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Heavy metal store - light on experience


ironguardian88

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Hey guys.

 

My store has been live for a while, and mostly works. Before starting work on the website, I'd had no experience with html or php. Even now, most of the modifications were done by copy and paste from the forum here ;)

 

www.ironguardianindustries.com

 

I specialise in heavy metal from Perth (Western Australia) and Christian metal from around the world, often bands that I know or am friends with.

 

I'm quite happy with the site how it is, but if there are any glaring errors, or anything that NEEDS changing, could you please let me know.

 

Thanks

Rowland

www.ironguardianindustries.com

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Reread the rules for posting in here:

 

In addition to the forum rules, live stores discussed in this channel must be powered by osCommerce Online Merchant and have the "Powered by osCommerce" text displayed on the site. Not only is the osCommerce solution being used, but valuable feedback will also be presented by the osCommerce community.

 

If you come across a post not related to an osCommerce powered live store, the live store not having the "Powered by osCommerce" text, or the live store breaking the forum rules of presenting osCommerce related services (eg, web hosting), please report it so it can be deleted.

If I suggest you edit any file(s) make a backup first - I'm not perfect and neither are you.

 

"Given enough impetus a parallelogramatically shaped projectile can egress a circular orifice."

- Me -

 

"Headers already sent" - The definitive help

 

"Cannot redeclare ..." - How to find/fix it

 

SSL Implementation Help

 

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Its a stock template with the colours changed. The colours really don't match, sorry but I saw the page and immediately clicked out. The colours clash and I couldn't read the black text on the brown background without straining my eyes.

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Thats odd. The background musn't have loaded properly for you, its not supposed to be brown, but rather a mottled grey.

 

Yes, it is the standard template, with only a few changes made, as I've no experience with webpage creation. I'm rather proud that I managed to get this far with it actually.

 

I must have somehow removed the Powered By OsCommerce from the footer... and I can't remember how to put it back. There is no /language/english/footer.php for me to edit.

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Thats odd. The background musn't have loaded properly for you, its not supposed to be brown, but rather a mottled grey.

 

Yes, it is the standard template, with only a few changes made, as I've no experience with webpage creation. I'm rather proud that I managed to get this far with it actually.

 

I must have somehow removed the Powered By OsCommerce from the footer... and I can't remember how to put it back. There is no /language/english/footer.php for me to edit.

includes/languages/english.php at the bottom of the file

 

define('FOOTER_TEXT_BODY', 'Copyright © ' . date('Y') . ' <a href="' . tep_href_link(FILENAME_DEFAULT) . '">' . STORE_NAME . '</a><br>Powered by <a href="http://www.oscommerce.com" target="_blank">osCommerce</a>');

 

You may want to rethink your colour scheme.

 

Your store logo image is at the top left and it unbalances the shop.

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Hi,

 

Personally I think there's nothing wrong with a stock layout, most of us here started out the same way and have tried to learn along the way.

However, I too would re-think your colour scheme, whilst I'm not bothered by the grey/brown background with black text, the blue headers clash and so do the near white box backgrounds. Why not stick to various tones of grey for the whole shop? Your text on the home page is too large to start with then sort of changes sizes in places.

 

One thing I notice is that your url www.ironguardianindustries.com is redirected to http://ironguardianindustries.com/oscommerce/catalog/. I believe you should stick to having the store at www.ironguardianindustries.com.

 

In your privacy page you state "Your privacy is respected here, and we will never give away or sell your information. Having said that, you must be aware that no information is 100% safe online, and there is always risk that it will be stolen." and in your conditions you write "The conditions of use are simple. You shop at your own risk".

Noticing that you have no SSL certificate, shopping at your store will indeed prove to be extremely risky and will scare off most people. So you should get an SSL certificate ad protect all account and payment pages.

Speaking of payment, you could have a page explaining what the accepted methods of payment are otherwise people shopping with you are in for a surprise when they reach check out.

 

Say who you are in an "about us" page, and that goes for your contact page as well, there is no name, no physical address, no phone number, how are people going to choose your store over others if they don't even know who you are?

 

Isabella

~ Don't mistake my kindness for weakness ~

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Thanks for the advice Isabella and Coopco. I haven't really looked at those pages since I first typed them up. They definitely do need changing now that I'm tryng to get customers. I'll look into SSL as well, I've heard a bit about it, but not enough to work out what to do with it. Might be worth just asking my webhost if they can handle it?

