A quick Google search online for e-commerce solutions will garner a huge number of software solutions available for free or commercial use.  Among the free solutions available, and slowly losing its initial popularity, is osCommerce.  osCommerce is an extensive and quite possibly one of the most thorough out-of-the-box pieces of software you can find.  However, as all-encompassing as it may be, it is in severe need of a major overhaul to place it at the same level as its peers.

How it all began

osCommerce got its start in March of 2000.  Created by Harald Ponce de Leon and originally called “The Exchange Project”, osCommerce quickly began to grow in both initial popularity and capabilities.  The software is created with PHP and uses MySQL for its database core.  It can be installed on any server that utilizes these two pieces of programming.  For the past nine years, the program has been in the development stage.  Officially, as of March 2009, osCommerce released its production ready alpha product.  This release, Merchant V 3.0, includes a template system, an object-oriented backend and the ability to define the administration user name and password upon installation.  To date, the osCommerce site claims over 12,000 online stores currently using their product.

The current problems

While it is a very good and all-encompassing shopping cart program, osCommerce is not without its issues.  Installation of the program by a novice may prove to be a daunting task as a basic knowledge of MySQL as well as other web server technologies should be at the ready.  The default SSL option is initially and automatically set to “no” which is practically an open door to nefarious entities trying to gather secure information on customers.  Adding new shopping cart products is no simple task either – there are several options and features that need to be dealt with before adding in a new product, quite possibly the quickest way to creating a lot of confusion.  When you do have the program installed and your cart up and running with all of its products, adding any additional modules or templating takes quite a bit of work and may end up breaking the core of the program.  Not to mention the creators of the software do explicitly state that additions to the core are not always endorsed.

One of the best ways to avoid a lot of this hassle is to either have a seasoned osCommerce professional install the program for you or, if your web host has this option, have it installed by your hosting company.

Conclusion

If you are in need of a shopping cart program that is capable of being search engine optimized, fully featured and very robust, osCommerce is a good choice.  However, it still needs quite a bit of work in as far as installation and add-on capabilities before it can be considered a simple ecommerce program of choice.  OsCommerce is ideal for the knowledgeable and seasoned web developer, not for the novice nor the faint of heart.

Determining the best hosting solution for your business can seem rather overwhelming when faced with the seemingly never-ending choices available on the web.  If you already have a hosted site, this can make the task a bit simpler.  But what if you are just now getting your business out there for all to see?  Going over exactly what your business site needs are can help make this less of a chore.

Space

The first thing to consider is how much web space your business will need.  Think about what you want to convey to the general surfing audience about your business.

If you plan on merely putting out an informational styled web site, you can figure about five pages in total – a home page, an about page, a news page, a contact page and possibly one miscellaneous page.  In this case, your space requirements will be minimal and you can choose a hosting company that offers around one to two megabytes minimum in web space storage.

However, if you will be needing a site that covers several aspects of your business, offers product information and purchasing options, will be disseminating a lot of information to the public, or will grow and expand over time, your best option is to choose a web hosting company that offers unlimited amounts of web space.

Bandwidth

The next thing to consider is how much bandwidth your business web site will need.  Bandwidth, or data transfer, is the amount of data that is transferred from your web site.  This encompasses page views, images, videos, documents and files.

If your biggest concern will be consumers visiting your web site to gather more information about your business, then you can easily work with a hosting company that imposes monthly transfer limits.  However, if you plan on allowing customers the ability to download files or documents or your business site will involve a lot of video embedding, check out the hosting companies that offer unlimited amounts of bandwidth.

E-commerce

If you plan on selling products, e-commerce is a big concern when determining which web host to choose.  Almost every hosting company on the web will offer some form of shopping cart and secured server access (SSL).  Be certain to choose one that includes this within the monthly price and that the e-commerce solution offered is simple to use.  Nothing can cause a headache quicker than when having to deal with the actual manual setup of shopping carts and connections to SSL.  Another item to watch for is hosting companies that allow you to choose from several different shopping carts.  Not every cart program is going to be suited to the type or amount of products your business offers.

