Magento Chooses GREED Over It's OS Community

Just to point out, it’s $8,900 annually per server?

Are they insane?

And this suprises you Tom?

It surprised everyone, considering they were built by the open source community. It’s like firefox turning around and charging you $499 every time you choose to use the GO button on their browser.

And this suprises you Tom?

It actually does surprise me . . . but it has also opened my eyes to the fact that I had been allowing the "ga ga" lure of Magento prevent me from actively moving forward on my ecommerce business project.

NO MORE -- as I explain here

That price is crazy!

Since there is an Open Source version, there is nothing to prevent others — perhaps as a group to create a variant of Magento or VirtueMart, to save cost.

However, there is only so much that could be done with Open Source initiatives. I have heard a lot of good things with Linux for example. They have been around for many years already with great following.

There are even companies (and individuals) that made great profit from it, e.g., through Red Hat. I think the founder of Red Hat even became a billionaire at some point.

Here’s the irony here, Linus Torvald, who was the creator of Linux, gave it away to the public but it was others who got filthy rich with it. That is also the case with the seminal creation of the internet by Berners-Lee (as well as the seminal work in DARPA). But, it was Netscape and then Microsoft and heir stockholders (through the domination of the clunky Internet Explorer) that profited most from it that reaped all the financial gains?

Last year, and even early this year, the stock price of Apple for example had been manipulated through rumors, to benefit trasing companies and short sellers. What exactly do short term sellers in the stock market, for example do, apart from speculating to make so much money from such fruits of technology?

The HIV/AIDS drugs and many pharmaceutical discoveries actually were based from seminal works supported by the government — but the billions and billions of dollars were reaped by the pharmaceutical companies and their stockholders.

There must be a way so that "gifts to humanity" either from the discoveries and creations of individuals or those funded by public funds, must have a share in the royalties, and part of that money be used to further efforts, like those initiative through the respective Open Source. groups, or to help back in funding basic research, in the case of public funded discoveries and creations

Cornelio

It actually does surprise me . . . but it has also opened my eyes to the fact that I had been allowing the "ga ga" lure of Magento prevent me from actively moving forward on my ecommerce business project.

NO MORE -- as I explain here

Tom,
I believe that this was planned from the begining. I remember reading that they were going to be doing something like that on their website months ago, maybe as far back as a year ago. That’s why I asked if that supprised you.

Anyway…
Be prepaired to spend countless hours fixing all the little bugs you will no doubtedly encounter as you configure VM. I’ve been using VM off and on for over 3 years now and let me tell you it’s no picnic. Having said that, I will say that 1. it’s free, and 2. hacking the crap out of it will ultimatly get it to do whatever you need it to do.

Anyway…
Be prepaired to spend countless hours fixing all the little bugs you will no doubtedly encounter as you configure VM. I’ve been using VM off and on for over 3 years now and let me tell you it’s no picnic. Having said that, I will say that 1. it’s free, and 2. hacking the crap out of it will ultimatly get it to do whatever you need it to do.

I think the bug issue is going to be present with virtually any ecommerce platform at one point or another -- such is the nature of web code. A period or semi-colon in a wrong spot can mess everything up.

Hacking code is certainly a pain in the neck -- but you know, that’s what web design/development is all about … and that’s how we all learn. There is TONS I do not know (and likely will never understand). Thankfully, there is a cornucopia of resources available to seek assistance, insight and education on most given issues.

I must say, with the continuing lists of enhancements/extensions I have been finding for VirtueMart and/or Joomla lately -- my ecommerce (Zeolite based) project is coming along nicely.

Individually, it will take a lot of time (which translates to money if you pay yourself for the time spent), if one attempts to do such searching and debugging by yourself.

Reliance on the forum of the Open Source may or may not bear fruit because they are doing it for free, so do the responders in the forum or such a group. This is not too surprising considering that even in sites, like template companies, many of the questions remain unanswered.

