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Installing a CC demo store onto a thumb drive


jerseyjoe

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This is a tutorial on installing a stand alone demo version of a CC store onto a thumb drive (jump drive, flash drive - or even onto a laptop) that is not connected to the internet. You will be able to show the demo to prospective buyers of CC - or any PHP-MySQL driven script application such as most forums, open-realty, guest books, and so on by plugging the thumb drive into any computer.

NOTE: update Mar 20, 2006. This tutorial was written for 3.02 but as far as I can see, it will work just as well for current versions. In fact, as I staed in previous para, this tutorail applies to almost any PHP/MySQL application. Also, I have heard that Mambo may not be available for long. There are other products that will install a server on your thumb drive or on any computer that is not connected to the net, making it possible to run demos on them. The product mentioned in a reply further down in this thread (Joomla) is openly acknowleged the direct descendant of Mambo in every way, so if you can't find Mambo Stand Alone Server (MSAS), I suspect JSAS will do the same thing, the same way.

I'll start with great thanks to Mobie and Sheriff Bob who taught it to me as a laptop installation - and I've simply adapted it to the thumb drive.

1) Download the MSAS 4.5.2 installer from:

http://www.mambosolutions.com/main/content/view/13/93/

2) If you are like me, your download will default to your desktop.

3) you should have your thumb drive plugged into your computer. I'm using a 1gig Lexar Jump Drive which offers me a public drive and a secure, password-protected drive. The drive names used in this tutorial will depend on what other drives are on your hard drive. In my case, the jump drives are F and G.

I'm going to install the demo onto G because I have configured it as the larger of the two drives.

Just keep in mind that your own jump drive letters may vary.

4) after the download is complete, and you are still connected to the internet, launch the recently downloaded MSAS installer. Pay attention to where the installer wants to put the MSAS itself.

Do not accept the default that will wantto install it into C:\Program Files\MSAS. I changed it to G:\MSAS.

5) After the installation is complete remain connected to the Internet. You will want the browser open when you do the later steps so you may as well leave it open now.

6) use MyComputer's file manager to open the directory of files that are on Drive G.

7) open the MSAS folder and click on the msas452.exe file. (ignore the config file - it will be invoked automatically)

8) a "first time" dialog will open. Take note of what it says and then proceed. I mean write it down. You may be prompted for it in some circumstances.

9) The config file will now kick in and ask you to choose a drive in which the demo will operate. I chose "Z". I call this a virtual drive because it can be seen in the file directory only when MSAS is active.

10) MSAS should now be active and providing a localhost server running in this Drive Z. You can confirm this by looking at the file directory.

Take note that the last folder in drive Z is "www." This is where you will install the CC program and the store as follows:

11) in www create a folder and name it whatever will be the name of the demo store. In my case it was "Choco" for the chocolate shop that I want to show off.

11) move all the files from "upload" folder of the CC zip into Choco - not the upload folder itself - just the contents. Paste them or drag and drop them.

12) return to the open MSAS window and click on PHP MyAdmin.

13) in PHP MyAdmin., in the blank field beneath "Create new database," I put "chocodb" and clicked "create".

14) at the top of the next screen click on "localhost." That will bring you back to the same screen for "create" but don't be confused. You have created the new dB. But now you must grant access to some one to use this new dB.

15) part way down the list below where you created the new dB, click on "Privileges".

16) when the screen changes, you will note "Add a new User" roughly in the center of the screen. Click on it.

17) a dialog called "Login Information" will open.

fill the fields as follows:

User name: chocouser (or whatever you want for yourself)

Host: click on the down arrow and choose "local" it will become "localhost"

Password: pw (after all, the thumb drive I'm using is encrypted so the app-pw can be that simple).

Re-type: pw

YOU ARE NOT DONE YET WITH THIS SCREEN

18) click on "Check All"

19) Scroll down and click on "go"

At this point you are ready to setup the store. You will note that your browser's URL is showing

"http://localhost:85/admin/phpMyAdmin/"

20) copy that URL into the clipboard.

21) If you are using Firefox, the next step is easier. Open a new tab. If you are using MS/IE, open a new browser window. Paste the URL into the address field of this new tab or window but do not launch it.

22) edit that URL to http://localhost:85/choco/install/ and launch it.

23) that should get you Step One of the CC installer. Click you way through. Fill in the fields using the data you created - keeping in mind that the server is localhost. And in my case I used choco, chocodb, chocouser and pw in the appropriate fields. I repeated them for the Admin setup. Again, because this is not a live site, security is not an issue.

25) When you get the last screen and are told that the installation is complete DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINKS to the Store and the Admin. I don't know if it's a bug in the installer or peculiar to my own desktop or thumb drive - but that will only screw things up.

