Buio Omega

“Metal shouldn’t be self-aware”

Lucho Metales – Metal Inquisition

I have downloaded three interesting 200-page manuals on the new e-commerce platform. Even if I at the moment am a bit stuck on the configuration of the shipping options (there are several variables to take into account – for instance you cannot use the registered mail solution for shipping 12″ records in Italy, as the maximum width of this package is 10″), I have already gone through the first one, and definitely have a clear overview of how this thing works now. Manual II is on my desk right now, and will be the main homework for this weekend.
On a less theorical level, broad product categories have all been finally defined and coded! Now I am sorting each item in the database in its container: tapes with tapes, Cds with Cds and so on. It’s nice to see some order from chaos at last!

So far, there hasn’t be a single day I have not worked on the new shop. I have done my homework, boy! Yesterday in particular was a very productive day as I finally decided how to categorize and tag the products in the store. Every item, depending on its nature, will have multiple attributes: DVDs with have director, length, zone, format etc. while CDs will have packaging, country, musical genre etc. Sounds like an easy task, but it took a few hours just to get rid of useless complications and stick to the basics for the best user experience. Sadly that meant losing some of the older work I did, as many translations of products in Italian were erased while shaping all the inserted data. The good point however is that I have finally understood the foundations of this new software and I am now able to quickly edit even a lot of items together. Product insertion will be very quick and that’s a huge step forward compared to the old shop, and it will mean a much better handling of orders and restocks.

Other good news are that I plan to split Buio Omega in three separate shops. I haven0t yet decided the definitive names for them all but shop A (which will almost surely retain the Buio Omega brand) will take care of music related merchandise including CDs, vinyl, shirts, music DVDs etc; shop B will take care of the celluloid aspect of Buio Omega: horror DVDs, movie shirts, some action figures, movie posters etc.; shop C will be the merchandise only shop with will have basically just clothing, pins, jewelry, that kind of bollocks. Since the new software allows me to keep track of stock in a single place, some products will appear in all three shops at the same time. However it will be easier to browse only through the kind of products that interest you without all the visual clutter that a single shop that offers anything could create.

This might be the single most important post in this blog so far. It was VERY tricky and I had to contend with a multitude of glitches and twists but in the end I managed to import over 400 single products from the latest webstore – including detailed description and images. The next step in the roadmap is to “normalize” the rest of the store. Normalizing is a IT-term that is also not incredibly correct in this specific topic but for normalizing I mean I have to fix some products which have incomplete details.

These are more or less the next steps I need to do with the webshop

• “normalizing” actual content
• read and sort every single old Access database that used to contain product data and consider whether to import something
• read and sort every single old Excel files that used to contain product data and consider whether to import something
• browse all old item pictures and put everything aside for when I might need some in the next step
• “normalize” everything I imported from Excel and Access files. Also consider very old text lists. Pick pictures from previously saved ones
• go through all the rest of the backups, saving wantlists etc.
• set up remaining shop data: missing categories of products, calculate shipping rates and payment methods, consider discounts and record lots (this will be a tough one)
• start opening every single box in the basement and go through every single Cd and insert it into the catalog. Repeat for vinyls, merchandise, books etc.
• translate the shop in Italian
• compile trade and overstocks lists
• open accounts on Flickr, twitter, and update other 2.0 related websites on Facebook, MySpace, YouTube etc.
• wait for the designer to complete layout design – also study a new corporate identity (including letterheads and other paperwork)
• prepare storage for the b.o. stocks including safe storage boxes and shelves – set up temporary office there and buy material for preparing parcels (label printer, scotch, pencils etc.)
• plan label releases starting with Nuclear Death and Necrotion Cds and define release details
• publish website

This is a quick list that surely will need reworking, but this is a general overview on what’s to come. Adopting a good method of working was absolutely indispensable for this ambitious project. The trickiest part – speaking about programming – has been done. The shipping and payment implementation on the web shop will be hell, but I am confident in my ability and stubbornness. The ball still rolls…

As you can see, there is a new link to the right that takes you to the forums. I will check it once in a while. There are a ridicolous amount of outdated posts, but I decided to leave everything as is. You can also go there following this one: http://www.buio-omega.it/forum/

It surely sounds a bit premature to reactivate it now, but one of the biggest databases I found among my backups was the old shop forum’s.  It took me two full hours to completely transfer all data from the old database to the new one. I also wanted to change platform altogether migrating to a solution that is way more secure, robust, flexible and feature-rich. I also wanted to play a bit with this old data, I admit. I am quite sure ninety percent of the email address herein contained are not working anymore after 5 to 6 years but who cares? I still won’t publish link to the forum right now because I want to clean up some of the more shameful posts about future projects that never came to reality. I also need to drop a few hundred spam messages that somehow wormholed into the old forum.

Technical details for those who care: the old database was a stupid access file that underlaid Snitz Forums. I needed bullzip’s fantastic utility Access to MySQL to convert Access data into a MySQL dump file. I could also do direct transfer via ODBC but I preferred it this way. Obviously I needed to install MySQL’s ODBC for Win before that. That meant another annoying registration – sigh – my KeePass file is becoming huge! Once done that, I installed PHPBB 2.0 (no, you can’t use the converter for Access directly to PHPBB 3.0… umph), ran the import utility I got from Japanese Sourceforge – at the time the US website wasn’t working (http://sourceforge.net/projects/snitz2phpbb/) then upgraded to PHPBB 3.0 using the built-in upgrader. That was surprisingly smooth except for a few errors which I managed to fix along the way.

The road to salvation is obscure indeed!

Yesterday I have deleted over 50.000 old files including backups and redundant data from the huge collection I have put together. I have found a lot of shop pictures, customer checklists, old flyers and posters, and thousand of contacts which will be inserted in the new mailing list software. Making order from that mess was really healthy as I finally have an idea of what kind of struggle awaits me. Still I can’t see the exact boundaries. but it now looks conquerable.

One of the things I loved more and also felt more guilty for was to see the list of aborted releases for Nuclear Abominations and Orgasmo Nero releases. I am really amazed by the quantity of cult releases that never saw the light of the day. Some of those have been released by other labels, that we all know, but some of them I was wise enough not to spread word. I have two big priorities for the label now, which are mostly done actually and just need a few finishing details (and cash) before being sent to print. But I won’t make the same error twice: things will be announced when they’re already in my hands.

The good news is I decided to give up to importing all the previously inserted shop data, as the thing was probably going to cost too much in terms of brainpower and time. I will therefore start everything from scratch even if it looks like a nightmare. I now know how to properly backup data in a way I could access it just in case I will decide to suspend the project. But for now, things are going great. The new web-shop is already installed (even if barebone) and I can start creating product categories, shipping options etc. There are more features that I could possibly ever use (such as discount coupons etc.) but the job of working on the new shop is invigorating. It’s clobbering time!

As you can see things are better now. No more tedious page freezing and a score of features are now working behind this blog. I also managed to add a proofreading program which will be of big value for a non-native english speaker like me. Now that the big jump is done, I will plunge full-head in the web-shop installation and old content import. Looks like a long road, but at least I’m in track!

Today and tomorrow (hopefully, if my business tasks and training will allow me) I am going to transfer all these files to a new server. Probably something will go wrong, but in any case it will take 3-4 days before everything starts behaving correctly again. I will try to save the blog first, then the mailing list software etc. Cross fingers.

As requested, you can see up in the address bar

The blog won’t last forever, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy our staying.