One solution to this is that those who are interested must band together to solve the problem, or if need be, even hire skilled programmer(s) and designer(s). Let us say, it will cost $10,000 to do the jobs

$10,000 and 10 users => $1,000 per user <= less than 1 year subscription to Joomlart Magento template)

$10,000 and 30 users => $333 per user <= less than 3 months subscription to Joomlart Magento templates)

$10,000 and 50 users => $200 per user <= cost of copyright free single license of a Joomlart Magento template)

$10,000 and 100 users => $100 per user <= just more than a year subscription to be a licensed member of JATC, even if you do not use any of the templates

Theoricatlly, as a Collaborative Support Group, if there are enough members, e.g., 1,000, you cn hire programmers and webdesigners (or preferrably those among the group):

$10,000 and 1,000 users => $10 per user

to incrementally improve either Magento or VirtueMart — starting with the available Opern Source of these eCommerce. It sure beats paying $9,800 per year for the improved Magento, or struggling on your own to find the best "modules and plugins" for either of the eCommerce products.

Provided the Collaborative Support Group does not commercialize the resulting "improved Magento or VirtueMart, I see no legal conflict of the CSG members paying and getting the resulting "improved product" in return.

Cornelio

N.B. I use the high cost of the Joomlart Magento template in the above to further underscore that the template alone is already so expensive. How much more it would be if you consider all the cost, of the modules and other extensions, you may get for free or had to buy to get a functional eCommerce site. And, if you add the cost of your time, the actual cost increased astronomically.

JoomlArt has also applied for the Community Partner program;
however it turn out to be a "Paid community partner" ; we need to pay to become their partner. I am all Ok with the fee, the way they charge for "community effort" is the problem.

Although they offer a commission in return but I feel very uncomfortable with the name "community partner"

So far, we have been promoted the Magento brand in a open source spirit but since they introduce the "$8,900 Annually" Enterprise Edition, I really feel discouraged.

Let’s look at some extra features;they are not really impressed and totally let me down when I walked through their Enterprise Demo

* Logging of Administrator Actions
* Gift Certificates/Cards (Physical and Virtual)
* Customer Store Credits
* Content Staging and Merging. Support for both on-demand and scheduled merges and rollbacks of content
* Category View and Purchase permissions per on customer group (limited catalog access)
* Private (Club) Sales including Events, Invitations and Category access permissions
* Strong Data Encryption
Some of the important users experience features like Gift Certificates/Cards; Customer Credit, Private Sales can be made possible by 3rd-party extensions installed with the Community Edition.

In fact, such features are also in our next development plan for Magento

JoomlArt has also applied for the Community Partner program;
however it turn out to be a "Paid community partner" ; we need to pay to become their partner. I am all Ok with the fee, the way they charge for "community effort" is the problem.

Although they offer a commission in return but I feel very uncomfortable with the name "community partner"

So far, we have been promoted the Magento brand in a open source spirit but since they introduce the "$8,900 Annually" Enterprise Edition, I really feel discouraged.

Let’s look at some extra features;they are not really impressed and totally let me down when I walked through their Enterprise Demo

* Logging of Administrator Actions
* Gift Certificates/Cards (Physical and Virtual)
* Customer Store Credits
* Content Staging and Merging. Support for both on-demand and scheduled merges and rollbacks of content
* Category View and Purchase permissions per on customer group (limited catalog access)
* Private (Club) Sales including Events, Invitations and Category access permissions
* Strong Data Encryption
Some of the important users experience features like Gift Certificates/Cards; Customer Credit, Private Sales can be made possible by 3rd-party extensions installed with the Community Edition.

In fact, such features area also in our next development plan for Magento

So does this mean that you are going to give up on the Magento templates and get back to your core business of making Joomla templates?

Well, just hope they don’t drop the community edition and I wouldn’t care less about how much they charge for their enterPRICE edition.

So far, we have been promoted the Magento brand in a open source spirit but since they introduce the "$8,900 Annually" Enterprise Edition, I really feel discouraged.

Think how bad the paying customer feels!!

We will continue to support the Community version. Varient’s products are good and we still have to pay the respect to what they have brought to the community.

Not agree with them on some points does not mean that we turn back on the supper shopping cart they have made.

Well, just hope they don’t drop the community edition….

They won’t drop it but anything new and useful will be only available in the premium edition. They have to try to entice people to the paid version somehow.

Most of the Premium feature Hung mentions were already down on the roadmap for the free version. They have since been removed as they will now be premium features only.

I too would like to see Joomlart drop the Magento templates and stick to 1 Joomla template per month as AGREED.

The agreement was that JA would go from 2 to 1 templates per month so higher quality JOOMLA templates would become available. Instead JA will still produce 2 templates per month, 1 Joomla and 1 Magento, which they charge 6 or 7 times more for.

