Magento Commerce Help Blog

Installing SSL is a simple task but there are several steps.   Security certificates are typically $50 per year but you can get a better deal through:

Here is an outline of the steps you will need to take:

1. Buy an SSL certificate (see above banner)
2. Generate an SSL signing request with your host
3. Generate the SSL that you purchased using the signing request credentials
4. Install the certificate onto your server (this may require that you contact your server support staff)
5. Make sure you have a dedicated IP address for your site, the SSL will require it!
6. Presto! You can enable SSL for the backend and the frontend of your Magento Commerce store

SSL can slow your admin down, so you can choose not to use secure if you wish.  On the front of the website typical setting secure the shopping cart so that user details cannot be viewed by a third party.

Godaddy step by step instructions for Cpanel, Plesk and many other servers: http://community.godaddy.com/help/article/5343

HostGator: https://secure.hostgator.com/installssl.php

The process foe enabling https is easily located inside your website admin panel.   www.yourdomain.com/admin

• Once you are logged in go to system/ configuration/ General / Web
• Click on the “secure” section
• Set “Use Secure URLs in Frontend” to yes. This enables a secure shopping cart
• Set “Use Secure URLs in Admin” to no (yes if you want your admin to be https secured)

More technical tutorials are available here: http://tutorials.michianawebsitedesign.com/

Contact MWD for more technical support: http://michianawebsitedesign.com/contact.html

Let us help you!  Maybe your already using Magento or want to upgrade your website, add a store to an existing site or something else? We are glad to assist.

Now that you have your store installed and your initial configuration settings established, it’s time to set up the heart of your site: the catalog. The catalog is the most important part of any eCommerce site, and with Magento, you will have complete control over it. So take advantage of this great opportunity!

Need more help?  We are glad to be of assistance, contact us today!

===== Creating and Managing Categories =====

The first step to creating your catalog is to configure the catalog system settings. To do this, navigate to System > Configuration, and select the Catalog tab.

This determines how your products will be shown in the front-end’s catalog pages.

• Products per Page – Choose whether the category pages will display 9, 15, or 30 products by default. Your customers will be able to change this, or to display All products.
• List Mode
  • Grid Only – The products will display in a grid structure and your customers will not have the option to change this.
  • List Only – The products will display in a list structure and your customers will not have the option to change this.
  • Grid (Default)/List – The products will display in a grid structure by default but your customers will be able to switch to list.
  • List (Default)/Grid – The products will display in a list structure by default but your customers will be able to switch to grid.
    Questions related to this or other Magento Commerce custom projects? Contact me today.

Check the error logs , make some changes according to reported errors to solve the problem following those steps can solve your problem too.

1-Download the .zip from the Magento website and decompress it
2-Upload the Magento web files to your web server via FTP.
3- Change the htaccess file with the one i provided here.
4-Create a MySQL database and user/password for Magento
5- Set permissions, magento/var/.htaccess, the directories magento/app/etc, magento/var, and all the directories under magento/media to 777
6- Make sure that permissions for the “magento” folder , the file install.php and index.php are set to 755 (for “magento” folder), 644 for other files. (the point here is that they must not be writable by group because I was getting the error message like this “xxx is writable by group “)
7- Run “install.php” (that file is inside the “magento” folder n your server)
8- follow the instructions on the screen.
9- if your admin menu is not working change the app/code/core/Mage/Page/Block/Html/Head.php with the modified version which i have attached here as Head.php.

