Congratulations to Jacob and Tommy. We got two more Magento Certified developers in our team! That bring the total number Certified Developers to 4. With more person to go through the examine in the weeks to come, we are determined to have all engineers certified.

PaymentBridge is coming!

It will be made available prior to the July 1, 2010 mandate to utilize PA-DSS payment applications to maintain PCI compliance, avoiding the costly requirement to have the full payment application assessed as a custom application.

Magento PaymentBridge is a standalone payment application that will enable merchants to reduce their PCI compliance scope by segmenting payment functionality to a separate application. PaymentBridge is Magento’s PA-DSS compliant payment application, which will enable merchants to meet the July mandate, while minimizing the ongoing PCI compliance scope of Magento merchants by enabling them to update the core Magento eCommerce application with new marketing, merchandising and content management capabilities, and be able to update the application for new features and functionality without having to go through PCI compliance re-assessment of the entire Magento eCommerce platform.

 

Project Overview
With their passion to introduce on the market a new era of health care, based on the rapidly growing information technology, Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman have created health and longevity products that represent ideal combination of science and nutrition. In the development process of their products they have incorporated this new knowledge that provides paradigm shifting methods to dramatically reduce the chances for some of the most life threatening diseases today, such as heart disease and cancer. But, Ray and Terry’s goal with the health and longevity program they offer is not simply to live longer, but to live healthy and happy long enough to truly take advantage of these modern scientific breakthroughs.

Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman’s unique website is designed to provide answers for customers seeking knowledge in this area of interest. Their Wellness Resources and Ray and Terry’s Kitchen information section are full with competent and reliable answers pertaining to human’s Health and Wellbeing. The actual challenge for Silk Software was to develop a website that will highlight these goals and efforts that Ray and Terry invest in the health and life improvement with their provided design. With the full implementation of the Magento Professional functions, Silk Software managed to develop customized Magento modules for the health survey and the product package recommendations.

Project Highlights
Silk Software deployed an improved completely revamped design with full respect for the health and longevity product branding standards of Ray and Terry. There is a Sample Product request and management module built by Silk Software. This module allows customers to request a limited amount of sample products within a limited period of time. The main idea behind this was to take an interest in Ray and Terry’s health and longevity products. The existing inventory function of Magento was significantly extended by the back-end module of multiple warehouse and inventory management to facilitate the Ray and Terry’s fulfillment. There was a truly great need for this since the Ray and Terry’s health and longevity products website consists a very wide range of different products concerning better and healthier long life. There accessibility must be monitored all the time.

Silk Software also integrated a blog module aiming to provide the end users with the rich content of the Wellness Resources, Ray and Terry’s Kitchen, and their FAQ. The goal was to provide easy accessible, regularly updated competent answers to different health concerning questions of the end customers. The Ray and Terry’s website blog contains posts about different homemade nutritious food recipes, about what food is recommended and what isn’t, vitamins to be used for different deceases, or posts about aerobic exercises, how to lower PSA levels, how to test blood for “bad” LDL, etc.

After the initial development was successfully completed, Silk Software continues working with Ray and Terry’s web team to further maintain the website and help enhancing its functions respecting the end customers’ developing needs.
Results

 

• The improved, completely redesigned website highlights the main qualities and true benefits regarding their health and longevity products branding
• The new revamped front-end website design follows the branding standards of the Ray and Terry’s health and longevity products
• The existing Ray and Terry’s website complete migration from legacy ASP site, which helped enhancing its speed and efficiency
• The professional and functional e-commerce solution allows customers to request some limited amount of sample products within a limited time period and create initial interest in Ray and Terry’s products
• Back-end module for tracking and controlling of the multiple warehouse and inventory management
• Implemented customized Magento modules for health survey and product package recommendations
• Social media and blog integrations

There are a lot of web hosting out there that doesn't work straight out of the box with Magento. For long time, I am looking for a fast and affordable hosting to be my play ground. I know Linux really well, but still hate to set it up. Here are my two finalist. 
 
