The screen shots above is a test product I created to demonstrate the features of DLGuard. I used the PayPal Sandbox to make test purchases to access the download page.

Payment Processors

DLGuard supports a wide range of payment processors like:

• PayPal
• Clickbank
• 2CO
• eBay
• PayDotCom
• Click2Sell
• and more

With DLGuard, you will be able to code less and do more. If you have ever had problems trying to get your payment processor to work and keep your product files secure, you need to use DLGuard.

Digital Product Download Security

One of the biggest problem digital product merchants face is exposing the location of their digital products on the internet.

I could upload my product to my web server and tell no one about it but my customers may tell everyone they know about it and that will compromise my sales.

DLGuard hides the location of your digital product’s download path and you can even put in below the “public_html” folder of your web server so that no one can access it from their browsers.

Coupons

DLGuard allows you to setup promotional coupons. The coupons can be set for each product, and you may have as many coupons as you wish. The coupons give you the ability to change the price for a current product, or even offer a “secret” product for those people who have your coupon code.

Integration with List Providers

DLGuard can be integrated with the following list providers:

• GetResponse
• Aweber
• MailChimp
• InfusionSoft
• Email Marketer
• AutoResponse Plus
• ImnicaMail
• and more

You should be able to integrate your list provider if it has an API.

Integration with Third Party Scripts

You will be allowed to include a URL to a third party script.

This could be something you create or a third party script’s API. I find this feature of DLGuard rather limited because I cannot pass certain parameters into the URL.

However, there are ways around it if you use some clever hacking of your download page template to launch your third party scripts by constructing a URL with the parameters you need with the download page “tokens”.

Customisation of Download Pages

Although you can control the HTML code and CSS of the download pages, the download page “tokens” cannot be edited and they output rather terrible HTML!

The default download pages use outdated HTML code like tables to format the layout and font tags. Unfortunately, the download page “tokens” still use this format too and you can’t do anything about it.

I tried making a download page to blend in with my web site but the download page “tokens” spoiled the look and feel of my download page.

Conclusion

Other than the download page customisation issues and the third party script URL issue, I still think DLGuard is a great product.

The customer support is fantastic and I really mean it. Sam Stephens, the author of DLGuard, sometimes replies to my queries within a day.

• Kayako – Very expensive but has the most features and best looking interface
• osTicket – Free and open source, great interface but no theme customisation support
• Maian Support – Cheap with a basic interface but the theme can be customised

I would have preferred to purchase Kayako if it were cheaper but I don’t think I need to spend $599 and above for it. osTicket seems really cool but there isn’t any theme support at the moment. I would have to edit the core files to integrate it with my web site’s design.

Maian Support seems like the best option for me right now because it costs only £25.95 and the theme was relatively easy to customise for me. I am still using the free version at the moment but I will be upgrading to a commercial license soon.

The free version comes with some limitations and it has a “Free Version” text in your emails, page titles and the top of the pages. I do find the top “hover ad” quite a nag even though the author says the free version has no nag screen.

Default Maian Support Theme

The default Maian Support screens look functional and usable to me. I am pretty fussy about the look and feel of the support ticket system and I decided to see if I could make it blend in seamlessly with my web site’s design.

Maverick Web Creations’ Maian Support Theme

I customised the entire look and feel of the Maian Support theme with my own HTML and CSS. Thankfully, I could also customise the emails with my own text. I even used my own jQuery code to customise some of the Javascript of the Maian Support system.

Although I could customise the Maian Support theme to my liking, I don’t think it would be easy for a newbie web developer to do it because the template system isn’t very straightforward to customise.

For example, I had major problems trying to customise the success and error messages without hard coding them into the theme. I wanted to differentiate the administrator’s reply from the user’s reply but there wasn’t an easy way to do it because of the template’s limitations. I had to use a combination of PHP, MySQL, jQuery and CSS to make it look the way I want.

Benefits of Maian Support

• Very low cost
• Ability to try out the free version before purchasing
• IMAP/POP email support
• Basic ticket support features for most users

Downsides of Maian Support

• The free version has a very annoying “hover ad” at the top of the page
• IMAP/POP/SMTP did not work on my web server for some strange reason but it still could send emails via PHP
• Template system is not as great as I expected
• Can’t customise success and error messages
• Poor support for free users

Conclusion

If you are not fussy about the look and feel of your support ticket system, I believe osTicket would be a better choice if you do not wish to pay a single cent.

