magento

Book for developing and deploying a Magento online store

By amits - Posted on 04 March 2010

Packt is pleased to announce Magento 1.3: PHP Developer's Guide, a new book that helps PHP developers build applications that interface with the customer, product, and order data using Magento's Core API. Written by Jamie Huskisson, this book is packed with examples for effective Magento development.

Magento is an Open Source, e-commerce web application that was created by Varien, and built on components of the Zend Framework. Magento is the hottest and most powerful e-commerce software and has gained popularity in a short period of time. Users can control the look, content and functionality of their e-commerce web site with the help of Magento’s powerful theming engine.

Magento 1.3: PHP Developer's Guide will help developers extend and customize the Magento e-commerce system using PHP code. They will get familiar with the architecture and internal structure of Magento and learn about the best modules available. Developers can then build a shipping module for their Magento store to give users options for receiving their items once they have paid for them.

Video on Magento Enterprise Edition 1.6

By Bryan - Posted on 29 November 2009

There are very few shopping carts or ecommerce platforms that I'm willing to talk about on a blog for content management systems. For whatever reason, I have always had interest in the Magento Ecommerce platform. The following is a video on the features included in the Magento Enterprise Edition 1.6.

Book for Magento's Powerful Theming Engine

By jude dsouza - Posted on 24 August 2009

Packt is pleased to announce Magento 1.3 Theme Design, a new book that helps users give their Magento store a unique branded look and feel by creating their own Magento themes. Written by Richard Carter, this book is packed with essential hints and tips that are required for an effective Magento web design.

Magento is an Open Source, e-commerce web application that was created by Varien, and built on components of the Zend Framework. Magento is the hottest and most powerful e-commerce software and has gained popularity in a short period of time. Users can control the look, content and functionality of their e-commerce web site with the help of Magento’s powerful Theming engine.

Magento 1.3 Theme Design provides users with different design techniques that will help them customize the look, feel, layout and features of their online Magento store, allowing them to reinforce their brand message and increase sales. Users will learn to embed social media tools such as Twitter, and social bookmarks to promote and improve their Magento store with the help of ideas and examples that are present in this book.

Discovering Mixergy with Magento

By Bryan - Posted on 26 June 2009

Not sure if I'm early or late to the party, but I just discovered Mixergy.com. Mixergy is a place where 20ish Andrew Warner wants to help ambitious people who love business as much as he does to learn from a mix of experienced mentors. Somebody on the Internet wanting to help you make money, imagine that.

However Mixergy has something that many sites don't have...fantastic interviews of some very influential Web people. Some of the videos that caught my attention included interviews of Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, and most recently, Roy Rubin of Magento. I recommend checking Mixergy.com out.

Creating an Online Store with new Magento book

By jude dsouza - Posted on 11 May 2009

Magento: Beginners Guide is a new book from Packt that walks users through building an online store using the Magento open-source e-commerce solution. Written by William Rice, Magento Beginners Guide focuses on the key features of Magento to setup a unique online store and customize its appearance with the help of examples.

Magento is the world's most evolved e-commerce solution and runs on the Apache/MySQL/PHP platform. From one installation, users can control multiple storefronts, all sharing customer and product information. Magento's templates and themes enable users to customize the look and feel of their store, even optimizing it for mobile phones. Extensions enable them to connect Magento to a large number of payment gateways and shipping services.

This book follows a step-by-step approach teaching users to install and configure Magento, and add products to their online catalog. To help customers navigate their online store, the reader will learn to create categories and attributes to build their catalog of products and enhance it with descriptions, images, and inventory information.

Users will be able to present and sell products in groups and sets, and can offer discounts based on quantities along with accepting payments using PayPal, credit cards, and checks/money orders while offering a variety of shipping options. Along with connecting to shippers such as UPS, FedEx, and USPS they will learn to apply sales tax rules to different shipping addresses and different types of products, thus creating customized shipping rates.

When free is not enough: The Magento Enterprise Edition

By Bryan - Posted on 20 April 2009

Last week, Varien and Magento announced an alternative to the community open source Magento ecommerce platform. That alternative is Magento Enterprise Edition.

Today marks a major milestone for Varien and Magento with the release of the Magento Enterprise Edition. The product is a culmination of months of work and countless feedback from our community, partners and customers. The commercially licensed Magento Enterprise Edition software is the premium grade Magento product. It is geared towards larger companies and includes additional features, including ROI specific features, not available in our open source, Community Edition product. In addition to features, our Enterprise Edition will include SLA based support with guaranteed response times, warranties, indemnification and soon, PA-DSS certification. Learn more about the Enterprise Edition product and compare product editions.

With the launch of our Enterprise Edition, it is important to note our commitment to the open source, Community Edition product. The release of the Magento Enterprise Edition aids us by allowing us to focus on the distinct groups of Magento users, small or large, and to engage each according to their needs, and now, contribute more time and resources to the success of each. More information regarding our community and open source initiatives is detailed below.

For those that are used to getting open source Magento for "free", the starting price of $8,900 USD for the Enterprise Edition may be a little shocking. However, it's important to note that the Enterprise edition isn't geared toward those smaller "mom and pop" online stores. Instead the Magento Enterprise edition is intended for those larger corporations that want guarantees in the products they purchase including warranty, indemnification, and full product support via an SLA.

What else does the $8,900 or more give you that the Community Edition (without extensions) doesn't give you? Some of the additional benefits of the Enterprise Edition over the Community Edition include:

Advanced Administrator Roles and Permission Restriction per Site (Website and Store View)
Logging of Administrator Actions
Gift Certificates/Cards (Physical and Virtual)
Customer Store Credits
Content Staging and Merging. Support for both on-demand and scheduled merges and rollbacks of content
Limited Catalog Access. Category View and Purchase permissions per on customer group
Private Club Sales including Events, Invitations and Category access permissions
Strong Data Encryption

Apparently, the introduction of the Enterprise Edition does not mean there will be less support and development for the Community Edition of Magento. In fact since the announcement of the Enterprise Edition, version 1.3.1 of Magento Community has been released.