Can different applications use the one PayPal IPN account

Can I use the same PayPal account for different PayPal applications.

Yes you can. The way you do it is to pass the url of the IPN script in the purchase button using the notify_url field.  PHP-eSeller, PHP-SecureArea and PHP-KeyCodes are all able to operate on the same PayPal account because they all send the IPN confirm url within the button.  This means that if you an application that uses your IPN PayPal account, you can still use withinweb.com applications on your site. 

In fact, withinweb.com applications create the and post the data to PayPal dynamically.  The relevant information is extracted from the database and, collected together and then posted to PayPal.  This method means that you can control the data centrally using the admin panel.

Extracting data from myPHPAdmin

A question I am often asked is how can I create better reports from the data that is in the mySQL database for transactions processed by PHPeSeller or by PHPSecureArea.  Both of these have sales history displays but you may wish to process the data in another application such as MS Excel or MS Access.

One approach is to extract the data from mySQL using your web server control panel.  Login into the control panel of your server and find the section that deals with mySQL.  You should have a link to myPHPAdmin or a similar database tool.

Navigate to the correct database in myPHPAdmin.  Navigate to the table that you want to export and at the top of the page you should see an EXPORT tab.  Click on this.  You will need to select a particular format for the export. This is normally CSV for Excel or CSV.  CSV stands for Comma Separted Values and is a very common method of transfering data to and from different application.  That should then allow you to download the file which can then be opened in your required application.

Using other flash mp3 clip players in PHP-eSeller

PHP-eSeller comes with a number of flash mp3 preview buttons.  You can use other mp3 preview buttons if you want, but the integration does depend on how the other flash mp3 buttons are configured.

We have documented a number of mp3 buttons with the required code to enable them to be intergrated into the template system.

http://www.withinweb.com/phpeseller/flash_mp3_buttons.php

Embedding Google News into Your Layout

Google is always coming out with some great web site enhancements.  One new tool they are providing for free, for any webmaster out there to use is the NewsShow Wizard.  It allows you to embed your own Google News widget into your web site on any topic you might have in mind.

All you need to do is step through the wizard, customizing your news as you want it to be seen on your web site.  You can pick from a 728×90 leader board or a 300×250 medium square to display the news from. 

So take a look at this if you need something to replace that white space in your web site’s side bar or if you just want a little more interactivity on your web site.

Posted in SOE

How do I change the language code for PayPal?

The language code for the PayPal site is defined in the button using a hidden field.

So for English language use
<input type=’hidden’ name=’lc’ value=’US’ />

Possible values are France(FR), Spain (ES), Italy (IT), Germany (DE), China (CN), English (US).

The customer should hopefully see the login page in the defined language.

To change the language code, go to the file ipnfunction.php open in a text editor and you should see the default language code of
<input type=’hidden’ name=’lc’ value=’US’ />

Change the value to what ever code you require and upload the file back to your server.

Creating a mySQL Database in cPanel (new style)

Log in to your Cpanel

Log into cPanel and click on the mySQL database link.

Create A New Database

Scroll down to where it says ‘new database’ and enter your choosen database name in the field and click on ‘Create Database’

MySql Account Maintenance Page 

Each step in the process will take you back and forth to the mySQL Maintenace page to verify that you have set up the process correctly and you will be able to see the information you have created.

Here you will see you have added the database.

Click on the Go Back button.

Enter Username and Password

Scroll down to username and password and enter your information.  Click on create user.

Back to MySql Account Maintenance Page 

The username and password have been created for you database.  Click on the Go Back button to return.

Add username to database

Scroll down to add users to your databases.

If there are no users or databases previously created you will only see one in each selection.

Choose the username that you want to add.  Note that the username previously created “myusername” has been shortened to “myusern”  This is the name that you need to use in the config.php file. 

Example: “vonnamia_myusern” not “vonnamia_myusername”

Select the Database you created from the list.

Select the Checkbox “All Privileges”.

Click Add User To Database

MySql Account Maintenance 

This will take you back to the MySql Account Maintenance page for verification, you will see the shortened Username there.

Click on the Go Back button and you will see the contents of your finished Database.

Running the install.php file

At this point you have created the database, created a user and allocated the user to the database.

You can now create the tables using the install.php script supplied with the zip file.

