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Hi Brivtech, in theory, it should be ok, but unless you're using a secure email session (TLS or SSL) you'll be sending passwords in plain text. If someone guessed or sniffed your password, they would then be able to download your emails. If they had your emails, they could try a brute-force attack on your 256-bit encryption at their lesuire... Which method of encryption are you using? Providing its an established method (AES/DES etc) and proven to be very secure, it's going to be safe. If the encryption is something you've written yourself, its not going to stand up. If someone was determined, they could spend weeks attacking the encryption, and then quietly grab any new emails. I *think* Actinic Catalog used to allow Credit Card info via email (this was a few years ago though!) An even higher level of security would be to split the CC details so that the CC database holds exp date, last 4 digits and the security code, and the email holds the remainder. Neither are much good without the other... Jason

From reading your messages you've got some space on "myspace". Myspace isn't flexible enough to allow scripts such as CubeCart. You will need to invests a little time and money to proceed. 1. Get a domain name 2. Find a hosting company that has existing customers using CubeCart. The easiest way is to check that they have "fantastico" which is an auto-installer for CubeCart and other scripts. 3. Install CC, or pay someone to do it for you. 4. .... 5. Profit? If you get stuck - someone else probably had the same problem, so search these forums, and the FAQs. This will be *much* quicker than waiting for a reply. Hosting can be very cheap - you can probably get cPanel + Fantastico for less than $5/month. This may not be up to running a busy store - but fine for learning the ropes and getting started. You can always move hosting companies once you're making money. I hope this helps, Jason

Hi, you need the config tool (I forget its real name!) - this is a download from the support area of this site. Basically follow the instructions and you can turn SSL off via the tool. Jason

Hi, I notice you're using one of the default skins. These are a good start, and you can get a store up and running quickly using them, but unless you make a few tweaks, it will look a bit "samey..." My main critisims are: 1. Your logo is too small, and the colours don't really match the default theme you're using. This can be changed in the CSS file for the skin (or pick a skin that matches your logo colours - see the link below) 2. Unless you're going to translate your descriptions into other languages, remove the langage drop-down. 3. The photos are of low quality and would benefit from better lighting (too many shadows). Cubecart can handle multiple images per product, so you could do close-ups (macro option on your camera will help with this) I strongly suggest you take a look at www.cubecart.org as there are many mods/skins that will enhance your store. Many are free or very low cost. I hope this is of some help, and good luck!! Jason

Hmm! If you're installing via fantastico, you'll find that you do need to change permissions on the image directories. It kinda sounds like you've tried that, but ensure you're doing it to the *directories* rather than the files.. This is my config: images/uploads = 777 images/uploads/thumbs = 777 Everything else is pretty much standard. I'd also ensure your FTP client is setting the permissions correctly - I use FileZilla which works fine. However, you can also set permissions in the cPanel filemanager. I can see your product images, but I think you've tried to upload directly as they are far too big and you don't have any thumbnails. I suggest checking permissions using cPanel filemanger (if you have access to it), or a different FTP client. Also, ensure your hosting company has the GD image libs installed (I think you would get a different error message if they where not) Other than that, I can't help much more :-( Keep at it though - CubeCart is used around the world, and this can mean a helpfull response when you're asleep :-) Jason

This and other useful information can be found at; http://www.cubecart.com/site/forums/index....showtopic=12497 This is also a FAQ, and will also be searchable. Jason

Yes - if you provide a valid email address, CC will email you. You'll need to log into the admin section of your store; admin->store config->styles misc->Email Address You should also enter an Email Name (the name of your store is ok - its what you and your customers will see from store generated emails) Jason

This is the thing, I'm a website designer...but as far as processing payments are concerned I'm clueless. A card terminal - such as one found in the shops where you have to enter your card? If so, then yes. If you've got an Internet Merchant agreement with your bank, then you should be able to use your card terminal. However, if you have a normal Merchant Account (this is different), they could withdraw the Merchant facility if they get complaints from your internet based customers. This is because the banks see more risk from internet purchases (fraud etc). They will also want to check your site out and see that its using a Secure server when people enter their credit card details. Ok - you have an IMA, there is a mod on www.cubecart.org that encrypts the credit card info on the server. You will still need a SSL, which will cost £50+ from your web host. If you don't have an IMA, then many people here use a payment processing company such as PayPal/NoChex etc. CubeCart has built in modules for these systems, and your main job will be to open a PayPal/NoChex account. Regarding cubecart capabilities, I recommend looking at the live stores HERE many will look very "samey", due to the store owners using default skins. Others will be very different. I recommend taking a look at www.cubecart.org to see the range of free and paid-for mods and skins, and also take a look at the "show off" forum. Jason

