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Alan, in the UK, it was common for companies to charge for credit cards in the '80s. Obviously this was pre-internet. I'm assuming credit card companies have changed their policies since. However, it was commonplace back then. This is an interesting topic though, although I agree that the credit card charges can be an issue, they are a small part of the cost of sale, if you factor in all the costs (hosting/wages/stock etc) Jason

3rd party mods can be found at www.cubecart.org and www.cubecartforums.org The ccf.org site is the best place to discuss mods. The one of the best SEO you can do is to ensure you have decent descriptions for your products. Regards, Jason

Hi, I assume you mean the size of the thumbnail images. Log in to the Admin section of your store, then General Settings. Its under GD settings. If you have lots of images, there is free mod to re-create your thumbnails using the new settings. Google: cc3 fix thumbs Jason

Nice job! My only "moans" are: -Banner adverts (do you want potential customers buying your goods, or clicking on adverts?) -Using the default folder icon for sub categories - after all the work to make the rest of the store look good, surely you can find something better? -The search box needs a bit more padding on the left If possible, could you replace the banner ad at the top of the screen, with a few of your own? Finding a few banner rotation script should be easy (there is one in cPanel, or use a JavaScript one), and use the space to promote your products, not anyone elses.. Jason

Use Notepad++ (google for it) Its a great, free notepad replacement - it will automatically sort this out, and will also colour code PHP/HTML etc. I use it daily. If you don't want to install Notepad++, try opening the file in Wordpad, it should be ok. Jason

I considered adding it to my stores- but the £25 setup fee put me off until I see how widespread it is.. Jason

It should work on 3.0.16, or even 3.0.015. 3.0.10 was before the security audit and therefore is pretty out of date now. However, you can try to copy the directories across. /modules/gateway/payoffline and /admin/modules/gateway/payoffline CubeCart uses the directory name as an internal reference, so there should be no other set-up. I do recommend upgrading - I know its painful though! If your hosting supports subdomains, you should be able to install CC3.0.17 in a sub domain, with a temp database, then apply your mods, test and then copy back to the main domain. Jason

I'm using a quick hack to accept CG payment on my store. I've not seen any Fraudulent activity (yet!). I only ship to the customers registered address, and ensure the order passes the relevant checks. I have proof of posting for most items, and anything reasonably valuable is sent recorded/signed for. However, since adding the button to my product pages, I've increased my order numbers. I'm now wondering if a similar PayPal button would help - but I'll then end up with CC being a CMS, and no central place for customer/order details. Interesting thread though. I'll checkout out some other forums later, to see how widespread this is. Jason

Hi, there is a free 3rd party mod to do this. Google for: PayPal Shopping Cart Gateway ipn cubecart free (sorry about the long phrase...) Hope this helps, Jason

Hi EverythingWeb, thanks for a very good reply. I'll be composing a brief proposal this weekend, so your reply and offer is appreciated. Thanks, Jason

Hi, I'm quoting on a store for a UK based ltd company. They have an existing MA (with virtual terminal), but they will need a separate IMA, and I don't like the idea of the 3rd party manual credit card mod. They won't want PayPal/NoChex, they'll want customers to stay on the store (ie not be sent to Mals etc), so it'll be a SSL on the store. Can anyone recommend a suitable payment processor? The products are industrial equipment, not too sure of monthly turnover through the store, the company is £3M+pa, but the store will be a very small part of that. I can see CC supports WorldPay and Protx- although I've been reading the lack of support from Protx recently. Any recommendations welcome! Cheers, Jason

There are 2 "3rd party resources" links in this forum. www.cubecartforums.org is totally separate from the cubecart developers, and has a rather nice documentation project for CC3. Jason

I can't answer the q's about security updates. My *guess* is that if any security vunerbilities come to light, then they will be fixed. Remember that CC3 is used by many stores, and CC4 is not even released - it was only a few months ago that the CC2 forum was dropped - so I'd say Devillion have a good record of supporting older products. CC4 will allow you to upgrade from CC3. However, this really will only apply to the basic store - so products,customers, orders, site docs etc will come over. 3rd party mods will at best need a reinstall, or most probably an update (and possibly an update fee depending on the author). Jason

Well done to EverythingWeb and Martin for getting this done. Hopefully it can be fleshed out, to explain what needs to be done if any stage fails. For many people who have problems, this will mean contacting their hosting company, however Everything Webs previous post it right, Zend should be installed, and so should GD. IonCube is simple to install if your host is unable/unwilling to install Zend. If possible, the script should also check: -PHP version -mySQL version -Any other dependencies Most of this stuff is in phpinfo(), so checking for it should be pretty simple. If this is done right, many support questions should be fielded by the script. Good work! Jason

