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oscommerce nightmare

James Moey — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:25:04 +0000

An article criticizing oscommerce is a nightmare. I could not agree more. I have give up on it long long time ago. The overall structure is a mess. But if you go to freelance site like scriptlance, getafreelancer. You will notice there are still project that requesting oscommerce application. I think prime reason that there are still demand for oscommerce is because customization is cheap. Lot of the customization on osCommerce is done in hack, direct changes to the core source code. It is a nightmare to maintain, not to mention leaving the site owner without a option to upgrade in the future. Leave security holes wide open because patching a customized copy of oscommerce is very time consuming. So a warning to site owner, you might save some money now but in the long run, you will be paying more.

For a better option, you should look at http://www.magentocommerce.com. One of the better structure shopping cart, based on industry standard framework, Zen Framework. Developer complaint about its complexity, but it is a extensible product. Development might be a bit more expensive, but worth it in the long term. The other option that you might consider is http://www.zen-cart.com as mention in the article.

What are you experience in shopping cart software?

Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 5

James Moey — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:13:47 +0000

There are ton of good review on the Internet regarding to Firefox 3 performance and stability. Version 2 was a bit disappointing, specially when it is use on Laptop where RAM is always a precious resource. I have try Beta 3 and 4 before, but there is always the issue of lacking plugin compatibility, making me putting it off from upgrading from version 2. I do a lot of web development, therefore Firebug and Web Developer plugin is a must. Public release is not due until June, 2008, 2 months away. I have been waiting since December last year. A long long wait.

Today, I try my luck again. After download and install Firefox 3, I try to find Firebug plugin. The Firebug on the Mozilla Plugin Site is not compatible with Firefox 3, but there is a link to the plugin homepage. I follow the link and landed on here. To my surprise, there is a working version of the plugin that is compatible with Firefox 3. Even though it is a beta version, I straight away download and install it. I am very happy and excited that it work. Now I can move to Firefox 3. I also find Web Developer plugin and it is compatible with version 3. Double strike today, not too bad for a day. Other plugin like adblock and del.icio.us bookmark does not work, those are not as essential for me. I can wait on those plugin. I found an excellent plugin, ScribeFire. It is a plugin that allow you write your blog and publish it to your blog. All blogger should try the plugin, I believe you will enjoy it too.

So far, I have let Firefox 3 run for 4 hours plus. The first thing I notice, memory use by Firefox actually goes up and down. Not just up and up like in Firefox 2. Currently, it is using 76MB. If I was running Firefox 2, the memory usage after 4 hours will be 100++MB. The performance of the browser is fast. Changing between tab is very responsive and swift. The only downside that I experience, is when I click on a link sometime the Firefox freeze and not responsive. That could be my machine acting up, I will need to monitor that. Other than that, I recommend Firefox 3 to anyone who use a browser. For less IT illiterate, maybe wait till Public Release, if you are IT know-how, I recommend that you give it a try.

Dirtiest jobs in IT industry

James Moey — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 01:16:39 +0000

Easy and good reading, back to work after an easy weekend. 7 dirtiest jobs in the IT from ComputerWorld.