Recently I have decided that I want to get into the e-commerce business once again so I set out to look for a good, free, and open source website script that would be easy to install, maintain, and administer. Apparently, this wasn’t going to be easily accomplished so I posted a message on the Digital Point Forums and asked for some suggestions.

In the end, I settled on three scripts and then I would decide which one out of them would be the best suited for what I wanted to do. The three scripts I opted to try were Freeway, Magento, and Prestashop. Please don’t forget that this is not an in depth test, it’s more of a first impression test.

Freeway

I’ll start off with my least favorite of them, Freeway. The installation was easy enough (although the interface could use some work) and there weren’t any major problems. I did find that the installation was a bit cumbersome and asked you to test things that it really didn’t need to (like the connection to the MySQL server before even trying to install).

Out of the three systems I tested, Freeway was the only one that required me to log in and change the permissions on certain files and folders before the notifications on the main page would go away. For most products the install script takes care of this without any problems.

Once the installation phase was completed I was able to log in to the control panel and start configuring. The administration portion of the script is comparable to most other systems I’ve used. It had all of the usual configuration options such as currency, localization, themes, and whatever else you would need for an online shop.

The problems with Freeway started when I tried to view the front end of the site. For some reason all the images were broken and I noticed it was referring to a template folder called osCommRes. Come to find out osCommRes was the original name of the project and it was closed source. I checked the archive I had downloaded to see if I had passed over that folder for some reason but it wasn’t there. I even went as far as downloading the archive, all over again, and reinstalling it. No such luck, it was still broken and referencing this non-existent template. I decided to post a message in the Freeway forums. I got one response in two days and all it said was to go an change the default template to the one called Freeway. This was already done so that was not the problem. I have yet to receive any further help via the forums so I have decided to shelve Freeway and move on.

Magento

The second script I tried is call Magento. This is a fairly new e-commerce package that just reached version 1.0 very recently. It was suggested to me by a friend who spoke highly of it so I thought I’d give it a try.

The installation was far easier to look at and went much smoother than did that of Freeway. It was just a matter of a couple of minutes and everything was done. I didn’t have to re-name, delete, or change the permissions on any of the files or folders. This to me is a great thing because it shows to me that the people writing the script don’t trust users like me to make these changes properly so they do it on their own to make sure it gets done and the site is more secure regardless of the person who installed it.

Again, as with Freeway, the administration of the site was straight forward and contained all the usual configurable options. The one thing that bugged me was the default look of the site. There is a templating system in the site but the problem is that it’s so new that there aren’t many free templates available yet and I wasn’t about to pay $50 – $100 for a custom template from Template Monster or another site like that just to for a test. I hope that this problem will go away as more and more people use and hack around with Magento.

It’s hard to describe in writing, but there was just something that didn’t suite me quite right with Magento. It seems to be too Prim-and-Proper or something of the sort.

Prestashop

Last, but certainly not least, I tried a script called Prestashop. I had never heard of this one until it was suggested to me by one of the respondents to my thread on Digital Point.

The installation of Prestashop was by far the easiest and quickest of them all. It took no more than two minutes (including the creation of the SQL database) and it was ready to go. Again, with this script there was no mention of the need to delete or change permissions but the one thing I did find was that I had to rename the admin folder to something of my own creation. This is a neat security feature that none of the other scripts seems to have implemented. It’s a sort of “security by obscurity” tactic. If the hacker doesn’t know where the admin folder is he has less chance of finding it.

After the installation I, as normal, proceeded to the administrative back end to play around with the configuration. As with the other two scripts this one also had the basic options. What I really liked about this script was the ease at which one could find these options. It also comes with a ton of highly configurable modules that can be enabled or disabled at will. I can tell that there’s a lot you can do with this and that it can be very complex but doesn’t need to be if you don’t want it to. The theme of the back end was very easy on the eyes which makes the initial setup that much easier.

From what I can tell Prestashop is fairly new and hasn’t had a whole lot of exposure so the templates are limited at this point but the default template is very clean and crisp so it could, at least conceivably, be used on a production site.

Conclusion

If you are going to take any of my advice then I would suggest you use Prestashop. Out of the three I’ve tested this one was the best for me and my specific needs. If you have different needs than me then you will naturally evaluate those products that you think would better suite your situation.

