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Magento Certified Solution Specialist

After working with Magento since 2009 I finally found (made) the time to take the Magento Certified Solution Specialist Certification exam, and I passed. There has been much written about how to pass, and what to study. In my opinion, it would be impossible to get the certification without actually building and working in the CMS. Study guides and PDFs aren’t going to do it.

Spend the $10 on Digital Ocean, install Magento CE on a droplet, and get started. Save the 1-dimensional PDF studying for EE as it is much more difficult to get hands-on experience with.

Interesting (but not commendable), as of 7/24/17 I am Arkansas’ only Magento Certified Solution Specialist. Next up is the Frontend Developer Certification.

 

Amazon Payments Mixed Content Issue on Cart

I was integrating Amazon Payments for a Magento customer and received an ssl warning on the cart page when secure cart was enabled:

Mixed Content: The page at ‘https://www.example.org/magento/index.php/checkout/cart/’ was loaded over a secure connection, but contains a form which targets an insecure endpoint ‘http://www.example.org/checkout/cart/estimateUpdatePost/’. This endpoint should be made available over a secure connection.

This GitHub thread pointed me the right direction. I pulled the latest package but there was no concession for the referenced issue. Time to dig.

My customer’s theme differed slightly – I ended up adding the URL to the secure_url node inside of app/code/community/Amazon/Payments/etc/config.xml

<cart_estimateupdatepost>/checkout/cart/estimateUpdatePost</cart_estimateupdatepost>

No more mixed content and increased conversions as the visitor feels more secure.

Daytona 200 Winner

TOBC Racing Yamaha has once again enlisted Desmo Studio for the 2017 MotoAmerica season to provide Data Analysis and Engine Management strategies. We started the year by winning the prestigious Daytona 200.

The Daytona 200 win was TOBC Racing’s 2nd, and rider Danny Eslick’s 3rd.

Ghost Adware Across Browsers (Tumblr)

I worked on a fun project this week, restoring and hosting a friend’s html site that was a casualty of expired hosting. There were no recent backups. Thanks to a backup from 2013 and the Wayback Machine I was able to 100% restore the content. However, occasionally there were ads that would display. Adware? Malware. It was cross-browser. I ran all the tests. I looked at the code again. What could it be?

TUMBLR! Some of the background images are iframed from Tumblr. As part of their relatively recent move to showing ads, you need to to opt-out of on-blog advertising in your Tumblr settings. One I turned off ads, the ads went away.

HLSM Microfiche Magento 2 Powersports Solution Featuring Ducati

HLSM Microfiche Magento 2 Powersports Solution Featuring Ducati

Our HLSM Microfiche Magento 2.x solution is available for powersports dealers, and it now includes Ducati! That’s right. No more inconveniencing your valuable Ducati customers with a cumbersome pdf-based parts finder.

How does it work? Select your brand, model, year, and category from HLSM. This displays a microfiche image which allows the customer to add the correct parts to their shopping cart. The skus don’t even need to be in your Magento catalog. We handle adding them to the customer’s cart, and your Magento catalog!

Test drive our Magento 2.x solution here: hlsm2.desmostudio.com. Are you a Magneto 1.x customer? No worries – we have you covered with our Magento 1.x solution hlsm.desmostudio.com.

 

Divi Theme Person Module Opening Social Links in a New Window

Divi Theme Person Module Opening Social Links in a New Window

I am working on a customer’s site which uses a modified Divi theme, and the Divi Person module social links don’t open in a new window. Some of the Divi modules have a setting for this, and this one doesn’t.

I love Divi but their ability to give us most of the solution is often maddening.

The code you need to change is located in Divi/includes/builder/main-modules.php. If you’ve made it this far, it’s likely you already have a child theme. If not, now is the time to create one.

Search for et_pb_font_icon et_pb_facebook_icon and paste target=_”blank” before the closing tag >.  The code is the same for all social icons in that block.

if ( ” !== $facebook_url ) {
$social_links .= sprintf(
‘<li><a href=”%1$s” class=”et_pb_font_icon et_pb_facebook_icon” target=_”blank”><span>%2$s</span></a></li>’,
esc_url( $facebook_url ),
esc_html__( ‘Facebook’, ‘et_builder’ )
);
}

See it in action here.

eKomi Magento Integration

We’ve been working with Ratings and Reviews company eKomi for the last month sorting out a Magento solution for a customer. It’s been awhile since I have received a .zip file and a pat on the back from a vendor (Good Luck!), but we are almost there.

My valued customer needs to generate Seller Ratings on Google Shopping, and eKomi will enable that using a combination of retroactive (past order) customer feedback, and future customer engagement. Are you on the Magento platform and have the same needs? Let us know – we’ve already done all the hard work 🙂 Contact Us

WordPress Security

I am working on a high-visibility WordPress site this week and I was surprised that they didn’t have an Anti-Malware or Brute-Force Security solution. For customers where cost is an option, the free version of Wordfence or Sucuri will get you 90% of the way there.