* E-Commerce
There are a few ways to process credit cards. The best is a full
e-commerce solution. They require a merchant account. A number of
e-commerce providers will set up a merchant account as part of their
services. There is a huge range of pricing: from $0 up front and $0.50
to 5% per transaction; down to $2500 up front and $0.20 to 3% per
transaction. Jumping through these hoops can be frustrating, but some
banks have e-commerce packages. Your bank may be one of those.
Example e-commerce providers:
http://www.arvicsecure.com/
http://www.beanstream.com/website/index.asp
http://www.worldpay.com/
http://www.planetpayment.com/
Of these, I liked Arvic Secure the best. Planet Payment has a policy
where they require that you announce that they are your payment
processer in different locations throughout your site. Given how much
they charge for set-up, I feel this is asking too much, but their
services work well.
Another route is PayPal. They have some odd policies and practices.
With that said: set up is free, transaction fees are something like 3%
or less (see
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/fees-outside). You can
build a form that points directly to PayPal or makes a pit stop and
redirects the user to PayPal (see
http://www.epico.info/hostingquote.asp for an example: make a quote
and ask to pay via PayPal; go to PayPal then abort the transaction).
* Forms
You need to consider using a database to store your form material.
With PHP, ASP or ColdFusion, you can make dynamic pages that give
users access to their information. That information is stored in a
database and drawn from the database to build a form. The form has the
default values made up of a user's information. The users can change
that information, re-submit their information and the ASP/PHP will
update the database with the new data.
- ASP is available on Microsoft platforms. Many Web Hosting companies
support Microsoft servers. There is no licensing involved in writing
ASPs, but the server software needed will cost from $2000 up-- not an
expense you will have to bear, if all you're doing is leasing a space
(a virtual domain) on a server.
- PHP is available for Linux and Microsoft. It isn't everywhere, but
it's really popular. There is no licensing involved in writing PHP.
The PHP interpreter is free to download and install.
- ColdFusion is less popular than the above two, but it has a strong
following. Writing and using ColdFusion code is free, but running the
ColdFusion engine can be costly (see
http://www.macromedia.com/software/coldfusion).
All three are called "in-line" scripting languages. That is, the HTML
you send to a user has all of this programming hidden in there. The
server uses that code to do things like populate forms and talk with
the database. The end result is HTML code sent to the user. Perl, C++
and other programming languages can do similar work, but if you're
considering the jump from HTML to programming, the leap to an inline
scripting language isn't as far.
You should also check out the available CMS (Content Management
Systems) (see http://www.opensourcecms.com/ There you can try out the
different CMS). With some massaging, you might be able to one of those
to do what you want. In most cases, the applications-- the scripts--
are free because they are Open Source.
One really simply way to deal with submissions is to have all of the
form content sent to the server to a waiting script. This
application/script can turn the form content in material for email and
send it to you. You can take that content and manually build a page
for the user. Two large problems with this route: it's time intensive;
and the user cannot call up their own information for editing.
* Image/Resume Upload
In PHP, it's not too difficult to do image uploads (see
http://www.phpfreaks.com/tutorials/36/0.php).
In ASP, it's trickier, but far from impossible. There is an
application that I like called DynuUpload (see
http://www.dynu.com/dynuupload.asp). The licensing cost is $20 US. If
your ISP doesn't have it installed, you can buy the license, send them
the license key and a copy of the software and they should be able to
install it without trouble.
The trick is to make sure that you can control what gets uploaded. You
want to make sure that only valid users are allowed to upload images.
You want to make sure that they only upload images (or documents). You
also want to make sure that a user doesn't upload a program or other
objectionable material. Lastly, you want to control the size of the
image they upload. Otherwise, users could fill your server with junk
in a matter of minutes.
If you want to do the site by yourself, consider the learning curve.
If you want to gain the programming skills, it's worthwhile. If all
you want to do is build your site and maintain it, you should look at
a CMS. With a number of CMS (like PostNuke), you can deploy multiple
CMS products for the same site. They can even share the same data. For
example, you could use PostNuke for your site content add
more.groupware for Groupware functions; and throw in PHPBBS for online
forums. All three can be part of the same site, share graphics and
database material. A third way to go, is to retain a consultant to
build for the "backend" -- the programming. Ask that they allow you to
control as much of the frontend-- the look and HTML functionality-- so
that you can revisit that functionality later and change it as you
need to. |
Clarification of Answer by
dewolfe001-ga
on
17 Jun 2003 14:49 PDT
If your intention is to do the programming yourself, I think you need
to stop and do some reading. There are two books from Hungry Minds:
"PHP For Dummies" and "MySQL For Dummies". Despite the "Dummies"
title, they're very good books with a lot of information to get you on
your way. To install Personal Web Server, you need your actual Windows
Millenium CD. But, I think you need to tackle the learning curve first
and then worry about getting a local version of the site onto your
machine. If nothing else, you can a hosting package from any number of
companies that allow you to tinker and experiment with PHP and MySQL.
The service provider will have done the installation and the cost of
such space starts at $10/mo. + a domain name registration (good for
one year).
If that looks like too long a road, one or more of the CMS products
from http://www.opensourcecms.com/ could be combined to give you what
you want.
You can also talk with a web developer, give them your forms and your
plans and ask them to design the "backend"== the applications that
talk with the database and make the content dynamic.
|
,
0 Comments
)