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Shopping cart software is software used in e-commerce to assist people making purchases online, analogous to the American English term 'shopping cart'. In British English it is generally known as a shopping basket, almost exclusively shortened on websites to 'basket'.

The software allows online shopping customers to place items in the cart. Upon checkout, the software typically calculates a total for the order, including shipping and handling (i.e. postage and packing) charges and the associated taxes, as applicable.
Technical definition

These applications typically provide a means of capturing a client's payment information, but in the case of a credit card they rely on the software module of the secure gateway provider, in conjunction with the secure payment gateway, in order to conduct secure credit card transactions online.

Some setup must be done in the HTML code of the website, and the shopping cart software must be installed on the server which hosts the site, or on the secure server which accepts sensitive ordering information. E-shopping carts are usually implemented using HTTP cookies or query strings. In most server based implementations however, data related to the shopping cart is kept in the Session object and is accessed and manipulated on the fly, as the user selects different items from the cart. Later at the process of commit, the information is accessed and an order is generated against the selected item thus clearing the shopping cart.

Although the most simple shopping carts strictly allow for an item to be added to a basket to start a checkout process (e.g. the free PayPal shopping cart), most shopping cart software actually provides additional features that an Internet merchant uses to fully manage an online store. Data (products, categories, discounts, orders, customers, etc.) is normally stored in a database and accessed in real time by the software.


Components

Shopping cart software typically consists of two components:

Storefront: the area of the Web store that is accessed by visitors to the online shop. Category, product, and other pages (e.g. search, best sellers, etc.) are dynamically generated by the software based on the information saved in the store database.

Administration: the area of the Web store that is accessed by the merchant to manage the online shop. The amount of store management features changes depending on the sophistication of the shopping cart software, but in general a store manager is able to add and edit products, categories, discounts, shipping and payment settings, etc. Order management features are also included in many shopping cart programs.


Licensed vs. Hosted options

Shopping cart software can be generally categorized into two categories.

Licensed software: The software is downloaded and then installed on a Web server. This is most often associated with a one-time fee, although there are many free products available as well. The main advantages of this option are that the merchant owns a license and therefore can host it on any Web server that meets the server requirements, and that the source code can often be accessed and edited to customize the application.

Hosted service: The software is never downloaded, but rather is provided by a hosted service provider and is generally paid for on a monthly/annual basis; also known as the application service provider (ASP) software model. Some of these services also charge a percentage of sales in addition to the monthly fee. This model often has predefined templates that a user can choose from to customize their look and feel. In this model users typically have less ability to modify or customize the software with the advantage of having the vendor continuously keep the software up to date for security patches as well as adding new features added.


See also
Shopping cart
Credit card
Online shopping


External links
Shopping Cart Software at the Open Directory Project

Having an online presence is imperative for any business owner or service provider. In fact, in the existing online retail scenario if you are looking for your business expansion, and have not yet tapped the advantages of online retailing, then it is the right time to encash.

Now, when you consider going online, it could be a possibility that you already own a Microsoft Retail Management System (RMS) and actually require affordable and customizable eCommerce software that works with the RMS. Well, in that case, you need not look any further. An eCommerce company SIM Retail offers the perfect product, RMS cart, to meet all your online retailing needs. The RMScart (Microsoft RMS integrated eCommerce solution), is a powerful Web store solution that seamlessly integrates with the Microsoft Retail Management System (RMS).

When you look for RMS shopping cart the first features that you take into consideration are affordability, convenience and that it should meet all your needs. With RMS integrated cart (i.e., RMS shopping cart) you can rest assured that these features are taken care off. In fact, with our Microsoft RMS e-commerce solution i.e, RMS integrated Shopping cart you can easily and conveniently create product pages of your RMS inventory and publish them on your website. This helps in eliminating the need for double data entry. Further there are numerous other benefits that we offer. Visit: http://www.simretail.com/content.asp?id=24.

