An example of a copyleft free software license is the GNU General Public License (GPL). This license is aimed at giving the end-user significant permission, such as permission to redistribute, reverse engineer, or otherwise modify the software. These permissions are not entirely free of obligations for the end-user, however. The end-user must comply with certain terms if the end-user wishes to exercise these extra permissions granted by the GPL. For instance, any modifications made and redistributed by the end-user must include the source code for these, and the end-user is not allowed to re-assert the removed copyright restrictions back over their derivative work. The GNU General Public License is often called the GNU GPL for short; it is used by most GNU programs, and by more than half of all free software packages. The latest version is version 3.

An example of the permissive free software license is the BSD License, which grants the user with the permission to do anything they wish with the source code, including the right to take the code and use it as part of a commercial software venture.

GNU License Types

The GNU Project was launched in 1984 to develop a complete Unix-like operating system which is free software – the GNU system.

Free software is a matter of the users’ freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software.

GNU has a number of licenses all geared towards different uses of software. They are:

The GNU General Public License, which is often called the GNU GPL for short; it is used by most GNU programs, and by more than half of all free software packages. The latest version is version 3.

The GNU Lesser General Public License, which is used by a few (not by any means all) GNU libraries. The latest version is version 3.

The GNU Affero General Public License, is based on the GNU GPL, but has an additional term to allow users who interact with the licensed software over a network to receive the source for that programme. The latest version is version 3.

The GNU Free Documentation License, is a form of copyleft intended for use on a manual, textbook or other document to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifications, either commercially or non-commercially. The latest version is 1.3.

Creative Commons License Types

Creative Commons is a non-profit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.

The following describes each of the six main licenses offered when publishing work with a Creative Commons license.

Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd) – This license is the most restrictive of the Creative Commons licenses, allowing redistribution. This license is often called the ‘free advertising’ license because it allows others to download a product or work and share them with others as long as the user mentions the original source and links back to the original source in some way. None of the work or product may be changed or used commercially.

Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike (by-nc-sa) - This license lets users play with a product and build upon it in a non-commercial way, as long as the source is credited and new creations or products are licensed under the same terms. Hence, nothing derived from this original product can be commercial in nature.

Attribution Non-commercial (by-nc) – This license lets users play with a product and build upon it in a non-commercial way, as long as the source is credited and new creations or products do not have to be licensed under the same terms.

Attribution No Derivatives (by-nd) – This license allows for

redistribution, commercial and non-commercial use, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with source fully credited.

Attribution Share Alike (by-sa) – This license lets users play with a product and build upon it in a commercial way, as long as the source is credited and new creations or products are licensed under the same terms. This license is often compared to open source software licenses.

Attribution (by) – This license lets users play with a product, build upon in a commercial way, as long as the source is credited as creator of the original work.

Choosing a license for your software programme which best suits your software programme, work or creation can be a difficult process but keeping the ultimate purpose of your work in mind at all times will aid your decision.

Click here to read about Propriety & Free Software Licenses.

A typical software license grants a user permission to use one or more copies of software in ways where such a use would otherwise constitute infringement of the software publisher’s exclusive rights under copyright law. This can extend to all types of software, product and creative output, including artistic works and designs.

The terms and conditions of a software license control the usage of that software. The license agreement defines the way in which software can be used, and determines whether or not the software can be installed on more than one computer or device. In addition to granting rights and imposing restrictions on the use of software, software licenses typically contain provisions which allocate liability and responsibility between the parties entering into the license agreement. Software license agreements usually take the form of an End User License Agreement (EULA). This EULA could be in paper form, or form part of the software installation process. Should a user reject the terms and conditions of a license agreement, the software installation process aborts, and the software will not be installed.

Licenses can have different life spans – perpetual or non-perpetual. Perpetual licenses are everlasting and valid as long as the software is used in accordance with the license agreement requirements. Non-perpetual licenses, also known as subscription licenses, are temporary and provide the right to use a particular licensed product until the end of the license agreement term.

There is a wide variety of license types, each of which are geared towards a specific type and usage of a particular product.

Proprietary Software License

Perhaps the most commonly known software license involves the use of proprietary software. With a proprietary software license, the software publisher grants a license to use one or more (commonly known as a volume license) copies of the software but, ownership of the software still rests with the software publisher. All rights regarding the software are therefore, reserved by the publisher. Usually, proprietary software licenses include numerous terms and conditions which prohibit certain uses of the software, such as copying. Thus, when purchasing the software, a user tacitly agrees to all terms and conditions listed by the software publisher. Microsoft Windows is a perfect example of the proprietary software license.

Free Software License

With free software licenses, on the other hand, ownership of a particular copy of software does not remain with the software publisher. Instead, ownership of the copy is transferred to the user. So, whilst ownership of the copy of software is transferred to the user, ownership of the copyright remains with the software publisher. Additionally, a free software license typically grants to the end-user extra rights, which would otherwise be reserved by the software publisher.

