Re: [wdvltalk] secure download for ebook
joseph harris wrote: I am starting at the beginning again with planning a site, and again this will be to do with selling a book, but it will also contain a lot of other material and some sort of forum or, more likely, a 'questions answered' newsletter. I do not favour any DRM, but don't want the download page exposed or available to non-payers. I am reluctant to think HTTPS, though I know how sensible it is. But I was thinking that maybe [I am using PayPal for payments] there was a way of linking the PayPal transaction number to the download. This is a fairly common thing to want to do, and isn't that hard to achieve. Googling for sell digital products will find you various pre-written solutions which may be of use to you. I'd recommend checking out osCommerce first - it's a popular, free, open-source shopping cart which supports digital products: http://www.oscommerce.com/solutions/oscommerce Others include: http://www.zen-cart.com/ (free again) Given programming experience, writing a custom system to do this wouldn't be all that hard, either. (But if you choose to do it yourself, learn secure coding practices first or have someone knowledgeable check over the code before it goes live; when you're dealing with E-commerce stuff you don't really want to be making mistakes :) I am again looking at PHP/MySQL since I should be able to remember it fairly easily, though I might stick to CSS1, since the emphasis has to be on writing and marketing. I fail to see the relevance between PHP+MySQL and CSS? Cheers Dave P The WDVL Discussion List from WDVL.COM To Join wdvltalk, Send An Email To: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] or use the web interface http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ Send Your Posts To: wdvltalk@lists.wdvl.com To change subscription settings, add a password or view the web interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=wdvltalk http://www.wdvl.com ___ You are currently subscribed to wdvltalk as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with.
RE:[wdvltalk] secure download for ebook
Joseph wrote... I do not favour any DRM, but don't want the download page exposed or available to non-payers. I am reluctant to think HTTPS, though I know how sensible it is. But I was thinking that maybe [I am using PayPal for payments] there was a way of linking the PayPal transaction number to the download. [...] I am again looking at PHP/MySQL since I should be able to remember it fairly easily, though I might stick to CSS1, since the emphasis has to be on writing and marketing. Joseph, I don't know if this will work in your situation or not, but I've had good luck using two different methods of restricting document access. 1. Put the content in the database. Your regular PHP files can check authentication and/or authorization, and if the appropriate credentials are submitted, you can open a new browser window, set the MIME type for the content, and copy the content to the new window using PHP. This is a good solution for when you don't have access to the server's file system outside your web space (as in a hosted site). 2. Put the content in a folder that's not in a web-servable location. You can use PHP the same way to check credentials and then open and copy the file line-by-line to a browser, but the file itself should not be directly servable. This is good for when you run your own servers or if you're accessing content on other machines remotely. Either way, you'll want your PHP to be pretty stout to protect the content, but this way you don't have to worry about people hacking the URLs and finding the files. Tim The WDVL Discussion List from WDVL.COM To Join wdvltalk, Send An Email To: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] or use the web interface http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ Send Your Posts To: wdvltalk@lists.wdvl.com To change subscription settings, add a password or view the web interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=wdvltalk http://www.wdvl.com ___ You are currently subscribed to wdvltalk as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with.
