27th April, 2010 – 10:27 am
Wow, good morning everyone. Yes, I’m up, sleepy-eyed and fighting back yawns, to blog. It feels great!
Today is Freedom Day in South Africa… yes, yet another public holiday in April. This day is, however, more than just another of the many April-based public holidays. Freedom Day remembers the first post-apartheid political election, held on this day in 1994. For South Africans, this day was truly one of a unique nature, as for the first time in a South African election, the entire nation was truly free to cast their vote as they wished… or to even cast their vote in the first place.
If you were in the country at the time in 1994, try to think back on how things were at the time, and before. However you choose to spend today, please set aside a moment to think about the concept of freedom and what it truly means.
26th April, 2010 – 9:21 am
What is inspiration? Where does it come from? How can it drive productive output? These are all valid questions.
At this moment, it’s a little misty outside my window. It’s early and I’m almost on my way to a nice hot cup of tea. This doesn’t seem related to the post at all, does it? It is. All of these factors are instrumental in driving productive output from within me. A relaxed environment with average, slightly overcast, weather conditions and the want for a soothing cup of tea. Read More »
25th April, 2010 – 10:42 am
Wow, part 4 already? This is where the real fun comes in, folks. Today we’ll be opening up some *.phtml and *.xml files, looking at what’s going on under the hood and finding out how the theme files all tie together. Lets get started, shall we?
Before we get to those files…
Folks, before we dive into the files, lets get some concepts down that are crucial to understanding how the Magento theme files play together.
Magento themes consist of, aside from styling assets (CSS, images, Javascript, etc) a collection of *.phtml (essentially, XHTML files that can execute PHP) and *.xml (Extensible Markup Language) files that make the theme work.
The *.xml files define blocks and regions, which template files get used for which blocks & regions as well as various attributes and parameters for each if these definitions, where applicable.
While the *.xml files tell everything where to be and what to look like, the *.phtml files contain the actual XHTML code required for each block and region.
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At the time of writing this tutorial, I have upgraded my Magento installation to Community Edition 1.4. All further tutorials, as well as this one, will be referencing Magento Community Edition 1.4 unless otherwise stated. Please be sure you have the latest version.
Read More »
25th April, 2010 – 9:58 am
Image courtesy apple.com
Capes, masks and laserbeam-projecting eyes. Super strength, shape-shifting and characters from throughout history and the future. All this and more exists within the Marvel Multiverse. Yes, you read correctly… multiverse. How could all of this fit into one small device? Believe it or not, the tech geniuses at Marvel Comics have managed to cram all of this and more into the pocket-sized device that is the Apple iPhone.
The new Marvel Comics iPhone app arrived in the iPhone app store in early April of this year. The app allows users to download free and paid (approximately $1.99) comics for reading and archiving on their iPhone. Zooming, rotation and easy navigation between panels are just some of the features that make the comic reading experience on iPhone truly unique. The app was also released for the iPad, which boasts a significantly larger screen than the iPhone, more than likely better suited to eBook and comic book reading. Read More »
24th April, 2010 – 8:05 pm
For whatever reason you began blogging, be it personal or otherwise, one aspect of blogging transcends blog type: comments and commenting. Whether you’re blogging about your most recent holiday or about the latest piece of technology, it’s always a nice feeling to receive a comment on your post. A large part of receiving comments on blog posts is, I believe, community related. If there is a community around your blog of regular like-minded visitors who share an interest in your writing, there will surely be more frequent commenting on your blog’s posts.
This brings me to the main topic of this post: do self-hosted WordPress users miss out on natural community interaction? Read More »
18th April, 2010 – 5:13 pm
Ever since I can remember, I’ve been keen on the world of make-believe. The “wow, wouldn’t it be cool if time machines and inter-dimensional portals actually existed” kind of make-believe, jumping into a world of ancient lore, beings with supreme powers and virtually infinite possibility in terms of what can and cannot exist. Several years ago (around early 2000’s), I was introduced to a collectable trading card game, “Magic: The Gathering”, and the world of make-believe got a whole lot bigger.
Magic: The Gathering is a collectable trading card game in which you play the role of a powerful wizard (duelist/player/planeswalker) who, along with a library of spells, enchantments and summonable creatures, duel against one or more other wizard(s) in a battle of mind and wit.
Recently on Zoopy, an insert was published explaining the game, discussing it with several avid collectors, judges and players and sharing the magic (pardon the pun) that is Magic: The Gathering. Read More »
15th April, 2010 – 10:58 pm
Friends, please take a moment to read the post below, as it is of utmost importance to us all.
Arts and culture is a concept on which many thrive and many others bare teeth. Like it or not, arts and culture shapes us, as human beings, in ways that cannot be put into words. That song on the radio that we like, the play we saw last week with our loved ones and the many other performing arts that surround us can have such vast impact on us (for example, a song invoking happiness or sadness) that, how could the arts not form part of our daily lives? For a select few individuals… a select talented few… the arts are a way of life.
The Cape Town City Ballet is a dance company that has, since 1934, hosted productions with a varied cast of students, teachers and professional dancers sharing a single stage for an evening of magic. Realise it or not, the Cape Town City Ballet has had an impact on our lives in one way or another. Read More »
12th April, 2010 – 9:29 pm
Okay, lately I’ve been blogging a lot about WordPress, Magento and coding in general. Time for a breather, folks. No techie stuff in this blog post, just a fun, relaxing read about a change of scenery, stream-of-conscious writing and why I prefer it to writing draft blog posts.
Okay, just a little bit of techie stuff (let’s get it over with, shall we?). Over the weekend past, I released the WP Section Index WordPress plugin. Check it out and let me know what you think and how it works for you.
I find that, throughout the day, I get ideas for blog posts I’d like to write. Posts about music, WordPress or random thoughts that enter my head. Gradually, I start forming the skeleton of the post in my mind and, at times, the post gets entered as a draft in the administration console, eagerly waiting to be finished, polished and published. This approach, more often than not, doesn’t seem to work. Read More »
