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It has been a while since I have done an installation guide. About more than a year since the last time I did one. If I remember correctly, it was for the XZeroscript Classifieds. However, the best part about the new scripts, they are ever-so-easy to install. And the Tomato Cart is no exception. It is an easy to use, easy to configure and easy to install script, meant for general use. In fact, most scripts nowadays are meant for general use. It would be silly for developers to make it complicated.

Anyway, Tomato Cart is a open source PHP based shopping cart e-commerce script. Basically, you can create an functional, money making e-commerce store with this script and it is based on the osCommerce 3 script. Your webhost needs to have PHP 5.2.0+ installed as well as MySQL v4.1.13+ or v5.0.7+ . Well if your webhost doesn’t support such basic requirements, it is high time you change to another webhost. You will also need to know a little about webhosting and some basic Windows usage.

First of all, you will have to go to the Tomato Cart website and download the latest version. At time of writing, the latest stable version is 1.1.3.

Save it somewhere you can remember.  I usually just save it on my desktop for easy retrieval.

It is a rather big file, around 15.5MB. Note that if you are downloading other versions of Tomato Cart, the size will of course be different. As you can see from the picture above, the file is actually a zip file, which is a compressed archive file. You will need a software to extract out the files. In this case, I am using IZArc as my unzipping utility. I have been using IZArc for years and found no problems with it. You can use any unzipping software you want, even the Windows default software (which is kind of slow if you ask me).

Extract out ALL the contents of the zip file. It is important that all the files are extracted out. It could cause a lot of problems if you fail to extract out all the files.

I have extracted out the files onto my desktop.

You should be able to see the folder of what you have just extracted. You will need to upload the files in this folder to your webserver. But first, let’s check out what are the files and folders inside.

Inside the first folder, you will find another folder called tomatocart. Why? I have no idea. Click into this folder to continue.

Ignore the upgrade folder. The folder and the files you are interested in is in the qtunk2 folder. The contents in the qtrunk2 folder, you will have to upload them to your webserver.

Yes, these are the files and folders you need to upload. So start your FTP client (software). I am using Filezilla FTP client which i believe to be one of the better ones. Furthermore, it is free, just like IZArc. Begin we begin to upload the files, you have to get the FTP username, password and hostname from your web host. Without those information, you will not be able to access your FTP host. However, there are some webhosts which uses a web-based interface for you to upload files to your server. In that case, you should refer to your webhost for more information on how to do it.

It is now time to upload all the files in the “grtunk2″ folder to your webserver. Do not upload the tomatocart folder or your directory structure will be different! As you can see, I choose to upload the files to into a directory called “tomato”. You can of course upload the files into the main directory. The difference is when you visit your site, you either have to visit “http://www.yourdomain.com” or “http://www.yourdomain.com/tomato/” to get to your tomato cart page.

Choose all the files in the folder and click on Upload. It should take a while for it to complete. Go have a nice bath and come back later. How long it takes depends on your Internet connection speed and your webserver speed. But this script is pretty large, so it will definitely take some time.

Make sure all the files are uploaded to your webserver. Once you have completed the FTP process, it is now time to start your favourite browser. We need to begin the installation process.  If you have uploaded the files to your main directory, then browse to “http://www.yourdomain.com/install/”.  If you have uploaded the files to a subdirectory, then you will have to visit “http://www.yourdomain.com/subdirectoryname/install/”.

You can see that from the example above, I have uploaded my tomato cart files to a subdirectory called “tomato”, hence I will need to browse to “http://www.mydomain.com/tomato/install” to start the Tomato Cart installation. Click on continue at the bottom to continue.

Make sure that all is green and ticked. If everything looks fine, go ahead and click on Continue.

Now we have reached the database server setup part. If you have no idea how to create a database, you should refer my tutorial on setting up MySQL databases on Cpanel and setting up MySQL databases on DirectAdmin. If you are using some other control panel, please refer to their documentation for help. You will need the hostname of the database server (which is usually localhost), the database name, the username and password. As seen above, you will need to key in all those information before you click on Continue. The rest you can leave as default.

Click on Continue once you are done.

Yes, let the installation script do its job! Don’t rush it.

You can leave everything here at default. You will need to make sure that the work directory cannot be accessed from the outside.

Okay, you are about to finish. Not that difficult isn’t it? Key in the store name and the store owner’s name and email address.  Remember the Administrator Username and Password! If you lose the Username and Password, you will be in deep trouble as you won’t be able to log into the administration tool. And if you can’t log into the administration tool, you are effectively crippled. However for security reasons, keep the administrator username and password in secure place and don’t lose it!

You are done! You can either click on the catalog or visit the Administration Tool. The catalog is actually the main page of your newly created Tomato Cart based e-commerce store.

Ahhh….all your hardwork and your store is finally up and running. You will need to do some configuration. To access the Administration Tool, you will need to browse to “http://www.yourdomain.com/admin” or if you have installed to a subdirectory, then “http://www.yourdomain.com/subdirectoryname/admin/”

Key in the Administrator Username and Password and you will be able to enter the Administration Tool. Oh, you do remember your Administrator Username and Password right? If not, you are so screwed.

Before we complete this little tutorial, there is a little security risk which I think everyone should avoid. Remove the install folder! So go back to your FTP client as before and connect to your webserver.

On your webserver, there should be an “install” folder. Please make sure that this “install” folder you are going to delete is the one located on your server and not the folder on your local computer. It is pointless to delete the “install” folder in your local PC. Okay, now it is time to delete it. You don’t need it anymore since you have already “installed” the script on your server.

There you have it, you have completed installing the Tomato Cart Script. Easy. No hassle. No dealing with file permissions. A big thank you to the developers of Tomato Cart. And a big thank you for reading my tutorial. Best of luck to your new online store.

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Yup guys, it is yet another one of those installation guides. I am hoping to create even more such guides to help beginners install scripts without the major headaches associated with script installation. But in all seriousness, nowadays scripts are more user friendly and installation is a breeze for most.  We no longer need to spend hours and hours figuring out how to install complicated scripts anymore. Thank goodness for that. I really hate spending so much time installing stuff. And with a detailed installation guide, beginners will no longer worry about being stuck halfway during installation.

Anyway, I just purchased this XZeroscript to use as the base for my latest web venture. No, I won’t tell you guys what it is yet. But come back in a few weeks time and I will be more than willing to share it with you. XZeroscript is a classifieds script, a script to build something along the lines of Craigslist. Yes, the place where you post and read ads.  This script helps you manage all the ads you have in your classifieds site. From what I read, XZeroscript is supposed to be a very low resource script, making it suitable for high volume classifieds sites and for those (like me) who don’t have a dedicated server. Furthermore, it is value for money. As compared to other classifieds scripts, this is at the lower range of the spectrum and comes with a impressive array of features. In addition, their support is supposed to be top-notch, unlike most other script developers where you need to pay another huge amount just for support.

Okay, enough of the nonsense. It is now time to start the installation guide. First of all, I would assume that the user has some knowledge of Windows commands and usage. In addition, a little knowledge of webhosting is needed. Since XZeroscript requires PHP and MySQL, users should ensure that their webhost supports these. However, most webhost should support these features. If not, time to change your webhosting company.

After purchasing the script, you will receive an email attachment. You should save the zipped file somewhere you can remember as you will need to access it. As you can see, I save mine on my desktop.  The latest version at the time of writing is v5.1. After saving the file, it is time to extract the contents out. For this tutorial, I am using IZArc as my unzipping utility. You can use any other software to do the unpacking. You can even use Window’s own extracting software. The steps should be about the same. As usual refer to your software documentation for help.

It is now time to extract the files. Click on Extract to extract out the archived files.

Remember where you extract out the files to. You will need to access them. Make sure you extract out ALL the files.

There I have extracted them out into a folder on my desktop. Since we will need to do some modifications to the files, let’s get into the folder and find out which files do we need to make changes to.

In this folder, you will need to make some changes to some of the files.

Let’s locate the “config.inc.php” file. It shouldn’t be too tough. We need to make some changes to this file. Open the file with your text editor. I am using PSPad to edit my files. However, you can use any text editor you want. Don’t worry, the following steps are very easy to follow. All you have to do is to change some wordings in some files. No biggie.

