Either way, here's what I did to get about 2600+ items imported with images!

Now, this "guide" will be assuming a few things:

1. You have a working Magento store
2. You know how to generate a CSV file
3. You're familiar enough with Magento to navigate it's administration section
4. You understand your server's file system and can upload files to said server
5. You have this Import Product and Category plugin installed.

Anyways...

Creating your CSV file

First off, when you're creating your CSV the following fields (attributes) are required values by Magento:

• name
• sku
• type
• price
• status
• qty
• type (there's a chance it may be _type)
• attribute_set (there's a chance it may be _attribute_set)
• is_recurring
• visibility
• tax_class_id
• attribute_set
• websites
• store
• has_options
• meta_title
• meta_description
• page_layout
• store_id
• image
• small_image
• thumbnail

You should be able to find the values necessary for those slots--I suggest creating a dummy product if you need to find the default values of any of these attributes.

After that, any custom attributes you have deemed required will be, you guessed it, required.

Dealing with Multiple Select aka multiselect values

This is effing terrible but the pattern you need to get Multiple Select fields working is:

[data][space][comma][space][data][space]...

Example:

Green , Orange , Blue , Red , Grey

So, when you're working in your CSV, make sure all of the values are within one cell (if you're in Excel/LibreOffice/OpenOffice/etc.) or, if you're working with the actual text-version of the file, enclosed in quotation marks within the comma-separated-value... that should make some sense...

Rumor has it there's a limit of 100 values being selected at once in a CSV, but if you have a multiselect with over 100 values in it and users can choose more than one... I don't mean to judge, but you may want to re-evaluate that...

Images! I want to do those too!

Cool. This isn't that tough. Remember the image/thumbnail/small_image attributes from earlier? Here's where they come into play.

Magento has this (seemingly) undocumented feature where if you want to import images when you import products through the advanced data profile section of their system it's totally possible, but you have to follow these (again, undocumented) steps:

1. Connect to your store's backend via FTP/SFTP/whatever
2. Navigate to the media directory
   • Wherever your Magento store files are located (i.e. index.php, etc.) there should be a directory named media
3. Within the media directory create a new directory called import
   • It has to be this, I kid you not
4. Add all of your images to this new directory
   • You can add subdirectories, but you'll need to remember their names as they'll be important in a minute

So, 4ish simple steps. Cool.

Next, you're going to need to take all of the file names for the files you uploaded to the media/import directory and put them in your csv file with a leading / (if they're in subdirectories, those will be needed too).

Example:

/stock_image.jpg
/sub_directory/stock_image.jpg

One more caveat: The images must be jpegs. I don't know why, but Magento only seems to like jpeg files.

And yeah. It looks goofy to have a leading slash on your images and subdirectories, but I assure you this is how things work. So long as your images and subdirectories are in the media/import folder, you'll be fine.

Finally, let's import those products!

Log into your admin interface. Simple.

Navigate over to System -> Import/Export -> Dataflow - Advanced Profiles

Here's where things get tricky.

If you have an Import profile, awesome. Skip this next bit (we'll continue at the next big bold header -- Choose your file):

You'll need to add an import profile. Simple enough.

Name it whatever you'd like, then in the action XML add this:

<action type="dataflow/convert_adapter_io" method="load">
    <var name="type">file</var>
    <var name="path">var/import</var>
    <var name="filename">< ![CDATA[my_products.csv]]></var>
    <var name="format">< ![CDATA[csv]]></var>
</action>

<action type="dataflow/convert_parser_csv" method="parse">
    <var name="delimiter">< ![CDATA[,]]></var>
    <var name="enclose">< ![CDATA["]]></var>
    <var name="fieldnames">true</var>
    <var name="store">< ![CDATA[0]]></var>
    <var name="number_of_records">1</var>
    <var name="root_catalog_id">< ![CDATA[2]]></var>
    <var name="reimport_images">< ![CDATA[true]]></var>
    <var name="deleteall_andreimport_images">< ![CDATA[true]]></var>
    <var name="exclude_images">< ![CDATA[false]]></var>
    <var name="exclude_gallery_images">< ![CDATA[false]]></var>
    <var name="append_tier_prices">< ![CDATA[true]]></var>
    <var name="append_group_prices">< ![CDATA[false]]></var>
    <var name="decimal_separator">< ![CDATA[.]]></var>
    <var name="adapter">catalog/convert_adapter_productimport</var>
    <var name="method">parse</var>
</action>

Now, note the line that reads:

<var name="filename">< ![CDATA[my_products.csv]]></var>

Change the 'my_products.csv' to whatever you're calling your CSV file.