There are two obvious e-commerce solutions that I did not test. This was done on purpose. For one, I did not test osCommerce. The reason being is that it’s been stuck at version 2.2 for what seems like years. They are in the process of re-writing the whole system from the ground up to accommodate for some new php5 and php6 stuff but they are still only in alpha stage and I didn’t think that evaluating an alpha product was worth my time right now.

The other one I did not test was CubeCart. CubeCart would have, at one time, been on my list. I’m actually running version 3 of CubeCart on ecomstation.ca but since they released version 4 they no longer offer a permanently free version of their software. At least in the old version 3 tract you could use it for free as long as you left their markings on your site.

Another setup that I was suggested was a combination of UberCart and Drupal. Although I have a good opinion of Drupal I am not sure that having to administer a Drupal site along with an UberCart install would be the best thing for me at this time. From my experience, Drupal takes such as long time to learn and administer that it can become very time comsuming.

I hope this simple review may help you in deciding which solution best suits you.

~TheNerd

For just over a year I have been a member of the Digital Point Forums,I must say I have very mixed feelings about the site.

For those of you who don’t know what it’s about you should probably take a few minutes and browse the link above but, in short, it’s a webmaster forum. Actually, it’s not just a webmaster forum, it’s THE webmaster forum. Here are the stats right off the main page “Threads: 1,067,691, Posts: 9,431,474, Members: 224,631, Active Members: 61,021″. Pretty impressive indeed.

So you are probably wondering why I have mixed feelings about it. First off, there are lots of people, too many people perhaps because the trolls get in the way of the good folks. I don’t know the exact stats on the amount of banned users but I suspect it’s astronomical because it’s hard to browse a single thread without finding the word “banned” under one of the user names. The amount of “just Google it” answers is crazy.

Secondly, there are too many kids. The amount of tweens and teens is huge and they (at least most) don’t understand the concepts of money or technology. There is a right way and wrong way of asking for help and more often than not the youngsters are too lazy to do any amount of research on their own they just want someone to do everything for them.

Don’t get me wrong, there are good people there, you just have to dig for them and weed through a million threads and responses to find the good stuff. It takes a lot of time to get used to the site and find out where the good people hang out and who they are.

Occasionally, you can find really good deals in the buy and sell section too. Lots of times the goods there are way overpriced but, again, if you are patient and persistent you might just pick up a little golden nugget in disguise.  You definitely have to watch out for the dumb asses who try and sell you stuff they don’t have the right to sell. I’ve seen anything from the open source (and freely downloadable) oscommerce script to obviously ripped off images, icons, and software for sale. It’s worth the little bit of time it takes research something before you buy it so you don’t waste your money.

Anyway, as I have said, the DIgital Point Forums can be a treasure trove of information if you spend some time and learn the site and it’s people.

Cheers for now!
~TheNerd

Stefan Berka is the owner/operator of operating-system.org. The goal of his site is to document and share as much information about operating systems as possible. I’ve recently had the chance to ask him a few questions and here they are with the answers. Enjoy!

Q. Who are you and what do you do?
A. My name is Stefan Berka, i live in Germany and work for a security software company as employee in the support department.

Q. What prompted you to start operating-system.org and why?
A. I was fascinated from the different operating systems with different concepts and graphical user interfaces. Starting from 1999, there was only a documentation of 15 pages and i had the goal to share the informations with others after some revision over a own website.

Q. How long have you been running the website?
A. The website is online since 15. February 2001. Since then the design and navigation have gone through important changes.

Q. What to you envision as the future of operating-system.org?
A.The intention of my project is to inform about as many operating systems in detail as possible. All informations are free of charge and and without restriction available in long term.

Q. Are there any new features and/or components you plan on adding in the near future?
A. I have the plan to make some screenshots specials with operating systems for comparison with others. Because of the feedback of some visitors, specifications about the minimum hardware requirements are added soon.

Q. What is your favorite OS and why?
A. I like to work with different operating systems to take benefit from each of them for the needed field of application. If i had to choose one only i’ll take Linux to compile and configure it for my needs.

Q. Are there any operating systems that are missing from your site? Are there any that you need help to find information for?
A. Currently i’m after the seek of screenshots of the operating systems Minix, PC/GEOS and NEXTSTEP.