Once you have opened the “config.inc.php” file, at the top of the you will need to make some changes. First you will need to edit the MySQL connection settings as indicated above. You will need your database hostname (which is usually “localhost”), database username, database password and the database name. You can ask your webhost to create one for you. Or if your webhost supports it, you can create the database yourself. I have done some tutorials on creating MySQL databases, so if your webhost uses cpanel as their webhost console, please take a look at creating MySQL databases on Cpanel. Or if your webhost uses DirectAdmin as their webhost console, please take a look at creating MySQL databases on DirectAdmin. Again, don’t worry the steps are easy to follow. So once you have created the databases, you should have all the necessary information.

After you have keyed in the MySQL connection settings, you will need to make a few more changes. Just below is the Name of the site, the site owner’s email address and the URL of the site. Note that if you are planning to setup your classifieds site in a subdirectory, you should reflect it here in the URL setting ($script_url=). Oh, remember friends, you should keep the quotes.

Now let’s scroll all the way down to the “Admin password” section. You will need to change the password to access the XZeroscript Admin Panel. It is important to have a strong password for security reasons. You don’t want others to hack into your site! And keep the password in a safe place.  After you have done, remember to save the file.

Okay, after you have edited the “config.inc.php” file and saved it, you will need to make changes to the “.htaccess” file. However, if you are planning to setup your site on the root domain, you don’t have to do anything. But if you are planning to place your site at a subdirectory, then you will have to edit the “.htaccess” file. For example, if your site is be located at “www.example.com/classifieds/”, then you will have to make changes to the all the instances of “index.php”. Add the subdirectory “classifieds”. Looking at the above picture, you will need to change “/index.pgp?view=showad@adid=$7&cityid=$1 [QSA]” to “/classifieds/index.pgp?view=showad@adid=$7&cityid=$1 [QSA]“. Do the same for ALL instances. Yes, it is a bit tedious but good things will come from it! Remember to save the file.

For some users, you might find that you cannot save the file back to “.htaccess”. It would require you to save it in another name. But don’t worry, save it as “htaccess” or in any other name. You can rename it later after you have uploaded the files.

The next step is to upload the files to your webhost. For this, you will need a FTP client or a FTP software. This software allows you to transfer files from your computer to the webserver. I am using Filezilla. The main reason why I use this software is that it is stable, seems bug free enough and open source. You can of course use any other FTP client and the following steps should be about the same. Please refer to your software documentation if you face any problems. I really don’t expect there to be more problems. You will need information from your webhost in order to access to FTP files to your webserver. All these information should be provided by your webhost.

After you have connected to your webserver, your next step would be to transfer all the files from the extracted folder to your webserver. Please note that you should transfer the contents of the folder and not the folder itself. If you were to transfer the folder, your URL to your classifieds site will be wrong (ie in another directory).

It might take a while to complete, so go and have a beer and come back after a few minutes.

There, all uploaded to your webserver. You should be proud of yourself.

Now, we will need to change the file permissions of some folders and files. With your FTP Client, you will need to CHMOD some of the folders and files. To do that, locate the folder “adpics” in the server and choose File permissions.  If you are using some other FTP Client, please refer to your software documentation on how to change file permissions.

Yes, here we CHMOD 777 the folder. In other words, we give all read, write and execute permissions.

Now locate the folder “userimgs” in the server. You will need to do the same thing to this folder.

Same thing. CHMOD 777 this folder.

Now let’s enter into the “userimgs” folder in the server. You will be greeted with 2 files. We will need to change the file permission of the “index.htm” file.

CHMOD 644 this file instead. If it is already CHMOD 644, don’t worry. Just leave it be.

You will have to do the same thing (CHMOD 644) for the “index.htm” file in the “adpics” folder. I will not be showing this in this example. The steps are the same.

Now, let’s locate the “data” folder in the server. You will need to change the file permissions for ALL the files in that folder. So enter into the folder and you will be greeted with 2 files – “badwords.dat” and “spamfilter.dat“. Now’s let change the file permission for both of them.

For these files, you will need to CHMOD 777.

Okay, after you have done that, you will need to do the same thing (CHMOD 777) to the files in the “lang“, “log” and”mailtemplates” folders in the server. Yes, ALL the files in those folders. Since the steps are the same as above, there won’t be any screenshots. Don’t worry, you can do it!

For those who have edited their “.htaccess” file earlier, you might have to rename your “.htaccess” file back. So locate the file which is the original “.htaccess” file. In this example, my file is “htaccess” and I will need to rename it to “.htaccess”.

There you go, it is now “.htaccess”. This file is important because the file helps you do all those URL rewriting to get those pretty SEO friendly URLs.

There, start your web browser and check whether your settings is correct or not. If you website is at “www.example.com”, then you should browse to “www.example.com/setup”. Then hit the Setup button to continue. You are about done!

If everything is correct, you will be greeted with this screen. All green means good! Your database has been setup successfully.

However, before we conclude our tutorial, you will need to do some security maintenance. Go back to your FTP and delete off the “setup” folder in the server. It is a very big security risk if you don’t do that.

Okay, the installation is finally complete. Now it is time for you to login to your XZeroscript Classifieds admin console and do the hard part – adding the cities and categories.  The admin console is located at the admin directory of your site. So for example, if your site is “www.example.com” then browse to “www.example.com/admin”. Good luck! And remember to change your Paypal account in the “config.inc.php” file if you are charging for ads.

Hope you have enjoyed reading this guide as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Please leave some comments.

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IceBB is a forum script based on PHP and MySQL. It is meant to be a lightweight, responsive and easy to use open source forum script. Although it might not be as popular as some of the other forum scripts out there, it is gaining popularity. One of its advantages is that this script can scale very well. So if you have an ever increasing number of users, then you should give this script a serious consideration. I have written this step by step installation guide to make it easy for beginners to get started with IceBB. However, this guide still requires users to have some knowledge of Windows and windows commands and ftp and hosting know-how.But for most, this shouldn’t be a problem. And as with most modern PHP scripts, the installation is actually very straightforward and should not be difficult for most. Furthermore, IceBB has a very active community to turn to for help. Your webhost should support PHP4.3 or above.

Okay, we will now start with the guide. Their website where you can download the script is located at http://icebb.net/. You should download the latest version of the script. At time of writing, the latest version was 1.0 rc10.

Click on Download Now! to download the IceBB forum script.

Save the file to somewhere in your computer. Do note the location where the file has been downloaded as you will need to access the file. It should not take very long to download as the file is pretty small – about 1.2MB.

After downloading the file, you will need to extract the files out. In this example, I am using IZArc. You can use any other unzipping software like UltimateZip or even Windows own extracting utility. It does not matter.

You will need to extract out all the files. Make sure you extract ALL the files in the archive. And again, note where you have extracted the files to as you will need to upload those files to your webserver.

There, all done.

The next step is to upload the files to your webserver. I am using Filezilla as my FTP client (File Transfer Protocol software). Of course, you can use other FTP clients, the steps should remain the same. You should refer to your software documentation for more information. I am using Filezilla as it is very stable and I do not have any problems with it. Once you have started your FTP Client, you will have to browse to the folder where you have extracted the files to. There should be a bunch of files like “admin”, “includes”, “install” and so on. These are the files and folders you will need to upload to your server. Connect to your webhost and if you so wish, create a directory on the server. So for example, if you are planning to have your forum in a subdirectory for example “http://www.example.com/forum” then you should create a subdirectory on your server “forum” and upload ALL the files to that subdirectory. Choose all the files and right click. You will be presented with an option to upload the files. Do it!

In this example, you can see that I have created a directory called “forum” and the files are to be uploaded to that directory.

Well, it might take a while, but as you can see the files have been uploaded. Again, please ensure that ALL the files and folders have been uploaded. Missing files can cause problems later now and they can be very difficult to troubleshoot.

Now, let’s start the IceBB installer. Browse to the URL of your website. Let’s say your website is www.example.com and the subdirectory is “forum”, then type “http://www.example.com/forum” into your browser. Once you have done that, you will be greeted with this above page.  Not to worry, it is a small problem and is expected. You will need to do some changes to your settings. As you can see, it tells you that the “config.php” file does not exist and is not writable. The uploads folder and the skins folder are also not writable. Now, we need to change that. You will need to go back to your FTP client.

