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Shipper 3 Documentation

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:42:36 GMT

I've started consolidating the Shipper 3 documentation,

I hope to spend at least a few minutes on it each day. Let me know if there is a particular topic you want covered by leaving a comment on UserVoice,

UserVoice Suggestion: Create Documentation

Shipper 3.8 Release

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 16:41:40 GMT

Shipper 3.8 is now available with support for UPS WorldShip. Several people asked for integration with UPS WorldShip over on UserVoice. And now you can use Shipper to automatically export and import shipment information to and from UPS WorldShip. If you are trying to decide between using ShipRush for UPS or UPS WorldShip, see "Do I need ShipRush for UPS or UPS WorldShip?".

This release also addresses these suggestions on UserVoice:

Some other new features:

User defined filters
Real full text search
Support for AddressDoctor in both Gold and Platinum editions

Please see the Shipper Update page to read the complete release notes and download Shipper 3.8.

Zuckerberg is no Ballmer

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:47:41 GMT

Last week Guy Kawaski interviewed Steve Ballmer (Microsoft) at Mix08. On Saturday, Sarah Lacy interviewed Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) at SXSW.

In both interviews the interviewer was chatty, spoke about their own relationship with the interviewee, rambled a few times, asked some easy questions, asked some hard questions, and generally did a good job. Both interviews were about 60 minutes long and both ended with a short Q&A from the audience.

Sarah was vilified (and here, here, and here). Guy was praised (and here).

Was the reaction to Sarah unfair? Undoubtably. Was it sexist? Probably...at least a bit. But it mostly comes from imaturity...Mark's.

Mark Zuckerberg did not treat it as an interview. He was the guest, but he was disrepectful to his host the entire time. He kept looking away from Sarah to address the audience directly for long periods of time (often spouting inane platitudes). Steve spoke to Guy answering his questions without sounding like he was giving a speach.

Mark gave Sarah blank stares and repeatedly made comments to undermine Sarah's role. Steve stayed 100% engaged and never said anything to undermine Guy.

After the show Sarah was supportive of Mark, and wrote off the audience reaction to an impedence mismatch between the technical nature of the SXSW conference and the high level nature of interviewing a CEO. That's kind of her, but the Guy/Ballmer interview was in exactly the same conditions.

I have 2 pieces of advice for Sarah:

Interview an adult next time.
Take a play from Guy's playbook and establish the host/guest relationship right away (about 2 minutes into the interview Guy tells Steve that if the interview goes well he will invite Steve back to the next Mix conference).

I wish I could think of bon mots like this

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 09:26:44 GMT

"Which also means when you're using Rails and OS X, you're using the platform of choice for douchebags."

- Jeff Atwood on Coding Horror

FogBugz and SnagIt Mashup

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 00:34:10 GMT

Update #1: I made a short video to show how it works.
Update #2: New version with more options.
Update #3: I posted the source code.
Update #4: Removed ASP-specific URL.
Update #5: Michael Pryor added code to handle logging in to FogBugz and to add a page to the post URL (without the page, the post fails on IIS5).

If you use FogCreek’s FogBugz 4.0 or higher, you probably have the cute little screenshot tool in your system tray . I use it from time to time when a picture highlights a problem better than words. At the same time, I’ve always been a little disappointed with the image editing features.

Sometimes I want to add arrows or highlight an area. When that happens, I take the snapshot with TechSmith’s SnagIt, add circles and arrows, then take a screenshot of the SnagIt screen with the FogBugz widget, crop it to remove the SnagIt window and then post that to FogBugz. Whew!

So the other day I got to wondering how hard it would be to use SnagIt to post directly to FogBugz. I knew TechSmith had documentation on how to use SnagIt as a COM server. So I wrote to FogBugz asking about their “API”. Michael wrote back with some hints and a suggestion to look at screenshop.asp. Although that got me most of the way, I ended up using Fiddler to watch the conversation between FogBugz Screenshot and the FogBugz server. That was all I needed.

This is the end result…

It probably looks rather familar. That’s because I kept most of the features from the original version so that I could use it without re-learning. There are some new features:

You can set the choices from the context menu of the icon in the System Tray. One advantage of this is that if you pick “Submit As New Case”, and turn off “Show Preview”, then all you have to do is click the shutter button (the icon) and the image is sent directly to FogBugz.
The actual image capture is done by SnagIt. I’ve added Selected Region to the list of choices, but it could be any of the inputs that SnagIt supports. I will probably add Scrolling Page (which captures an entire web page for example) to the list.
If you pick Preview in SnagIt, then the image that you capture makes a stop in the SnagIt editor. There you can to all kinds of tricks including adding circles and arrows.
I added a “Reply to Case” option. This is similar to “Attach to Case” but it starts up the email reply form instead of the edit case form. I’m thinking I may switch from SmarterTicket to FogBugz to tracking support issues and this was a requirement (every day I could use the ability to reply with an image…”Is this what you mean?”).

