About MetaCart e-Shop V-8
Overview
Hardware/Software Requirements
Credit Card Processing
Installation/Setup
Support/Add-ins
Browser-based Administration
The MetaCart Demos
Overview
The MetaCart e-Shop V-8 eCommerce
Shopping Cart System for Small Businesses and Developers contains many new
features, including much requested support for product size and color
options. As with our other e-Commerce software applications, MetaCart
e-Shop V-8's HTML code remains fully customizable for easy integration into
your web site. To customize and integrate the application into your own
site, you will need to know basic HTML and have some familiarity with Active
Server Pages, VBScript and MS Access or SQL Server databases (depending
on the database version of the application version purchased).
With MetaCart e-Shop V-8, your
electronic storefront will have the same capabilities and functionality as
our other paid shopping cart applications, including:
- Catalogs and products are fully
searchable from every page by category, product name, product
description, or price level.
- Database administration and order
processing is accomplished through an integrated browser-based
interface.
- Processed transactions can be archived
through the same administrative interface.
- Automatic application-based customer,
shipping, and warehouse e-mail notification using Microsoft's
Collaboration Data Objects (CDONTS). Can be configured to work with
third-party ASP-based e-mail components, such as JMail,
AspMail, ASPEmail and CDOSYS.
- Credit card number validation using the Luhn
Modulus 10 method.
- Encryption of credit card numbers
stored in database.
Plus, MetaCart e-Shop V-8
provides updated coding and application support for:
- international transactions, including
better support for international addresses and telephone formats,
- in-state sales tax calculations,
- inventory reporting and updating,
- calculation of shipping charges based
on weight,
- unlimited categories and
subcategories,
- color, size and style options,
- random display of featured products on
main entry page,
- and improved browser-based
administration.
Like its predecessor, MetaCart e-Shop
V-8
was designed for
manual credit card processing. See "Credit
Card Processing" below for more information regarding accepting
credit card payments.
MetaCart e-Shop V-8
is based on Microsoft Active Server Pages
(ASP) technology hooked to a Microsoft Access 2000 (*.mdb) or SQL Server
database (depending on the database version of the application
purchased).
After installation and setup, the system
readies your site for eCommerce. Customers can peruse your catalog of
products and add the items they wish to purchase to their "shopping
basket."
The customer then enters shipping and
payment details and submits his/her order, which is then processed and
posted to the database.
Hardware/Software
Requirements
To use MetaCart e-Shop V-8, your
eCommerce site will need to be hosted on a web server that supports
Active Server Pages, such as Microsoft NT Server with at least Internet
Information Server (IIS) 4.0 or Windows 2000 Server with IIS 5.0. The
application uses a DSNless connection for its connection to the database.
You will also need a good website design
and HTML editing program (such as FrontPage 2000 or Visual InterDev 6.0),
and depending on the version purchased, either Microsoft Access or SQL
Server Enterprise Manager to edit the included database. MetaCart
e-Shop V-8 was developed using FrontPage 2000 and Visual InterDev 6.0
on a Windows 2000 Professional operating system using Visual Studio 6.0
with IIS 5.0. The MetaCart e-Shop V-8 demo is hosted on a Windows
2000 Server.
For MetaCart e-Shop V-8 to work properly on your personal computer,
you will need to have one of the following operating systems:
Windows 98 or Windows NT with Microsoft Personal Web Server
and Windows NT Option Pack 4 installed (you can download the option
pack from Microsoft's website); Windows 2000 Professional with IIS; or Windows
XP with IIS.
The only requirement for your customers
is that their machine accept cookies since the application uses browser
session cookies for some features. The cookies expire when the user
session expires. No cookies are permanently stored on the customer's
computer.
Credit Card
Processing
The application assumes you will do
manual credit card processing. To use MetaCart2 for credit
card processing, you will need an online merchant account with a
bank, an account with a credit card processing agent, and a security
certificate for access to your server's secure socket layer (SSL)
for secure transactions. Thawte and VeriSign are the two largest issuers of SSL server
certificates. Most of these services can be provided by the internet
service provider (ISP) hosting your eCommerce web site. One of the
largest eCommerce hosting companies is Interland, who
hosts this site.
For a complete rundown of accepting
credit cards online, see the following article, "What
You Will Need - Plain and Simple."
Additional
Installation/Setup Instructions
Additional installation and
setup instructions, as well as the End-User License Agreement, are included
in the README file and in the MetaCart e-Shop V-8 application
download package. Use of MetaCart e-Shop V-8 is governed by the
terms of this Agreement.
NOTE: The README file also
includes resources for finding answers to the most frequently
encountered problems with installation of ASP-based applications.
These involve the correct directory location of the global.asa file,
the proper setting of permissions on a networked or hosted server, and
connecting to the database. Please read these instructions
carefully.
Support/Add-Ins
MetaLinks.com provides limited
installation and setup support for MetaCart e-Shop V-8
via e-mail only.
Should you discover any bugs in the application, please notify us so we can
post any fixes to our master download file.
Assistance with other types of services,
such as programming and design, adding additional functionality, or
hooking up third-party ASP components to MetaCart e-Shop V-8 are
available at reasonable rates at MetaLinks.com.
For developers and other do-it-yourselfers, the code alone is worth the
purchase price.
Browser-based
Administration
The application includes a set of
browser-based administration pages. For security purposes, the pages are
not included in the MetaCart e-Shop V-8 demo online, but are
included in the download package.
The MetaCart Demos
You are encouraged to try out all the
features of our live demos prior to purchasing any of the MetaCart
applications to determine if they meet your needs since we do not offer
refunds.
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