[Curtis Thompson]

hello…

it’s a lengthy discussion to break them both down, but here’s the highlights from my experience with both:

miva:

1. license fees (aka not free)
2. cumbersome admin interface
3. hard to customize
4. requires isp to install typically
5. additional plug-ins and features have to be purchased (aka not free)

oscommerce:

1. open source (aka free)
2. easier access to db and code (mysql and php)
3. easier to customize _if_ you know php and mysql; otherwise no easier than miva
4. open source community of additional libraries and plug-ins

so if you don’t know programming, it’s probably better to stick with miva, i think, just because it has a company behind it to offer support and it is probably a bit more stable..but if you have to pay the license fees for miva yourself or you need customizations, then you might like oscommerce…

hope that helps!

sitruc

[Curtis Thompson]

hello…

pretty simple – just take the javascript block you have (just the js code – not the wrapper <SCRIPT> and comment lines) and put it in an external file somewhere and name it [NAME].js (with your own [NAME] naturally) – then reference it in one script call line:

<SCRIPT SRC=”[NAME.js” type=”text/javascript”></SCRIPT>

more here:

https://www.javascriptkit.com/javatutors/external.shtml

sitruc

[Curtis Thompson]

hello…

from a usability standpoint, unless you have something to put in the space, i wouldn’t recommend moving it down if it will force other content off the screen – scrolling is something you want to avoid at all costs, so always try to get as much content up top as possible…

think of the web like a newspaper – it would look pretty strange if my morning newspaper had blank paper for 6 inches at the top and then started printing… 🙂

(but if you want to move it down, i’d just put a couple of break (<BR /> tags)

sitruc

[Curtis Thompson]

hello…

i would recommend dreamweaver – biggest product base and it’s probably the best of the wysiwyg editors…

(i don’t use any of them, btw, but if i were to got with one it would be dw)

sitruc

[Curtis Thompson]

hello…

you can read it with pine – that’s a unix terminal mail client. they did an os x port here:

https://staff.washington.edu/jdlarios/MacPine/

it’s likely just going to be system messages and the sorts, but if you were to read it, that would be how…

sitruc

[Curtis Thompson]

hello…

you will have to have an intel mac to run either parallels or boot camp, as windows needs the intel chipset…

in theory vista will install via bootcamp, but i would imagine that there will be a few hiccups related to drivers and the sorts…but you can guarantee that the web will be full of stories from people who have tried within a few weeks now that vista is out…

sitruc

[Curtis Thompson]

hello…

well – you are in their index:

https://www.google.com/search?q=thewildernessinc.com

so i think it’s more a case of the fact that you don’t rank very high in their returns due to the generic nature of that phrase – also, your site is basically all flash, and google can’t follow flash links…so links to all your sections are not followable by the search robots, so all they get is the home page, and that has no text copy to index either…

they also tend to factor in links to your site to help judge “goodness” of a site – so if a ton of people link to your site, that will help you return higher in the google hits…

so i think it’s just a combination of all those – flash with no html, generic phrase/term and maybe a lack of other links around to you…

sitruc

[Curtis Thompson]

hello…

it’s not a setting issue – your fonts work ok in some because safari is playing nicer with your os, however you can’t just declare a font to use in your web app and have it show in that font. for example, chancery works for me on my mac but none of the others work because i don’t have them installed on my machine – and on my pc, none of them work because i don’t have those fonts…

fonts on the web are limited to a very few common fonts that all users have installed*** – these are basically arial, helvetica, times, verdana and georgia…but you can learn more here:

https://www.google.com/search?q=web+safe+fonts

so you’ll need to use one of those in your site if you want it to show in a font that everybody has – you can declare multiple fonts in your family to catch everybody if you’d like:

https://www.w3schools.com/css/pr_font_font-family.asp

but you can’t use copperplate and expect your visitors to have it… :-/

sitruc

*** except in a corner case where you can force the user to download and install a font but please don’t do that – it’s not good because i can reject the install, which i would because i don’t know why your site would be making me install something to view it, and you really will end up ticking off visitors to your site, which is naturally not good…

[Curtis Thompson]

hello…

freebsd and linux are both flavors of unix – the former was developed out of u.c. berkeley and the latter by a man named linus torvalds. both are very reliable variants and the differences wouldn’t ever really be noticable unless you are a real unix enthusiast…

(and don’t worry that a bunch of college kids and a guy invented these – they are both open source and under continual development and used by a very decent chunk of the biggest companies in the world – you can’t go wrong with either one)

if you are getting a dedicated server, be forewarned that unix will at most have a control panel on the web interface to do some basic things, but that any tweaks additional installs, etc. would be done via shell (aka command) access. some dedicated servers come with support, but some they’ll just give you the box and you’ll be expected to set it up…

i much prefer *nix (the generic term for all unix-based systems) to windows for serving, but you can build very reliable windows servers as well, so it would somewhat be your preference as to a route to go…but do check with the isp ahead of time to find out who is expected to maintain and upgrade your account – if it’s you and you’re not comfortable with dos-esque command interfaces, you would need to line up a temp sysadmin for your project…

(and i keep noting things – but note that when i say maintain and support – it should be running out of the box, but for example if you got a fancy shopping cart that required a php library that you didn’t have, that php library would have to be compiled into the php code base, and that would be something that a unix-saavy person would typically do)

sitruc

[Curtis Thompson]

hello…

[Rob] “I would pay once to get it but after that I want to apply and use it as I need with full access to code and no branding.. any suggestions..”

depends on your coding experience and budget – there are endless options out there for cart technology, which range from free all the way up to thousands of dollars…

a free one that is good but requires programming knowledge to do just about any customization to is oscommerce. miva is a rock-solid cart system that is a one-time license, but it is also a bit harder to customize unless you know what you’re doing…but if you want a cart system that can handle the load, either of these should be good fits.

also check with verio if you are going wth them – they have ecommerce plans with cart software already on there, although i think their choice is miva. but you get a better license deal if that’s the case. but before you get into miva, ask for a demo. like i said – very powerful, but not the most intuitive interface to maintain…

sitruc