This happens because there’s no way in CSS to know the space between the top of the footer and the bottom of the window, otherwise we’d be able to scale the footer area’s height to compensate.

Instead we can apply the fix with this code:

html, body{
    height: 100%
}
.site-container{
    overflow: hidden;
    min-height: 100%;
    min-width: 960px;
}
.footer{
    padding-bottom: 32000px;
    margin-bottom: -32000px;
}

We are adding a large padding to the bottom of the footer to extend the background, then we bring up the bottom margin by using a negative value so the DIV’s space effectively ends where it did before the padding relative to the DOM elements around it.

The site-container has an overflow to hide the overflowing footer padding and stop the vertical scrollbars. However to stop the container cropping too far up the page we set it’s min-height to be 100% so the earliest the footer will be cropped is the bottom of the window unless the content is larger than the window size.

In CSS you can’t normally use 100% for a min-height (or height) so to fix this you need to add a 100% height to the html and body element. This quirky code will fix that for you.

It’s worth noting that I’ve also added a min-width to the site-container, this should be your site’s width. It will ensure that we still get horizontal scrollbars when we scale down the browser while we have the ‘overflow: hidden’ set.

Of course you can fix these issues by having all your backgrounds in one graphic that sits behind your site, but you have issues with scalability and large graphic images. A better solution is possible; with a bit of understanding you’ll have this down in no time:

.LeftColumn,
.RightColumn{
    float: left;
    width: 200px;
    padding-bottom: 30000px;
    margin-bottom: -30000px;
}
.RightColumn{
    width: 400px;
} 

Make sure your 2 columns are floated next to each other in a container. As you see in the above code, I’ve added 30,000px extra padding to the bottom of both columns to extend them for as much as we’ll need down the page. The negative margins will stop their Container from being pushed down in height.

The columns’ backgrounds will still show below the Container so the overflow hidden style on the container will fix this. As long as the Container does not have a fixed height set, it will not clip your content:

.Container{
width: 600px;
margin: 0 auto;
overflow: hidden;
}

Click here for a demo with source code

A simple site causing unwanted scrollbars

You have just designed a complex layout and have started implementing it on the web, but some layered elements that stick out over the right-hand side of the page creating horizontal scrollbars at the bottom of the page.

The CSS property overflow-x allows us to hide content that overflows its container on the horizontal axis. A quick and dirty fix for our problem would be to add this to our body tag:

body{
    overflow-x: hidden;
}

The website now hiding the horizontal scrollbar

The problem with this is that when we resize our browser down so far that our main article content gets obscured, the scrollbars are still gone and users can’t read your content.

The solution is to wrap your site in a DIV that you can allow to go full width. Put the overflow property on this element with a min-width of your site’s main width:

.Container{
overflow-x: hidden;
min-width: 900px;
position: relative; /* IE7 */
}

The DIV goes as wide as the BODY tag and as thin as your site’s content boundaries. The special elements outside this DIV will be clipped.

Click here for a Demo with example code

The web host I was using was NearlyFreeSpeech, they are a web host that charge you based on what you use as opposed to a monthly fee which can drive down costs dramatically, I suggest you check them out.

NearlyFreeSpeech have a great blog post that outlines how their permissions and security work on their server. You can find the article here.

The main points to note from the article are:

• The files you upload are owned by a user called ‘me’ and a group called ‘me’. The user that the webserver runs under belongs in a group called ‘web’.
• Your FTP user is the ‘me’ user, all files and folders are set to read, write and execute for the user, which makes sense because you want to be able to manage your files via FTP.
• The webserver user or its ‘web’ group don’t own your files so it has to fall back on the permissions for other/everyone as to whether it can read/write/execute. We can’t set these permissions to write for security reasons.
• By changing the group owner of your files to ‘web’ the webserver’s user will follow the group permissions, which can have the write permission.
• Nearlyfreespeech uses safe_mode in php and with that you are restricted to the directories you can manipulate because of open_basedir. We will have to prevent WordPress using the /tmp directory which is outside of the /public folder on NearlyFreeSpeech.

The only thing to note is that newly added files are not automatically added to the web group, so its possible you will need to set the group owner again for your files, but this is now just a single command.