If you have FogBugz and SnagIt, you are welcome to try this out. It does require .NET 1.1 or higher. I plan on posting the code soon if you want to customize it for yourself.

download: exe | source

Downloads

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sat, 22 May 2010 19:06:00 GMT

License File Software

There is one version of the following software. The software will run in trial mode for about 45 days or until you install a license. Every feature is available in trial mode. The download links below always point to the latest release of each software package.

Shipper Products

Shipper 3 Gold and Platinum Editions: High velocity FedEx, UPS, and USPS shipment processing. 30 day trial included.
Version 3.8 | download | online help | release notes
ShipRush: For use with Shipper 3 Platinum and Gold Editions. 14 day trial included.
Version 7 | ShipRush for Endicia | ShipRush for FedEx | ShipRush for UPS | ShipRush for USPS | online help

BV Commerce Components

Shipping Rate Rule Providers for BVC5: Create almost any shipping cost calculation you can imagine. This product includes 3 shipping rate providers for BVC5. These providers do not work with BVC 5.1 and below.
Version 2.6 for BVC 5.2 - 5.3.1 | download | purchase | online help | release notes

Version 2.7 for BVC 5.3.2 | download | purchase | online help | release notes

Version 2.8 for BVC 5.4 - 5.5 | download | purchase | online help | release notes

Version 2.9 for BVC 5.6 | download | purchase | online help | release notes

Version 2.9.5 for BVC 5.7 | download | purchase | online help | release notes
Shipping Cost Calculator for BVC2004: Present total order costs before checkout. Requires BVC2004.6 or higher.
Version 1.3 | download | purchase | online help | release notes

StoreFront Components

CartRegister Control: Alternative cart control displays all the cart items in a format similar to a register tape
Version 2.0 for StoreFront 7 | download | purchase | online help
Customer Pickup Control: Add in-store customer pickup shipping options to your store.
Version 2.0 for StoreFront 7 | download | purchase | online help
Google Feed: Automatically upload products to Google Base.
Version 2.0 for StoreFront 7 | download | purchase | online help
Shipping Cost Estimator: Display shipping costs from any page.
Version 2.0 for StoreFront 7 | download | purchase | online help
SignIn Control: Sign In or Out from any page and store carts offline.
Version 1.4 for StoreFront 6 | download | purchase | online help | release notes

Version 2.1 for StoreFront 7 | download | purchase | online help | release notes

Trial Software

This software is available in two different versions: trial and full. You can download the trial version from this page and use it as long as you like. Most products will display a banner on the page or some other reminder that it is a trial version. If you purchase the full version, just replace the product files in the bin directory with the ones that you receive with the full version.

BreadCrumbs Control for StoreFront 6: Keep your customers from getting lost in your site.
download | purchase | online help
CartList Control for StoreFront 6: Display the contents of your cart on each page.
download | purchase | online help
Customer Pickup Control for StoreFront 6: Add in-store customer pickup shipper to the StoreFront checkout process.
download | purchase | online help
Froogle Feed for StoreFront 6: Increase your exposure to Google by sending a product feed to the free Froogle marketplace service.
download | purchase | online help
Navigator Control for StoreFront 6: Add fast category navigation to your store.
download | purchase | online help
Select Carrier Control for StoreFront 6: Simplify and shorten the checkout process.
download | purchase | online help

Obsolete Software

These links point to older versions of the software product if you just want to re-install the version that you have.

Shipper 1: Version 1.3 | download

Version 1.4 | download
Shipper Service 1 for StoreFront: Version 1.3 | download

Version 1.4 for StoreFront 6 | download

Version 1.4 for StoreFront 7 | download
Shipper Service 1 for BVC2004: Version 1.3 | download

Version 1.4 | download
Shipper Service 1 for BVC5: Version 1.4 | download
Canada Post Shipping Rate Provider for BVC5: Version 2.6 | download
DHL Shipping Rate Providers for BVC5: Version 2.6 for SP2-SP3.1 | download

Version 2.7 for SP3.2+ | download

Free Downloads

This software is available for no charge.

