E-commerce questions

[Terahertz]

hi friends,
I have some queries about E-commerce sites.Plz help
1. If i have an E-commerce site and i sell products online how can i be sure that the credit card no. given by the customer is valid and has not expired.
2.How can i be sure that the credit card no. has not been tampered with midway before coming to the site.
3.If i want to use my own server can i rely on mysql database server and php scripting, both performance and security wise.
4.If Mysql and php are best then why arent big e-commerce sites using it.
5.Do u know what sites like Bazee.com, rediff.com,yahoo.com etc. use.

Plz Answer.Thnx in advance.

[Deep]

1. If i have an E-commerce site and i sell products online how can i be sure that the credit card no. given by the customer is valid and has not expired.

-- You dont need to worry about it, payment gateway will handle it, you just need to buy payment gateway service and then let them handle it

2.How can i be sure that the credit card no. has not been tampered with midway before coming to the site.

-- Well, what does this mean? You cannot control on whatever happens before the user enters the credit card number...

3.If i want to use my own server can i rely on mysql database server and php scripting, both performance and security wise.

-- well, you just need to keep the software updated and as well as you should make sure that you do not have any loopholes in your code too...

4.If Mysql and php are best then why arent big e-commerce sites using it.

-- It is not like best or anything, it depends upon the usage, if some companies need to use functionality of asp.net or JSP then they wont use PHP and vice varsa....many big sites are using PHP and mysql for shopping cart basically, one of the example of biggies in indian ecommerce industry would be www.tajonline.com

5.Do u know what sites like Bazee.com, rediff.com,yahoo.com etc. use.

-- ebay is on cgi, rediff is on JSP, yahoo india uses rediff shopping, yahoo.com uses many languages basically, their current OS shows FreeBSD so the coding language can be non-microsoft but it is highly possible that yahoo might be using some other OS and showing it as FreeBSD in server banners...

Yahoo small business section uses PHP and mysql...

I hope I have answered all your questions

Deep

[Terahertz]

Thanx 4 the reply.
can u plz say me abt that payment gateway u referred to. i want to know more abt that. or is there any site which could give me all the details.

One more thing(i just want to know this)---
if i want to have a site like Yahoo or rediff or such great sites wat all technical knowledge should i have.

yes!instant messengers also.

[Deep]

Payment gateway are many actually..in india known ones include CCAvenue, Trasecute and ICICI Payseal...

International payment gateways include 2checkout, paypal and many many more..

So when you enter the credit card number, the details are sent to the payment gateway so they can deduct the amt from the cr. card number provided and add to your account..so in this process..they do various checks including check for fraud detection...which verifies cr. card number wiht the name and other details provided....

About the other question, more than technical knowledge, the person needs more of brains..coz if he can think and plan in smarter way and hire peolpe then things can be rolled out very well

But at the same time, good technical knowledge is also required coz the person need to know what should be and can be applied technically...

The technical knowledge itself is vast term so it all depends on the field you want to choose...for example..for web thing the person needs to know whats going on around him and whats new (for example AJAX) and how to use take best out of it....

Regards
Deep

[Terahertz]

By Technical knowledge i mean wat sort of languages one needs to know.
1.I also want to know wats the cost involved if i build my own server like the servers of the big sites.

2.One more question: Yahoomail.com is a mail server. (i heard) what is a mail server. If i have such server can i also make a site which helps people to register their accounts and send and receive e-mails.

[Deep]

The language is totally depended upon the paln you make..but generally basic knowledge of PHP and clear understanding of logic should be enough....

The cost involved in dedicated server goes around $150 a month for P4 server and around $250 for dual xeon server....

About yahoo mail service, setting up mail server isnt the issue but the issue is to make so usefriedly script which can fetch the system mails and deliver to the user's mailbox, fight with spam and so many extra features...

Deep

[Terahertz]

Thanx for all ur replies. I have asked these questions many times to my computer teacher but he always gets irritated when i ask such questions. Once again thank u very much.

1.U said fighting spam! How does one do that?

2.what do u mean by reading system mails and sending them to users mailbox. i cant get it.

Plz Explain

[Deep]

Hi,
Here we go....

1.U said fighting spam! How does one do that?

- Basically there are many softwares available in the market which checks the mail headers and compares IP, message body and various factors in the mail and give scores... So if the mail is with high score then it means that it can be spam and the mail is not delivered to the user's inbox and is sent to bulk mail folder (like you see in yahoo, hotmail etc...)

So thats what I meant by fighting with spam....

2.what do u mean by reading system mails and sending them to users mailbox.

- Mail Server handles sending and receiving of emails but the medium which which sends and receives the mail is the software - the software basically fetches emails from mail servers and displays on your inbox i.e. web based interface like yahoo, hotmail etc..and the same allows you to compose new mail and send it to the specified email address...

It works like this - user views email via web interfac > web interface fetches the emails from mail servers

Users composes email using web interface > web interface sends email to mail server for delivery...

I hope you got the point

Regards
Deep

[Terahertz]

Thnx, i got it.
some more doubts.....

1. what is instant messenger.(yes i know that its yahoo messenger or rediffbol or etc etc) but i want to know how it can be designed. i mean wat languages are necessary for it.

