South Africa groups.drupal.org

Perceptum Thought Squad Ubercart Experienced Freelancer / Company Sepcialists Employment type:  Contract Telecommute:  Allowed

I have a client who is looking to get some comparative costing, timing, specifications for quite a large e-commerce site. There is an initial instance of the site live and running - and this is a rebuild to incorporate new features and to take the site to the next level.

I've suggested that they take a look at Ubercart, and we are looking for resources who have solid experience in Ubercart specifically that can initially weigh in on the planning, and then ultimately do / help do the development of the actual site.

Companies / Freelancers who are interested in discussing this can contact us on info@perceptum.biz

If you are located in Cape Town that would be first prize, but we are willing to chat to people in other Cities as well. Being in South Africa is a necessity however.

South Africa

I'm so frustrated with trying to get information from PayPal and FNB. Can anyone please answer a few questions for me regarding PayPal as a payment means on a South African eCommerce site, geared toward servicing a South African market?

As far as I've gathered, one has to convert rands to USD when you're interfacing with PayPal. Does PayPal not provide some conversion means? It would mean a bit of work on my part, to create the conversion in the Ubercart PayPal module before handing the USD price to PayPal. This also might not be the rate that PayPal is using to convert and might cause inaccuracies and won't be great for customer or shop owner.

I was told by the FNB PayPal helpdesk that the site won't be able to accept credit card payment from South Africans! I know it sounds ridiculous, and I was astounded, but I need to clear this up - is this true?

Contact with PayPal has hit a dead-end on the mail front, as I need to use their online form which has a very short question space & I need to fish around for their international number, because the support mail has USA(?) local telephone numbers. Overall I'm not very impressed with the information given online by either company.

Please if someone has hit this wall before and knows the answers or can shed any light on this, it would be great.

Going to find that number and call PayPal right away.

South Africa

Perceptum Thought Squad Intermediate PHP Developer Employment type:  Full time Employment type:  Contract Telecommute:  Not allowed

PERCEPTUM THOUGHT SQUAD is looking for a Cape Town Based PHP developer to join us!

2-3 years LAMP experience is essential. We are looking for a solid coder with a decent record of getting web applications built and tested. If you have a degree in computer science (or related) - that is a bonus, but it is not essential.

We build web-applications for companies across a variety of industries. Our focus is on the "smart-internals" of the application, and we partner with designers and UI developers to delivery efficient and good looking software solutions.

Our team is small, so you will be in an environment where your input is highly valued and you will see the effects of your contributions directly.

See more @ http://www.perceptum.biz/we-are-hiring

http://www.perceptum.biz/we-are-hiring South Africa

Start:  2010-09-08 18:30 - 20:30 Africa/Johannesburg User group meeting Organizers:  Gomez_in_the_South

The next Drupal Johannesburg meetup will be held on Wednesday the 8th of September 2010 at The Campus (In the Ferrari room, Le Mans Building, 57 Sloane Street Bryanston). The event will start promptly at 18h30.

Topics include:
- the recent DrupalCon event in Copenhagen
- a brief introduction to the Features module
- a site showcase or two (if you've worked on an interesting project in the last month, let me know and I'll give you a slot)

For more details and to sign up, see:
http://drupal.co.za/content/joburg-drupal-meetup-8-september-2010

South Africa

Hey guys mind posting the name of hosting companies you have used in the past and that you have found to be compatible with drupal.

I recently tried gridhost but they do not support clean urls so i will have to move my site to another host. Lets make this a general discussion about great SA hosting companies for drupal sites.

South Africa

Start:  2010-08-25 19:00 - 21:30 Africa/Johannesburg User group meeting Organizers:  theamoeba mwmentor

Please note that there will be a Drupal User Cape Town meeting on the 25th.

• Date: Wednesday 25, August 2010
• Time: 19:00 - 21:30
• Place: 16 Mill Street Cape Town
• Google map: http://maps.google.com/maps/mm?ie=UTF8&hl=en&ll=-33.934041,18.416857&spn...
• Google streetview: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=16+Mill+Stre...

