So after a year of the site actually going live for the first time, it is back and better then ever. It is now alot faster than its older versions and it now also has its own Twitter account. So if you follow the inBlogs Twitter account you will get the latest inBlogs aggregated posts keeping you up to date on web-related news and blog posts.
If you have a web-related blog, then feel free to add it today here and you will automatically become a friend of inBlogs for free. Best part is, you will receive NO emails from inBlogs about renewing the upgrade of your listing on inBlogs. It is up to you to do that if you wish.
]]>At the time of writing this Magento is at version 1.0, with a bug fix release just around the corner. Many of the features built into the core of Magento are features that aren’t built into other solutions without the use of plugins/modules.
Some of the nicest features that are built into Magento are…
- Individual items within an order can be shipped to mutliple addresses.
- People can create wishlists to send to there friends.
- Reports (Sales, Tax, Searches, Stock, Most Viewed, Coupon Useage etc…).
- Ability to allow users to configure products (Size, Colour etc…).
- Import / Export Products
- Export information about customers, (Collect email addresses for mailshots).
- An RSS feed that warns you of low stock.
- Users can tag products.
- Order tracking.
- To see more of the great features built in click here.
I am not creating a shop for personal use, but for a client of 383 Project. So my main focus on the system is the template system. The first time you look at the template/skinning/theming system in Magento it can be pretty daunting.
The files for the skin are separated between several folders (app/design & skin). Within the app/design folder you will find all the HTML for the templates, within the skin folder you will find the images, stylesheets and javascript files.
Once you get used to navigating through these folders it’s pretty much plain sailing. A neat feature in Magento allows you to turn on labels telling you where a particular template file is located, this can be found in the Admin Area > System > Configuration then navigate down to Developer and turn on ‘Template Path Hints’.
I will be posting more about the system in the near future as I work with it more and more. Personally, if I was creating an eCommerce site for my own use then i’d use Magento. Go try it out. If you want to know more head over to the Magento website and look around, they also have screencasts showing you the process of many parts of the system.
]]>The site essentially is based around readers and writers creating articles, tutorials and news posts for cash. If you wish to earn some extra money and create a few posts ready for when the site launches get in touch with me by using the contact page or twitter.
All posts will need to be related to Web Development, I am still working out rates to pay writers but i’m sure we can come to an agreement that suites everyone. If you have experience blogging or writing then that will be a bonus.
Look forward to hearing from all you writers.
]]>After a day or so watching screencasts and reading up on what you can do with Rails, I set out and brought the Build Your Own Ruby on Rails Web Applications Sitepoint book from Waterstones (after searching in a few other book shops).
Getting into the book was relatively easy, but if you wish to start working on the sample application (Shovell - A Digg Clone) that you build while reading the book straight away you have a good 3-4 chapters to read first.
While I haven’t got into the bulk of the application coding I have to say I am very impressed and by the sounds of it, Ruby on Rails will look great on anyones CV and portfolio.
I would have gotten further into the book by now if I hadn’t gotten stuck on getting MySQL all set up and running on Leopard, I kept getting errors and after about 6 attempts it worked. Now I can start building the Shovell application, then once i’m happy with that I can start building my other projects that are in the works.
I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about Ruby on Rails, its a great introduction to Rails. I will no doubt be posting more posts about this book in the coming weeks when a few other of my projects start coming together.
]]>Now, today I have added inBlogs to twitter. So most posts will be posted to twitter getting your blog more exposure and hits. While this feature is rather simple it still needs to be tweaked so all posts are posted. Right now because of timezones some posts are missed by the system. This will hopefully be resolved by the weekend.
Follow inBlogs on Twitter here.
Wordpress 2.5
This is the first post I am creating using Wordpress 2.5, I was a bit skeptical at first about the design and the overall new layout of the admin area, but its growing on me and I have to say I much prefer the layout of this editor now. So get upgrading!!
Projects on Rails
I have started to learn Ruby on Rails for an upcoming project. I am quite impressed with the idea I have came up with, it has to be the best idea I have had ever for a site that is. Just need to make this idea a reality, and with the help of Rails it shouldn’t be that long.
Working at 383
Working at 383 Project is great still, really enjoying it still. Even with the amount of HTML Newsletters I have to code, and the amount of database find and replaces I have to do manually. It also has its challenging aspects, which allow me to push all my skills to the limit, while learning on the way.
Also I am on the look out for PHP/Ruby on Rails/Javascript courses if anyone knows of any give me a shout.
Not a very short update like I said above but still, not as interesting as a review or tutorial. More of them posts coming very soon, including information about my new Rails projects.
]]>The Friend of inBlogs will be re-added and all the friends of the previous inBlogs copied over. I will be doing a big advert campaign once I feel the changes to the site have been completed, this will boost not only traffic to inBlogs but traffic to active blogs that are been aggregated by inBlogs.
For now if you have a blog and wish to add it to inBlogs please do so.
]]>So far posts have covered, Content Management Systems, Talking to Clients, and 3D. The site is only just launched and its already been a great site to be involved in.
Hopefully over the next few day/weeks I will be launching a few new projects of mine, sites, widgets and anything else I can get out of the Internet Workshop.
]]>Themes.e107 has now launched. The site has been talked about for some time within the support team and e107 developers, a few months back before I started e107Advent I decided to give the site a boost and get a design done for the site. Now a few month’s later the site is up. We are still going to be working on the site over the coming weeks, making changes, adding a logo etc.
Themers can now upload there themes at themes.e107.org. I will be uploading all of mine soon when I get a few minutes spare. Talking of my themes my e107Advent themes have now accumulated over 4000 downloads, which is increasing by the day!
More posts coming very soon!
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I’m happy to announce that after a few hours work I have re-vamped e107CVs.org.
The main reason for this change is to make CVS updates easier for me to create, meaning I can update it everyday depending if anything has been commited. Now I just need to download the CVS files, and then run an AppleScript which then zips them and uploads them to the site. The site knows when the file was last changed so I don’t have to edit that every few days.
Now for those of you wondering what is e107CVS.org? Its a site that allows you to download the CVS branches of e107, for those people that don’t know what CVS is then the site allows you to download up -to-date Pre-Release copies of e107. So if you wish to try the upcoming releases of e107 then head over to e107CVS.org.
It isn’t recommended you use these files on productions sites, they are simply available for testing. If you do use them then you are using them at your OWN risk!
These are Pre-Release files, some functions may be in a ‘Work in Progress / Not working / Foundations’ state, and bugs will be present.
More sites and site re-vamps coming very soon!
]]>I mentioned a couple of my own projects last time, no names to be released as yet, but they are coming on well just need to find the time to get them finished and up and running. I have started on a few other little projects too since the last update, one includes some changes to this site. These will be online as soon as I can complete them.
More tutorials, articles coming soon. Some updates to come about my EyeTV Hybrid, some new stuff about my iMac and well any other gadget that is new ish… I may even get some stuff in about AppleScript.
Talking of AppleScript, hopefully in the next week or so I will have a script done for one of my little ‘fun’ projects. More information on this will come when its all complete and working.
e107 Guides etc, still in the works. Will try and get something out soon, can’t guarantee anything.
Work… What can I say, it’s going great. Its miles better than working at home in a tiny office, now I get to work on some amazing projects in a cool office with some great guys, random music, and chit chat.
Expect some posts in the next few days. Gonna get this blog back to ‘active’ status.
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