Nexcess SIP plan
SimpleHelix's shared plan

And here is a more comprehensive list:
Find the best web hosts

This document describes how to import database into Magento.  There are two majors database needing to import:"Customers" and "Products". However, in Products, there are two sub-databese needing to import as well.

a: import complete products with image gallry.

b: improt complete productc with categories

Morevoer, the following data we can export or import:

1. Customer data

2. Product stock data

3. Product data(all attributes relating to products)

There are two types of files that can be used for import and export

1. Excel spreadsheet

2. CSV

 

1. How to import customers into Magento

1.1 In order to import complete customer data, first, you should create a standard formatting CSV file including all customers` information, name of the file must be"Customers.csv". Then you need to login Magento backend as an Administrator

1.2 Once you have successfully login, you will see the page of backend like this:

1.3 Next goto System->Import/Export->Profiles

1.4 I n the Profiles level, you will see the main control panel interface as following. The Magento has several default Profiles, you can use them to edit or you can create new one. Click on the Add New Profiles on the right top of the Panel

1.5 T hen you will see the following page that create the new profile and begin to import csv file

1.6 I t is important for you to provide the uniquely request Name, and select Entity type and Direction. Notice: because the section 1 instruction is guiding you import customer into Magento, you need to select Entity type as Customer and Direction as Import!

1.7 O nce you have select,you must save your setting by click on Save and Continue Editing. Then on the left side of page more conrol button will come up. As following shows:

1.8 T hen you need to upload your file by click on Upload file button, the new page will come up as following shows. In this page Magento will ask you to Browse your file from your loacl computer disk

1.9 B y click the Browse button, and address your csv file in your computer. Then cilck Open button for uploading

1.10 O nce you have done this step, remember save your setting by clicking on Save and Continue Editing. Next you need to Run Profile. Click on Run Profile and you will see the next page come up on the right hand of the page. Then select a file which is uplaoded by you.

1.11 N ext click on Run Profile In Popup button run the profile in Magento

1.12 A new pop-page will come up and it will spent a few minutes for processing.

 

1.13 W ait until the processing goes to 100%. The message will come up show Finished profile execution. Then you can close this page and save profile. Once you have successfully save the profile, it will jump to home page of Profiles and you will see the Notice that Profile was successfully saved

1.14 T hen you can check that the new import file was in the table list and you can use this file in Magento

 

 

2. How to import Products into Magento

2.1 How to import complete products with images galley

2.1.1 I n order to import the complete product with image gallery, you need to create a CSV file, and in this CSV file, add a column named “galley” and other column should be the SKU id for the product. However, under the “galley” field, enter image file name preceded by “/”. You can also enter multiple file names separated by “;” such as:

2.1.2 N ext you need to put all the images in the “media\import” directory of the magento server. And the module will automatically import the images from the directory to the relevant directory.

2.1.3 N ext you can login to Magento backend and go to: System -> Import/Export -> Advanced Profiles

 

2.1.4 In order to import complete product data as well as categories you will first have to create an advanced import/export profile. Click on Add New Profile button. In the Profile Name text area enters the “Product Images” while in the 'Actions XML' text area enters the following XML:

 

 

<action type="dataflow/convert_adapter_io" method="load">

<var name="type">file</var>

<var name="path">var/import</var>

<var name="filename"><![CDATA[ProductImages.csv]]></var>

<var name="format"><![CDATA[csv]]></var>

</action>

<action type="dataflow/convert_parser_csv" method="parse">

<var name="delimiter"><![CDATA[,]]></var>

<var name="enclose"><![CDATA["]]></var>

<var name="fieldnames">true</var>

<var name="store"><![CDATA[0]]></var>

<var name="number_of_records">1</var>

<var name="decimal_separator"><![CDATA[.]]></var>

<var name="adapter">catalog/convert_adapter_Productimages</var>

<var name="method">parse</var>

</action>  

                   And save

 

2.1.5 T hen Click on the left control button Run Profile and Run Profile In Popup

2.1.6 A new pop-page will come up and it will spent a few minutes for processing

2.1.7 Wait until the processing goes to 100%. The message will come up show Finished profile execution. Then you can close this page and save profile. Once you have successfully saved the profile, it will jump to home page of Profiles and you will see the Notice that Profile was successfully saved.

