at the FOWD London 2009.
Do your own marketing: have t-shirts, bags, folders and other items sporting your website address clearly.
Can your service be provided via a mobile app? Would customers want to purchase your product on the go? If so, consider creating your own mobile application. If you want to tap into the vast iPhone / iPad market, you can consider selling your app on the iPhone app store. You can create the app yourself or use a company like Siruna to create the mobile application for you.
You can donate directly to a charity or run a charity event. There are many charities out there, so choose wisely and carefully.
Many courses require a student to get a set amount of work experience or do a final year project. Contact your local college and/or university and offer them a project that you would like their students to help on. My final year project was to create a new search engine-optimized template for a local business directory. The directory benefited from the new template tremendously and we learned a great deal as a team.
Submitting proposals for college and university projects not only supports your website, but it also helps students gain real-life experience in their chosen field. Here are a few examples:
Your website is not the only place to put your content. If you sell a product, you can also list it on eBay. If you are a band, why not put your songs on Last.fm? If your site publishes tutorials, you can also submit a tutorial to other sites, like Nettuts+. Once people notice your content they will be more inclined to visit your site, hungry for more.
In the case of Vista Print, they offer free business cards; the cards have your logo and details on one side and theirs on the other. Here is a list of ideas you can give away:
Sponsorship can be a remarkable way of getting your website in front of hundreds or thousands of eyes. When choosing a sponsorship project, keep to ones that will reflect well on your company as well as being relevant. For more information check out the following sites in the UK and North America. You can also place advertisements stating that you or your company is looking for sponsorship proposals from individuals or companies. When you receive the proposals, have a set criteria of what you’re looking for in mind.
The news takes many forms in today’s media; one of the most beneficial ways to increase awareness of your site is to get it featured on a popular news website. One of the top five news portals is Google News. You should concentrate on having original content, multiple authors, proper attribution, and good response time. For more information, check out the Website Magazine article “Get Your Website Included in Google News“.
Do you have web site that people are interested in on a national or local level? Why not submit a press release informing the public about your new site? Simply place an ad in the local paper or a sector-specific magazine.
Do you have a product that you think will sell? Why not try your hand at merchandising? If you are new to all this, you can use services like 50below.com to help setup your online store. If you do have a number of products, list them on various other platforms like eBay, Froogle, and Amazon with links back to your site within the product descriptions.
Find a problem that affects your website’s sector, create a fix, and publish it. A good solution to a difficult problem is a surefire way to get people flocking to your website. One example is the PNG fix for Internet Explorer; this simple site received thousands of hits as it helped solve a problem with image transparencies in IE6.
Give your site a boost by adding news feeds, blogs, tweets, widgets, Delicious links, Diggs and StumbleUpon links to your site. For the most comprehensive list of widgets, try the netvibes ecosystem. When adding widgets to your website, keep in mind that they should enhance the user experience and not clutter your website. Less is more!
We all know that YouTube is massive. One of the biggest ways that websites get noticed is by uploading or creating creative, fun, shocking, interesting, or downright weird videos. Setting up your own channel will allow users to subscribe to it, thus giving you more eyes on your content and website URL. Making a short introduction, or a series of clips like Expert Village is a cost-effective way of driving traffic to your site, as well as climbing the search engine results ladder.
Having a specific free service that is useful and intuitive could attract a plethora of users. Here are some examples of sites with free tools and services:
If you are a specialist in your field, consider offering consultation services. A consultation service can be done via the internet, over the phone, or in person. You can provide this service to individuals, groups, or businesses; and with the power of Skype and a web cam, it can be just as though you are standing next to them. You could even offer alternative consultation services, like usability testing.
What tools are the professional online consultants using? Many online consultants use Skype because it is cheap, effective and well-supported. When using any peer-to-peer communications service, make sure you set-up a separate account for your consultation service so you keep your private messaging private. Skype offers a Skype Prime account where you can register as a trainer and people can contact you for one-on-one or group learning.
As a business, you offer rewards to affiliate marketers for every visit or consumer brought to the site using affiliate marketing techniques. This method allows you to attract more customers to your site by letting someone else do the hard work. You can offer different types of schemes such as co-branding, white labeling, loyalty schemes and many more.
