Open Source News

Washington, DC Drupal Meetup is Tonight (4/12)

Mon, 04/12/2010 - 10:58
Demo of the new release of Managing News and a talk on the Boxes module

The April Washington, DC Drupal meetup is happening tonight at 7:00 pm at Stetsons.

There are two interesting lightning talks on the schedule so far:

  • Will White will give a short demo of the new beta 9 release of Managing News, a news and data aggregator that's being used to track news on topics ranging from reports from aid workers abroad to the World Cup. This release is just coming out today so this will be one of the first looks at it, and it will include new features like a customizable dashboard and new widgets.

  • Jeff Miccolis will talk about the new Boxes module, which is a reimplementation of the custom blocks that the core block module provides. He'll explain what Boxes does, why it is useful, how it works with blocks, and how it is different from Panels.

There's room for more talks too, so if you'd like to present on a Drupal related topic, go for it and post about in the comments over in the Washington DC Drupal group.

We know a lot of people are headed out to San Francisco for DrupalCon soon, and it will be great to catch up with everyone before the conference! You can find more details about the meetup here, and I hope to see you tonight!

Entelligence: Grant Application, Submission and Review

Mon, 04/12/2010 - 10:42

One of the more intricate websites recently completed by ISL Consulting is the grant submission site, Entelligence built for Jobson Healthcare Information (JHI) in New York. The premise of the site is familiar to many, especially in the non-profit world: users register on the site and submit an initial proposal (this site accepts grant proposals from young scientists for research in cardiopulmonary medicine).

There are strict deadlines for submission. These are evaluated in detail by a Steering Committee (SC). Deliberations are managed by a Chairman, who assigns reviewers and collates the rankings and comments from SC members online. These are confidential until a final, simultaneous online/offline voting meeting that determines the winners. As the function of the site shifts, the administrative interface changes.

The website’s behavior also shifts substantially for applicants and judges depending on the grant submission stage.

read more

The new Joomla.org

Sat, 04/10/2010 - 22:55

Joomla.org strives hard to provide an easy to use site with simplicity and accessibility. We are currently in the process of presenting the Joomla! community with what (we hope) you will find as powerful and exciting improvements to the way you use Joomla.org main site and sub sites.

In the next few months, Joomla.org and it's sister sites are going to undergo some design enhancements. The people behind the design updates are pooling years of research and experience to make Joomla.org even more accessible, comprehensive and easy to use for everyone. So what is being done?

  • New and Improved design. Look for:
    • Improvements in all aspects of the Joomla! sub sites. (This will not include the wiki.)
    • Simplicity, flare, and a modern edge.
    • An easily accessible, usable and consistent design that allows end users, especially new users, to easily navigate through the massive number of sites.
  • Reorganized content and better consistency throughout Joomla! family of sites.
    • This is no secret at all. Joomla.org has a massive amount of data within this brand. Reorganizing this content will be no small feat..
    • Each site will be rolled out one by one over the course of a few weeks.
  • Software enhancements.
    • As Joomla gets older in age, so does the software being used. Enhancements to some of the software will take place to ensure continued quality of the sites infrastructure.
    • And much more!


In the meantime, design mock-ups are on their way, and multiple options and specs will be presented to the community when they are completed. We expect within the next month or two to have these available for the community to review.

Cheers!

--Steven Pignataro


Bargento 4—An International Magento Get Together—May 28, 2010

Fri, 04/09/2010 - 12:44

(a full media kit can be found here)

Fully International/English Event The 4th edition of Bargento, is taking place on Friday, May 28, 2010 at CAP 15 in Paris, France. Bargento is now a fully international event! After seeing the first 3 Bargento events, members of the English, Spanish, German, Dutch, Russian and Swedish communities asked the Bargento team to create a Fully “English Language” Bargento in order to be able to come to Paris, listen to the conference and enjoy networking with other European companies. The wish has been answered and every session will be translated in English and a translator will be in the International Lounge in order to create a fluent, language free, business discussion. Traveling: The Bargento Survivor's Guide The event team and sponsors have put together a great travel guide for those travelling internationally which is packed full of information on getting to Paris and Bargento, booking hotels, travel tips, great restaurants (Paris is the food capital of the world!) and a list of other sights to see and things to do while in Paris. You can find the travel guide here: Bargento 4 Survival Guide. About Bargento Which E-commerce system to choose? What are the key advantages of each solution? How to optimize my online sales with the latest Web marketing techniques? Is it simple or even possible to migrate my site to Magento? What will I win in the process? All these questions and much more will be answered during this 4th Bargento! Already selling online? Considering launching your own site? Already mastered Magento? No matter what you are looking for, you'll be sure to find it, along with others answers, contacts and interests in Bargento! Organizers NBS System and leading French community site Fragento invite you to Paris for this fourth edition of the most renown event around Magento. People used to Bargento will once again find the professionally and relaxed ambiance which define the “Bargento touch”. Newcomers will find an exceptional version of this particular event. Zend is helping a lot in the process by offering an International Lounge where every English conversation can be held, where international exchanges can take place. Cost