Q. What do you see as the future of the operating system? Is it in the “cloud” or do you think the desktop OS still has a future?
A. My opinion is that there will be possible never the one and only perfect operating system for everyone. The requirements for all sorts of intended purposes in the ease of use, security and multimedia support are too different. The operating system roles for desktop and server usage will be stay for a long time.

Q. What operating system(s) do you use on your personal computers and why have you chosen it (them)?
A. I use Windows XP on my desktop computer for maximum compatibility and performance for games. Windows Vista is installed on my laptop to produce the website project with high security. Mandriva Linux is used for multimedia purposes on another computer, the advantage is to install and configure it once.

Q. Do you have anything else you would like to add?
A. The website is developed with a own content management system in PHP/mySQL. All pages are created with templates for each language offline for the upload.

I’m taking the plunge and I am going to switch to AN Hosting as my main provider of web hosting and related services. I am currently running eCSWare.org on one of their VPS servers (same account as Haikuware.com) and have had much success.

I am not switching because of any problems I’ve had with Hostgator I just found an excellent one day deal for $5.95/month that gives me pretty much unlimited transfer, databases, email, domains etc. As well as RoR and PHP support. Hostgator is currently providing me pretty much the same stuff (less RoR) for $9.95/month. It’s not a huge savings but every bit counts these days with the markets going the way they are.

It’s going to take me a while to get everything switched over, as I currently have 6 sites running. They all have to be backed up, uploaded to the new host, and the databases have to be re-configured. I shouldn’t lose anything and I will keep the Hostgator account up and running until I am sure everything is working 100%. There shouldn’t be much downtime save for the short period where the new DNS settings will have to propagate over the Internet.

Wish me luck!
~TheNerd

A reader who stumbled upon my blog article about cloud computing sent me a link to a site called NoHardware (nohardware.com). It appears to be an ad campaign for GoGrid.com which is a supplier of a sort of “cloud computing” server solution.

What is neat about NoHardware is that it’s a video campaign akin to the “Will It Blend” stuff. The videos are little skits featuring Dr. GoGrid writing prescriptions for better server performance. Most of the prescriptions consist of a “cloud computing” remedy for a common problem such as up time. Take for example, the second video, where Dr. GoGrid says that your servers will blow up and then they take a huge pile (of what appears to be decommissioned gear) and put it out in a field then blow it up. They literally blow it up with some sort of explosives.

At the present time there are only two videos on the NoHarware site but I suspect that they will continue adding some as time goes on. In my opinion it’s a very clever marketing campaign and should bring lots of attention to the GoGrid.com products. For more information on the GoGrid cloud computing packages you can visit their site at GoGrid.com

With the all the hype and buzz surround the “cloud computing” concept one would think that it’s all but a given that’s the way things will go. I, for one, don’t really agree.

There’s nothing I hate more than people saying that the operating system is going away and will be replaced with a web platform. One must understand where there is hardware there must be some sort of operating system to load the drivers and software needed to run that hardware.

I don’t disagree that lots of “cloudy” type services are being offered but I don’t think it’s all it’s cracked up to be. Personally, I like to have control over my data. If one were to read the license agreements for most of these cloud applications (i.e. Flickr, Google, YouTube, etc.) you might realize that once you upload your stuff there, you no longer own it. Basically you are giving the rights to that particular service to use (and abuse) your content in any way it likes, including monetizing it. On one hand, I use these services for stuff I don’t really care about but I don’t use these services for storing private or personal data. That I leave to the trusty hard drives in my desktop PC.

The other factor I can see stopping the use of cloud computing services are various pieces of legislation. A prime example of the is the Personal Information International Disclosure Protection Act (PIIDPA) of Nova Scotia, Canada. In short, this act does no permit the storage of personal data (by local Government agencies) on systems outside of Canada. It also has some provisions for Government employees who travel across the border and what they can and cannot do with their data.

So anyway, these are just some reasons why cloud computing may not be the end all solution as a computing platform.

That’s right. I’ve launched another website. This one is called Yarmouth Trader and is an online market place where folks can gather and trade good and services in the Yarmouuth, Nova Scotia area.

There are already a few users signed up and people are starting to list their items. I’m very confident that this site will turn into something quite popular with the proper promotion and maintenance.

