UK computer and database user news

E-commerce features from GBG solutions

GBG Solutions announce the roll out of their new e-commerce platform using proprietary PHP and MySQL software. The first site on the new system is the recycled hanger supplier TFS hangers. Call Mark or Leighton on 0116 2689797 for an initial discussion of your web shop requirements.



Features of GBG Solutions E-commerce Website

Professionally Security Audited with thorough penetration testing.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
100% Template Driven (HTML is completely separate from PHP code)
XHTML & CSS Valid
Number of Skins included	4
Skin Selector - Allows visitors to change the skin.	(Optional)
Checkout Steps	2
New Customer Registration	Optional
Customer Order History
Add / Edit Orders from admin control panel.
Courier Tracking URL
Unlimited Products, Categories & Images per Product
One product in unlimited categories
Product Image Gallery	HTML Pop up or "Lightbox"
Multi Currency Support
Email Marketing
Sell Digital & Tangible Goods
Inventory Stock Control	On completed payment or order creation.
Multiple Tax Classes	Applied to multiple zones/countries.
"Tell a Friend"
Spambot Flood Protection
Product Search
Log search phrases (Can be viewed in admin control panel)
Advanced Product Search
Unlimited Product Options with +ve or -ve price.
Expanding DHTML categories box. (Unlimited depth)
Product Reviews & Comments
Related products (based on actual orders)
Gift Certificates
Discount Vouchers / Coupons
FireFox Extension - Allows you to get instant notifications of new orders, product reviews & stock warnings.
Module Import with version control. (Allows new shipping/payment/affiliate to be imported through admin control panel).
Alternate Checkouts	Google Checkout PayPal Website Payments Pro US (Certified Integration) PayPal Website Payments Pro UK (Certified Integration)
Shipping Modules	By Percentage of Order Total By Price (Free over certain order totals) By Order Weight Flat Rate Free Shipping By Category (National / International) Per Item Royal Mail USPS UPS (Rate v3) Canada Post Australia Post †
Payment Modules	2Checkout Authorize AIM Manual Encrypted Credit Card Capture CCNow ChronoPay Nochex APC PayJunction PayOffline PayPal IPN Print Order Form Protx (VPS Form) psiGate WorldPay Junior iTransact † SecureHosting † eWay † viaKlix † HSBC † VirtualMerchant (Nova Networks) †
Credit Card Validation (Seamless Modules Only)
Payment Transaction ID Logging
Affiliate Modules	ClixGalore iDevAffiliate JROX tradeDoubler OSIAffiliate †
Google Analytics
Professionally Translated Language Files
Language Files	German English Spanish French Italian Dutch Portuguese Russian Norwegian Swedish † Brazilian Portuguese † Czech † Danish † Polish †
Edit Languages File from Admin Control Panel
SQL Caching (To reduce server load)
Page Output Compression (Faster Page loads)
Unlimited Site Documents (Privacy Policy / Delivery / Amount Us etc...)
Install Wizard	Multi Lingual
Admin upgrade notifications - Lets you know when a new version of software has been released.
Easy Logo Uploader
Maintenance Tools	Recalculate upload folder size Rebuild category product count Rebuild number customer orders Reset number product views Delete orphaned thumbnails Clear search history Delete admin logs Delete admin sessions Clear SQL Cache Clear Payment Transaction Logs Bulk Image Thumbnail Rebuild Tool Resize Master Images Database Optimize / Analyze / Check / Repair Database Backup Tool
Statistics	Sales (By Hour/Day/Month) Search Phrases Product Popularity (By Views) Product Popularity (By Sales) Customers Online Now
Statistics Display Method	Dynamic Image Histograms
Unlimited Store Administrators (with configurable permissions)
Admin Session Log
Admin Activity Log
Admin Dashboard Notifications	Low stock warning New Orders New Product Reviews / Comments
RSS Announcements Displayed on Admin Dashboard (Configurable RSS URL)
Bulk Product CSV Upload - Works with any CSV format!
Bulk Export CSV	Google Base (Froogle) Shopping.com ShopZilla
Bulk Product Price Update (By multiple category select or all)
Bulk Move Products by Category
Automatic Currency Conversion
Multiple unique stores with one database. (Software license required for each and it is not possible to share any inventory at all between stores. This feature is for hosting accounts that only provide one MySQL database when more than one store is required)
Sale Mode	Per Individual Product or store wide percentage reduction.
Hide prices for unauthenticated guests. (Optional)
Store Online/Offline Switch with message
Printable Order Invoices	Improved
Source Code Availability	Well Over 99% (2 Files Zend/IonCube Encoded)

posted by Mark Hearne @ 12:27 PM 0 comments

Problem opening .docx documents ?

With Vista and Office 2007 becoming more popular the problem of opening .docx and .docm attachments is becoming more common for users of older versions of Microsoft Word like MS Office 2003.
Fortunately Microsoft have published a Compatibility Pack which can be downloaded from here.
If you are running a MAC or Linux machine you could use an online convertor like the one at www.docx2doc.com

Labels: .docx documents, pc repair

posted by Mark Hearne @ 12:03 PM 0 comments

Free Online Cashflow Management Tool

I came across this great site that offers online Cashflow Management with an impressive feature list. It is 100% free at the moment but there is a good chance that it will become a paid subscription site when even more features are added. It is called pulseapp.com and it is great for putting together the cashflow forecast for your new venture.