Google have released their payment system "checkout". http://checkout.google.com It has an API, so I guess a CC mod could be done :-) At the moment its US only (pah!) Its far too early to comment on customer service etc. The fees are: 2% of transaction + $0.20 -but this can be reduced or even eliminated if you advertise on AdWords. There is some small print - they retain the $0.20 for any refunds. For comparison, PayPal's base fees are 3.4% + £0.20 (sorry, not to sure of the USD fee) Reductions in PayPal's fees are based on Monthly turnover. I'm stuffed, as I'm in the UK, have any of our US friends here used it? Jason

Disabling right-clicks to stop people saving images won't work.. How about people using screen capture, or people that have disabled Javascript, not forgetting that the pictures will also be in their internet cache. If they can view it, its very simple to save it as a file. Watermarking is by far the best way to go -and as you've already done that, I think you'll be wasting your time adding Javascript to disable the right-click. Jason

No real way, apart from asking them.. CC is aware of the customer preferences, so should manage it for you. What was the problem with using CC for mailing? If you couldn't send emails from CC, its probably a simple admin change. If you really need to use OutLook, you should be able to export the customer data using myPHP Admin - which will be a bit of a pain, but should work ok. Jason

These sites do have their own API - so it would mean getting onboard the Ebay developers program (and the same for Amazon and Yahoo - if they exist) However, I don't know if the api allows posting of adverts - from what I could see, it was more like a read-only system. A less technical way would be a to user TurboLister (or any other Ebay tool) which allows CSV import, and either clone the Froogle Feed to produce an Ebay-friendly CSV file, or even export the mySQL invertory table. I don't know if Yahoo or Amazon have any similar tools. Would the hassle involved in running an Ebay store AND a CC store would pay off - does anyone here do both? I find the Ebay fees pretty steep for low margin items, so prefer to price against other online stores, than compete with Ebay sellers. Interesting quiestion though! Jason

Hi GWizard, I agree with most of the above, and reading the last 10 posts in the "Installation & Upgrade Help " forum, there are a few replies by Sir William and 1 by Brooky. Some questions are unanswered in the forum. This is probably the most important forum on this site, if people can't install CC, they will wander off to other carts - possibly relating their bad experience with CC to others. However, I would class the support are fairly good in the forums. As a paying customer, I'd put a support ticket in IF the problem was serious enough to lose orders. I've tried Zen and osC, and didn't really "click" with either. CC was pretty easy to set-up and get working. I'll add another Cart in the pile: PDShop Pro (ASP Based cart for Windows Servers) Cost: $39.95-$149.00 Usability: Good - Options are far better than CC :-) Customizability: Hell! Program logic is embedded in page layout.. Code is well written, but sparse comments make modifications difficult. Support: Never really required, but the emails I've sent have been answered promptly. Development: Regular updates Worth a consideration for Windows Based servers, but CC beats it on the mod/skins front. I used this cart for about a year - having a background in ASP/SQL programming, I was able to make some mods, but after looking at other carts, I decided to move across to CC. Jason

I can also recommend checking out the hosting company on Google Groups. The main recomendation is to steer clear of anyone offering "unlimited" features, and try to make sure they offer a telephone number to call (try calling it!). If the server is down and you are losing orders, you'll want to make sure they are treating it urgently. Jason

Google Base is a more generic search than Froogle and is used to find products, services, people, jobs etc. They allow you to enter items one-by-one on their web site (so individuals can place information), or use a file similar to the Froogle Feed. base.google.com I've uploaded feeds from 2 of my stores and both were accepted. The system is very flexible, and you can specify many more elements than our CC Froogle Feed generates. Not a bit problem for now, but if Google Base gets very very big, then searches will become more specific (as they are now on Google, compared to the Web of old!) Jason

1 - 0 Great result!! What a great start. I was in Germany 2 days ago, but had to return Thursday night :-( If anyone is thinking of visiting the country, go for it - its a great, clean friendly place. Now...to sober-up for the night out with the girlfriend...... Jason

FileZilla is an "FTP Client", my prefered choice :-) Its basically a program that allows file management on a remote server. The hardest bit is getting connected - if you can manage that, the rest is pretty simple. You can drag and drop files/folders to and from the remote server. I'll assume your web host is Linux based - in which case, you may have a nice control panel named CPanel. This allows you to manage your hosting (manage emails/stats/etc) Does your host have "Fantastico"? This is a plug-in to CPanel, which will allow you to install CC very quickly. The current version of Fanstastico installs the current release of CC - so you won't have to update. If you don't have CPanel or Fantastico, the unzip the CC file to your desktop. Upload the contents of the "upload" folder to your web space. It will take a few mins to upload all the files (approx 13Mb) Once uploaded, the right hand pane should show a few files and a number of folders. There is an installation tutorial which should describe this better. You will need a mySQL database - if you don't have a control panel on your hosting, contact the support dept of your host, and they should be able to do this - and supply username/password/database name. You will need to tweak permissions of folder/files - so keep playing with FileZilla :-) Note: Right click on a folder/directory and select "Permissions" to change them. The CC install requires a few permission tweaks. I hope this helps a bit, If you continue to get stuck, please post back here, and someone will help. Jason