With free software licenses, acceptance of the license is optional. A user may use the software but does not have to accept the license in order to do so. However, if the user wishes to exercise any of the additional rights granted by a free software license (such as the right to redistribution), then the end-user must accept, and be bound by, the software license.

Click here to read about Open Source Software Licenses.

Wordpress enables you to run your website efficiently and effortlessly.

1. Open Source

WordPress is built on an open source platform and is, itself, open source. This means that it is free to use for any purpose (personal or commercial). This is, naturally, of huge benefit for any small business or not-for-profit organisation that has a limited budget and resources but, requires the ability to manage their own website. Also, it is simple to learn and quick to keep your site fresh and updated, so you are able to eliminate both the cost of possible expensive training and extra staff capacity.

2. Flexible

Wordpress has a global, buzzing community backing it which offers its users a wealth of information from tutorials to add-ons. With these resources so freely available, it is easy to manipulate Wordpress to cater for any website requirements.

3. SEO

Wordpress has been built with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in mind. Websites built on Wordpress have an immediate head start when it comes to being searchable in search engines. An abundance of SEO plugins (add-ons) exist for free, which easily plug into the website to increase the sites visibility in search engines.

4. User friendly

Wordpress is one of the easiest web management tools available. In just a few hours, anyone can master the basics of what Wordpress has to offer. The administration area is laid out logically and focuses on easy navigation for all users.

5. Standards Compliant

Web standards are the use of correct web coding standards as laid out by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The web standards which are of most concern to modern business are XHTML and CSS coding practices. The idea behind a standards compliant website is that the look of the website is separated from the content on the website. This results in a website loading quickly as well as easily working across the various browsers different people use, such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.

6. Self Managed / Low Maintenance

Wordpress is a Content Management System (CMS) which provides the owner of the website with the ability to maintain the content on the website, without contacting a web designer to make changes. If a website has been built correctly, and runs on Wordpress, there is very little upkeep for the owner.

7. Low running costs

Wordpress is a light-weight CMS which doesn’t require expensive web hosting and updates to Wordpress are released free of charge.

8. Adapt to design/brand

With Wordpress being a light-weight, open source framework, adapting the look of a brand to the design of the website is possible, regardless of the nature of the brand.

9. Community Support

The incredible community following that Wordpress has, also means that fans and users are able to active release tips and tricks daily. This support system provides website owners with easy, instant access to necessary information for any situation.

10. Feature Rich

Part of Wordpress flexibility is the fact that there are thousands of plug-ins freely available on the Internet. These plug-ins cater for a variety of functions including, displaying latest news posts, enhancing the SEO of the website and increasing the speed at which the website loads. These plug-ins allow for a static website to become dynamic and encourage true interaction between visitors.

11. Easy Media Management

With Wordpress, the publishing of photographs, videos, podcasts and other media becomes incredibly easy for the website owner. In most cases, no third-party or externally hosted applications are required.

12. Advertisement Management

For website owners who want the ability to run advertisements on their website, a Wordpress plug-in can cater for this. The plug-in will provide statistics on clicks and impressions and provide the ability to limit advertisements to certain pages or certain duration of time, amongst other things.

13. Spam-free Contact Forms

When it comes to having a form on your website for people to contact you via your website or subscribe to a mailing list, spam can become a huge problem. Wordpress has built-in spam protection functionality and will prevent you from receiving all those unwanted emails.

14 Automatic RSS generation

RSS Feeds are another way of distributing information on a website each time a new piece of information is published on the website, everyone who is subscribed to the RSS feed will receive the updates either in an RSS reader or via email.

15. Easy Integration with Social Media Applications

Wordpress has functionality which makes it easy to integrate with the most popular social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. This is incredibly useful if marketing is taking place on one of the social networks and the campaign needs to incorporate a website.

The Forge Web Creations has produced a variety of customized Wordpress websites for our clients, including Cape Villa Collection (http://www.capevillacollection.com/) and the Cape Stay Blog (http://www.capestayblog.co.za/)

Should you be interested in letting The Forge work their magic with a Wordpress site for you, please contact us by clicking here.

You can choose between the PayPal Express Checkout, which provides a seamless checkout for PayPal account holders via an API integration or the PayPal Standard Checkout, where PayPal authorizes payments and then returns the online customer to your website.

There are, however, a number of alternative payment gateways in South Africa which are well-established and reputabled.

There are two types of Payment Gateway providers in South Africa – those which require a client to register as an internet merchant with a South African Bank, and those that do not. In this article, we outline those that do not require clients to register as an internet merchant with a South African Bank.

UPDATED 18/02/2011:

Pay4It (www.pay4it.co.za) provides e-commerce solutions for small to medium businesses. A subsidiary of REDi Internet Services, Pay4It will even host and develop the online retailer’s website and making it entirely ready for e-commerce transactions.

Pay4It charges a R750 +VAT once-off setup fee, R250 monthly subscription fee, and levies 6% per each transaction. Pay4It does not require online retailers to register a merchant bank account with their bank before registering.