A brief insight for Microsoft RMS ecommerce cart: The RMScart i.e, RMS cart Solution offers numerous features. In terms of the front end functionality, it offers easy and intuitive navigation for your customers, they can carry out product searches based on various criteria, customers can check the current stock available at any point, the same product can be assigned to several categories and this makes it easier for customers to find it, amongst other things. Further, in terms of the display for Microsoft RMS shopping cart, you can easily display Special Products on the home page.

Considering the administration & backend facilities, RMS Integrated eCommerce Shopping Cart offers fast automatic synchronization between the RMS database and the web store on demand or as per schedule, it also allows you to create multiple categories and sub-categories, assign retail and wholesale prices, define key words for each product, password protected secure Administration area, and so on.

In terms of the product page functionality, the RMS Store Integration offers RMS Extended Description matches with Product Name in RMScart and you can also upload product images directly into RMScart. In fact when it comes to display for RMS eCommerce Online Shopping Cart, you can easily display Products on Sale. Besides this, there are various other features that our product offers in terms of product page functionality.

In order to find out more about what the Microsoft RMS Shopping Cart Integration offers, including the administration/backend functionality, product functionality, shipping functionality, tax functionality, search engine compatibility, sales analysis and tracking and the customer service, you can log on to www.simretail.com.

Another advantage that our Microsoft RMS ecommerce cart offers is that you hardly require any training to use it. Also, over and above the features that it already offers, we can also customize it further to better address your needs. So when it comes to the perfect RMS cart, all you need to do is contact us at SIM Retail Solutions and we would take care of the rest.

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One-click hosting generally describes web services that allows internet users to easily upload one or more files from their hard drives onto the one-click host's server free of charge.

Most such services simply return a URL which can be given to other people, who can then fetch the file later on. As of 2005 these sites have drastically increased in popularity, and subsequently, many of the smaller, less efficient sites have failed. Many internet forums exist in order to share such links; this type of file sharing has, to a degree, taken over from P2P filesharing services[1].

The sites make money through advertising or charging for premium services such as increased downloading capacity, removing any wait restrictions the site may have or prolonging how long uploaded files remain on the site. Many sites implement a CAPTCHA to prevent automated downloading.

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Weblog software (also called blog software or blogware) is a category of software which consists of a specialised form of Content Management Systems specifically designed for creating and maintaining weblogs.
Server models

Many weblog applications are available for users to download and install on their own systems. A wide variety of licenses are used by user hosted weblog software. Some of these are free and open-source that can be used, modified, and redistributed freely under free-software and open-source licenses. Others are proprietary software that may be licensed for a fee or have versions available free of charge.

Other weblog applications are offered only through their developers' hosts, either free of charge or for a fee. These typically include hosting service for the published blog itself, but some offer the option of using this hosted software to update a blog published


Clients

Maintenance through the Internet is a nearly universal feature of weblog software. This is usually done through a browser-based interface, enabling authors to create and update content on the site. Most software supports the use of external client software to update content using common APIs such as the MetaWeblog API and the Atom Publishing Protocol. Third party developers have created such clients, allowing bloggers to publish entries using desktop software rather than the web-based interface. Examples include ecto and MarsEdit.


Features
Title, the main title, or headline, of the post.
Body, main content of the post.
Permalink, the URL of the full, individual article.
Post Date, date and time the post was published.

A blog entry optionally includes the following:
Comments -
Main article: Feedback comment system

Comments are a way to provide discussion on blog entries. Readers can leave a comment on a post, which can correct errors or contain their opinion on the post or the post's subject. Services like coComment aim to ease discussion through comments, by allowing tracking of them.
Categories (or tags) - subjects that the entry discusses
Trackback and or pingback - links to other sites that refer to the entry


Other applications

Most weblogs have features such as facilitating authoring and editing of blog posts or articles, various linking and web syndication features, and the ability to easily publish the blog to the world wide web. Some services or organizations are also creating weblog applications with extended features to aid communication, such as the wiki capabilities in Socialtext and Traction TeamPage.

