G'day Ash,
Before I respond to this post I feel I must warn you that although not my intention you may find some of my comments a little offensive.
Soulkreed:
Hi Rod,
I am having a hard time uploading my files onto my server, I have read, re-read and attempted the file upload/zen cart upload a nd do not know if what i am doing is correct or not (
As a certified network security advisor this raises some serious alarm bells for me.
Running an online store is not something that should be considered lightly. It is not a 'game'. An online merchant will (over time) be gathering a lot of 'personal information', names, addressess, phone numbers, not to mention credit card and banking details of their customers.
The merchant has legal and moral obligations to protect this kind of data, which among other things includes the knowledge and capability to keep the store secure with any upgrade patches, etc.
Your questions indicate that you are not yet ready for this kind of responsibilty, and my advice here is that you should at least be comfortable with some of the basic operations that you'll be needing to perform, such as uploading files before proceding much further. After all, you woudn't want to find yourself on the wrong end of legal action because you inadvertantly leaked a customers personal details, would you?
Having said that, we all need to start and learn somewhere, so I'll now proceed to answer some of your more specific questions.
Soulkreed:
I have over 5000 files in the languages section alone and it is tranfering them one at a time ( is this normal ? )
Is it normal to have over 5000 files in the 'languages section' - I'd say probably not. I've just a done a quick check of a rather basic/default installation, and the /languages/ folder (and its sub folders) only has about 750 files in there.
Is it normal for files to be transferred one at a time? This depends on how many conncurrent connections the server allows and how the client software is configured (assuming you are using FTP). Most servers limit the number of concurrect connections 4 or less, which means a max of 4 files can be transferred at a time. One at a time isn't unusual.
This doesn't mean that you need to select and transfer the files individually though, your FTP client will allow you to select entire directories and it will handle the actual transfer of the individual files.
If you are trying to transfer the files using some kind of control panel (eg, cpanel/plesk) different rules and restrictions may apply, and you could indeed be expected to select and transfer each file individually.
The hint/tip here is to use FTP for your file transfers.
Soulkreed:
I am following a tutorial on Dot Easy for transfering files and some of the stuff they are asking me to look for just isn't there or it's named something else ( ie : Double-click on the /Mainwebsite_HTML shortcut link to get to your root web location. This shortcut link will bring you to /var/www/html/ location which is your website publishing location. ) I do not have a mainwebsite/html shortcut link, what i do have is a public/html link thingy which i have clicked on and nothing remotely like a /var/www/html thingy comes up. I am at a loss man,
Webpages are almost always stored in the same location on all servers, this is 'www' or 'webroot' on Windows servers and 'public_html' on linux servers. In an effort to simplify things for users many ISP's create symbolic links so the no matter which name the user recognises the files always end up in the correct place. A symbolic link is the same thing as a windows shortcut.
Soulkreed:
whatever it is i am transfering over is going into the public/html area on my server
That will be correct. See paragraph above.
Soulkreed:
and it's going to take about a day and a half to do it looking at how slow the thing is going here.
Even on a dialup connection an instalaltion shouldn't take anywhere near this long. To do so would imply you have ~500 megabytes of data. (or over 20 times the data of a default installation).
If you are on a broadband connection you can multiply these figures by about 10 .... In other words, something is definitely amiss. (Unless you have lots of huge graphics/images or other multimedia files).
Soulkreed:
The thing i am also finding a real challenge with most of the tutorials around is that they do not speak or show you exactly what to do,
Every server is different, and not all users are using the same client software or operating systems. There is no such thing as one tutorial to suit all users.
Soulkreed:
they speak in terms of procedures that are known already such as ( 3- Simply take all the files the way they are and upload them to your new host. BE SURE TO INCLUDE THE "zc_install" folder. ) If you have never done this before it is quite a dawnting task,
Many procedures and terms SHOULD be known before attempting to setup an online store. Please see my opening paragraph.
If you don't have this knowledge you really should gain it. You need to learn how to walk before you learn how to run.
Soulkreed:
especially when you go off the tutorial dot easy provide on filezilla file transfer and things they are asking you to find and click don't even exist )
This is where basic skills and knowledge comes into play. Things change between difference versions of software, a tutorial for one specific version of any given software may not be applicable to other versions. In the Australian educational system (especially VET) this is known as 'transferable skills' - It is an inbuilt requirement for almost every training program.
Put VERY simply, this means that if you are taught that 2x2=4 and that 3x3=9 you are expected to be able to figure out that 2x3=6 without someone having to explicitly explain it to you.
Soulkreed:
Man i am at a loss, any suggestions will be greatly appreciated ( i was thinking of just paying someone to do it for me
My suggestion at this stage is to save your money. Sure you'll get a working system if you pay someone to do it for you, but you still won't have the essential skills to be able to protect yourself and your customers from abuse.
For the time being I'm even going to go as far to say put zencart aside for the time being and concentrate setting up a very simple webpage, such a pictue or two of a pet with a description, or pehaps a picture of yourself with a few of your interests. Get yourself comfortable wuth creating this page on your local system and FTPing them to the server.
When you find this to be a bit mundane, add a couple of other pages, perhaps place yourt pictures in a folder of there own seperate from the main .html page(s).
Only when you are comfortable with this should you even consider something like zencart.
Soulkreed:
but then i have given up and i am so close now to finishing it would be a shame to quit,
I'm not suggesting you quit, not by a long shot. I AM however suggesting that you should take a step or two backwards and familiarise yourself with the server you will be using, and the various tools you need to use in order to maintain a very simple website on that particular server. This will give you the grounding that you need to tackle something a lot more complex (such as zencart).
Even experienced web developers will often need to spend hours or days learning the workings of zencart.. Not because it is difficult, but simply because there is a lot to it. Even after the few years I've been using zencart I still don't know everything there is to know about it. Even the main developers probably don't know it all, with each of them 'specialising' in particular aspects of it.
Soulkreed:
besides once i know how to do it it has lost it's power over me and i can go in at any time and do the required changes myself without having to get someone else to do it for me )
That is the ultimate aim... to enable you to maintain it without any external help, but as I said, I don't think any single person knows everything there is to know about it, not even the main developers. For example, the ozpost shipping module (which I wrote), the dev team would have gone as far to vet it for any nefarious or malignent code, but they don't know the code or the workings of it to the extent that they would be able to help people that have problems with it.. That's is my responsibilty.
Anyway, to summarise this all up, don't expect explicit instructions for everything you need to do, and take a step back away from zencart for the time being and familiarise yourself with a few simple self-created webpages and how to interact with your webhost before even considering setting up a webstore.
Learn to walk before trying to run.
Cheers
Rod