 

2.2 How to import complete products with categories

2.2.1 I n order to import complete product data as well as categories you will first have to create a standard CSV file for product import and name of the file must be “CustomProductFields.CSV “. Change the name of the field “category_ids” to “categories”. Under the “categories” column enter the name of categories like:

which means Category tree structure will be created like:

2.2.2 N ext you need to log in the Magento backend and go to: System -> Import/Export -> Advanced Profiles

 

 

2.2.3 In order to import complete product data as well as categories you will first have to create an advanced import/export profile. Click on Add New Profile. In the Profile Name text area enters the “CategoriesProduct” while in the 'Actions XML' text area enters the following XML:

 

 

<action type="dataflow/convert_adapter_io" method="load">

<var name="type">file</var>

<var name="path">var/import</var>

<var name="filename"><![CDATA[CategoriesProducts.csv]]></var>

<var name="format"><![CDATA[csv]]></var>

</action>

<action type="dataflow/convert_parser_csv" method="parse">

<var name="delimiter"><![CDATA[,]]></var>

<var name="enclose"><![CDATA["]]></var>

<var name="fieldnames">true</var>

<var name="store"><![CDATA[0]]></var>

<var name="number_of_records">1</var>

<var name="decimal_separator"><![CDATA[.]]></var>

<var name="adapter">catalog/convert_adapter_products</var>

<var name="method">parse</var>

</action>

            And save.

2.2.4 T hen Click on the left control button Run Profile and Run Profile In Popup

 

 

2.2.5 A new pop-page will come up and it will spent a few minutes for processing

 

2.2.6 Wait until the processing goes to 100%. The message will come up show Finished profile execution. Then you can close this page and save profile.O nce you have successfully saved the profile, it will jump to home page of Profiles and you will see the Notice that Profile was successfully saved.

 

 

 

A fter you finish all importing, you can check in Magento Server

 

 

 

Common Issues with importing/exporting:

 

 

 

1.       the directories should are writeable

2.       images location:

We need to ensure that if we import images with your products, and then are placed in the path: /media/import. Otherwise, they will throw errors and will not be imported.

Tips: if the value of our image column is /sub/image.jpg, then the image should be placed in:media/import/sub/image.jpg

3.       bad CSV file formatting

often the cause of a bad import and missing rows from the import, is that of bad file formatting

4.       the value of the PHP max_execution_time is too small, the script timeouts on certain web hosting

There are two parts for backup “File backup” and “data backup”. in this instruction we have two sections. Section one is File Backup on SimpleHelix, and Section two is Database Backup on SimpleHelix.

 

Section One: File Backup on SimpleHelix

1. You need to login the SimpleHelix control panel as an Administrator.

 

2. Once you have successfully login, you will link to SimpleHelix homepage.

 

3. On the homepage, you can click File Manager or Files icon to backup your files.

 

4. Next you will select which file (or website) you would like to backup.

 

5.    Here  we use one as an example. If you would like choose public_html folder to backup select the check box and go to the bottom of the page.

 

6. You will see the following screen.

 

7.   In the blank space enter your backup file name and choose the file format (tar.gz or zip) then click the Create button.

 

8. Next waiting for the backup it will takes a few minutes to do. Once the backup was success, you will see the following page.

 

9. Then the backup file is in the list. As following shows:

10.  Next you can download the backup file to your local computer by clicking this file. The following window will come up asking you what to do with this.

 

11. Select Save File then click on Ok the file will automatically download to your computer(the default download directory of Firefox is located in C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\Downloads  .It depends on your Browse installation)and then you have successfully backup the file into your local computer as following shows.

 

You are ready to use your backup files in your local computer

 

Section Two: Database Backup on SimpleHelix

This section is guiding you to backup the database on SimpleHelix

1. F irst, you need to login as an Administrator.

2. Once you have successfully login following page will show:

 

3.  Next you can click on MySQL Management to backup the data. And you will link to following page.

 

4    .In this page you will click on the phpmyadmin for beginning to backup data into your local computer. Click on the phpmyadmin the following page will come up to ask enter user name and password.