You will need to have the following information available :

database name
database username
database password
database host (usually local host but refer to your host documentation if you are not sure)

When you run the install.php file in your browser you will be presented with boxes as follows :

Create a mySQL database with GoDaddy hosting

This describes creating a database with GoDaddy hosting

First, start by logging into your GoDaddy account:

Click on my hosting account (dropdown under “hosting”)

Click on “manage account” under the correct hosting account domain

Once you’re in the “hosting control center” click on “mysql” from the “databases” dropdown menu

Click the “create database” button

Choose MySQL version 4 or 5, and then enter a description (can be anything), database/user name (must be very unique, or you’ll have to try again), and password (must use at least one capital letter and a number)

(NOTE: you may have to wait 5-10 minutes while the database is setup )

Click the little pencil icon to edit/view database details

Write down or copy the “Host Name:” this will go in the wp-config.php file in place of “localhost”

In your web browser, go to the installation script install.php and fill in the details:

Create a mySQL database using cpanel (old style)

This tutorial will take you step-by-step through the process of creating a database for use with withinweb applications using CPanel.

First, login to your cpanel control panel.

You should see a large number of icons, one of which will be mySQL Database

Click on this and you will be taken to the mySQL Account Maintenance page.  You may also see other database details listed if you have created other database before.

Add User

You need to first add a user name and a password.

Click the Add User button

Note that your host will usually add a prefix to the user name, so this will become something like wptemp_Podz

Create your database

You should now be looking at the screen below. Note that you – the User – are listed in a box at the top, and also below the line too.

Enter the name of the database where database name is listed. Then click Add Db

The database is now created.

Allocate the user to the database

The two pieces of information you just added are now here on this screen: the user name and the database name.

If you have other databases and users, the whole screen may look different, but this small part will look the same.

Look at the two drop-down boxes.

The User box MUST contain the name that you added first above. (Note that for each name you put in, the CPanel has added a prefix.) If you need to, click the drop down to get the name you added to appear in the left hand box. The same applies to the database: – get the name of the database in the box too.

When finished, click the button that says Add User to Db.

This is REALLY important – nothing will work unless you click that button.

You should see this.

At this point you have created the database, created a user and allocated the user to the database.

You can now create the tables using the install.php script supplied with the zip file.

You will need to have the following information available :

database name
database username
database password
database host (usually local host but refer to your host documentation if you are not sure)

When you run the install.php file in your browser you will be presented with boxes as follows :

Selling membership access with PHP-SecureArea

Membership sites make up some of the biggest and most lucrative websites online and with PHP-SecureArea, the benefits are well worth the initial time investment.

How Much Can You Make?

The income potential of a membership site can be unlimited. If your website or service is valuable and you have enough traffic then your monthly income can be enormous.

A good example of a large membership site is RapidShare (http://www.rapidshare.com) which allows people to share their files with everyone and anyone. At around $10 per month with thousands of members, RapidShare is currently the 12th largest website on the net (according to Alexa) so you can bet they make a packet.

How Much Work Is Involved?

Setting up the technical side of selling membership and subscriptions on a website is relatively easy using PHP-SecureArea. PayPal has a built in subscription function which is relayed back to the application script on your site which allows or refuses access based on whether the user paid the bill that month.

The real work is in finding a market and creating a service worth subscribing to. Iif you really have something to offer or something that people need, then subscription can be an excellent approach.

While membership sites like RapidShare don’t involve any time or effort on the part of the administrator, many membership sites do. A common practice is to sell subscription to a blog or a section of a blog and to serve up content there on a continual basis. An alternatively ingenius idea is to rely on user interaction to sell membership. An example of this is Experts Exchange (http://www.experts-exchange.com) which worked in a similar manner to Yahoo! Answers where anyone could post a question and then other members could reply with their answers. However, only people who paid for a subscription could view the answers. This caused a lot of frustration for people who came in through Google and eventually Google cracked down on these sites, but they still exist and still make plenty of money. They rely on the users to create content that other people are willing to pay for and so the upkeep and maintenance of these sites is minimal.

To sell membership and subscription you need to know the basics of how to make money online. If you’re familiar enough with selling products online then there are a number of options to sell subscriptions or membership online.

PayPal has a very nice Recurring Payments suite. PHP-SecureArea uses this feature. You can create a button or series of buttons where your users can pay set prices for set time periods of membership. The IPN is used to keep track of your users after they pay. IPN is simply a method whereby PayPal sends a notice to a URL of your choice with the details of each payment you receive. For example when someone buys a months worth of subscription the IPN sends out a notice to your page with the price, time period, email address, etc of the user. PHP=SecureArea uses this to automatically control the access to the defined section of your web site. PayPal will continue to bill the person until they decide they no longer wish to subscribe, at which point PHP-SecureArea will simply drop them from your membership list.

This is a rough outline of how recurring payments for online sites works but using these basic steps you can set up subscription or membership for virtually anything you can think of. In most cases the products and services offered will be electronic and cost you nothing to issue or maintain, and so other than the minimal PayPal fees it’s 100% profit.