Many weblog applications allow the user to define static pages of content which can often be placed into a hierarchy or tree. Pages differ from blog posts in that the content is largely static and not time related. Pages are often used to present information about the blog and its authors. Extensive use of pages can result in a blog that looks more like a website. [1]

Most weblog applications support English and many other languages. The user selects a language during installation.

Weblog applications usually offer web syndication service either in the form of RSS or Atom. This allows for other software such as feed aggregators to maintain a current summary of the blog's content.

Post moderation requires the people who want to comment on articles that are posted on a blog to be approved before the comments are visible to the world. It could also mean in some cases where multiple people have accounts and the ability to post new items to the blog that new content must be approved by a moderator or administrator before it shows up on the main page. Weblog applications use various user account systems that allow readers to post comments to a particular blog. For instance, users with Blogger accounts may comment on any Blogger blog. Other weblog applications allow users to post content or comments only to blogs where they have an account.

The Post API can vary greatly depending on the system that you are using. Some types of blogware have plugins for Firefox that integrate into the browser's menus so that right-clicking on selected text on any given webpage will bring up a small window that allows the user to post to their blog. Other types of blogware that do not have this type of interface require a person to fill out a form online. The form that is required for posting material to a blog depends on the type of blogware. Some types such as Movable Type contain a greater number of form fields and choices than ones such as Blogger.

Most types of blogware support adding thumbnail images within blog posts. Photo blogging is a separate genre of blogging that deals primarily with images.


Documentation and support

Different blogware packages feature varying levels of community support and documentation. Because the installation of some types of software requires an advanced knowledge of computer administration, community support and documentation can be very helpful. The web servers and database software can be more difficult to install than the blogware itself. Also a strong and active community surrounding the blogware gives advice on integrating the blogware into a personal site.


Examples

A partial list of notable weblog software follows:


User-hosted

Software packages installed by weblog authors to run on their own systems:


Free and open source software

These software packages are offered as free and open source software
Apache Roller (Java-based)
b2evolution (PHP/MySQL)
bitsyblog (Python)
blosxom (Perl)
byteflow (Python/Django)
DasBlog (C#/ASP.NET)
DotNetNuke (C#/ASP.NET)
Dotclear (PHP/MySQL)
Drupal (PHP/MySQL)
Frog CMS (PHP/MySQL)
Elgg (Apache, MySQL, and PHP)
Habari (PHP/MySQL,SQLite)
InkType (MySQL and PHP)
Livejournal (Perl) (Also available, developer hosted)
LifeType (PHP/MySQL)
Movable Type (also offered in developer-hosted form as TypePad)
Nouz (PHP/MySQL)
Nucleus CMS (PHP/MySQL)
PHPSlash
phsBlog (PHP/MySQL)
Pebble (Java-based)
Picoplog (PHP) (photoblog)
Pixelpost (PHP/MySQL) (photoblog)
PyBlosxom (Python)
Serendipity (PHP/MySQL,PostgreSQL,SQLite)
SimplePHPBlog (PHP/TXT)
SimpleLog (Ruby on Rails)
Slash (Perl/MySQL)
Subtext (C#/ASP.NET)
Textpattern (PHP/MySQL)
Thingamablog
Typo (Ruby on Rails)
WordPress (PHP/MySQL) - also offered in developer-hosted form as Wordpress.com
CELLblog (ASP/ASP.NET) - Community Environment Live Life -webblog 2.0 compatible. ASP soon to be ASP.NET


Proprietary software

These packages are under a proprietary software license. They may require the purchase of a license key to use them. The specific licensing terms vary but some are free of charge for personal or non-commercial use.
Community Server (also offered in developer-hosted form as CommunityServer.com)
ExpressionEngine
Radio UserLand
Traction TeamPage
Windows Live Writer (Free of charge)
XCAP Community Platform