Now, you'll need to upload your csv to var/import via FTP/SFTP/whatever.

• If the import folder doesn't exist, create it. Just like earlier, you need to name it like this.

Once you have that set, jump back to your browser click the Save and Continue button.

After the page reloads, choose the Run Profile tab. Then click the Run Profile in Popup button.

AND BAM!

You're done. Any errors you get... well, I would check with the Magento Forums and/or StackOverflow.

---

Questions? Suggestions? Hit me up in the comments.

Also: If you have any suggestions/alternatives/other categories you want to see, please let me know!

Web Development

Mac

Gradient - $4.99 - Create CSS3 gradients without hassle

Pencil - Free - Wireframe a website with ease

Coda 2 - $75 - By far the best code editor for web development I have ever used. Just read through the site. You'll understand.

Transmit - $34 - The fanciest FTP client you can use and it's well worth the price. One thing: Finder mounted SSH connections. The end.

iPhone

Prompt - $7.99 - Need a terminal to connect to a server? Yeah you do.

Music

Mac

iTunes - Free - Obviously...

Vox - Free - Super non-intrusive music app that just works. Import the music you want to listen to and just listen.

iPhone

CarTunes - $4.99 - By far the best app for listening to music while you're driving; everything is gesture based so you really don't have to finagle with your iPhone/iPod while driving.

8tracks - Free - Playlists you can stream on the go. What's not to like?

PowerTimer - Free - Power Hour. 'Nuff said.

gMusic - $1.99 - Play music from your Google Play account aka probably your whole iTunes library.

DropTunes - $0.99 - Stream music from your Dropbox account, if you're into that sort of stuff.

Note-Taking

Mac

Evernote - Free - Take notes/pictures/video/audio all in one. Tagging/categorizing/etc. So awesome.

nvAlt - Free - A fork from Notational Velocity that syncs with Dropbox and SimpleNote for simple note taking. Markup support = awesome in my book.

iPhone

Evernote - Free - Take notes/pictures/video/audio but from your phone!

Utility

Mac

NameMangler - $9.99 - For when you need to batch-rename files. I do this so often manually (aka renaming 100+ files one-by-one) that this was a must have. Pricey, but worth every penny.

BetterSnapTool - $1.99 - Snap windows all around your Mac's screen. Similar to the functionality in Windows 7, but a bit more powerful.

CheatSheet - Free - See what key combinations you're using on your computer. Kind of handy when you accidentally press something and your computer wigs out.

DockDrop - Free - Drop files on this dock icon and have it immediately upload any sized file to a personal server/WebDav/SCP/Flickr(pictures only). Super simple. Super awesome.

ScreenGrab - Free but no longer available (I have the .prefPane if you're interested) - Automatically upload screenshots to a personal server when you press Cmd+Shift+3 or Cmd+Shift+4 and place the URL on your clipboard.

Alfred - Free - Quick Launch just about anything, do math, and much more all from a simple key command.

AppTrap - Free - Asks to delete associated files when uninstalling an application (dragging the app to the trash)

Notifications

Mac

Growl - Notifications for hundreds of applications.

NowPlaying - Free/$1.99 - Currently playing song in iTunes pops up as a Notification Center alert when a song starts. Get it free here?

iPhone

Prowl - $2.99 - Basically, you can use this to get alerts for just about anything on your phone. It's pretty damn handy. I use it with wordpress to send updates when someone submits a post to DestroyTheCyb.org!

Pushover - $3.99 - Similar to Prowl but with a much more complex system. IFTTT has this as an option to use, so I use it for various weather notifications.

Slice - Free - Get notifications on any kind of delivery that provides updates (Amazon, UPS, etc.). You can even set it up to auto read from your inbox and pull UPS/FedEx/etc. from your incoming e-mails.

Misc.

iPhone

Gas Cubby - $2.99 - Track your MPG/usage/etc. for your car. Tune-ups too!

