Choosing Between Magento or Shopify?
I recently obtained some great experience with another eCommerce platform – Shopify. In general, I work only on Magento, so it was fun to figure out how to set up a storefront on another platform. I quickly discovered why Shopify has become very popular with small businesses. After being able to set up a new store front in only a day, I was impressed with how easy to use Shopify was. Since I had never used the platform before I assumed there would be a learning curve. To my surprise I found that Shopify was very intuitive and user friendly. The instructions that Shopify provides its...
read more10 Best Extensions for Magento
Magento is an open source platform, which means that your store will lack functionality it needs out of box. However, there are thousands of extensions available to add whatever functionality you need. My clients are always asking what extensions they need or what extensions they should add to improve various aspects of their store. I made this list to recommend my personal favorites and point out some of the functionality you definitely should add. If you have any recommendations please add them in your comments! These are the best extensions for Magento Community that I have found so...
read moreMaking an iPad and Browser Compatible Video with Adobe Premiere
Today I had a client come to me needing their existing flash video to be made iPad and iPhone compatible. Luckily I had created the original flash video, so I knew turning this into a mp4 would be relatively easy. What I didn’t know was how to export this file from Adobe Premiere and then how to created the associated .ogv file that is necessary for handful of browsers. Even if you didn’t create the original video file as long as you have Adobe Premiere you should be all set. First take you video file and open it up in Adobe Premiere. From here go to File -> Export...
read moreHow to Choose Extensions or Plugins
Too often I have clients who come to me asking if a particular extension or plugin is right for them. Often they are faced with deciding between a variety of different extensions or plugins that all basically do the same thing. So they come to me for my expertise in the matter, what they don’t know is that I usually know less then they do about what they want! So how do I choose or help them make their decisions? The first thing I ALWAYS do is to check and see if the extension or plugin has been approved by the platform’s creators. In some cases this is easy, for example on...
read moreEasy way to add content pages to the Navigation in Magento.
If your like one of my clients you know how tricky it can be to add multiple CMS pages to the navigation in Magento. Not only do you usually have to hard code this in, it’s not something that your client can then update or add to themselves. Sure there are extensions that add this functionality, but none that work well. So why not just turn some of your Product Pages into Content Pages! This way it’s just as easy as adding products to your categories and you can have info pages mixed right into your categories. Step one - Open up your web editor and go to –...
read moreOwen Studio
The Owen Studio is my first personally completed and launched Magento site. I created this store for my father and mother who are both artists. My father (Thomas J Owen) is an internationally renowned artist who works in watercolor and oil. He predominately paints landscape or abstracts and teaches his methods regularly. He has taught both for universities and for workshops, plus he often holds more personalized classes at his home in Colorado Springs. My mother (Koreen Clay) is a jeweler who works in precious metals and stones. The site runs for only about $25 bucks a month and a once a...
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