Magento – Install pointers

August 5th, 2010
Magento – Install pointers

Magento has a cool logo!

Seriously, it does. But that has nothing to do with anything. I decided to finally check Magento out because of all the stuff I keep reading. I’m here to give you a couple pointers. The instructions for installation, which you can read here, are actually pretty good. With a few exceptions of course. So if you are interested in trying out Magento, read this before you start.

NOTE: If you are installing this live (meaning not locally to test), do NOT import the sample data.

Setting up the database

Before you actually do the install of Magento, you must create a new database. I’m not going to walk you through how to do that, but if you use phpAdmin, it is easy even for a noob. You also must import sample data into the database. Do NOT, and I repeat, do NOT download the one they provide, as you will most likely get an error message. Go to this forum thread, download the sample data from the last post on the page (1.2.0 revised). Import went fine after that.

The full release

There are a couple of options on how to download Magento. I picked the Full Release option. If you go that route, download it, unzip it, open it up, and you will find a folder called ‘magento’. That is the folder you want to upload. Unless you are installing into the root, in which case, I can’t help you. But it wasn’t unclear if I had to unzip the file first or not. Through some searching, the answer is no. You just need all of what is in that folder. Be warned, it is a lot.

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CSS Wish List – Div Shapes

August 4th, 2010
CSS Wish List – Div Shapes

Effects are cool, but come on, it could do more

Note: Comments have been disabled on this article due to an INSANE amount of spam ping comments. Must have been my title or something.

We can all agree that CSS3 added some really cool stuff. Linear gradients alone made it worthwhile for me. Add in border-radius, box/text-shadow, transitions (available in FF 4 if you didn’t know yet) and whatever else I’m forgetting to mention, and you have a pretty good upgrade to CSS. Today though, while working on a site, I was frustrated by something that CSS can’t do. I Google’d the hell out of it, and I couldn’t even get the right topic to come up. It made me stop and think that, ya all those cool effects are great, but there are some things I would like it to do beyond that.

Plotting Div Points

I didn’t think of it until today. I work within a custom content management system that feeds default content into specific sections on the site. I want the main content block, I call a specific ‘id’ on a div, and boom, it throws in some default content pertaining to whatever market I am building for. The problem though, is I can’t put a div/image/whatever into that content block, until after the site is ordered. Not a problem if I am building a custom site, because I have the ability to change that content. If I am building a template site though, I don’t have that ability because it has to fit any number of clients. What I needed today, was to wrap text around another div. See the image below and you will see what I mean.

CSS Demands image

NOTE: I think I am going to build this and sell the template here, so if you are interested, contact me!

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Posted in CSS, Web Development | 2 Comments »

CSS PIE: CSS3 styles for IE – easy to use and awesome

August 3rd, 2010
CSS PIE: CSS3 styles for IE – easy to use and awesome

Flash back to…

A little while back I wrote an article about getting border-radius working in IE. Well, if you haven’t been keeping up in the blogging world, I came across CSS PIE. It basically does the same thing, only more. If you use things like box-shadow, linear-gradients, AND border-radius, then this is the version you will want to use. Basically the same call in the css file:

.myClass {
-moz-border-radius: 5px;
-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
border-radius: 5px;
-moz-box-shadow: 2px 2px 5px #000000;
-webkit-box-shadow: 2px 2px 5px #000000;
box-shadow: 2px 2px 5px #000000;
behavior: url(/PIE.htc);
}

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How to slice up a PSD file in Photoshop

July 29th, 2010
How to slice up a PSD file in Photoshop

Because its quick

I am jumping around in topics lately from CSS, to jQuery, to WordPress, to blogging, and now onto Photoshop. This is good though. Something different every day. Yesterday I had the pleasure of helping out someone who wants to learn how to create a websites. After the the short lesson I gave him, he said “Wow…I have a lot to learn.” To which I replied with a simple yes. He had coded a page, and then had me look at it. At which point I broke him of some nasty habits. This bit of teaching had me thinking though. What are some things I see some people do that makes me shake my head, when I know there is an easier way.

The first thing that popped into my brain was watching someone use the eraser tool in Photoshop to take away the background around an image of a person. That is just plain crazy. But there was a second item I thought about just after that nonsense. Slicing up a Photoshop PSD file to be used as a web page. I know people who do things differently, like using guides and then cropping the images necessary. That takes a while, even though I know one guy who is pretty damn quick at it. For me though, slicing is the way to go. It’s quick, easy, and if you need to make a change, there is no cropping involved – just a re-save.

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Posted in Photoshop | 9 Comments »

Got published on Onextrapixel.com!

July 28th, 2010

Yes I am freakin’ excited. Please check out my article at onextrapixel.com, called ‘The Real World Development vs The Optimum Way‘ and let me know what you think! There or here, I don’t care!

Oh ya, and I hit 200 subscribers!

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Posted in Blogging | 2 Comments »

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