Dayta - Free - Stats for anything you want. Requires you to input almost everything about what you want to track, but exporting and setup is pretty seamless.

WolframAlpha - $1.99 - Your favorite "solve everything" website is now on your phone. What more is there to say?

The company? ColorJar. They're made up of a bunch of awesome guys and gals who work in and around Chicago, and are, apparently, very happy to have me working for them.

Last Friday, we figured out the details and GVSU's CIS internship coordinator approved it, and now I just need to get the proper documents signed and dated, then turn them all in. I cannot express how excited I am about this. Not only am I working for a fantastic company, but this is opening doors in my head for my future.

So, I'm heading to Chicago tomorrow night to stay with some friends, then working Wednesday with the guys at ColorJar.

This... this is quite amazing.

So today I decided to have a smaller lunch. Just a small six-inch sub from Subway in Kirkhof, and as I was finishing the sub, I realized I didn't feel like crap. I wasn't thinking "just eat the last two bites and you'll be good." No, I was thinking, "Oh, I'm done and I feel pretty full."

For some reason, I felt compelled to write about it. So now you know.

...

It was a pretty good sub...

I had a weird thought about international phones over break, though. Specifically regarding what I would do if I ever travelled internationally. I know that O2 is a big proponent overseas and if I ever went to London or Bristol or something--dreams of mine--would I have to switch to someone like them to keep my iPhone working? The thought occurred to me as I travelled to Phoenix to visit my friend Russ and the constant on/off of my phone when on the plane has me going on and on in my head about why you have to turn you phone off... but that's neither here nor there.

And now the school year has started and my life is back on track to being "insanely all over the place," which I don't mind too much. It keeps me busy, keeps me driven, and keeps me on a schedule. Of course, the added stress of 12 credits (three 300-level courses and a grad course), 18-20 hours of work for the OSL, GVTV, and Comic Book Club is there, but it all means that I'm doing something. All of the time.

One cool thing, I can say, is that this semester I don't hate any of my classes. Truly. I have a real interest in each class, which means I probably should kick some serious habits of putting off my homework all of the time because I actually do want to learn something.

Now onto something more... life altering: I graduate in December of this year. As in: I'll be done with my Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, which means I'll be getting a real job (or something that will pay for my life outside of student loans). Talk about something that is, obviously, scary and utterly exciting. Hell, in the last month, I've had two job offers on the phone, a friend of mine asking me about an internship/future job, and have gotten business cards from a handful of people who are generally interested in talking about jobs once I graduate. It's ridiculously overwhelming.

The reason for my anxiety being that despite knowing everything I already know, I have no choice but to expect that college is where my learning will end and that I will definitely need to learn more before I graduate. It's incredibly intimidating. Despite that, I am taking two courses this semester that will most definitely broaden my horizons on C, Ruby, and Lisp--something I consider a step in the right direction.

sigh It's only the first week of the semester, and there's already "a lot" on my plate. So, I've decided (just now) that I will, in the words of 1939 Britain (and Rupert Grint, I guess), "Keep Calm And Carry On."

I know it's not WWII, but it works.

I've gotten into the habit of creating what I call "Forever lists" via Wunderlist and it's helped me more than I can say. I typically start my week with 10-12 items, build up to 18-25 (depending on the week) and narrow the list down to 5-8 by the end of the week. It's pretty damn nice, to say the least. The beauty of it is that I can use Wunderlist across every device I have.

And now I'm, for some crazy reason, running for GVTV president at the end of the semester (aka a week and a day from today). So that's on my plate. Basically, I just want to clean the organization up and make things work... better. We'll see.

On the side, I'm writing a screenplay for a full length movie. It's a weird concept and I keep getting lines of dialog or small conversations and I keep jotting them down in Evernote in hopes that one day--maybe over break--I'll be able to piece together the vague plot I have and stick the dialog I have in there and make it all work. I'm aiming for like 100-120 page. le sigh

All in all, though, things are pretty much fantastic so I really can't complain.

Plus I'm going to Arizona at the end of December. So there's that awesomeness.

Until next time.

I currently work part-time for GVSU's Office of Student Life as their Student Technology Manager and am a freelance web developer. I am also the Web Design intern for West Michigan's PBS/NPR affiliate, WGVU. For free/cheap, I assist my friends and/or anyone who comes to me with computer issues.