I have also created a Facebook group, called Yarmouth Trader, to compliment the website and give the users a place to comment and share ideas. As far as promotion is concerned I am running an ad on Facebook (I had a $100 credit to use up anyway) and I will probably be putting the URL and site name on my car.

So far the Google ads are doing fairly well also. I am seeing a few clicks here and there.

Cheers!
~TheNerd

This is a short post on how Plurk (and one user in particular) saved the day for me yesterday.

Last night I noticed that I was having problems with my internet connect. More specifically, the problems seemed to be related to name resolution. I was able to reach sites which I had very recently visited, mainly Plurk because I was already logged in and had it loaded, but was unable to get to other sites such as Facebook, Google, gMail, etc.

I was also experiencing some problems with my telephone and cable tv services. For what it’s worth,  my ISP also happens to be my telephone and cable tv provider. I thought that maybe the whole of their services would go down because at one point I completely lost the signal on my TV and the phone started to ring like it was possessed by an evil spirit. But I noticed that Plurk was still going strong.

At this point I remembered a service called openDNS, which provides a service that you can use to replace your default ISP issued DNS servers. I thought to myself “If only I could get to their website!”. I pondered it for a few minutes all the while not realizing that the answer was right in front of me. What was this answer? It was Plurk of course!

Since I am a computer nerd by trade and hobby, I tend to associate with folks who fall roughly into the same category. I then posted a Plurk asking for the IP addresses of the openDNS servers. Lo and behold, in about 15 seconds I had a response from Live Crunch with the answer! It took me about another 30 seconds to input the addresses into my my network connection settings but as soon as I applied the changes I was off to the races with a fully working internet connection.

For most people this might not seem like a very impressive story but for me it says a lot about the people in Plurkistan. They are always willing to help out others with advice, information, and simple words.  Just the thought of this made my day much better and put me into a good mood.

For those that want to add me to Plurk you can find me here!

PS> A special mention goes out to nethead for being the runner up. He sent me the IP addresses of the servers just a few seconds after Live Crunch.

Cheers!
~TheNerd

For those of you who are either luddites or live under a rock there is a new phenomenon in the online social networking world called Plurk.

What pre-tell, you ask, is Plurk? Well it’s along the same line as Twitter where you can post short “status” like updates that are 140 characters. Some people refer to this type of service as microblogging but unlike Twitter, Plurk groups the threads together ,thus making it extremely easy to read and follow. The other great feature is the time line which scrolls from left to right rather than reads up and down like Twitter.

I could talk all day about the cool features of Plurk but what you need to know is that it’s cool, fun, and there are lots of good people there. Here are some examples of some really great folks on Plurk: miketempleton, ruggsymuggs, bikeman, nethead, MikeonTV. I know I missed some excellent people but these are the ones fresh in my head as I have been chatting with them over the past few minutes.

One thing that Plurk has taught me is how to express myself in very short messages. Sure you can keep posting replies to your own Plurks (that’s what a post is called in the Plurktionary) but that looks pretty silly. I know that, if I were to meet these Plurkers in real life, I would be friends with them as most Plurkville residents I’ve met share common interests and a similar sense of humour.

If you are new to Plurk and/or want someone to help you get started, feel free to add me (TheNerd) as one of your friends. I’ll make sure you get well acquainted with the Plurk Universe (Pluniverse, Plurkville, Plurktown, etc).

Cheers!
~TheNerd

I’ve been plugging away at my business plan over the past few days and have made some decent progress. I’ve been trying to write it as professionally as possible so it’s taking a some extra time to make sure I have all the wording all nice and pretty.

The worst part about the whole thing is the market research.  It’s hard enough to find decent numbers for places like Toronto and Vancouver never mind Halifax or maybe even a smaller town where I grew up. I guess it might not be that the numbers are hard to find, it might just be hard to find for a non-numbers person such as myself. Regardless it will come eventually.

Aside from that I am working with someone (sort of) on a new project that hopes to be launched into beta  sometime in the not too distant future. I don’t want to say much about it right now because I am not sure what exactly my involvement in this project will be and the details aren’t all worked out as to what the final product is actually going to look like.

I am also working on an eComStation related website project that, as soon as some bugs are worked out, will be launched. I hope that will happen within the next week or two before I return to my regular day job but I am not 100% sure yet.

~TheNerd