Post your comments or (if you have any other) questions or solutions here to help others.
keywords: hostgator , magento , installation , magento installation guide , hostgator magento installation problem , host gator and magento , magento guide for hostgator , step by step hostgator magento installation.

good luck!

my .htaccesfile.
——————————————————————————————
############################################
## uncomment these lines for CGI mode
## make sure to specify the correct cgi php binary file name
## it might be /cgi-bin/php-cgi

# Action php5-cgi /cgi-bin/php5-cgi
# AddHandler php5-cgi .php
# php_flag cgi.fix_pathinfo on

############################################
## this line is specific for 1and1 hosting

#AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
#AddHandler x-mapp-php5 .php

############################################
## default index file

DirectoryIndex index.php

<IfModule mod_php5.c>

############################################
## adjust memory limit

php_value memory_limit 64M
php_value max_execution_time 18000

############################################
## disable magic quotes for php request vars

php_flag magic_quotes_gpc off

############################################
## enable resulting html compression

#php_flag zlib.output_compression on

###########################################
# disable user agent verification to not break multiple image upload

php_flag suhosin.session.cryptua off

</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_security.c>
###########################################
# disable POST processing to not break multiple image upload

SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off
</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_deflate.c>

############################################
## enable apache served files compression
## http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#gzip

# Insert filter
#SetOutputFilter DEFLATE

# Netscape 4.x has some problems…
#BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html

# Netscape 4.06-4.08 have some more problems
#BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip

# MSIE masquerades as Netscape, but it is fine
#BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html
# Don’t compress images
#SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.(?:gif|jpe?g|png)$ no-gzip dont-vary

# Make sure proxies don’t deliver the wrong content
#Header append Vary User-Agent env=!dont-vary

</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_ssl.c>

############################################
## make HTTPS env vars available for CGI mode

SSLOptions StdEnvVars

</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>

############################################
## enable rewrites

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on

############################################
## you can put here your magento root folder
## path relative to web root

RewriteBase /magento/

############################################
## workaround for HTTP authorization
## in CGI environment

RewriteRule .* – [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]

############################################
## always send 404 on missing files in these folders

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(media|skin|js)/

############################################
## never rewrite for existing files, directories and links

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-l

############################################
## rewrite everything else to index.php

RewriteRule .* index.php [L]

</IfModule>

############################################
## Prevent character encoding issues from server overrides
## If you still have problems, use the second line instead

AddDefaultCharset Off
#AddDefaultCharset UTF-8

<IfModule mod_expires.c>

############################################
## Add default Expires header
## http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#expires

ExpiresDefault “access plus 1 year”

</IfModule>

############################################
## By default allow all access

Order allow,deny
Allow from all

############################################
## If running in cluster environment, uncomment this
## http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#etags

#FileETag none

This is a fairly easy process and can be managed from your magento admin panel

1. Log into you Magento admin panel:  www.yourwebsite.com/admin
2. Go to “CMS” and in the drop down menu click on “pages”
3. From here you can select a current page to edit or create a new page using the link on the far right had side of the page.
4. Select the information and format that you would like for the page to contain, like the page URL, content and meta data.  Remember the URL that you choose is very important and should be relevant to your content.

Presto, you’ve created a page!  Come back and edit it any time in the future.

You can also create CMS blocks under the CMS tab.  You can refer to CMS blocks anywhere else in your site including sidebars, pages and product view pages etc.

Installation of a Magento Theme can be done in two different ways.

1. Drop the theme into the “theme” folder using FTP
2. Install the theme using Magento connect

Using a FTP client like Core FTP, log into your website using your access username and password.  Then navigate to the “public html” folder (may be http docs depending on server).

When using Magento Connect:

1. login to the website admin and go to system/ magento connect/magento connect manager and enter the product key you got from MagentoCommerce.com.
2. Then Navigate to System > Configuration > Design
   Under the Themes section: Type the name of your name theme in Templates, Skin and Layout. In this example the name of our theme would be NewTheme.  Type default in the Default textbox
   Click Save Config at the top of the screen.  Congratulations your new theme is now ready to go!

Looking for Magento Commerce design consulting or contract theme design and installation help?  Call or contact us today and we will be happy to assist you with your website design, implementation and custom theme’s.

1. Magento Commerce Store Hosting starting at $4.99
2. Custom Theme’s starting at $250.00
3. Custom plugins development
4. Data flow integration and mass product import / export
5. Complete start to finish website design
6. Magento free theme installation
7. Magento troubleshooting and error fix
8. Magento website upgrade to current version
9. E- Commerce site design