A small fee of 20 €€ is collected to help us cover some of the costs of the event. No tickets will be sold on site, please remember to register online. If you register at least 15 days before the event, you’ll get a personalized badge. You can already book your tickets here, news and updates can be found on www.bargento.fr and very soon on www.bargento.com.

Agenda The customer is king! This is the central theme around Bargento 4. Live demonstrations of EE and CE version of Magento along with exchanges such as sessions, workshops and a coding contest will allow everyone to learn more about the leading software around E-commerce. The Magento’ team will also be in attendance talking about everything from the new investment to upcoming product announcement and how they will help transform the way people buy and sell online, on their mobile or even using SaaS platforms. An announcement will even be made about a new product! Specialists living on the Web Marketing side of the moon will help us understand the stakes and methods to convert your site in a Ca$h machine! Magento will, once again, offer a great lineup. Come to meet these master entrepreneurs: Roy Rubin (CEO), Yoav Kutner (CTO), Amit Shah (VP Sales), Koby Oz (Community Manager), will all be there to interactwith us. Paypalwill also honor us by revealing a major announcement during Bargento! On Friday may 28, Bargento staff will be happy to welcome you in a very prestigious place

CAP 15 – 3 quai de grenelle 75015 Paris

Conference schedule (some changes are still possible):

A Breakfast will be available, offered by Speedinfo

Room 1 08H30 Welcome & Coffee 09h00 Varien: Keynote and product announcement 09H40 Paypal: Special announcement 10H20 Breakfast 10H50 Introduction to Magento use & functionalities by the community 11H35 Smile: Case study with Magento EE version 12H20 Lunch 14H10 NBS System: Magento with a turbo, less than a second to load! 15H00 Capitaine Commerce & François Ziserman : User Experience is the key 15H50 Pause + refreshment 16H05 Developer Challenge Results 16H15 Netik: Magento for big and small? 17H00 Baobaz : Magento EE, the key benefits of this overpowered version 17H45 To be confirmed 18h30 Closing Room 2 08H30 Welcome & Coffee 09h00 Varien : keynote and product announcement 09H40 Paypal : Special announcement 10H20 Breakfast 10H50 Quadra Informatique, feedback on Prismashop 11H35 Ysance : E-commerce and social networking, the next way 12H20 Lunch 14H10 Profileo : Webmarketing with Magento 15H00 Yireo : Joomla & Magento = Magebridge 15H50 Pause + refreshment 16H05 Developer Challenge Results 16H15 Muira conseil : How to sell 34000 products in 11 languages using Magento 17H00 Cybercité : Seogento feedback on Office easy 17H45 Zend: Using Zend products in development and production environment 18h30 Closing

During the day, you’ll also be able to:

  • Have Breakfast, offered by Speedinfo
  • Attend workshops & demonstrations
  • Watch or engage in the developer Challenge #3
  • Visit the International Lounge, sponsored by Zend
  • Have free translator (human one)
  • Enjoy free soft drinks for chill out
  • Purchase Snacks (paid on site, bring money)
  • Check luggages and coats in the Cloackroom
  • And of course, networking! Bring business cards!

As usual, staff wish to send many thanks to those who silently help: Olivier Sauvage (Capitaine Commerce), Sébastien « SeL » Lepers, François Ziserman (Araok), Fabrice Beck, Didier Brouard and of course Varien, particularly to Roy, Yoav, Amit & Koby !

Thanks to our sponsors for making this possible:

You’ll be able to meet Smile, NBS System, the Magento Academy, Speedinfo, Profiléo, Maison du logiciel, Netik and some other companies in their booths and Zend in the international Lounge zone.


FROM THE MAGENTO TWITTER FEED

@chosig check out the performance whitepaper and make sure to upgrade to the latest release

Follow Magento on Twitter »

NOW AVAILABLE

The Official Magento User Guide by Varien is here!