It may be in the future that developing for the web becomes practically obsolete. It makes sense that you should be able to design for the web without code. It’s not often that you find people that can master both design and development.

Why should designers need to learn HTML or CSS? Designers lay out visually for print design in software such as Adobe InDesign, yet it comes to lay out a web design you are confronted with code. Even software such as Adobe Dreamweaver really doesn’t lend itself to designers and you find that your result does not work correctly on all platforms; you are required to learn to code to fix browser consistencies.

Here is the lowdown on Adobe’s new products:

Adobe Muse

This is the big one. Adobe Muse is a joy to look at; immediately after opening it you can compare it to InDesign. Simply drag elements on the page where you want them to be, it’s that simple. Click preview and you can test your new website immediately.

But how well does it work with how the web works?
As soon as you create a new document you are presented with options such as Page Width, Min Height, yes pages are scalable, Centre Horizontally and Columns.

In Plan view you can create a site structure with ease, it’s drag and drop! You also have master pages, create your layout on the master page and every new page you add automatically has the layout you want that you can change in a flash!

In Design view you can drag and drop numerous widgets on to the page, among them are Navigational Menus. Menus added to the page can automatically reflect the site’s structure with drop-out hover events if necessary.

It seems like everything has been thought of, but time will tell as users test out Adobe’s latest product.
You can download a beta version of Adobe Muse

Adobe Edge

Edge meaning cutting edge? If Muse was the InDesign of the web, Edge could well be the After Effects. Essentially mimicing Flash with support for the latest web technologies, you can create animated areas for your website without code and support the latest HTML5 web standards. This means that designers can easily create animations for the latest web browsers without users needing a plugin such as Flash Player to run them.

This is a great step for Adobe as Flash is slowly losing its place, part of it down to Flash Player not being available for Apple’s mobile and tablet devices.

You can download a preview version of Adobe Edge

The real question these products make us ask..
Are these product the designer’s saviour, or are Adobe trying hard to fix what has to stay as a code-oriented industry?

For Magento version 1.5.0.1:

SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_order`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_order_address`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_order_grid`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_order_item`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_order_status_history`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_address`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_address_item`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_item`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_item_option`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_order_payment`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_payment`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_shipment`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_shipment_item`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_shipment_grid`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_invoice`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_invoice_grid`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_invoice_item`;
TRUNCATE `sendfriend_log`;
TRUNCATE `tag`;
TRUNCATE `tag_relation`;
TRUNCATE `tag_summary`;
TRUNCATE `wishlist`;
TRUNCATE `log_quote`;
TRUNCATE `report_event`;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_order` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_order_address` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_order_grid` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_order_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_order_status_history` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_address` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_address_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_item_option` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sendfriend_log` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_order_payment` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_payment` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_shipment` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_shipment_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_invoice` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_invoice_grid` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_invoice_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_shipment_grid` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `tag` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `tag_relation` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `tag_summary` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `wishlist` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `log_quote` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `report_event` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
-- lets reset customers
TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity`;
TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity_datetime`;
TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity_decimal`;
TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity_int`;
TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity_text`;
TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity_varchar`;
TRUNCATE `customer_entity`;
TRUNCATE `customer_entity_datetime`;
TRUNCATE `customer_entity_decimal`;
TRUNCATE `customer_entity_int`;
TRUNCATE `customer_entity_text`;
TRUNCATE `customer_entity_varchar`;
TRUNCATE `log_customer`;
TRUNCATE `log_visitor`;
TRUNCATE `log_visitor_info`;
ALTER TABLE `customer_address_entity` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_address_entity_datetime` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_address_entity_decimal` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_address_entity_int` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_address_entity_text` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_address_entity_varchar` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_entity` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_entity_datetime` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_entity_decimal` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_entity_int` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_entity_text` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_entity_varchar` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `log_customer` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `log_visitor` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `log_visitor_info` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
-- Now, lets Reset all ID counters
TRUNCATE `eav_entity_store`;
ALTER TABLE `eav_entity_store` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=1;

For Magento version 1.4.1.x or 1.4.2.0:


