Messages

376

General Software Discussion / Re: MonsterCart

« on: August 11, 2009, 08:43 AM »

to go back to the original question, why use a closed system when you can use open?

Pretty much the only reason is if your needs are quite standard and you want an easy and fast start. None of the open source cart applications I have used have had the ease and usability of the commercial systems.

Example: there's still a very strong developer-led feel even to Magento, so certain things are cryptic or clunky (template design, large admin tasks such as modifying products) which on commercial products are a lot smoother. It's mostly that in open source projects you get a lot of developers contributing, a lot less are willing to contribute to interface polish or documentation (and the lack of a kind of managerial review aka "hang on, the user will have to do what to achieve his goals? what if he has 10000 products? surely we need to make this a bit cleverer" can be felt).

If you are OK with that, and can invest the time to learn the product, then there is no reason not to go with open source, but if you need to make it fast for your customer, and it's a one off, and since you are not already familiar with the system, then commercial might be cheaper (depending on your hourly rate)

The one advantage of open source will always be that you are not dependent on the "vendor" and your client is not dependent on you - that just cannot be beaten

377

General Software Discussion / Re: MonsterCart

« on: August 11, 2009, 07:51 AM »

I have some Magento sites for clients etc.
It is not a light system, you need decent hosting muscle (virtual private server or use a specialist magento hosting plan) - and it is also not easy to get started in/your head (lots of fishing around to figure where what administration activity is) around if you want to modify the design etc. Training the customer also takes time, as some tasks are quite daunting (mostly around product addition - the order management on the other hand is very slick)

But it is hugely powerful and has just about any feature

There are easier options if you dont need the whole hog (getting the links from my diigo)

1. if you just need a few pages of products with a cart/checkout, there are cheap options that arent hard to skin for

- paypal (are adding some nice developer and integration options)
- romancart http://www.romancart.com/ (commercial depending on features, i have used it, very cheap, works smooth)
- quick cart (freeware) http://opensolution....dex,pl.html?sLang=en

2. for a more full featured shop

oscommerce http://www.oscommerce.com/ but it looks quite "square" - there are several "improved" products based on it around (tomato, osCMax,  i forget the other names)
prestashop - slick looking and light http://www.prestashop.com/

on windows servers: http://dashcommerce.org/default.aspx

for integration with cms
joomla http://www.virtuemart.net/
drupal http://www.ubercart.org/
django http://www.satchmoproject.com/

There are also about 5 or 6 commercial products in the $80 to 150 range which are very slick and easy to start with, things ike xt:commerce (in german, old version is GPLd too) x-cart etc.

3. super duper almost everything

magento - see above
oxyd http://www.oxid-esal...ts/community-edition
there's another one that one of my clients used but i cant think of it right now

378

Living Room / Re: Show us a photo of your mutt or other creatures..

« on: August 11, 2009, 07:48 AM »

So does my cat! I chase her 'till she's cornered, then run away - then she charges after me until I'm caught, then we start over.
I live in an apartment, so each chase takes about 2 seconds  - not exactly a run on the beach, but we manage 

-SKesselman (August 11, 2009, 05:41 AM)

We chase her around the kitchen table, on and on - I do wonder what the neighbours might think if they see me run in circles making faces... they dont see the dog!

I would so love to have a mini French or English Bulldog, and the second I live in a (truly) pet-friendly environment, I'll have one.

-SKesselman (August 11, 2009, 05:41 AM)

I waited over 30 years, so in time you will

379

General Software Discussion / Re: Let's Fork The Thread! Linux Notetaking Thread!

« on: August 11, 2009, 04:28 AM »

I am looking for a better solution, at the moment I use... opera notes  

The good things about opera notes
- sync across machines and OSes
- if added from a web selection, remembers the original location link
- live search as you type
- exports to xml and other formats

The missing bits about opera notes
- no rich text or structured format
- no code highlighters, icons

In firefox there's evernote, ubernote and a few others - including one that integrate with linux native sticky notes apps (have to go on linux to get the names, the laptop is upstairs will edit)

Note: I too go for lightweight desktop / window managers solutions whenever I am given the choice, openbox+lxde at the moment but experimenting with a tiling window manager to see if it helps with staying focused

380

Living Room / Re: PLEASE, Host Your Own DNS Server

« on: August 11, 2009, 04:27 AM »

I had the problem that our ISP has at times very unreliable DNS servers - I ended up having as a backup a linux distribution on an USB key, so I can turn a spare machine into a USB server within 30 seconds (use the slitaz distribution since i could recreate it into a "custom" iso in minutes)

I will check this windows server, thanks for the tip

381

Living Room / Re: Show us a photo of your mutt or other creatures..

