Here’s a great post from my team-mate (comrade on my big Magento project) on how to setup Magento on Mac OSX. I personally use MAMP on my MAC but I think I will reconfigure my MAC to use Zend Server.
Here’s the link: http://bit.ly/9BHlVU
Alright, sorry for the super long delay on this part 2. I’ve been really bogged down with several projects and one of them is a quite large Magento Enterprise implementation (crossing my finger that the site is launching in a week). I will announce it on my blog when that happens.
Anyway, the second part is actually quite easy. It is pretty much about setting up your empty MySQL database for use with Magento. Here are the steps:
So now the rest should be pretty straight forward. Once you put the Magento code on the Apache, call out the main URL (don’t use localhost or IP, if you don’t have domain, create dummy one through host file). You will see the Magento setup wizard. Follow the setup steps and you will be good to go.
Cheers.
One of the strength of Magento is the architect of the data layer vertically which allows us to create dynamic attributes. They call this design by EAV structure. With this data architecture, the SQL query to find out a particular attribute values or names can be a challenging task.
Here are the cheat sheet to retrieve those attributes (EAV).
1. Query to find different type of entity available
SELECT *
FROM eav_entity_type
2. Then use that entity type above to find EAV available for that entity using this query:
SELECT et.*,att.attribute_code,g.attribute_group_name,eset.attribute_set_name
FROM eav_entity_attribute et
INNER JOIN eav_attribute att ON att.attribute_id=et.attribute_id
INNER JOIN eav_attribute_group g ON g.attribute_group_id=et.attribute_group_id
INNER JOIN eav_entity_type etype ON etype.entity_type_id=et.entity_type_id
INNER JOIN eav_attribute_set eset ON eset.entity_type_id =
etype.entity_type_id AND eset.attribute_set_id=et.attribute_set_id
WHERE etype.entity_type_code=’{replace with entity type}’;
If you are like me that still love to stick around with IIS but want to try out Magento Commerce, I have good news. Magento Commerce works quite with some tweak. I have tried this approach on both IIS 6.0 and IIS 7.0 (each have a bit different steps).
First make sure you only use PHP 5.2+ but not version 5.3. You can use the latest MySQL or version 5 and above. Now once you have both PHP and MySQL downloaded, let’s start by configuring IIS to work with PHP first.
On part 1 of this blog, I will start with configuring PHP with IIS7 using FastCGI. If you have Windows 2008 or Windows 7, then you will be using the new IIS version 7. I typically choose the manual PHP installation process. Magento Commerce supports FastCGI, therefore, we can setup our IIS to use FastCGI. IIS 7.0 comes with FastCGI as an option when you install it. Here’s the steps:
1. Make sure FastCGI is installed with your IIS 7 (go to control panel – program and features – Turn Windows feature on or off – under Internet Information Services, make sure CGI is checked (inside world wide web services – application development feature)
2. Unzip the PHP into a directory.
3. Next we are going to install PHP using FastCGI. Open IIS manager. In the site that you want the PHP engine to run, click on the “Handler Mappings” and add click on “add module mapping”. Enter the following:
It will prompt whether you want to create a FastCGI application for this application. Just choose “yes”.
4. On your PHP directory, make sure PHP.ini is there. You can copy from “php.ini-recommended” and rename it to “php.ini” to start with. Inside PHP.ini, these are the settings that need to be set right:
* Set fastcgi.impersonate = 1. FastCGI under IIS supports the ability to impersonate security tokens of the calling client. This allows IIS to define the security context that the request runs under.
* Set cgi.fix_pathinfo=1. cgi.fix_pathinfo provides *real* PATH_INFO/PATH_TRANSLATED support for CGI. PHP’s previous behavior was to set PATH_TRANSLATED to SCRIPT_FILENAME, and to not care what PATH_INFO is. For more information on PATH_INFO, see the cgi specs. Setting this to 1 will cause PHP CGI to fix its paths to conform to the spec
* Set cgi.force_redirect = 0.