Get your eBook today »

Welcome to the New & Improved Magento Connect

Thu, 04/08/2010 - 05:15

We’re proud to announce that, later today, we’ll be launching the beta version of our new Magneto Connect design.  This new design isn’t the “Magento Connect 2.0” project you’ve heard about, but rather a series of design upgrades that will help to prepare the way for MC 2.0, as well as create a better user experience for users and developers.

In this redesign, we’ve enhanced several existing tools, as well as introduced new features that will bring more merchants into the marketplace.  We believe these improvements will drive a new era of growth for Magento Connect, and ultimately, the more merchants we have using Magento Connect, the more it enriches our growing magento-connect extension developer community. 

Here is an overview of some of the major changes.  If you have any feedback or ideas, please feel free to contact us @magetoconnect on Twitter.

New Logo & Heading
We now have a new MC logo, and our new tag line is:  “The Official Marketplace for Magento Extensions”

Search!!
That’s right, the new MC design has a local search feature in the right column.  Even better, the search results can be sorted and filtered to help users find exactly what they’re looking for.

“Community" & “Commercial” are now more simply known as “Free” & “Paid”
One small change you’ll notice is new rewording of “community” and “commercial” extensions as “free” and “paid”.  We made this change to prevent users from mistaking community extensions with the community edition of Magento.  As for “Core”, we’ll be rolling out a certified-extension process and our core extensions will be first in line to earn that distinction.  Developers will be able to pay to have their extensions certified in a future release.  Moving forward, whenever you see the word ‘Community’ in Magento Connect, it will refer to the Community (open source) edition.

Improvements to the Upload Process
Several improvements have been made to the front end and back end so that developers and users have a better experience overall.

Featured Extensions
This is similar to what we had on the former homepage, but the design is upgraded and it will now become a paid placement to help developers promote their extensions.  There is also a “mini featured” box on each of the category pages to help developers get even more exposure.  The extensions randomly rotate upon each page refresh, so that no matter how many extensions are featured, each one receives the same amount of exposure.

Community Advertising
We’ve included a 250x150 display ad banner in the right column and will be rolling out a self-service advertising offering to certain approved developers.

New Styles for Product Icons & Images
To give our marketplace a more consistently high-end feel, all extension icons will automatically receive rounded corners and a subtle gradient.  Existing images will still look good, but developers also have the option of designingn for this new creative style to help make their extensions stand out even more. 

A more AJAXy sorting & filtering experience
Drilling down to find the extension you’re looking for is now a lot easier and (in many cases) won’t even require a page refresh.

Reviews with Single-Sign On Support
We’ve worked closely with Echo (formerly ‘JS-Kit’) to implement an integrated reviews product with Magento Connect.  I love this product because it support single-sign on and allows developers to comment on reviews (for a much more engaging experience).  All existing reviews will be imported and although Echo is a hosted solution, we will continue to own our reviews data.

New Taxonomy Categories!
We’ve introduced nearly 20 new categories, including ‘Personalization’, ‘SEO’, and ‘Marketing’.  This is very important update for both users and search engines.

Developer Info Pages
Click on a developer’s name from the search results or extension-description page and you’ll come to a new page that shows their extensions, as well as an area where users can review a developer.  Developers can enhance these pages by logging into their ‘my admin’ and uploading their avatar, bio, and contact details.

What would you like to do?  (“WWYLTD”)
Sometimes, new users know what they need, but don’t know what extension or category to look for.  This section will allow us to associate certain extensions to solutions such as “help me build better relationships with my customers”. 

Now, this may sound like a lot, but we’re just getting started.  Expect many more changes in the weeks and months ahead, including:
* Certified Developer Program (coming soon to an exclusive group of developers).
The program includes benefits such as premier listings, an enterprise license, and access to promotional tools.
* Improvements to the upload process
* Extension encryption
* Certified extensions
* Support for Enterprise extensions

Everyone will be able to browse the new marketplace once it goes live, but in the meantime, here’s a sneak peek.  Enjoy!


FROM THE MAGENTO TWITTER FEED

@chosig check out the performance whitepaper and make sure to upgrade to the latest release

Follow Magento on Twitter »

NOW AVAILABLE

The Official Magento User Guide by Varien is here!