I am the president of the Comic Book Club of Grand Valley and the New Media Director of GVSU's student-run television station, GVTV. Both are elected positions I have held for over two school semesters.

I run and co-own a website, DestroyTheCyb.org!, that posts reviews of comic books, movies, and music. As co-owner, I have been in charge of editing, advertisement, designing, and maintaining the site and it's content as well as hiring and keeping in contact with writers. As a site, we have been featured as small press at the San Diego Comic Convention.

I have written two television shows for GVTV, Jeff & Mike Write A Comic Book and mat42dr, as well as a handful of sketches for the GVTV sketch-show Randomish!. I have directed a sketch on Randomish! ("Joe is sad"), starred in four episodes of Jeff & Mike, and have directed seven episode of mat42dr--with plans to direct nine of the eleven (possibly twelve) episodes that remain.

As a writer, I have participated in NaNoWriMo, Script Frenzy, 52-52, and have written my own zine. I am currently working on a new issue of my zine that should be released sometime this month.

I read comics like a fiend. Marvel and Image, for the most part--any X-Men, Invincible, Walking Dead.

I am an strong user of social media websites, particularly Twitter (@mikerapin), Tumblr (tumblr.mikerapin), foursquare, instagram, reddit, and facebook (mikerapin). I am most easily reached on Twitter.

I am a Mac user, and I currently run 10.7.1 Lion on my black Macbook (circa 2008). As a web developer, I use Coda and the OS X Terminal for any and all programming. Image editing is normally done by me in Adobe Photoshop CS5.5. I manage the music I have through iTunes, with Bowtie as an assistant. I use Dropbox on a daily basis, and the official Twitter application as well. I check my e-mail through Sparrow and launch application with Alfred. For writing (zine/non-scripts), I use the Mac OS X application TextEdit (in plain-text mode), and Celtx for scripts.

I own an iPhone 4 running the iOS 5 beta 7. I update the twittersphere using Tweetbot, check into foursquare with the official foursquare app (occasionally EightBit or Forecast), post to Tumblr with the official Tumblr app, IM others with the imo.im app, chat Facebook friends with the official Messenger app, and post what I'm listening to using TweetMusic and/or soundtracking. I use CarTunes to listen to music when driving, manage files with Dropbox, edit scripts with Celtx, read books with iBooks, check my bills with Pageonce, stream music through 8tracks/DropTunes/Audiogalaxy, picture myself using Everyday, receive periodic notifications with Prowl and Boxcar, edit and take pictures with Camera+ and Instagram, take notes with PlainText, control my computer with HippoRemote LITE and MochaVNC, and manage my calendar with Week Cal. Occassionally, I play DropZap 2 and Words With Friends.

I can be contacted through e-mail at rapin.michael@gmail.com.

Strangely, though, there was a debate on anonymity. More specific, this debate was on anonymity being the same as cowardice.

Typically in class, I don't speak up too much unless I've become comfortable with a large chunk of my classmates. When it comes to Computer Science classes, this is rarely the case. Why? Well, when you're in a room full of people who are as arrogant as I am when it comes to computers, rather than speak up and try to make a point, I'd much prefer to simply get straight A's and hack their mainframes before they realize it... okay that doesn't happen, but I keep my mouth shut because my classes are full of very arrogant, outspoken nerds who think they're always right. It's much easier to get by learning what you need to learn, participating when you know the quick answers, and get a good grade than if I gave into arguing semantics in coding (such as tab size, editor color schemes, or the proper way to write JavaScript so it appears indented correctly in the browser).

Today, however, I couldn't sit idly by.

My professor brought up the interconnectivity between social media sites and their implications when it comes to how social media sites are used on other sites (such as blogs, forums, etc.). Right away, strong opinions about Twitter and Facebook were brought up: "Who cares what you just had to eat?" "No one wants to know what you're doing," "Facebook is ridiculously insecure." Things of that nature. My professor looked pleased at how much we all were speaking at 9am, when normally he has to beat participation out of us with a stick.

I was half-listening to the debate up until this point. I was busy browsing Twitter and Reddit to really pay attention, but when I heard that last phrase, my ears perked up because what happened next set things off.

