Wait, that only applies if you are using WordPress MU.  Sorry if I just wasted a good cup of coffee.

1and1 does fine for vanilla stuff but otherwise, there is no real difference from 1and1 and all the other shared hosting providers out there.  I’m getting old so I can say it: it’s just crap.

In order to get my wildcard dns settings and apache rewrite_mod working properly, I must venture over to the VPS section that costs, on average, 360 more a year than the basic package.  Normally, that’s ok and I wouldn’t be irritated but I was SO excited to get going on a new project.   Each time I get my expectations and excitement up, another hosting provider (all of them) let me down with a pathetic whump.

Nonetheless, our sites with thrive nicely, just with different packaging.

PrestaShop Software

As you may recall, PrestaShop is open-source e-commerce software that allows e-merchants to sell their products on the Internet thanks to its powerful tool-set. The company was founded in 2007 by Bruno Lévêque and Igor Schlumberger. The solution has been downloaded at a rate of more than 25,000 times per month, and 15,000 are currently in production.

PrestaShop software stands out by its ease-of-use and the number of features it proposes.

PrestaShop has just made its version 1.2 alpha available, which brings many new features to bear such as:

Improvements in statistics with tracking and affiliation options.

New mail-alert functions.

Client groups.

Improved search.

Advanced tag management.

Possibility of attaching files to products (PDF, images, etc.)

And many others … you can find the complete list here: http://www.prestashop.com/forums/viewthread/17495/news___releases/liste_complete_des_nouveautes_de_la_1_dot_2_alpha

But the biggest news is the upcoming unveiling of PrestaStore, which was introduced via the Back Office in version 1.2 of PrestaShop.

PrestaStore: the marketplace at PrestaShop

PrestaStore is the marketplace for all things PrestaShop. The Website will be the meeting point between contributors who will submit their work. Submissions will be of two sorts:

The first will be in the form of modules, which extend functionality around the heart of the PrestaShop code.

The second will be in the form of themes, which allow users to personalize the graphic appearance of their online stores.

Revving up in 3 speeds

The site’s launching will be done in 3 stages:

First, we will target contributors who could make their works available as soon as the site is opened.

Second, we will open the site only to those same contributors in order to have time to validate their work.

Finally, the Website will be open to the general public.

PrestaStore, the place of choice for improving PrestaShop

The goal of the project is essentially to centralize information that is currently disseminated. It is also to lend visibility to numerous people who work on our software.

We also hope to facilitate the personalisation of PrestaShop stores by e-Merchants.

Our PrestaStore platform will therefore be the preferred place in order to find all supplementary functionality based on PrestaShop code.

We have greatly simplified the process for obtaining modules; customers will simply go to PrestaStore and choose the category in which they hope to optimize their PrestaShop online store. At the launching, there will be 5 categories: price comparators, logistics, payment tracking & conversion, and themes. Later, we will widen the choice according to the creativity of the community! In order to obtain a product, one simply adds it to the shopping cart and validates the order. The customer will then receive an e-mail containing a link for downloading.

At launch, about 40 products will be proposed for our team. Big names such as Fia-Net, Shopping.com, kelkoo, Amazon, etc., will be present. Contributions by the community will then be added.

Contributions will help to (for example):

- Automate customer management

- Propose various payment services by responding to the needs of merchants and customers, regardless of their bank

- Improve product and promotional visibility of a shop within numerous price comparators.

Security is something we are very concerned about; all submissions will be verified by our staff before being put online on PrestaStore. We are going to introduce norms, as well as an auditing service of all submissions made.

Two goals for PrestaStore

PrestaStore is a risk undertaken by PrestaShop. Of course, we wish to continue to attract new users to our open-source software.

In addition, we hope to unite in one place those contributors who provide quality work based on our software.

On one side, PrestaStore users will therefore be contributors (programmers, graphic artists) who work as freelancers or for Web agencies, and on the other side, merchants who use PrestaShop.

http://www.prestastore.com

Briefly, I’m very interested in Click Bank because of how easy it is to add your affiliate id to any “hop link” out there. Unfortunately, I cannot carry the best looking widget on the site because it doesn’t work. Once I get it t work, it’ll be fine.

E-Junkie is OUTSTANDING and is the site I use to pass along the greatness of StudioPress and all of Brian Gardner’s work (now a collaboration of top Word Press Designers).