Yes, we do suffer for all the theives :-( Physical stores factor in a loss due to theft, and DVDs and some CD's are protected to some degree. CC is run by a UK company - so just by existing has expenses (accountants, insurance, rent etc). For many of us, this isn't a problem, and I'd like to see CC4 doing well (so CC5 will exist...). Protecting their assets is normal, and luckily, the majority of the code is not protected. Ensuring that only legal copies of CC4 are used is fairer for the genuine users. Everything Web is right - most servers should have Zend (or IonCube) installed, and in the case of Zend, it should offer a bit more performance for php scripts (so in the hosting companies best interest!) I think the CC4 docs in this respect are lacking, but we are looking at a beta release - not the full final version. Ideally, I'd like to see a freely downloadable "CC4 readiness test" script. Hopefully only a few files, which will check if your hosting enviroment will run CC4. This would normally mean Zend/IonCube installed, GD libs, and so on. Jason

CC can keep the customer updated on status: ACP->Orders->Order Status, tick "Inform Customer", and type some notes into the box... I do like the admin log on CC4, and this will help stores with multiple administrators. Jason

Glad to hear you're sticking with it, and your hosting company sorted it out in the end. Al is aiming for end of August - they're in the process of arranging a full security audit of CC. You should apply for a Beta License, which will allow you to test it in your hosting enviroment - you can't use it to replace your existing CC store (so install on a subdomain) Jason

There isn't a built-in email form on CC, you'll need to use a 3rd party mod. There are few options, free and commercial. Jason

I'm not sure I entirely know what you mean. Did you find myPHPAdmin in cPanel, as your original question? Regarding back-ups, you should be able to back-up your entire account in cPanel- this will store all your emails, mySQL databases and files into 1 compressed file. Its fairly quick and easy. The back-up you made should have been exported as "SQL", and you should be able to open it in NotePad. Inside notepad, you'll see lots of "CREATE" and "INSERT" statements, and you may even see some of your products. Jason

It *should* in in cPanel. Its used to manage any mySQL database -not just CubeCart. Contact your webhost, who should be able to sort you out. You can install it yourself - but it will take up some of your space, and to be honest, it should be part of your hosting package. Jason

Just add to this, I use a CMS package named "Simple CMS". This has a nice module import system. Basically, it lists available modules on the devs site, or I can simply download to my local PC and browse/upload as normal. The files are XML format, with the PHP code being embedded inside, and checksummed. FTP is nice (and works!), but apart from the initial install, it would be nice if CC didn't need FTP skills. Jason

Yes - go for it :-) You need to ensure the copyright at the bottom of the page is not modified and is readable (no white background with light grey text ect). You also need to ensure the "Powered by CubeCart" is kept in the title bar of the browser. Many peope modify the skins themself, or use 3rd party skins (free and commercial). You'll find these and other resources in the 3rd Party resources section. Jason

I think the answer is to export your customer email addresses using phpMyAdmin (export to CSV). Then using a mass-mailing program, import the data as a CSV. CubeCart (quite rightly) tries to comply with your customer wishes, so there is no function to do this within Cubecart. If you're trying to do this on the cheap, then its possible in most email programs, you'll need to use a spreadsheet to build a list of 30 or 40 email addresses, sepeated by a comma, and then add the result to a BCC field on your email. If this is something you'll be doing frequently or have many customers, its probably worth investing in a spam mass-marketing email tool or 3rd party service. Jason

The best was to do this is in .htaccess If you don't have the SEO mod, you *may* need to create this file - its simply a text file named .htacesss I use the following to keep my domain "correct"... ie no WWW prefix. RewriteEngine On # Ensure the site is used with without www. RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.gear4mobiles\.co.uk$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://gear4mobiles.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L] This will change www.domain.xyz\bla\apage.php to domain.xyz\bla\apage.php (ie remove the www) If this is what you need, just replace my domain with your ones in the code above. Jason

Hi Brivtech, I was half-serious - some "fun" stores would probably use some mad languages as a promotional tool :-) If Al is planning on getting professional translation done, would he be planning on charging extra for these extra languages? The new ability to edit languages is nice and easy (I have been removing some of the Americanisms from the CC3 English Language). I don't think there has been much info released on the modules ...yet.. - although there is a 3rd party test module out in ccf.org Jason