Okay, now let’s find the “config.sample.php” file in your server (note: this is the file in your server and not on your local computer, aka the files you have just uploaded them to).  We will then need to rename the file from “config.sample.php” to “config.php”.Thus we right click on the “config.sample.php” file and choose rename.

Change the file name from “config.sample.php” to “config.php”. There one small step for webmaster, one big step for webserver. Now, we will need to change the file permissions. Some FTP clients call it CHMOD. They are basically the same thing. Again, if you are using some other FTP software, please refer to the program documentation on how to do it.

Right click on the newly renamed “config.php” and choose File permissions.

You will be able to change the file permissions (or file attributes) here. Give the numeric value of “777″. Or in other words, give full permissions to all. Some call it CHMOD 777. Don’t worry about security, we will be changing it back once we are done.

Now let’s change the file permission for the two other folders (uploads and skins). Right click on the uploads folder and choose file permissions.

As with the “config/php” file, give it a numeric value of “777″.  Do the same thing for the skins folder.

Now let’s get back to your browser and do a refresh. You will be greeted with the above page. And congrats, you are half way there. It tells you that everything is fine (all green)! Click on continue to go to the next page.

This is the page where you have to provide your MySQL settings. I have created a few tutorials for creating MySQL databases. If you are using Cpanel, please refer to my tutorial on creating MySQL Databases on Cpanel. If you are using DirectAdmin, please refer to my tutorial on creating MySQL Databases on DirectAdmin.You can also ask your webhost to create the database for you. They will then provide you with the MySQL Database name, theMySQL username and password. You will need this information in oder to setup the database for the IceBB forum. Once you have those information, you should key them in the corresponding boxes. As for the SQL Table prefix, unless you are sharing the database with other scripts, there is not really a need to change them. For the SQL host, it should generally be “localhost” unless your webhost states otherwise.

For the general settings, you should only change the Board Name. The rest should remain the same as the script will automatically detect the settings for you.

At the bottom of the page, you will need to create the Administrator account. You will need to note down the username and password and keep them safe as this will be the administrator to access your IceBB forum settings and configuration. Without this account, you cannot do any changes to your forum. So keep the username and password safe!

Click on Install to continue. The database will be setup with all the settings needed to get your forum up and running!

Ahhh……  all done.  But you will have to do some security procedures first before you celebrate.

Let’s go back to the FTP Client and change some permissions. Remember that you change the file permission of the “config.php” file to allow full access? You will need to change it back. So find the “config.php” file and right click. Then choose file permissions.

Change the numeric value back to 644 since you no longer need to write anything to the “config.php” file anymore.

Now let’s remove the install folder since we have finished installing the IceBB script. There is no longer a need for all the files in that folder. It is also a very big security risk to have the installer there. Let’s find the install folder and delete it. Right click on the install folder and choose delete.

There you are done. Now go and enjoy your brand new IceBB based forum.

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This is the installation guide for Piwik v0.4.2. This guide is for beginners who would like to install Piwik on their site and this guide assumes that the user have some basic knowledge of Windows commands as well as some webhosting how-to. For those who worry, well, don’t worry. The steps detailed here will guide you through the process of installing the Piwik scipt in no time at all. For those who have no idea what Piwik does, it is an open source webstats script. Yes, it gives you (the webmaster) detailed information on the visitors to your website. This is extremely useful for webmasters planning to optimize their site and improve their visitors experience. I believe that a webstat script is one of the most important aspects when it comes to website planning. There are actually quite a number of webstat scripts available out there.But in my opinion, Piwik is one of the better ones.

In order to install Piwik, you will need a webhost which supports PHP and MySQL. Most webhost will be able to support these features. If yours don’t, then change to a better webhost. You should also get the userid and password (and the URL) to access your webhost admin console as you will need to create the database. Some webhost do not have an admin console, so you will have to ask your webhost to create a database and user for you.

Anyway, let’s begin the step by step guide.

First of all, you will need to go to www.piwik.org and download the latest version of Piwik. At time of writing, the latest version was 0.4.2. Just click on the red rectangle to download the file. It should come in a zip (archive) package.

Download it and save it somewhere you can remember.

I saved it on my desktop. Your next step would be to extract the files out. I use IZArc to extract the zip file. You can use any unzipping utility. The steps should be the same. Just remember where you have extracted your files to.

After double clicking on the zip file, you will be able to see what is inside the archive. As you can see above, there is a directory and a html file.  Click on extract to extract out the files.

Remember the location where you extract the files. You will need them later. Make sure you extract ALL the files out.

There, I have extracted the files out. The piwik folder contains all the necessary files to start your installation. This is the folder that has to be uploaded to your server.

Start your FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program. Here I am using Filezilla. I have been using this software for years and it is one very solid piece of coding. You can of course use other FTP programs to do your uploading. I believe the steps should be the same. Browse your FTP explorer to the folder which you have just extracted. In this example, I will be uploading the entire piwik folder to my server. If you are planning to place the piwik files in another directory, then you should create the directory on your server and then upload all the contents of the piwik folder into that directory. Make sure you upload ALL the files in the folder.

After a while, the files would have been uploaded. Just browse to check whether the files are complete. Compare them if necessary.

Now, let’s start your browser and surf to the piwik installation URL.  If you web address is http://www.something.com, you should browse to http://www.something.com/piwik/. Of course if you had uploaded the piwik files to another directory, then you should change the URL accordingly. So for example, if you had uploaded the files to “webstat” directory, browse to http://www.something.com/webstat/.

Anyway, you will be greeted with the above display. It is telling you that some of the file permissions are wrong and you need to do some changes to it. This requires your FTP program.

With your FTP program, you should browse to the tmp directory of your server (and not your local directory) and look for the tmp folder. Next you should right click and choose “File Attributes”. For some other FTP programs, it might be known as “File Permissions” or “CHMOD” or something like that. Refer to your FTP program’s documentation for more information.

Now you will have to enable all the read, write and execute permissions. Some FTP programs allow you to just key in the numeric value, which is “777″. Click on Okay when you are done. This is how you CHMOD something. Easy right?

Now you will have to create two subdirectories in the tmp directory. They are “cache” and “templates_c”. You will also need to CHMOD them the same way as you CHMOD the tmp directory. So enter into the tmp directory and right click to choose “create directory”.

Create the cache subdirectory. Do the same thing to create the “templates_c” subdirectory. And then you will have the CHMOD 777 these two subdirectories as well. Just follow what I have done with the tmp directory.

Now, let’s click on refresh the page and see whether everything is done correctly or not.

Looks like everything is done okay. Click on Next to continue.

Hmmmm……what? It seems that there is yet another directory with the wrong file permission. What do you need to do? Well, do the same thing as with the tmp directory. Using your FTP program, CHMOD 777 the “config” directory.

There, all done. Click on Next to carry on.

Now you will need to setup your MySQL database for Piwik. I have written two tutorials on how to create the MySQL databases.  One is for Cpanel while the other is for DirectAdmin. Once you have created the databases (or have asked your webhost to do it for you), you will have to key in the user (aka login), the password and the database name. As for the MySQL Server, it should commonly be “localhost”. Get this information from your webhost. Unless you are using the database for multiple scripts, you do not have to worry about the table prefix. Click on Go to continue.

Ahhh…success! The database table has been created. Hooooooray! Click on Next.

There

Now, you will have to create this super user. Please take note of the super user and password and keep them safe somewhere. Without these information, you will not be able to login to your Piwik admin console.

Just keep in a name for the website name and your website URL.

Okay, all it almost done! The next thing is to copy down this information. You will need to add these into your website files.

Congrats, your installation is complete. Have a beer! But before having that 6th can of beer, remember to CHMOD the config folder back to 755. Yes, using your FTP program, browse to the config directory and CHMOD 755. This is a security risk you should avoid.

In this example, I am using WordPress blog script and this is the footer file. In order to add the Piwik information to my WordPress, I opened up the footer file with my favourite text editor (PsPad Editor) and add them just above the </body> section. For other scripts, you will need to do the same thing. You can actually add them anywhere between the “body” tags. But I would recommend you to add them at the footer section. If you are using static html files, you will need to add this text in all your files. Err….good luck.