There are hundreds of thousands of schemes available, so make yours attractive to marketers by offering high rewards for sales.
The Affiliate Programs forum contains information about hundreds of schemes and—most importantly—user feedback from people using them.
If you have a marketing budget, spend some time attracting users with goodies. Maybe you could offer 10% off their next subscription, or a free trial to your service for 30 days. Vouchers can also attract users as you can post your voucher on one of the many voucher sites.
Make your special offer loud and proud so people notice.
A reselling service is where you sell an existing product or service such as hosting and domain names. Reselling is a way to gain passive income by offering a quality product or service you would not be able to develop alone. This ability to give a better service will attract customers. If you ensure good customer service you might benefit from word of mouth recommendations.
The internet has been a veritable breeding ground for creative people and ideas. This creativity has given birth to some amazing ideas that make people flock to the site. If you think you have a great idea, harness it. Turn your idea into a reality, like Google’s originators Larry and Sergey, who created a fast and simple search environment called Backrub in 1995. Don’t forget the student who sold pixels to put himself through University in 2004!
"The main motivation for doing this is to pay for my degree studies."A widget or plug-in is a design to enhance a platform. It is designed to entertain or make life easier for users. Keep this in mind when developing. For example, you can make a WordPress plugin or Joomla template. Make sure people know who made it and where they can find your website.
If you are an expert in your field and you know what your talking about, choose a subject and write a tutorial on it. You can then make the tutorials available on your own site (to capture your audience), or submit your tutorial to sites such as Nettuts+.
Writing a book is time-consuming and it is a labour of love, but it can reap so many benefits as a product in its own right. It will raise awareness for its topic and author. Books like Elliot Jay Stock’s Sexy Web design, Steve Krug’s Don`t Make me Think or even an audio book like Chris Anderson‘s “The Long Tail” have brought brand awareness and visitors to each of the authors’ respective websites.
Blogging is a simplified version of creating an online magazine. Your online magazine should be much more by concentrating on different types of content, building a community of readers, and exploiting various revenue streams.
When creating an online magazine make sure you know your CMS inside out. It will be the foundations of your business and web site and should allow you to make publishing the content painless. Think about how you will make the money to help you grow your site. Newsletters, RSS, and forums will help you keep your readers up-to-date and talking.
If you need help with content you can look at purchasing content or invite other authors to help you get started.
Subscription services can help you gain a constant stream of visitors to your site as they download the latest news, music or tutorials.
If you are planning on charging for subscription, use an integrated payment system like Spreedly to take the pain of setting up payment gateways and storing credit card details away.
Networking events can be a fun and effective way to promote your website. Armed with your business cards and an approachable smile, you are sure to meet someone who is interested in your services or who knows someone else who will be.
The key is in choosing the right event for you and being prepared. Networking events are normally based around certain types of businesses or they target professionals in specific areas. Choose what is best for you. Check online event sites like Facebook,Meet-up or the local paper. If you can`t find one in your area, run your own!
Offering regular updates to your product can attract a consistent stream of users wanting to benefit from the new update. You should notify your users when a new update is available; this can be done via the software itself or via your website. Consider making your updates a regular attraction and remember to make them easy to download and install.
FireFox makes it simple to update by making it part of the software. The user does not have to go away, download and install the update, but simply click “OK.”
Be proud of your work and put your logo and web site address on it. For web designers, write in your contract that the finished site must feature a back-link to your site. This may not always be possible, but anyone enjoying the site you built will be intrigued to see the company who built it. For photographers, put a water mark on all your site samples; if you are a producer, have your website address on your packaging. No matter what sector you are in, there is always room for a label on your work.
Links to a sites design company can normally be found on the footer.
A lot of sites, especially in the hotel and leisure industry, use what is called a “White Label” site. This enables a successful brand to offer a service without having to build the functionality and databases itself. You can go about this two ways:
Use a white label service such as white label dating, social networking, holiday and leisure to create a site. For more information on white labeling check out this article. Allow users to use your functionality and database to create their own white label site. Lastminute.com , has created a very successful net of sites that utilize their data and functionality.Sites using Lastminute’s database / functionality can be seen on.