Unknown license
Battle Blog
Blogsphere


Developer-hosted

Software services operated by the developer, requiring no software installation for the weblog author:
blog-author.com
Battle Blog
Blog.com
Blogabond
Blogger
Blogging Systems
Blogonize
BlogSavy
Blue Kaffee
LiveJournal and many other sites using the same open source codebase
IdeaFry (using MU version of WordPress)
Bloglite (hosted version of wordpress)
LivingDot
MySpace
Open Diary
Quillpill
Square Space
Tabulas
TypePad
Typo
Windows Live Spaces
Wordpress.com (hosted version of WordPress)
Xanga
Vox
Blogg-host.co.cc (hosted version of WordPress)
siggie.net (using version of Wordpress)
See also: Category:Blog hosting services

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A video hosting service, also called a video sharing service allows individuals to upload video clips to an Internet website. The video host will then store the video on its server, and show the individual different types of code to allow others to view this video. Because many users do not have personal web space, either as a paid service, or through an ISP offering, video hosting services are becoming increasingly popular, especially with the explosion in popularity of blogs, forums, and other interactive pages. The website, mainly used as the video hosting service, is usually called the video sharing website (see List of video sharing websites).

The mass market for camera phones has increased the supply of user-generated video. Traditional methods of personal video distribution, such as making a DVD to show to friends at home, are unsuited to the low resolution and high volume of camera phone clips. In contrast, current broadband Internet connections are well suited to serving the quality of video shot on mobile phones. Most people do not own web servers, and this has created demand for user-generated video content hosting, which the likes of YouTube are catering to.

Wikipedia hosts around 200 videos in the Ogg format on its servers. Wikipedia actively discourages non-free videos and formats: videos added to Wikipedia are supposed to be freely available for reuse. This contrasts with video hosting services such as YouTube, which can hold copyrighted material, though some rights must be given up to such companies in return for the hosting.

Purpose of Video Hosts (for users)
Save on bandwidth costs, often eliminating costs entirely
Creating a common place
Make a hassle-free experience, where uploading a video and streaming or embedding would normally require advanced programming knowledge. It is now commonly achieved through a web browser, with little or no programming experience.

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An image hosting service allows individuals to upload images to an Internet website. The image host will then store the image onto its server, and show the individual different types of code to allow others to view that image.
How it works

Typically image hosting websites provide an upload interface; a form in which you specify the location of an image file on your local computer file system (using a browse button). After pressing a “Submit” button the file is uploaded to the image host’s server. Some image hosts allow you to specify multiple files at once, in this form, or the ability to upload one ZIP file containing multiple images. Additionally, some hosts allow FTP access, where single or multiple files can be uploaded in one session using FTP software or an FTP-capable browser.

After this process, your image is hosted on their server. Typically this means it is available on the web (to the public). You may also be allowed to make inline links to the hosted image, to embed it on other websites e.g.
Linking with HTML code
Linking with BBcode
A clickable thumbnail that is linked to the full image

Usually, the image host will put restrictions on the maximum image size allowed, or the maximum space or bandwidth allowed per user. Due to bandwidth costs, free services usually offer relatively modest size limits per image when compared to paid services, but allow users hotlinking their images. Individuals needing to host large images should consider purchasing image hosting services or purchasing webhosting services, so that they may operate their own website.

[edit]
Tools

Image hosts also allow tools such as the ability to create photoblogs/galleries with your images, or add them to a slideshow for easier viewing. Some offer more advanced tools such as the ability for an individual to add notes to an image they uploaded, sideloaders, or browser sidebars. Other hosts have introduced novel features such as the ability to automatically resize images down to a user-selected size. A Flickr tool allows you to upload photos using a camera phone with email capability.[1]

[edit]
Cost

Many image hosts are free. Of the free image hosts, the vast majority are supported by advertisement, mostly on their top pages, thumbnail pages, or 'not found' pages. Showing advertisements to users has enabled image size and bandwidth limits to increase.

Some free hosts have optional paid image hosting functions, while other hosts offer only paid services. Features and storage available are generally better for paid services, while cost is still much less than the cost of purchasing webhosting to operate a website. Paid services often allow you to have password protected photo albums, customizable skins, and customized subdomains. There are many other paid services available that offer different packages of features, options, and costs.