Pay4It is a one-stop-shop for all your online e-Commerce requirements and offers its clients a full portfolio of web design and development services, in addition to its payment gateway services. Pay4It will also happily send clients a full integration guideline document and enable clients’ developers access to the Pay4It technical team, to assist with the integration process.

UPDATED 18/02/2011:

Netcash (www.netcash.co.za) transacts directly with the 4 larger banks – Standard Bank, First National Bank, ABSA and Nedbank, and through Bankserv, with the smaller banks, and is able to guarantee service levels and payment clearance times. Primarily used by retailers as a debit order collection service it also enables retailers to add a payment gateway service to their websites.

Netcash requires online retailers to register online, and will then revert with a service agreement for completion by the retailer. NetCash caters both for merchant account holders and for sole proprietors, and is willing to sign up a sole proprietor, once assessed, via their personal bank account.

Netcash prides itself on a quick turn-around time with registrations, and does not lock its clients into a fixed timeframe contract. Further, online retailers can cancel their registration with Netcash at any time, should they be dissatisfied with the service, without incurring any penalties or cancellation fees.

Netcash charge a R450 setup fee, with a R160 per month retainer. Netcash charges R1 per transaction, plus 5% of the transaction value.

Netcash focuses on creating and implementing efficient and easy payment gateway services and as such, the data validation component of their systems is available to all clients, as a web service which can be integrated into the client website or account management software. Netcash’s portfolio of services includes a comprehensive reporting system.

UPDATED 18/02/2011:

MonsterPay (www.monsterpay.com) (formerly known as Setcom) is the favoured choice for smaller businesses, as it does not require a merchant account to be registered beforehand. Whilst they don’t charge merchants a setup or monthly subscription cost, their transaction fees are slightly higher.

MonsterPay takes a small percentage fee of each transaction made through its services but also does not charge any monthly fees. The MonsterPay service provides Rand and US Dollar credit card acceptance.  Acceptance of Instant EFT via SID and direct deposits are also provided for Rand. This service is unique to MonsterPay and no other payment gateway can provide Instant EFT facilities. To receive payments via MonsterPay will cost you 2.9% per transaction plus $0.30 USD for Dollars. For South African Rand transactions, it will cost you 2.9% per transaction, plus R2 ZAR.

MonsterPay provides a variety of payment gateway tools and integration tools for clients’ websites. Integration tools offered include: Auto-Redirect; Auto-Post and Synchronisation facilities. A full implementation and integration guide is available for download from the MonsterPay website.

MonsterPay offers a wide range of selling tools for its clients. These include a shopping cart; Buy Now and Checkout buttons; catalogue and mail listing; customizable payment pages; a shipping calculator; tax calculator and downloadable statements.

UPDATED 18/02/2011:

2CheckOut (www.2checkout.com) offers a service with no waiting period and no term contracts. 2CheckOut also supports recurring billing and will work with existing shopping carts.

A signup fee of $49USD is levied by 2CheckOut and a 5.5% commission on each transaction, along with a $0.45USD charge per transaction. With just a 5.5% and %.45USD charge per sale, no monthly, gateway or statement fees, 2CheckOut also makes it possible for customers to purchase products with PayPal, as well as the most popular online payment methods.

2CheckOut provides its clients with an easy to integrate payment gateway service, which will work with existing shopping carts and includes a range of comprehensive account management tools. 2CheckOut clients are required to maintain a website containing complete marketing, advertising and product information themselves.

UPDATED 18/02/2011:

Payfast (www.payfast.co.za) does not charge monthly fees – only per-transaction fees. Offering four types of accounts, Payfast is geared entirely towards payment processing for South Africa only.  Payfast does not require a client to register as a merchant with a South African bank.

Payfast’s Basic Account is intended only for users who only send money, whilst the Personal Account is geared towards regular users who need to pay online stores, and receive small amounts of money for online goods or services.  A Premier Account is intended for use by online retailers who need to accept money from customers and who are able to accept credit card payments. The Business Account focuses on larger businesses, who send and receive larger amounts of money on a regular basis. The Basic Account does not require you to have a South African Bank Account but, the Personal, Premier and Business accounts do.

PayFast does not charge setup or monthly fees, or charge users a fee to send money. To receive funds, however, Payfast charges a minimum of 2% on an Instant EFT and PayFast Voucher transaction. For a credit card transaction, Payfast charges 4.9% of the transaction plus an extra R2, and 7% of the transaction amount on a Ukash transaction. Payouts cost R8,77 and all selling tools offered by Payfast are free to use. Payfast accepts payments from South African clients; by credit card and by UKash clients from all over the world.

PayFast provides a number of pre-built modules for a number of e-Commerce engines/shopping carts. These include: OSCommerce; VirtueMart, ZenCar and CubeCart. PayFast enables you to simply and quickly add their facilities to your website, and provides a full, easy to read integration guide on their website. PayFast has also enabled UKash (www.ukash.com) on their systems. UKash enables a client to buy things online without needing a credit card or even a bank account.

