Archive for April, 2009

Running a PCI Compliant E-Commerce Site

Filed under: E-Commerce,Hosting — Art Zemon on April 26, 2009

PCI compliance is all the buzz these days. If you are a shopper, it means that your credit card number is well protected by everybody and every machine and every network which handles it.

If you are a merchant, PCI compliance means that you meet the requirements of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard for protecting the credit card numbers which are entered into your e-commerce web site or used in your bricks and mortar store.

Here’s the good news:

If you are a shopper, you can feel a bit relieved that the credit card companies are doing things to protect you.
If you are a merchant, there are straightforward, well-understood ways in which you can bring your e-commerce site into compliance. We offer a PCI compliant bundle of web hosting and PDG Commerce software.

What is PCI Compliance?

The core of the PCI DSS is a group of principles and accompanying requirements, around which the specific elements of the DSS are organized. Learn more…

Build and Maintain a Secure Network: Requirement 1: Install and maintain a firewall configuration to protect cardholder data
Requirement 2: Do not use vendor-supplied defaults for system passwords and other security parameters
Protect Cardholder Data: Requirement 3: Protect stored cardholder data
Requirement 4: Encrypt transmission of cardholder data across open, public networks
Maintain a Vulnerability Management Program: Requirement 5: Use and regularly update anti-virus software
Requirement 6: Develop and maintain secure systems and applications
Implement Strong Access Control Measures: Requirement 7: Restrict access to cardholder data by business need-to-know
Requirement 8: Assign a unique ID to each person with computer access
Requirement 9: Restrict physical access to cardholder data
Regularly Monitor and Test Networks: Requirement 10: Track and monitor all access to network resources and cardholder data
Requirement 11: Regularly test security systems and processes
Maintain an Information Security Policy: Requirement 12: Maintain a policy that addresses information security

Having it your way still

Filed under: This & That — Candy Zemon on April 24, 2009

Last time I was talking about some of the creative challenges we get to address when solving problems for customers. Here are two more that have been particularly fun to complete. Both are at a single site – a site we will doubtless mention again, as they continue to polish their site.

Let’s talk about the behavior of the searching in the search box installed at Doyle and Doyle. This searching is based on Swish-e. It combines both the broadness of partial word match and the specificity of a relevance ranking in the results. Try it out. And while you are there, take a look at the jewelry history pages. Pick an era (Edwardian, perhaps) and you can see all the items in the inventory that are Edwardian. Or, were you searching for, let’s say, ruby earrings and noticed that a pair you liked were Retro, you could click on the Retro term and be taken to the Retro jewelry history page with the item you were looking at in the featured position.

This one is just plain fun. One of our WordPress-based sites is for a group that enables actors to fly (North American Association of Flying Effects Directors) . They are having a conference. Though not complex, this site is a nice example of how not-like-a-blog WordPress can look.

Web Hosting Optimized for PDG Commerce

Filed under: E-Commerce,Hosting — Art Zemon on April 23, 2009

I am very pleased that, in cooperation with PDG Software, we are now offering hosting plans with PDG Commerce pre-installed. These plans are optimized for PDG Commerce with everything set up at the same time that the account is provisioned. If you purchase one of these accounts, you will be running PDG Commerce 60 seconds after you receive the email message with your store-specific access information.

The accounts range from the Signature Enhanced at just $19 per month through the Virtual Private Servers and Managed Private Servers. The VPS and MPS plans can be configured to be PCI compliant.

PDG Commerce is an e-commerce solution with features that are second to none. It runs dramatically faster on even the Signature Enhanced account than on shared hosting accounts at other “name brand” hosting providers.

If you already run PDG Commerce and need more speed or better technical suppport, these PDG Commerce hosting plans are designed for you.

If you are looking for an e-commerce platform which is PA-DSS certified and PCI compliant, these hosting plans with PDG Commerce pre-installed are just the ticket.

Having it your way

Filed under: This & That — Candy Zemon on April 17, 2009

As a company, HTN is very involved in the e-commerce world. Not only do we have expertise with a specific family of e-commerce software (PDG Software’s PDG Commerce and PDG Shopping Cart) but we are involved in the larger issues facing online merchants in general, such as the payment card industry PCI requirements.This is a world of serious rules, responsibilities, capabilities, and features. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have the fun of good creative challenges, too.

One of the truths about e-commerce is that everyone needs the same basic features, AND everyone is different in what and how their business can make best use of their software. This is where the fun comes in. We have made several additions and tweaks to PDG Commerce to address various real needs. From our bundle of modules known as Profits Plus to standalone implementations to address very special needs, we continue to find folks who need a new wrinkle on a common feature.

Among our recent Commerce challenges are three particularly cool ones. Today, let’s talk about the first one. We created a “class sign-up” module for the PDG Commerce installation at Natural Resources. Pick one of the class categories on this page and follow through to the point of signing up. Some are for-fee and some are free. This feature lets customers sign up for classes, checking for availability and reserving their seat for specific meeting times. It lets the store owners manage the sign-up lists, and use the input to combine sessions or add new ones depending on demand. The module also builds a database of class-attender registration data – valuable in many ways.

