The first step is to turn on the Terms and Conditions in checkout. Login to Magneto and navigate to System > Configuration. Click on the Checkout tab on the left hand side. In the Checkout Options box locate “Enable Terms and Conditions” and choose “Yes” from the drop down menu. Click Save Config in the top left of the screen.

The next step is to set-up an instance of Terms and Conditions. Go to Sales > Terms and Conditions. Click Add New Condition, top left. Give your condition a name and set status to enabled. The Checkbox text is the text which appears beside the check box in the checkout. The Content will appear in a scrolling text area just above the text box, which is where you can add your full terms and conditions. If required you can specify the height of your conditions box, but the default value will work for most instances.

When you have finished editing your terms and conditions you can save it. The new conditions will appear in the checkout and will appear in the final confirmation step of one-page-checkout.

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The latest version of Magento, 1.4.1.0 has been launched, and much improved since 1.4.0.1.

The new version has made huge improvements to the content management system and WYSIWYG editor TinyMCE (started in 1.4.0.1). Live categories can be excluded from the navigation menu, URL rewrites now include a history to redirect older links to the new. The system configuration section has been given a make-over and your site can now accept recurring payments for subscriptions and the like. The Sales Reports (Orders, Tax, Invoiced, Shipping, Refunds, Coupons) have been reviewed.

Upgrading is not so easy, and there are still bugs which could mean some stick with older instillations. One issue relates to Magento’s themes and templating system which can break depending but there are a few easy fixes for most of the problems to date. For new websites it seems to be working well and we’ve had no major problems.

You can read through the official documentation on the Magento website magentocommerce.com

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First, sign into your Magento store admin. Navigate to System > Magento Connect > Magento Connect Manager, or go directly via yourdomain.com/downloader. Enter your admin username and password. At the top of the screen will be the text box like the image above. Paste the extension key from the Magento Connect website as above and click install. The page will jump down to the console box which will inform you weather the extension was installed and if not, why.

Some extensions are only available in Beta, this means they are not quite ready to be declared stable but may work and function properly as expected. In connect manager click on the settings tab and on the “Preferred State” drop-down choose the “Beta” option. Go back to the extensions tab and enter your extension key again.

File Permissions

Occasionally, depending on server-setup and instillation you may encounter the error “Error: Please check for sufficient write file permisssions”. This is caused when the file permissions are set-up to stop the server from writing files and folders. The fix  is fairly simple, you’ll need access to Shell (SSH) and follow the instructions here. If you would rather leave the file permissions, then you will need to install extensions via Shell.

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Magento has a built in promotions system. This can be use to create two for one offers, category discounts and much more. I this tutorial we’ll set-up a coupon code for a 10% discount.

Login to the Magento Admin Panel and go to Promotions > Shopping Cart Prices Rules. Then click on the “Add New Rule” link at the top of the page. You’ll be taken to a new page with three tabs down the left hand side.

Give your new rule a name, set the status to Active and choose which customer groups it may be applied to. Next enter your coupon code, make it something simple, but nothing too easy to crack “MAYDAY10″, “CHRISTMAS2010″ something along those lines. You can choose to set the users per coupon and uses per customer. Next choose the start and end date of the promotion, or leave blank to allow them for all time.

The Conditions tab is next you can use this to set specific rules which must be true before the coupon will be applied. For example you could require a product form a specific category to be included in the cart. Otherwise leave this blank and click on the Actions tab.

Choose where you want to discount applied in this instance we want to apply a 10% discount to everything in the cart so choose “Percent of product price discount” and set the discount amount to 10. You can specify a maximum number of products to apply the discount, and a discount quantity step. Specifiy if the coupon included free shipping and select wheather or not to allow more rules to be applied to the cart.

In the next box you can set the discount to only be applied to specific products, In a clothing shop you might only want the discount on T-Shirts, or you might only want to apply it to products of a specific price or weight, it’s all there.

Click on Save Rule. Then you should double check it does what you expect and then let your customers in on the code.

That’s it.

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The Windows Internet Explorer Platform Preview is a Microsoft application which allows developers to test websites in the next version of Microsoft’s browser – Internet Explorer 9. The download is free and available from ie.microsoft.com/testdrive

The website itself outlines some of the improvements to the rendering engine which is designed to deliver better comptability with excisting and newer web technologies. There are speed and graphic demos explaining some of the improved features. The HTML 5 demos explain some of the newer HTML+CSS feature of IE9 which are commonplace in most modern browsers but general lacking in IE.

The Platform Preview only works on Windows 7 and Vista (SP2) and will not overwrite the excising current version of Internet Explorer. It’s important to note that the application is not designed to be a complete browser. It simply renders pages as IE9 will, as such there are no browser basics like favourites, back/forward, address bar etc. This is strictly for testing purposes, and helps ensure sites are ready for the big IE update later this year.

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What turn out to be simple activities, like managing orders, invoices, delivers area quite daunting for anyone not used to working with Magento. This where Magento Beginner’s Guide comes in.

I have recommended this book to a few clients who have found it a useful reference guide, for those starting out with a brand new Magento store. It’s a great book to have when managing those first orders or setting up new products for the first time to have as a reference. For those who are a bit more experienced it can help to get into some of the less-well-know or less-well-used functionality built-into Magento. It’s also a great place to start for those looking to pass on training to others.

As with most books associated with new and improving software the shelf life can be somewhat limited, but for a complete novice this is a great introduction to the world of Magento, and all it has to offer out of the box. Magento Beginner’s Guide is a great introduction and will no doubt be revised to meet up-and-coming Magento versions.