Get your eBook today »

Magento Mobile and “The Future of M”

Thu, 04/08/2010 - 01:40

We’ve received quite a few questions since Roy Rubin’s mysterious tweet two weeks ago that prompted an insightful response from Forrester’s very own Brian Walker.  Well, for those of you who have been wondering, yes, we have been working on a new mobile initiative that we’re now ready to begin telling you about.  Interested?  We hope so, because we’re very excited to fill you in on the details.  And although we won’t officially unveil the product until late May at our community events in Germany and France, we’ll be sharing plenty of details about it here at The Future of M, our new microsite devoted to all things mCommerce.

In the weeks ahead, we’ll also highlight industry trends and analysis, as well as post plenty of interviews with experts in the field.  We think you’ll enjoy what we have to share, and we invite you to follow The Future of M for more details.  But before we go any further, we wanted to share why we believe mobile commerce is so important.

Over the next 2-3 years, the eCommerce landscape will change dramatically.  Consumers will have a variety of new tools to discover and buy new products, and this will bring challenges that merchants will struggle to keep up with.  Some merchants will succeed, but not before investing enormous amounts of time and money to reach a new type of consumer who engages with products and brands across a variety of devices and prefers to remain loyal to those that elegantly weave these fragmented experiences together.

It’s a full-blown evolution of what we’ve already seen happen between online & offline over the last 5 years, yet these new changes will happen in half the time while our industry quadruples in size.  In this time, we’ll also witness more users accessing the internet through mobile devices than personal computers, and mobile phones will become an essential part of nearly every part of the purchase lifecycle.  Competing in this new mobile-driven climate will be extremely difficult, yet nearly every business will find that they need the right mobile strategy to succeed.

While these changes may sound daunting, we’re up for the challenge.  In fact, we believe it’s the sort of environment that will take Magento and our community to the next level.  After all, it was under similar circumstances that we released our eCommerce platform in 2008.  Yet through the combination of a well-built product and a thriving open-source community, Magento is now the fastest-growing platform of choice for over 60,000 merchants.  As we continue to work every day to make that product better, we’re continually humbled by the opportunities we’ve created for merchants and nearly 200,000 community members worldwide.

People often ask us what our community loves the most about Magento.  If we were to try to do it justice with words, we’d say that in Magento, many people feel that they’ve found a well-kept secret that has made them enormously successful in a rapidly-changing industry.  From our perspective, this means that we’ve given our merchants not only a flexible product that keeps them ahead of the curve, but a community-based strategy for success.  We believe it is time to do for mCommerce what we did for eCommerce.

Welcome to the Future of M.


FROM THE MAGENTO TWITTER FEED

@chosig check out the performance whitepaper and make sure to upgrade to the latest release

Follow Magento on Twitter »

NOW AVAILABLE

The Official Magento User Guide by Varien is here!

Get your eBook today »

Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team Report from Haiti: Week 2

Wed, 04/07/2010 - 15:17
Training local mappers on using OpenStreetMap in Haiti

Earlier this week I arrived back in Washington, DC after a two week stay in Port-au-Prince with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team where I conducted training and outreach around using OpenStreetMap to help with the earthquake recovery efforts. Overall the trip went well and my partner Nicolas Chavent stayed in Haiti for another week where he'll do further training and surveying.

Our second week in Haiti focused on two main projects: surveying Jacmel, a city outside of Port-au-Prince that sustained damage from the earthquake and is also prone to flooding, and hosting an OpenStreetMap mapping party in Cite Soleil, a hugely populated - mostly by the extreme poor - neighborhood in Port-au-Prince. Below I'll recap both of these, along with the other trainings we conducted. After our first week in country, which I summarized here, where we focused mostly on outreach, it was great to get out and do some real mapping.

Surveying trip in Jacmel

With our surveying trip to Jacmel, we wanted to improve and update the data in OpenStreetMap for the city and train people from local agencies on how to best collect and upload information to OpenStreetMap. The first step in this was to sort out the data models used by the various agencies that collect information on schools, hospitals, roads, water points, camps, and the electricity grid in Jacmel. After a slew of meetings and emails we came up with some basic data points, which we then turned into paper forms and JOSM (Java OpenStreetMap Editor) presets based on the Humanitarian Data Model. With this done we were ready to target priority areas to survey based on existing data, print out Walking Papers, load the OSM pelican cases into the back of a pickup truck, and make the three hour drive to Jacmel.

To do the surveying in Jacmel, we used GPS devices, Walking Papers, and paper forms to collect data on schools, camps, water points, and hospitals. When we hit the ground, we focused on collecting information and data points and training people on how to best do that, and this week the team left in Haiti will check what we gathered against existing data and enter it into OpenStreetMap.

