As I was working on a Miva Merchant store today, I needed to show the user a link, but only if they were currently logged in. I know I have done this before, but I couldn’t find the code for the life of me. So I went to trusty ol’ Google and typed in “Miva Merchant detect if user logged in” and several other terms only to come up with nothing. So I dug through several other Merchant sites to find the code. I finally found it and have decided to post it here in case somebody else has the same problem.

UPDATE: Apparently you need to check that g.Basket:CUST_ID is not equal to zero. At first my solution only checked that it wasn’t null which was flawed.

<mvt:if expr="NOT ISNULL g.Basket:CUST_ID AND g.Basket:CUST_ID NE 0">
    Welcome back, &mvte:global:customer:login;!
<mvt:else>
    Hello anonymous user!
</mvt:if>

The Zend Framework has always been my favorite PHP framework. The thing I love about this framework is that its components are loosely coupled. That is to say that its components have well-defined, and well-thought out dependencies. If you don’t like certain components, you don’t have to use them. Other frameworks boast this kind of modularity, but honestly I haven’t seen any that really back it up. For our last two or three PHP projects, we gave CakePHP a try. At first I was really happy with cake because of how quickly I was able to wire frame an application, but the more I use it the more I realize that the components in cake are far too coupled and there is just too damn much “auto-magic” going on in cake. I really prefer explicit to implicit code.

The reason we decided to leave Zend and go to CakePHP was because it lacked two main components that made it very difficult to wire frame applications quickly and easily. Those components are a layout system, and a form manager. I am happy to announce that Zend has tackled both of these problems in this release, and has actually done a decent job on them. Neither of them are 100% yet (at least not in my opinion), but both are very usable and helpful at the very least. Go grab a copy of the new release and give it a go. I think you’ll be quite happy with it!

For a full list of the new features, check out the official release page on zend developer zone.0

UPDATE! - Zend Developer Zone has published a webinar on Zend_View and Zend_Layout by Ralph Schindler. Go check it out!

Website: www.buttebusinessresources.com
Formula:

• Content Management System
• Clean/verbose urls
• Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional
• CSS2.1
• Word Press integration

Debut: March, 2008

Chabin Concepts and MC2 Design are proud to announce the release of Butte County’s new regional economic development and business resource site: ButteBusinessResources.com. Designed and developed by MC2, the site is geared to be a central location for businesses in Butte County to find resources in business development, funding, marketing, business expansion, human resources, and consulting.

Download PHP CSV Utililties v0.2
Read Documentation for PHP CSV Utilities

I have just wrapped up version 0.2 of our csv library. It includes several new features. The most exciting of which is the new Csv_Sniffer class.

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Ollie Saunders, a colleague of mine and a regular at the DevNetwork forums has put together a very slick little set of functions he has collectively termed “PHP Fluidics”. If there is one thing that really sucks about PHP, it’s how often you have to use temporary variables to get to methods or array elements you need. Fluidics makes this process (and several others) much easier. We use this library in just about everything we code these days and I’d like to point out a few reasons why.

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The theme of this year’s Miva Merchant conference, while somewhat cheesy, couldn’t have been more appropriate. Less than six months ago, we were seriously considering finding another e-commerce platform. Just to give you an idea of how big of a deal that is, MC2 has been working with Miva Merchant since 1998. For those of you who are mathematically challenged, that’s ten years! In computer years, that is a lifetime.

Back…

To explain why “Back to the Future” was such an appropriate theme for the conference, let me give you some background. For those of you who aren’t aware, FindWhat.com, a search-marketing focused company, purchased Miva Merchant in 2004. They made a few good moves at first, acquiring MVCool and re-branding it as MivaCentral as well as releasing Miva Merchant 5, but for the next few years they seemed to basically run Merchant into the ground. They alienated module developers, outsourced support, and almost destroyed the community that made it such a success in the first place.

…to the Future

In August of 2007, it was announced that Miva Merchant had been purchased from FindWhat.com (now Miva, Inc) by several of the management team who had worked so hard to make the product a success in the past. Within a month, the new team managed to bring tech support back in-house and drop-kicked the ridiculous outsourced design services that had pissed off the community so much.

The conference? I’m getting to it!

My cohort and I arrived in San Diego Thursday night after a whopping hour on a Southwest flight from Sacramento. After getting our rental car and checking in to the hotel, we headed down to the beach and hung out just long enough for me decide we need to open an MC2 Design, San Diego division and then were off to Thursday night’s mixer where we were given not only a whole bag of schwag, but also free beer and a chance to meet the infamous Baron Bob.

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Website: www.overlandequipment.com
Formula:

• Ecommerce/Miva
• Clean/verbose urls
• Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict
• CSS2.1
• Dealer database application

Debut: February, 2008

MC2 Design is please to announce Overland Equipment’s web site launch for the 2008 product year. We have been fortunate to work with Overland Equipment since 2001, designing and developing their corporate website. Overland Equipment is a designer and manufacturer of quality bags since 1981.

MC2 Design’s development team attended the MIVA Merchant 2008 Conference in San Diego, California, held at the Marina Village Conference Centers on Feb 28,29 and March 1st. MIVA Merchant announced exciting new features with its pending release of version 5.5, which released in Beta March 2nd and is slated for streamed release as an upgrade from 5.0, early to mid April 2008. MC2 came away from the event very encouraged about the vision and future of Miva Merchant as an enterprise level application. The management team of MIVA Merchant provided a very informative, approachable experience, letting merchants, developers, and designers know that they are here to stay. For additional information on this conference and version 5.5 see this article

MC2 Client and innovator FAFCO makes news and progress with their innovations with Solar power and sustainability. Known as a pioneer in solar industry, this Chico-based company manufactures polymer solar heat exchangers for several products, including a residential water-heating system. Recently featured in the Chico News & Reviews Green Guide click to see the full article.