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# Some Possible BizDB and ImageDB Database Solutions #
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< Question No. 1 >
Can users (Web site visitors) purchase electronic information online and
download it to their computers? This can be a one time transaction
between our company and the user.
< Answer >
The simple method:
Use BizDB to install a searchable shopping database and use the "BuyNow"
method to allow your visitor to buy an item individually. You can specify
a return url within the "BuyNow" order form so that after the payment is
complete, the merchant account server will return control to a page on
your server to tell the user where to download the "Software" that your
visitor has ordered.
Please note that by using this method, the user must complete a new
online order form for each item to be ordered.
Where to get a Merchant Account that will work with BizDB:
- Please visit http://www.itransact.com/demo/index_accept_credit_cards_online.html .
- They have a "BuyNow" demo as well - http://www.itransact.com/demo/buynow.html .
*** Limitation ***
If the user finds out the "return_url" from the order form, he will go
direct to the download page to download the software.
*** Improvement ***
Order our software development service to develop a new
"paid_to_download.cgi" cgi script specifically prepared for your downloading
purpose. You can set the "return Url" in your "BuyNow" order form to call
this "paid_to_download.cgi" program when the payment is successful.
Example:
========
In your "BuyNow" order form, you include:
where "AnyCode" is the product code of your software to be downloaded.
(You can store this "product code" in your BizDB shopping database.)
********************************
In the "paid_to_download.cgi" script, we will program it to find out the
correct download Url of the software from the product code supplied above
and then direct the user to that specific Url.
The cost for developing just this "paid_to_download.cgi" script is US$280
(4 hours of work at US$70/Hour - documentation will be provided).
********************************
We can also provide complete software and installation service for you if
you don't want to configure and install the BizDB shopping database
yourself. The cost would depend on the complexity of your database.
Normally we will charge US$800. You need to have an acceptable merchant
account (eg. an account from itransact.com) ordered by yourself and you
will need to supply us a blank sample Web page (containing the standard
page header, footer, your official logo, navigation bar, etc. that will
match the theme of your Web site) for setting up the various Html templates.
< Question No. 2 >
Can users purchase the electronic information and we can provide a
specified access period for the usage of the directory information?
< Answer >
You can setup a Members Only BizDB Database System to host the electronic
information. Any users who want to search and view this type of
information must be registered first and then pay a fee (via an online
merchant account, eg. itransact.com) for a certain period. Once approved,
the user can login to his member area to search and access this
information in the database. This electronic information database is not
accessible by ordinary users.
It is possible to setup the system to remind the user if the user
registration is near to expire.
*** NOTE *** Your electronic information must be stored in a flat text file
using coma or tab as the field delimitor (csv format). The total size must
not be greater than 2-3 Megabytes per database file, otherwise we have to
find out ways to split the file into multiple smaller files by categories.
Total cost of software licence and installation is approximately US$1200.
A fixed quote will be given to you once the detailed database requirements
are received and analysed.
< Question No. 3 >
Please verify whether or not "logged in visitors / members" can see ALL
fields in a database vs. those non "logged in visitors / non-members" who
can only search and see partial records (limited number of database fields).
< Answer >
The best way to understand our software is to read the documentations
(attached) for both BizDB Advance and LoginControl software.
In your search form, if you have the form statement
included, the
"bizdb-search.cgi" search engine script will make sue only the
"logged in users" can search the database. Therefore you can offer 2 types
of search database urls to your users:
(1) Url / search form contains the
statement - this URL should be provided in the member-area page. The search
report template (eg the detail profile report) should be constructed to
allow your user to view all fields in the database.
(2) Url / search form does not contain the
statement - this URL
should be available to all users. The search report template (eg the
summary report) should be constructed to allow your user to view only
some fields within the database.
In brief, you have to setup 2 different sets of URLs and html templates
for your non-logged in and logged in users.
< Question No. 4 >
Does your "BizDB for Members" package include the ability to process a
credit card before allowing the creation of an account (creating a member)?
If so, what card processing systems will it support, Authorize.net,
iTransact, etc..
< Answer >
The software is working as follows:
(1) The new member adds a record to the database, with the record status
("f5") set to "Inactive". The "expiry_period" statement within the ADD
Record template must be set to "0". At this stage, the record is stored
in the database as "Inactive" record and is not accessible nor searchable.
(2) To activate this record, the user must log in to the database using
his record id and password submitted in step 1. Since his "expiry_period"
is 0 days, the user will be directed to a "Payment / Renewal Page" for
sending in his payment. You can use any "Payment Server" to support your
database provided that it can recognize a "return URL address" which will
send the user back to the "ordered.cgi" script in your BizDB database
server to activate the ordered record. Once the record is activated
(i.e. status set to "Active" and the "expiry_period" set to xx days),
the user can log in to his member area to access/update his own record
and to search and display all fields in other member records.
(3) To delete "Inactive" ("f5") Records (i.e. user who has submitted a
record but not paying it) between certain specified date range, you have
to execute a "Batch Delete" function available in the "bizdb-aed.cgi"
script. The and
statements must
be present.
(4) To delete "Active" ("f5") but "Expired" Records (i.e. the paid user
record has been expired after xx days) between certain specified date
range, you have to execute a "Batch Delete" function available in the
"bizdb-aed.cgi" script. The
and statements must
be present.