-- Reset Magento TEST Data
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0;
-- reset dashboard search queries
TRUNCATE `catalogsearch_query`;
ALTER TABLE `catalogsearch_query` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
-- reset sales order info
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_creditmemo`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_creditmemo_comment`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_creditmemo_grid`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_creditmemo_item`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_invoice`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_invoice_comment`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_invoice_grid`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_invoice_item`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_order`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_order_address`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_order_grid`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_order_item`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_order_payment`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_order_status_history`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_address`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_address_item`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_item`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_item_option`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_payment`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_shipping_rate`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_shipment`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_shipment_comment`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_shipment_grid`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_shipment_item`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_shipment_track`;
TRUNCATE `sales_invoiced_aggregated`;
TRUNCATE `sales_invoiced_aggregated_order`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_aggregated_created`;
TRUNCATE `sendfriend_log`;
TRUNCATE `tag`;
TRUNCATE `tag_relation`;
TRUNCATE `tag_summary`;
TRUNCATE `wishlist`;
TRUNCATE `log_quote`;
TRUNCATE `report_event`;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_creditmemo` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_creditmemo_comment` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_creditmemo_grid` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_creditmemo_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_invoice` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_invoice_comment` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_invoice_grid` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_invoice_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_order` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_order_address` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_order_grid` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_order_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_order_payment` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_order_status_history` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_address` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_address_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_item_option` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_payment` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_shipping_rate` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_shipment` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_shipment_comment` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_shipment_grid` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_shipment_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_shipment_track` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_invoiced_aggregated` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_invoiced_aggregated_order` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_order_aggregated_created` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sendfriend_log` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `tag` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `tag_relation` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `tag_summary` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `wishlist` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `log_quote` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `report_event` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=1;

The following works for some older versions of Magento (remember to back-up before attempting):
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0;
TRUNCATE `sales_order`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_datetime`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_decimal`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_entity`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_entity_datetime`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_entity_decimal`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_entity_int`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_entity_text`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_entity_varchar`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_int`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_text`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_varchar`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_address`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_address_item`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_item`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_item_option`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_order_item`;
TRUNCATE `sendfriend_log`;
TRUNCATE `tag`;
TRUNCATE `tag_relation`;
TRUNCATE `tag_summary`;
TRUNCATE `wishlist`;
TRUNCATE `log_quote`;
TRUNCATE `report_event`;
ALTER TABLE `sales_order` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_order_datetime` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_order_decimal` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_order_entity` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_order_entity_datetime` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_order_entity_decimal` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_order_entity_int` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_order_entity_text` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_order_entity_varchar` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_order_int` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_order_text` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_order_varchar` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_address` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_address_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_item_option` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_order_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sendfriend_log` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `tag` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `tag_relation` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `tag_summary` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `wishlist` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `log_quote` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `report_event` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
-- reset customers
TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity`;
TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity_datetime`;
TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity_decimal`;
TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity_int`;
TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity_text`;
TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity_varchar`;
TRUNCATE `customer_entity`;
TRUNCATE `customer_entity_datetime`;
TRUNCATE `customer_entity_decimal`;
TRUNCATE `customer_entity_int`;
TRUNCATE `customer_entity_text`;
TRUNCATE `customer_entity_varchar`;
TRUNCATE `log_customer`;
TRUNCATE `log_visitor`;
TRUNCATE `log_visitor_info`;
ALTER TABLE `customer_address_entity` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_address_entity_datetime` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_address_entity_decimal` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_address_entity_int` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_address_entity_text` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_address_entity_varchar` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_entity` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_entity_datetime` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_entity_decimal` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_entity_int` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_entity_text` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_entity_varchar` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `log_customer` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `log_visitor` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `log_visitor_info` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
-- Reset all ID counters
TRUNCATE `eav_entity_store`;
ALTER TABLE `eav_entity_store` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=1;

When making a checkout Magento checks a database field to see if it should ship to the same address, this database field’s default value is set to no. To change it do the following:

Log into the Magento database

Open the table sales_flat_quote_address

Find the field same_as_billing and choose to modify it’s structure

Change the default value for same_as_billing default from 0 to 1

The SQL code for the above is:
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_address` CHANGE `same_as_billing` `same_as_billing` TINYINT(1) UNSIGNED NOT NULL DEFAULT '1'
Now any new customers or guests will have ‘Ship to this address’ as the default option. To update any existing users simply set the same_as_billing field to 1 on all the records in this table.