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A file hosting service, online file storage service, or online media center is an Internet hosting service specifically designed to host static content, typically large files that are not web pages. Typically they allow web and FTP access. They can be optimized for serving many users (as is implied by the term "hosting") or be optimized for single-user storage (as is implied by the term "storage"). Related services are video sharing, virtual storage and remote backup.

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Grid computing is a form of distributed computing whereby a "super and virtual computer" is composed of a cluster of networked, loosely-coupled computers, acting in concert to perform very large tasks. This technology has been applied to computationally-intensive scientific, mathematical, and academic problems through volunteer computing, and it is used in commercial enterprises for such diverse applications as drug discovery, economic forecasting, seismic analysis, and back-office data processing in support of e-commerce and web services.

What distinguishes grid computing from typical cluster computing systems is that grids tend to be more loosely coupled, heterogeneous, and geographically dispersed. Also, while a computing grid may be dedicated to a specialized application, it is often constructed with the aid of general purpose grid software libraries and middleware.
Operating systems

Home servers can run any operating system; some can run without graphical user interfaces (which makes more resources available for other tasks), and can be administered remotely through a command shell, or graphically through programs such as VNC, Webmin, or many others.

Users of Microsoft Windows may purchase additional copies (around US$85 to ~$400 and beyond) to use on a home server, or opt for free, open source solutions such as Linux or BSD UNIX that can be installed on any number of machines with minimal (if any) license restrictions.


Home server scenarios

Most home networks do not have or need servers, but hobbyists find good use for them. Most of the home servers today do not offer any services to the public internet, and operate as simple media-oriented devices. Many are simply glorified Network Attached Storage devices and other consumer devices to integrate TVs and gaming consoles with the PC and sometimes the internet.


Centralized storage

Home servers often act as network-attached storage providing the major benefit that all users' files can be centrally and securely stored, with flexible permissions applied to them. Such files can be easily accessed 24/7 from any other system on the network, provided the correct credentials are supplied. This also applies to shared printers.

Such files can also be shared over the internet to be accessible from anywhere in the world using services such as FTP.


Media serving

Home servers are often used to serve multi-media content, including photos, music, and video to other devices in the household (and even to the Internet; see Place Shifting and Orb). Using standard protocols such as DLNA or proprietary systems such as iTunes users can access their media stored on the home server from any room in the house. Windows XP Media Center Edition and Windows Vista can act as a home server, supporting a particular type of media serving that streams the interactive user experience to Media Center Extenders including the Xbox 360.
A typical MythTV menu.

On a Linux server, there are many free, open-source, fully-functional, all-in-one software solutions for media serving available. One such program is LinuxMCE, which allows other devices to boot off a hard drive image on the server, allowing them to become appliances such as set-top boxes. Asterisk, Xine, MythTV (another media serving solution), VideoLAN, SlimServer, and many other open-source projects are fully integrated for a seamless home theater/automation/telephony experience. Such services, if offered in a proprietary package, would cost around $100,000 (including hardware and tailored household programming)[1].

Because a server is typically always on, it is often a more logical choice to put a TV tuner or radio tuner for recording broadcasts into a server, than it is to use e.g. a desktop for recording, as it allows recording to be scheduled at any time.

On an Apple Macintosh server (or peer-to-peer node), Front Row may be used.

Remote access
The Webmin Interface as it would appear in a standard browser.

A home server can be used to provide remote access into the home from devices on the Internet, using remote desktop software and other remote administration software. For example, Windows Home Server provides access to files stored on the home server via a web interface as well as access to Remote Desktop sessions on PCs in the house. Enthusiasts often use VPN technologies as well.

On a Linux server, two popular tools are (among many) VNC and Webmin. VNC allows clients to remotely view a server GUI desktop as if the user was physically sitting in front of the server. A GUI need not be running on the server console for this to occur; there can be multiple 'virtual' desktop environments open at the same time. Webmin allows users to control many aspects of server configuration and maintenance all from a simple web interface. Both can be configured to be accessed from anywhere on the internet.