Florida DrupalCamp 2010 Case Study

Wed, 04/07/2010 - 09:45
Two Days, 176 attendees, Two Grateful Organizations with New Sites

Florida DrupalCamp 2010 held just outside of Orlando was the largest Drupal-related gathering the Sunshine state has ever seen. The February 20-21 event pulled in more than 175 attendees from Florida and the US, more than $5,000 in sponsorships, and generated a lot of interest in regional community building throughout Florida. Anecdotal input and a formal survey indicate the weekend was an unqualified success. In the spirit of open-source, this case study provides other DrupalCamp organizers insight into planning and organizing a worthwhile DrupalCamp, from early planning through follow-up participant surveys.

Overview

FDC10 was the culmination of a strong effort by the Florida Drupal User's Group, local companies, and generous sponsors. It was unique in many ways, including the number and diversity of the participants as well as how the event was organized. The weekend was less of a "barcamp" style event and more of a mini-DrupalCon, with almost all sessions pre-determined, and several generous sponsorships covering plenty of food and swag for all attendees who paid a minimal registration fee of $5.

The weekend featured a full day of sessions divided into three tracks based on experience level, including one dedicated to beginners to introduce users to the Drupal platform and sow the seeds for growing the community. The second day was Coding for A Cause, a coding sprint among 40 volunteer developers of all skill levels that built operational sites for two deserving, PR-savvy, Florida not-for profit organizations.

read more

Reminder:Magento and Thanx Media - Endeca On-Demand Search for Magento Webinar this Thursday the 8th

Tue, 04/06/2010 - 23:26

Thanx Media, a leading provider of integrated solutions for online retailers and media companies, and Magento, the global, ecommerce platform for growth, announced a partnership to bring Endeca On-Demand search and merchandising capabilities to Magento merchants. Join us for this webinar to learn more about the powerful search and merchandising capabilities provided to Magento merchants by Thanx Media’s Endeca On-Demand solution.

The partnership is designed to help Magento merchants quickly and inexpensively incorporate Endeca’s advanced commerce search and merchandising capabilities into Magento storefronts – popular capabilities that enhance the customer experience and boost conversion rates. The companies announced the partnership following the successful deployment of the joint capabilities within multiple mutual-customer sites.

Magento and Thanx Media executives will discuss the details of the partnership and demonstrate how Magento merchants can take advantage of the joint capabilities during this free webinar on Thursday April 8th at 10 CDT/9 PDT.

Register Now.


FROM THE MAGENTO TWITTER FEED

@chosig check out the performance whitepaper and make sure to upgrade to the latest release

Follow Magento on Twitter »

NOW AVAILABLE

The Official Magento User Guide by Varien is here!

Get your eBook today »

Version 1.6 Status

Tue, 04/06/2010 - 20:42

Hi everyone. We just finished a production workgroup leadership meeting and have an updated spreadsheet showing the major tasks to complete before the release of the version 1.6 beta. Here is a link to the spreadsheet.

As you can see, we have made good progress toward the 1.6 beta release, although more work remains.

For those of you who haven't tried 1.6 lately, you might want to check it out either from the SVN or from the nightly build.

Enjoy!


“Building Customer Trust through a Rock Solid E-commerce Platform” - Rackspace and Magento

Mon, 04/05/2010 - 23:44


Join Magento and Magento Hosting Partner Rackspace this Thursday Evening, April 8th, in Dallas to learn how you can build customer trust through a rock-solid Magento implementation hosted with Rackspace, and to learn more about industry trends which will shape the future of eCommerce.

Rackspace experts Gregg Stout and Grant Herbon will join Magento Senior Product Manager Tim Schulz to discuss eCommerce topics including:

  • Actions you can take now to begin building a best-in-class eCommerce platform
  • Understanding the diverse technologies required to support an exceptional selling experience
  • Drilling down into one key element of the eCommerce infrastructure: the shopping cart

The event will also include discussion on how to prepare for the next big shifts in online commerce and more, so Register Now to reserve a spot.


FROM THE MAGENTO TWITTER FEED

@chosig check out the performance whitepaper and make sure to upgrade to the latest release

Follow Magento on Twitter »

NOW AVAILABLE

The Official Magento User Guide by Varien is here!

