Absolute Pricing in Magento

By Jeff | Published: 14 October 2009

For some reason, Magento will only allow you to show the difference an option will have on the price of a configurable product. For example, if you are selling a shirt for $15, but the extra larges cost $17, the extra large option would show (+$2). And, while this makes sense to me, it does not make sense to everyone. So, some clients prefer to have absolutely pricing in the options. In this case, the example above would show $17 for the extra large option.

People have been working on solutions for this on the boards for a while. However, they all involved editing core files, and a lot of them. I try never to edit core files, just because of the nightmares it creates in upgrading. And, I did not want to put the time investment into writing a whole module for it. So, I just whipped up a script to change the presentation to absolute.

You can view my solution, as well as many others on the relevant thread over on the magneto forums:

http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewreply/182869/

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Internet Explorer 6 Magic CSS Hack

By Jeff | Published: 14 October 2009

This little line of code put into a conditional stylesheet for IE6 will work wonders:

* html div {overflow-x: hidden;}

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Shadowbox is Undefined

By Jeff | Published: 14 October 2009

If you are experiencing this error in Internet Explorer, I think it is related to bug in the base Shadowbox adapter. So, I like to solve this by using the jquery adapter. If you are using version 3.0b, this can be done simply by loading jquery before loading shadowbox. I like to pull jquery from google’s CDN, which can be accomplished with the following line:


<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

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SGU Continues to Disappoint

By Jeff | Published: 11 October 2009

Last Friday was the final part of the SGU premiere, Air. And, sadly the show continues to disappoint. This is all a matter of perspective, of course. There are several things that have taken the show in a new direction different from previous Stargate series.

The tone is much darker, and the character dynamic is much more like a soap opera than a group of professionals working together. Seriously, if you were selecting an elite group of people to work together on a world in the far reaches of the galaxy wouldn’t you pick some people that wouldn’t be at each others throats constantly?

The presentation is also quite different. The sets are much darker, and worn looking. Apparently the SGU people are stuck on what is possibly the most advanced piece of technology to ever be on the show, and it looks to be the least advanced. Sadly, it looks like something straight out of Battlestar Galactica.

Camera work is just dreadful. One of the things I have always liked about Stargate is the wide open camera shots. I always felt like I knew where everyone was, and what was going on. Sadly, so far in SGU they have opted for very tight shots. This only adds to the soap opera feel of the show, and makes me feel like I am missing out what is going on off camera.

These changes, among other less obvious ones are why people are beginning to polarize around the show. Right now, people seem to be falling into three camps: hate it, love it, don’t know what to make of it.

The people who have been following the show for years, and loved it the way it was are leaning towards the hate it camp. Too many things have changed in such a way that the show does not even feel like Stargate. It is something else that has elements from Stargate in it.

The love it crowd seem to be the people that were BSG fans. I loath that wretched re-imagining, so it is fairly obvious why my opinion would clash with theirs. I also think some of these people are those that came onto the show towards its end, and didn’t really care for it. Most of the changes have made it filmed in a more contemporary way at the show’s detriment.

A vast majority of the people are still in the don’t know what to make of it group. I think these are people that have been watching the show for a while, but are only casual fans. They recognize that there are differences in the new show, but they are waiting to see how it all settles together before they make a decision on it.

I intend to keep waiting the show, and will watch the whole first season to see if it improves. Hopefully I will warm up to it, because there are not a lot of options for science fiction right now.

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ODST: Epic Fail

By Jeff | Published: 9 October 2009

epic-firefight-sized

This is a word of caution to all you Halo faithful. Make sure that you let your games upload to bungie after you finish, otherwise your stats might as well never have happened.

For some reason, My brothers, vanlandw, and I partook in a seven hour round of firefight, and scored well over 2,000,000 points. The stats from that game alone would have been epic on my service record. Unfortunately, I jumped the gun and turned off the Xbox too soon, since I went to bed right after the game. However, that seven hours translated into 66mb of game play. And, that would have taken a while to upload.

Luckily, vanlandw saved the video of the match, so there is at least some evidence that the match occurred. Although, at 66mb it’s too be to share on the base file sharing package.

Lesson: long play time -> long time in lobby to upload game to bungie.

P.S. vanlandw, when you read this, take a screen cap from the game so I can post it, thanks.

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