And so there you have it, everything is done. You can now start enjoying your webstat program in real time. Life is good.

This tutorial is written by someone. He is the owner of the Singapore Business Directory. The directory comes with a very comprehensive listing of Singapore Travel Agencies. If visit the directory if you are looking for a reliable travel agent or a ticketing agent.

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Just what exactly is this Zen Cart thingy?  If you are not running an e-commerce site, you will probably don’t know. It is actually a shopping cart script which means it is powering your e-commerce site. Let’s say you are planning to run a website selling shoes and socks and you need something to automate the process of payment, number of items, type of items, shipping charges and so on, you will definitely need a shopping cart script. Doing it manually can be very time consuming and it distracts you from doing your online business properly.

So there you have it. The purpose of a shopping cart script. Now that you understand why you need such a script, you will have to choose from one of the hundreds of shopping cart scripts available on the Internet. And yes, I would recommend you Zen Cart. It is a robust and extremely user-friendly script. Even if you have no experience or the willingness to learn a programming language or something complicated, Zen Cart will work for you. No fuss. And hopefully with this tutorial, it will be problem free as well. If you would like to try out Zen Cart, you will need a webhost which supports PHP and MySQL databases. I am fairly certain that most webhosts out there supports them. Well, if they don’t, you should change to another better webhost. In fact, I have never encountered any webhost that don’t support PHP or MySQL.

So now let’s begin the tutorial. Please note that this tutorial is for beginners who would like to install Zen Cart on their server for the first time. You will need some basic experience in Windows command and operation as well as some webhosting knowledge.

We first start by visiting Zen Cart’s website and downloading the latest version. At the time of writing, the latest version for Zen Cart was v.1.3.8. You should always download the latest version as it ensures that the script is at least better patched with less bugs.

You will be directed to Zen Cart’s SourceForge site and from there you can download the script. It will usually be in “zip” format which is actually a compressed file. So click on the latest version to download it. You will have to remember where you download the file as you will need to extract out the files from that archive.

I am using IZArc to extract out the files. You can use any other extracting software to extract the files out. Windows XP and above, they have native support for zip files so it shouldn’t be a problem. Anyway, if you are using IZArc, open the zip file and then click on Extract.

You should remember where you have extracted these files to. You will have to upload these files to your web server.

Well, there you go. These are all the files you have just extracted from that zip file you downloaded from Zen Cart’s website. I have extracted them out into a folder.

The next thing you will need to do is to upload those files to your webserver. Most webhost will require you to upload files using FTP (File Transfer Protocol). So you will need a FTP software (or a client) and you will also need the hostname of the FTP Server, your username and password. You should be able to get those information from your webhost. As you can see from the above image, I am using Filezilla as my FTP Client. The reason why I am using Filezilla is because it is one of the most stable FTP Client I have ever used and furthermore, it is free.Don’t you just free stuff? You can of course use some other FTP Client like CuteFTP or whatever. The steps should be approximately the same. I believe that even if you are using some other FTP Client, all the instructions should be relevent to you as well.

After you have connected to your FTP Server, you should then browse to your HTML root directory. Please note that the HTML root directory is the directory where your files are visible on the Internet. After you have browsed to your HTML root, you should choose all the files in the folder you have just extracted the zip file to. So right click and choose Upload

.

It will take a while, so you should go and have a coffee or something. It should take about 10-20 minutes, depending on the speed of your Internet connection and your webserver. Once it is completed, you should see all the files on the server.

Now it is time for you to point your web browser to your website. So if your domain name is “somebody.com”, you should point your browser to “http://www.somebody.com”. You will be directed to a webpage that looks like the above. If it does, it means that everything is in order. You should then click on “Click here” to begin installation. If there is a error or you are directed to some other page, you should check your URL again.

Nothing special here. Just choose the correct option and click on Continue.

On the next page, you should be greeted with some errors being prompted to you. It states that the files “/admin /includes/configure.php” and “/includes/configure.php” does not exist. Well, not to worry, I will tell you how to correct them. You should go back to your FTP Client.

On your FTP Client, browse to the “admin/includes” folder and you look for a file called “dist-configure.php”. Assuming that you are using Filezilla, right click on the file and choose Rename.

Rename the file to “configure.php”. If you are using some other FTP Client, there should be some ways to rename a file on the server. Please refer to your software manual when in doubt. However, I am quite certain that the steps to rename a file is rather similiar to how Filezilla does it.

Now, it is time for you to change the file permission. You will need to give world-writable permission to the “configure.php” file. So right click on “configure.php” and choose File attributes.

Chmod 777 on the file. This means that you should give it full permissions ie. Read, Write and Execute. Click OK when done.

Now let’s browse to the “includes” folder. You will also find the “dist-configure.php” file there. You will need to rename it as well. So right click on the file and choose Rename.

Rename it to “configure.php”.

And again the same thing, you will need to change the file premissions for the “configure.php” file on this directory as well. So right click on the file and choose File attributes.

Give it world-writable permissions. Yes, that means Chmod 777 on the file. Click OK when you are done.

Okay, so now that you know how to change permissions, you will need to do it for other folders as well. You will need to Chmod 777 (world-writable permissions) on the following folders:

• “/cache” folder
• “/images” folder and all the folders inside that folder
• “/media” folder
• “/pub” folder
• “/admin/backups” folder
• “/admin/images/graphs” folder
• “/includes/languages/english/html_includes” folder

After you have done ALL the changes to those folders, go back to your browser, scroll down all the way below and click on Re-Check.

So you can now check through and see whether there are any problems with your permissions. If not, scroll down and click on Install.

Now, you will be prompted for some information on your database. In this tutorial,we will only cover MySQL as this is the more popular database out there. If you have no idea on how to create the MySQL Database, please refer to my guide on setting up MySQL database through Cpanel or setting up MySQL database through DirectAdmin.You will need to get information on your database hostname, databse name, database username and password. For your databse hostname, it is usually “localhost”. The other optional settings you can leave it alone. However, one setting you can change is the Table Prefix (or Store Identifier). It would be prudent for you to give it an unique name for the table prefix just in case you need to use the database for some other scripts (or if you share databases).

After you have finished keying in the necessary information, click on Save Database Settings to continue.

The server/site settings should be correct. If you have SSL, you should do the necessary changes here. If you are not sure about the information, you will need to contact your webhost. If not, then you should choose the “No” option in “Enable SSL” and “Enable SSL in Admin Area” and leave the rest alone. Click on Save System Settings once you are done.

This section is for PhpBB users. If you already have a PhpBB forum on your server and would like to intergrate Zen Cart to phpBB, then you should key in all the necceesary information. Click on Save phpBB Settings after you are done.

The next step is for you to keep in your store’s name, the owner’s name (that’s you or a nickname),  email address, country, zone, address, the default language as well as the default currency. For the Demo Information, I would suggest you to choose No as it is useless and takes up space. After you are done, click on Save Store Settings.

Now it is time for you to create an administrator account and password. Basically it is asking you to create an account for yourself and choose your own password and give them an email address. You will need to remember the administrator username and password as only this account will allow you to log into the administrator console and do changes to your store. Click on Save Admin Settings once you are done.

Yes, nearly complete, my friends. However, there are several security problems which we will need to look into. First of all, the configure.php files needs to have their world-writable permissions remove. Secondly, we will need to delete off the zc_install folder. Both are major security risks and you should really do something about it. So without further ado, let’s begin by going back to our FTP Client.

Now let’s go find the file configure.php located at the “admin/includes” folder. Right clickand choose File attributes.

Now let’s Chmod 644. It means that you should remove Write and Execute for both Public and Group while removing execute for the owner. Click on Ok once you have finished.

Now let’s do it for the “configure.php” in the “/includes” folder. Right click on the “config.php” file and choose File attributes.

Do the same thing again. Chmod 644. Click on OK when done.

Now let’s attempt to delete off the “/zc_install” folder. You will need to right click on the “/zc_install” folder and choose Delete.

When prompted, click on Yes to remove that folder from your server.

There you go. You have just completed the installation of your very first e-commerce site. So now it’s time for you to add in your products, your shipping details, more information about your site and products and so on to your e-commerce site.