Support

When looking at the hosting companies on the web, one important aspect of their services to keep in mind is their support.  Look for companies that have a “one-stop” type of support section.  This should be one easy to find link on their main page that leads you to a section that offers (at a minimum) contact options (e-mail and phone), FAQs, a knowledge base and some form of tutorials.  An even better setup would include a ticket support system, a live chat option and 24 hours a day, seven days a week support.  Even if you’re an old hand at web hosting, knowing you can access support easily and have an array of options to choose from will give you peace of mind.

Extras

Extras to check out would include the types and number of add-on programs available – bulletin boards, social media plug-ins, and blogging software to name a few.  If your web pages are going to be built with PHP, Perl or Ruby on Rails, be certain the hosting company you choose has their sites already equipped with the proper scripting language.  One very popular extra and beneficial to businesses on the web is advertising credits.  Many web hosting companies offer this within their packages.  Decide which places you would be most likely to need advertising (Google, Yahoo, etc.) and choose your hosting company accordingly.

Wrap up

While there are a few things to consider when looking for the perfect web hosting company, it doesn’t have to be a daunting task.  Simply write down your requirements as far as space, transfers, e-commerce, support and extras and you are quickly on your way to finding the hosting company that will fit your business needs beautifully.

Whether your web site is a personal blog or a large business site, Drupal (http://www.drupal.org) is one content management system that can cover your needs.  Written in PHP and open source, the software is designed to allow for a dizzying array of add-ons (called modules) and themes to be added to its core.  New themes and modules are added constantly by third parties extending the program to allow for new and updated technologies.  The end result is a program that allows for easy creation and simple on-going management of your web site.

Drupal’s Beginnings

Dries Buytaert originally created the program as a message board and it was released as an open source project in 2001.  The name Drupal comes from the Dutch word “druppel” which translates to “drop”.  Apparently, Buytaert had originally created a web site (no longer utilized) called drop.org.  The intent had been to create the domain dorp.org (“dorp” translates to “village”) but a mix-up garnered drop.org instead.  Drop = druppel = Drupal.  Drupal has become one of the most widely downloaded CMS programs around – 1.4 million times from May 2007 to April 2008 and it shows no sign of slowing down any time soon.

The Core

Packaged within the basic Drupal program are core modules that an administrator may enable or disable, depending on the needs of the web site.  The administrator may also configure which users are able to add, modify or delete content, as well as which areas of the web site are accessible by members or anonymous users.  Taxonomy is the key to allowing categorization of content or “tagging” with keywords to enable easier search of the web site.  Some of basic core modules you’ll find include blogging capabilities, forums, polls, RSS feed capability and a feed aggregator.  Also, Drupal includes several basic themes and a color module allowing the web site owner the ability to change the look and color scheme of their site right after installing Drupal.

Modules and Themes

At last count, there are over 4,800 different modules and over 550 themes available to add onto Drupal.  This huge assortment allows you to modify your web site to do exactly what you need.  From image galleries, content type customization, WYSIWYG editors, social media plug-ins, and much more, Drupal third party add-ons will allow you to create the perfect site.  With the available themes, a “plain jane” web site can be transformed into a work of art.  Most themes created for Drupal are written in the PHPTemplate or Xtemplate engines.  A few templates are all plain PHP hard-coded and do not require either engine.  It’s preferable to use one of the engine-based themes as these are designed to separate HTML and CSS from the PHP coding.

Security

As of its 6.x version, Drupal can be enabled to automatically inform the administrator of all new versions of the core, add-on modules or included themes.  This core modules is called the Update Status module.  This by itself is a very handy tool as Drupal is constantly on top of any security issues that arise and will update the core as soon as the security fixes are implemented.  For older versions of Drupal (5.x and lower), and auto-update modules is available for download as add-on module (not part of the core).  Drupal.org also has a mailing list available to alert subscribers of any security concerns and updates as they occur.

Conclusion

With so many CMS programs out there to choose from, the best bets are those that are continuously monitored for security and have a lot to offer in as far as add-ons.  Drupal is one such program and is highly recommended.