A new sensation on the web is the addition of hidden code; when users press a sequence of keys, they get a hidden surprise (this is called easter egg code). Sitepoint and many other sites have done articles on this “blast from the past” way of entertaining your users. For more information go to http://konamicodesites.com/; you will need the code to access it: up, up, down , down, left, right, left, right, b, a. Enjoy!
You’ll need quick reactions to score on this Konami game!
The last tip is also one of the best and easiest. Stemming from the simple idea of having a "Tell a friend" form on your website, allow users to bookmark your site on the many social bookmark sites. That way, you are letting other popular sites do the hard work for you. Social bookmarking meta-services like AddToAny are a simple way for users to publish your site to their accounts on Facebook, Delicious, StumbleUpon and many more with one click. Copy and paste their code on to your pages and you’re away.
That wraps it up for this article; I hope you have enjoyed the read. Some of the ideas are a little wacky, but they will all help you get your site noticed.
I look forward to reading your feedback!
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eBooks on the French Canals, Living Aboard Around the World, La Rochelle Guide Book
Magento Preview Version 1.4.2.0-RC1 - Now Available!
We are happy to announce the availability of Magento Preview Version 1.4.2.0-RC1 for download.
As this is a preview version it is NOT recommended in any way to be used in a production environment (more information about preview releases and the new community edition release process can be found in this blog post). We also highly encourage extension developers to test their extensions for compatibility with this version. This release is NOT available for upgrade through Magento Connect Manager and is only available on our download page.
This release includes the new Magento Connect Manager (MCM) and allows the community to start testing the new MCM and Magento Connect 2.
To see how to work with new MCM please visit our release notes page. Diff files are available here.
Please report all issues with this release in the bug tracker.
View the original article here
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Understanding PHP’s OOP – basic terms explained
Hello there! I’ll explain some basic terms of PHP’s Object Orientated Programming terms that any developer needs to know. Perhaps you already use all of those, but if you don’t know which is which, you will have a problem in team communication. If so, please read on.
First of all, to understand any PHP OOP concept, you need to know the PHP basics. Then I need you to read and understand next paragraph – Procedural vs OO Programming:
Procedural programming creates a step by step program that guides the application through a sequence of instructions. Each instruction is executed in order. Procedural programming also focuses on the idea that all algorithms are executed with functions and data that the programmer has access to and is able to change. Object-Oriented programming is much more similar to the way the real world works; it is analogous to the human brain. Each program is made up of many entities called objects. Objects become the fundamental units and have behavior, or a specific purpose, associated with them. Objects cannot directly access another object’s data. Instead, a message must be sent requesting the data, just like people must ask one another for information; we cannot see inside each other’s heads.
Class
As Wikipedia says “A class is a template for an object, a user-defined datatype that contains variables, properties, and methods. You should imagine any class as a wrapper of functions (methods) that will help you manipulate some specific data. Well, I’ll give you an example:
//example filename would be simpleclass.php< ?phpclass SimpleClass{// property declarationpublic $var = 'a default value';// method declarationpublic function displayVar() {echo $this->var;}}?>Here you can see syntax used in declaration of classes and an example method inside it, together with declaration of property.
Method
A method is just an expression for a function bound to a class. You can see an example of method (displayVar method) in declaration of class SimpleClass above.
Instance
Instance is an object (datatype) created by your class. The object consists of state and the behavior that’s defined in the object’s classes. So, take a look at this:
//example filename would be create_instance.php< ?phpinclude "simpleclass.php";$ourObject = new SimpleClass();$ourObject->displayVar();?>In this example “$ourObject = new SimpleClass();” is line of code that created and instance (object) of SimpleClass class. And next line “$ourObject->displayVar();” accesses method of SimpleClass class on $ourObject instance.