Get your eBook today »

Huge Security Improvements for Premium Workspaces

Mon, 04/05/2010 - 16:10

We are pleased to release a set of improvements that will make it much easier to understand what your users can see, and edit.

On basic workspaces all creators have to option to add users, and set workspace-wide permission. This means that you can add an editor to your workspace, and that editor can make changes to every page.

Many of you need more flexible access controls – not all users should be able to view or edit every page. That’s why premium workspaces have advanced access controls, allowing the administrator to lock pages, hide pages and even set specific access controls on each page.

Until now it’s been difficult to understand which users have access to what pages and what those users can view. With this release, the security improvements give administrators a much better idea of what each user can see and who can view each page.

What can a user see?

On the new users panel we’re introducing a better way to view a users profile. Click on a users name to view their email, location and profile. If your users panel is visible, all users can view this information.

Administrators have the option to view what content users can view. When administrators click “What can this user see”, they will see a list of all the folders, pages and files that the user has access to.


Who can see this page?

Not only will you have better visibility into what your users can see, you will also be able to understand which users have access to specific pages. Click on the link that says “control access to this page” to view who can see and edit the page.

Here’s what our customers have to say:

Wow!!!! This is exactly what was missing. I am so looking forward to these updates!!!!
- Eduardo

New Demo Site

Mon, 04/05/2010 - 14:15

Open Source Matters and the Community Leadership Team are pleased to announce that CloudAccess.net has been selected to manage the Joomla! Demo Site.

We were particularly impressed with Cloud Access’ embrace of the goal to “Provide users who are considering the Joomla!® content management system with a simple and reliable way to try out its major features.” Their team has excellent knowledge of  Joomla! and will ensure that new users have sites that are set up optimally in terms of file ownership and other issues.


OSCON Makes It Happen: O'Reilly Open Source Convention Reveals Program and Opens Registration

Mon, 04/05/2010 - 12:52

Sebastopol, CA, April 5, 2010 - Open source makes it happen in a world where technology and society change faster than ever before. OSCON, the O’Reilly Open Source Convention, returns to Portland, Oregon to explore all things open source July 19-23, 2010, at the Oregon Convention Center. Program chairs Allison Randal and Edd Dumbill have announced the program, and registration has opened.

“It’s a fantastic time to be working with open source software,” said Edd, “Technology is being revolutionized by cloud and mobile services, and open source is leading the way. As well as our regular broad coverage, our 2010 highlights include NoSQL databases, new systems management tools, and Android and HTML5-based mobile development.”

Read the full press release.

BookTeller: Subscription-based Library of Animated Children's Books

Mon, 04/05/2010 - 10:33

BookTeller.com is a subscription-based online library for animated and narrated children's books, available in both English and Chinese. Currently, there are over 200 books available for subscribers and more are being added. Its goals are to help parents and educators teach children how to read and to get them reading more often by giving them books that are both engaging and fun.

Besides being an online library, it is also a platform for authors and publishers who wish to transform their work into animated books and to monetize them. For that, we have a revenue sharing program and a team of award-winning animators to help out with the animation.

The consumer-facing website is used for, among other things, showcasing what books are in the library and to handle registrations/payments. The books are accessed via a client reader based on Adobe's AIR platform, which must be downloaded and installed.

The following is our experience in building out the website using Drupal. I hope it is useful as another example of what's possible.

read more

Ryan's Update: Week of March 29, 2010

Sat, 04/03/2010 - 20:00

In an Internet landscape full of "what I ate for breakfast" posts, here's my semi-regular dose of transparency and accountability to the Joomla community as to my activities as Open Source Matters (OSM) President. (English | Español)

Week in Review

  • completed my first draft on a few roles and responsibilities documents for OSM Board positions and volunteer opportunities
  • gave a speech at Imperial College Business School in London about open source business models
  • had a chance to meet up with a few Joomla! community members while in London
  • continued my series of voice calls with each of the OSM Board members and Leadership Team members to hear their thoughts on measures of success for OSM in 2010
  • nearly completed my documentation of positions I'll be handing over to other people soon:  Joomla Events Team Leader, OSM Capital Committee Chair, and Joomla Major Events Co-Chair; documenting these brings to light all the work that goes into them, and will help provide measures of success for future leaders
  • delegated the process of posting Joomla!Day events to the Joomla! Community Web site, which will help in speeding up that process
  • met with our legal counsel in Washington DC
  • agreed to speak at the upcoming Joomla!Day New England
  • prepared materials and information for attendees of the Non-Profit Technology Conference in Atlanta next week
  • started early preparations for speaking at future events later this month

