Friday, October 29, 2010

1and1 Hosting + Magento = Epic Fail

Ok, so I decided to go with Magento for my little project. I am confident that I made the right decision. However, I am in no way confident that I made the correct decision about my hosting company. I have a hosting package with 1and1 Hosting that I use for random testing, FTP, email, and random other geeky goodness. So far, for the small tasks I have thrown at it, it has been a solid host. However, after spending several hours trying to install Magento and dealing with several failed connections, corrupted files, and random other annoyances, I am ready to throw in the towel with 1and1.

Please understand, I do not in any way claim to be an expert when it comes to web-design, coding, or computers in general. However, I have over 15 years experience in the field and would describe myself as "capable." I have worked for companies where I was entirety of the IT Department and I have worked for companies where I was but a cog in the wheel. My experience covers the gamut of computer related specialties. Competent at all, Master of nothing; I suppose.

The first issue, which should have been a key indication as to their level of support, is that fact that they are still using PHP4 as their default. PHP5 is available if you simply place a line of code into your htaccess file. No biggie. Got that sorted. FINALLY got Magento installed after setting up the database and squaring away all of the pre-reqs. Did a couple security updates and... CRITICAL MASSIVE UBER FAIL.

Ok, maybe not that bad. But it seemed that every time I made a simple change in code I would run into problems. I admitted that it might have been me so I did another fresh install and did things by the book. I made no code changes myself and simply went with the bare stock files. Still had problems. So, I conned a friend into setting me up with some space on one of his GoDaddy accounts. Uploaded Magento, got everything running, and went at the code. Not a single problem. Everything ran extra smooth.

So, boys and girls, daddy is switching hosting companies and starting over.

Moral of the story? Fuck 1and1 Hosting.

Stay tuned.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

New Project: First step... E-commerce.

Ok, so I have had a project idea in the back of my mind for several years and am finally going to tentatively takes a step closer to putting that project into motion. I won't reveal too much at the moment but I do want to get some opinions about one aspect of it. This project will involve the retail sale of several products on a website. While I am fairly experienced with most web-design aspects, e-commerce is not something I have spent a lot of time on. I am looking for a cart system for my website and have it narrowed down to two:

 
or


The reason I have it narrowed down to these two is fairly simple. I want an open source cart. Not only is it much cheaper but they are much more customizable. I know they can sometimes be buggy simply due to the open source nature of things but I am starting small so I don't really see it being a problem.

I have researched these two quite a bit and just from the specs I am leaning a bit more towards Magento. However, I was hoping to get some feedback from those of you who have actually used one or both of these. Just to give you a better idea of what it will be used for I am looking at starting with 8 standard products. There will be only two options; color and size. I haven't decided on a payment gateway yet but I will most likely go with Authorize.net, Quickbooks, or maybe even PayPal. If you guys have any experience with these carts I would really appreciate some comments about them. Any input would be appreciated.

Monday, October 25, 2010

I'm back!

Hey everyone, sorry it has been so long. After my uncle passed away I took some time to myself to get some things in order. There were several things going on in my life that I needed to get worked out. Things are looking up and I am back at it. I will have a post in just a bit that I really hope I can get some feedback on. I have a new project I'm working on that is in the planning stages. Hoping to get the ball rolling on it soon. Just need some opinions first. So, I will be back in just a bit!

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Sorry I haven't been around lately...

I just wanted to stop in and apologize for not being around and updating lately. I have had a death in the family and have been away from the computer for a bit. My uncle passed away so I have been spending time with my family. I hope to be back to blogging very soon. Please be patient with me as I deal with this.

Thank you.