Inheritance
Inheritance is a process in which a class inherits all the state and behavior of another class. in PHP, this is achieved when you extend existing class with your own. Take a look:
//example filename would be simpleclass.php< ?phpinclude "SimpleClass.php";class MyClass extends SimpleClass{// class property declaration of "name"public $name = null;public function assignValueToObjectVar($val) {$this->name = $val;}public function printValueFromObjectVar() {echo $this->name;}}//here we'll create a instance of MyClass:$myObject = new MyClass();//we assigned value "Test Name" to object's $name property$myobject->assignValueToObjectVar('Test Name');//we called method that echoes value from object's $name property$myObject->printValueFromObjectVar();?>
Last part of example is self-explanatory, I hope.
Abstraction
Abstraction refers to the act of representing essential features without including the background details or explanations. It reduces and factors out details so that one can focus on a few concepts at a time. Take a look at php.net‘s example:
< ?phpabstract class AbstractClass{// Force Extending class to define this methodabstract protected function getValue();abstract protected function prefixValue($prefix);// Common methodpublic function printOut() {print $this->getValue() . "\n";}}class ConcreteClass1 extends AbstractClass{protected function getValue() {return "ConcreteClass1";}public function prefixValue($prefix) {return "{$prefix}ConcreteClass1";}}class ConcreteClass2 extends AbstractClass{public function getValue() {return "ConcreteClass2";}public function prefixValue($prefix) {return "{$prefix}ConcreteClass2";}}$class1 = new ConcreteClass1;$class1->printOut();echo $class1->prefixValue('FOO_') ."\n";$class2 = new ConcreteClass2;$class2->printOut();echo $class2->prefixValue('FOO_') ."\n";?>
In this example you can see “abstract level” in declaration of AbstractClass which is then extended by ConcreteClass1 and ConcreteClass2. All of them have same methods but you can add another method to AbstractClass that will do a bit more complex work in both ConcreteClass1 and ConcreteClass2, without the need to write that “universal logic” to both of extend classes.
Singleton
Singleton restricts the instantiation of a class to one object. You can look at the class itself as an instance (object). To give you an example where a singleton is widely used – with database connection. There’s no need to create a new database connection on each class you use in a single moment, but rather, you can use one connection through the project:
class Database{// Store the single instance of Databaseprivate static $instance;private function __construct() {//database connection goes hereself::$instance = $link;}public static function getInstance(){if (!self::$instance){self::$instance = new Database();}return self::$instance;}//our method that does something with databasepublic static function myDbMethod(){...}}//Usage of singleton classes differ a bit from classic approach//where you create n instance and then do something with it.$DB = Database::getInstance();$Result = $DB->myDbMethod();
I hope this will help with the understanding of basics needed for any actual object orientated programming.
View the original article here
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Jewelry Magento Templates and More…
This article is aimed at sharing Magento designs that are created with jewelry business in mind. Not only will we introduce the Jewelry Online Stores that are powered by Magento, but Jewelry Magento Templates as well. So, why don’t you scroll down and see how Magento works with jewelry ecommerce websites and jewelry inspired designs? This way you’ll boost your creativity and will find ready-to-use Magento Templates.
In fact, the following templates come from different companies and each company has its own unique way of creating Jewelry Magento Templates. It means this article offers a huge choice of Magento Templates to be used for jewelry online stores. Whether you prefer white or black backgrounds, clean designs or not, image sliders or 360 image rotators, you’ll find a template that’s perfect for your business.
Please remember, at first we’ll show you 10 Magento powered online stores that sell jewelry and then will come a collection of 20 Jewelry Magento Templates. So be sure to see everything!
View the original article here
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The Influence Shop
If you're looking for simple and effective ways to influence you, your results and the world, you'll find powerful tools here from an official UK number 1 trainer and coach. Enjoy and be impeccable!
Check it out!Speeding up Magento with APC or Memcached
We often hear complaints about how Magento is slow and performs poorly. Developers know, however, that performance is relative and that we can do a number of things to speed up a Magento site. This article will focus on configuring and using APC and/or Memcached. We have a resources section at the end of this article with links to more performance optimization techniques.
The options obviously also depend on the specific hosting arrangement. I will assume for the purposes of this article, that you have control over your hosting server and are able to install the necessary add-ons and make configuration changes to Apache and PHP. If you are on a shared environment, you may have to check with your hosting support if you can apply the tips from this article. But, you know that you should at least be on a VPS if you are running Magento.
