Technology Insights

Only Use Magento English Store, Disable German And French Magento Sites

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I typically use Zen Cart however a client of mine requires Magento e-commerce software for a project I am working on for them. I will likely be writing a lot of articles regarding Magento in the future since it is a fairly complex piece of e-commerce software since I am new to this e-commerce software. The first article is about disabling other languages which in my case will include disabling the Magento French and German stores however the same concept would apply if you want to disable the English site and either the German or French site. Follow the directions below to remove the language drop down and only use one of the three initially installed Magento stores.

Technology Insights

Change Background Display On Polycom SoundPoint SIP Phones

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Another task I recently completed for a client of mine was to modify the background image for Polycom SoundPoint SIP phones connecting to the companies VoIP network externally. Depending on the model of the Polycom SoundPoint you can modify the background image that displays on the LCD panel using a URL. In this case the phone type was a Polycom SoundPoint 550 and he phones connecting via an external network were not displaying the background image that was set for phones on the internal network. Below is information on where you can find where the background image is set and an example configuration file that explains what could be changed to have different phones locate the background image on the Polycom SoundPoint SIP phones also known as the home display.

Technology Errors

HP/Compaq System Configuration Error (code purple) Windows Vista

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I am not sure how I have been lucky enough never to encounter the HP/Compaq booby trap but until today I was so fortunate. Apparently HP Tattoos a number in the bios of their motherboards so that when you try to use the factory recovery, it checks to make sure the stock motherboard is in place. If it is not in place you get the following error:

Your system has detected a configuration error. Please report this error to Customer Care using the phone number found in the Warranty and Support Guide that came with your PC. Unless corrected, this error will prevent your PC from operating properly. Turn off your PC by pressing and holding the Power button. After a few seconds your PC will automatically turn off. (Code Purple)

I mean seriously? HP does not want you to be able to change the motherboard in their PC’s. I am guessing this is some idiots solutions to piracy somehow but in any case I will stop complaining and get to the solution.

Technology Errors

Yum Error: Package curl-7.20.0-1.i386.rpm is not signed, Install A Yum Package That Is Not Signed

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Today I have been working on a project for work that involved accessing FTPS using curl. I needed the curl –libcurl switch which is not available in curl 7.15 so I needed to upgrade curl on the CentOS server I was working on. The problem is that there are not any repos with newer versions of curl available so then I set out to create my own curl RPM package. I was able to do this while learning many things along the way such as signing RPM packages. The first revision of my curl RPM package was not signed but I wanted to go ahead and install it anyway so below I explain installing unsigned RPM packages using yum.

Technology Insights

Import Microsoft Outlook Express Contacts Into Yahoo Mail

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A client of mine still has a computer running Microsoft Outlook Express and they wanted me to import the address book contacts into their Yahoo Mail account. At first I was a little worried that Yahoo Mail may no longer support the format of Outlook Express address book contacts but then I remembered that you can export contacts into a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file which means I could manipulate the data if it was not supported. Yahoo Mail says that it supports import from Outlook but it doesn’t specify Outlook Express. I assume the format between Outlook and Outlook Express must be similar because Yahoo Mail did import the exported contacts from Outlook Express. Below I describe how to export Outlook Express contacts and then import those contacts into Yahoo Mail. Follow the instructions below that are broken into two parts which include exporting the contacts using Outlook Express and then importing the contacts using the Yahoo Mail web interface.