 

I'm still a little miffed about the colour scheme, although it might just be that it only works well for my browser and screen resolution. I'll try it out on a few different computers and see what happens. The text was made large, as I had trouble reading it against the background when it was smaller. I still don't know where the brown is though, as there shouldn't be any. I'll look into that too.

 

Thank you everyone.

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your website host be able to set up an SSL for you.. if that cant, you might want to consider a new host!

 

On the other hand, if you are set on using a template, consider getting a new template.. Since it doesnt havethe colors you want anyways, and its a very recognizable one, just go without.. you will probably be happier installing STS and making a template yourself with html/

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DO NOT PM ME FOR HELP. My time is valuable, unless i ask you to PM me, please dont. You will get better help if you post publicly. I am not as good at this as you think anyways!

 

HOWEVER, you can visit my blog (go to my profile to see it) and post a question there, i will find time to get back and answer you

 

Proud Memeber of the CODE BREAKERS CLUB!!

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your website host be able to set up an SSL for you.. if that cant, you might want to consider a new host!

I dunno Lindsay, remember my SSL problem, and no one but Germ could figure out what was wrong?! Some weird port assignment as far as I can remember that made him make this face: :blink: ...

 

SSL is important though, but what's worse is if it only half works, because then you get all the really scary warnings. If you're gonna do it, make sure you ask the clever people on here to look at it and they will be able to tell you if it's working properly, and guide you through fixing it if it's not.

 

So when I went to this site, the back button doesn't work and you have to close the window to get away from it. Who does that?? Is it something you do on purpose, or where does that come from? Not to be critical, but I HATE that! (how is that not critical??!?! :lol: ) But seriously, is that a thing you code on purpose? It's quite mad, in my humble opinion... Especially since your link has to be pasted into the address bar...

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Right.. and since your host can not figure out your SSL, you should probably RUN from that host.. If a host can not set up and SSL correctly, that is likely not the best host.. and you SHOULD have SSL on your site.. especially since MOST offer it free..

A great place for newbies to start

Road Map to oscommerce File Structure

DO NOT PM ME FOR HELP. My time is valuable, unless i ask you to PM me, please dont. You will get better help if you post publicly. I am not as good at this as you think anyways!

 

HOWEVER, you can visit my blog (go to my profile to see it) and post a question there, i will find time to get back and answer you

 

Proud Memeber of the CODE BREAKERS CLUB!!

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:blink:

 

Who? Muah?

:unsure:

 

And yes that was the wierdest SSL port assignment I've seen to date!

:lol:

If I suggest you edit any file(s) make a backup first - I'm not perfect and neither are you.

 

"Given enough impetus a parallelogramatically shaped projectile can egress a circular orifice."

- Me -

 

"Headers already sent" - The definitive help

 

"Cannot redeclare ..." - How to find/fix it

 

SSL Implementation Help

 

Like this post? "Like" it again over there >

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Right.. and since your host can not figure out your SSL, you should probably RUN from that host.. If a host can not set up and SSL correctly, that is likely not the best host.. and you SHOULD have SSL on your site.. especially since MOST offer it free..

 

Well I do have it, but not the free shared SSL which most hosts offer. It was the dedicated, paid for one that Germ helped me with.. For the record, my host has been nowhere near as helpful as the people on here, because they just know the basic answers, but if anything goes wonky they are as lost as the rest of us, and then we come here looking for help. Usually the standard "install" instructions need at least a bit of tweaking, depending on where you are or what you use, etc. I just got Paypal Website Payments Pro and I'm not sure it will even work with my setup! Steenking Canada! Anyone used it from Netfirms?

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:blink:

 

Who? Muah?

:unsure:

 

And yes that was the wierdest SSL port assignment I've seen to date!

:lol:

 

HAHA!! That's the one! I get that a lot... "That the weirdest... I've seen to date!" hahahahaaa! Uh oh, here come the spammers...

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Well, I was going to put my 2c in my got a sql error when I tried to bring it up.

I get that on my site sometimes. What IS that?? Usually if I go away and then come back later, it's gone, but what is it though??!?! Is it a security problem?

