Hurricane Katrina

A MonsterCommerce client, on the MonsterSmallBusiness Forums, added one of the most heart warming post amidst heated discussion about the recent Hurricane Katrina and the treatment of FEMA and other criticism of the government within the media.

I've been really busy lately, but wanted to take time to throw some hopefully heartwarming insight into this discussion.

Our wholesale company relies on the gulf coast for a large part of our market. Many of our suppliers are from areas along the gulf coast as well. I was deeply moved by the response after Ivan from all of our customers (and even competitors) who offered to truck down generators and supplies to us. We received a generator from Texas and one from Pennsylvania.

After Katrina hit our friends to the west, missing us (if 90 mph winds are a miss), we felt compelled to help out in return. We sent 2 of our delivery trucks over to Long Beach with goods gathered from several local churches (the outpouring has been really amazing considering that some of these folks don't even have their own homes rebuilt yet). Our drivers stayed and worked out the rest of the day helping to hand out toothpaste, baby formula, feminine products, cans of veggies, and more. They were then given the opportunity by the National Guard and military to help unload helicopters bringing in other supplies. The scene was both somber and uplifting at the same time. Its a feeling thats hard to describe without going through something similar.

They described the handout procedures to be very well organized and obviously well received.

I can tell you from experience that the most immediate and most heartwarming assistance from Ivan came from those surrounding us, even those living right amidst the devastation. I have seen folks helping to tear out drywall from a friends house, when you ask them how they fared, they tell you, 'oh, my house is gone, so there's nothing to work on there.' By the way, the most common greeting for a year after this type of storm is 'How did you do?'

Now, what I'm about to type is not a shot at FEMA (I dont believe that talk of that type is in the least bit constructive to the people without a home right now), but we experienced a realization from Ivan that FEMA is there to collect funds for generators purchased, kick in the extra $5,000 toward home repair that wasnt covered by insurance, help pass out blue tarps from the Albertson's parking lot. They were not there pulling people from buildings or rescuing neighbors who clung to a tree during the night praying for survival. The real heroics were performed by your everyday average neighbor. I dont know all of the stories from Biloxi, or Gulfport, or New Orleans, but Im sure they will be similar to, if not eclipse some of what we witnessed. One neighbor went out into chest deep flowing water in the middle of the night becasue he new a woman was staying in her home next door and would likely have difficulty surviving if the water were any higher. He was able to get a lifejacket from a boat that was slamming against the side of his house and make it to her place and save her life that night.

It is the individual person that defines our nation. Its not the current government officials, its not the current head of FEMA, its not the current Chief of Police, its the guy that lived quietly next door to you all of his life, who when faced with a sitaution so extreme it would test anyone, and suddenly, without any precept or false agenda, becomes a hero to one elderly lady, or a young child next door.

So, when I read that our counrtry is floundering, I think, you need to open your eyes to the folks around you. Ive never seen more heroism or caring for one's fellow man than Ive seen over the last year and am seeing in response to this storm. Lets just please stop the poitical rhetoric for a while and talk about what matters to those who will soon be browsing through water stained belongings and then piling them up on the roadside for the weekly FEMA trucks. Its a sight I dont ever want to see again and am full of sorrow for those who dont even have a clue as to what they are about to go through over the next year or so. The worst is down the road. And when the news stops focusing on things in New Orleans so much and well-meaning friend from the north call and ask, 'things back to normal now?', thats when they will need the full support of everyone else in the nation who may be focused on the next national crisis.

If you haven't given, please donate to a reputable charity, if you can't afford to donate, pray fo rall of those impacted, pray for your local government, pray for our national leaders. Pray for those impacetd by the storm, that they have the wisdom to see God's will for their lives and the courage and strength to walk in it.