• 19:00 - General chatter
• 19:30 - Round table introductions
• 19:45 - Presentation: Jonathan Wagener, Building a Drupal site (from download to release)
• 20:30 - Community build/design of Drupal Users Cape Town website

Catering:
Pizza (Please bring R50 to cover the cost)
Drinks are free :)

South Africa

Start:  2010-07-28 19:00 - 21:30 Africa/Johannesburg User group meeting Organizers:  theamoeba mwmentor

Please note that there will be a Drupal User Cape Town meeting on the 28th.

• Date: Wednesday 28, July 2010
• Time: 19:00 - 21:30
• Place: 16 Mill Street Cape Town
  • Google map: http://maps.google.com/maps/mm?ie=UTF8&hl=en&ll=-33.934041,18.416857&spn...
  • Google streetview: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=16+Mill+Stre...

• 19:00 - General chatter
• 19:30 - Round table introductions
• 19:45 - First Presentation: Michael Wagener, Crowd Corporation
• 20:15 - Second Presentation: Marius de Beer, Agile Project Management
• 20:45 - General chatter

Catering:
Would everyone be happy to stick say R50 into a box after the meeting to cover food expenses?
The beers are free.

South Africa

Hi guys

Just wondering if anyone has had any experience with the contact_attach module?
http://drupal.org/project/contact_attach

I'm using it for a site where people can attach their CV to the contact form when applying for a job.
It works great on the standard/users contact forms, but not on a cck generated "Email Contact Form"

I've posted on the Drupal site (http://drupal.org/node/845180) but haven't had a reply yet, so was hoping I could see if anyone in the local community could help out.

Thanks in advance

Inky

South Africa

Hi SA drupallers!

Would you like your drupal questions answered by community experts? Then read this post - it'll tell you the best way to get answers.

1. Firstly, if you really want good answers, learn how to ask good questions. I thought I knew how to ask good tech-related questions until I read this: http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html Then I realised that I did know how to ask good questions, and now I knew how to ask much better questions. That's helped me on irc and on support forums. You basically want to ask your question like this:

   "I'm trying to achieve [A]. I thought the best way to do this was to [B]. I read the documentation and it said to do [X]. I did it, I expected to see [Y] but actually saw [Z]. What am I doing wrong?"

   Out there some drupal genius (like me! lol) reads this question. And immediately knows a few things:

   1. The outcome that you're trying to achieve. Knowing this, we may have a better suggestion instead of [B] and thereby solve your problem.
   2. You're already thinking - because of [B]. Whohoo! We know that you're someone who is thinking how to do something which will achieve your outcome. Tech geniuses would rather answer questions from people who are willing to do their own thinking.
   3. You read documentation - double points. It means you're not asking someone else to do all the hard work. Plus you're learning new stuff. Both good pointers, and you're more likely to get helped.
   4. When you did [X] you've told us what you expected to see when you tried [X]. That means you're thinking. Then you say that instead of [Y] you saw something else - [Z]. Awesome - that's valuable information.

   Questions like, "Help, my website is broken!" or "Views isn't working" or "Taxonomy isn't linking properly" will get you ignored almost 100% of the time.

2. Read the documentation. Yes, RTFM applies - always. There's a reason documentation is written - and if it's out of date, update it yourself!
3. Maybe someone else has already asked your question. Search drupal.org via google (go to google.com and type "site:drupal.org terms related to your problem"). If nothing shows up, search the internet. If nothing shows up, time to ask your question!
4. Ask your question in the right channels. Those would be the forums on drupal.org or the issue queue for the module you're having a problem with. Or figure out how to join #drupal on irc. Please don't ask your question in http://groups.drupal.org/south-africa because this is for location-specific activities, and there may be other people on drupal.org who'd also like to know the answer to your question (plus, your question on the drupal forums is searchable, so in a month someone else may have the same problem you're having and also wants to know the solution - be kind and place your question somewhere they can find it!).
5. If you're going to post a question in the issue queue, first read the Troubleshooting FAQ. If you're having a problem with your Drupal site, you're almost certainly not alone. Your questions may already have been asked and answered many times. Save yourself some time and start with this list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) before you post an issue in the queue.
6. Don't be a support leech. Play nicely! And learn how to be part of a community, particularly a self-organising one.
7. Lastly, read this post and follow all of this advice! It will transform you into the kind of person whom other people enjoy helping, and take you one step closer to being Certified to Rock! And if someone does something which violates any of these guidelines, gently point them to this post.