It was pretty easy right? Once you get the hang of it, you will find that most Php based scripts do have very easy installation. And I will now say my Good byes! And good luck as well!

If you think this article is useful and if you can afford it, please donate so that I can write more articles.

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I am sure that most of you guys know what is social bookmarking (or social networking) right? I mean who doesn’t know about Digg, Stumbleupon, Friendster, Facebook and so on. These are social networking sites which people from all over the world meet, chat and exchange information. Sites like Digg and Stumbleupon provides an interface for users to come together and share interesting or useful information, news or articles about a particular topic or subject.

And now, you can create your very own Digg site! With Pligg! Basically it is a Content Management Script which allows users to “rate” or “vote” on articles which other users submit. Yes, it sounds so very familiar. Imagine having your own very cool site which everyone gathers to exchange ideas? You will certainly be the coolest kid in your kindergarten.  Na, not really. It is not just for little kids, but adults too can interact with others with the same interest. Do you like meeting others with the same hobbies as you? Well, social networking is the way to go now.

Anyways, if you are looking to create such a site, I would highly recommend you Pligg. If your webhost has PHP and MySQL support, then you can host Pligg based sites. And if your webhost doesn’t support these features, you should change to a better webhost. And I mean it. And for installing Pligg, it’s pretty easy and straightforward. All you need is a browser, FTP Client (Software) and same basic Windows and webhosting knowledge.I have written this tutorial for beginners and if you follow these steps, you should not go wrong.

Your very first step to setting up your Pligg based site is to go to Pligg’s website. From there click on Download.

Scroll down all the way and click on the Attached File. Please note that your version of Pligg might be different from the screenshot shown above. At the time of writing, the latest version of Pligg is the Beta 9.9.5. I would highly recommend you to download the latest version of Pligg as the latest version is usually the most bug free version available. Download the zip file to your computer and remember where you have stored it.

After it has finished downloading, you should extract out the files. You can use Windows (WinXP and above) own extraction software to do that. However, in this example, I am using IZArc to extract my files out. The reason why I choose to use IZArc is because I find it very stable and easy to use.

Now, remember where you have extracted the files to as you will need to modify some of the file names first.

So after you have extracted out ALL the files, you should open up the folder where the files are extracted to. There should be several folders and a whole lot of php files.

Look for a file called “settings.php.default” in the original folder. You will need to rename it to “settings.php”. So right click on the “settings.php.default” file and choose Rename.

Rename the file to “settings.php”

Your next step is to browse into the “libs” folder and look for the file “dbconnect.php.default”. Right click on the file and choose Rename.

Rename it to “dbconnect.php”.

For the next step, you will need some information from your webhost or your administrator.You will need your FTP hostname, username and password. Your webhost should be able to provide you with all these information so that you can transfer files to and from your webserver.

After you ahve connected to your FTP server, you should upload all the files inside the Pligg folder. It is important to understand that you will need to upload ALL the files and folders INSIDE the Pligg folder. Do not upload the actual folder itself as this will create a subdirectory on your webserver. But of course, if you are planning to install the Pligg script on a subdirectory then you should take note of the subdirectory.

I am using Filezilla as my FTP Client. Most FTP Clients nowadays are pretty easy to use and you should be able to follow the steps even if you are using some other FTP software. When in doubt, you should always consult your software manual. Anyways, if you are using Filezilla, you should select all the files in the extracted folder, right click and choose Upload. This will initiate the file transfer.

It will take appromximately 10-20 minutes for all the files to be uploaded. So either you go and have a smoke and come back later or you can just stare at the screen. Please ensure that all the files are uploaded to your server.

After you have successfully uploaded the files, you will need to set some permissions on several folders and files. The folders are “avatars/user_upload”, “backup”,”cache”, “languages”, “templates” and “templates_c”. You will need to give them world-writable permissions. Some call it “chmod 777″. So browse to your”avatar/user_upload” folder on your server, right click and choose File attributes. If you are using some other FTP Clients, please refer to it’s user manual for more information on how to set permissions.

Make it world-writable by enabling all Read, Write and Execute. You can also give the numeric value of 777 (that is Chmod 777).Click on OK when you are done.

Now lets do the same for the “backup” folder. Right click on the”backup” folder and choose File attributes.

Yes, do the same permissions as well. After you have finished setting the permissions, please click on OK to continue.

Yes, now we do it for the “cache” folder.

Give it world-writable permissions.  Click on OK when you are done.

Now for the “languages” folder.

Chmod 777 for that folder as well. After setting the correct permissions, click on OK.

And yes, do the exact same thing for the templates folder.

Chmod 777 yet again. Click on OK when you have finished.

Do the same for the “templates_c”  folder.

Yes, we need to Chmod 777 for that folder as well. Click on ok when you are done.

Now, let set permissions for a few files. Unlike the previous files, we are not setting them to world-writable so you will need to pay a little attention to the correct permissions for them. First, we need to change the permissions for the “settings.php” file. So find the “settings.php” file in the server (which is located at the root html directory or if you had set it, the subdirectory), right click and choose File attributes.

For this file, you will need to Chmod 666, which means no Execute permission is given. Click on Ok when you are done.

Now browse on the “dbconnect.php” file on the “libs” directory on your server. Right click on the file and choose File attributes.

Yes, set the same settings as above, ie Chmod 666.

Now lets go find the “config.php” file on the root html directory (please browse to the approriate subdirectory if you have setup your root as the subdirectory), right click and choose File attributes.

It is now time to Chmod 655. This means that only the Owner can read and write while the rest can only Excecute. Click OK when you have set the correct permissions. And finally we are almost done with setting permissions on the server.

Start your browser and point it to your website with the install folder. So if your domain name is “somebody.com”, you should browse to “http://www.somebody.com/install”. If you have setup your Pligg script on a subdirectory, then you should point to the correct URL. For example, if you have uploaded the files to a subdirectory called pligg, you should then browse to “http://www.somebody.com/plig/install”.

You will be directed to a page like the above image. Click on Next to continue.

Now it’s time to setup your database. However, first of all, you will need to create an MySQL database. If you have no idea on how to create a database, I have written a simple tutorial for you to setup a MySQL database using Cpanel or a MySQL database using DirectAdmin. After you have created your MySQL database, you will have the information to key into this page. You will need to get the Database Name, Database username, password and the hostname (called Database Server here). For Table Prefix, you can either leave it blank or just keep the defaults. This is only important if you are using multiple scripts on one database.

Ahhh….database found and everything is updated successfully. Click on Next.

So everything seems fine and dandy. The database has been updated with the necessary tables and you are about to finish the installation. But don’t go off just yet. You will need to do some “security stuff”. From the image, you can see that they are asking you to Chmod the ” libs/dbconnect.php” file back to “644″, delete off the “install” folder and change your default username and password.

So the first step we do is to change the permissions for the “dbconnect.php” in the “libs” folder. So,go back to your FTP Client and look for the file. Right click and choose File attributes.

Chmod it back to 644 as above. Click on OK when you are done.

Now, lets look for the install folder which is located at the root html directory. Right click and choose Delete.

Click Yes to delete the folder “install”. No worries, you are not going to use it anymore. Well, hopefully.

Now let’s go change your password. You will need to change your password because the default password is pretty well known. So click on “admin area”.

On the login panel, for the username type “god” and the password, you should type “12345″. This is the default username and password. You should change the password to something else to prevent unauthorised persons from accessing your Pligg control panel. You will never know what they are planning to do if you give them such access.

Now click on Profile which is located at the top menu.

Now click on Modify.

Scroll down to the bottom and you will see an option for you to change your password. So key in your old password (which is currently “12345″) and then key in your new password twice. Click on Save once you are done.

Congratulations! You have completed the installation of your very first Pligg based website. Wasn’t that easy? There is actually nothing much to learn when setting up a PHP based script.

Please note that there are a lot of features inside Pligg and you should take some time to explore all of them. You will be surprised at how powerful this script can be. I hope that this step by step tutorial is useful to you. If you have any feedback, please leave a comment here. Thank you.

If you find this tutorial useful, please donate so that I can create more of such tutorials. Through Paypal.

