9seeds

Building Custom WordPress Solutions | Plugin Development

 

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New plugin: Authorize.net SIM Gateway for WP e-Commerce

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A while back we released the WP Affiliate Manager plugin which integrates directly in to the WP e-Commerce plugin to allow you to easily track and pay affiliates for driving traffic to your site. We have since been keeping an eye on the WP e-Commerce community and when we saw the opportunity to help with another plugin, we jumped at the chance.

Today we released a new payment gateway for WP e-Commerce: Authorize.net Server Integration Method, or SIM for short. From the Authorize.net website:

SIM provides a customizable, secure hosted payment form to make integration easy for Web merchants that do not have an SSL certificate.

WP e-Commerce has a wide range of payment gateway options available, and we’re happy to help expand their reach by giving users one more option to choose from.

If you are interested in reading more about how Authorize.net’s SIM works, you can check out the developer center at Authorize.net.

The plugin is available now and is compatible with the new 3.8.9.x software.

Some handy tools from the Community Summit

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A few weeks back I had the great privilege of attending the WordPress Community Summit. Rather than renting a hotel room by myself, instead I rented a house with 4 other Community Summit attendees; Ryan Imel, Brad Williams, Brandon Dove and Dre Armeda. Not exactly bad company to keep. We figured staying in the same house would help keep costs down and would also be a lot of fun. What we hadn’t really planned on was some of the great knowledge sharing that took place.

One afternoon while we were hanging out in the house, we started talking about some of the handy tools we all use. As the conversation went on, Ryan had the quick sense to open up a Google doc and start taking notes. Below is the list of handy tools we came up with.

Keep in mind, these lists are definitely not all inclusive. We know there are many other text editors and cool apps out there. But these are the ones that are top of mind that day.

Text editors

Mac Apps

  • Alfred – Easily launch applications, sites and perform several other tricks
  • CoBook – Amazingly easy and simple CRM tool
  • Spirited Away – Hides apps after a set amount of idle time
  • Hazel – Simple automation tool for dealing with files
  • Total Terminal – Formally called Visor, a system wide hotkey for terminal
  • Droplr – Easy screenshot/text file uploader for sharing
  • TypeIt4Me – Text expander

Custom Searches for Alfred

  • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search.php?q={query}
    Search the WordPress plugin repo
  • http://wordpress.org/search/_Reference+{query}
    Search wordpress.org for functions, actions, filters, etc
  • http://demo.studiopress.com/{query}
    Quickly load any StudioPress theme demo site

If you’ve got another tool to add to the list, drop it in the comments.

2011 Holiday Schedule

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The holiday season is upon us. It’s time to go hang out with friends and family and look back on an amazing year.

December 14th will be our last full day in the office this year. We will be back at our desks digging out from under a mountain of email on January 2nd.

Have a terrific holiday and we look forward to working with you in 2012.

Cheers!

Client Spotlight: The Chrysalis Corporation

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Most of the time companies go out of their way to tell you all about the HUGE projects they’ve completed. Heck, we’ve done it ourselves. But the smaller projects come and go without much fanfare. We intend to change that with a new series of posts highlighting some projects that we’ve done where they may not have been big projects, but for the client, the end result was just what they needed.

A few months back we got a call from Michael Spremulli from the Chrysalis Corporation, a service provider of pre-employment assessment solutions. The former Chrysalis Corporation website was comprised of static HTML pages that were becoming increasingly cumbersome for him to update and maintain. Although Mike was brand new to WordPress, he knew that he wanted to take his website in that direction, and that’s where 9seeds entered the picture.

Mike came to the table already armed with a vision for the new Chrysalis site. Based on his needs, we took an existing StudioPress theme on the Genesis framework – the Enterprise child theme, to be exact – and made some custom design changes to match what Mike was looking for. On top of that, we created some custom post types to allow him to easily add new assessments. To ensure Mike would be comfortable with his new WordPress back-end, we provided him with a bit of training, and walked him though all the steps he needed to update and maintain the site.

In the end, the newly-converted Chrysalis website went live and is working well for Mike. He likes the SEO-friendly aspect of his WordPress site, and is thrilled with the ease of updating content without having to contact a developer. As it turns out, he’s received a consistent string of compliments from his existing clients about the changes and is also converting leads better than his old site did. It’s definitely the kind of turnout we like to hear!

Getting kudos from clients we work with is always very much appreciated, so you can imagine how flattered we were to see this video review that Mike made about our services. It was quite a nice gesture to mark the implementation of another 9seeds project. We’re just glad that he’s happy with the end result.

Thanks for your kind words, Mike!

Digital World Expo – Digital Startup Speaker Series

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We are proud to announce our involvement with a new event coming to Las Vegas, Digital World Expo! From their site:

Digital World Expo debuts an annual forum for professional education in all forms of interactive marketing, media, communications and advertising. Attendees will learn, train and build awareness of technology application in media and what’s to come. Four areas are presented to meet the needs of today’s media professionals in digital advertising, marketing, public relations, development and strategy.

DWE will take place at the Mirage Event Center here in Las Vegas and will contain 30+ classes on all aspects of online marketing. The classes are going to be less about being a simple presentation and more about actual “Next Steps” that attendees can take action on when they return to the office. One of the courses will be lead by 9seeds’ John Hawkins who will be talking about… you guessed it, WordPress.

9seeds will also be involved in something we find really cool, The Digital Startup Speaker Series. In short, the DSSS will give startups 10 minutes on stage to show off their product or service to a room full of decision makers. Best of all, there is no cost to the startups!

If you are part of a startup and want to register for one of the 24 available time slots, complete the online registration form here.

With an expected attendance of 500-700 people at DWE, this is going to be a great opportunity for some startups to jump-start their project. We are very excited to be a part of it and hope you will come check out the event.