Servers can also be accessed remotely using the command line-based Telnet and SSH protocols.


Web serving

Some users choose to run a web server in order to share files easily and publicly (or privately, on the home network). Others set up web pages and serve them straight from their home, although this may be in violation of some ISPs terms of service[2]. Sometimes these webservers are run on a nonstandard port in order to avoid the ISP's port blocking. The most widely used web server is the open source Apache daemon. It is easily configured, flexible, free, and runs on most recent operating systems.

Many other webservers are available; see Comparison of web servers.


Web proxy

Some networks have a HTTP proxy which can be used to speed up web access when multiple users visit the same websites, and to get past blocking software while the owner is using the network of some institution that might block certain sites. Public proxies are often slow and unreliable and so it is worth the trouble of setting up one's own private proxy.

Some proxies can be configured to block websites on the local network from being viewed if it is set up as a transparent proxy.


E-mail

Many home servers also run e-mail servers that handle e-mail for the owner's domain name. The advantages are having much bigger mailboxes and maximum message size than most commercial e-mail services. Access to the server, since it is on the local network is much faster than using an external service. This is also good for privacy as e-mails don't reside on an off-site server where they could possibly be viewed by disgruntled administrators.


BitTorrent

Home servers are ideal for utilizing the BitTorrent protocol for downloading and seeding files as some torrents can take days, or even weeks to complete and perform better on an uninterrupted connection. There are many command-line based clients such as rTorrent and web-based ones such as TorrentFlux available for this purpose. BitTorrent also makes it easier for those with limited bandwidth to distribute large files over the internet.


Gopher

An uncommon and outdated service is the Gopher protocol that came about in the early 1990s before HTTP. Many of the remaining gopher servers are run off home servers utilizing PyGopherd and the Bucktooth gopher server.


Home automation

Home automation requires a device in the home that is available 24/7. Often such home automation controllers are run on a home server.


Security monitoring

Relatively low cost CCTV DVR solutions are available that allow recording of video cameras to a home server for security purposes. The video can then be viewed on PCs or other devices in the house.

A series of cheap Universal serial bus-based webcams can be connected to a home server as a makeshift CCTV system. Optionally these images and video streams can be made available over the internet using standard protocols. This solution is usually cheaper, although not as compact as stand-alone IP cameras.


Family applications

Home servers can act as a host to family oriented applications such as a family calendar, to-do lists, and message boards.


IRC and instant messaging

Because a server is always on, an IRC client or IM client running on it will be highly available to the Internet. This way, the chat client will be able to record activity that occurs even while the user is not at the computer, e.g. asleep or at work or school. Textual clients such as Irssi and tmsnc can be detached using GNU Screen for example, and graphical clients such as Pidgin can be detached using xmove. Home servers can also be used to run personal jabber servers and IRC servers as these protocols can support a large number of users on very little bandwidth


Online gaming

Some MMORPGs such as Continuum, Tremulous and World of Warcraft have server software available which users may download and use to run their own private game server. Some of these servers are password protected, so only a selected group of people such as guild members can gain access to the server. Others are open for public use and may move to colocation or other forms of paid hosting if they gain a large number of players.


See also


Operating systems
BSD UNIX
Various Linux distributions - some are specifically made for home servers
Mac OS X
Windows Home Server and other variants of Microsoft Windows

Generally, Windows Operating Systems are the most commonly used for Home Servers. They provide a platform that can provide access to the network, upload and download files, host websites, share media files and data. Since the Home Server is on 24/7, there is the risk that the system can be hacked. This is why third party firewall software is required as the built-in Windows one-way firewall was not designed for Home Server use.


Technologies
Client-server architecture
File server
Home computer
Home network
Network-attached storage
Residential gateway


Media serving software
Front Row - Mac OS X
LinuxMCE
MythTV


Server software
Comparison of web servers
List of mail servers
List of FTP server software
List of Jabber server software
Samba (software)

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