Today I found a nice looking website Flexcart.net while I was searching for a good Flex based shopping cart solution provider.

As per the website says “Flexcart.net is a suite of Rich Internet Applications (RIA) that will dramatically improve the online shopping experience to deliver higher conversion rates and increased brand equity for retailers who need to differentiate themselves online. It solve the checkout abandonment issue that is currently plaguing the industry “

Flexcart.net leverages Adobe’s widely-deployed Flex^®, Flash^® and ColdFusion^® technologies to make the online shopping experience more dynamic, responsive, and intuitive.  They focus on one aspect of the online shopping cycle - from browsing the store to evaluating and comparing products to pageless checkout and order management.

Well they haven’t  launched it yet and if you are person like me who is interested in such a service, you can register with them and they will notify you when they go live.

If you have Coldfusion project to be developed and have limited budget and can’t compromise on quality, then  this is the best place to go for. Emax Software Provides best-in-class Off shore Web Development and Rich Internet Application(RIA) Development Services from their facility in India to software development companies and independent consultants abroad. It has a dedicated coldfusion and Flex team who have trained in object-oriented ColdFusion Development and expertised with MVC frameworks like Model-Glue, FuseBox and ColdBox. <br>

Emax Software :- Leaders in Outsourced ColdFusion Development and Flex RIA Development Services.

If you are wasting your productive hours by deleting spam emails from your Outlook, Outlook Express or Windows Mail , you can try out spamfighter

It saved tons of my work hrs @ $29.00 and ofcourse a free version is also there for free soles

Paypal IPN integration :-

Please follow the steps below

1. Get a Paypal business account after signing up with paypal
2. Login to your paypal account
3. click on profile tab
4. click on Instant Payment Notification Preferences under Selling Preferences
5. Enter the Instant Payment Notification (IPN) URL . ie, www.yourwebsitedomain.com/ipn.cfm. Dont worry about IPN.CFM now , we can work out that script later. So now you gave the Instant Payment Notification (IPN) URL and turn ON the Instant Payment Notification (IPN). Back to profile summary
6. Now click on Website Payment Preferences again under Selling Preferences

Turn on Auto Return

Give the same URL www.yourwebsitedomain.com/ipn.cfm for Return URL.

Turn on Payment Data Transfer -> On

Also turn on PayPal Account Optional:

Click Save and that’s it.

7. (optional step) this step is for people who are conscious about beauty.

Click on Custom Payment Pages under Selling Preferences and customize

your PayPal’s payment page by adding header URL, background color and border color of the header.

8. Lets move on to real code- CheckOut form

This will be the checkout form of your shopping cart.

Please replace with your information which are marked in bold

<cfoutput>

<form action=” https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr” method=”post”>

<input type=”hidden” name=”cmd” value=”_xclick”>

<!— put your paypal business account here—>

<input type=”hidden” name=”business” value=”shimjudavid@gmail.com“>

<!— put the list of products in the cart between value. You can dynamically populate your values here —>

<input type=”hidden” name=”item_name” value=”product1, product2, product3“>

<!— put the order_id here. You can dynamically populate your order id here —>

<input type=”hidden” name=”item_number” value=”1000“>

<!— put the currency code here —>

<input type=”hidden” name=”currency_code” value=”USD“>

<!— put the total amount of your cart which includes tax and shipping here —>

<input type=”hidden” name=”amount” value=”#DollarFormat(val(variables.total_cost))#“>

<!— this is the controller page which does the logic if payment is success or failure —>

<input type=”hidden” name=”return” value=”http://www.yourwebsite.com/checkout_controller.cfm“>

<input type=”hidden” name=”cancel_return”

value=”http:// www.yourwebsite.com /checkout_failure.cfm“>

<input type=”image” border=”0″ src=”paypal_logo.gif” name=”submit”

alt=”Make payments with PayPal - it’s fast, free and secure!”>

</form>

</cfoutput>

9) ipn.cfm

Copy paste this code and save it to directory which you mentioned on paypal IPN URL.

