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About MetaCart2, UK Edition
Overview
Hardware/Software Requirements
Credit Card Processing
Installation/Setup
Support/Add-ins
Browser-based Administration
The MetaCart Demos
Overview
The MetaCart2
eCommerce Shopping Cart System for Small Businesses and Developers
contains many, but not all, of the new features implemented in
MetaCart2 for SQL Server . As with our other
e-Commerce software applications, MetaCart2'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 databases.
With MetaCart2,
your electronic storefront will have the same capabilities and
functionality as MetaCart
, including:
- Catalogues 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).
- Credit card number validation using the Luhn Modulus 10 method.
In addition, MetaCart2,
UK Edition now allows for:
- VAT tax
calculations,
- automated inventory reporting and
updating,
- calculation of shipping charges based on
weight,and
- support for subcategories
under main
catalog listings.
Like its predecessor, MetaCart2 was designed for manual credit
card processing. See "Credit Card Processing" below for more
information regarding accepting credit card payments.
MetaCart2 is based
on Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) technology hooked to a Microsoft Access
2000 (*.mdb) database.
After installation and setup, the system
readies your site for eCommerce. Customers can peruse your catalogue 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 MetaCart2 , 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.
You will also need a good website
design and HTML editing program (such as FrontPage 2000 or 2002, or
Visual InterDev 6.0), and Microsoft Access to create your own
database or to edit the one that comes with the application.
MetaCart2 was developed on a Windows platform and the demo on
the MetaLinks.com site is hosted on a Windows 2000
Server.
For MetaCart2 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 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 MetaCart2 download
package. Use of MetaCart2 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 network 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 MetaCart2 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.
Assistance with other types of
services, such as programming and design, adding additional
functionality, or hooking up third-party ASP components to
MetaCart2, 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 accessible in the MetaCart2 demo, 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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