Next Week's Preview and Goals

  • receiving feedback from the OSM Board on my first roles and responsibilities documents
  • attending the Non-Profit Technology Conference in Atlanta, USA (April 8-10)
  • working with the Melbourne, Australia team on early preparations for their major event later this year
  • reaching Inbox Zero for my OSM mailbox
  • voice meetings with at least 5 OSM Board members and Leadership Team members
  • delegating my past/current responsibilities to other capable OSM Board members
  • keeping the well of positivity full


Until next time, keep up the great energy, community.  Your success stories and great ideas keep me moving forward.


On Magento’s Growth and Hiring …

Fri, 04/02/2010 - 18:17

Just another busy week at the Magento HQ.  As Magento’s CFO, I sent an offer letter for a new hire, posted an ad for a finance intern, another intern just started and is being trained, 7 (seven!) software engineers starting next week, a full time consultant just came on board and is commuting across country.  Need to figure out lodging for him.  And yes, interviewing new candidates every day.

Magento is growing at a head spinning rate.  Would you like to join us on our journey through the ecommerce ecosystem?  Is this the right adventure for you?

I often cogitate on what makes a candidate the right one for a given position and the right one for a specific company.  Over the past few years we hired amazingly talented employees.  Some of them we knew to be superstars when we brought them in, others grew and developed with the company, honing their skills over the years.  At least a couple surprised us and exceeded our expectations right from the start.  We also had our fair share of bad hires; employees that were smart and talented but did not work out and quickly left.

Every resume that comes through the door brings up the same question; is this one a match? When I interview, I wonder how I can tell if these candidates are “The Ones”.

I am developing a wish list (see below) of qualities that the right future hires will have.  If reading this list makes you think of yourself, please send over your resume!

I also move couches…

In a startup environment, roles are not always strictly defined, there is a constant shortage of helping hands and the needs of the company continuously evolve.  People with many skills are essential to our success, but having many skills is not enough.  The willingness to do whatever is needed, whenever it is needed, even if it is not exactly what you think your status warrants is the absolute key to being a match with us.  We need some couches moved to the other side of the office; are you ready to help?

Don’t tell anyone, but I would have paid YOU to let me do this job…

Loving what you do is the key to both happiness and success.  Yes, for most of us it took some time to find the path, but by the time you come to work here, we want you to already be on it, following the yellow brick road.  Passion for what you do, whether it is finance, programming or customer support, makes you good at it, makes you happy, and makes you more likely to succeed.  If you are at a career that you do not like, coming here to do the same thing will not make it any better.  My general rule is: if you are willing to pay me to let you do your job, then I am willing to pay you to do it.

Magento – I have heard of them …

We make enough noise in the ecommerce community to expect you to have heard about us.  We only want you if you are genuinely interested in our field and if you know and understand who we are.  How has ecommerce made an impact in your life? Think about it.  Yes, we all shop online, but to work at Magento, you will need to have had a deeper level of involvement in this ecosystem.  Tip for future interviewees: make sure you shop online and be ready to tell us all about it. What was your first item you purchased? How did it feel? Our employees are passionate about our merchants’ success and we want to hear about your experiences and what it means to you.

If it’s not on paper (ok, virtual one…) it does not exist …

When I was in 7th grade, I skipped typing class on a regular basis.  I was so good with numbers, why would I ever need to write? Right? WRONG!  At Magento we act as a team and communicating with our worldwide ecosystem of developers, merchants and partners is at the essence of our business.  Can you correspond professionally with customers? Helpful, but we are looking for much more.  Evangelizing our vision to the world is our baseline expectation from our employees.  If you can write and are passionate about it, we want to hear from you.

I want to empower the world; and I’m ready to do it now…

Magento is already powering the global community of ecommerce, delivering both freedom and wealth to our community members, partners and customers through open source software in a way that is changing the world.  Are you ready to change to world with us? To empower the ecosystem by enabling everyone around us to participate in our success?  If you understand our mission and would like to take a front seat on this space shuttle ride to the core of ecommerce, then order your ticket right now!  Open positions are listed below:



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Only Hours Left to Register for Magento Developers Paradise

Fri, 04/02/2010 - 17:00
Act Now!! Only hours left to register!  Registration ends at Midnight Eastern Time!


