msohns

My association's web site (hosted by TCH) allows members to register for meetings and to pay via PayPal. Meeting registrations and PayPal notices of payment are sent to the appropriate person at mywebsite.org, and then forwarded to her personal email address. They seem to hit mywebsite.org on a timely basis, but don't get to her quickly enough -- sometimes a day or two after the meeting, even though they appear at mywebsite.org a day or two before the meeting. Anyone have any idea how long it should be taking, or what is involved. I can see PayPal taking a day or two, but once the email is received at mywebsite.org it should be turned-around to forwarded instantaneously (I would think), and received not much past that (I would think).

Oops. I assumed that speaking in generalities without naming names or numbers would be okay. Sorry. The answer from the Help Desk: "Yes, The ban on the forwarders does apply for the mailing list also. We apologize for the inconvenience caused." Oh well. The joys of AOL. As for the question about selecting specific addresses to send email, I'm just trying to avoid making multiple lists and sublists, so maybe someone who uses phplist can help. And I'll keep searching on my own. Thanks much.

I've had some success with Phplist, but have come up with a question or three that someone might be able to answer: 1. Does the "ban" on forwarding email to AOL users include Phplist? I've been trying to subscribe (by having the customer go through the process and adding a name myself to the list) with no success. 2. Is there a way to select only certain names to be sent an email? 3. Without divulging any secrets, how do you get around the TCH sending limits? I've also had difficulty in customizing my subscription requests, etc., so I'd like a copy of your notes. Thanks.

I would very much like to include a link inside an e-mail that would enable the reciepient to go right into the password protected folder, without encountering the User Name and Password box. The link itself would feed the user name and password so the recipient wouldn't need to enter any information: something along the lines of "http://www.stuff.com/passwordprotectedfolder?username=username;password=password", maybe? Can this be done?

"Darn, darn, darn, darn, darn!" says my g-rated 'enry 'iggens. I was hoping for a "better" answer, rather than the one I was afraid of. But thanks just the same.

There are several different people (President, Vice-President, Treasurer, Secretary, Membership, etc) that can be contacted through the "contact us" page in our web site. The people in those positions change yearly, and I have to change the forwarding email addresses accordingly. (e.g., president@website.com > actualperson@isp.com). Is there a way of editing the existing 14 forwarders, rather than deleting and re-creating each one, one by one?

Thank you, Mrs. Fish. Yep, I did make the assumption that we were looking to add e-commerce to an existing web site. But you are right: if we're starting from the ground up, then selecting a web host needs to be at the top of the list. And as I get further into my own project here, I'm discovering that you almost need to juggle all four (or five) items at the same time: which host works with which shopping cart; which shopping cart works best with which payment gateway; and on and on in a relentless circle that's just driving me mad! Mad, I tell you! But I digress. Thanks. In a few days I'll be getting some responses from the gateways and internet merchant accounts I've contacted, and I'll post my results.

I'm amazed at the community and support available here at TCH. I manage my employer's web site at another host, and we're paying much more for much less. I will suggest a change. But while these forums have tons and tons of "how", there's very little "what" -- specifically, a "check list", if you will, of what one needs to consider in setting up e-commerce on one's web site. There doesn't seem to be one single place where this information is available in a concise form. I've spent the last week's evenings looking at this forum and others, payment gateways (which concept was discovered by accident), merchant accounts (again, which concept was discovered almost by accident). There's plenty of "how do I do this", but what's also needed is a "what do I need to consider/do in order to implement e-commerce on my site." This lengthy post is intended to remedy that. This is what I've discovered during the past week. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I. Shopping cart: there are tons available, it seems, and plenty of comments on which ones work better. (It looks like safe choices are those supported by your Host, Payment Gateway, and Internet Merchant Account). A. You also might not need one at all, depending on what and how many items you're selling, and the level of security you need. II. Security (SSL Certificate): you can purchase one (again, tons of providers, both affordable and absurdly expensive), or use a shared one (free, and provided on TCH, other Hosts, and sometimes bundled with your Payment Gateway or Internet Merchant Account. B. There are differences between the two, and you might not even need one depending on what you're actually doing. (What those differences are isn't my point here -- this is a checklist of things you need to consider). III. Payment Gateway: Needed if you want instant authorization and "timely" deposit of credit card payments. "A secure internet bridge between your Web site and the credit card processing networks," according to Authorize.net. If you just want to collect e-mailed credit card numbers and manually enter them into your regular Merchant Account, you might just need the right shopping cart and an SSL certificate. IV. Internet Merchant Account: if you already accept credit cards because you've also got a bricks and morter operation, or are doing the "collect credit card number and manually entering them", you've already got a Merchant Account. But to accept credit cards online, you need an Internet Merchant Account: "a type of bank account that allows a business to acccept internet credit card payments." (Authorize.net, again). There are variations on this theme that you'll need to research yourself: third party payment processors (such as Paypal), Payment Gateways that also include a shared SSL (such as Verisign's PayflowLink), collecting credit card numbers on a secured site (using the shared or paid SSL) and entering them manually (or even batch uploading). As for recomendations, I don't have the experience yet. It seems that safe shopping carts are those supported by the companies you'll be using: for example, TCH seems to like oscommerce, and forum posters also recommend Zencart and Mals-ecommerce. Payment Gateway Authorize.net lists oscommerce and Mals (among many others) in their "certified" list; Verisign goes with Mals and Zencart (among others), and Echo likes, among others, oscommerce. SSL certificates are available in many places: TCH has both their free, shared, certificate and one for purchase ($35 to install, $150 to purchase and install); GoDaddy.com has extremely reasonable prices; other providers have some prices that look absurd. The prices are yearly. Payment Gateways I've run across in various forums include Authorize.net, Verisign, and Echo. Internet Merchant Accounts I've run across in various forums include MerchantPlus, and CDG Commerce. Everyone has various programs and packages, at various prices. You'll also find that Payment Gateways have their IMA recomendations, and vice versa. According to my week of research (and what seems to be the lack of this particular information gathered in one place) these are the four essentials (the "what") that need to be considered in setting up e-commerce. The "hows" are described in tutorials, forums, from the company's web site, and the instructions that come with the software. If I've made a mistake or overlooked something, please feel free. I'm hoping this helps other people in my situation: until now, I didn't even know enough to ask a question.

The organization for whom (for which?) I'm maintaining the web site (on TCH) already has a merchant account for accepting credit card payments for membership dues and meeting fees, but we'd also like the ability to do so online. According to the first post that started this discussion, one needs: a shopping cart system an SSL certificate So, where does one get the SSL certificate, and how does it get implemented? Thanks.

I'm not sure what I want to get into. My understanding, now, is this: The PHP book I have tells me to download Apache, MySQL, and PHP; write the database in MySQL, run it with PHP, and test it with Apache. Is this now what I need to do: write the database (set up the structure and enter the content) in MySQL, write the query/seach instructions in PHP, test it in Apache, then upload it to TCH mysite.com, "create"* the database with MySQL in cpanel, and do something with PHPAdmin. Am I close? *is "create" a misnomer, because I've already created the database before uploading -- or do I actually create the database (structure and content) in cpanel?

What about the content of the database? Does one enter data into, say, an Access database, then upload it to mysite.com? And then how does one access the database from mysite.com? I want to include in mysite.com a listing of my orgranization's members in a searchable database: info to include name, company name, address, city, state -- and be "query-able" (just like a database) by name, comapny name, or city. I'm perfectly willing to learn the CGI, Perl, PHP, XHTML, XML, Java, or whatever I need, but what do I need to learn, and then what do I need to do to get it working?