South Africa

Start:  2010-06-30 18:30 - 21:00 Africa/Johannesburg User group meeting Organizers:  theamoeba * Venue: 3rd Floor, 16 Mill Street, Gardens, Cape Town. (It's above FNB on the opposite side) * Date: Wednesday 30th June 2010 * Time: 18:30 (for 19:00) - 21:00

There is space for two 30 minutes presentations during the meeting. If you would like to do a presentation please email me about it with a sample of the content. (You can do slides etc).

My email address jonathanw@amoebasys.com or phone/sms me on 0729280513.

If you need to contact me please use the above details.

South Africa

A client's website was having problems with all user uploaded images being broken. It turns out a configuration change on his server with Afrihost was conflicting with the .htaccess directive Drupal automatically adds in the /sites/default/files folder.

If you're hosting a Drupal site with Afrihost you may want to check that files in this folder are still accessible.

If you are having the same problem, look at the solution posted in this thread: http://drupal.org/node/431310#comment-2952776 (although I'm still checking if there is a security risk associated with this solution).

George

South Africa

Spring Digital Drupal Developer Employment type:  Full time Employment type:  Contract Telecommute:  Allowed

Spring Digital (www.springdigital.co.uk) is a busy London digital agency. We are looking for bright, innovative, motivated and charming Drupal/PHP developers to work on immediate projects.

Email me for more info or go to our recruitment site to take a short test and upload your CV/contact details

Cheers

Rosa

rosa@itlab.com

http://jobs.itlab.com London

Spring Digital Drupal developer Employment type:  Full time Telecommute:  Allowed

So here’s the deal… if you are the most driven, ambitious, enthused, charming and downright brilliant Drupal Developer out there, we’ll give you a great job in a cool office, pay you a good salary and give you endless self-development opportunities.

The Big Ideas Group is a London-based group of companies, this includes IT Lab, IT support and services for UK based SMEs; Spring Digital, a full-service digital agency; Artemis 8 a team of results-focused search marketing specialists and website creators; CloudLab a cloud-based shared and dedicated hosting business; and LinkLab a internet service provided started by IT Lab. Across the group we boast a line-up of very clever minds, innovative thinkers and dynamic go-getters, including engineers, project managers, analysts, web designers, coders and copywriters. Being the best means having the best people, and getting the best people means being the best place to work. We have a presence in Cape Town and are looking to expand operations in SA.

What Does a Drupal Developer do?
• You will be a dynamic, ambitious and enthusiastic developer with significant development experience in building websites and webapps in the digital/online industry.
• You will have a strong appreciation/understanding of websites, and website development.
• You will have excellent organisation and time management skills.
• You will be self-motivated, organised and diligent, with a strong sense of responsibility.
• You will evaluate the technical requirements of projects to help provide accurate quotations
• You will co-ordinate with other developers in the team to create reliable, scalable and flexible web applications
• You will be responsible for understanding the goals of the client and the website we are building
• Understanding the importance of maintaining web standards and security, your work will conform to industry best-practices.
• You will be responsible for managing data and applications that are critical to our client’s business’ so you must have a solid understanding of server configuration and database management.
• In order to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving industry you will research and evaluate new technologies.
• You will work with the various supporting technology software and tools provided to help deliver your projects
• You will have strong organisational and analytical skills and a very good eye for detail, to be able to identify and act on opportunities

“I’m a Drupal Developer and I just LOVE…”
• The internet and everything it stands for
• Creating applications that work fast and never break
• Maintaining my library of super-lean functions
• Learning about the latest techno-geekery