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OpenX was formerly OpenAds which was formerly PhpAdsNew which was formerly probably something else nobody can remember. Not too sure why they changed the name. Probably they were worried that the words “Open” and “Ads” (as in Advertisements) together project a kind of advertisement system which is open for everyone to see. Definitely not something someone who is interested in advertising on the Internet would want. Plus, OpenX sounds kind of mysterious. Or maybe the domain name “OpenX.org” was available? Who knows? Who cares? All that is important is that it is a great script which allows webmasters to effectively and efficiently serve advertisements on websites. Think of it as a advertisement (or banners) management system.

To setup OpenX, all you need is a webhost that supports Php and has MySQL database support.  Most webhosts nowadays do have these features. If not, you can definitely do better by changing to another webhost. If I am not wrong, OpenX also supports PostgreSQL. However, this tutorial will not cover it. But the truth is, even setting up the PostgreSQL database is pretty straightforward. In fact, once you follow the following steps to setup OpenX, I am quite confident that you can install any other PHP based script available on the Internet without breaking a sweat. Scripts nowadays have become very user-friendly, which is good as it encourages more webmasters to go and understand more about the programming language.

Anyways, before I go off-topic again, I shall now start the tutorial. You will need some basic Webmaster and Windows knowledge to follow the tutorial. This is meant for beginners who have never installed OpenX before.

Your first step is to browse to OpenX’s website and download the latest version of the script. At the time of writing, the latest version was 2.6.0. You should always download the latest version as bugs and errors have to corrected over time by the developers. Download the zipped file and save it somewhere on your computer. Make sure you know where you have downloaded it to.

The next step is to extract the files in the zipped file out. You can use a third party software to do that. Or you can use Windows (WinXP and above) own extracting software to do it. I am using IZArc to extract out the files. It is a very stable and pretty user-friendly software to use.

Remember where you have extracted the files to. You will need to upload the files to your webserver and thus need to use an FTP Client to upload the files. For that to happen, you have to get the FTP username, password and hostname from your web host. However, there are some webhosts which uses a web-based interface for you to upload files to your server. In that case, you should refer to your webhost for more information on how to do it.

I am using Filezilla as my FTP Client. If you are using some other FTP Client, you should refer to the software’s documentation but the steps should be about the same. As you can see from the above image, I am creating a (sub)directory on my html directory. Basically, I don’t want my ad server to be exposed at the default directory and thus it makes sense to install your script in a subdirectory.

So I have created a subdirectory called “openx” where I will upload all the files to. Note that I am uploading the files to this subdirectory instead of the main directory.

Your next step is to upload your extracted files to your webserver. So if you are using Filezilla, choose all the files in the extracted folde, right click and choose Upload. There are some files which you actually don’t need to upload. Bascially they are the ones in Capital letters. However, in my case, I just upload all the files in the folder. It is not taking up a lot of space anyway.

It may take a while but soon enough, the files are all uploaded to your server. Isn’t life  great?

Now start your browser and point it to your website. So for example, if your domain name is somebody.com, you should type in your browser the URL “http://www.somebody.com/openx”. Of course, if the subdirectory you have created in your server is something else other than “openx”, then you should change accordingly. You will be greeted with a webpage as above. Now click on Continue to well…err….continue.

On the next page, click on “I Agree” to continue.

On the next page, you will discover some errors (in red) which prevent you from continuing. These errors must be corrected first. You will need to change permissions for several folder, the”var” folder, the “var/cache” folder, the “var/plugins” folder, the “var/plugins/cache” folder, the “var/plugins/config” folder, the “var/templates_complied” folder and  finally the “www/images” folder.

So the next step would be to go back to your FTP Client and change the permissions there.

So in your FTP Client, you can see the “var” folder. Right click and choose File attributes. If you are using some other FTP Client, they have similar methods to modify the privileges for the folders.  Look for any options involving Chmod, attributes or privileges.

So, now let’s make the folder world-writable. Or some people call it chmod 777.  So for the Owner permissions, group permissions and the public permissions, you should allow everything. Or just chmod the value “777″.

We would do the same for the cache folder inside the var directory. So right click on the cache folder and choose File attributes.

Yup, chmod 777. Same thing. You will have to do it for all the folders listed by the script.

Go to the plugins folder inside the var directory and do the same. It’s kind of tedious right? If only there was a way to automatically do it without much prompting.

Yes, again chmod 777.

Not enough? You still need to do it for the cache folder inside the “var/plugins” directory. Is there no end to this torture?

How many times do we have to see this screen? Make everything writable as above.

Well, now let’s do it for the config folder inside the “var/plugins” directory. Don’t you just love doing the same thing over and over again?

Nope, nothing new. Chmod 777.

You are not in luck. You still need to do it for the templates folder inside the “var” directory. Right click and click on File attributes.

Well, yet again, it’s chmod 777.

Yes, this is the last one! The final step is to change the permissions for the images folder under the “www” directory. My fingers are getting sore from repetitive clickings.

Hooray, do it one last time. Chmod 777 and you have completed the permissions portion! Sometimes all the hard work you have done plays off! Well not all the time though. Sometimes you just get stuck with a big fat headache.

Now let’s go back to our browser and scoll down all the way and click on Retry.

Yes, everything is done correctly! If you have any errors detected by the script, please go back and correct them. Now you should click on Continue. The next step requires you to know some information about your database. In this tutorial, we use MySQL database as our backend. If you have no idea how to create an MySQL database, please refer to my tutorials on creating a MySQL database using Cpanel or creating a MySQL Database using DirectAdmin.You will definitely need to get the username and password to access your web control panel. After you have created your database, you will be furnished with the database hostname, database name, username and password. You will need these information for the next step.

Ensure that for the database type, MySQL is chosen correctly. The hostname of your database is usally “localhost” and the port number is usually “3306″.  Unless your webhost specifically tell you to change those settings, you should let them remain as default. For the Table names prefix, you can key in anything as long as it is unique in the database. If there is nobody else using the database, you can even leave it empty. Usually I keep it as default (ox_). There is no harm in having a prefix as in the future, you might have other scripts using the same database as well.

Looks like everything is okay, Click on Continue.

Unless you need to change them, you should use the default values. So if you would like the images folder to be placed somewhere else, you will need to edit the settings here. However, most users would not need to change them. Click on Continue.

It’s now time to create the administrator account. Please remember the username and password as you will need the information later to access your OpenX control panel to add your advertisers, your banners and so on.

Yes, happy days. Your OpenX installation is now complete!  You are now free to login into your administrator console and start doing your “thang”. It wasn’t that difficult right? Finding advertisers and making money from them will be your next big step. I guess the tough part is after the installation.

Anyway if you find this guide useful, please leave a comment. And if you can afford it, please donate so that I can write more of such articles.

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I am pretty sure most of you guys have heard of osCommerce. If not, then let me tell you what it is. It is a shopping cart script meant for web owners to setup a e-commerce store, usually to sell stuff online.  And it is one of the most popular shopping cart scripts out there. When I first started experimenting with e-commerce, I used a manual system to get sales. I didn’t realize that you could get such a power script for free (it’s open source). And when I started playing with it, I realize that it is indeed very useful for someone thinking to setup a shopping cart on their website. In fact, it acts perfectly as a CMS (though bit limited in functionality) as well. I guess that is why a lot of webmasters are so keen on anything open source.

Okay, this tutorial is for beginners to learn how to setup their first online store website using osCommerce. Yes, it’s the bling bling that matters! All you need is some Windows experience, a little webmaster knowledge and the osCommerce script. You must also have a webhost to host your files and they must support Php and MySQL. These are the two major requirements in order for your script to run. However, I am certain that most of the webhost nowadays will support these two features.  if not, then it is high time for you to change your webhost. I have seen “free” webhost offering their users MySQL database support, so there is no reason why your paid webhost is not. And osCommerce is a very easy script to setup and install. In fact, most Php based scripts are getting easier and easier to setup and install.

Now, let’s begin.

Goto osCommerce website and under solutions in the menu, click on downloads. Choose the latest version (at the time of writing the latest version is 2.2rc2a) and click on it to download. You should keep a note of where you have downloaded the file to as you will need to extract out the files from the original zipped file.

I am using IZArc to extract the files out. You can of course use any other unzipping software to extract the files. The steps should be pretty straightforward. If you are using IZArc, you should open the zipped file you have just downloaded and extract it out.