A variety of options are available for those wanting to enable their e-commerce website, and clients are offered a wide variety of options and account types.

Related: South African Payment Gateways that require bank registration.

You can choose between the PayPal Express Checkout, which provides a seamless checkout for PayPal account holders via an API integration or the PayPal Standard Checkout, where PayPal authorizes payments and then returns the online customer to your website.

There are, however, a number of alternative payment gateways in South Africa which are well-established and reputabled.

There are two types of Payment Gateway providers in South Africa – those which require a client to register as an internet merchant with a South African Bank, and those that do not. In this article, we outline those that do not require clients to register as an internet merchant with a South African Bank.

UPDATED 18/02/2011:

Virtual Card Services (www.vcs.co.za) was established in 1996 and works with ABSA, Nedbank, Standard Bank and First National Bank and has more than 50 years’ collective experience in developing and implementing credit, debit and smartcard processing systems for all of the major card issuers in South Africa. In order for an online retailer to register with VCS, the retailer must register with their bank as a Credit Card Merchant. Once registered, the retailer will receive a Merchant Number and, using this, can register for VCS services.

In terms of VCS fees, VCS does not charge to setup a retailer. Volume Discounts can be negotiated with VCS, based on the retailer’s transaction processing history. No setup bank fees are levied for new Internet Merchant applications for users who utilize the services of Nedbank. Users with First National Bank will pay a Bank fee of R399, and for Standard Bank customers, a charge of R500 is levied. ABSA clients will have their bank fee negotiated with VCS. Commission on all transactions through an ABSA account carry a negotiable levy whilst a commission fee of between 5 and 7% applies when transacting with a First National Bank; Nedbank or Standard Bank account. ABSA clients pay a R120 administration fee too. The minimum monthly amount for a Standard Bank client is R150, whilst for First National Bank clients it is R399 and Nedbank clients need a minimum monthly of R500.

VCS provides its clients with full interfacing instructions, to enable the client’s web design and development team to integrate the VCS payment gateway into an e-Commerce website. Merchant web sites must pass parameters (i.e. reference number, description and amount to VOnline via the Pay buttons). Sample code will be provided on approval of a VCS application.

UPDATED 18/02/2011:

Setcom (www.setcom.co.za) is another payment service where bank registration is required for credit card acceptance. This service is aimed at companies with a minimum of 6 month trading history and banking relationship. The credit card acquiring is done directly with either ABSA, FNB or Standard Bank.  Setcom provides the technology to link the website to the banks. In addition to credit card processing, Setcom provides the only instant EFT service in South Africa, called SID Payment.

SID Payment (www.sidpayment.com) is an assisted EFT (electronic funds transfer) which allows the customer to make payment directly to a merchant using their existing Internet banking facility.

If a customer has never used SID before, they will be asked to run the application. The customer will then be directed to their chosen bank site where they can login to make payment. The merchant’s banking details will be pre-populated on the payments page. Once the customer completes the payment and receives the receipt, their order will be fulfilled straight away without having to fax the confirmation to the merchant.

UPDATED 18/02/2011:

Paygate (www.paygate.co.za) is very well known as it’s used by companies who have a merchant account with the banks. Paygate has been around since 1996 and is therefore being used extensively on websites around the country. Credit cards accepted include Mastercard, Visa, American Express and Diners Club. PayGate provides a number of different solutions to merchants and all are easy to use and extremely cost effective for online merchants and retailers.

Paygate requires online retailers to register as a merchant at their bank and will supply you with a quote on costings to you for joining, once you enquire here: https://www.paygate.co.za/pricing.php. Paygate focuses its services entirely on being a specialist payment services provider and leaves the web design and development to the experts. Paygate provides code samples, payment modules, logos and documentation for download on its website to enable clients development teams to easily integrate the Paygate system into their e-Commerce website.

UPDATED 18/02/2011:

IVeri (www.iveri.co.za) is offered by Nedbank. The iVeri Payment Gateway is a comprehensive solution that meets all the essential requirements of a true multi-channel card payments system and enables online retailers to access a range of services from remote payment devices to full-scale monitoring of all transactions in real-time. The key to the success of the iVeri Payment Gateway is that it provides a range of acceptance channels which provides more ways to accept payments and therefore more transactions. The iVeri Payment Gateway is a flexible yet robust and reliable solution that truly gives banks a competitive edge in the market.

Nedbank’s IVeri is a simple way to add payment facilities to your website. The IVeri Lite service requires very little integration and is aimed at Internet merchants who have limited technical resources. On checkout, the card holder is redirected to a secure payment page that is hosted by IVeri. This simplifies the integration and reduces integration time. The Iveri Enterprise service is ideal for medium to large e-Commerce websites. The Enterprise service leaves database storage, formatting and development entirely at the discretion of the clients’ web design and development team. IVeri’s systems provide advanced security and transaction monitoring, in real-time.

UPDATED 18/02/2011:

MyGate   (www.mygate.co.za) Financial Switching and Verification Platform enables customers to have one point of contact for all of their Payment, Collection and Verification needs.