Maian Support is a decent support ticket system but nothing compared to Kayako. For the price of £25.95, I believe it is a bargain to get your business up and running with a proper support ticket system.

On a scale of 1 to 5, I give Maian Support 3/5. If I manage to get the IMAP and SMTP features working, I would give it 4/5.

I have stopped supporting Internet Explorer 6 since Internet Explorer 8 was released. With Internet Explorer 9 releasing this year, there really isn’t any reason to continue using Internet Explorer 6.

If you’re a web developer like me, you will welcome to move by Microsoft because Internet Explorer 6 is a pain in the neck to code for. Furthermore, it does not have a lot of features found in modern browsers like tabbed browsing and HTML5 support.

Please do yourself and web developers around the world a big favour by ditching Internet Explorer 6!

Although I have not used Internet Explorer 8, I hope it does not create more bugs for web developers like me. I was hesistant to install Internet Explorer 8 because I want to keep Internet Explorer 7 for testing purposes. I could keep Internet Explorer 7 on another PC and upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 on my main development PC. The cool thing about Internet Explorer 8 is the versioning feature that allows developers to emulate a previous version of Internet Explorer within Internet Explorer 8.

Microsoft has planned for the inevitable viewing problems their new software will create. Here’s a list of related web pages that might help you debug all the Internet Explorer 8 problems.

• Internet Explorer 8 Versioning
• Some Web sites may not be displayed correctly or work correctly in Windows Internet Explorer 8
• Internet Explorer 8 Compatibility
• Internet Explorer 8: Defining Document Compatibility

Related Articles by Zemanta

• Internet Explorer 8 Officially Releases at Noon EDT [Internet Explorer] (lifehacker.com)
• IE8 Automatic Update Starting Soon (sitepoint.com)
• Internet Explorer 8 Arriving on Thursday (technologizer.com)
• Microsoft Bids to Reclaim the Web with Internet Explorer 8 (wired.com)

I have submitted a report to the Twitter API team about this issue and I hope they can tell me why it isn’t working.

My script is able to upload the background image to Twitter but it does not get displayed instantly. I end up seeing no background image and just my Twitter background colour. My Twitter account’s XML file does not display the right background file but if I click on the “save changes” button in “settings -> design”, the background magically appears.

Check out my video of this strange background image bug below. Click on the full screen button for a better view.

I hope this issue would be fixed soon because I would love to automatically update my Twitter profile’s avatar automatically with 3rd party services like Daily Mugshot and Gravatar. It would also be great to randomly update my Twitter background everyday too.

I hate paying a monthly fee to newsletter services like Aweber.com so Oempro 4 fits my needs perfectly. I have been waiting for a long time to have a newsletter application that could import RSS feeds and send out the content on a predetermined schedule.

Oempro 4 Installation

I installed version 4.0.3. I wanted to wait till the PHP code was more mature before installing it onto my web server. I think I made the right decision because there were a lot of problems with the initial public release. I was disappointed to find that there is no upgrade option from version 3 to version 4. You have to install version 4 separately in a different folder on your web server and it is a very tedious process.

Oempro 4 is not open source. You may choose to run the Zend or ionCube encoded versions. If you have never used encoded PHP files before, please note that these files have to be uploaded in binary mode. If not, you will receive a “Unable to read 3839 bytes” error like the picture below.

You might think that there is something wrong with the files but once you delete them and re-upload them in binary mode, you will see the installer screen. After you have uploaded the files, you need to change the permissions of the following folders/files:

• Change permissions of the folder “/data/” to “777″.
• Change permissions of the folder “/data/attachments/” to “777″.
• Change permissions of the folder “/data/email_templates/” to “777″.
• Change permissions of the folder “/data/imports/” to “777″.
• Change permissions of the folder “/data/languages/” to “777″.
• Change permissions of the folder “/data/media/” to “777″.
• Change permissions of the folder “/data/tmp /” to “777″.
• Change permissions of all files in the “/cli/” folder to “755″.