Half the Joomla workload and lots of time to produce Magento templates at a much higher return. What a bonus!

What idiot came up with the ‘one template per month’ idea in the first place anyway???

They won’t drop it but anything new and useful will be only available in the premium edition. They have to try to entice people to the paid version somehow.

Most of the Premium feature Hung mentions were already down on the roadmap for the free version. They have since been removed as they will now be premium features only.

I’m telling you -- since I started focusing on VirtueMart again, I have found all kinds of fantastic hacks and extensions that can greatly enhance a VM based ecommerce site and bring it up to the level (in some ways, surpass) that of Magento. VirtueMart has it’s own roadmap for upcoming improvements -- with no plans for going "commercial" and instilling a restrictive price structure.

The official Magento User Guide has been released. And guess what…………?

It costs $20! ROFL!!!!! You can buy it here

The official Magento User Guide has been released. And guess what…………?

It costs $20! ROFL!!!!! You can buy it here

I saw that . . . there’s still a part of me that is drawn to Magento … especially with the possibility of a Magento/Joomla integration coming in September (I created another thread about this somewhere). Let’s face it, both Magento and VirtueMart are a pain to hack into and modify -- though this whole Magento "Enterprise Edition" still has me pretty steamed.

I too would like to see Joomlart drop the Magento templates and stick to 1 Joomla template per month as AGREED.

The agreement was that JA would go from 2 to 1 templates per month so higher quality JOOMLA templates would become available. Instead JA will still produce 2 templates per month, 1 Joomla and 1 Magento, which they charge 6 or 7 times more for.

What idiot came up with the ‘one template per month’ idea in the first place anyway???

Well, I don’t believe for a second they went from 2 to 1 so they could create "higher quality" templates. They did it because they knew they were going to start creating Magneto templates and did not want to have to create 3 templates a month. So they changed the agreement and screwed all the Joomla users for some new income opportunity.

I’m telling you -- since I started focusing on VirtueMart again, I have found all kinds of fantastic hacks and extensions that can greatly enhance a VM based ecommerce site and bring it up to the level (in some ways, surpass) that of Magento.

Please enlighten us

There will soon be a third e-commerce option fully integrated into Joomla but I am sworn to secrecy. It is in the early stages but once it is good enough to release the team of 6 involved will be releasing it as a community development encouraging others to come up with add-ons.

3 of the 6 actively worked on the Magento project until charging arose, when they got the hump and left.

There will soon be a third e-commerce option fully integrated into Joomla but I am sworn to secrecy. It is in the early stages but once it is good enough to release the team of 6 involved will be releasing it as a community development encouraging others to come up with add-ons.

3 of the 6 actively worked on the Magento project until charging arose, when they got the hump and left.

That will be interesting. We definatly need more options for e-comm and Joomla I’m already getting fairly tired of virtuemart and their lack of support.

Well, I don’t believe for a second they went from 2 to 1 so they could create "higher quality" templates. They did it because they knew they were going to start creating Magneto templates and did not want to have to create 3 templates a month. So they changed the agreement and screwed all the Joomla users for some new income opportunity.

I’m sorry, but that is simply incorrect . . . . the decision for JA to go to one template a month was made well over a year ago -- before JA made any decision to start producing Magento templates.

Please enlighten us

Here’s one, for starters --> http://www.joomlart.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30848

Here’s another --> http://extensions.virtuemart.net/

a little research can go a long way

I’m sorry, but that is simply incorrect . . . . the decision for JA to go to one template a month was made well over a year ago -- before JA made any decision to start producing Magento templates.

I’m sorry, but unless you’re privy to the internal business discussions of Jart how would you know when they started discussions on creating templates for Magneto?

You could say the same thing about my statement…. How would I know? I do not, however I don’t believe it was coincidence either.

I’m sorry, but unless you’re privy to the internal business discussions of Jart how would you know when they started discussions on creating templates for Magneto?
You could say the same thing about my statement…. How would I know? I do not, however I don’t believe it was coincidence either.

Let’s try to look at this logically . . . If it was JA’s conspiratorial plot to "screw" the JoomlART membership, then why would they have made the announcement to go to one template per month (starting in August 2009) back in June 2008 ?? And why would they not wait until August 2009 to start producing/releasing their Magento templates if there was such a devious conspiracy?