For details, please see the following sections in the
"LoginControl-readme.txt" file:
G. How to offer search functions for "Registered" members only
N. How to delete a batch of expired records
Q. How to bill users for "Fee-For-Posting" listings
The URL of our "Login Control" demonstration site is
http://www.cnctek.com/bizdb-members .
< Question No. 5 >
Please explan in detail how does your "ImageDB for Members" works?
< Answer >
The software must be configured and installed by us. The project price
includes the single site life-time software licence, all software codes
and the database html interfaces. Below are the main points you need
to know:
(1) Our software does not use/need php and mySQL. It only requires an
Unix or Linux Web server with Perl installed and can execute cgi scripts.
(2) Our software can support multiple text fields (input, textarea,
drop-down list, radio buttons and checkbox) and up to 4 user input images
(restricted file size, i.e. KB, not dimensions). Your Webmaster and users
can search any input text fields and report any text and image fields in
both the search result report and the detail profile reports.
(3) We can setup a member database for you so that each member can submit
his own information plus a few (0-4) images. The member record is stored
in the member database as an "Inactive" record with expiry date = today's
date (i.e. expired immediately or xx days later - configurable). At this
stage, we can configure the software to generate 2 types of e-mails:
- User notification e-mail requesting your user to "login" to the
database to pay for the listing that he has just submitted.
- Webmaster notification e-mail to inform your Webmaster that a new
member listing has just be received. By following the link displayed on
the e-mail, the Webmaster can review the listing content and activate the
listing easily. (Note: An "Activated" but expired listing is still not
accessible to the public unless the member user has paid for the listing
and the expiry date has been extended by our software for yy days.)
(4) The "Login" function of our software serves two purposes:
(a) If the listing is expired, the user will be sent to a
"secure online payment form" to pay for the proper amount.
The online payment server must be subscribed by you and must be
able to recognize the payment item name, short description, amount and
the "Return-URL" which is located on your ImageDB server.
It is essential that if the payment is successful, the payment
server will pass the control back to a "ordered.cgi" script located in
your ImageDB server to activate and extend the expiry date of the user
listing.
(b) If the user record is in "Active" state and not yet expired, the
user will be passed the control to his own member area page to view and
update his own listing and to search and view the listing of other member
users.
(5) If the server supports crontab, you can schedule your server to
execute our "reminder.cgi" script daily to check and remind those users
whose listings (without software customization, each user are allowed to
submit only one member listing) are about to expire (i.e. nn days -
configurable - before the expiry date). If the listing is renewed, this
program will immediately stop sending the reminder e-mails to the user.
(Note: Without special software changes, our software will only detect
and send the reminder e-mail once (on the system determined date) per
user. However if the user ignores this e-mail and attemptes to login to
the system after the "listing expiry date", he will be directed to the
"Renewal" page to renew the subscription.)
(6) The Webmaster can edit, de-activate and delete any user listing any
time using the username and the webmaster's supervisor password.
(7) Since the software is fairly complicated and a large number of html
templates have to be configured, therefore we must do the initial database
setup for you. We will setup all the cgi scripts and database interface
templates based on the database fields and search requirements specified
by you. Your responsibility is to send us a sample web page containing
the header, navigation bar, web site logon and the footer that will match
the design and theme of your site. After the installation and software
acceptance, if you want to add/search a few new "text" fields, you can
follow our instructions to do it yourself. However if you want to do
more complicated changes, you should use our support services charged
at a rate of US$70/hour.
(8) Estimated project cost (based on "ImageDB for Members", including
life-time software licence, software codes, html templates and complete
database installation service) is US$1000 - US$1200 (could be US$1500
- US$2000 if the resulting system is more complicated than expected).
You must send us a detailed and complete database specification for a
fixed quote. We must need to know if you want to allow your registered
user to submit multiple listings. This requirement would need software
custimzations, therefore would be slightly more expensive. For your
reference, our hourly rate is US$70/hour.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us. Our
"ImageDB for Members" demonstration web site is located at
http://www.cnctek.com/imagedb-members .
< Question No. 6 >
Please explan in detail how to setup the cgi scripts and templates to
upload and attach an user image to a user record?
< Answer >
To allow your user to upload and attach an image to a user record, you
must have the "ADD Record" and "EDIT Record" html templates set up properly.
*********** Refer to our BizDB ReadMe Documentation ***************
(F-1) Parameters used by Add and Edit/Delete/Show templates
In the following paragraphs, "f??" could be the name of any
database field ranging from f1 to f50 if $maxfields is equal to 50.
3. image-f?? - If you want to define "f??" as an image field, this
form name must be "yes". The image must be uploaded
by the bizdb_upload.cgi program to an image directory
defined by $upload_dir. The filename of the image
will be set equal to "recordkey-dbname.image_file_ext"
to ensure it has a unique name on the system. (Note
dbname will be replaced by the actual database filename)
Example
where "f18" is the database field containing the filename
of the uploaded image.
4. image_file_ext - Specify the filename extension of your image
file as defined by image-f??. Must be either
"no" or "jpg" or "gif" or "no change".
If set to "no", that means no image file for
this particular field "f??".
If set to "no change", that means there is no
change to the image stored in field "f??".
Example 1 This example is for use in the ADD html template.
Image Format (file extension of the image)