26) BEFORE YOU TRY TO OPEN THE STORE - go back to the File Directory for Z. Find the folder "install". Do not remove it. Rename it something like "NOTinstall." You are not on the internet and there is no security risk here. By saving it under another name, you can always rename it back to "install" and reuse it, if you screw up and need to re-install, which I have a habit of doing. When you do a live installation - yes, you should remove the install folder.

27) open a new Firefox tab. You now may open the store. The store's URL is "http:/localhost:85/choco/" and the ACP's address is "http:/localhost:85/choco/admin/".

Remember when you want to close down and then reopen the demo, you must first open the jump drive, launch MSAS452.exe, open a browser and use one of those two URLs.

To make the population of new products simpler, I created a folder inside choco called "image source" and filled with the images I needed. I learned the hard way that you cannot simply paste or drag images into the CC image upload folder. That breaks it. But by having images handy in the new folder I can demo to a client how easy it is to add images.

There is a nice advantage to having the CC files and the store on a thumb drive when populating the store. As long as it is plugged into a computer equipped with something like Photoshop and my favorite PHP and CSS editor, I can edit everything directly without having to open and close folders, copy files back and forth, etc. and then FTP to a server. I can open a file, edit it, save it to itself and it's active immediately in the demo.

This same steps will install thumb drive or laptop demos, not connected to the internet, for multiple CC stores (just use different store and dB and user names) or you can install forums, guestbooks, blogs, etc - virtually anything that uses PHP-MySQL.

Good luck to all, Joe Harkins, owner of

www.buildinghosting.com

Cube Carts and Invision Boards

installed, skinned, hosted etc.

at reasonable prices

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WELL DONE

I have just followed this to see how good it was made a few changes to suit me ie im using phpdev but basically the same and it worked spot on.

Why not do this up as word document and submit to downloads as a tutorial mod?

Note to moderators: Suggest making this a pinned topic. :rolleyes:

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hey there

I've just followed the instructions in the tutorial and have to say that it worked like a charm.. The details were very simple to follow and left no head scratching at all..

I will point out though that my pc does not run USB 2 so the page loading time is a little slower than anticipated. I'm wondering what the performance will be like once I start populating the store with products and other fancy graphics and mod gizmos.

This is my first working version of CubeCart so I'm obviously really excited about the prospect of working with the product as opposed to just reading about it.

I didn't want to start paying for hosting until I've had time to evaluate the product myself. This method certainly makes that a possibility. I'm looking forward to being able to demo this to my partner with such ease and all without the need to move my PC around.

EDIT - Just bought a USB 2 PCI card.. The speed is so much better now. Consider this to those USB1 users.

Thanks for the details..

Rich ;)

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I wanted this solution for Demo purposes but it was to complicated until now. :D

Thanks a lot, great job :)

PS: Tested and works on my notebook. :)

PS2: Do follow the instructions exactly as writen to avoid any trouble, i know beleive me :D

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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 weeks later...
Guest treecom

Hi thanks for this great guide. After installing the MSAS, i started to do ur my cart on my local machine. Then the problem comes.

In the windows platform, the MySQL charsets are case-insensitive.

But on my main server running linux, the MySQL charsets are case-sensitive.

Hence, the tables that was created on the local machine could not be used when i upload them into the main server.

So my qns is: Is there anyway to change the case in the main server?

I tried the manual way and that is to delete the old tables and changing each tables one by one in PHPAdmin. That is very time comsuming.

I aldo found out that in CubeCart, all tables are created in the

CubeCart_Xxxxxx format. They are also being queried by the PHP in the same format.

The tables found in my local machine has the following format:

cubecart_xxxxxx

Hope you guys understand what i mean.....

Thanks lot....

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  • 3 weeks later...
Guest macfionn

Great tutorial. Thank you. :)

Treecom? 2 weeks late responding, but first time I've seen the post:

Just use a program like ultraedit or such to mass character change the directory (use a back up to test this with.) Essentially you simply have it change Xxxxx to xxxxx (make sure 'case sensitive is selected)

If you export your database to a .sql file and run the same 'rename' rule under it, and then re-import it, you should be fine.

Again.. backup, backup backup!

This method works, its just much better to be safe than sorry.

Mac

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Jerseyjoe, thanks!

Now I can mess around with CC3 offline while my CC2 store is still running online.

Question:

Using this with the new CC3 store on my thumb drive, can I ftp the CC3 thumb drive store once complete up to my actual host...as well as the database stored on the drive? Would it be a smooth transition or would there be problems?

Thanks again!

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It should be as simple as creating a SQL dump, uploading the files, and then Changing the Global.inc.php file to match your server setup... I emphasise the Words Should...

Nothing can be told when it come to computers and technology... but i have done such a transaction myself flawlessly in the past... As well as migration from on server to the next....