I can personally recommend a product callled "ephotomaker" - seach for it on google. I've got no connection, other than a happy customer. Its basically consists of a white tent, with reflective material on one side. a small cheap tripod colour correcting gel + clips for a normal desk lamp a calibration card Get a 100W desk lamp, put the gell over the lamp -this corrects the colour so you don't get lots of yellows.. Place your product inside the tent, set up your camera, and shoot. The results are very very good - and require little if no tweaking. The reflective material reduces shadow, so your product is well lit from both sides. On Brivtechs coin picture, you can see the reflection of the light on the right-hand side of the coin, this system will greatly reduce that effect. The downside is that its about £50, but if you're selling (and making money..) physical products, its worth the money. I've tried messing with white sheets etc, but unless you've got good diffused lighting, you'll always get shadows - and you've still got to worry about colours, sorting this mess all takes time. A good studio photographer will get it right 1st time. Your camera is fine - on cheaper cameras, having a high res is less important to having good optics. However, for web-based stuff with JPEG compression (*at least* 2 cycles if you've dumping from camera to CC), it's fine. If you don't want to spend £50, you could consider 2 lamps, and bounce the light off some white card to light your products. A local camera shop (or online) should be able to sell some colour correction gel to place over the lamps. This should give you nice whites, and greatly reduce your shadows. I'm not an expert photographer, but have spent lots of time trying to get good results. Jason

You should not email card details - its very unsecure. There is a mod (on www.cubecart.org) that encrypts credit card details when the order is placed. I've not used this mod, but the author will be able to help you further. You will also need a SSL certificate for the store, which will ensure any data pass to and from a browser is encrypted. Expect to pay around £50 for an SSL certificate - depending on your webhost. You need to look at the worst case scenario - someone gets a list of credit card details from a site you set up. Hope this helps, Jason

The "Image Info" is #1 in your list. The ALT text is useful for a number of reasons: Text to speech readers - will speak the text used, this is a great help to the blind and hard of sight. Browers that do not display images can still use the site. Some search engines use the text There are probably more - but basically try to view your site with images disabled in your browser. IE and Firefox allow you to disable images. CubeCart appears to place ALT text on all product images, but any images specified in pages created in the FCKEditor (sitedocs) should have them. Jas

The "ALT" text would be entered into the Image Info ALT box. The "Target" is where action of the browser on clicking on the link. This is usefull if you're using a Frames based site (not normal for CC stores). If you want a link to an outside site (ie PayPal etc), then if you select _blank the browser will open a new window. FCK editor is a general purpose editor, so some features are not required - and many relate to HTML tags, and that info is avail online. Jason

Na, ASP is a different language to PHP. You may be lucky, in that your Windows host has PHP/mySQL installed. If this is the case, you should be able to get CC running - but be prepared for a bit of messing about, and a few support calls. If you're stuck with Windows, I've used "PDShop Pro" which is an ASP based shopping cart, and can recommend it over other low cost ASP based carts. That said, I'm in the process of moving one of my old stores into CC - as its much more flexible. Jason

Hi, the following thread may be usefull: http://www.cubecart.com/site/forums/index....l=local+install The thread refers to XAMPP which is a nice & easy way of getting Apache (webserver), PHP (scripting langauage) and mySQL (database) installed. Once its running, you should be able to either FTP to 127.0.0.1 (your local machine), or simply copy files to the correct directory. I can't confess to having tried this, but if you get stuck I'll try and get it running here. Good luck! Jason hi jason not really helpful m8 didnt tell me how to install it Hi, I'll download the XAMPP package and try and get it running locally here. Its a 26MB download, so I won't be able to touch it until tomorrow at the earliest as its getting late here. Cheers, Jason

Hi, the following thread may be usefull: http://www.cubecart.com/site/forums/index....l=local+install The thread refers to XAMPP which is a nice & easy way of getting Apache (webserver), PHP (scripting langauage) and mySQL (database) installed. Once its running, you should be able to either FTP to 127.0.0.1 (your local machine), or simply copy files to the correct directory. I can't confess to having tried this, but if you get stuck I'll try and get it running here. Good luck! Jason