Tools of the Trade III: PHP and MySQL

Filed under: Web Development — Tags: mysql, php — Scott Youmans on April 16, 2009

Welcome back to part three of our series, Tools of the Trade. Whether you’ve had a web page for years or are just now considering hanging your online shingle, the tools of the trade — and their acronyms — can be confusing. HTML, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX, PHP and MySQL are some of the technologies we use every day to build successful websites for our clients. Last time, we talked about how JavaScript and AJAX allow for interactivity on otherwise static web pages. Today, we’ll learn what PHP and MySQL have to offer.
(more…)

Web Safe Fonts and D.I.Y. Graphics, the perfect recipe.

Filed under: Design,How To — Boysen Hodgson on April 9, 2009

good-bad

You’re a D.I.Y. master, right? You’re building your own web page using tools that are readily available on the web for very little cost. Great. You’ve collected pictures, you’ve written text, you’ve even gotten out some markers and made sketches on a page. You know how many pages you want and how the navigation will work (check back for another post about effective navigation). Everything is going so well.

And then you start this new and strange process of ‘coding’ your web site. One of the things you notice immediately is that all the wonderful fonts that you want to work with don’t seem to be available. Web fonts and web typography are vastly different than traditional print typography. With the web you are not creating a static object that everyone will view the same way. You are actually creating a recipe. You are putting all the ingredients into small containers, writing all the instructions onto a page and then handing them off to someone else (or someone else’s web browser) to create your dish.

The web browser is the all powerful chef in the kitchen. What you intend to create can only be as palatable as the chef who makes it. And there are a bunch of chefs out there. (more…)

April 2009

Filed under: Newsletters — Candy Zemon on April 2, 2009

Changes for Challenging Times

Hosting with Heart
Some Things to Consider About Hosting Plans

Hosting should be one of those invisible things like electricity – it just works. It is often treated like a commodity differentiated only by price. You take it for granted until something goes wrong.

But hosting underlies your web presence and can make a real difference in how your site works and whether your visitors receive a peppy and pleasant experience. There are differences in the commodity sea. And some of those differences can make or break an e-commerce store.

We talked a bit last month about our hosting provider, award-winning Verio. Through them we offer you reliable service, securely monitored data centers, speedy web page loading and response, and a range of hosting plans and other services to meet a wide variety of needs.

To all this we at Hen’s Teeth Network add the personal face for tech support via email to our help desk (support@hens-teeth.net) or phone to our staff. We understand both the hosting platforms and the software you use. We add support to the hosting service. We also add spam filtering, email accounts, and several levels of backups to the hosting package.

If you already host with us, this is old news. If you don’t, you might consider checking out what we offer (Signature plans, Virtual private servers, and Managed private servers) and giving us a try. If you sign up before April 30, the first month is free for new Signature accounts. First month is free for new VPS and MPS accounts if you sign up before June 30, 2009.

Customers in the Spotlight
Cool Features, New Sites

We want to share some cool things that have been done on customer sites. One of our newest sites, based on WordPress, is joreresource.com. We like the design (not a typical WordPress blog look), how his logo is emphasized, and how his message is conveyed. Joe is a great guy to go to, too.

At Natural Resources, we added a class registration custom “module” to their PDG Commerce store. The code keeps track of “inventory” of class seats available and lets customers sign up to attend specific classes through the store – thus letting the inventory be adjusted. Management pieces, like an enrollment database and administrative functions to use it, are behind the scenes. Cara and Amy knew what they needed and were great to work with as we created this “module” for their store. Expecting a baby? In the San Francisco area? ’Nuf said.

Get a 5% Credit on Your Account

Here’s a chance to get an extra 5% from your money. Prepay by check and we will credit your account with 105% of the check’s value. This offer only applies to consulting services. It may be a useful option for folks who are working with us on a project of some size. Questions? Email us at info@hens-teeth.net.

APRIL HOSTING SPECIAL

April Hosting Special!
For any hosting account that comes to HTN from a competitor (GoDaddy, 1and1, etc.), we will give you the FIRST MONTH FREE.
If you are a web designer or similar business interested in unloading the burden of hosting so as to concentrate on your core competency, and you want your customers to receive personal service, we have a special for you. If that hosting is currently on a competitor’s site, we will give you the FIRST MONTH FREE for EVERY ACCOUNT transferred.
We have other plans for web designers or similar businesses wanting to turn over hosting to another firm. Call us to talk about the possibilities (1-866-HENS-NET)
Let’s make change happen in a win-win arrangement. Call us (866-436-7638 toll-free) or email us (info@hens-teeth.net). April is 30 days long.

Spam and Clouds and Conferences

Check out our blog for postings about managing your spam filters, cloud computing, the recent viaVerio conference where Art received an award, and much more. You can count on at least one new article a week. Have you visited it lately?

New Hosting Family Now Available

Filed under: Hosting — Art Zemon on April 1, 2009

It is not often that I have the pleasure of introducing a completely new family of hosting accounts but today is one of those special days. See Verio CP/M for full details. While priced for today’s economy, these new plans remain surprisingly feature-rich.

Archive for April, 2009

What is PCI Compliance?

Hosting with Heart Some Things to Consider About Hosting Plans

Customers in the Spotlight Cool Features, New Sites

Hosting with Heart
Some Things to Consider About Hosting Plans

Customers in the Spotlight
Cool Features, New Sites