General Web

We have a client that wanted to be able to process donations when the Credit Card's CVV numbers were not available. I had thought this field was mandatory, and indeed, CiviCRM's AuthorizeNet payment processor package requires it. But after talking with AuthorizeNet (the company) we discovered that the field is optional.

This is a useful trick that fellow CivicActions team member and CiviCRM wizard Matt Chapman showed me. Basically, the hook_civicrm_validate() function can be used to reset an error caused by a missing field. Here's the entirety of the civicrm_cvv module:

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Come to Drupalcon Copenhagen

What're you crazy!? Haven't you ever heard of the CCK module? Yes, it's true CCK coupled with views will allow one to create, manipulate and display custom content. Combined with hook_nodeapi, the cck/views combo is can be extremely powerful and flexible. 99% of the time these two modules are sufficient to handle the job of building and managing custom content. The problem arises when you need any sort of custom access control or ownership of your custom node content. With CCK, the ownership of the node belongs to node.module, and there's no 'access' operator exposed in hook_nodeapi. You could patch core ( http://drupal.org/node/143075 ), but in general, that's not really a road you want to start down.

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For some time now, I've wanted to have an svn set up on my shared web host similar to what we have here at civicactions.  Having to make changes on my local machine for any personal (non-civicactions client) sites, then scp those files up to my server is ridiculous -- especially since when working on client sites, I've become so used to simply commiting the changes to a repository and then updating that repository on the server side.  All that said though, I kept putting off the svn set up because as a simple drupal and civicrm developer, I was afraid that a system admin task like setting up svn would be too involved and maybe a bit over my head.  Turns out, I should've done it months ago.  It's crazy easy!

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I posted a blog on another site entitled Distributed Social Networking requires Secure Online Identity that discusses, among other things, the new "anti-Facebook" Diaspora* and the need for a solid foundation built upon secure, distributed, user-centric digital identity.  There's another, less technical piece of the puzzle.

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I interviewed DrupalconSF attendees at Hayes Valley Farm to learn about the connections between open source and urban agriculture, and what they'd like to see on the next redesign of the Hayes Valley Farm website.

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