Again, you will need to keep track of where you have extracted the files to. After opening the file and choosing the location you want the files to be extracted to, click on Extract to extract out the files.

The files IN the catalog folder are what you will need to upload to your webserver. You do not need to upload the rest of the files to the webserver as they are more for documentation.

You will need to get your FTP username, password and hostname from your webhosting company. These are the information you need to access to your FTP server. I am using Filezilla as my FTP Client. I am using Filezilla as it is very stable and free. I have used it for years without any problems. If you are using some other FTP client, you should refer to the manual on how to upload files to your server.However, I am pretty sure that the steps for some other FTP Client are rather similar. Anyway, if you are using Filezilla, you will need to choose the files you want to upload and then right-click and choose Upload. Remember, the files are all located in the “catalog” subfolder. Do not upload the entire directory of the osCommerce extracted folder!

After you have clicked on upload, you should go for a smoke break and come back 15 minutes later. No matter how fast your Internet connection and your server’s bandwidth is, it should take 15 minutes or more to upload all those files. Of course, if you are doing it in a LAN, it should take much faster.

After you have finished uploading all the needed files to the webserver, you will need to start your web browser (eg Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and so on) and browse to your website and adding in the “install” directory. So if your website is “http://www.somebody.com”, you will need to browse to “http//www.somebody.com/install”. Of course if you have uploaded your files to a subdirectory, you should do the necessary changes to the URL. Once you have done that, you will be a prompted an error message as above. This message tells you to chmod 777 (world-writable) several files on your webserver. The files are “includes/configure.php” and “admin/includes/configure.php”.

So you will need to go back to your FTP Client and make all the necessary changes. The first file for you to change the permission is the “includes/configure.php”. So navigate to the correct folder, right click and choose File attributes for the “configure.php” file.

Since you are going to chmod 777 for your files, please tick all on Owner permissions, group permissions and public permission. Click Ok once you are done. Please note that some other FTP Client may have different names for setting permissions, it would be wise to consult the software manual.

We are then going to do the same for “/admin/includes/configure.php”. So navigate to the “admin/includes” folder, right click on the “configure.php” file and choose File attributes.

Yet again, we do the same thing as above. No sweat, it’s pretty easy.

Now, let’s go back to our browser and click on Retry.

If everything is done correctly, you should be directed to a page like this. Click on Continue to err…continue.

The next step is to setup your database and provide osCommerce script the necessary information to access this database. If you have no idea how to create a database, you should refer my tutorial on setting up MySQL databases on Cpanel and setting up MySQL databases on DirectAdmin. You will need the hostname of the database server (which is usually localhost), the database name, the username and password. As seen above, you will need to key in all those information before you click on Continue.

The next step is for you to key in your web address and the webserver root directory. If you have no idea what’s your webserver root directory, don’t worry the default should be correct (hopefully). If you are a worry-wart, the webserver root directory is the same as the address for your FTP Client when you access the main folder (that is the folder where you upload your files to). Click on Continue once you are done.

Okay, now it is time for you to key in your store name, the store owner name, the email address, the administrator username and password. Remember the administrator username and password as you will need them to access your osCommerce administrator console.

Wow, you are actually done. However, there are still several additional security steps for you to do. Click on any one of the two links. I have clicked on the “Catalog” button.

You will be directed to the catalog page. You will see that there are some warnings at the top. The first warning is saying that the “install” folder is still on the webserver and that will need to be removed. The second warning is telling us that the “configure.php” file in the “includes” folderis writeable and we have to change that in the permissions.

So let’s start with deleting off the install folder. Again go back to your FTP Client and you will see the install folder. Right click on it and choose delete.

Now let’s go change the permissions for the “configure.php” file in the includes folder. Navigate to the includes folder and right click on the file and choose File attributes.

You will need to chmod 644. That means removing the write permission and execute for the group and for the public. You will also need to remove the execute permission for the Owner. Click on Ok after you are done.

Although it is not stated in the warning, you should also chmod 644 of the “configure.php” file in the “admin/includes” folder. So navigate to the correct folder and look for the configure.php file, right click on choose File attributes.

Chmod 644, just like what you did for the other “configure.php” file. Click on OK once you are done.

Now let’s set the images folder to world writable. The images folder is located in the default directory you upload all the files to. So right click on the images folder and choose File attributes.

Chmod 777.  If you are finished configuring the permissions, click on OK.

Your next step is to make the backups folder world-writeable, that is chmod 777. The backups folder is located at the default directory where you upload the files to. So right click on the backups folder and choose File attributes.

Chmod 777. I am pretty sure by now, you are an expert in setting permissions for files and for folders. Thumbs up! Click on OK once you are done.

You will have the do the same for the “admin/images/graphs” folder. So navigate to the “admin/image” directory and right click on the graphs folder and then choose File attributes.

Well, do the same thing all over again. After that click on OK.

Now let’s go back to our browser and check whether there is any problem. If not, then you have successfully installed your first e-store. That was pretty easy right? The actual steps are very easy and once you have done with one script, you will find that the scripts are very much pretty similar in terms of installation and setup. Anyway, you are now free to explore the functionalities of osCommerce. You will surely be impressed! Go ahead and make some money on the Internet!

If you can afford it, please donate so that I can create more of such articles.

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Ahhh…..PunBB. One of the better open source forum scripts out there. It feels a bit like PhpBB but PunBB is definitely more lightweight and responsive than PhpBB. I am a definite fan of it as I am always keen on scripts that are lightweight. No point having a script that comes with tons of features which nobody uses and is very slow and sluggish. It would be better to create a script that is fast and responsive and if you need additional functionality, add on or modify the script yourself. Don’t forget to thank the developers of PunBB for making such a nice script.

Anyway, installing PunBB onto your server is a very easy thing to do. This tutorial (with pictures!) will show you the steps to get it right the first time. You will need PHP support and MySQL. I believe that PunBB supports PostgreSQL and SQLite, but in this tutorial, we will not cover them. Anyway, most webhost should support MySQL, so unless you have a preference for which database to use, then MySQL should be more than sufficient for our needs. No need to complicate things, right?

Okay, we will begin the tutorial now.

Your very first step is to download the compressed file from PunBB’s website.I have downloaded the zip version as this is the most popular achieving format for Windows.In fact, Windows XP itself can handle and extract files from zip files without any problems.  So download the file and save it somewhere you can remember. The latest version at the time of writing is version 1.2.19.

I am using IZArc to extract the files from the PunBB zipped file. You can of course use any third party software to do that. Or you can simply use Window’s own utility to extract the files. It comes with a Wizard to guide you on how to extract your files too.

Remember where you extract the files to as you will need to upload those files to the server as well as modify some of the files for PunBB to work. Again, I would like to stress that it is very easy to do, so dont worry.

After you have extracted the files, you will need to upload the files to your webserver. Please note that in the newly created PunBB folder which you have extracted the files to, there are two additional folders, one of them is called “upload“. The files IN that folder is what you will need to upload to the server. Do no upload the punBB folder and its contents as this will create 2 subdirectories and your URL will change (to punbb-1.2.19\upload)! This is very important!

I am using Filezilla as my FTP Client. If you have some other FTP client which you would like to use, please by all means use it. The main reason why I am using Filezilla is because it is stable. I never had any problems with my FTP file transfers after I switch to Filezilla. Plus it is free. So if you are using Filezilla, browse to the folder which you have extracted and upload the files IN the upload folder. Ensure that you upload ALL the files in that folder.

Of course to do all these, you will need to get your FTP hostname, username and password from your webhost.

Hooray, all the files have been uploaded successfully. Depending on the speed of your Internet connection and your webhost, it should take about 10 minutes or so to complete uploading all the files.

After you have uploaded all the files, your next step is to use your Internet Explorer or any other web browser (eg Firefox) browse to the URL you have just uploaded the files to. For example, your domain name is happy.com and you have uploaded your files to a directory called “forums”, you should browse to http://www/happy.com/forums/install.php. Note the “install.php” at the end. You will be directed to the PunBB installer which will guide you the rest of the way.