MyGate is a registered Payment Service Provider (PSP) offering leading payment gateway services enabling merchant to accept credit card and pin less debit cards from a website or MOTO (Mail Order/Telephone Order) environment. MyGate Payment Gateway enables merchants to accept payments from credit cards and have an extensive range of Alternative Payment Methods which consists of Cell PayPoint, MiMoney and eBucks. Merchants can view and manage online transactions through MyGate Web Console.

MyGate currently works with all four major Banks in South Africa and assists all it’s clients in setting up their merchant accounts with the banks. MyGate prides itself on being one of  the most cost effective and innovative payment gateway in South Africa and focuses on guiding clients through each step of setting up their ecommerce websites, providing clients with all necessary technical API and various transactions reporting to ease transaction management.

UPDATED 18/02/2011:

AlertPay (www.alertpay.com) enables online retailers to manage multiple online businesses with just one AlertPay account and is the only third party payment processor enabled for use in South Africa. Touting itself as the easiest way to sell online, AlertPay offers three options a free Personal Starter Account, designed for the beginner retailer or online shopper, whilst the Personal Pro Account is geared towards the more established and regular retailer or online shopper, and offers low receiving fees and access to AlertPay’s Business Tools. AlertPay’s Business Account, however, focuses entirely on the online business owner and is fully tailored to meet the needs of their business and clientele.

AlertPay’s fee structure differs per Account Type. Whilst all types of accounts are free to open, the Personal Starter Account transaction fees are nil for sending and receiving money. Users can receive up to $400 per month without paying receiving fees. On the Personal Pro and Business Accounts, it costs 2.5% of the transaction value, plus $0.25 USD for e-wallet payments, and 4.9% of the transaction value plus $0.25 USD for credit card payments.

AlertPay focuses on simple integration of payment gateway services into your website. The standard integration method is ideal for those with no previous programming knowledge. AlertPay stores product/service details to enable easy updates of a description, pricing or other information. The advanced integration method is designed for businesses who manage their own data.

AlertPay also offers its clients with a range of business tools including Buy Now and Subscribe Now buttons. Instant Payment notifications; Mass Payments and the ability to add a number of Business Sub-Accounts, in order to manage multiple businesses, form part of AlertPay’s Value-added services. AlertPay’s Development Community forum provides sample code, scripts documentation and a range of downloads useful to enable the use of AlertPay’s systems on clients’ websites. A Merchant Integration Guide is also available for download.

UPDATED 18/02/2011:

Payfast (www.payfast.co.za) does not charge monthly fees only per-transaction fees. Offering four types of accounts, Payfast is geared entirely towards payment processing for South Africa only. Payfast may require a client to register as a merchant with a South African bank, but this depends on the account type selected.

Payfast’s Basic Account is intended only for users who only send money, whilst the Personal Account is geared towards regular users who need to pay online stores, and receive small amounts of money for online goods or services.  A Premier Account is intended for use by online retailers who need to accept money from customers and who are able to accept credit card payments. The Business Account focuses on larger businesses, who send and receive larger amounts of money on a regular basis.  The Basic Account does not require you to have a South African Bank Account but, the Personal, Premier and Business accounts do.

PayFast does not charge setup or monthly fees, or charge users a fee to send money. To receive funds, however, Payfast charges a minimum of 2% on an Instant EFT and PayFast Voucher transaction. For a credit card transaction, Payfast charges 4.9% of the transaction value plus an extra R2, and 7% of the transaction amount on a Ukash transaction. Payouts cost R8,77 and all selling tools offered by Payfast are free to use. Note, though, Payfast only accept payments from South African clients. PayFast provides a number of pre-built modules for a number of e-Commerce engines/shopping carts. These include: OSCommerce; VirtueMart, ZenCar and CubeCart. PayFast enables you to simply and quickly add their facilities to your website, and provides a full, easy to read integration guide on their website. PayFast has also enabled UKash (www.ukash.com) on their systems. UKash enables a client to buy things online without needing a credit card or even a bank account.

A variety of options is available for those wanting to enable their e-commerce website, and clients are offered a wide variety of options and account types.

Related: South Africa Payment Gateways that don’t require bank registration.

Security is, however, paramount. The exchange of critical personal information, especially identification numbers and banking details must be done in a secure and seamless way. Enter the payment gateway – an easy way for online retailers to enable their site users to safely purchase and pay for items or services required. Payment Gateways are the way to ensure that your online retail and e-commerce website is fully equipped to accept and process easier, efficient and secure transactions.

A payment gateway is an e-commerce application service provider that authorises payments for e-businesses and online retailers. In layman’s terms, a payment gateway enables you to make a transaction over the Internet and pay for goods you have ordered online, in a secure fashion.

The most well-known global payment gateway is PayPal (www.paypal.com). Even though PayPal was developed by a South African, PayPal does not currently offer merchant services to South African based companies. If, however, you have a bank account in the US or UK, for example, PayPal might be a good option for accepting credit cards over the Internet.