UPS WorldShip® 7 Mapping Files: Replacement import/export mapping files for Shipper 1.0 only.
Version 1.0.0 | download
StoreFront DBUpdate for Shipper Service: Creates indexes in OrderItems and OrderItemsAttributes to speed up send/receive. Extract DBUpdate.xml to the db folder of your site, then recompile your site using the Compile Components option from the StoreFront 6 menu of Dreamweaver or FrontPage.
Version 1.0.0 | download

Shipper 1.4 Compatible with UPS WorldShip 10

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 05:27:48 GMT

UPS released UPS WorldShip 2008 version 10 in January. I'm pleased to say that that Shipper 1.4 is compatible with UPS WorldShip 8.0, 9.0, and now 10.0. You can download UPS WorldShip 2008 Version 10.0 from here.

Shipper 3.8 Help Updated

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 07:38:41 GMT

When you first install Shipper, 5 reports are created for you:

Name	Typical Use
Invoice	Printed and included with each package as a receipt.
Packing Slip	Printed and included with each package to show the customer what is included in the box.
Ship Confirmation	Emailed to the customer when the label is printed (and the package is scheduled for pickup) or when the package is uploaded (and recorded as shipped).
Shipping Charge vs Cost Chart	Printed or emailed to the shipping manager.
Shipping Cost Profit and Loss	Printed or emailed to the store owner.

Using the report designer embedded within Shipper, you can customize these reports and create your own. Shipper 3.8 includes an updated report designer which is easier to use, and Shipper > Help > Report Designer was just updated to reflect the updated designer. This blog post on the vendor's web site describes the new user interface. And there are several online videos that go over several features of the Report Designer.

Jakob Nielsen: Amazon No Longer the Role Model for E-Commerce Design

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:08:33 GMT

Because my products work with a variety of platforms, I participate in several e-commerce forums. Inevitably a post appears every few months with a lament that package X does not have some feature that Amazon has.

Since July 2005, well known researcher Jakob Nielsen has been advising against copying Amazon. Here's why...

Amazon: No Longer the Role Model for E-Commerce Design

Many design elements work for Amazon.com mainly because of its status as the world's largest and most established e-commerce site. Normal sites should not copy Amazon's design.

If you read the piece, you'll see that Mr. Nielsen does not through out the baby with the bath water. There are several Amazon features worth emulating, ranging from the easily used login system to their excellent fulfillment process.

Shipper 3.5 Release

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:17:21 GMT

Shipper 3.5 is now available. There are many new features, changes and bug fixes (see the release notes for details). But I'd like to call out three breaking changes. "Breaking changes" is a phrase used in the software industry to describes changes that require manual intervention.

Breaking Changes

1. Shipping Agent for AbleCommerce and Shipping Agent for BV Commerce authentication

Prior to 3.5 none of the Shipping Agents included code to authenticate requests for data. The installation instructions strongly encouraged you to implement HTTP Basic Authentication on the server. Unfortunately, this does not work well with sites that use ASP.NET Forms Authentication such as AbleCommerce.

Starting with 3.5, Shipping Agent for AbleCommerce and Shipping Agent for BV Commerce include authentication. You must configure Shipper to send a username and password that are authorized to access the Admin area of the underlying e-commerce platform.

Please see the article "How do I protect Shipping Agent from unauthorized access?" in Help > Frequently Asked Questions, for more information.

2. Automatic Download Removed

Automatic download was a feature that would automatically run Download New Orders every few minutes. Unfortunately, if you were printing a label at the same time, the order and package data could be corrupted. Until and unless we can figure out a way to prevent this, the Automatic Download feature will no longer be available. The workaround is to click on Download New Orders yourself.

3. ShipRush 7 Required

Shipper 3.5 requires ShipRush 7. You can download ShipRush 7 from the downloads page.

Please head over to the Shipper Update page to read the release notes and download Shipper 3.5.

Froogle Feed Support for New Product Upload Requirements

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 17:56:33 GMT

The Google Base Team have announced new product upload requirements for Froogle Merchants.

Google's Attribute Requirement Page

Google will no longer list items that do not meet the minimal number of attributes by the end of February 2007. I will release an update to Froogle Feed that includes the required attributes for all products before the end of February. The update will not include support for item type specific attributes.

Please see Google's Attribute Requirement Page for a list of the required attributes for all products and the item type specific attributes.

So what are USPS Shipping and FedEx Shipping?

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:20:17 GMT

So what are USPS Shipping and FedEx Shipping?

Boring names for 2 very useful products.
USPS Shipping creates USPS mailing labels with postage.
FedEx Shipping creates FedEx shipping labels.
Both are tightly integrated with your store data.
They are web-based.
You install them by copying some files to your website.

That's it! I swear...no files to backup, edit, or anything.

Just copy the files to your web site.

