Posts filed under 'osCommerce'
I’ve been involved in web development for years, and currently am responsible for a half-dozen eCommerce websites. What I’ve found is that finding the right host is one of the keys to success. If you don’t have the right people with the right hardware behind you, then you will have one problem after another.
I’ve put together a list of some of the best hosting options for your osCommerce online store. Or any web content for that matter. I’ve broken it down by geography, so that it will be easier to identify the hosts best suited for your region.
You can download and install the open source osCommerce CRE Loaded. You can go for the free version (standard), or pay a bit more for Pro or B2B. If you’re looking for something more than just a standard shop the Pro and B2B versions are worth the money. Better to spend the money up front than have to manually perform business functions that could be done automatically online.
Web Hosting for USA and Canada
1 & 1
Gate.com
Start Logic
Blue Host
Host Gator
Recommendation
All of these hosts are great choices for osCommerce web hosting. If I had to choose a favorite I would choose 1 & 1, just because I host a good number of my own websites there. However having looked at the other web hosting companies, it is such a close race in terms of costs, features and reputation.
Web Hosting in UK and Europe
1 & 1
Recommendation
Hmm. I’ve looked at a couple web hosting companies in the UK and it keeps coming back to 1&1 UK. I’m looking into this more and asking people I know there about their favorite osCommerce web hosting company, so I’ll be adding more here. But you cannot go wrong with 1&1 UK. They are absolutely great!
Web Hosting in Australia
Value Hosting Australia
MD Web Hosting
Recommendation
Again, such a close call in terms of price, features and reputation that I can’t say one osCommerce web hosting company is better than the other. However I can say that you’re in good hand whether you go with Value Hosting Australia, or MD Web Hosting. Both handle osCommerce well.
August 28th, 2006
If you want to remove the Google Ads that CRE Loaded adds to the footer, and ahem.. hides them so well.. edit this file:
/includes/javascript/cart_links.js.php
Comment out or delete the last four lines before the end php tag (?>). I won’t write out the entire code, as my blogging software (WordPress) is a little funky with the code I wanted to paste.
Comment out the lines (pseudo-code):
//echo 'table...'
//echo ‘td…’
//echo include(’http://creloaded.com/cre_google.js’);
//echo ‘/td
You’ll see the include statement getting the Google Ads from creloaded.com.
Better yet! Get your own Google Ads on there.
If you do it right, you can integrate the ads well enough so it looks to be in place.
July 11th, 2006
I was running myself stupid searching for a way to make osCommerce into a dealer only site. I didn’t need much, I just wanted users that weren’t logged in to not be able to see much. I wanted unauthenticated users to only be able to see the login page (of course), the FAQ, Contact page, and a few information pages.
There are other osCommerce contributions that feature different pricing per customer and stuff like that. But I think there are a lot of people like me that just needed to restrict access to the prices, product info and such.
I’ve got a bit of a caveat. I am running CRE Loaded 6.2. I’m sure it’s fairly simple to find the file this code should be in with a standard osCommerce install.
Here are the modifications:
In file [/templates/Original/header.php]:
at about line 18, just after this line of code:
if (DOWN_FOR_MAINTENANCE_HEADER_OFF =='false') {
Add this code:
//CUSTOM FOR DEALER ONLY SITE!!
if (!tep_session_is_registered('customer_id')) {
switch($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) {
case '/login.php':
case '/login.php?action=process';
case '/contact_us.php':
case '/links.php':
case '/information.php?info_id=1':
case '/information.php?info_id=2':
case '/information.php?info_id=3':
case '/login.php':
case '/password_forgotten.php':
break;
default:
header('Location: /login.php');
break;
}
You’ll likely want to modify the list of ‘allowable’ files, but this should be a great start if you want simple dealer only or a dealer portal osCommerce application.
July 7th, 2006