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  • 3 months later...
Guest garysmith

Just on note on the original post. The link for MSAS is out of sate, however by following it I came across JSAS and gave it a try.

It worked for me and is a simple solution to seting up a demo server on any machine.

I got JSAS from here: http://www.joomla.org/content/view/940/74/

Thanks for this post, it certianly made life easier as I was having problems with some other server software and CC runs excellently on it.

Gary

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just on note on the original post. The link for MSAS is out of sate, however by following it I came across JSAS and gave it a try.

It worked for me and is a simple solution to seting up a demo server on any machine.

I got JSAS from here: http://www.joomla.org/content/view/940/74/

Thanks for this post, it certianly made life easier as I was having problems with some other server software and CC runs excellently on it.

Gary

Yes JSAS is the same as MSAS. Mambo screwed around and some of the devs (i believe all of them) left Mambo Solutions and started Joomla.

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  • 2 months later...

Well as MSAS doesnt seem to be available, I grabbed Joomla, the problem is the instructions mean nothing to me now...

IE: "open the MSAS folder and click on the msas452.exe file"

From there on the writeup doesnt really help me. I dont have any real programming knowledge so maybe someone would be kind enough to give some instructions for this using Joomla??

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest PeterBKK

Anyone know where to get MSAS 4.5.2 from?? Ive had a good look all over the net, its nowhere, every site I found referred to the Mambo site and they have removed it from there. Perhaps someone could email it to me?

Look here: http://mamboforge.net/frs/?group_id=106&release_id=3450

Ops.. Sorry but i foud it here http://www.mambosolutions.com/content/view/13/93/

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Guest Coder68

The links above do not get you there anymore. It says that no releases are available.

Can I get this somewhere else?

Thanks,

Coder68

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  • 4 weeks later...

Try this one out: Joomla USB or thumb version

It's prepackaged with Uniform Web Server, MySQL, & PHP, and Joomla 1.0.4. Just click on the start bat file, (to start the various servers) read the readme for the passwords needed, open a browser and type 'localhost' for the URL. From there you're playing with Joomla! I found this to be the smallest distrib with Joomla and it works great. Not one problem so far and I've installed forums, templates, and another cart system I didn't like.. why I'm here.

Even if you don't use Joomla, it's still a good test distribution for a usb drive or making demo sites.

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  • 1 month later...

Hi great tutorial. MSAS is gone now, replaced by JSAS, same thing nicer interface. I installed this thing to C:\JSAS. Opened first time, it installed expanded and closed. open again and than...my hard drive went berserk...is spinning constantly, not really much RAM involved. Click on phpMyAdmin and waiting for 2 hrs to load (never completed). Don,t know what to do next...BTW I tried JSAS older version 1.08, same effect

Thanks for any advice

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  • 2 weeks later...

followed the instructions with a fresh instal and it worked great. Tried to load the files for a store I allready designed and loaded the mySQL. When I try and view it though it gives me a permission error. Anybody got any ideas on how I fix????

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I am trying to get CC to install on a pen drive but in step 4 of the CC installation I get the following error message.

MySQL Error Occured

1045: Access denied for user: 'admin@localhost' (Using password: YES)

I have gone through the following steps prior to receiving the above error.

Attach pen drive to PC with XP SP2 installed - this shows as removable drive G:

Run the Joomla or thumb version install (link provided by Gary in earlier post) - this creates a W: drive on the pen.

Unzip CC files

Copy all CC files to localhost/jdstore folder on W: drive

Run a batch file from Joomla folder (start.bat) - this starts up SQL, Apache and Joomla.

In explorer address bar put in url below to install CC

http://localhost/jdstore/install

CC install steps 1, 2, 3 appear to work OK but on step 4 - http://localhost/jdstore/install/index.php?step=4&l=en

I get - MySQL Error Occured

1045: Access denied for user: 'admin@localhost' (Using password: YES)

Can anyone assist please?

I have no knowledge of SQL, PHPadmin or Joomla but the Joomla install seems to work OK.

Thanks in advance

John

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Guest greeks

did you set up a mySQL user in PHPMyadmin??

No I did not set up a mySQL user in my PHPMyadmin.

Where is the program file for PHPMyadmin, on my pen drive?

How do I run it if I find it?

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  • 1 month later...

I ran the JSAS installation and followed the instructions. JSAS install is still pretty close to MSAS so the write up did help. I created the data base and added a data base user. At this point I have CC installed in WWW/gifts/. Attempting to run the CC Install (htpp://localhost:85/gifts/install/) produces the following error:

"You don't have permission to access /gifts/install on this server.

How do I get the permissions set correctly?????

Thanks,

Klaus Cook

Houston, Texas USA

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