Click Here See the Full Schedule


Magento Developers Paradise will be an amazing event and you can still get in on it!!  Your peers will be there, Magento Partners will be there, the Magento Team will be there, along with some of the world’s top eCommerce programmers--why sit at home and be left out?

Do you really want to miss great sessions like: “Magento: What’s Really Under the Hood?”, “Getting the Most of Magento Themes, Extending the Magento SOAP API and so much more?  If you’re serious about learning the top Magento tips and tricks, about interacting with fellow developers and community members, about learning from others and the Magento team in a 1-on-1, face-to-face environment, you simply cannot miss Magento Developers Paradise.

If you’re a Magento freelancer, this is also your chance to meet other developers and freelancers, interact with the core team and pick up tips and tricks that will help you stay ahead of the game!  If you’re a hacker, you can’t afford to miss out on our BarCamp and Hackfest--live coding with other programmers.

Time is of the essence, so be sure to register NOW and reserve your space!  Before its too late.


FROM THE MAGENTO TWITTER FEED

@chosig check out the performance whitepaper and make sure to upgrade to the latest release

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From the Support Team: Using Magento’s Import/Export Profile

Fri, 04/02/2010 - 15:19

This post is part of a series by the Magento Enterprise Edition subscription support team covering tips, tricks and hints to some of the most common, and uncommon, issues as submitted by support customers.

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Although it is fairly simple to do, many Magento users offer encounter difficulties when attempting to use the import functionality built in to Magento.  We see a fair number of inquiries about this here at the Magento Enterprise Support Desk, so we’ve decided to write a little tutorial to help you better understand and use Magento’s Import Profile.

First, let’s take a look at how to create an import file, which will include all the data we want to bring into Magento.  To get the correct fields and values, we recommend exporting a product, i.e. a simple product or configurable product, through the Admin.  This is done through ‘System -> Import/Export -> Profiles’

In the out-of-the-box Magento configuration, there are a couple of default “Export profiles” that you may use depending on which data you would like to export.  This depends on the data which you wish to export, and there are options for customers, products, stock, etc.  Running the profile will open a new window or tab which will show the progress of the export profile, as you can see in the example below:

The export file is saved in the /var/export folder in your running Magento instance.  The screenshot below shows a sample of the export file created when running the “Export All Products” profile, filtering only the simple products:


Click image for full-size

Now that you have a template to work with, edit the file and add the relevant information which you would like to import.

We now come to the most important part of the process which is often missed when saving the import file and causes many of the issues which are referred to us.

It is very important to note that the import file must be in UTF-8 encoding to ensure that the file can be read and processed by Magento. Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice Calc, Apple Numbers and GNU Iconv, amongst many other applications have the capabilities of encoding a file in this format.

In addition to that, the PHP memory limit must be set with a value that meets the Magento System Requirements.

Once you have completed updating the file and checked that the memory limit has met the system requirements, you may now run the import profile in the Admin back office under ‘System -> Import/Export -> Profiles’.

In this tutorial, we are going to use “Import All Products”.  First, we must upload the file and click “Save and Continue Editing” so that the file will be uploaded into folder /var/import in the server.  After saving, select the uploaded file from the dropdown list and run the profile as we see below:


Click image for full-size

The screenshot below shows that we have successfully imported our data into Magento:


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Webinar: Magento and Thanx Media - Endeca On-Demand

Fri, 04/02/2010 - 14:48


Endeca On-Demand Search and Merchandising for Magento Merchants - Magento and Thanx Media

Thanx Media, a leading provider of integrated solutions for online retailers and media companies, and Magento, the global, ecommerce platform for growth, have announced a partnership to bring Endeca On-Demand search and merchandising capabilities to Magento merchants following the successful deployment of the joint capabilities within multiple mutual-customer sites.

The partnership is designed to help Magento merchants quickly and inexpensively incorporate Endeca’s advanced commerce search and merchandising capabilities into Magento storefronts – popular capabilities that enhance the customer experience and boost conversion rates.

Join us for this webinar where Magento and Thanx Media will provide further insight into the partnership’s benefits to merchants and how Magento merchants can take advantage of the joint capabilities.

Date: Thursday, April 8th, 9:00 AM PDT (GMT -08:00, Los Angeles)
Registration: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/941830475





FROM THE MAGENTO TWITTER FEED

@chosig check out the performance whitepaper and make sure to upgrade to the latest release

Follow Magento on Twitter »

NOW AVAILABLE

The Official Magento User Guide by Varien is here!

Get your eBook today »