The decision to go to one template a month was arrived at due to the number of complaints by the membership for the year or so prior about the quality, innovation and uniqueness of the JA Joomla templates. Many were complaining that the templates were "looking too similar to previous templates’ and that they were simple rehashes and/or reorganizations of former tempaltes. Thus, Hung and his JA Team -- well in advance -- decided to announce the switch to one Joomla template a month in effort to focus more on the quality aspects of each individual template.

The deal was to move to one template per month so that Joomlart would have more time to work on releasing better JOOMLA templates.

Joomlart instead decided to open a second template club.

However!!! Lets reserve judgement and see what the templates are like when we do move to one per month.

Personally I think Joomlarts latest templates are their best so far. As long as they release good usable templates I don’t give a hoot how many clubs they open.

(I think they may regret going with Magento though)

The worst thing I see right now, is that I received this mail from Magento…

Official Magento User Guide -- Now Available for Download!

We are pleased to announce the availability of the official Magento User Guide, the definitive source for reference and information on configuring and managing your Magento store.

The Magento User Guide provides the site administrator with detailed instructions addressing the platform

Plus that, I do not know, I think a lof of people are aware of that Joomla originally originated from Mambo. There the developers who did not agree to the Mambo Scheme went away with the source with rights to do so and created Joomla out of it.

Now you may also know that Varien Magento originally were the leaders or are the leaders for osCommerce in the USA. They were leading the pace of professional development of online shops based on osCommerce. Now the deal with Magento is, that the codes are said to be 100% new and the old relation to osCommerce is only standing for relevant knowledge about the business.

While browsing the VM Forum I clicked on a banner for a site called "StrongCoders", they offer Joomla development and also have another site called "StoreCoders". On this homepage they explain that they are, same as the developers of Magento, leading developers of osCommerce based Systems incl. ZenCart and others and also have their own osCommerce based Fork called "CartStore".

http://www.cartstore.com

This shopping script really is not more that what osCommerce is when it comes out of the box, but as it is also a commercial product based on opensource software it is truly enhanced and professional shopping script.

http://www.cartstore.com/shopping-cart-software/demo

BUT, now take a look at the demo, the strings between Magento and CartStore on the outside look are enourmous. It comes like the same thing with same features when you regard the missing designs themes the Magento developers have included in their system.

Compare the features CartStore brings, it is the same, only thing that is not present but may is also present on demand is that "show all products of the sub cats also in the parent cat" like Magento does, at least in the 1.2.1.2 version I tested for some time commercially.

Seems, but speculation, that there we see where the coders of Magento really come from and now offer their new codings with same features to the public and also for 9000$ when wanting the real deal…

THANKS!

I just took a quick look at Cart Store and while it looks impressive, I’m not sure it begins to compare to Magento. I’m basing this on the fact that Cart Store only contain just over 4500 files while Magento contains more than 7,000.

However, I can’t argue with the central tenant of this thread after what Magento did to me. I’ll post more about that later.

Grow with Magento -- The Unofficial Magento Users Guide

I just took a quick look at Cart Store and while it looks impressive, I’m not sure it begins to compare to Magento. I’m basing this on the fact that Cart Store only contain just over 4500 files while Magento contains more than 7,000.

However, I can’t argue with the central tenant of this thread after what Magento did to me. I’ll post more about that later.

Grow with Magento -- The Unofficial Magento Users Guide

More files does not mean better system. Like it is known already, Magento is so slow or was so slow because the system is full of files that other carts have compressed in one or even double codes that normally would not be really needed.

Those are simply 2 systems and what I referred to was more how Magento was created from prior osCommerce specialist like storecoders are and that there is a big similarity in what both system are capable of…

Magento is not the big shot it is said to be for "large companies". There is Demandware, Intershop and some others, all those high profile users that are now targeted with this 9000$ pro version of Magento, would be **** crazy to choose such system for their shops. You see it when looking at Yves Rocher, they first came up with a Magento store, were in the portfolio on the Magento site and now, they use a better pro system again. Companies like this will rarely really save money when it comes to what they later all have to pay in addition.

The most hilarious issue is, because it is so tiny and typical "pro developers". I do not know if they now solved this issue again, but the Magento sites and also the demos have Internet Explorer incompatible JS scripts for newsletter module and some other parts. In IE those simply do not work. HILARIOUS.

