One drawback to using the Magento Commerce CMS is that there are too many ways to do simple things, with no guidance as to what the best approach is?
First let’s create a static block
- Go to CMS>Static Blocks, and click Add New Block
- Fill out ‘Block Title;’ the title should describe the black
- Fill out ‘Identifier;’ identifier should be url like, lowercase and no spacesi.e. your_block
- Status, disables and enables your static block, I just leave it on enabled.
Now to add it via XML
XML
Find your catalog.xml location in app > design > frontend > default > theme > layout folder. And paste the below code.
<block name="your_block_id" >
<action method="setBlockId"><block_id>your_block </block_id></action>
</block>
Replace the your_block with the identifier of the static block you created earlier. Continue reading 3 Ways to use ‘Static Block’ on Magento »
Social Media is not a fad
Social Media has become the buzz word of the 21st century. Everywhere you go, it’s there, whether it’s tweeting, twitpic-ing, facebooking, blogging, getting Linked In it’s there all the time… non-stop. Yet everyday I get in my inbox another white paper on why I should utilize social media tools. I wonder why are we still trying to convince the skeptics? How is it possible that there are businesses, organizations, and individuals who are, dare I say it, still afraid? To be perfectly honest, if you don’t want to do it, then don’t, but understand this, your competition they’re definitely tweeting and facebooking away, and listening to the very conversations youwant to be invited too. That’s exactly it though, we now live in a day and age, where we don’t need to wait for an invitation or a green light, we can go head on and discover what best fits us, while making friends and even potential clients. At the risk of sounding like I’m “pitching from the stage” give social media a try, after all it’s free. If you are seriously considering a social media campaign and would like to increase your visibility on the web, whether it’s for your individual, organizational, or business brand give us a shout, email us at hello@blencorp.com and we can talk about your options. Until next time check out the link above it’s a video on Social Media.
We are here at work (dotmike from BlenCorp) but we are not working. One of my African buddies has created an a little gadget antenna that lets him watch the game on a small laptop hidden away in the corner of the cubical.
We have also been arguing who will make it and out of the first round and who won’t. Technically, after 2 games everyone in every round still has a chance to make it to the second round.
Although the calculation becomes a little complicated after the second game especially if there are a lot of ties and the goal differentials change in the last game. Thus, we created a web application that will calculate the odds of passing the first round. We started as 4 and by 6 we are done and it’s live here. Continue reading Woooorld Cup Qualificator »
I will be 29 on June 19th. Officially a geezer. Older than dirt? Not yet.
I am not much of birthday-celebrating-type guy, but this year, I would like my birthday mean something different. I’m donating my birthday to charity:water — an organization dedicated to giving people access to clean water. They have had a tremendous success over the last three years and have drilled 1017 water wells in Ethiopia alone giving 455,711 people access to clean water.
But, instead of citing more statistics or show you charts about how dire the situation is, I thought I’d tell you a little bit about my dad and his water well drilling rig.
Here is the setup: rewind 14 years. We were in Ethiopia and I was only 15.
One evening, my dad came home rushing to sit on the family dinner table. Much to my mom’s chagrin, this was a normal occurrence in our household. It usually meant, he has something in his mind and he wants to sketch out while it’s still fresh in his mind. Drafts man by training, he tends to explain things in straight lines and circles than words.
But that night, it was one of those ‘aha’ evenings. After bowing his head over things he was sketching on pieces of paper for hours, he rose and resolutely said I will build a water well drilling rig. Driving to another meeting earlier that day, he has seen a water well drilling machine somewhere on the road for the first time and the sight had inspired his wonder. Continue reading Twenty Nine »
During these difficult financial times it’s no wonder that so many of our small businesses in the DC area are struggling to keep their doors open. As we all know when the economy suffers, consumers spend less, competition increases, business expenses rise, things become unpredictable, and opportunities present themselves, now more than ever we have to be ready to deliver on our promise.