* Set extension_dir to point to a location where PHP extensions reside. Typically, for PHP 5.2.X that would be set as extension_dir = “./ext”
* Enable the required PHP extension by un-commenting corresponding lines, for example:
extension=php_mssql.dll
extension=php_mysql.dll
5. Now we are ready to test the PHP.
To test your PHP installation, on your webroot, create a test php file. You can named it “phpinfo.php”. Inside simply type in the following code:
<$php phpinfo();
6. Open your browser and go to that page that you just created. If everything install correctly, then you should see all the php settings of your PHP installation.
That's it. On the next part, I will cover installing MySQL and preparing the empty database for Magento.
I just came back from the AspDotNetStorefront Developer Conference, along with Guidance CTO, Jon Provisor. This year’s conference, held in Las Vegas, was filled with announcements, including the launch of version 9 of AspDotNetStorefront, which they have called Ashland. AspDotNetStorefront executives unveiled the product map for Ashland at the conference, which proved this was a major release for the platform and a critical foundation for their Enterprise-level support. Guidance is proud to be AspDotNetStorefront’s first Enterprise-level partner.
Here are some of the key highlights of Ashland:
1. Master Pages
Ashland finally supports the .NET master page and theme approach for website skinning. Skin base has been deprecated, but the XML Package is still fully supported. This change allows any .NET developer to easily skin the eCommerce site without having to know XSLT language, like in previous versions of AspDotNetStorefront.
This move not only leverages master page and themes better, but it also allows for easier integration with AJAX toolkit and the creation of custom user controls. This makes the development of the site much more streamlined and faster.
2. Enterprise Modules
This is a certainly a big, significant move for AspDotNetStorefront. With Ashland, they’ve established what has been called ERP Synchronization Specification or ERPS, which combines the use of WSI (the Web Service API they’ve made available since version 7.1) and the “in Process” add-in model. The Add-In model leverages standardized contracts that allow developers to extend and develop “add-ins” to enhance AspDotNetStorefront’s core functionalities.
Here’s a list of available contracts (which can be extended):
All of these create new possibilities to extend AspDotNetStorefront without touching the core source code of the software. These also allow developer communities to share and/or develop custom add-ins that can be reused by other developers.
3. Support for Multi Stores
With Ashland, you can now create and manage multiple stores within the AspDotNetStorefront installation. Each store can have its own look and feel (skin), product subsets (through product mapping), shipping method, and even payment method. However, all stores will share the same product and variants database, order database and admin interface.
This feature is perfectly suited for companies that want to “launch” micro sites or subsidiary sites where all order processing needs to funnel through one system. However, this is not to be confused with a “mall” solution, where a company hosts multiple eCommerce sites under a single installation.
4. Other notable enhancements
5. PA-DSS certification
The platform’s PCI compliance will be replaced with a new certification called PA-DSS. AspDotNetStorefront takes payment security standards very seriously, and as such, Ashland will undergo the full PA-DSS certification process as well as an independent security review. This will guarantee that all future AspDotNetStorefront-built eCommerce sites will meet the industry standard for payment security regulation.
The scheduled release date of Ashland is August 31st, 2009. The pricing should not be too different from the current version except for the multi-stores functionality, which they have yet to determine the licensing model for it.
But that’s not all for AspDotNetStorefront. Ashland may be the next version, but they are already started working on the next enhancement list which will be included on the next version of AspDotNetStorefront (code name “Vegas”). Here are some of the key features that are planned to be included in Vegas:
The expected release date for Vegas is end of December 2009.
Taking a look at both Ashland and Vegas, we are very excited to the platform maturing and growing at the same time. The feature sets are fully updated and reflect the ever-changing needs of eCommerce websites and online stores. Kudos to the development team of AspDotNetStorefront! We are looking forward to working with both Ashland and Vegas.
The Web 2.0 and Social Media development have been taking more and more spotlights in the last twelve months. Every discussions about web technologies have always been either the new Web 2.0 apps or integration with Social Media.
