Latest blog posts

Magento is extensible with plugin modules. Many free as well as commercial modules are available through the Magento Connect marketplace. Extension packages bought from the marketplace are installed through the Connect Manager. Unfortunately, having Magento working properly doesn't automatically mean the Connect Manager also works. It may complain about not having sufficient write permissions on the Magento folder or even worse, simply displays a blank page.
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The Magento eCommerce platform hides the "address fields", including the customer's company name, by default. To enable them, most sources on the internet suggest overriding the register.phtml file and either commenting out the check to getShowAddressFields or to specifically call $this->setShowAddressFields (true);. That'll work, but it's not the proper way to do it. Read on the learn the proper way.
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This past week, Google has rolled out a new feature for Google Image Search. Now, you can search the web for images similar to one that you upload yourself (or by simply entering the URL for an image that is already online). I love that feature, but it occurred to me there could be some interesting side effects. It will now be much easier for photographers and other artists to see who is using their images without being properly licensed.
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After being very tight-lipped about their plans for the next version of Windows, Microsoft have now officially given the first demos of the the next generation of Windows, called "Windows 8" for now. It is a mix of the live tiles from Windows Phone 7's "Metro UI" and the traditional Windows 7 UI. Everybody and their uncle will have an opinion on this. Here's mine. What I've seen leaves me with mixed feelings. As a casual tablet user, I'm loving it. As a deskop PC worker and power user, it fills me with dread.
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Web development is something I've been doing for the past 15 years, and it's been my day job for the past 8 years. I've also done quite a lot of server administration tasks since then, even if that wasn't part of my actual job description. While there's probably a good economic case for outsourcing hosting and support duties, it can get to be quite frustrating when things simply don't work as intended. This is even more the case when you're a more technically savvy user (and I count myself among those, even if I'm no guru) and you have to deal with a poor hapless tech. You know what it is needs to be done and they just don't seem to be able to do it.
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