While for some people Magento may be a fitting solution, the new pro version is hilarious as they try to get clients with nice promo ideas that later switch to more professional and long established real pros for their high profile shopping sites.

As you post the "official useguide", unless this one is not free, like it has to be, **** the Magento userguide, it is commercial book for a free open source software from the developers. They should sell it on Amazon, maybe this helps!

More files does not mean better system. Like it is known already, Magento is so slow or was so slow because the system is full of files that other carts have compressed in one or even double codes that normally would not be really needed.

True that more files doesn’t necessarily mean a better system but it is a far indication of the features available. Magento (the free version) has more features out-of-the-box than any other system I’ve looked at, including CartStore.

Those are simply 2 systems and what I referred to was more how Magento was created from prior osCommerce specialist like storecoders are and that there is a big similarity in what both system are capable of…

It may be that some of the folks at Magento may have come from an osCommerce background but Magento is NOT based on osCommerce. It has an entirely different and more flexible architecture.

I do know that it’s the folks at Varien that created and support the Gap’s website.

Capabilities included with Magento that I did not see in CartStore include the ability to support multiple websites, stores, and store views. Also they have the ability to support multiple designs, changeable automatically based on the calendar, for an entire website down to individual pages. And you can change the layout of individual pages with simple XML code.

I do not know if they now solved this issue again, but the Magento sites and also the demos have Internet Explorer incompatible JS scripts for newsletter module and some other parts. In IE those simply do not work. HILARIOUS.

I have two websites managed from a single backend that work just fine on IE, thank you very much. I also have a client with three websites managed from a single Magento installation that also work just fine. As everyone knows, the problem with IE is that it is not standards compliant requiring special "hack" to get sites to work properly.

While for some people Magento may be a fitting solution, the new pro version is hilarious as they try to get clients with nice promo ideas that later switch to more professional and long established real pros for their high profile shopping sites.

Many creators of open source have a free version and an enterprise version (like CartStore). Let’s consider a big one, MySQL. Sun Microsystems makes a lot of money selling and supporting the enterprise version. That is the Open Source business model. It’s how developers keep food on the table, selling an enterprise version as well as selling support, training, and documentation for all of their versions.

As you post the "official useguide", unless this one is not free, like it has to be, **** the Magento userguide, it is commercial book for a free open source software from the developers. They should sell it on Amazon, maybe this helps!

Magento came out with the "Official Magento Users Guide" because I wrote the "Unofficial" one and started offering it back in February. Thus far, I’ve spent 7 months working full time on my book, which is much more complete than theirs even tho it is not yet complete. However, anyone who purchases my book now gets free updates. There is no reason I shouldn’t expect to get a return on my time and effort.

True that more files doesn’t necessarily mean a better system but it is a far indication of the features available. Magento (the free version) has more features out-of-the-box than any other system I’ve looked at, including CartStore.

More features that do not all work perfectly in any given condition, do not mean better software, but more work for serious end developers to get this thing done without issues under production circumstances

It may be that some of the folks at Magento may have come from an osCommerce background but Magento is NOT based on osCommerce. It has an entirely different and more flexible architecture.

I do know that it’s the folks at Varien that created and support the Gap’s website.

Variens founders were the leaders in osCommerce, you can get that info in online media etc., so my connection to that they may have been a part of CartStore is not taken from afar.

Capabilities included with Magento that I did not see in CartStore include the ability to support multiple websites, stores, and store views. Also they have the ability to support multiple designs, changeable automatically based on the calendar, for an entire website down to individual pages. And you can change the layout of individual pages with simple XML code.

First you have to get one store running without suddenly getting SQL errors, you may not be aware of the numerous stores out there that run with broken Magento systems. When googling for certain SQL State errors the system gives out you will get an endless list of Magento shops running with this error and clients get those errors a lot. But the users, the store owners are mostly not aware of it. The reason, the numerous companies offering this still baseless system for money to clients also do not know this or cannot fix it. Those people play with their clients money and customers, negligent as it can get. Sorry, this is not how such software should be offered to and run by clients. Then you talk about multi shops, get all those multi shops running without those errors and the money you have to invest, when even aware of all the bugs mostly only frontend customers will experience, you can bet that a Demandware store will cost the same and is top notch. Intershop stores start at around 20K and you land somewhere there when you build a multi shop based on Magento same pro and same bug free.