Here are some of the things that I predict will be BIG in the next 6-12 months:
1. Facebook Connect
URL: http://developers.facebook.com/connect.php
More and more sites are leveraging this to allow their visitors to connect to their Facebook account and reach out to their Facebook friends. Facebook connect allows site to “embed” facebook functionalities such as share to friends, comments, post to wall directly from the site (without going to Facebook sites). Facebook opens up more and more functionalities under this wing. Rather than building your own social network, why not just integrate with Facebbok?
2. Open ID
URL: http://openid.net/
This is another big undertaken that has been slowly adopted by all major social media sites including Facebook. This allow users to use one login to access all their favorite Web 2.0 sites. This also opens up the door of communication between one site to another. Big retailer Sears just recently announced of supporting Open ID on their community sites: MySears and MyKmart.com.
3. HTML 5.0
URL: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/html5.asp
The new spec of HTML is out and adding a lot of Web 2.0 specific functionalities to the core HTML. Now you embed video directly to HTML without the need of external player. Another big thing in HTML 5.0 is to allow having local storage of data (this will replace what we do with cookies todays) If you haven’t checked the spec out, make sure you start looking to it. Firefox 3.5, Opera and Safari 4 have already support this.
4. Google Wave!!!
URL: http://wave.google.com/
If you have not watched their video presentation of Google Wave, go search at Google and watch it. It is too cool to miss out. From the same brothers who create the awesome Google Maps, they are trying to revolutionize the way people communicate to each other. This is going to change everything we know about online communication and colaboration. Moreover, they meant for both personal and corporate world! No more Exchange Server, Share Point and Facebook?
Alright, see you all on my next report.
I stumbled upon Jeremiah Owyang’s blog site and reading his opinion regarding the five eras of the Social Web. He described the social web evolving into 5 different overlapping eras:
1) Era of Social Relationships: People connect to others and share
2) Era of Social Functionality: Social networks become like operating system
3) Era of Social Colonization: Every experience can now be social
4) Era of Social Context: Personalized and accurate content
5) Era of Social Commerce: Communities define future products and services
I found his opinions are so true and we are definitely entering the era #3 and #4. With the release of Google Wave later this year and the wide support of OpenID everywhere, the maturity of these eras are right in the corner. Even Sears announced that they will be the first commerce site to support OpenID initiative. I won’t be surprise if one day Microsoft will announce that you can now login to your Windows with OpenID (Windows 8 probably?)
Papa John’s Pizza added an unorthodox but seems fun webcam interaction to their ecommerce site.
“The campaign’s plot is simple. Weird, but simple. Consumers go to a Papa John site and grab an icon of the “1972 Z28 Camaro that founder John Schnatter sold 25 years ago to open his first restaurant,” the chain said. As of Monday (June 1), consumers can use webcams to capture the image from a pizza box. Once selected, the consumer can then drive along a virtual road, being shown virtual billboards, which are discount coupons.” — StorefrontBacktalk
I think this is more a consumer retention strategy toward their younger consumers and hope that they will find this new coupon hunting interaction fun.
Read here for the full post: http://tinyurl.com/py46wx
Using the Internet on a mobile phone was not widely adopted in the United States until the birth of the Apple iPhone. Before the iPhone, the mobile Internet experience was very cumbersome and difficult for common people. The screens were too small and sometimes it took a lot of effort to make the Internet work on your cell phone.
With a 20 million and growing user base and with 80% of them using the Internet every day, iPhones and other smart phones now offer retailers a whole new market segment that retailers can no longer ignore. Apple™ recently-released iPhone software version 2.0 opens up the door to companies and individuals to develop applications specific to the iPhone via the provided SDK. The software distribution is easy and simple through the provided AppStore application and the result is phenomenal. And this summer, even more functionalities are going to open up to developers on the version 3.0 software. There will be a unified message alerting system, access to external hardware integration, and more. All these new features will bring new perspectives and possibilities to the mobile channel.
Do I think mobile phones will completely replace the computer-based eCommerce experience? Heck no! Do retailers need to start planning their mobile presence strategy? Asolutely. The mobile phone is a more personal device to its owner than a computer. People adore their phones. They bring their phones with them every day and they constantly use them every single minute. Mobile phones have become irreplaceable communication devices that now are deeply embedded in our daily life.