Features at a glance

• Organize income by companies and projects
• Organize income and expenses with categories
• Integrates with Basecamp project collaboration tool
• Company income history
• Recurring income and expenses
• Multiple user support (to share with investors, co-workers, etc...)
• Potential sales/income tracker

Basecamp is an online project management system from 37signals.com

Labels: business cashflow calculator, cashflow management, cashflow tools

posted by Mark Hearne @ 11:25 AM 0 comments

Free Accounts software from Microsoft

It is not often that Microsoft gives out something for free but a version of their accounts program Office Accounting Express 2008 is available from them for download at Office Accounts downloads
It is a cut down version of their Office Accounting Professional 2008 which retails at a very competitive £149. So if you are fed up shelling out to Sage this is something you should considor.
The Pro version is multiuser, multicurrency, and MS SQL ready.

List of Features	Express FREE	Professional £149.95
Core Accounting (Nominal ledger, Sales Ledger, Purchase Ledger, invoicing, purchase invoice payment and banking)
Integration with Microsoft Word, Excel and Outlook
Integration with add-on Payroll and e-Payment services*
Visit the Resource Centre to get help with common questions
Generate VAT returns
Over 40 additional reports
Multiuser access (peer to peer or over Small Business Server network)
Job costing and department tracking
Stock tracking and valuation
Customisable company dashboard
Sales Orders
Purchase Orders
Cash Flow Forecasting
Recurring documents
Late payment charges
Run on SQL Server 2005 Standard, Workgroup or Enterprise edition
Foreign currency support

posted by Mark Hearne @ 10:26 AM 0 comments

E-commerce - A guide for UK business managers

So you have a brilliant product and you want to sell online to take advantage of what is still the fastest growing marketplace in the world? Where do you start? What do you need?

Well the good news is that you only need a website that is capable of showing off your product and enabling the customer to order and pay for the goods. You also need a way of telling people that your website is open for business.

A well designed website on a good platform will have search engine optimisation capability built in.
Before you even design the website you should be considering how you will be promoting the site. If you feel that a highly interactive Flash site is what you want then forget about SEO work and concentrate on offline advertising and pay per click advertising.

A shopping cart website has a database behind it which holds the product information, customer information and order and payment information. It usually generates the product pages on the fly reflecting stock levels, price changes, delivery information. This means the website is a dynamic one. For example Product A is not selling so you decide to lower the price. The backend of the shopping cart site, ( The admin area) will allow you to change the price of it and immediately when a customer visits the Product A page the price shown will be your new lower price.
The admin side of your new web shop is an important component. It should be very easy to add new product and pictures and easy to edit existing product.

How secure is your shop? You will have to make sure customer details are not available to spammers and other con artists. A secure area on your website should be used for encrypting their details as they send them.

This guide will start with the basics of Domain registration and Hosting requirements. Then we will look at Shopping Cart platforms, Security, Payment processing, and delivery options.
The final parts will look at search engine optimisation, internet marketing and website promotion.

Labels: ecommerce guide, online selling

posted by Mark Hearne @ 5:50 PM 0 comments

New shop goes live for Brandnativa

Brandnativa has just launched their new shop Bagz on the Run at www.bagzontherun.com
They supply eco freindly bags made from recycled inner tubes in Columbia. There are messenger bags, laptop bags,wallets, even snazzy handbags all very high quality and desirable items.

This is the first shop completed by the new e-commerce collaboration between node-net and
Creative Forces The first of many.

Labels: eco shop, handbag

posted by Mark Hearne @ 1:31 PM 0 comments

Do Senior Civil Servants understand data?

As a database developer and it is with disbelief that I watched the disc story unfold. The story about the two CD's sent by post that were lost and the office messenger boy who does the carrying things to the mail room was blamed for losing 25 million sets of personal data.

1. There were 2 CD's. This means that the data was at most 1.5Gb in size. I dont know what speed the datalink at the Revenue office is but lets assume it is a bog standard small office link. The download speed could be 20Mb a second, ie 5000 seconds per Gb.(less then an hour)
The upload speed would be a 8 times slower.

Secure ftp could have been used to acheive the next day delivery that TNT was offering.
I think one will find that they have a super fast uncontended digital connection which would have much higher upload and download speeds.

2. As for the cost associated with filtering this data, It would take me 5 mins to construct a filter - no matter what database format was used, incl. ones I am not familiar with. I would say that there is probably at least 50,000 people in the UK with these particular skills. By the way my wifes laptop could run this filter on 1.5Gb of data in less then 10 secs.

3. It is hard to imagine that the person in charge of and controlling this data does not have these database skills, or is assisted by someone with the skills.

4. The question of whether someone followed departmental procedure is a red herring to avoid the real question, which is about how the procedure was arrived at, in the first place.

5. If the people controlling these databases are so backward in their understanding of data and data manipulation, how could they ever be remotely trusted to be able to control the integrity of the data they have and the forthcoming ID card databases. The database technician has more control of it then they do.

6. I would bet the password protection on the disc is a widely available proprietary one that could be bypassed
by a $50 download.

Labels: data security, database design, UK ID card

posted by Mark Hearne @ 3:42 PM 0 comments

UK ID Card suffers major Blow

The loss of 25 million sets of personal details by the Inland Revenue will reverberate around the country and remind people how porous and irresponsible government departments are with our personal data. The Inland Revenue is one of best run and least corrupt government bodies.
Remember 1800+ differant government bodies will be able to "lose" or abuse our details when the ID is finally rolled out.

For you idiots who say "I'm ok, I have nothing to hide!", you are right

You will have nothing to hide, it will be all public and published.

Put a webcam overlooking your breakfast table and stream it live, you know they want to know what your having!

The details lost include full names, addresses, bank details, DOB, and childrens names.

Are the missing discs available on bittorrent yet?

Labels: ID, UK ID card

posted by Mark Hearne @ 5:48 PM 0 comments