Virtuemart is a component for Joomla, another PHP open source project that functions as a Content Management System (CMS).

If you need help connecting Chase Paymentech with Virtuemart, please request a quote.

Watch this video tutorial on how to use JoomlaFCK to resize and crop an image using the JoomlaFCK editor.

Before continuing, please check to make sure if your requested domain name is available.

If the domain name you wish to use is available, or you already own the domain name, we can get you started right away.

Pick which hosting option is right for you and enter your domain name. You will be taken to PayPal to process your payment. We will activate your account as soon as PayPal has notified us of receipt of payment.

$9.99 per month, monthly billing Domain Name

$7.99 per month, annual billing Domain Name

$5.99 per month, biennial billing Domain Name

Sign-up for Google Apps

I will walk you through how to setup Google Apps Email for your domain. The first thing you need to do to start using Google Apps is sign up for it. There is a premium service which costs money, and a standard service which is free. In this walk-through I We will use the standard edition. Sign up!

Select the option for “Administrator: I own or control this domain”.

Enter the domain name which will have email hosted by Google.

Click the Get Started button.

Fill in the required fields and place a check next to “I understand that if I cannot alter DNS records for my domain, I may impact my organization’s ability to use Google Apps”.

Click the Continue button.

Create Administrator Account

Type a username and a password. Be sure to re-enter the password.

Read the Terms and Conditions for using the Google Apps service. When you are ready, click “I accept. Continue with set up »”.

This completes the registration. You are now logged in to your Google Apps Dashboard (control panel).

Verify your account

Once you create an account for your domain name, you must verify that you own the domain name.

At the top of your Dashboard you will see, “To activate Google Apps services you must verify that you own your domain – yourdomain.com”. Next to this, click the link called Verify domain ownership.

There are two ways you can verify that you own the domain:

1. (Recommended) You can upload an HTML file to your website.

• Create and upload a file named googlehostedservice.html to http://yourdomain.com/ . If this is your primary domain, the correct folder is public_html.
• Edit the file and paste the given code into it.
  • googleffffffffb3b3b33b
  • Please note “googleffffffffb3b3b33b” is an example, and you should instead use the code provided to you by Google.
• Save the changes, and make sure you can see the file at http://yourdomain.com/googlehostedservice.html.
• Go back to the Google Apps page and click the Verify button.

2. You can create a CNAME record to point to google.com .

• Login to WHM and click DNS Functions > Edit DNS Zone.
• Create a new CNAME record for your domain:
  • googleffffffffb3b3b33b 14400 IN CNAME google.com.
  • Please note “googleffffffffb3b3b33b” is an example, and you should instead use the code provided to you by Google.
• If you do NOT have access to edit your DNS zones, or do not feel comfortable making the changes, please contact King Tech Design for assistance.
• Go back to the Google Apps page and click the Verify button.

After you click the Verify button, allow up to 48 hours for Google to verify your are the owner of the domain name.

Start using Google Email

At the Google Apps Dashboard, click the Email link. You can change any of these settings as you see fit.

Click the link for Email activation Instructions on how to activate Email.

Read the instructions carefully. If your domain already has email addresses, you should create user accounts before changing your MX records.

1. Create user accounts

Click the “Create user accounts” link.

Enter a first and last name for the email user. Enter the name of his email address.

Click the “Create new user” button.

If you need to create more e-mail accounts, click the “Create another user” link.

Once finished, go back to the Dashboard tab at the top. To quickly get to the next step, click the “Activate email” link, located directly under the Email link.

2. Set up email delivery

If you skipped creating email users, then click the “Change MX records” link.

Google reminds you to create the email users before you change the MX records, or you may have email downtime.

Google also offers you temporary email addresses, so you can use Google mail before the MX record change. The format is similar to name@yourdomain.com.test-google-a.com (The temporary email address will be deactivated once you change the MX records.)

You see “Showing instructions for” and a drop down box. Select “cPanel” as your hosting company. Follow the instructions, but there is an extra step you might need.

Note: The steps are for the cPanel X theme; however, most KingTechDesign clients are using the X3 theme. Here are the instructions for X3:

1. Log in to your cPanel account.
2. Click the MX Entry icon.
3. Under Change MX Entry, in the drop-down box, select the domain name you are setting Google Apps up for.
4. Leave the priority as 0.
5. Paste the Google MX record in the last field. Be sure to remove the ending dot, so that cPanel will accept it. EXAMPLE:
   • Change MX for [yourdomain.com] Priority: [0] to: [ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM]
6. Do NOT check the box for “Always accept mail locally….”
7. Click the Change button.