Next, enter the URL of your Oempro 4 folder into your browser. The installer screen should be launched automatically.

Oempro 4 requires a few tweaks to your PHP settings. Refer to the warning messages on your installer to see if you have any settings you need to modify. If you’re running this on a web host, email your web host support and tell them to update the PHP settings. I am sure they would be willing to do it for you.

Follow the instructions on the form and move on to the next step. If everything went OK, you should see the following screen.

Oempro 4 Configuration

This is the tough part. It took me hours to get all the settings right but I still cannot get the email bounce detection settings to work. My PHP mail feature could not work and I had to send emails via SMTP. It look me some time to get used to the new interface. I prefer it over the previous version but it seems to have too many Ajax effects for my liking.

Please read the Oempro 4 Wiki for more information on how to set up your Oempro installation. The Wiki isn’t very complete at the moment and it has omitted a lot of important details that are important for newbies.

All of us have different needs and server configurations. There are multiple ways to handle email bounces and email delivery. Check out the Wiki to find a way to configure your Oempro in a way that suits your needs. This isn’t easy at all. If you run into trouble, try contacting the support. If your purchase comes with a free installation service, you might as well get them to install it for you and save all this trouble.

I must point out that the Cron job documentation is very misleading. Maybe they have updated it since I pointed this out. They are suggesting that you create 3 Cron jobs that run every midnight. Since the email delivery is dependent on 2 of the Cron jobs, what that means is your emails will only be sent once a day at 12 midnight. That isn’t very useful is it? I set my send.php and transactional_send.php to run every 5 minutes and 1 minute respectively.

Oempro 4 Plugins

Oempro 3 had quite a few plugins. I have the survey plugin but it does not work with Oempro 4 yet. There are a lot of older plugins that have yet to be upgraded to work with Oempro 4.

Oempro 4 Support

Their support is mediocre at the moment because their developers are trying to fix the bugs in the application. They’ve got customer support staff and developers – Customer support staff requires the expertise of developers to assist customers in dealing with bugs and other technical issues. All of my customer support tickets have been ignored since 2 weeks ago. The customer support forum is slightly more useful with 1 or 2 employees of Octeth helping us.

Final Thoughts on Oempro 4

I think it would be better to wait till Oempro 4.0.4 is released. Oempro 4.0.3 has a few bugs and some usability issues. I have Oempro 4.0.3 running at the moment and it is working fine but I am not fully utilizing all of its features because I cannot get the email bouncing feature to work.

Why Encode PHP Files?

I thought if I could encrypt the source code, potential hackers would have a hard time trying to decrypt the source code to try and hack the web site. Some people encode their source code to protect their intellectual property. Another benefit of encoding your PHP files is they run faster than normal PHP files.

What Do You Need to Install to Run ionCube Encoded PHP Files?

You need to download and install the ionCube loaders on your web server. You may be able to contact your web host to install it for you. Once you have installed it properly, you should see a “with the ionCube PHP Loader” message on a “PHP info” page.

How Can You Encode PHP Files?

There is an online option or a desktop software option. For smaller projects, the online encoder works fine. Fro huge projects, it makes more sense to purchase the software. It is quite pricey but it is a worthwhile investment if you use it often on one or more projects.

The source code of your encoded files look something like the example above. It is not impossible to decrypt this but you would have to be very skilled and determined to do it.

Who Needs ionCube PHP Encoder?

Web developers, software companies and webmasters who want to secure and speed up their web sites could utilize this encoder. Try the online ionCube encoder first and see if it works for you.

An alternative way to organize my avatars would be to use Gravatar. Gravatar allows you to display your avatar through a simple URL.

The Normal Avatar Code

<div id="twitter_photo"><img src="%3C?php%20echo%20bloginfo%28%27template_directory%27%29;%20?%3E/images/icon-twitter.jpg" alt="" width="73" height="73" /></div>

The Gravatar Avatar Code

<div id="twitter_photo"><img src="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=%3C?php%20echo%20md5%28" your...@email.com="" );="" ?="" />" width="73" height="73" alt="" /&gt;</div>

You should replace “your...@email.com” with the email address of your Gravatar avatar email address. With Gravatar, I no longer need to upload and manually change the code whenever I update my avatar. Now, I only need to edit it from Gravatar and all my sites will display the updated avatar.

