Sunday, January 27, 2008

Internet payment services for .NET applications

You have put lots and lots of effort to bring your application online. Then comes the main picture, let us collect some money through your application/site. A number of companies and websites do the processing through internet payment services like

2Checkout

ProPay

PayPal

MultiCards

WorldPay

Let us see how we can integrate paypal (which is used more comparatively to other inernet payment services) into our application. The visitor, instead of paying the client directly, pays PayPal using credit card or bank account. The client then uses its PayPal account to get the money received from the customers.

Creating a new PayPal account is free, the fees involved when receiving money can be checked at Display Fees

PayPal Links & Resources:

Website Payments Standard Integration Guide

PayPal Developer Network

PayPal Developers - Forum

Creating PayPal Account:

1. Go to PayPal
2. Click Sign Up link.
3. PayPal supports 3 types of account: Personal, Premier and Business account. Choose your country from the pull down menu, and click Continue.
4. Fill in all the requested information and you'll get an email to confirm the details you have entered from PayPal.

Integrating PayPal and Application:

1. To accept payments we need to include 2 elements to the user interface part of the site.
2. Add to Cart buttons for each product and a View Cart button on the page.
3. For example we have a product Ultimate Doll with cost of $16:



PS: your_email_address - Should the registeration email ID of your PayPal account.

4. The View Cart button:

Open your main page (master page - may be Main.Master) in source view and add the following javascript function under head element.



5. In the Main.Master where you have Search, Reset (buttons for products), just add the below code below the Search button.




6. Next to add PayPal Add to Cart in Product.aspx:



7. Add these below code under PopulateControls method in Product.aspx.cs

//Create the "Add to Cart" PayPal link

string link="JavaScript: OpenPayPalWindow(\"https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr"
+ "?cmd=_cart " + //open shopping cart command
"&business=youremail@yourserver.com" + //your PayPal account
"&item_name=" + pd.Name + //product name
"&amount=" + String.Format("{0:0.00}", pd.Price) + // product price
"¤cy=USD" + //currency
"&add=1" + //quantity to add to the shopping cart
"&return=www.yourwebsite.com" + //return address
"&cancel_return=www.yourwebsite.com\")"; //cancel return address)

//Encode link characters to be included in HTML file
string encodedLink= Server.HtmlEncode(link);
// Then link to the HTML Server control add to cart image
addToCartLink.HRef= encodedLink;

PS: Be sure with the email id, as that should be correct in order to get money into your account.

Hope the above few lines definitely are, an initiative for including internet payment services in our .NET applications.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Cool Skills

In this fast moving life, we need to be definitely cool with these cool skills. Learn to give respect to each one, learn to respect person not position. Be always learning addict. Try to be kind,soft-spoken with everyone and greet each time. Before trying to start any task, just practice the same in your mind. The reason is you don't (or) make less mistakes, so that your blood will be cool and will keep your blood pressure under control. So be a good visualizer. Visualization helps in real-life to reach great horizons.

Statistics show that those who are achievers do not let anything or anyone make them feel bad about themselves. Don't take failures as the end of the world, may be god will open another good door surely for you.



Choose to be happy, you can either choose to worry about life & what will happen in the future, or you can choose to be happy, to enjoy life & to live life to the fullest. It is a choice. Overtake your worries & fear with all your faith. Have faith in you. Avoid unneccessary arguments, back-bitting strictly in life.



Take each dat as a lesson and try to learn new things. Try to involve yourself in lot of incredible things and keep your mind engaged 100% always. Don't loose your temper and stay focused, positive and keep rocking :)

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Quick ASP.NET tutorials/amenities

Some useful ASP.NET tutorial:

Courtesy: Bean Software

ASP.NET Tutorial

Thanks a lot for your tutorials.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Stress Management

Stress - This is the word that spoils everything - career,relationship,friendship etc. I had shared my views with regard to stress management, hope you'll find this useful.

Stress is a psychological state that affects the immune system. In this fast moving world, there is connection between stress and vulnerability to viral infections such as colds is widely recognized. For example, cold,fever & flu rates increase among students during exam periods. Can you find why? The reason is due to stress which keeps down the immune system.

Keeping a positive outlook on life can help to overcome the weakening of the immune system. Stress develops depression. Depression affects learning and memory.



So it is essential to manage the stress. Stress can be managed through a healthy lifestyle, including physical exercise, humour which keeps in control the blood level flow which gets increased to brain,muscles and heart due to stress.

Men and women handle stress in different dimensions. While men tend to isolate themselves from others, women will turn to relatives/friends for help to get rid of the stress.



Some quick tips & tricks to overcome this stress:

1. Humor therapy - Keep yourself a sense of humour.

2. Listening to your favourite music which can calm your mind.

3. Exercising daily - in the early morning(Physical exercise helps to strengthen brain cells).

4. Cultivate the habit of learning new skills daily.

5. Commitment to listening plus to teach something you know.

6. You shouldn't make/feel yourself depressed as depressing harms brain function.

7. Also you need to be in your weight -not under/over weight which helps you to think faster (See the people in japan/china who are neither under nor over weight and just see their working potential - japan -2nd in economy, china =hardware)..Slim a bit to think faster.

8. Just try to greet back the people whoever greet you, don't always expect someone to greet you, that shows you are not easy moving. Include some good soft skills within you to improve your career skills.

9. Think before you start anything so that you needn't stress yourself later. Strategically thinking & Visualizing - very important ingredients of life.

10. Proper sleep is essential for acquiring new knowledge and learning new skills. So sleep proper to reach top levels.

Overall if you try to implement full-brain engagement then there is no room for stress.

I welcome your points/views/feedback on the same.

Be stress free! happiness full :)

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Free Useful Softwares!!!

1. Google Docs

http://docs.google.com - online documents storing.

2. Google Apps Small Business Edition

www.google.com/a

3. Office (Word,excel& powerpoint) for free

www.opneoffice.org

download & install

4. Web Conferencing (free basic version)

www.yugma.com

5. Voice chat (Skype)

www.skype.com -> Good project management tool

download & install (computer<->computer calls free)

6. Better project management tool - Create,track projects,manage teams,issues,documents and lot more

www.ninemotion.com

7. Sales Management tool

www.sugarcrm.com

download & install

8. AVG Anit virus

http://free.grisoft.com

download & install

9. Ad-Aware Anti spyware

www.lavasoftusa.com

download & install

For more free s/ws check inn @ -> www.download.com (or) www.sourceforge.net