 

5.     Only you have successfully login, you can see the new Control Panel page as following.

 

6. Next click on the Export button and select your export database.

 

7.T hen go to the bottom of the page click the Go button for backup the database.

 

8. N ext the following window will come up asking you what to do with this.

 

 

 

 

9.    Select Save File then click on Ok the file will automatically download to your computer(the default download directory of Firefox is located in C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\Downloads  .It depends on your Browse installation) and then you have successfully backup the file into your local computer as following shows.

 

10. If you want, you can organize the two backup files into one folder then package into one zipped  file. Right click your backup file (here we use backup as example) and select Add to"Backup.rar".

 

 

11. Next you will be noticed that waiting for the Zipping.

 

After zipping finished, the backip.rar file is ready to used in your   local computer.

 

 

You are ready to use your backup database in your local computer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                       Silk Software Corp.

1. WYSIWYG Editor
This extension gives you the option to add a JavaScript WYSIWYG editor to specified admin page text areas.
 
2. Blog Extension
A blog can be a great way for an online store to connect with customers, and this Magento extension makes it easy for you to incorporate a blog into your internet shop. 
 
3. Flash Gallery ‘Flip’ and the new extension ‘CMS Content-Editor
A flash gallery extension with CMS-editing capabilities.
 
4. Enhanced Admin Products Grid
Adds customizable features to the products grid.
 
5. Free CMS/Block Frontend Features
Dynamic block solution, which allows you to put HTML content to any position within a Magento storefront.
 
6. Magento Live Chat
This module will provide a LiveChat support in Magento.
LiveChat behaviour can be customised with advanced configuration options
Apppearence can be easily customised with css.
 
7. FreePOP Theme
A simple and clear theme, especially good for merchants selling CDs, DVDs, Music, Movies, etc..
 
8. Magento Easy Lightbox
Want a free and easy way to improve the appearance and functionality of your Magento site?  Then try Magento EasyLightbox, an extension that displays an image (i.e., your store’s products) as a lightbox.  Magento EasyLightbox takes about 5 minutes to install and configure, and you don’t need any coding experience!
 
9. Fooman Speedster
Speeds up your store by reworking how Magento handles the loading of JavaScript and CSS.
 
10. Exploded Menu
Exploded Menu lets you to replace your website’s single column dropdown menu with a multi-column dropdown (including 2nd and 3rd level menu items).  A multi-column dropdown menu is a great way to organize an ecommerce site with a lot of categories and sub-categories!

 

Knob Depot (www.cabinet-knobs-pulls.com) is a leading online retailer. Unfortunately, Storefront.net, their Shopping Cart solution went bankrupt. As they struggle to get back on their feet, they leave their users without support and sales outages.

They quickly needed a technology partner to convert over 10K of products, preserve their SEO, and integrate a stable shopping cart solution. Silk Software worked with their team to convert from Storefront into Magento without downtime.
Even before Storefront.net went down leaving its shopping cart users stranded, Knob Depot knew they needed to upgrade. They wanted to be able to make search easier through their massive database of items. They also wanted to take advantage of an intuitive front end that looked and felt more comfortable to the purchaser.

Even a few hours of being down equals a massive dip in revenue for any online store. They could have no down time during the integration. Silk Software is a professional integration team who listened and felt Magento was the best solution. Not only is it a stable shopping cart solution but it also had the flexibility they needed in the front and back-end. They created a well thought out migration plan that addressed all of their concerns.

They worked hard with the marketing team so as not to lose the SEO ranking on keywords that they considered critical to their business. They created a landing page tool to quickly create ad campaigns that can be tweaked to reach the right customers.

With such a massive database, it was critical for the user to quickly find items based on a variety of criteria. Not only does it serve up different styles, sizes, lengths, materials but it does so within Magento's layered framework. The end result is greater sales conversions. They created a product management tool so that they can quickly populate and categorize existing and new products. Silk Software quickly converted over 10K SKU products from Storefront.net to Magento with minimum downtime.