As you may have seen, I’m also into Paydot.com because of the ugly, but effective widgets that can be placed onto any site.

So, I tell my wife, “Hey, I get this new way of doing things and I want to know what YOU are into…” She listed a few things and one caught my eye: Click here to visit UTOPIA Of Green Living Magazine website! She is really into the UTOPIA brand. Since I figure she is a smart enough cookie, I’d share it with you. Please check out the link.

I ran into a problem with the Featured Content Gallery not working properly. It took about 2 days but I found that the KPicasa plug-in was breaking the FCG. Keep that in mind.

I’ve elected to switch to the Corporate Theme because the entire front page is widget controlled. I’ve barely scratched the surface.

Check out STUDIOPRESS and let me know what you think.

1.  Get a phone with Android, right now the T-Mobile G1 and download the application, ShopSavvy.

2.  Go to Home Depot and pick out a rocking chair.  Notice that it is $150 and it has a barcode on it.

3.  Using ShopSavvy, take a picture of the barcode.

4.  Product search: Search the web and local stores with the same product for price comparison – right from the application!  The application delivers user ratings for the product at the same time as the prices.

5.  Didn’t find your price point?  Create a price watch so the application alerts you when the rocking chair can be found at your price.

It’s that cool.  Here’s a demo: ShopSavvy

Updates:
1. I cannot get phpMySQL Admin to work properly from my hosting provider using Chrome. However, I do have IE handy and I rarely require actually going into the DBAdmin.
2. Goodness, Chrome really does adapt to my usage. The most effective feature is the ability to conduct a search and insert an address in the same toolbar. I have a friend who can only find a website if he searches Yahoo for it. Seriously, in order to go to www.google.com, he will enter CNN in the Yahoo homepage search bar and select the top item on the list. Now that Google has actually built the Google search box into the address bar, searches and addresses are intuitively combined.
3. Yes, it’s a resource hog. Guess what? I haven’t noticed a problem with my computer. I’m not going to run ProcMon to see what the real damage is because I’m not interested. I have 8 PPT’s open, YIM, Graboid, OneNote, VLC Media, and 8 Tabs open and zero impact on performance.
4. Unfortunately, some sites still don’t come up. I did a search on Case Management Software architecture and more than one site blanked out on me. Fortunately, I didn’t have to close Chrome, just the tab that was stuck.

End result: Chrome is my new browser.

Unlike me, he’s absolutely brilliant at using Word Press. By using it, I mean he has written some of the most popular themes used by the Word Press community. Brian’s product line is the Revolution Theme consisting of News, City, Business, Media, and Sports.

Aside from the ease of installation and use of the themes, which are 2 & 3 column widget ready, the support from Brian and the Revolution Theme community is extraordinary.  

For the legions of fans who visit this site regularly, you may have noticed that I have jumped back and forth between themes and I am sorry for that last one that looked much like a third grader coloring inside the lines.  The reason I can jump from one to another quickly is that the themes come with free support and a devoted support community.

I don’t usually blog about specific individuals, but an email exchange between Brian and I has compelled me to do so.  I’m distatisfied with my WordPress savvy and needed a little direction so I upgraded my site and went back to Brian to see if I could get the appropriate upgrades.  They were in my email box in less than an hour.  Mr. Gardner understands customer support and how to build loyalty in the WordPress community.

Please check out his product by clicking here: Revolution Theme

Still, it’s fast.  However, if I have to use several Office 2007 products, browse 10 sites, use Acrobat & fire up GIMP, I will not be using Chrome to browse the sites.

I’m not bashing the product, this is strictly an observation.  Ironically, I caught the issue when IE actually crashed and I checked out the task manager.

In order to change settings, click on the Wrench in the upper right hand corner.  My first change was the location of my download directory from profile\downloads to my preferred download directory.   I change my own because I’m not the only person who uses my computer / downloads.

One small thing: WPAdmin forms seem to be off and my theme on the front page permits the text to go outside the Tabber box.  I suspect that the issue is that Chrome is not as forgiving as IE and the WP code needs to be tuned up.

BTW: Check out this absolutely incredible WordPress theme site and it’s developer: www.brianmadden.com I mention it because Chrome is revolutionary and Brian is the Revolution Theme Master.