Cross Browser Compatilbility

The cart is installed and there's a test product uploaded. Now its time to do the cross browser compatibility test.
This site is being made of, PHP, CSS, HTML, and Flash.
I tested the site on the following browsers.
1. Opera 9.27
2. Internet Explorer 7 32bit and 64bit.
3. Internet Explorer 6
4. Mozilla 2.0
5. Mozilla 3.0 (Beta verison)

and after a thorough testing procedure, I found some errors. Some of them are;

1. IE 7 didnt show the CSS layout at all. All the content was aligned to left. After playing around with the php and css scripts, I managed to get it to work.
2. SSL didnt show up sometimes. Managed to correct it

Shopping cart - Done 35%

I have been working on this site for more than 25 hours up to now.


Still programming the shopping cart.

The picture shows the final layout of the site.

Added a login box to each page so that the customers dont have to go to the *particular login page* to log in. (Shown in the picture)

Also installed Secure Socket Layer (SSL) which cost $245. Its already configured in the shopping cart. Check out the *secure login* link , it turns http:// to https://.Thats damn cool!

Installed PHPBB2 Forum on the server . Even though PHPBB3 is out, only version 2 has contributions and extensions on oscommerce forum, so I have to stick with it and I think since version 2 is stable, its a wise choice to install this.

Builsind the shopping cart 35% done

This is the basic layout of the web site's shopping cart. I have done the layout and some added features for the shopping cart up to now. and more to go. :)

Web site is alive and kicking

Bought the hosting server space for $800/year with SSL feature. Then i created an account for the www.preciousgems.com.au domain and its hosted already. At the moment working on the shopping cart. It takes hours to program a proper cart with php.

Learning something every second. !! :)

The Shopping cart

First of all, check the latest update in here. and click "CHECK LEVEL 2" How cool is that? :) you can post your comments. :)

The shopping cart looks uncool as soon as you install the OsCommerce. A demo can be see in here.

So its as uncool as that :) to make it look nice and brilliant, I have to update the code with addons. Damn. it takes a hell of a lot of time, Today I was looking more at the addons and planning which ones to install. If I install the addons without a plan, the whole PHP coding will be a mess and its impossible to rollback. and its a nightmare.

Im planning to install some addons to do the following things at the moment.
1. Make the product display much nicer and professional manner.
2. Should hide the prices as son as the client sees the products, otherwise its like forcing the client to *BUY* which no ones likes to do when forcing.
3. Install Images for PayPal and Credit card tracsactions
4.Add Member login section on right-top of each page.
5. Reduce the number of clicks of the checkout process, since the original process of oscommerce is around 7 clicks and should reduce it to atleast 3. Again addons.


These are the things I feel I should add at the moment. But Im 200% sure that i'll have to add more and play around with coding more in the future. :)

Ah.. Also I changed the look of the main interface pretty much and check it out in here. Man it looks gorgeous. The girl's pic is copyrighted by ShutterShock, But it will be replaced with a HOT girl friend of mine which is an Australian girl. At the same time Jing (Chinese Girl) will be in the web site too. I put the copyrighted pic in there just to show the modeling friends what kind of a pose I'm looking for and when the pics are taken, these copyrighted pics will be removed.

Finally found the best hosting company

Even though I had serversaustralia.com in my mind, I still wanted to go for something better. I didn't stop researching. Then I found this company called AusWeb Hosting . They provide reseller hosting accounts so I can handle upto 20 accounts in one server.

Im planning of buying this because since I do web designing as a business, I can host all my client's web sites in this server and its going to get me some money too. The package is called Starter Pack and it has its own CPanel, and the features are much more better than ServersAustralia . This AusWeb package is about $50/m, but If i can manage to host about 10 web sites, I can cover the cost and get some income too.

Preliminary Presentations were good

Got lots of ideas from the presentations delivered by the students. I think this feature which is showing off what they are doing is very useful. So the students know whether they are on the right track with right people.
I guess I delivered the presentation well covering all the points right.
At the same time, informed the client about web Hosting package which is $9.95, he'll pay for it very soon. Then I can start off the shopping cart.

Its gone online :)

Uploaded the site for css and html testing purposes.
Its sitting on my domain as a sub. check it out. pg link.
The client is very happy with the overall look and feel of the web site.
The color combination scored well by the client.

In search of a web server

After a hell lot of a research I found that hostmonster.com is a very cheap and an updated web server based in America. But what my client wants is to host the web site in an Australian web server. Then i started to research again. Thanks to whiripool forum, I came up with this cheap hosting package which is offered by serversaustralia.com.au. Its just $9.95 per month and the features are brilliant.

Lets get it On.!!

Designed the basic layout of the web site. This home page will be used as a template with minor changes through out the web site. Check it out
Since this web site is about gems, I thought of using light colors such as white and gray, so the gems will be contrasting when shown in the product gallery.

OsCommerce addons are great.

Trying out some addons for oscommerce. addons.oscommerce.com The paypal account installing feature and learning about Secure Socket Layers and Security of the sensitive information. Afterall its my responsibility to ensure the site is high in security.

Layout sketching

Sketched some layouts for the web site. Planning a web site is tricky. Specially a site with a cart. Enjoying the work. :)

Project Proposal & Meeting

Gave a copy of the Project Proposal to the client. He likes the idea and the flow of the web site.
Talked about the pages, and its contents and the process of the shopping cart.
We asked for the images of the gems that is to be put in the web site and he has an idea of taking the photos by a professional photographer. He said he'll let us know about it in few days.