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About MetaCart2
Overview
Hardware/Software Requirements
Credit Card Processing
Installation/Setup
Support/Add-ins
Browser-based Administration
The MetaCart Demos
Overview
The MetaCart2 eCommerce Shopping Cart System for Small Businesses and Developers
contains many, but not all, of the new features implemented in the recent
release of MetaCart2 for SQL Server. As with our other
e-Commerce software applications, MetaCart2's
HTML code remains fully
customizable for easy integration into your web site. To customize and integrate the application
into your own site, you will need to know basic HTML and have some familiarity with
Active Server Pages, VBScript and MS Access databases.
With MetaCart2,
your electronic storefront will have the same capabilities and
functionality as MetaCart
, including:
- Catalogs and products are fully searchable from every page by category, product name, product description, or price level.
- Database administration and order processing is accomplished through an integrated browser-based interface.
- Processed transactions can be archived
through the same administrative interface.
- Automatic
application-based customer, shipping, and warehouse e-mail notification
using Microsoft's Collaboration Data Objects (CDONTS).
- Credit card number validation using the Luhn Modulus 10 method.
In addition, MetaCart2 now allows for:
- in-state sales tax
calculations,
- automated inventory reporting and
updating,
- calculation of shipping charges based on
weight,and
- support for subcategories under main
catalog listings.
Like its predecessor, MetaCart2 was designed for manual credit card processing, but can be adapted
to work with the Pay2See, iBill or WorldPay systems, which do not require merchant accounts, or can be hooked to full-blown real-time credit card processing agents
such as CyberSource, or electronic
pay-by-check software. See "Credit Card Processing" below for more
information regarding accepting credit card payments.
MetaCart2 is a server/client shopping system based
on Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) technology hooked to a Microsoft Access
2000 (*.mdb) database.
After installation and setup, the system
readies your site for eCommerce. Customers can peruse your catalog of
products and add the items they wish to purchase to their "shopping
basket."
The customer then enters shipping and payment details and submits
his/her order, which is then processed and posted to the
database.
Hardware/Software Requirements
To use MetaCart2, your eCommerce site will need
to be hosted on a web server that supports Active Server Pages,
such as Microsoft NT Server with at least Internet Information Server (IIS) 4.0 or Windows
2000 Server with IIS 5.0. The application requires a System DSN
for its connection to the database.
You will also need a good website
design and HTML editing program (such as FrontPage 2000 or
Visual InterDev 6.0), and Microsoft Access or Visual Basic 6.0
(Visual Basic's Data Manager uses the same database engines as Access) to
create your own database. MetaCart2 was developed using FrontPage
2000, Visual Basic 6.0, and Visual InterDev 6.0 on a Windows 98 platform
using Visual Studio 6.0 with Personal Web Server and Windows NT Option
Pack 4. The MetaCart2 demo is hosted on a Windows 2000 NT
Server.
For MetaCart2 to work properly on
your local Windows NT or Windows 95/98 machine, you will need to have Microsoft Personal Web
Server 4.0 with Windows NT Option Pack 4 installed. You can download
the option pack from Microsoft's web site.
The only requirement for your customers is that their machine accept cookies
since the application uses browser session cookies for some features. The cookies expire when the user
session expires. No cookies are permanently stored on the customer's computer.
Credit Card
Processing
The
application assumes you will do manual credit card
processing. To use MetaCart2 for real-time credit
card processing, you will need an online merchant account with a bank, an
account with an internet credit card processing agent (e.g.,
CyberSource), and a security certificate for access
to your server's secure socket layer (SSL) for secure transactions.
Thawte and VeriSign are the two largest issuers of SSL server certificates.
Most of these services can be provided by the internet service
provider (ISP) hosting your eCommerce web site. One of the largest
eCommerce hosting companies is Interland, who hosts this site.
For a complete rundown of accepting credit cards online, see
the article, "What You Will Need - Plain and Simple."
Additional Installation/Setup Instructions
Additional installation and setup instructions, as well as
the End-User License Agreement, are included in
the README_DSNless.txt file and , in the MetaCart2
eCommerce application download package. Use of MetaCart2
is governed by the terms of this Agreement.
NOTE: The README_DSNless.txt file includes
resources for finding answers to the most frequently encountered
problems with installation of ASP-based applications. These involve the
correct directory location of the global.asa file, the proper setting
of permissions on a network or hosting server, connecting to the database
and setting up a System DSN (Data Source Name). Please read these
instructions carefully.
Support/Add-Ins
MetaLinks.com provides limited installation and setup support for MetaCart2
via e-mail only. Should you discover any bugs in the application, please notify us so we can post any fixes to our master
download file and provide information on this site to other users.
Assistance with other types of services, such as programming and design, adding additional functionality, or hooking up third-party
ASP components to MetaCart2, are available at reasonable rates at metalinks.com. For
developers and other do-it-yourselfers, the code alone is worth
the purchase price.
Browser-based Administration
The application includes a set of browser-based administration pages. For
security purposes, the pages are not included in the MetaCart2 demo, but are included in the download package.
The MetaCart Demos
You are encouraged to
try out all the features of our live demos prior to purchasing any of the MetaCart applications to determine if they meet your needs since we do not offer refunds.
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