So, Am I Right for the Job?
If you can tick the boxes below, we really ought to talk…
• The Dupal Developer MUST have at least three years experience of delivering Drupal & PHP-based web applications.
• Ajax experience desired but not essential.
• Excellent technical knowledge and a complete understanding of the software development process.
• Expertise in relational database design, optimisation and maintenance.
• Excellent time management skills and extraordinary levels of common sense
• Ability to work under pressure to very tight deadlines, with a strong focus on achieving results. Works without supervision and strives to better targets/objectives. Is willing to put in the necessary hours to achieve results.
• Pro-active in approach to changing business priorities and flexible in adapting decisions and actions

We have positions available immediately. To apply please follow the link to itlab.jobs.com to submit your CV and take an online test. This is a real job, not an agency!

http://jobs.itlab.com South Africa

Start:  2010-06-02 18:30 Africa/Johannesburg User group meeting Organizers:  Gomez_in_the_South

The next Drupal Johannesburg meetup will be held on Wednesday the 2nd of June 2010 (our usual first Wednesday of every month slot), at The Campus (In the Ferrari room, Le Mans Building, 57 Sloane Street Bryanston. The event will start promptly at 18h30.

For more details and to sign up, see:
http://drupal.co.za/content/drupal-johannesburg-meetup-2-june-2010-1830-...

South Africa

In response to several posts in this group.

Telamenta is a South African based Drupal Company. We are 2 1/2 years old. I have many years experience in coding and project management. We have worked very hard over the last 2 years to optimize our quoting for clients. I play the role of scrum master and lead developer in the company. We use the following methodologies and tools.

Scrum
For agile development we use Scrum as a methodology.
Why?:

• It helps us make give accurate quotes for our clients.
• Low overhead ito documentation.
• Effective in keeping a project on track.

Mockups
We love using Balsamiq Mockup
Why?:

• It's fast
• It's easy to use
• We love the cartoon layout.

Scrum Tool
The best and most affordable online scrum tool is definitely Banana Scrum I spent many many hours researching for a easy to use scrum tool that would not cost us an arm and a leg. Most scrum tools are ridiculously expensive.
Why?:

• It's affordable
• It's easy to use
• We can track our project in enough detail, but not so much that the management overhead becomes unbearable.

Support Tickets
Atrium of course!
Why?:

• It's free!
• It's Drupal
• Easy to use and simple.

We favor tools and methodologies that are low cost and simple to use. The more complex the tool the more management overhead you create.
I hope people find this useful. Hmmm maybe I should do a BOF session at DrupalCon Copenhagen.

Project Management

Hi guys
I've got two burning issues I could use some help on:

1)
I'm only just starting to use views arguments properly just recently, and having a battle with it.

What my client wants:
A page that presents a house type with tabs for Specifications | Floor Plans | Gallery images | Realtime model, perhaps another.
example: http://www.zenspaces.co.za/design/kiku2

I'm using Slider to package the various pages together.
Specifications is a node type with cck fields.
I've tried using galleria for the Floor Plans and Gallery Images, but for some reason they don't like being put together in one slider.
I'm now wanting to use Views Slideshow instead, where you create an image, tag it, and on slider-x, only gallery images with taxonomy-x show up.

The view is built up with filter = node type (image_gallery)
Fields = image, body
Then I need to pass an argument that picks up the slider's taxonomy and loads the images that have the same tag.

Any ideas?

2)
The other problem is for the same client, although something I've wanted to get working for ages:
How to embed a TurnTool scene into a Drupal page.

TurnTool is the realtime platform I use for 3d walkthroughs. It's based on an ActiveX controller (or something).
You can check an example here: http://www.inky3d.com/2010/HouseKiku_V4/inky3d.html
and download all the files here: http://www.inky3d.com/2010/01_HouseKiku.rar if you want to have a look at the back end

Note: it only works in IE

If anyone can help me out here I'll buy a few beers!!

Basically my client wants the projects to look similar to this site: http://www.m2.dk/M2_Concept/twin%20house/om%20huset.aspx

Thanks!
Inky

South Africa