I was going to write up a nice sized article about osc and its competitors, the benefits of the cart, etc, etc. Every time I take on a project, I get asked the same question, ‘Which cart do you think is the better of them?’ every time, hands down, I say OSC.
Well, thanks to Scott Koegler and a strong agreeance of opinion, I have borrowed his article for you to read on OSC, the facts and the benefits

'Maybe you've realized that the e-commerce system you're using just doesn't do things the way you want them done. Or you want to add a particular feature to your site because you know it will improve sales. Or maybe you simply want to change the look of your site beyond your existing system's capabilities. If any of these apply to you, it might be time to look into osCommerce, the open source e-commerce system.

Selling online use to be about; spending thousands just to get the cart up then a few hundred for the Merchant account. That however is not the case anymore thanks to Paypal and carts like osCommerce.
With the helping hands of these guys, you can have a nice looking, functional site up with a few hundred of dollars.(or less if you have the time to learn it yourself) This also includes the full ability to accept payments from Credit Cards, manage customers, create invoices and more.

The most cost effective ecommerce solution on the market today is Oscommerce.com . How much does this functional and expandable cart cost? Nothing, zero, zilch. Thanks to our great Open Source Code. An all in one solution osCommerce can have you setting up products to sell, have a visitor sign up and pay via the OSC payment section, create an invoice for that client as well as deliver the product(if it can be transferred via email) or create a packing slip to be mailed out.

My Lesson in IP and DNS Routing

Strangest day, (24hrs) I have had in a while

We have not been able to access email or any of our sites for over 24hrs.
.
Kicker is it’s only limited to Server Node107’s IP and my ISP. Everyone else can get to the sites, except folks on my ISP.

A look at traceroute/Ping results showed the problem somewhere else down the line. I could get to other servers (node 99 and 105 tested) fine. Just not mine (node107). It has been a long and trying road.

Well, well. It’s been quite some time since I went on a new ‘rant’, (spelled= whining). Truly a time of growth, learning and experience. To put it politely. At least to this point I can attest that business is a demanding mistress. Requires attention and plenty of it.

So where is this taking us? Well, a topic I rarely broach with clients because the specter of the mere mention of it’s potential for havoc. Yes my friends, that’s right. Failure. The money sucking, ego bruising womb of “if only”.