Finished?

Be sure to go back to the Google Apps page and click the “I have completed these steps” button.

Accessing Webmail

Go back to the Google Apps Dashboard and click the Email link.

Next to Web address you see a sign-in address (URL) which is similar to http://mail.google.com/a/yourdomain.com
The login is the email name WITHOUT @yourdomain.com and the temporary password given by Google. You can find the temporary password by going to the “Users and Groups” tab at the top. Click the email account in question, and the password will be revealed, or if the user has forgotten it, the administrator can reset the password. You can also add a DNS CNAME record for “mail” and point it to “ghs.google.com” to create an easy to remember URL for accessing your email, like http://mail.yourdomain.com

Additional Features of Google Apps

Google Apps also comes with Google Calendar and Google Docs, which are awesome tools for collaboration and organization that every small business should take advantage of.

To configure these, you would need to adjust the DNS records for your domain name to add a CNAME record for “calendar” and “docs” which point to “ghs.google.com” – please submit a support ticket to request any changes to your DNS records and they will be made as soon as possible.

“Business owners and their representatives should think of Twitter as attending a local networking event. When you attend local networking events, to be effective, you build relationships, have one-on-one’s to hear more about their business and vice versa and then, if interested, purchase their product or service and/or help connect them with their synergy partners. Use the same concept with Twitter:

• Learn by reading tweets and profiles
• Build relationships
• Interact and engage to find out more about followers
• Help connect others with their target market or synergy partners

Also, just like local networking, it takes time so don’t use Twitter thinking that one Tweet is going to make you rich…it won’t! It’s all about building relationships and networking!”

Here are some other great tips about using twitter to market your business:

Create a graphic background with a virtual business card on it. People who are interested in you will see this when they view your twitter profile. Your biography should be a brief summary of your services, and don’t forget to link to your business website!

Sign up for a service such as SocialToo to automatically follow your new followers, as well as gain some statistics.

There are other Twitter services that will allow you to automatically message your new followers with an introduction, like the free service from TweetLater.

You should definitely read 137 Twitter Tips : How Small Businesses Get The Most From Twitter if you are just learning to tweet!

Wow! I just love my new iPod! It is basically an iPhone, but without the ability to call out using a cell phone connection. I have not understood what all the hub-bub was about with these iPhones and the touch screen technology until I had a chance to play with it for a few hours. First I had to reinstall iTunes, then setup an account with the Apple store. I just love the way that they insist on getting payment information from you before allowing you to open an account. Apple has implemented a really slick method to make digital media remain profitable for the recording industry. Not to mention us programmers. I see how devices like these are going to revolutionize the Internet.  The neatest thing is, I already have been learning about how to design applications for an iPhone, but now I have the tools to do it with – my iPod also has wi-fi access, so once I had registered my iPod with Apple, I logged onto my secure wi-fi at home. Now I can surf the net from the palm of my hand. (Oh yeah, I don’t have to pay AT&T for cellphone service either.)

More to follow, working on my first iPhone app!

concrete5 is a new content management system (CMS). This CMS sytem has King Tech Design drooling at the possibilities. The software is based on PHP5 and  Python, and uses the free MySQL server as a database, just like it’s competitors Drupal and Joomla.

concrete5  is Free and Open Source (FOSS) under the MIT software license.

The license is more permissive than the GPL license Drupal and Joomla use. Anyone can legally use concrete5 as a fundamental part of their business, for FREE.  (The license does exclude the authors from any liabilities, but what can you expect with free software?)

King Tech Design is going to experiment with concrete5 in the near future, but we have many customer projects that must come before experimentation.

Check out how simple it is to create your own easily editable website:

concrete5 Developer Screencast 1: Introduction to Themes from concrete5 on Vimeo.

The problem that many people have with switching to a new system is the learning curve involved. G-mail is a little bit different than most web based e-mail systems in that it keeps track of your messages in a threaded view – meaning that replies to one message are kept with the original message.

Google Apps allows each user to also use Microsoft Outlook to connect to Google’s e-mail servers (using secure encryption methods) to send and receive e-mail just as they would with a standard e-mail account in Outlook.

A few settings need to be made to your Microsoft Outlook to make it function correctly with your g-mail email address (or Google Apps e-mail).

Your incoming email server should be set to pop.gmail.com using SSL on port 995.

Your outgoing email server should be set to smtp.gmail.com using SSL on port 465.

Your user name should be your Google Apps email address (yourname@yourdomain.com) – this is also the correct settings if you are using a gmail.com email account.