Thankfully though, our clever-headed and tech-savvy South African developers have created more payment gateway options.

In order to familiarize yourself with the arena of Payment Gateways and e-commerce, it’s important to learn some related terminology.

Here are some important terms to know before venturing into the world of Payment Gateways:

e-Commerce
Primarily the distributing, buying, selling, marketing, and servicing of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks

Internet Service Provider (ISP)
An organization or business that provides Internet services and resource management to businesses and consumers.

Merchant
The person or business entity that sells goods or services to a customer.

Merchant Account
A financial institution or bank account that is used by a merchant specifically for the purpose of collecting proceeds consumer bank account or credit card payment transactions. A Card Present (CP) merchant account is used by merchants that receive payments in a physical location where payment is physically presented to the merchant by the customer at the time of the transaction. A Card Not Present (CNP) merchant account is used by merchants that receive payments electronically or in situations where payment is not physically presented to the merchant by the consumer at the time of the transaction.

Merchant Account Provider
A financial institution, or bank, that provides a financial account to a merchant for the purpose of collecting proceeds from consumer bank account or credit card payment transactions.

Merchant Identification Number (MID)
An identification number assigned to each member merchant of an acquiring organization, such as a financial institution.

Transaction
The exchange of information, goods or services in which all participating parties benefit. Specifically, the exchange of a consumer’s payment or payment information for merchandise or services provided by an organization or business.

Transaction ID (Trans ID)
A unique identification value assigned to each transaction processed through the payment gateway. This ID may be used to search for or sort transactions.

Transaction Type
The type of credit card transaction taking place. For charge transactions, a consumer is allowing a merchant to collect payment for merchandise or services rendered. However, in the case of a refund transaction, a merchant is returning funds to the consumer for a previous charge transaction.

Related:

• South African Payment Gateways that require bank registration.
• South African Payment Gateways that don’t require bank registration.

When it comes to selecting hosting for a website, there are 4 main things to consider:

1. Location – Deciding where to host a website is important for many reasons. The most important being the amount of time it takes to load a website. When it comes to deciding where, it makes most sense to host your website in the same country as your target audience as this results in the fastest load speeds of the website as well as maximizing visitor access to the website. A good example of this involves a website, which targets South African Internet users. In South Africa, ISPs (Internet Service Providers) split bandwidth up into two brackets: local and international. Local bandwidth is far cheaper and far easier to acquire than international bandwidth. Many ISPs offer free local bandwidth to users once they’ve used up their international bandwidth, this means that if the website is hosted in South Africa, these users will still be able to view the website even once their international bandwidth has been used up.

2. Cost – Hosting can become very expensive if a website is large and has a lot of people visiting it. Hosting accounts are normally charged for data usage, meaning that each time a visitor loads a website, the owner of the website will be charged for sending data from the website to the visitor and, as you can imagine, this can get quite expensive depending on the size of your website and the number of visitors. Hosting a website internationally is cheaper, but naturally, as mentioned above, this has a great effect on load speeds and visibility to South Africans, for example.

3. Management – Hosting a website locally gives the administrator (normally your web designer) far more control over the website. When things go wrong, a local phone call can be made in order to sort problems out. When a website is hosted internationally, it often requires a number of emails between the administrator and the company that hosts the website to resolve any technical issues. International hosting that resides in a different time zone to the owner of the website can result in email correspondence drastically delaying the resolution of problems.

4. Software – Before choosing a host, it is critical to determine what the website is going to do. If the website is going to run a corporate blog or an e-commerce shop as opposed to a simple, static website, specific software will be required to run the website. The hosting solution will need to be selected based on the software choice, as not all hosting solutions will run all software requirements. Choosing the incorrect hosting solution for a website will result in a loss of money. An example would be: If you want to run a blog, you would require software which interacts with a database – Most basic hosting packages will not offer a database and you would therefore need a mid-range package. Another important consideration to take into account is whether the software to be run on the website will require a Linux or Windows server. In a fair number of cases, running Linux software on a Windows host will result in problems, and visa versa. This also has an impact on cost as Windows hosting solutions tend to be more expensive than others.

Before purchasing a hosting solution, it is important to consult your web design team. The web design team will be able to look at your requirements and guide you, if not handle the hosting completely themselves and save you the time and potential hassle.

A blog (a contraction of the term weblog) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. ~ Source

A weblog (usually shortened to blog, but occasionally spelled web log) is a web-based publication consisting primarily of periodic articles (normally in reverse chronological order). Although most early weblogs were manually updated, tools to automate the maintenance of such sites made them accessible to a much larger population, and the use of some sort of browser-based software is now a typical aspect of “blogging”. ~ Source

A corporate weblog is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. The advantage of blogs is that posts and comments are easy to reach and follow due to centralized hosting and generally structured conversation threads. Currently, all major browsers (including Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer 7) support RSS technology, which enables readers to easily read recent posts without actually visiting the blog, which is very useful for low-volume blogs. ~ Source

In its simplest form, a blog is a publishing tool maintained by an individual or team and is used to communicate news to interested parties as well as engage with interested parties. In comparison to a conventional website, a blog is far more dynamic and interactive.

