For example to block my camera all I did was :

touch /Volumes/CAMERA/.metadata_never_index

Now if only there was a setting to block all external drives…

Mac :

Command ('Apple Key') + Shift + Y

Windows :

Ctrl + Shift + Y

This will put the text back to sentence case or lower case (whatever it should be before it was being forced into all caps)

Well now I know why no one used Nochex. It’s rubbish. It’s the only thing that would make me recommend Paypal (and I hate Paypal) to anyone but at least their service does what it is supposed to with minimum fuss.

OsCommerce was working fine and accepted my Nochex account but Nochex wouldn’t accept my address, so I was unable to put a card straight through (as a user without an existing Nochex account might). So I gave up on that as the client offers their own credit card gateway.

So I thought that was that – but when you add a credit/debit card to Nochex they debit a ’small’ amount from your card to help with their verification process. They didn’t go out of their way to tell you this when you register and they certainly don’t make it clear enough that this is non-refundable!

So there I was waiting for my couple of quid to get refunded only to discover it has been stolen. And for what? … other one for ‘the list’

Whilst booking flights to Australia the other day I was surprised that even the big boys can get it wrong! Although the checkout procedure was smooth – this screen was the first thing I saw after I clicked the “pay” button:


Not exactly confidence building! This page is supposed to redirect the user to their card holders ’secure code’ page to prevent fraud and authorise payment. However when the re-direct doesn’t work a green screen with a form button seems to be enough to maintain the users confidence confidence!

The method I came up with to solve this is very simple and can be easily added to form elements with little extra code. The error checking is done by checking input against regular expressions.

See the demo and demo source code.

Code Explaination

One function is used to create both forms of error checking:

<?php
$jsChecks = ""; //holds JS error checks
$errorFound = false;	//PHP error flag
 
//Creates both JS and PHP error checks
function errorCheck($elementName, $regExp, $errMsg) {
	global $jsChecks;
	global $errorFound;
	//Create Javascript error checking
	$check = '
	var ' . $elementName . 'Filter = ' . $regExp . '; 
	if (!' . $elementName . 'Filter.test(theForm.' . $elementName . '.value)) { 
		errorMessage += "\n  * ' . $errMsg . '";
		errorFound = true;
	}' . "\n";
	$jsChecks .= $check;
 
	//PHP error checking and return input class
	if(isset($_POST["formSubmitted"])) {	//if form submitted
		if(!preg_match($regExp, $_POST[$elementName])) {
			$errorFound = true;
			return "error"; //css error class
		}
	}
	return "";	//no class if no error detected
}

Error checking is created for the form elements specifying which element (by name), a regular expression to be checked against and a custom error message:

//Create error checking
$nameError = errorCheck("name", "/([a-z0-9]{3}[a-z0-9]?)/", "Name is too short");	//Must be 3 chars or over
$emailError = errorCheck("email", "/^[a-z0-9]+([_\\.-][a-z0-9]+)*@([a-z0-9]+([\.-][a-z0-9]+)*)+\\.[a-z]{2,}$/i", "Invalid Email Address");	//must be valid email address

If no error is found then process the data.

//If no error found
if(!$errorFound) {
	//Process form data...
}
?>

In our head tags we add the following Javascript and CSS rules. The Javascipt checks we created for each element are included here by the PHP ehco:

 
<style type="text/css">
input {
	border: 1px solid #DDD;
}
.error {
	border: 1px dashed #F00;
}
</style>
 
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
function validateForm(theForm) {
	var errorFound = false;
	var errorMessage = "Please correct the following errors:\n";
	<?php echo $jsChecks ?>
	if(errorFound) {
		alert(errorMessage);
	}
	return !errorFound;
}
//-->
</script>

The form is really simple with code to display a CSS class depending on whether a error is detected (for the PHP error checking) and to set the value of the field:

 
<form method="post" onSubmit="return validateForm(this)">
	<label for="name"><strong>Name</strong> (must be 3 characters or over)</label><br />
	<input type="text" name="name" id="name" size="30" class="<?php echo $nameError ?>" value="<?php echo @ $_POST['name'] ?>" /><br />
	<label for="email"><strong>Email Address</strong> (must be a valid email address)</label><br />
	<input type="text" name="email" id="email" size="30" class="<?php echo $emailError ?>" value="<?php echo @ $_POST['email'] ?>" />
	<br />
	<input type="hidden" name="formSubmitted" id="formSubmitted" value="true" />
	<input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>

There you are, both Javascript and PHP error checking! See the complete source code here.

This was until I saw for myself number 4… FOUR! Thats 4 stores within one mile walk of each other.

Never again will I step foot inside a Tesco’s store. Never.

However to my disgust with adblock plus disabled I was confronted with the following:

I think eBay should be ashamed of themselves. They have completely compromised their site by selling out to ads and lets face it – it’s not exactly like they are short of money! I knew eBay had ads but this is getting silly.

(I have expanded upon these lists which I found useful)

• Php|architect’s Guide to E-Commerce Programming with Magento
• Designer’s Guide to Magento – The most solid of Magento’s documentation, though it might take a few reads before things become clear! (pdf version)
• The Magento API
• Magento Screencasts
• Designing for Magento Webinar – worth watching the wmv file as much better quality
• Magento Wiki – out dated but some handy concepts
• Ohminu forum post – the lead designer breaks things down for newbies
• Magento Folder Structure
• Changing Text – using the Locale File
• Builing Blocks – more handy hints from the lead designer
• Screencast on creating themes – a very brief introduction to creating a new theme
• Video’s and other resources from php | architect