« on: August 11, 2009, 04:23 AM »

Yohimba, pippi is just over 4 years old (http://www.casahoyas...ish/puppies/litter4/) . Nobody has told her you're supposed to be adult at 4 though   and I hope she stays this bouncy and happy and puppyish forever, even if it means she has a very short attention span for training (a shame, since she is very smart who knows what she could learn to do)

Sarah, she is a very soft (PWD are especially soft dogs) and shiny dog, which is a good thing cause she really likes to be petted a lot.

my partner Robb wanted to teach her frisbee, but she hasn't figured out the drill of it yet. She likes being chased or chasing (people or dogs) more than just about anything in the world, but chasing a frisbee loses interest as soon as the thing is landed or caught. Bring it *back*? We've hope yet...

382

Living Room / Re: Show us a photo of your mutt or other creatures..

« on: August 10, 2009, 07:49 AM »

How I managed to miss this one for a whole month...

Thanks for the wonderful photos and great (if sometimes sad) stories.

Our home is the realm of Pippi Longstocking

Pippi was a friend's dog, in Denmark, and when this friend decided to go back to University she couldn't keep her dog (pets not allowed in student housing).
So we drove her to England fron Denmark, and she's delighted us ever since  

Now I have wanted a dog since I was about 4 - but lived in appartments and with busy jobs a lot so it would not have been fair to a dog. But in spring 2008 my mother was poorly, my last job was finished, and it was just time to get the dog. I waited over 30 years for that dog.

As things stand, she has 2 humans home with her nearly all the time, she gets to run and play a lot, she gets on long walks - and she gets spoiled (in a good way, time and interaction and training, not treats).

Pippi is a Portuguese Water Dog, but not breed standard as she has a flat coat. The result is an incredibly cute and elegant dog, by everyone's standards.

 (i have a whole set on flickr...   http://www.flickr.co...s/72157607574182136/ )

383

Living Room / Re: Wow wowowowowow!!!!

« on: May 26, 2009, 02:42 AM »

And what if she/he wasnt a spammer, or probing for vulnerabilities, and you scared him/her away?

384

DC Gamer Club / Re: Gothic 2 mod team looking for help with English translations

« on: April 08, 2009, 12:02 PM »

I wonder why people keep doing non-English stuff in these intarweb days? It kinda offends me a bit, even though I'm not a native English speaker.

-f0dder (April 07, 2009, 10:26 AM)

It is hard enough to write good scenarios, dialogues and fiction without having to do it in a language you don't master.

385

General Software Discussion / Re: Bookmarks, I am frustrated

« on: April 01, 2009, 04:25 AM »

I'm not sure I see why you would benefit from the pro version of LWA over the free version, not with what you explained of your needs.

You could create a link so that the lwa root folder on one machine points to the other folder over the network (I have done it in the past as I wanted to move all data off the C: drive), or you can use a sync tool to keep 2 sets of folders in sync, or you can even export/import

386

General Software Discussion / Re: When was your last BSOD? I'm betting it was a long time ago

« on: April 01, 2009, 04:19 AM »

I have had a BSOD a few months ago, and it was - as it nearly always is - linked to a hardware/driver issue. Easily fixed

Your average windows is just as stable as your average linux, the one thing that makes it unstable is that there are a lot more crazy apps people can install and over-install until it gets unstable.

And when it comes to servers - if you know what you are doing there is no disadvantage to windows. If I consider the uptime for servers in my last, say, 8 years, BSD and windows actually win over linux

387

Living Room / Re: Conficker - The Facts

« on: April 01, 2009, 04:15 AM »

But did I get this right - anyone with a legal copy of windows (and that includes people with a legal copy of windows which they installed on several machines, or multiple times on one machine for testing/development purposes) who runs regular updates, is protected by free software, so the only people not protected are the people with pirate copies who don't also have a paid/pirated/free copy of a virus scanner.

Those people really deserve what they get, no?

388

Official Announcements / Re: MARCH 2009: It's the 4th Anniversary DonationCoder.com Fundraiser

« on: March 30, 2009, 06:48 AM »

don't be silly, you can only get a bailout if you destroy a few hundred thousand people's lives while you conduct financial fraud and engage in criminally reckless behavior in a pursuit of absolute greed.

-mouser (March 29, 2009, 06:00 PM)

We haven't tried that approach yet, how about we register "destructioncoder.com" and get started?

389

Official Announcements / Re: MARCH 2009: It's the 4th Anniversary DonationCoder.com Fundraiser

« on: March 30, 2009, 06:46 AM »

I guess the newsletter worked, briefly translated it said:

"most of the money came from people who had already donated, how about we see new faces,  you've been hanging out here a while, go on, donate!"

390

Best File/Folder Compare Tool / Re: anybody tried ECMerge?

« on: March 25, 2009, 03:04 PM »

I'll go try it, especially since it does more formats than my current tools 

391

Living Room / Re: Is World of Warcraft the only depression-proof industry?

« on: March 17, 2009, 03:28 PM »

Well i put my subscription to WoW on hold, so they must be feeling it too!

392

General Software Discussion / Re: Bookmarks, I am frustrated

« on: March 17, 2009, 03:23 PM »

The obvious program for saving Web pages is Local Website Archive. 

-rjbull (March 17, 2009, 05:38 AM)

It's a bit quirky working from some browsers (opens a version of the page in internal i.e. for saving) but it
- saves as html + images + css
- allows annotation/tagging
- allows editing (paid version) to remove junk
- allows search
- can capture from other sources
- simply synchronized over any normal sync program (uses some kind of has for folder names so no risk of collision)
- integrates with wsa which can work as a bookmark manager of sorts

I just wish there was a way to get multiple pages as it can get quite repetitive if you want to save, say, 7 pages

393

General Software Discussion / Re: Making my life difficult - Windows 98 - advice needed

« on: March 07, 2009, 08:48 PM »

Also you might look for KeyHH.  I'm pretty sure you can use it to display HtmlHelp without the ms updates.

-MilesAhead (March 06, 2009, 05:55 PM)

Thanks' I'd never heard of keyHH - found the webpage http://www.keyworks.net/keyhh.htm

394

General Software Discussion / Re: Making my life difficult - Windows 98 - advice needed

« on: March 07, 2009, 08:46 PM »

you can get V2 of the service pack here: http://majorgeeks.com/download4131.html

-app103 (March 06, 2009, 03:23 PM)

There is also a supplementary pack at http://majorgeeks.co...tion_Pack_d4738.html which includes all the bits not included in the unofficial service pack (inc. IE 6, WMP 9 and DirectX 9)

-Carol Haynes (March 06, 2009, 07:05 PM)

it's amazing what a difference installing these packs and/or the "autopatcher" makes - a wholly usable system and not looking so far away from the way I configure my winxp (yes, i turn most skinning off so it looks like win2k)

395

General Software Discussion / Re: Making my life difficult - Windows 98 - advice needed

« on: March 07, 2009, 09:31 AM »

April you are an absolute STAR 

I actually have a lot of these old programs back at home (yes, I keep my CDs, floppies, registration certificates etc.) but for now I'll just go with freeware

396

General Software Discussion / Re: Making my life difficult - Windows 98 - advice needed

« on: March 07, 2009, 09:08 AM »

Actually, recent RAM is a lot cheaper than older RAM, too - so what might cost $20 in a recent format is just as likely to cost more

But frankly, after installing all these unofficial patches and tweaks, this is a lovely usable system - I'm going to add several USB drivers (so if someone gives her an usb key it has a chance of working out of the box) and a few more toys (something for photos, since she's likely to receive some from her grandkids etc.).

I am considering web based for some of these. The problem is many webapps (eg: gmail) are quite RAM hungry, I need to find the more old school ones which use less javascript and more server side (EDIT: I see April's got a link to a lightweight gmail option, cool!)

397

Developer's Corner / Re: Need a custom CMS in PHP

« on: March 07, 2009, 06:49 AM »

WebsiteBaker and cmsmadesimple are both fairly easy to use and set up, and have enough modules for a lot of basic needs. They also have the advantage of a fairly easy to use control panel (esp. website baker which I could have put in front of my mother and she would not have panicked)

After that the option might be something like expression engine - not open source but cheap, and I have used it quite a bit. It's totally template driven so you can build any kind of site in it.

398

General Software Discussion / Re: Making my life difficult - Windows 98 - advice needed

« on: March 06, 2009, 09:52 PM »

What I have done so far:

install kmeleon
install peazip

install the sp2 as linked in this thread by april

install the "autopatcher dec 2007" (which contains bits like directx, windows media, patches etc.) - there's a slight overlap with the patch above but it detects what is already installed so no weirdness http://www.msfn.org/....php?showtopic=80800
This took an hour and at least 20 reboots, but happened automatically so no hassle

What I still need to do:
- install autopatcher Dec 2008 additional (after sanity check, that is)
- install some simple office tools (if works is not enough), possibly abiword
- install PDF either acrobat reader 6 or sumatraPDF
- install some form of virus scanning/security if i can find a suitable option
- email client (must find out what if anything she is familiar with)

399

General Software Discussion / Re: Making my life difficult - Windows 98 - advice needed

« on: March 06, 2009, 04:59 PM »

it seems that the "autoupdater" goes through 150 of these automatically - and it does let you choose to some extent. Hopefully that'll give me a stable system

It installs a set of patches, reboots, picks up automatically - so nice and hassle free. A good thing since it has been going for an hour and has rebooted 20 times. I'd forgotten how often the windows of old needed to reboot on patching!

The machine has works 2000 on it so it should allow her to do the basics.

400

General Software Discussion / Re: Making my life difficult - Windows 98 - advice needed

« on: March 06, 2009, 03:36 PM »

Thanks - finding things is a pain in 800x600