I have two websites managed from a single backend that work just fine on IE, thank you very much. I also have a client with three websites managed from a single Magento installation that also work just fine. As everyone knows, the problem with IE is that it is not standards compliant requiring special "hack" to get sites to work properly.

IE IS STANDARD COMPLIANT AS MS RULES THE BUSINESS, WHO COMES WITH IE IE SHOULD REALIZE THAT THE POSITTION ONE CLAIMS IS TO SAY YES AND THANK YOU FOR THE BROWSER AND SO HAVE DEVS LIKE VARIEN TO FOLLOW! THIS IS NOT MY JOB FOR "SPECIAL HACKS". USE BETTER SCRIPTS!

Magento came out with the "Official Magento Users Guide" because I wrote the "Unofficial" one and started offering it back in February. Thus far, I’ve spent 7 months working full time on my book, which is much more complete than theirs even tho it is not yet complete. However, anyone who purchases my book now gets free updates. There is no reason I shouldn’t expect to get a return on my time and effort.

Yeah, thank you, wanting a return, that is all what one can do with a lazy piece as Magento is in the reality when not being blinded by the outside coolness… LMAO

woohan’s negativity aside, I -- for one -- am very appreciative of ANY effort to make the somewhat confusing Magento customization process a bit easier for the "non programmer" folk out there (like myself). I have the "Official Magento User Guide" and, to be honest, all it really is is a "look what Magento can do" book -- not really a "user" guide in terms of how to work within the Magento file structure system in an easy-to-understand way.

That being said, I am definitely going to check out your book, jballotti.

Do you accept "update" and/or "further clarification" requests toward updates for your book?

More files does not mean better system. Like it is known already, Magento is so slow or was so slow because the system is full of files that other carts have compressed in one or even double codes that normally would not be really needed.

Those are simply 2 systems and what I referred to was more how Magento was created from prior osCommerce specialist like storecoders are and that there is a big similarity in what both system are capable of…

Magento is not the big shot it is said to be for "large companies". There is Demandware, Intershop and some others, all those high profile users that are now targeted with this 9000$ pro version of Magento, would be **** crazy to choose such system for their shops. You see it when looking at Yves Rocher, they first came up with a Magento store, were in the portfolio on the Magento site and now, they use a better pro system again. Companies like this will rarely really save money when it comes to what they later all have to pay in addition.

The most hilarious issue is, because it is so tiny and typical "pro developers". I do not know if they now solved this issue again, but the Magento sites and also the demos have Internet Explorer incompatible JS scripts for newsletter module and some other parts. In IE those simply do not work. HILARIOUS.

While for some people Magento may be a fitting solution, the new pro version is hilarious as they try to get clients with nice promo ideas that later switch to more professional and long established real pros for their high profile shopping sites.

As you post the "official useguide", unless this one is not free, like it has to be, **** the Magento userguide, it is commercial book for a free open source software from the developers. They should sell it on Amazon, maybe this helps!

I have a Magento store and it is NOT slow.
While more file doesn’t make a better system, more features does.
What is really HILARIOUS, is comments from people who don’t do the work insisting that those who do do the work do the work for free.
Take note that there are several commercial books available and advertised for Joomla, where are your complaints about those????????????????????????

I have a Magento store and it is NOT slow.
While more file doesn’t make a better system, more features does.
What is really HILARIOUS, is comments from people who don’t do the work insisting that those who do do the work do the work for free.
Take note that there are several commercial books available and advertised for Joomla, where are your complaints about those????????????????????????

I’m developing for Magento for more than a year.
It is SLOW. We’ve spent months on optimization (also bought larger dedicated server)…We’re never going to use Magento again for another larger project (it can be fast with few categories and attributes….but it’s slow as hell even on a medium size shop….with every cache turned on, xcache and SSD drives).

I’m developing for Magento for more than a year.
It is SLOW. We’ve spent months on optimization (also bought larger dedicated server)…We’re never going to use Magento again for another larger project (it can be fast with few categories and attributes….but it’s slow as hell even on a medium size shop….with every cache turned on, xcache and SSD drives).

Then you’re doing something wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

James:

Try not to let pessimistic comments get to you -- they are, after all, just personal opinions and demeanor.

