Archive for the 'techy stuff' Category

With the introduction of HST in several Canadian provinces, some of our clients have asked us how this will impact their e-commerce stores. As the majority of our clients are using osCommerce, we have decided to write a short how to in order to help them prepare for the switch.

From the osCommerce admin, the first thing that needs to be done is to create some new tax zones. Since we are from BC, we will write this how to from the viewpoint of a BC based company (but don’t worry, if you live in another province, we will explain at the bottom of the post).

We created the following tax zones:

BC HST Zone

• British Columbia

Canada GST Zone

• Alberta
• Manitoba
• Northwest Territories
• Nunavut
• Prince Edward Island
• Quebec
• Saskatchewan
• Yukon Territory

NB / NF / ON HST Zone

• New Brunswick
• Newfoundland
• Ontario

NS HST Zone

• Nova Scotia

Once we created the Zones, we then created a tax class so that it could be added to our products. We called the tax class Taxable Goods.

Under the tax rates section, we then set the tax rates for each of our zones and associated them with the tax class.

1 – Taxable Goods – BC HST Zone – 12%
2 – Taxable Goods – NB / NF / ON HST Zone – 13 %
3 – Taxable Goods – Canada GST Zone – 5%
4 – Taxable Goods – NS HST Zone – 15%

If your company is NOT in BC, and requires you to charge PST in your province:

Create a new tax zone: Province PST Zone
Associate your province to the new zone.

eg.
Manitoba PST Zone

• Manitoba

In the tax rates section, set a new tax rate for your zone at the amount that PST is set at.

eg.
5 – Taxable Goods – Manitoba PST Zone – 7%

We hope this post was helpful to those of you with e-com stores. Remember, HST goes into effect July 1st, 2010 in BC!

Please contact us if you have questions or need assistance configuring your osCommerce website.

For a while, 604media has been keeping a close watch on the developments regarding the Google Chrome browser. Chrome was launched officially in 2008 and has slowly been building a dedicated user base. It is currently, the 3rd most popular browser (behind Internet Explorer and Firefox) according to Net Applications – (a trusted source of browser usage statistics).

One of the major items with regards to Chrome is the speed in which it renders and loads pages. To that end, Google made the following video:

What we liked:

• The speed of Chrome is nice (both load time and navigation time)
• Stability – Chrome splits your browsing tabs, so in the event of a crash, you don’t lose everything.
• New tab/history page – when you open a new tab, the sites you view the most are displayed to make your browsing experience even faster.

What we didn’t like:

• Chrome extensions – there are not enough extensions or the ones there are, don’t feel as useful/polished.
• New tab/history page is a nice touch, but it feels like there may be privacy issues there as you can close the pages manually so they don’t show, but that is only after you have opened a new tab and done so. If you left your computer on and someone else used your browser – you could be in some trouble depending on the type of content you have been “researching”.

Final thoughts:

Google Chrome feels quite polished now, from its original inception. It appears to be a good alternative to Firefox – if you are looking for an alternative that is. For the most part though, there is no real outstanding reason to switch browsers if you are happy with what you are currently using.

If you are interested in seeing how the Chrome video was made, see the following video:

The new iPhone OS4 has just been released. It contains features such as multitasking, application folders (finally!), enhanced mail features, Apple’s new iBooks (which was launched with the iPad), playlist creation, tap-to-focus video, home screen wallpaper and more.

Not all of the previous iPhones are supported for all features – for example, the 3g and original phones do not support multitasking or video enhancements.

The new iPhone 4 is slated for release in the US within the next couple of days, us Canadian’s will have to wait a little bit (hopefully not too much longer).

We are excited, are you?

Any web interface designer can relate to the horrors of dealing with the outdated and painful Internet Explorer 6. IE 7 is bad enough, but it’s almost like IE6 tries to ruin the fun on purpose.. Hopefully it will soon be dead, but until then, all we can do is suck it up, and look at stuff like this to make us feel better.

Here is a group of designers that are attempting to mobilize the design community to uprise against IE6 and demand liberation from it’s oppressive manipulation of our artwork: Bring Down IE6

Facebook refuses to acknowledge IE6! Well Done

We get a lot of calls from clients about the Rich Text Editor we use in our Custom CMS admin area. We’ve stripped down the TinyMCE buttons and options to what we think are the most important, and still there are lots! It can be hard to know what is what.. So here is a visual glossary and explanation of the TinyMCE buttons and plugins, and what they all do! Enjoy:

Here is a link to the Moxiecode site Wiki, with a full list of possible buttons and plugins:

http://wiki.moxiecode.com/index.php/TinyMCE:Control_reference

jQuery accordions are a dime a dozen these days; there are dozens of them floating around the jQuery plugin repository, each with its own specialized functionality and purpose. A few projects ago, I was looking for a basic accordion plugin but could not find one simple and lightweight enough to suit the project, so I decided to write my own. It was my perfect foray into jQuery plugins, as the functionality is simple and basic and allowed me to focus on learning how to effectively write plugins.

We have continued to use jQuery.yaa (yet-another-accordion) in most of our projects due to it’s light weight and simple functionality. It functions as a basic accordion menu, and nothing more. I may expand on it later depending on the needs of future projects, but for now, here is jQuery.yaa:

http://604media.com/604js/

With the long awaited launch of osCommerce 3.0, the 604 team has just released the first of many contributions. A robust newsletter management tool these days is very important to measure your penetration rate and to deliver quality, inviting newsletters. Having used a number of different tools, we feel that Campaign Monitor has the best mix of value for dollar for the SMB market.

The developed modifications are simple in nature, but allow for Campaign Monitor integration nonetheless.

You can download this contribution here

Please give us your feedback.

This is pretty crazy.. While it is obviously in prototype phase, the ideas and already existing functionality of this gets the imagination buzzing.

I can’t take credit for this, but am doing my best to spread the wealth. The basic idea behind CSS reset is it attempts to create a level playing field across all modern browsers by neutralizing browser-specific styles. In essence, it creates a base CSS foundation that attempts to make all modern browsers render sites identically.

One of the biggest trouble-makers for web design is Internet Explorer 6 (IE6), because it very often renders websites much different from how the designers intended. As a web designer, I am occassionally forced to use ugly hacks to fix IE6-specific layout issues, which is less than desirable. Once I started using CSS Resets, however, many of those IE6 layout issues dissappeared. I now start every project with CSS Resets and it has saved a ton of frustration and headache in the design process.

I’ve tested a couple different CSS Resets, and I have found the one created by Eric Meyer to be superior to the rest. Check it out, you’ll be glad you did:

http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/

You need only look as far as YouTube, flickr or Facebook to see that the future of the internet is social, educational, creative collaboration. I believe the centre of the internet, in its current state, is human emotion.

I recently came across a particular lecture, part of the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) series of short lectures, about the emotional world of the internet. Entitled “The Web’s Secret Stories,” Jonathan Harris talks about his work in online art that visually combines, organizes and categorizes millions of examples of human emotion. His work is truly stunning, and you should check it out.

Jonathan Harris tells the Web’s secret stories