2. Many of us have heard about sms services like sms 646 to kbc or 8243 to yahoo for accessing inbox etc.. here i want to know how can i make my own sms no. so that i can give users some information through sms from my site.

3. What is the basic configuration of a world class server and the cost of it approximately.(like the ones yahoo or such biggies use).Do they have only one server or 100's of such servers.
I have seen the configuration of many servers which are somewat similar to a desktop PC like a 3ghz processor, some motherboard etc etc. so can we make our desktop pc a server. i am not talking about installing web servers like apache or IIS but i am talking about performance.
Maintainence of such servers involves high cost and its recommended to let other third party webpages to use our servers through hosting.( i have read this in this forum). How far this is true. Wont our security and performance be compromised if we rent our servers.

4.For a big e-commerce site, i think its necessary to have own servers rather than hosting it somewhere else. How far is it true.


one small personal note: my questions may look foolish enough but plz plz answer them as i am a newbie to all these and i think i should know all these.

[Deep]

Originally Posted by Terahertz

1. what is instant messenger.(yes i know that its yahoo messenger or rediffbol or etc etc) but i want to know how it can be designed. i mean wat languages are necessary for it.

It can be designed using VB, JAVA, Visual C++ etc...it depends on the requirements and also depends on the which skill set your programmers are expert in...

Originally Posted by Terahertz

2. Many of us have heard about sms services like sms 646 to kbc or 8243 to yahoo for accessing inbox etc.. here i want to know how can i make my own sms no. so that i can give users some information through sms from my site.

For that you need to setup SMS server on your dedicated server and then it needs tieups with different mobile service providers so that you can get a number where people can send u SMS and you can receive them on your server...for more info on setting up SMS Gateway (Server), google willl help you a lot

Originally Posted by Terahertz

3. What is the basic configuration of a world class server and the cost of it approximately.(like the ones yahoo or such biggies use).Do they have only one server or 100's of such servers.
I have seen the configuration of many servers which are somewat similar to a desktop PC like a 3ghz processor, some motherboard etc etc. so can we make our desktop pc a server. i am not talking about installing web servers like apache or IIS but i am talking about performance.
Maintainence of such servers involves high cost and its recommended to let other third party webpages to use our servers through hosting.( i have read this in this forum). How far this is true. Wont our security and performance be compromised if we rent our servers.

Basic configuration of server starts from celeron machine (some people still provide PIII machines too) but for sites like yahoo machines with Dual Xeon Processor and AMD Dual core processors with load balancers, mirror servers are must....yahoo guys must be having thier own datacenter...

About the machine, there are specifc machines which are only meant for servers, it has different motherboard and bit different machanism which is specially for servers...so if you are into serious business then server machine is must rather than using home PC as server...

Originally Posted by Terahertz

4.For a big e-commerce site, i think its necessary to have own servers rather than hosting it somewhere else. How far is it true.

Yup, most of the big e-commerce site have their own dedicated server because they have important data of their customers and it is a real bad idea to host the site with that data on shared server...

I hope I have answered all your questions.

Good Luck
Deep

[Terahertz]

Thanx,
i have googled for sms server gateway and found some sites but they dont provide services in india. i couldnt get much information. Do u know of some sites which provide those services in india. plz help

[Deep]

Hi,
Check this post, I have provided info about open source SMS gateway software there...

I hope that helps you.
Regards,
Deep

[Terahertz]

Thanx
i have seen the post.
Recently i have heard of an e-mail server or something like that called IMP in www.horde.org.i dont what this is.I have seen some screenshots of the program which look like our e-mail interface in yahoo.can u plz tell me something about this if you know.

There are so many technologies to learn for creating an e-commerce site from html to ......Do u know of any sites which contain e-books about all these topics so that i can download them and read.

[Deep]

Horde is a software which displays the emails from your the mail server, it uses IMAP as well as maildir format to display the emails..

It is basically a web based interface like yahoo mail to check mails...

Other advanced ones include sofwtare like Zimbra which uses AJAX and gives lot more feature and better usability compared to other softwares available in the market.

About books on making ecommerce sites, you can take a look at Amazon for books...

Regards,
Deep

[Terahertz]

hello,
I think its better to join some course in any good coaching institute than purchasing all the books related to this. The cost of the books will equal the fee of any coaching institute. if i am right can you tell me some good coaching institutes in hyderabad or bangalore so that i can study all these technologies instead of buying books and reading on my own. do u think going for an MCA would be a better option. If yes wat are the best MCA institutes you know of.. Or if you know of any other alternative plz provide me the details.
Bye

[Deep]

Hi,
I have no idea about the institutes in your area...about MCA - yes it is a good option

Regards,
Deep

[Terahertz]

will an MCA syllabus cover all the topics needed for setting up a highly professional e-mail server along with all the topics mentioned here in this post.
Do u know of any institutes(not only from my area but all over India) which has a good record. Placement record of the institute is not a great issue but i want to know all the technologies..that's all.

[Deep]

Well, to be frank none of the institute are going to teach everything...you have to do it on your own...they all teach you basics and you have to learn on your own...

CDAC is good institute...

Regards,
Deep