necrobyter

Hi, I have published an article on getting started with PHP / mySQL etc on your local host. I think the basics of functional website programming with open source technologies can be learned very quickly. So I don't get accused of SEO spamming, I haven't linked this, so please copy the following link into your browser, where it will take you to an article which covers everything you need to start learning functional web development. http://www.madmedialabs.com/a-beginning-local-amp.html

I don't think that you necessarily need to OO a simple piece of code. Functional programming is often easier to read functional code but the key here is how you return it. $images=""; if ($numRows > 0){ $count=0; while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query)) { $thumbnail="images/assets/".$row['thumbnail_image']; $images[$count]=$thumbnail; } } return $images; } Then when you call $images=getPortfolioPieces(); you'll end up with an array of image locations. Then when you want to display them you simply insert: <?php foreach ($images as $i){ echo "<img src='$i' />"; } ?> It's true that using MVC frameworks will properly separate, data / design and output and that this is a good thing, so is OO but if it's a quick and easy solution you want, traditional functional or even procedural can get the job done and is, in my humble opinion, easier to digest / debug and just gets the job done. I never have liked MVC frameworks, I do sometimes use my own for large scale systems, but it depends on how long you have to get the job done and whether it's appropriate or not.

The simplest way to connect to PayPal I know is via a form post. When items get added to your cart etc you can update the values of the form and then when the user's ready they can press the Pay via PayPal button. Something like JQuery makes updating this form a breeze. PM if you are stuck, maybe I can help out. necrobyter@hotmail.com

You can edit things like the item description on your form post, you edit the company information and can add a company image from your PayPal control panel.

I think you have to get payment up front, whatever method you use is going to cause problems... If you really want to take payment afterwards you are going to have to convert the text to an image with a messy font and watermark the background making it hard to read. You've probably seen systems like this in action when a form verifies the user is human by asking you to type some words. The images are deliberately blurry, which means optical character recognition software won't work. At the end of the day tho, they could still type out the text themselves. That's the best you can do if you don't decide to take payment upfront.

I like Thawte SSL CERT You should be prepared for a lengthy registration process and they aren't the cheapest but just like everything there are levels of security. Different types of certificates do different things and different providers perform different checks... for me it's the best balance of price vs security.

Hi, I've written an article on starting web development which covers the basics. If it's not of interest then you should definitely consider an open source solution to your problem. This will mean you can move from having to build the solution to more of administration role. Magento is excellent, it's my favourite but there are many others. My article is here if you want to start learning to do it yourself. Beginning Apache / mySQL / PHP / JQuery development

There's numerous ways to achieve this, depends on what services your drop shipper has.. If they have the ability to receive form posts etc you can use Curl, if they have web services you can extensions for most e-commerce software to do that. If you provide more info on who your shipping company are I might be able to tell you what you need to do.

Hiya, The company I work for Mad Media Labs offer cheap and reliable shared hosting on a cloud based solution with your own Plesk control panel etc... myHosting: Cloud based server solutions It's simple to set-up and I'm on hand to help you out during UK office hours.

I agree with others here, the simplest and easiest to use / feature rich is, in my humble opinion, PayPal. Either use software like Magento that has it all set-up or use the simple post method and capture your funds manually when you go to ship the goods. PayPal form post

I like Magento, it's not that easy but it is feature rich and very decent.

Hiya, I don't think it's that risky but you should always consider carefully your motivations for doing so. As a beginner you are going to need to get quickly up to speed with securing data via SSL and dealing with payment providers over secure connections etc... Open source solutions like Magento have all this available out of the box and a great range of templates available, which you can customise with little know how. Is there a specific reason you want to build this rather than use an Open Source technology? Magento is my fav but there are loads of options.

I've used the simple link to PayPal option before, it works well. You do have to login to PayPal to capture the funds though but it's literally performed over a form post, when you click the button you jump to PayPal and then you specify in hidden variables what happens if they cancel or pay. Some people don't like the fact it's out of their site, however I personally think when you see it's PayPal's own system it does give the website a certain authority, they know it's being handled by a multi-national huge company and the old adage, if it's good enough for e-bay will apply. PayPal form post It doesn't really matter what technology you use, it's just a form post. You should still consider investing in an SSL cert if you plan on collecting user data, but using this simple form post you can have PayPal do everything for you, then from PayPal you can simply print packaging labels etc.. Hope that helps. Paul.

I personally like Magento, it can be a little hard on the novice user but it's massively feature rich and there are loads of cheap templates you can customise to give your site a unique feel whilst benefiting from loads of modules that are free for this e-commerce solution. The company I work for makes it's own one, you could check that out and see if it might meet your needs. ODIN E-Commerce CMS I hate to say it but Magento is better, this one's simpler tho so it really depends on what you want to get out of it.

Hi, My name is Paul Howlett, I'm senior developer at Mad Media Labs... I wrote this article about whether in house designers days are numbered, I'd really like some feedback and comments. Just be nice to know if people agree or not. For those who are new to templates and outsourcing design work, this should be very interesting and could save a lot of money. I am in no way affiliated with the sites I mention, this is just about my professional experience. Here's the article: Are the days of the in house designer numbered?