I don’t know how many other people are using Actinic to create websites but I do find the whole process kinda odd. I can create a site for a client and upload it to the server. I then need to export the Actinic file to the client so that they can download orders, and I can decide whether to let them to make design updates too.

The problem comes when they want me to make some updates to the site and they want to make other updates themselves. If this is the case, you’ve got to keep exporting the site and sending it to the client or vice versa after the update so that they don’t overwrite newer updates with old versions of pages.

Why it doesn’t all work of one central admin panel puzzles me. Perhaps it’s something to do with security, but in my mind it seems to be a very old fashioned way of running a site. You should be able to make an update to your site from pretty much any location and the system should look after files to ensure you can’t overwrite new files with old.

Anyone else have issues with this kind of thing?

If you’re selling online and not heavily involved enough in it to get a merchant account with all it’s cost and risk, you’re probably using the big gun Paypal or perhaps Nochex to process payments.
It seems now that Google want a foothold in this market too and Google Checkout has launched in the UK.
It would be nice if Google gives Paypal a run for its money and fees come down but I’m not holding my breath.

If you are using the content management system Joomla, you might also be using the Virtuemart ecommerce plugin. I was looking for a way to integrate Google Analytics into Virtuemart so that I could specify a goal and track the number of converted sales.

For the most part you don’t need to worry about doing anything if you just want Google Analytics to measure your traffic in Virtuemart. Slap the code in your main Joomla template and it will work away happily.

If however you want to set a goal to track sales conversions, then you need to provide Google Analytics with a unique URL for the thank-you page in Virtuemart. I found that Virtuemart was simply returning index.php as the thank you page, so had to find a work around to get that unique URL.

Here’s how i did it.

- Create a normal html page called analytics-result.htm

- Into the body of this page, put your analytics code. Make sure you are using the Analytics code for secure sites rather than the standard code if your shopping basket is secure

- Save it in a location accessible through https (if you are using a secure checkout) e.g. https://www.yourdomain.com/analytics-result.htm

- Search for /administrator/components/Virtuemart/html/checkout.thankyou.php

- At the end of the php file, add this code:
<iframe src="analytics-result.htm" width="5" height="5"
frameborder="0" scrolling="no" name="Analytics"></iframe>

- Setup a goal in Analytics and give it your new page as the unique URL: https://www.yourdomain.com/analytics-result.htm

What this method does is to put an Iframe into the thank you page after a customer has ordered. This Iframe contains a standard HTML file with a unique URL that you can setup as a goal page in Analytics. As long as everything is done through SSL your customer hopefully wont get any security errors.
It’s probably far from being the best way to do it, but seems to be working for me.

I’m just starting my first attempt at an ecommerce solution using Joomla and Virtuemart for a client of Netpromote. The job was all priced up and approved so I went to download Virtuemart and found no site at their URL. Day 2 – still no site. I get that sinking feeling that I’m going to have to go and use a commercial solution like Actinic (adding 400 quid to the job).
And then, to the rescue comes Sourceforge. All the Virtuemart downloads are available there through loads of different mirrors. Thank goodness. Just hope virtuemart.net comes back online again sometime soon and that I’m not flogging a dead horse with this package.

UPDATE – the site was back up the next day and the software is excellent. Halfway to finishing the shop and it’s a joy to use.

I order a lot of stuff online and the experience ranges from the ultra-frustrating (Jenners wedding list shop in Edinburgh) to what I experienced recently which was a sublime online ordering experience. I speak here of www.toolstation.com.
I needed some stuff to work on my kitchen at the weekend and decided to order from toolstation rather than heading to the local DIY shop. I was right to as well. Toolstation had many of the parts I needed at 1/8th of the price of the local shop! That’s a ridiculous discount. Great, how much is delivery? Free delivery on orders over GBP40. My order stood at 39.50 so I bought a 75 pence screwdriver to make up the difference. Wait a minute – that’s free next day delivery. I’ll believe that when I see it.
All in all I ordered around 10 different items. The site was a joy to use and I left it at that. Next morning I logged in to find out if the order had been processed. Clicked on the order to see that it had been sent by Parcel Force. Clicked on the word Parcel force to be redirected to their tracking page to find out that the gear was just a couple of miles down the road and inbound. 20 minutes later I had my paws on the delivery.
From start to finish it was a great online shopping experience. If only all online stores could operate like that.