Google Mini Enterprise

MonsterCommerce listed on the Google Mini Enterprise Map page, along with a quote from Ryan Noble, President of MC.
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MonsterMarketplace.com Home Page

Yesterday, the MonsterMarketplace home page was updated. Congratulations to Chris S. and the entire MMP team for the great work. The new design was stripped down to have a clean form and drive customers into the search feature.
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Odeo: MonsterCommerce TownHall Meeting Pt. 1

Channel: WebmasterRadio.FM Combined Show Podcast

Length: 50:46

Uploaded: 92 days ago

More info: http://www.webmasterradio.fm

Show mp3: available for download

Number of Downloads: 0

OdeoRank: Unranked

Description: Pt. 1 A light overiview of MonsterCommerce from its inception to present. Included in this overview are some of the products and services currently being offered and supported by MonsterCommerce.

Read more here

CSS Tricks

Here are some Cascading Style Sheet tricks that can be used to good effect in the MonsterCommerce software. You don't have to be familiar with CSS or HTML in order to use all of these, but it will help.

Border Around Product Thumbnails

Some clients have requested the ability to put small grey boxes around each product thumbnail. Whereas there is no setting that can do this in the admin panel (yet), if you add the following lines of code to your 'custom.css' file from the file manager -

/* Border around product thumbnails */
table.prodvieweven td {border-color: grey; border-style: solid;border-width: 1px;}
table.prodviewodd td {border-color: grey; border-style: solid;border-width: 1px;}
- OR add the following to Site HTML > Top of Page HTML Editor -
<!-- Border around product thumbnails -->
<style type="text/css">
table.prodvieweven td {border-color: grey; border-style: solid;border-width: 1px;}
table.prodviewodd td {border-color: grey; border-style: solid;border-width: 1px;}
</style>
- then this will add a solid grey border around each product thumbnail on a category or search page. If you want, you can alternate colors OR leave off one of the lines to have the borders alternate.

Horizontal Category List

This one is an interesting trick which requires the use of CSS and MonsterCommerce proprietary function calls. Some clients have asked for a way to take the Main Category list Horizontal as opposed to Vertical. This is difficult to do without manually coding it, since the cart generates each category in it's own HTML 'paragraph' tag (<p>), which usually adds a new line after each paragraph. However, if you use the following code, with display: inline; applied, then these do not wrap to the new line. If you were to put the following into your top of page or bottom of page editors, then this will put the full list of main categories in a Horizontal list across the full width of the table, at which point it will wrap to another line if you have that many. Add the following to your 'custom.css' file -
/* Horizontal Category List */
#horiz p {display: inline; padding-right: 15px;}
- or add this to your Site HTML > Top of Page Editor -
<!-- Horizontal Category List -->
<style type="text/css">
#horiz p {display: inline; padding-right: 15px;}
</style>
- and then add this code at some point BELOW it -
<table id="horiz">
<tr>
<td><%DRAWCATEGORIES%></td>
</tr>
</table>
- you will have Horizontal category lists! Feel free to adjust the amount of padding-right: as you see fit.

Arrows in front of Categories

The category list does not have little arrows or widgets in front of each category name and this has led some clients to manually add this character to each category name or use other tricks to get it into place, but the following use of CSS and MC function calls will accomplish it much faster. Add the following to your 'custom.css' file -
/* Arrows in front of Categories */
#arrows p {
padding-left: 11px;
background-image: url(images/arrow.gif);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-position: center left;
}
- or add this to your Site HTML > Top of Page Editor, as usual -
<!-- Arrows in front of Categories -->
<style type="text/css">
#arrows p {
padding-left: 11px;
background-image: url(images/arrow.gif);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-position: center left;
}
</style>
- and then add this where you want your category list to appear -
<table id="arrows">
<tr>
<td><%DRAWCATEGORIES%></td>
</tr>
</table>
- and you will see the small arrows that are already included in your /images folder centered to the left of each category name. Feel free to modify the style information to a different image. If you use a different size image (the provided one is 11 x 9) you may also want to adjust the padding-left: to make more space if it is larger.

Fair warning should go out at this point to everyone that some browsers interpret different CSS rules and applications in different ways, but this is always true even with straight HTML, so feel free to try these out in a custom page and then see how you might want to use them in your site. I hope this helps!