5/26/2006
Pandemic / Epidemic
A pandemic (from Greek pan all + demos people) is an epidemic (an outbreak of an infectious disease) that spreads worldwide, or at least across a large region.
Popularity: 15%
5/25/2006
ZenCart Shipping and Payment Modules For Development Testing
Testing the final steps of the order process on a ZenCart can be a pain as you must repeat the steps over and over; selecting a shipping method and entering in payment information.
With these two modules all orders from a configurable list of IPs have access to an additional shipping method and payment option called Development Free Shipping and Development Free Payment. These allow a developer to checkout with free shipping and without processing a payment.
Download zencart_dev_shipping_payment_modules.tar.gz
- Upload the module files to the appropriate directory in your ZenCart install (typically includes/modules/shipping/ and includes/modules/payment/).
- Upload the language files to the appropriate directory in your ZenCart install (typically includes/languages/english/modules/shipping/ and includes/languages/english/modules/payment/).
- Enable each module in the admin panel and set the allowed IPs to your local machine’s IP. A page for retrieving your IP can be found at: http://emailurl.com/myip
Be careful to turn off once complete. Otherwise, you could let some lucky customer order for free if they happen to be coming from the same IP you were using when you were testing.
Popularity: 24%
Motility
A biological term which refers to the ability to move spontaneously and independently
Popularity: 12%
5/22/2006
Diaspora
The term diaspora (Ancient Greek διασπορά, “a scattering or sowing of seeds”) is used (without capitalization) to refer to any people or ethnic population forced or induced to leave their traditional ethnic homelands; being dispersed throughout other parts of the world, and the ensuing developments in their dispersal and culture.
In the beginning, the term Diaspora (capitalized) was used by the Ancient Greeks to refer to citizens of a grand city who migrated to a conquered land with the purpose of colonization to assimilate the territory into the empire. The original meaning was cut off from the present meaning when the Old Testament was translated to Greek, the word diaspora was used to refer specifically to the populations of Jews exiled from Judea in 586 BC by the Babylonians, and Jerusalem in 135 AD by the Roman Empire.
Popularity: 8%
Pandering
to pander
- To offer illicit sex with a third party; to pimp.
- To tempt, usually by appealing to improper motivators such as religious bias or racist opinions.
Popularity: 12%
5/19/2006
DHL Shipping Automation For ZenCart
DHL EasyShip allows you to easily automate shipping processes. EasyShip allows a user to weigh a package, supply destination information and print a pre-paid package slip. The EasyShip tools communicate with DHL's servers over the Internet to rate and purchase the service and can notify them a local pickup is ready. The system can also communicate with a third party database via ODBC to pull the destination address and can writeback simple fields such as a tracking number.
In order to integrate EasyShip into a ZenCart store, I created a table with the following schema:
CREATE TABLE orders_shipping (
orders_id int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
ship_package_t_stamp timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
ship_package_tracking varchar(50) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
ship_track_status varchar(10) NOT NULL DEFAULT 'NEW',
PRIMARY KEY (orders_id)
)
orders_id int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
ship_package_t_stamp timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
ship_package_tracking varchar(50) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
ship_track_status varchar(10) NOT NULL DEFAULT 'NEW',
PRIMARY KEY (orders_id)
)
In EasyShip we created a writeback operation and mapped the package tracking number to the ship_package_tracking field. For every package shipped through this system now, EasyShip INSERTs a new row containing the ZenCart orders_id and DHL's tracking number for the shipment.
Using my PHP crontab system, I created an hourly job to query the orders_shipping table for new shipments. The automated job, updates the order status to SHIPPED, inserts a new comment for the order containing the tracking information and link to DHL's site and generates an email to the customer with the information.
I would recommend a similar system for anyone running a medium to high volume shop. It has proven to be a huge timesaver for the clients I have implemented it for.
Popularity: 39%