Corporate blogging has fast become an essential marketing tool for most businesses due to the fast nature in which news can be distributed as well as the ability to allow readers to leave comments and receive feedback. A corporate blog gives a business the ability to ‘talk’ to readers apposed to the one-way communication of traditional media.

There are 2 main types of recognised corporate blogs:

• Internal Blogs
• External Blogs

Internal Blogs

An internal blog is much like a memo, the difference being that the information is located on a website, which is only accessible by employees, via an intranet. The advantages behind this are:

• Easy to update
• Distributed quickly
• Save on printing costs
• Allows employees to leave responses, if required
• Available to staff who work remotely

An Internal blog could also be used for the following:

• Setting up meetings
• Staff Discussions
• Event Management

External Blogs

Probably the more popular of the two types of corporate blogs is the External Blog. An External Blog is a publically viewable blog, which allows businesses to communicate information to the public. New product or service releases would be a good example of such information. An External Blog could also be used for:

• Business announcements
• Press releases
• Public Opinion management
• Increasing business transparency
• Interacting with a target market on a more personal level

Advantages of an external blog:

• Easy distribution of news, press releases and announcements
• Low running costs
• Public engagement
• Low cost engagement with target audience

To get a better idea of what blogs are available on the Internet, here are some examples:

Converse Blog – http://www.converseblog.co.za/
Photography Blog – http://www.photographyblog.com/
Business Blog – http://www.sabusiness.co.za/
Interior Design Blog – http://www.designspongeonline.com/
Animal Rescue Blog – http://animalrescue.typepad.com/

Regardless of the industry you operate in, a blog will provide you with a new means to marketing, communicating and interacting with clients and/or potential clients.

If you’re interested in exploring the possibility of a blog for your business, please feel free to contact us by clicking here.

MPEG
Stands for Moving Picture Experts Group and refers to a compression standard.

Meta Tags
Meta Tags are used by search engine spiders to help understand website content.

Microblogging
Microblogging is a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, E-mail, digital audio or the web.

Mockup
This is how your website designer will give you an idea of what the finished website will look like. This is normally achieved by using a graphics program, so it is a representation of the finished item. Generally depicting the look of the home or index page.

Navigation
A navigation bar or navigation buttons are normally placed on each web page so you can navigate through the contents of the website.

Perl
Perl is a programming language and can be used for a variety of tasks.

PHP
Is a server-side scripting language similar in ways to ASP. PHP stands for: Hypertext Preprocessor.

PNG
Portable Network Graphics. PNG is a graphics file format endorsed by the World Wide Web Consortium that is expected to eventually replace the GIF format. PNGs are not restricted to the 256 color limitation of GIF files, support better transparency options and have better compression but do not support the multiple frames and simple animation that GIF files have.

Resolution
Resolution is about the clarity of an image. The higher dpi (dots per inch), the higher the quality of an image, whether it be an image on a web page or our computer monitor.

RSS
There are two definitions for this, Rich Site Summary and Really Simple Syndication. RSS is an automated way of transmitting and updating news. As a user, you allow the automated transmission by subscribing to the feed or source. To use the service you need a RSS reader installed on your computer, or you can use an online reader such as Google Reader.

SEM
SEM is the acronym for Search Engine Marketing. SEM is the process whereby a website is marketed online using the means of Google Adwords, for example. Costs are measured on Cost per Click (CPC) or Cost per 1000 Impressions (CPM).

SEO
SEO is the acronym for Search Engine Optimisation and by definition this means “the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines.

This includes, but is not limited to, optimising your website pages by using appropriate source code throughout the website so that search engines can easily index your website and improve the website’s ranking. SEO techniques are used for improving your position when a search is carried out on a specific keyword or keyword phrase.

Site map
The site map is a visual illustration of the various aspects of your site. It shows the structure and layout of the pages on your website. A site map is also a tool used for SEO.

SMTP
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. This protocol is used to send e-mail messages.
Spam: Is an unsolicited electronic message.

Social Networking
A social network service focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most social network services are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services.

Template
In web design a template is usually a website that is pre-made. You can get your website designer to modify a template so it has your own look and feel. Using a template can help reduce overall cost.

URL
Uniform Resource Locator. Put very simply a URL is an address of a resource or web page.

Usability
A measure of how easy it is for a user to complete a task. In the context of Web pages this concerns how easy it is for a user to find the information they require from a given Web site.

Stickiness
The ability of your website to gain and retain visitors.

Web Designer
A person who designs Web pages. Usually a designer will produce a mock-up of a page in a graphics application (for example, Adobe Photoshop or The GIMP). Once a design has been approved by a client the designer will produce an HTML template, CSS files and all of the images needed to produce the Web site. These files will then be passed to a Web developer or directly to the client.

Web Page
A web page is a document created with HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language) that is part of a group of hypertext documents or resources available on the World Wide Web. Collectively, these documents and resources form what is known as a website.

