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Never Delete Anything

trash“Never delete anything” is one of the most basic rules of web development that also applies to many other fields. You can archive if you’d like, or organize, backup, etc… But don’t delete or overwrite anything. Never.

For the price you pay today for hard drives and digital storage equipment, you’re much better off purchasing additional drives than worrying about running out of space.

Magento 1.4 Problem Solving – JavaScript Files Are Not Referenced Properly

We recently posted solutions to the most common problems people are having with Magento 1.4 (whether you are upgrading your Magento installation or starting with a fresh Magento 1.4 installation).

Another very common problem is when JavaScript files aren’t referenced properly – which creates a bunch of errors and functionality problems. (more…)

Upgrading To Magento 1.4

Magento 1.4With the recent release of Magento version 1.4, many people are having trouble upgrading their current Magento installation, or installing their template on a fresh Magento 1.4 installation. A quick search online and you’ll find countless entries and posts stating that Magento 1.4 is buggy, not working, horrible, etc. Particularly when you browse through the Magento forums.

In fact Magento 1.4 is different than the last previous stable version (1.3.2.4) but you should definitely be able to upgrade your installation, or install your custom template on a Magento 1.4 installation! Here are the most common issues and how to fix them! (more…)

How To Choose A Good Web Hosting Company

Site5 Web Hosting

Finding a good web host is no easy task! There are so many options out there that you could spend days, if not weeks, researching the industry, comparing web hosting companies, reading reviews, and trying out different hosting services.

Luckily for you we’ve worked with dozens of hosting companies over the years, and we have some good suggestions! (more…)

Magento: How To Setup Google Adwords Conversion Tracking

Conversions

Setting up Google Adwords Conversion Tracking on your Magento store is relatively easy – but it’s not a built-in Magento feature, so you’ll have to edit a template file. Here are the 4 simple steps  that need to be done: (more…)

How To Write Good Promotional Emails

We are currently sending out emails to promote Magentist’s affiliate program and we expect great results! Here are the key guidelines we followed when writing the email: (more…)

Magento: Display New Products On Home Page – By Category!

Example of Magento template displaying new products on the home page - by category! Since I posted the code to add new products on your Magento home page, we got a bunch of requests on how to display new products per category, instead of globally.

If you only want to display new products from a specific category – it’s easy. All you have to do is make sure that in your catalog, you’ve set products “as new” only to products that belong to that category.

If you want to display new products on the home page, but want them organized  by category – we have a very easy way to achieve this  very quickly! Simply add this code in your CMS page: (more…)

Content Comes First

Design boxesStart your designs with the content that goes on the page – not the other way around.

Don’t design “boxes”, “areas”, or “structure” and then fill them out with the content you think will go there.

Instead, start by designing the main elements based on the content that you want to communicate on the page. That way you’ll be sure to include the content right away into your design strategy. Content is what matters most.

Start with the content and how you want to display it. That title, that image, this slogan and that short text. Here goes the navigation, there the main call to action. Here some additional content/options. How do I want to display these elements in order to make sure I will achieve my goals? The rest should follow.

Related posts:

Any Web Design Project Has A Debugging Phase

DebuggingDebugging is a normal part of web design and development. What’s unclear about that? Web developers don’t “create bugs”, or “make mistakes”. It’s just the way it goes. I’ll explain more about that below but for now consider this simple analogy:

When you write a book or a paper – you don’t expect the publisher to publish your first submission, do you? Your copy will go through series of edits, corrections, error fixing, rephrasing, rearranging, proof reading, etc… Often this phase can take longer than the time it originally took you to write the paper or book itself! That’s the way it goes. (more…)

Magento: Display New Products On The Home Page

Magentist.comMany don’t know that displaying new products on any page of your Magento store is actually a built-in feature! All you have to do is paste the following code in your CMS page:

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

Products marked as “new” in your catalog will show up wherever you put the code above. By the way this is NOT related to the date when your products were added to your store – only the products that you set as “new” in the catalog will show up. To mark a product as new, simply use Magento’s built in function under “Catalog” -> “Manage Products” -> “Your Product” -> “General” -> “Set Product as New from Date” and “Set Product as New to Date”.

I’ve seen countless “modules” and “extensions” that do just that, or a little more. But really it’s better to use Magento’s native function.