mpowers

Thank you VERY much for your helpful reply. I made a few attempts at PHP and I am glad to have learned a bit more about that language. In the end, my search resulted ironically in finding an affordable shopping cart vendor that did exactly what I needed. So, in the event that anyone reads this post and has the same questions I did, I signed up with: SHopping Cart Vendor: www.e-junkie.com Cost: $5/month Service: And they do digital storage, delivery, and security of PDF docs. Credit Card Vendor: www.2checkout.com Cost: $49.95 setup fee + 5.5% of transaction +$0.45 per transaction. Overall, that was worth it to me rather than to try to code everything myself. Every other shopping cart vendor did not offer all the services I needed until I was on their Platinum or Gold plans at $200-$300 per month. Anyway, thanks again!

Hi all. I apologize if this has been asked many times before, but all my searches on this site did not result in any answers. I also read all the documentation and manuals I could find online for PHP but that didn't seem to help. FAQs did not address my questions either. So, I think I may be looking in the wrong places or not thinking of the right questions. Thanks in advance for any help to get me started on the right path! I am looking for help on how to best design my web site to sell eBooks I have written. I have no problem with the HTML code as I have done many stateless web sites so the visual display is no problem. However, I have not found any online shopping cart applications or credit card merchants that will take care of the product delivery in an affordable manner. So, I was hoping to code something simple myself that will still protect the product. My eBooks are currently saved on my local machine as password protected PDF files. I could put those up on the web server if I can find a way to secure them so they are not easily seen or downloaded without the right security validation. So, in relation to that, I have some very basic questions: 1. What is the best language to use to create scripts to run on the web server for generating emails to users that just purchased? PHP? 2. Can I store the ebooks in a protected folder on my web server so users can't see them, but still be able to send them out as an email attachment with a password to open the file, or send an email after purchase that gives them the password and a link to a secure part of my website? 3. Does anyone know of any script sample code for doing this kind of thing? 4. What info would I need back passed back from the credit card merchant and how should I handle it programmatically? (ex: name, email address, product code) 5. What other security measure should I take in coding, storage, etc? 6. Any other basic advice for me? Again - I know it is annoying to deal with complete newbies, but I appreciate any help to point me in the right direction. Thank you all!