Richard Castera - Explorations in Software Development
Richard Castera - Explorations in Software Development
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Google Wave – A New Communication Platform

May 28, 2009 1 Comment

Google Wave is a new model for communication and collaboration on the web, coming later this year. In Google Wave, users create and invite other people to “waves”. Everyone on a wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It’s concurrent rich-text editing, where you see what other users on the wave are typing in real-time. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content – it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use “playback” to rewind the wave to see how it evolved.

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Written by: rcastera
Resources Scripts

Migrate WordPress to a new Server or Directory

May 26, 2009 9 Comments

If you decide to change the URL or link location of your WordPress Blog due to a new domain or moving to a sub-directory, here are some simple steps that should be done to ensure proper migration without breaking links.

To update WordPress options with the new blog location, use the following SQL command:

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SET @oldsite='http://www.olddomain.com';
SET @newsite='http://www.newdomain.com';
UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = REPLACE(option_value, @oldsite, @newsite) WHERE option_name = 'home' OR option_name = 'siteurl';
UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = REPLACE (post_content, @oldsite, @newsite);
UPDATE wp_postmeta SET meta_value = REPLACE (meta_value, @oldsite, @newsite);
UPDATE wp_comments SET comment_content = REPLACE (comment_content, @oldsite, @newsite);
UPDATE wp_comments SET comment_author_url = REPLACE (comment_author_url, @oldsite, @newsite);
UPDATE wp_posts SET guid = REPLACE (guid, @oldsite, @newsite) WHERE post_type = 'attachment';
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Written by: rcastera
Resources Scripts

Magento – Show blocks that are not loaded in the current Object or Template

May 25, 2009 1 Comment

Customizing Magento could be difficult. Here is an easy way to display any block in any template file that cannot be loaded with $this->getChildHtml().

PHP
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<?php echo $this->getLayout()->getBlock('top.search')->toHtml() ?>
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Written by: rcastera
Resources Scripts

Magento – Find which Class is loaded in the current Template

May 24, 2009 No Comments

If you’ve just started working with Magento, you’ll find that figuring out which class is loaded in the current template file very difficult. Here’s a little snippet that helps you figure it out. Just place the following into any .phtml template files:

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<?php print_r(get_class_methods(get_class($this))); ?>

or

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<?php print_r($this->debug()); ?>

or

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<?php echo Zend_Debug::dump($this); ?>
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Written by: rcastera
Resources Thoughts

Apple iPhone Apps for Designers & Developers

May 23, 2009 1 Comment

I purchased an iPhone about 2 months ago and I must say I love it. The only gripe I would say I have with this beautiful machine would be the Multi-media messages or lack thereof. This is something that Apple and AT&T really need to address. For a phone with all of this great technology to lack a feature that most basic phones come standard with is horrible. Anyway, (I needed to vent) here are a list of some really cool Apps that I’ve come across and use:

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Written by: rcastera
Resources Scripts

Magento – Display new products on the home page

May 20, 2009 103 Comments

If you’ve ever wanted to add new products in your Magento home page, it’s fairly easy to implement. Go to “CMS” then “Manage Pages” and select “Home Page” from the list of pages. Now paste this code snippet to show products labeled as “new” on your front page:

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{{block type="catalog/product_new" name="home.catalog.product.new" alias="product_homepage" template="catalog/product/new.phtml"}}

(Note that you must have some new products in your catalog for anything to show when you do this. This doesn’t mean that you’ve recently added them; only products explicitly marked as new using “Set Product as New from Date” and “Set Product as New to Date” options in the “General” product information page in the admin tool will be shown.)

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Written by: rcastera
Resources

Magento releases User Guide

May 19, 2009 2 Comments

Master the basics of running your Magento store using hands-on tutorials by Varien, the Magento Company.

The Magento User Guide provides the site administrator with detailed instructions addressing the platform’s innumerable functions. From setting up your store to managing your products, pages and promotions to generating detailed reports, our User Guide empowers our ever-widening customer to utilize the platform for all of its vast capacity. Serving as a handy problem solving solution as well as a practical step by step guide, our User Guide is sure to become a cost-effective partner in your Magento store implementation.

  • Download a sample chapter
  • Read the Table of Contents
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Written by: rcastera
Resources Scripts

Magento – Re-ordering Block items

May 19, 2009 18 Comments

Magento has lots of blocks that display in the left and right columns (based on your layout). Changing the order in which they are displayed or sorted is easy. Navigate to the folder “app\design\frontend\default\YOUR_THEME\layout”. In this folder, there are several XML files which are called Layouts.

Magento Layouts are the tools with which you can assign content blocks to each structural block you create. Layout exists in the form of XML text-file and by modifying the layout you are able to move blocks around in a page and assign templates to the content blocks to produce markup for the structural blocks.

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Written by: rcastera
Resources Scripts

Magento – Adding Static Block content to a Page

May 17, 2009 37 Comments

Add Magento static blocks to your page easily! Simply copy this line of code below where you want the static block to appear and change the ‘identifier’ to the identifier of the static block you created. That’s it!

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<?php echo $this->getLayout()->createBlock('cms/block')->setBlockId('identifier')->toHtml() ?>
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Written by: rcastera
Resources Scripts

How to Delete Test Orders from Magento

May 15, 2009 36 Comments

Deleting your test orders currently requires running a script directly on your Database. Make sure you fully backup your database before doing anything! This script will delete all orders in the database and reset all order counters!

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Written by: rcastera
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About me

Hello, my name is Richard Castera. I have more than 12 years of experience architecting, implementing, leading and launching large scale, high performance software products in a fast-paced agile environment.

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