Using APC is really easy. You can just install the PHP module and restart your Apache server and your sites should immediately benefit from this.
To install APC on a Debian based Linux distro, run:
sudo apt-get install php5-apcNote that you will need either root or sudo privileges to perform the installThen just restart your Apache server. You should start seeing improvements after browsing to a few pages on your site.
This is great already, however, there is another step you can do to integrate APC with your Magento site.
If you look at: app/etc/local.xml.additional, you will notice that there is a
We are dealing with APC here so we’ll just add:
This is the recommended entry from the Understanding Magento Scalability and Performance Magento blog post.
You will notice the
Site A
Site B
Finally, to put the polish on your speed improvements, you can also tweak the APC configuration to further optimize your cache. This is done by editing the apc.ini file usually located (on Debian based distros) in: /etc/php5/conf.d/apc.ini.
To see what the default settings are and for an explanation of the configuration parameters, check the official PHP site’s APC chapter.
We will recommend this APC configuration that was posted in the official Magento forums.
extension = apc.so #name dependent on your APC cache install[APC]apc.enabled = 1 # Turn APC cache onapc.optimization = 0 # Experimental keep offapc.shm_segments = 1 # Shared memory segmentsapc.shm_size = 128 # Max shared memory dependent on OSapc.ttl = 7200apc.user_ttl = 7200apc.num_files_hint = 1024apc.mmap_file_mask = /tmp/apc.XXXXXXapc.enable_cli = 1 # Allow command line php to functionapc.cache_by_default = 1 # Enabled, 0 for filtersapc.max_file_size = 10M # Maximum cached file sizeapc.stat = 1 # 1 for dev, 0 for production, whether the source file is checked for mod date#apc.include_once_override = 1 # Use PHP5.3+ for include_once optimizationMake sure you remove all the # comments from your real file as stated in the corresponding forum post.
Of note is the apc.shm_size parameter. By default it is only 32M so the recommendation is to increase it to 128M. However, be careful if you are on a VPS with limited RAM, often you only have 384M or 512M so you may need to reduce your value to 64M. Especially if you want to combine this optimization technique with optimizing the MySQL parameters which also usually require increasing values for memory usage.
Memcached is a free & open source, high-performance, distributed memory object caching system, generic in nature, but intended for use in speeding up dynamic web applications by alleviating database load.
Memcached is an in-memory key-value store for small chunks of arbitrary data (strings, objects) from results of database calls, API calls, or page rendering.
Magento supports Memcached out of the box but by default, it is not enabled since we can’t assume that your server will have all the prerequisites installed.
To enable Memcached you will need to check if the daemon is running. By default the daemon is configured to listen to port 11211 so you can perform a netstat command and see if there is activity on 11211. If it’s running, you need to check if Memcached PHP support is enabled by looking at the output of phpinfo().
Once again, if you need to install the necessary components, on a Debian type distro the commands are something like:
sudo apt-get install memcached php5-memcacheYou’ll need to enable Memcached via its configuration file (there will be a notice about this when you run the above command). Then start the service and restart Apache.
After this, you can add the following
These settings are for a single local server running Memcached on the default 11211 port.
To see your Memcached in action you can issue a telnet localhost 11211 command and type: stats
Information source credits for the Memcached section go to Nexcess and their blog post on how to Enable Memcached in MagentoThis is by far not all you can do in terms of optimizing your Magneto site. We have only outlined a couple of popular caching mechanisms that are natively supported by Magento. Some people report better performance when using eAccelerator or XCache in place of APC and you can also try combining the various cache engines. However, be careful if you are also using Zend Server or Zend Optimizer as some of the caching engines may clash with those.
Here are some resources we’ve come across on the net that talk about Magento performance:
Do you have links or comments about Magento performance tuning and optimization that you think are useful. Please share them in the comments.View the original article here
If you're looking for simple and effective ways to influence you, your results and the world, you'll find powerful tools here from an official UK number 1 trainer and coach. Enjoy and be impeccable!
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