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There are a few different ways to import products into Magento. The fastest way to upload lots of products is the CSV spreadsheet import. This can be done using a number of methods, but here I will explain the super-easy way. First thing we need is to get a template into which we can add our other products. Using this method we can add Simple Products.

Login to Magento and add a new product. We’ll use this as a basis for our CSV, you could add a few products making sure you set different options and setting for each to give a wider set of variables.

Export Sample CSV

The next step is to export your example products into a CSV file which you an edit and update in Microsoft Excel, or other spreadsheet application. Go to System > Import/Export > Profiles. Click on the “Export All Products” option. The default options on the wizard page should be acceptable, but double check the format type is CSV, you’ll want headers in the first row and you will want all the fields to begin with. There should be no export filters applied.

Click on the “Run Profile” tab on the left hand side, click on “Run Profile In Popup”. A page will pop-up showing the progress of the export. Once the export has completed you will have to log-into your website filesystem. Navigate to the <magento-install>/var/export in which you’ll find the CSV file. Download this onto your local computer.

Edit Original CSV Spreadsheet

Open up the file, it should open correctly in a spreadsheet application, if not right click and choose the program from the options. It will look something like the one at the top of this post.  The list below are the ones you are most likley to use, with example content.

• store
• websites
• attribute_set
• type – “default”
• sku – product ID
• category_ids – “3,4,2″
• name
• short_description
• description
• price – “3.33″
• weight “1.4″
• visibility – “Catalog, Search”
• tax_class -”Taxable Goods”
• qty – “34″
• is_in_stock – “1″ for yes, “0″ for no

Simply create a new row for each of the products you wish to have in your store. Some of the columns can be duplicated (store, website, attribute_set, typpe, even category_ids) throughout your products, the rest need to be entered manually, or copied from another source. In Microsoft Excel when saving your spreadsheet select the alternative format “CSV (MSDOS)” your document should have a .csv extension like the original.

Upload Products CSV

Once you have completed your spreadsheet you’ll have to upload it to Magento, then import the products using the Import All Products profile. Go go System > Import/Export > Profiles. Click on the “Import All Products” profile, and select the “Upload File” tab, find and upload your document. Now click the profile wizard tab, again, the default settings should be fine; make sure the format is CSV.

Import Products

Select the “Run Profile” tab and choose your file from the drop-down menu. Click on the “Run Profile in Popup”, a pop-up will show your product as they are imported to the system. The original spreadsheet you created also acts as a back-up of your products. I will discuss exporting produts from Magneto at a later date, but invoices much the same Import/Export profiles.

That’s it.

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IE Tester is a relatively new tool to run multiple versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer for testing purposes. IETester includes all versions from Internet Explorer 5.5 to the latest version IE8. This application saves the bother which comes with trying to install (and run) multiple versions of Microsoft’s odd browser on your PC. Of course, it really goes without saying, if you are an end-user and still browsing with IE6 it’s  really time to upgrade, you’re the cause of all this bother.

Instillation

IETester can be downloaded freely from the MyDebugBar.com here. The current version is still the alpha release. Sorry Mac/Linux/Win9X-users it’s currently only available on Windows 7, Vista and XP.

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The first thing you will have to do is set-up the Tax Zones. In this case we’re setting up a website which will operate in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. This means we need to two Tax Zones each with it’s own rate of VAT.

Tax Zones and Rates

Login to Magento to to Sales > Tax > Manage Tax Zones & Rates. You may which to delete the default zones which are already there. Click on Add new tax zone Enter an identifier for your tax rate, select the relevant country from the drop down. Enter the rate in the bottom box, for example “17.5″ for current UK vat or “21.00″ for the Irish Republic.

You will need to repeat this step for all of the tax zones you are registered to operate in. Depending on your country you may need to set tax in relation to individual provinces or states, or simply use a star “*” to apply to all in your chosen country.

Tax Rules

The next step is to set-up a rule to apply the tax rates you have set-up in the previous step. Click on Sales > Tax > Manage Tax Rules. Again, you can delete the existing rules or replace them with your new ones. Click on Add new tax rule. Give your rule a name, choose the customer group, choose what you want to apply the tax to. Then you will have to select the rule you want to apply and click on Save rule.

Additional set-up

By default your tax rules will be applied according to the customers shipping address. You may also want to clarify how tax is calculated in relation to product promotions and how tax is applied to shipping. These settings can be applied by going to System > Configuration >  Tax.

That’s it.

Important! Please note VAT rates were correct at time of publishing. For the latest please visit the United Kingdom’s HM Revenue & Customs or the Republic of Ireland’s Office of the Revenue Commissioner.

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Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for Windows.

When you require a quick retouch Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro can be overkill. Paint.NET is the answer. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface, supports layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. Paint.NET is backed-up by an active community which provides help, tutorials, and a growing range of plugins.

The latest versions (since 3.5) have really addresses many performance quibbles and offers some interface tweaks for the Aero-theme users, but fans of the “dancing ants” may not like the gray-overlay changes made to the selection tools. Paint.NET is far more advanced than Microsoft Paint, and given its free price, it’s a great solution for those requiring simple image editing software.

Download & Install

You can get the free download from download.com – Paint.NET 3.5.4 but you’ll also need Microsoft’s .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 installed on your machine.

Photoshop PSD Plugin

As the name suggests the Photoshop PSD plugin allow gives Paint.NET the ability to open any .psd file. Saving isn’t quite so simple, for that you’re best to stick with the native .pdn format. Lee Matthews has more – click here.

No Windows, No Problem

If you’re not a windows user and want to jump on the Paint.NET bandwagon there’s the Pinta Project. Written in C# Pinta uses GTK+ toolkit, Cairo library and some code from the original Paint.NET.

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