Though often associated with hosting and network servers, Linux itself is operating system software.  Unlike Unix, which can be traced back to AT&T Labs circa in the 1960s, Linux is an open-source system that wasn’t released until nearly 30 years later.  In the 1980s, most operating systems were commercial products tied to proprietary licenses.  Those who wanted to reference the software were out of luck as they didn’t have access to the source code.  Things changed dramatically when Linus Torvalds introduced Linux in 1991.  The system took off in the late 1990s as more students got on board with the development of the project and the open-source community began to evolve.  The purpose of this article isn’t to provide a history lesson, but inform you that the Linux platform has come a long way and now stands at the forefront of the hosting industry.

Why Linux?

Linux makes a great option for web hosting because the system is so widely supported.  Many of the tools that help power the hosting industry have all been specifically designed to support the platform.  This goes from web servers like Apache and programming languages such as PHP, Cold Fusion and Ruby.  Even cPanel, the leading hosting control panel, has been designed to support the system, making it incredibly easy to manage a Linux server that would otherwise be complex.  When choosing Linux, you get a powerful hosting solution that gives you everything you need to create a professional, feature-rich website.

All in all, Linux is cheaper than Microsoft Windows, its main rival, and also said to be faster and more stable.  While the software is naturally complex than Windows, the development community is constantly introducing GUIs (graphical user interfaces) and other comprehensive tools to reduce the learning curve and make the system easier to work with.  As far stability and reliability are concerned, Linux is second to none.  Unlike other systems, this one does not require shutdowns every time you perform an upgrade, patch implementation or software installation.  This factor gives Linux the ability to greatly reduce down and demonstrate resilience in the hosting arena.

Another notable benefit is that regardless of the operating system you have running on your computer, you can still choose a web hosting service running on the Linux platform.  Therefore, even if you have Windows or Mac OS X installed, you can still choose a Linux plan and reap all the benefits it has to offers.  There are however, third-party software applications such as Microsoft SQL Server and other non-open-source technologies that may not be compatible with the Linux platform.  This is changing quickly as even Microsoft’s proprietary FrontPage client is now supported by most hosting providers running the Linux operating system.

The Preferred Hosting Platform

While there are really no significant differences between the systems, Linux has been openly embraced and is therefore, often a first choice for hosting customers.  In fact, you will find that this system is at the basis of most hosting platforms, more so than both Unix and the fast growing Windows server.

Open-source content management systems are abundant these days, but few have garnered the popularity of Drupal. Drupal is a free software application that allows individuals or groups of user to create and manage content-rich websites.  At the time of this article, Drupal is used by thousands of users to power a wide variety of different sites including corporate sites, discussion sites, community web portals, corporate and e-commerce applications, blogs intranet sites and social networking sites among others.

The Drupal CMS relies heavily on modules to extend its functionality to administrators.  These modules allow you to organize and display content, customize site presentation and manage routines tasks.  Combined with the supported add-ons, the built in features of Drupal allows for the creation of forums, image galleries, peer-to-peer networks, newsletters, podcasts, collaborative authoring environments and more.  Though incorporating new modules and customizing the software requires some technical skills, general usage of Drupal is a straightforward process that can be handled by almost anyone.

Drupal is written in PHP, a server-side programming language well known for its ability to create dynamic web pages and applications.   The software runs on platforms such as Linux, Unix, Windows, Mac OS X and other operating systems.  It also requires the use a database like MySQL or MS SQL to store content and system settings.  One of the most unique qualities of Drupal is that virtually anyone can create extensions for the software.  The current modules range from photo galleries to newsletter management and behavior management tools.   The extensibility of the Drupal enables the default behavior to be changed in order to build bigger and better websites. With extensive tutorials and documentation provided by the large community, finding support for your Drupal related project is much easier than other open-source content management systems.

Although some web developers have criticized and labeled Drupal as difficult to use, this CMS has received far more acclaim for its usefulness and the power it lends to quickly build large, feature-rich websites.  Treasured for its dynamic nature, websites created on its framework can be changed rapidly by modifying specific modules.

Drupal is an open-source software application distributed under the GNU General Public License.  This means the product is free to use and because the source code is freely available, you have the luxury to modify the framework to suit your personal needs.  While there are quite a few products who sell Drupal products, most of the modules and themes are freely available as well.