Category: Uncategorized

If you’d like to use my software with osCommerce Phoenix (the new Responsive osCommerce community release), there are just a few things you’ll need to do. I documented the required osCommerce Phoenix changes on my website; it’s a small list.

I updated the documentation for Zen Cart Delete Spam Customers to provide more examples for common spam hints that I am seeing from my support clients. If you are suffering from a deluge of spam from Russia, Ukraine or another country, please know that help is on the way! In addition to Delete Spam Customers, I highly recommend these mods for spam prevention:

• @lat9’s Access Blocker mod.
• @davewest’s zenNonCAPTCHA mod (a version of which has been incorporated into the Zen Cart 1.5.7 core)

Also, I’m working on a mod that will block account creation requests based on a variety of factors. It’s called JerkBlocker, and it will be available in August!

Like many people, I got out of the blog habit when Google killed Google Reader, but I recently started using Reader (with Feedbin) so that I could enjoy blogs once again. Here’s what I’m reading these days:

• Coding Horror
• EcommerceBytes
• Farnam Street
• Gates Notes
• James Altucher
• Krebs on Security
• Making Sense with Sam Harris
• Search Engine Land
• Seth Godin’s Blog
• Slate Star Codex
• Startup Revolution

What are you reading?

My Zen Cart mods Quick Quantity Update and Quick Status Update have been updated to support Zen Cart 1.5.6.

There’s a new release of Zen Cart – but why should you upgrade?  I’ll review some of the key reasons in this post.

• Compatibility with PHP 7.2 and 7.3: PHP is constantly changing, and as new versions are introduced, older ones fall by the wayside.  This means they no longer receive bug fixes or even security patches for issues which are discovered by researchers and hackers.  If you look at the PHP supported versions page, you’ll see that versions prior to PHP7 won’t even receive security patches after January 2019.  To stay secure, you must update your PHP, which means you must update your Zen Cart software.
• All security patches released in Zen Cart 1.5.5 and before included: if your Zen Cart hasn’t been actively maintained, you may have missed the PHPMailer security patch, the Trustwave patch, or any of the other Zen Cart security patches which has been released in the last few years.  Upgrading to Zen Cart 1.5.6 gets you all those patches without any extra work.
• All prior bugfixes from ZenCart 1.5.5 and below are included: how many times have you struggled with an issue, only to find that it has been resolved in a newer release? Upgrading means you’re using the latest fixes.
•  Improved admin appearance: the Zen Cart 1.5.6 admin is much easier on the eyes than the older versions.  Works great on mobile too!  

I have really enjoyed learning phpMyFAQ, and I have used it to create my own eCommerce FAQ.  It works well out of the box, and is easy to customize to your own requirements.  I’m hoping to do more FAQ projects, which I will announce here as they come online.

When I created Buy Both Now and Buy The Set for Zen Cart, I never took account of the possibility that templates would use the CSS buttons feature, which is available in Admin->Configuration->Layout Settings.

I have updated the help for these mods to show how they can be adopted to use CSS buttons too.  It’s easy – for Buy Both Now, just modify

includes/functions/extra_functions/checkbbn_pi.php

and change

$bbn_string_end = '<input type="image" src="' . $button . '" alt="Buy both now" title="Buy both now" /></form>'; 

to

$bbn_string_end = "  " . zen_image_submit($image, "Buy Both Now") . "</form>"; 

and similarly, for Buy the Set, just modify

includes/functions/extra_functions/checkbts_pi.php

and change

$bts_string_end = '<input type="image" src="' . $button . '" alt="Buy the set" title="Buy the set" /></form>'; 

to

$bts_string_end = "  " . zen_image_submit($image, "Buy the set") . "</form>"; 

I just created a new WordPress plugin called Zen Cart Product Display.  Giving it a try right now with OpenCart Discount Chooser: