A quick word on Freedom Day

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.

A quick word on inspiration and driving output

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 »

Theming for Magento — Part 04 — How it all works

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.

  • 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 »

Marvel Comics arrive on the iPhone

View the Marvel Comics app for iPhone and iPad in the Apple app store

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 »

Are WordPress.org users missing out?

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 »

Magic: The Gathering feature on Zoopy

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 »

Save the Cape Town City Ballet

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 »

A change of scenery and why I try not to write draft posts

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 »