Archive for Web

An Introduction to Magento: Open Source Ecommerce

August 17, 2008 @ 6:26 am · Filed under Magento, Open Source, Web

I have been learning Magento for the past few months, for a client’s website that I have been working on. Its a pretty robust Open Source Ecommerce plaform that is built on the Zend PHP Framework. At first, it was rather daunting trying to find my way around the software - its pretty robust and the documentation for creating a theme feels rather incomplete. It’s nothing like WordPress which I would take in a heartbeat, if they had a solid enough Ecommerce plugin, I have been spoiled by the WordPress Theme engine for quite some time now.

To make my way around Magento, I have been finding bits and pieces of information scattered across many websites. To make it easier for others, Im going to try to assemble the basics here for you.

The hardest piece for me to grasp has been the folder structure, you have to bounce between two places to build a theme, here is a rundown.

http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/Magento-folder-structure/

  • /skin// / - is where design package css and images are
  • /app/design is location of design packages (layouts, templates, translations)
  • /app/design// - theme customizations
  • /app/design// /layout - .xml files that define block structure for different cases in website flow
  • /app/design// /template - .phtml (html with php tags) templates
  • /app/design// /translate - Zend_Db compatible translation files

Common Template Path Hints

<?=$this->getSkinUrl('css/styles.css')?>
<?=$this->getJsUrl()?>

Online Resources

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Recommended Reading for Entrepreneurs

August 5, 2008 @ 9:28 am · Filed under Entrepreneurs, Open Source, SEO, Web

Recommended Reading for Entrepreneurs/Startup Junkies

I love reading books and there are so many great books out there for us to learn from. Books are a great way to unwind from the day and learn about the world. When I was younger, I loved to read Travel Books. It started with A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson. From there, I read every book by Bill Bryson, then on to other similar travel books - I learned so much about other cultures.

Recently, I have taken the same path with Startup/Entrepreneurial Books. I also read books about code, but if I read those in bed, I tend to fall asleep rather quickly. So I have been sticking to business related books. I get so excited when I order a new one in Amazon, I cant wait to read it. Over the past few months, I have read 4 great books - but my list is growing. Below is a list of the books I have read and what I wish to read next.

Recently Read

  • The Art of Start by Guy Kawasaki
  • WikiNomics
  • Getting Real by 37signals

Currently Reading

  • Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston
  • Crossing the Chasm

Wishlist

  • Getting Things Done by David Allen
  • Web Analytics: An Hour a Day by Avinash Kaushik
  • Word of Mouth Marketing by Andy Sernovitz

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Greetings from my iPhone

July 22, 2008 @ 3:31 pm · Filed under Apple Tools/News, Web, WordPress

Greetings from the new WordPress iPhone app. I was waiting for wordpress to release an iPhone app and it looks like they have come through. Stay tuned for more posts from the road.

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WordPress Custom Fields and Checking for Values

July 6, 2008 @ 6:34 pm · Filed under Web, WordPress

I have been building sites with WordPress for about a year now and I love it. I love the versatility that WordPress offers and I have had great success with Search Engine Visibility. I just recently read a great article on how to use custom fields to take your wordpress site to the next level.

I setup a few pages on my site StamfordCTGuide, which one section in particular, hotels. I added a few hotels and ran into some issues of missing images. Instead of adding the missing images image to each custom field entry in Admin. I wrote a little php if statement to check to see if there is a value present, and if there isnt - to show a default "no image available".

Here is the php that I wrote, its simple - but really my first experience with writing php. I have been doing ActionScript 3 for about 6 months, and the basic principles are the same.

PLAIN TEXT
PHP:
  1. <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark"><img src="<?php
  2.             if ($hotels_img != null) {
  3.             echo $hotels_img[0];
  4.             }
  5.             else if ($hotels_img == null) {
  6.             echo "http://www.stamfordctguide.com/wp-content/themes/stamfordctguide/images/noimage.gif";
  7.             }
  8.            
  9.             ?>" border="0" width="50"></a>

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The Best of Web Conferences 2008

June 18, 2008 @ 1:49 pm · Filed under Design, Flash, Web

I have compiled a list of the most popular flash and web conferences that are offered around the world.

Flash:

Web Design/Creative:

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