Notice how my logo blends in with all the different backgrounds. Before I used this PNG logo technique, I had to create a JPG background image with my logo included in it for all the different sections of my site. Now, I have a PNG logo graphic image over a multiple background images without a logo integrated into it. This saves me a little bit of disk space even though the PNG logo file size is slightly bigger.

Won’t GIF Transparent Logos Work?

JPG and GIF logos just don’t look great if you’re trying to make it look good on all types of backgrounds. There might be a way to make GIF logos look good with transparency but I don’t think it would be worth the trouble when most modern browsers support PNG transparency.

As you can see from the pictures above, the one with the ugly grainy logo text is a GIF logo while the smooth and perfect one is a PNG logo. I could not achieve this look for my internet marketing blog with a GIF logo unless I saved the logo with the background image in 1 file.

Advantages of Transparent PNG Logos

• Looks great on different backgrounds
• Most modern browsers like Internet Explorer 7, Safari, Opera 9 and Firefox 2/3 support it
• PNG colours are nicer

Disadvantages of Transparent PNG Logos

• File size is larger than GIF and JPG logos of the same quality
• Does not work on older browsers like Internet Explorer unless you install a fix

How to Display Transparent PNG Logos in Internet Explorer 6

The easiest way I have found to force IE6 to display PNG images correctly is to install this IE 6 PNG Javascript. Just add the following code in between your head tags like this:

<!--[if lte IE 6]><script type="text/javascript" src="pngfix.js"></script><![endif]-->

Non-internet explorer browsers will ignore the code above. Only IE6 and below will read the file above. This fix isn’t perfect though. You will see a silver background on the transparent areas of your PNG image for a few seconds before it disappears. Furthermore, if you include PNG image files as a background image, this Javascript won’t display the PNG images correctly.

If not it might mess up the layout of your post. What I am trying to do right now is typing in filler text to illustrate my point. The good thing about WordPress’ built-in media upload function is that it has 3 sizes for you to choose – thumbnail, medium and full size. The picture on the left is the thumbnail-sized picture, which I further reduced in size to match the content of this post.

This picture is now aligned to the right of my content. The trick in aligning pictures is to have enough space to the left or right. In this case, I have enough space right above this paragraph to squeeze in a picture on the right. I used the thumbnail-sized picture and left the size untouched.

This picture is now aligned to the centre of the page. There isn’t any room to display text on the left or right if you choose to display your pictures in the centre. The picture below is the medium-sized picture that WordPress generated for me.

If you did something similar in your WordPress blog and it did not align like my pictures above, you must have forgotten to add some WordPress CSS code into your CSS style sheet. WordPress didn’t tell you that, did they?

Add this code to the style.css of your WordPress template to enable these WordPress alignment features in your blog:

/* IMAGES */
img.alignleft
{
float: left;
}
img.alignright
{
float: right;
}
img.aligncenter
{
display: block;
margin: 0px auto 0px auto;
}

That’s it! Once you have this block of CSS code in your style sheet, you should be able to align your pictures in WordPress properly.

The WordPress Align Center Bug?

I find this “bug” rather interesting. Maybe it isn’t a flaw in WordPress but it was way this way. Okay, here’s the thing about this align centre feature…

When you try to align your picture to the centre the first time, WordPress adds some HTML code that looks like this:

<img src="http://whatever.com/picture.jpg" class="aligncenter" />

If you try to align your picture to the centre for the second time, WordPress adds more HTML code and it looks something like:

<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://whatever.com/picture.jpg" class="aligncenter" /></p>

Notice the extra P HTML tag that is added to your HTML code. Strange isn’t? Well, if you have added the block of code above, you don’t have to worry about centre aligning 2 times just to get your picture to align to the centre of the page. It sounds silly but that was what I did before I knew what WordPress actually adds to the HTML code when you try to centre align stuff.

P.S. This picture is really nice “Kodak” moment of 3 of my 4 cats. The cat lying down with the back facing the front is Mini. The kitten on the left is Coco and the other kitty on the right is Moca. All my cats have names with 4 letters and I try to give them a cool and “yummy” name.