So, he pressed us with this: "Say you have a blog Would you rather allow people to comment anonymously or with e-mail verification or with Facebook integration?" The class went apeshit, yet still managed to discuss this topic with intelligence. One guy in my class, we'll call him Chris, began ranting about how anyone can create a Gmail address and how it might as well all be anonymous, save Facebook, because anonymous posts allow people to be as honest as they want.

Here's where the firestorm began.

Another guy in my class (oh, did I mention my CIS class is all guys, save one girl?), we'll call him Dan, turned to the first guy and started talking about how anonymous posting online is cowardly because there are no consequences. Chris tried responding but it was something along the same lines of what he originally said (see above). Dan responded again with more talk of cowardice, and this is when I spoke up.

In a moment of silence where it looked like my professor was waiting for someone else to speak up, I calmly said to Dan, "I completely disagree with you," and he turned around. "Think of it this way: you're the CEO of Google--a major company with huge stakes and investors--but you have a radical view on a hot button topic. Do you jeopardize your company's reputation by speaking out radically and making your investors angry because they don't agree with you, or do you have intelligent debate on an anonymous medium?"

Dan looked at me for a moment and responded that if the radical opinions were actually what I felt, I would have no need to hide them behind anonymity. I responded to him that despite the truth to what he said, speaking radically can ruin your reputation (something I've felt first hand) and as likely as people are to abuse the power of anonymity--Chris cut in by saying "trolling"--speaking anonymously can lead to intelligent, well-informed discussion.

Again, Dan looked at me for a moment, then Chris took the ball again. This time he was talking to the professor about a completely different portion of the topic regarding creating anonymous profiles online.

The discussion ceased there, but it was interesting to see the various viewpoints on it all (well, the two--mine and Dan's). I had a quick moment of reflection on past mistakes of posting things online with my name attached--you know, losing job(s) because of it. I mean, think of your reputation in life and how it's tied to your online world. Would you say your Twitter or Facebook accounts represent you well? Would you rather that some of the things you've said online weren't attached to your name?

All of this has been swirling in my head since this morning. Just thought I'd share.

1. Chicago is awesome. I can't get over it. I spent two and a half days there and thoroughly enjoyed myself.
2. Zinesters are the most interesting bunch of people you could ever meet.
3. I managed to give out 12/30 of my zines to people I doubt I will ever see again, and I'm almost jumping with joy because of that. And I managed to do that without making it to the actual zine fest on Saturday, but instead to the awesome after party.
4. There were five more people than I expected (expectation: 0) who walked dogs for a living and had a serious passion for it.
5. Kuma's Corner is totally worth an hour and a half wait.
6. Getting lost in Chicago strengthen's your knowledge of the public transportation system.
7. Google Maps lies to you and smiles about it.
8. Sometimes, bars play Adult Swim TV shows (read: Robot Chicken) on their big screens which means they get a better tip.
9. Amanda Stevenson and I have no sense of direction... ever.

My good friend Amanda Stevenson performed some magic and got my zine printed at a super discounted price for this upcoming weekend--The Chicago Zine Fest. I have yet to staple the 30ish copies, but they're sitting in a pile in my bedroom staring at me. I'm starting to realize that all of the emotion and angst I put into that little booklet is now in print and maybe, just maybe, someone is going to read it. It's a bit intimidating.

I went on a writing spree last night before bed for about 30 minutes and I think it's the start to issue #2 of my zine. It will most definitely be less angry and more of a self-observation and/or random observations with some snarky tidbits here and there. I'm not aiming for a general theme, but then again I wasn't for my last zine and somehow it was centralized around stress/sleep/sadness. I feel the next issue will be a bit happier or more positive in general.

I've been lacking on Weekly Writings. A combination of going to Phoenix, being at C2E2, homework, and being just plain busy has put me two weeks behind. But I'm not giving up. I have a handful of story ideas in the mix, I just need to extract them from my head and put them on paper (or into some kind of digital text document). A mix of sci-fi and suspense is what I've come up with so far, but I want to push myself to get away from death-themed stories--if you've read anything on the site by me so far, you'll get what I mean. I may take some stories I've heard from friends and fictionalize them... there's a few good ones I have somewhere in the attic of my mind.

So... procrastination seems to be my issue. Damn TV shows and lethargy.