As a small business ourselves, the BLENCorp family, understands the importance of having the right visuals, a user friendly website, a custom application and much more; that’s why starting June 1st-August 30th2010 BLENCorp is offering a free consultation and discounted service rates to entrepreneurs, small business owners, non-profits, government contractors, webmasters, PR professionals, marketing professionals, developers and designers in the DC Metropolitan area.
Whether you’re looking to revamp your brand, or redesign your website, we have a custom IT solution for you!
So what are you waiting for? Call us now, and set up your FREE consultation with one of our BLENCorp team members, we are ready to serve you!
To start now email our business development team at hello@blencorp.com or call us at 202.269.2066
Sincerely,
The BLENCorp Fam
Welcome to the brave new world! Well, atleast for the web design world.
Google just announced yesterday their Font API to address the font limitation issues. The beauty is that there is absoluetly no fany Javascript or Flash to use. The site will load fast because the fonts are hosted on Google Servers that are highly scalable and takes a full advantage of their caching method. They have a helpful FAQ section that you might find interesting.
The Google Font API is compatible with the following browsers:
Google Chrome: version 4.249.4+
Mozilla Firefox: version: 3.5+
Apple Safari: version 3.1+
Microsoft Internet Explorer: version 6+
Lovely! Check out how it’s used.
Step 1:
Grab your font from: The Google Font Directory
Step 2:
Add your HTML as follows. Remember that the API works with any element you want.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>untitled</title>
<link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Lobster' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
<style>
body { font-family: font-family: 'Lobster', arial, serif; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div>Welcome to the Brave World</div>
<div>Love, BLEN Corp</div>
</body>
</html>
Hello Tweeple!
On May 30th the very first HabeshaTweetUp will be held at Bar7! It’s a must attend event! Please join @labeautifulmess @yodiddy @dm5086a @blencorp @artists4charity as they host a Habesha (Memorial Wknd) TweetUp!
Do you Tweet? Are you the Habesha Face of Social Media?
Then you are invited to
Vol.1 of #HabeshaTweetup
Sunday May 30th at Bar 7 | 1/2 7TH STREET NW Washington, DC
9-10pm | Free Admission | RSVP at http://twtvite.com/habeshatweetup/1
Network w/ Habesha Professionals & Social Media Mavens and tweet the night away…
For more information find us on twitter at #HabeshaTweetup
There is a DC Drupal meetup tonight at 7 PM at Stetson’s Bar & Grill by the good people at Development Seed
It will focus on open data, with the recent launch of Data.WorldBank.org on Drupal. Data.WorldBank.org is part of a huge open data initiative that the World Bank is undertaking to open up its massive database of worldwide human development indicators and make this data accessible online.
We’re going to be there to be part of the discussion. If you’re in the area.. please stop by. Click here to see who will do the talk and such…
Hope to see you there.
A couple of weeks ago, a client brought us an interesting problem. They wanted a function to search their rather massive catalog. The only problem? Their company has a content management system (CMS) that does not allow any server side scripts execute. The data was stored in a bunch of Excel spread sheets thus requiring us to batch process it. We wrote a macro to export the file to XML and clean it — long story!
Once that side of the equation is handled, the problem was to come up with a simple solution to do the search.
Lo behold, after a few minutes of Google search, we found a script written a couple of years ago: Simple Javascript/XML based search. It was very simple!
We re-wrote a similar script using jQuery frame work. It uses a RegExp object to handle the match and also added the tablesorter jQuery plugin to improve the usability. Added some validation and such and viola, it became a neat little tool. Thought we’d share….
First thing first
<link rel="stylesheet" href="path/to/default.css" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="path/to/jquery-1.4.2.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="path/to/tablesorter.js"></script>
<script id="data" type="text/javascript" src="path/to/search.js" xmlData="path/to/data.xml"></script>
You’ll notice I’ve added an id and xmlData attributes to the search.js reference. This is the best way to pass the xml file location from the HTML file. This helps a great deal if you have multiple xml files you want to use as data source.
Continue reading jSearch: Simple jQuery/XML based search »