Web pages can contain hypertext links to other places within the same document, to other documents at the same website, or to documents at other websites. They can also contain fill-in forms, photos, large clickable images, sounds, and videos for downloading.

Web Server
A term often used to describe a computer that hosts a Web site. In actual fact the term refers to software running on that computer allowing Web pages to be requested and then sent to a user’s Web browser.

Web Statistics
Statistics produced by analysing the log files for a Web server that may include information such as page views, unique visitors, referring URL’s and browser software used.

Wireframes
Wireframes are visual representations of proposed elements to be included in the website interface. A wireframe is typically produced before design and development commences and may include important elements such as the location of elements (header, footer, navigation, content), the grouping of elements (side bars, navigation bars), labeling and placeholders. Wireframes help to familiarize all relevant parties with the proposed site structure.

WYSIWYG
What you see is what you get. WYSIWYG is a website editor. Best described as a word processor that converts your text, image and graphic layout into HTML. Most content management systems utilize a WYSIWYG editor.

Click here to read Part I

For this reason we’ve put together a glossary of commonly used terms that we hope you’ll find useful.

Accessibility
In the context of a Web site, accessibility refers to the degree that a Web site can be accessed by people with disabilities.

Anchor Text
Anchor text is usually a text link to another web page. The text should give an indication of what to expect when you click the link and using a keyword/key phrase in your anchor text is a good SEO technique. Here is an example: View our web design portfolio.

Blog
A type of website, maintained by an individual or company with regular commentary, description of events, and/or other material such as photographs, images and video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.

Browser
A browser is a software program that allows you to view and interact with various kinds of Internet resources available on the World Wide Web. A browser is commonly called a web browser. We recommend Firefox.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
These are a special type of HTML that is used to set up a group of design rules for your web page.

Content Management System (CMS)
A CMS is any facility that allows a Client to update parts of a website themselves. It normally allows users to log-in to a secure administrative area with their web browser and change components of the site. A database is used to store the content and a file called a Template is used to give the overall structure and look of the page.

Copy editing
Web sites are a very different medium to other forms of advertising, and it is important to write the content of your pages to take this into account. In addition to editing content in order to optimise it for search engines, other factors should be taken into account, for example the use of hyperlinks and the breaking down of lengthy text blocks into smaller and more readable chunks.

DNS Transfer
DNS stands for domain name server. Domain name servers turn domain names to IP addresses. A DNS transfer is simply the moving of a registered domain name from one location to another. Your domain name can be shifted from one hosting service to another by requesting a DNS transfer.

Domain Name
Domain names are controlled by a domain registrar. A domain name is simply a readable version of a numeric IP address, eg. www.theforge.co.za.

Embedded
Definition “Enclosed firmly in a surrounding mass”. When we embed video into a web page it becomes part of the page and is fixed to the page.

Encryption
Is a method of transforming plain text into unreadable code, so it can be sent over the Internet and then be reconstructed into its original form either by decryption or by using a password.

E-commerce
Meaning Electronic commerce and sometimes referred to as e-business. E-commerce is more aligned to selling goods online and e-business is referring to conducting business on line.

FTP
File Transfer Protocol. This is the method used to transfer your files between your computer and servers on the Internet. It is also used to transfer files from the server to your computer.

Flash
This term is used to describe the design tool Adobe Flash and is used to add interactivity and animation to a website. Some websites are built entirely using flash and others may have some flash elements applied to the pages.

Fluid Design
Liquid or fluid design refers to the way your web pages are set up. Your website designer can set the width of the page to 100% of the browser window and the page will always resize to span the entire width of the window.

GIF
Stands for Graphics Interchange Format and is an image format best suited for non photographic use.

HTML
Hypertext Markup Language. This is the most common coding language used when producing a website.

Hosting
Website hosting is where a website lives. When someone types in a domain name, the webhost displays the pages of the website. Essentially, it is the rental of a big computer that has a high-speed connection to the Internet and is never turned off. Using a web host means that your website is always available.

Hotspot
Is an area on an image that when you click on or mouse over the hotspot an action takes place.

Hyperlink
A hyper link is a link to another web page and is also a link to a certain part of an open web page.

IP Address
IP stands for Internet Protocol. Any computer that connects to the Internet has an assigned identity number or IP address.

Image map
An image map is an area on an image that can be turned into a link or action.

Image Optimization
This term is used to describe the process of image slicing and resolution reduction. This is done to make file sizes smaller so images will load faster.

Index Page
The index page is your home page. It is referred to as an index page, because this is what a search engine will index when it comes to the website to find the content of a site.

JavaScript
JavaScript is a client-side scripting language that allows more interactivity than HTML and is normally embedded within HTML documents.

JPEG
Stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group and refers to an image compression standard, best applied to photographic images.

Keywords
Keywords are the words that people search for when using a search engine.

Key phrase
Key phrases are phrases that people search for when using a search engine. They are a key to the subject searched for.

Click here to read Part II