So, if you as a retailer can claim your place on these devices, you’ll be able to place yourself very close to your customers. With built-in GPS technology, you can now know where your customer is at any particular time, and when you combine that with instant push message technology, you now have a way to deliver the right marketing to the right person at the right time. That is a powerful marketing tool. However, at the same time, since mobile phones are so personal, abusing this power will quickly lead to your customers putting you on their “SPAM” radar and you will be completely shut off from their presence.
With that in mind, putting your content on the mobile Web is no longer about merely trying to make your content render nicely on the small screen. It is a whole new strategy that requires good planning. Mobile devices should become — in a way — another channel of your business (just like your offline store, online store, catalog, etc). Instead of directly generating revenue from it like your regular sales channel, your mobile presence should be in mutual symbiosis with the other channels of your business to enhance your customer’s experience with your product and your company.
Let’s picture this scenario:
I want to buy new sneakers. So, like everybody else, I use my laptop to start browsing the Internet and several of my favorite online stores. Let’s assume that after doing some price comparison and reading some reviews on the Web, I find the shoes I like on a site. Let’s also assume that the company behind this site owns several local brick-and-mortar stores in my city.
In the old days, there was no connectivity between the online presence, the brick-and-mortar store and any other business channels of the company. The online department would expect and persuade me to just buy online. The store would encourage me to go to the store by giving out special promotions that were only available at the store.
In today’s economy, this self-channel-ego-centric mentality needs to be torn down. All of your business channels should work as one and with one goal only: to make sure that I, the customer, will buy the product only from your company and not from your competitors. We will revisit this multi-channel issue in later, but for the purpose of this article, let’s focus on the mobile channel and how it can become the glue that binds your other business channels.
Go back to the scenario above. It would be nice after finding the shoes that I like on the site, if I could add the shoes to my wish list which will automatically alert my mobile phone about the new shoes that I just saved. Then at anytime, I can access my wish list using my browser on my mobile phone and I can share it with my friends via cell phone or even on Facebook.
On the road, I can use the GPS on my phone to find a store near me that currently has the shoes I want and I can send out a “reservation” notice to the store through my phone that I am coming to that store in the next 2 hours to try on the shoes.
When I arrive at the store, I can have the store scan my phone so they can locate the shoes in the store’s inventory and get them for me to try on. Let say I try the shoes, and I love them but they don’t have the size I like. The store then provides me with an in-store computer terminal that allows me to order the size I want online with free delivery to my house. The system will then automatically send a receipt to my mobile phone and my email at home. Using the FedEx application on my phone, I can then track my package to make sure I am home when my shoes arrive.
As you can see from this story, mobile commerce is no longer about having people buy products through mobile-optimized websites. It’s more about the whole personal experience and it’s about leveraging emerging technology to enhance that personal experience in ways that were not possible before.
Get personal with your customer and let them bring your company along with them even only on their mobile phones.
Young Chuck moved to Texas and bought a donkey from a farmer for $100.
The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day. But, the next
day he drove up and said, “Sorry son, but I have some bad news, the
donkey died.”
Chuck replied, “Well, then just give me my money back.”
The farmer said, “Can’t do that. I went and spent it already.”
Chuck said, “O.K. then, just bring me the dead donkey.”
The farmer asked, “What ya gonna do with him?”
Chuck said, “I’m going to raffle him off.”
The farmer said, “You can’t raffle off a dead donkey!”
Chuck said, “Sure I can watch me. I just won’t tell anybody he’s
dead.”
A month later, the farmer met up with Chuck and asked, “What happened
with that dead donkey?”
Chuck said, “I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at $2 apiece and
made a profit of $998.”
The farmer said, “Didn’t anyone complain?”
Chuck said, “Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars
back.”
Chuck now works as an Internet marketer.
–
If you enjoyed the post, make sure you subscribe to the RSS feed.
© 2008 TypeBased. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by WordPress. Design by 
