Monthly Archives: November 2006

How to use AJAX to improve a users’ shopping experience?

Posted on by Dan Milward
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Tim Haines recently started an online blogversation “How to use AJAX to improve a users’ shopping experience?” on his site and it received all sorts of interesting feedback.

Tim used his handyshop cart demo as the base for this conversation. I would like to ask the same quesiton to my friends in the PHP / WordPress community.

Our software WP e-Commerce lite already uses a little AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) to pass items into the shopping cart. In the admin section it is used to enhance the purchase logs.

What else would you like to see? Let us know by…

.NET Links
Tim’s Original Post (what got this ball rolling)
http://steve.emxsoftware.com/
http://blogs.geekdojo.net

PHP DPS & WordPay

Posted on by Dan Milward
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DPS for payments – For anyone using (or planning to use) DPS for payments processing, these guys have published the interface I’ve been working on over the past dozen or so Payment Express implementations.

It makes billing cards as simple as:

$dps->chargeCard($name, $number, $exp_month, $exp_year, $amount);

There’s also methods for loading cards with DPS, and recurring billing. Hopefully it’ll be useful to some of you.

WordPay – Integration with WorldPay is similar to PayPal integration, you can use WorldPay callback feature.

Flash Lite

Posted on by Dan Milward
1

Instinct just received this invitation from Adobe’s Flash Lite product team….

“Nokia Asia has asked me to recommend the top 5 FL developers in Aust/NZ and I consider you one of them…”

I’m quite excited about this because it means all the work Instinct has put over the last few years honing their skills, developing fun, unique mobile gaming experiences is paying off and not going unnoticed.

On another note I saw a documentary on the weekend about the old school game Doom, the game that started it all (well second to castle wolfenstein). Although slightly geeky and pale these guys were totally inspiring…

  1. Did you know that ID software don’t do user testing? They state that they are game players and when it is cool enough for them to want to play then its cool enough for their public!
  2. There were more copies of Doom floating around then Microsoft Windows at one stage
  3. Around 10 million were sold
  4. Around 60 million were freely distributed

status report

Posted on by Dan Milward
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Hey guys. Damn its so hard to keep ones blog up to date when one is so busy! I’ve started doing Yoga again and boy does it hurt – my thighs were / still are aching. But its good, I really want to get fit again and do more tramping this summer.

I just saw An Inconvenient Truth – damn you Americans for not following the Kyoto Protocol, when New York is covered in Water I’ll be here laughing at you voters that got it wrong!!! I fully believe all individuals can help change the global warming problem but it feels or perhaps seems moot without America coming to the Kyoto party! However. I wont let that stop me doing my bit to help – this weekend I’ll plant a tree at the family farm and buy some energy efficient light bulbs (come to think about it why haven’t governments banned non efficient ones yet – are the profits / rights of a few light bulb companies worth out planet???)
Otherwise I don’t have much to report that I can write quickly about. But its all good… I’m happy, life is pretty good.

Mo-vember madness

Posted on by Dan Milward
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movemberHey you peeps. In the spirit of Mo-Vember I’m growing a mo with handles. Huh? Okay the following is shamelessy ripped out of an email from a friend. I couldnt have written it better so peace out… Andre… I’m so proud of you ;)
The basic point of Mo-vember is to draw attention to the much ignored issue of men’s health. There are a range of men’s health issues which need to have their profile raised a little – prostate cancer; testicular cancer; and male depression. The Mo-vember website (link below) lays down a little info about these topics with the aim of trying to get men better informed and able to spot issues before it all goes too far.

http://www.movember.com/nz/malehealth/?action=view&id=77 (link to the men’s health part of the website)

A key part of Mo-vember is raising sponsorship money which is then put towards one of the target areas – this year all funds are being donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of NZ. If you are interested in sponsoring a team of local mo-growers – then please check out the following link: http://www.movember.com/nz/sponsor/ (either search for the team “Commo” or use thier registration number 6172)

The Commerce Commission team has rustled up $645 in total sponsorship dollars to go towards the Prostate Cancer Foundation so far. Contributions of any amount are welcome – as are mo’s grown in support.

If you don’t do anything else – then just check out the website and have a laugh at some of the classic mo’s viewable in the pool room section of the site.

Should you be a Mo-Sista – you can still help spread the good word – and if your significant male other is having trouble talking about things – try a little role play – everyone feels comfy talking to a nurse!

Drinking age… not changed back :(

Posted on by Dan Milward
2

God dammit how stupid can you get. We give kids the right to buy alcohol and then we scratch our heads like complete douche bags and wonder why there are so many problems relating to kids drinking. Quite frankly I don’t care about some 19 year olds supposed “right” to have a glass of wine – I’m much more concerned about the mess our society is in. I think rather then being PC as usual we should get harsh and get real and sort these little buggers out.

So put the drinking age back up and hit em where it hurts. The 19 year olds that want to have an oh I’m so “sophisticated” glass of red then they can have one with mummy and daddy for all I care.

Not only do I think that teenagers are not mentally equipped to handle alcohol but I cant stand the little schmucks hanging around at dance parties. Sigh… I suppose if it means going to private parties and parties that have an over 20 bias I’m cool with that.
Of course that does not fix the reason why these punks are binge drinking but it does help mitigate it (of course it helps it all helps – help being the operative word okay). Fixing the binge drinking youth of today is something I’m not sure how to fix – but I’d start at schools and schooling and I’d be putting more heat on parents.