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That means that you have a bad host! you need to get a better host if you get that error alot.. I saw that error ONCE in 2 years of hosting with my company.. its a hiccup in your database

A great place for newbies to start

Road Map to oscommerce File Structure

DO NOT PM ME FOR HELP. My time is valuable, unless i ask you to PM me, please dont. You will get better help if you post publicly. I am not as good at this as you think anyways!

 

HOWEVER, you can visit my blog (go to my profile to see it) and post a question there, i will find time to get back and answer you

 

Proud Memeber of the CODE BREAKERS CLUB!!

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Well, I don't know about the ones you get, but this one was an error connecting to the database. If you're getting the same....um....well, I'm a code breaker. You don't want to know what I think.... :lol:

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AAAAH! Really??? Jeez-IZ! I am far too lazy to change hosts, which Lindsay has now advised me to do twice today, for two separate reasons! Why do I have to change? No one else has Canadian dollars, and also it sucks to change! Changing to this one damn near gave me a stroke. God you guys must get sick of my whining... But waaaaah! Where shall I go?! Fellow Canadians, heeeeelllllp meeeeee! Quickly, before we all freeze to death!

 

PS - It only happened once or twice - do I still have to change? :P

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yea, i had it ONCE, and it showed as an error in my DB for about 3 seconds and went away.. but once in YEARS.. not all the time. I have no idea about the logistics of WHY it happens, but i know it DOESS happen on occasion, but it shouldnt happen more than once in a GREAT GREAT while!

 

I only suggest changing hosts because there HAS to be better ones out there and at a good enough price that theres no reason NOT to change.. Dont change JUST because i told you too.. but in my mind, a host that cant sent up an SSL right and has random db errors is not worth paying for.. Just my opinion.

A great place for newbies to start

Road Map to oscommerce File Structure

DO NOT PM ME FOR HELP. My time is valuable, unless i ask you to PM me, please dont. You will get better help if you post publicly. I am not as good at this as you think anyways!

 

HOWEVER, you can visit my blog (go to my profile to see it) and post a question there, i will find time to get back and answer you

 

Proud Memeber of the CODE BREAKERS CLUB!!

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yea, i had it ONCE, and it showed as an error in my DB for about 3 seconds and went away.. but once in YEARS.. not all the time. I have no idea about the logistics of WHY it happens, but i know it DOESS happen on occasion, but it shouldnt happen more than once in a GREAT GREAT while!

 

I only suggest changing hosts because there HAS to be better ones out there and at a good enough price that theres no reason NOT to change.. Dont change JUST because i told you too.. but in my mind, a host that cant sent up an SSL right and has random db errors is not worth paying for.. Just my opinion.

 

I'm not changing, I am extra super duper lazy. I tell you, there is no person on this planet who could have fixed my SSl thing except Germ! (Germ - Did you get your pony yet?? I put extra stamps on it...)

 

Re: SSL - All of them (the netfirms guy, the digicert guy) looked at it and while they were pondering it, I asked on here and got the answer. Then they all emailed me and told me it was fine!

 

It has only happened once that I got the sql error, I think. It was around the time I posted some file on here for someone to help me with something else and they may have been querying something. I remember that I didn't panic because I had seen that on here another time, about someone getting that error because one of the smarty-pantses from here was checking something for them.

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AAAAH! Really??? Jeez-IZ! I am far too lazy to change hosts, which Lindsay has now advised me to do twice today, for two separate reasons! Why do I have to change? No one else has Canadian dollars, and also it sucks to change! Changing to this one damn near gave me a stroke. God you guys must get sick of my whining... But waaaaah! Where shall I go?! Fellow Canadians, heeeeelllllp meeeeee! Quickly, before we all freeze to death!

 

PS - It only happened once or twice - do I still have to change? :P

 

How much traffic do you have? If you're getting them now, just think of how many your customers will be getting, then leaving your site.

 

It doesn't matter where you host silly thang! It's the internet! We all live there ;)

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I want a pony. *kicks the dirt around and pouts*

If you live in Colorado, and have dirt to kick around, my guess is there's a pony around there somewhere!! Look carefully... Have two cuppa coffes first! If you can't find one, I will send you one!

 

Although I live in Calgary and haven't seen a pony in years. Well, except for the one I mailed to Germ. Honest, it should be there any day.

 

Now I have to go back and look at Deb's post abut the actual issue...

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