Just wanted to say that I purchased your ebook, "Growing With Magento" the other day and have been giving it a look over. While there are a good number of similarities with the "Official" Magento User Guide, I do appreciate that you took the time in various sections to go a bit beyond the "look what Magento can do" format and explain some additional methods for accomplishing various tasks within the Magento code structure (which is a royal pain in the arse).

As a suggestion, I think something that could really position your book apart from any others I have seen (and there aren’t many (if any) others) would be fairly regular supplements (similar to your "extension" supplement) with various "User Request" solutions to certain issues. This is not to say that you should be a one-man support system -- but more along the lines of some of the more common problematic issues, such as . . . .

-- repositioning content blocks/elements and navigation menus
-- tips for creating dynamic static blocks (perhaps in a popular web editor like Dreamweaver or some other WYSIWYG editor)
-- configuring the Community Edition "Exploded Menu" extension

Perhaps you could create some "customer only" webcasts demonstrating (visually) how to accomplish various tasks.

Lastly . . . one of the things I REALLY like about your book is the time you spend discussing how to set up multiple stores through a single backend. One thing that I haven’t seen any "non-programmer" explanation of "how to" is how to set up tabs for each store similar to how the Magento "multi-store" demo has it set up. Would love to see a "Grow With Magento" expansion on that. (NOT: If this is included within yoru book and I just haven’t seen it yet, I apologize).

Anyway, nice work on the book. Looking forward to your thoughts on some of the items I discussed above.

James:
Just wanted to say that I purchased your ebook, "Growing With Magento" the other day and have been giving it a look over. While there are a good number of similarities with the "Official" Magento User Guide, I do appreciate that you took the time in various sections to go a bit beyond the "look what Magento can do" format and explain some additional methods for accomplishing various tasks within the Magento code structure (which is a royal pain in the arse).

As a suggestion, I think something that could really position your book apart from any others I have seen (and there aren’t many (if any) others) would be fairly regular supplements (similar to your "extension" supplement) with various "User Request" solutions to certain issues. This is not to say that you should be a one-man support system -- but more along the lines of some of the more common problematic issues, such as . . . .

-- repositioning content blocks/elements and navigation menus
-- tips for creating dynamic static blocks (perhaps in a popular web editor like Dreamweaver or some other WYSIWYG editor)
-- configuring the Community Edition "Exploded Menu" extension

Perhaps you could create some "customer only" webcasts demonstrating (visually) how to accomplish various tasks.

Lastly . . . one of the things I REALLY like about your book is the time you spend discussing how to set up multiple stores through a single backend. One thing that I haven’t seen any "non-programmer" explanation of "how to" is how to set up tabs for each store similar to how the Magento "multi-store" demo has it set up. Would love to see a "Grow With Magento" expansion on that. (NOT: If this is included within yoru book and I just haven’t seen it yet, I apologize).

Anyway, nice work on the book. Looking forward to your thoughts on some of the items I discussed above.

Thanks for your comments and suggestions as well as your purchase.
As stated on my website, every time Magento updates their software I update my book, and that updated book is free to Premiere customers.
Your suggestions are excellent! I will be reviewing them and will likely try to include them in upcoming releases. The issue of the tabs is an issue of template design. More specifically changing the design of the "Store Switcher". I do cover the store switcher but only the way it works in the default design.

Thanks again for your comments.

Then you’re doing something wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don’t want to argue with you as it’ll take days just to explain everything before we even can start to argue.

Just try one of the following: Create 1000 categories and 500 attributes and tell your experience (try to do something on the client side or the back-end).
It is marketed as a industrial strength etc. shopping cart…

For example with x-cart we have a store with around 5000 categories and 30.000 products (philately/stamp store) and it’s fast with similar features…works without a hitch.

What about their upgrade logic ? It’s always breaks something (we’re always have issues even on completely different server configs). Their "stable releases" more like beta 1 in better places.
Look at their forums….or how often their site is freezing…how often their update server is down…

Magento has a great potential very strong on some points and weak on others…but until it grows more mature there are better and cheaper alternatives.

mhm, mag enterprise edition has some plus points.

maybe someone should create a club..many members pay one enterprise edition…

mhm, mag enterprise edition has some plus points.

maybe someone should create a club..many members pay one enterprise edition…

ummm … I believe each Enterprise Edition is licensed for the idividual use of the individual merchant.

besides, at $8900, you would need quite a few people to "pool" money to even play around with it -- and to what end?