First of all, it will ask you for your database name, database username, database password and the database table prefix. If you have no idea how to create a MySQL database, please read my tutorial on how to create MySQL databases on Cpanel and MySQL databases on DirectAdmin. After you have created the necessary database for your PunBB script, you will have the database server hostname (usually localhost), database name, database username and password. Remember to choose the correct type of database. For the prefix, you can add anything. In my example, I have used “punbb_”. The prefix is meant for databases which have been shared by different applications and thus a unique prefix is needed to avoid duplicate tables in the database.

Next, scroll down and key in your administrator name, password and email address.For the Base URL of your PunBB installation box, key in the correct URL of your site. It is the same URL you have browsed to in order to access the page without the “install.php” at the end. You will need to remember the administrator username and password as you will need these information to access your PunBB administrative control panel. Without those information, you are doomed! Click on Start install to continue.

Hmm….looks like there are some more steps to go.  First of all, we need to create a file called “config.php” and copy some information to it then upload it to the server. The next thing we need to do is to modify some permissions on certain folders on your web server.

Anyway, you will need to copy the contents. So select all the text in the textbox and copy them. Your settings will be different from what I have, don’t worry, PunBB will provide you with the correct settings. All you have to do is to copy them.

Now, lets go back to the folder where you have extracted the files from the punbb file to. In the upload folder, you can see the file called “install.php”. What you need to do is to open the file with a text editor in order to modify it. In my example, I am using PSPad as my text editor. You can use any text editor, the steps below should be the same. Again, don’t worry, if you can do copying, you can do this!

Okay, now select all the text and choose paste. You will need to overwrite all the text in the file.

There, all done.

Your next step is to save the file. But you will need to choose “save as” because the filename will need to be changed to “config.php”.

There, change the name to “config.php”. This is the file which you will need to upload to your web server again.

So, go back to your FTP Client and upload the “config.php” file to your server. Remember to upload that file to the same default (original) directory and not any other subdirectory. It should be in the same directory as the “install.php” file.

There you do. Nearly complete. We just have several more things to go.

Your next step is to change permissions for the cache folder. So right click on the cache folder in your webserver and then choose File attributes. If you are using some other third party FTP Client, then refer to their documentation on how to change file permission. Another word for this is called “Chmod”.

You should chmod 777 on the folder. Or just allow all permissions.

The next thing you need to do is to modify permissions for the avatars folder. It is located inside the IMG folder. You will have to chmod 777 on that folder as well. So after you have found the avatars folder, right click and choose File attributes.

Do the same just like for the cache folder.

Now, for security reasons, you should delete off the “install.php” file. So go back to your default directory in your FTP Client and look for the “install.php file”. Right click on choose Delete to delete it from your server.If you are using some other FTP Client, there should be some way to delete off the file as well.

Now, let’s go back to our browser and choose “Go to forum index” located right below the webpage.

There all done! You have just installed your very first PunBB based forum! Congratulations, you deserve a drink! However, I would suggest you to go and play around with some of the administrative settings first before you get too drank and trash your computer.

I hope that you find this tutorial useful. If you have any suggestions, please leave some comments. Thank you. And if you can afford it, please donate a few bucks so that I can continue to write more of such articles.

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Yes, it is yet another guide to install something. I must have done like 7 or 8 of these “pictorials” in the past 2 to 3 weeks and maybe I should take a rest. Na, I will continue doing them. I am pretty sure that this can be very useful to beginners. I remembered that when I first wanted to setup a forum, I had no idea how to begin and where to go for help. Most of the guides were usually text and can be pretty confusing, especially if you have no experience. Anyways, I have done this guide for setting up the SMF forum script. One of the more popular open source forum scripts out there. Maybe not as common as PhpBB, but in my opinion it is still a pretty solid script. My first forum was based on the SMF forum script as well. It worked very well for me then and even though I have stopped being a forum webmaster, I am certain that it is still very capable as I have seen a lot of forums using SMF. Kudos to the developers!

As usual, these scripts require PHP and MySQL support from your webhost. Yes, most webhost supports these. The version of SMF I am using is 1.1.5 as will be shown below. According to SMF’s site, your webhost must have PHP version 4.1.0 and MySQL 3.23.28 for the script to work. Don’t worry, most webhosts should have at least that or else they should have gone bust long long time ago.

Goto SMF’s website and download the latest version. At the time of writing, the latest version is 1.1.5, so I downloaded that. I have chosen the zip file instead of the rest because I am using Windows. If you are using Linux or others, you can try using the tarball versions. For Windows, even if you don’t have any third party unzipping software, you can still extract out the files as WinXP is capable of handling zip files without any problems. Make sure you remember where you download the files to on your PC.

I am using Winrar to extract out the files. You can of course use any achieving software to extract the files. Their methods should be pretty easy as well. Just remember where you save the extracted files to. You will need the files to upload to your web server.

I am using Filezilla as my FTP Client to transfer files onto my webserver. Again, you can use any FTP Client to do that. Since all FTP clients support uploading and downloading of files, you should have no problems transfering files to your webserver. However, you will need your FTP username, password and the hostname of your FTP server. Please get those information from your web host.

What you need to do is to upload all the files and folders from the extracted zipped file to your webhost. Remember to only upload the files (and folders) and not the extracted folder itself. If you do that you are actually created a subdirectory called “smf_1-1-5_install” on your site. So for example, if your website’s URL is “www.goodboy.com”, your forum’s ULR will then be at www.goodboy.com/smf_1-1-5_install/. I am sure that is not you want.

It will take a while, so go and have a beer or something. After 15 to 20 minutes, come back and all is done.

After that, you will need to start your browser and point it to your site’s URL. The SMF forum script will detect that the script is not properly configured and will automatically run the installation script for you. You will be directed to a page like above. You can key in the FTP details and let the script setup the permissions for you. Or you can be clever and do it yourself. Please take note of the names of the folders and files you will need to give SMF access to.

If you are looking to set the permissions yourself, you will need to return to the FTP Client. If you are using Filezilla, right click on the folder or file and choose File attributes. If you are using another FTP Client, there should be some option for you to set your privileges. Please refer to your software documentation. Again, I would like to say, it is not difficult to do.

Chmod “777″ (all permissions) on the folder or file. And then click Ok. You will need to do this for all the folders and files listed above. Enjoy.

After you have completed setting up the correct privileges for the folders and files, go back to your browser and click on “Click here to test of these files are writable again”. If all is okay, you will be directed to another page. If not, it will return to this page and you will need to recheck which file or folder is not properly set.

The next step you need to do is for you to do some basic setting changes. Please key in your forum name. You usually don’t need to change your forum URL as it will be automatically configured for you. You can also modify some of the other settings like whether you want to use Gzip Output (compression), database sessions, UTF-8 character set and allow Simple Machines to collect your site’s stats.

Below that, you will be prompted to provide information about your database. Yes, you will first need to create a MySQL database in order for it to work with SMF. If you have no idea on how to create those databases, please refer to these two guides on how to setup MySQL databases. The first tutorial is for Cpanel and the other is for DirectAdmin control panel. If you are using some other control panel, you will get your web host to help you create the database. What you need is the hostname, the database name, the username and the password (of the user) for that database.

Once you have the information, you will need to key them on this page. For the MySQL table prefix, you can use anything unique. If you don’t have any other installations on the same database, then you don’t even need to have a prefix. Click on Proceed once you are done.

The next step is for you to create an Administrator account. Key in your desired username and password as well as your email address. Oh, you will need to supply the database password again for security reasons. Click on Finish after you are done.

There, everything is done. Well, not quite. Please click on”your newly installed forum” and check whether there are any problems with your forum installation.

Well, we have a major security risk! We have not removed install.php. Bad, bad boy. This will allow hackers to access our installation and modify settings. This is something which we all would not like. So you will need to remove that pesky “install.php”.

So go back to your FTP Client and look for install.php on the remote site and then delete it.

Now let’s all go back to the browser and check whether the warning still remains? Well, it is not there anymore. Looks like we are pretty safe from hackers and evil-doers. In fact, one of SMF’s main features is that it is a very secure script.

So here ends the tutorial. You have just installed one of the best open sourced forum scripts out there and it took about 20-30 minutes in total. That should include the uploading of the files to your webserver. And it was pretty easy right? Nowadays, scripts are getting much easier to setup than before, so don’t worry, you should get your forum up and running in no time!

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