<cfif IsDefined(”FieldNames”)>

<!– read post from PayPal system and add ‘cmd’ –>

<cfset str = “cmd=_notify-validate” />

<cfloop index=”TheField” list=”#FORM.FieldNames#”>

<cfset str = str & “&#LCase(TheField)#=#URLEncodedFormat(Evaluate(TheField))#” />

</cfloop>

<cfif IsDefined(”FORM.payment_date”)>

<cfset str = str & “&payment_date=#URLEncodedFormat(FORM.payment_date)#” />

</cfif>

<cfif IsDefined(”FORM.subscr_date”)>

<cfset str = str & “&subscr_date=#URLEncodedFormat(FORM.subscr_date)#” />

</CFIF>

<!– post back to PayPal system to validate –>

<CFHTTP URL=”https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?#str#” METHOD=”GET” RESOLVEURL=”FALSE” />

<!– check notification validation –>

<cfif CFHTTP.FileContent IS “VERIFIED”>

<!– check that payment_status=Completed –>

<cfif FORM.payment_status IS “Completed”>

<!– check that receiver_email is your email address –>

<cfif FORM.receiver_email IS “<!—enter email —>”>

<cftry>

<cfcatch type=”any”><!— /home/fsb/logs/paypal_error.log —>

<cffile action=”append” file=”paypal_error.log” output=”Error #Now()#: #cfcatch.Detail#” /><!— ,#str# —>

</cfcatch>

</cftry>

</cfif>

</cfif>

</cfif>

<cfelse>

<cflocation url=”<!— Enter URL —>” addtoken=”no”/>

</cfif>

10)checkout_controller.cfm

<!— comes from paypal as success —>

Url scope : <cfdump var=”#url#”><br>

<cfif isdefined(”URL.ST”) AND URL.ST EQ “Completed” AND isdefined(”URL.item_number”) >

<cfquery name=”updateOrder” datasource=”#REQUEST.dsn#”>

UPDATE testorder

SET order_status = 1

WHERE orderNumber = ‘#URL.item_number#’

</cfquery>

<cflocation addtoken=”yes” url=”checkout_success.cfm?order_id=#URL.item_number#”>

<cfelse>

<cflocation addtoken=”no” url=”checkout_failure.cfm”>

</cfif>

11) checkout_failure.cfm

Display page, if payment is unsuccessful

<p align=”center” class=”error”>Your payment is not successfully processed.</p>

<p align=”center” class=”error”>We sincerely apologize for the inconveniences caused hereby.</p>

12)Checkout_success.cfm

Display page, if payment is successful

<cfoutput>

<p align=”center” class=”error”>Your payment is successfully processed.</p>

<p align=”center” class=”error”>Your Order Number is #url.order_id#</p>

</cfoutput>

Blogs and its quality normally vary based on the number and quality of posts.

For example during 2005, I was a regular visitor of www.asfusion.com which had a lot of quality posts related to Coldfusion Flash forms and Flash remoting.. Everyday I used to comes to this site to check their new posts and comments to existing posts… I must say I was an addict to this bog… After the popularity of flash form diminished and due to less activity in asfusion.com, now I seldom visit here…

http://www.bennadel.com/blog/ (KinkySolutions.com) is a quality coldfusion blog.. I love it.

http://www.nodans.com/index.cfm/Model-Glue is a great place to learn Model-Glue, ColdSpring.

And Above all, I must say our Coldfusion Jedi Raymond Camden’s www.coldfusionjedi.com is the best blog ever happened to coldfusion community. It still stays like Mount Everest with rich coldfusion knowledgebase.. I suggest all coldfusion developers (beginner to Advanced) go through each post from 2004 till now and Iam sure at the end you will gain great coldfusion practical knowledge  from this blog.