They are easy to use with all the shiny stuff you expect.
You can create a label with 2 clicks...don't blink!

Moving VIEWSTATE to the bottom of the page redux

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 18:02:50 GMT

Scott Hanselman and Jeff Atwood recently wrote about moving the ASP.NET hidden _VIEWSTATE form field to the end of the form. The theory behind this movement is that indexers such as Google only read the beginning of the page HTML or treat the beginning HTML with more respect than the rest of the page. If that is true, than it is a bad thing to have the viewstate, which is basically gobbletygook, taking up precious real estate near the top of the page. A side benefit to moving viewstate is that the page source is much easier to read if you don't have to scroll down past the big block of gibberish.

Scott shows how to move the viewstate by overriding the Render method of a base Page class. I believe this is the same approach used by the DotNetNuke folks. I show how to do the same thing with an HttpModule. The main advantage of using an HttpModule is that you can add this to your site without implementing a base Page class or even compiling anything, all you need is one of the assemblies attached below. There are some restrictions:

This module must come before any compression module or any other module that changes the page HTML in such a way that the __VIEWSTATE field is hidden. Note that I had to disable the blowery.HttpCompression module that was running on this site to get the MoveViewState module to work. No matter what order the two modules were loaded, the content was always compressed before MoveViewState saw it. My guess is that ASP.NET calls the BeginRequest handlers in some specific order that I don't understand.
This module assumes that the first </form> tag on the page corresponds to the first __VIEWSTATE field (normally true, but if you have somehow implemented multiple forms, it may not work for you).
This module assumes UTF8 encoding will work to decode and encode your page contents. If you are using some other encoding, then the contents will not look like text and viewstate will not be moved [the page will still display correctly].

The code itself is really very simple. There are just two classes: MoveViewStateModule and MoveViewStateFilter. MoveViewStateModule implements IHttpModule. During IHttpModule.Init it adds an event handler to the HttpApplication.BeginRequest event. During the BeginRequest event, it creates a new MoveViewStateFilter and assigns it to the Response.Filter. Here's the code in both VB and C#:

MoveViewStateModule.vb

Public Class MoveViewStateModule
    Implements System.Web.IHttpModule

    Public Sub Dispose() Implements System.Web.IHttpModule.Dispose
    End Sub

    Public Sub Init(ByVal context As System.Web.HttpApplication) 
        Implements System.Web.IHttpModule.Init
        AddHandler context.BeginRequest, AddressOf BeginRequestHandler
    End Sub

    Private Sub BeginRequestHandler(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)
        Dim application As System.Web.HttpApplication = CType(sender, System.Web.HttpApplication)
        application.Response.Filter = New MoveViewStateFilter(application.Response.Filter)
    End Sub
End Class

MoveViewStateModule.cs

public class MoveViewStateModule : System.Web.IHttpModule
{
    public MoveViewStateModule() {}
    void System.Web.IHttpModule.Dispose() {}

    void System.Web.IHttpModule.Init(System.Web.HttpApplication context) 
    {
        context.BeginRequest += new EventHandler(this.BeginRequestHandler);
    }

    void BeginRequestHandler(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        System.Web.HttpApplication application = (System.Web.HttpApplication) sender;
        application.Response.Filter = new MoveViewStateFilter(application.Response.Filter);
    }
}

Response.Filter is a System.IO.Stream. Whatever filter we assign must be chained to the previous filter. [And whater filter is assigned later will do the same thing]. The upstream filter will write to our MoveViewStateFilter and our MoveViewStateFilter must write to the downstream filter.

MoveViewStateFilter is implemented as a type of System.IO.MemoryStream. All it does is capture everything that is written to it in a buffer. When the Close method is called, the buffer is converted into a string. The string is searched for the hidden __VIEWSTATE form field. If the field is found, then the entire viewstate form field is moved to the end of the form. Here is the code in both VB and C#:

MoveViewStateFilter.vb

Public Class MoveViewStateFilter
  Inherits System.IO.MemoryStream

  Private _filter As System.IO.Stream
  Private _filtered As Boolean = False

  ''' <param name="filter">A reference to the downstream HttpResponse.Filter.</param>
  Public Sub New(ByVal filter As System.IO.Stream)
    _filter = filter
  End Sub

  ''' <remarks>
  ''' The contents of this filter are written to the downstream filter after the hidden
  ''' __VIEWSTATE form field is moved.
  ''' </remarks>
  ''' <summary>Closes this filter stream.</summary>
  Public Overrides Sub Close()
    If _filtered Then
      If Me.Length > 0 Then
        Dim bytes() As Byte
        Dim content As String = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(Me.ToArray)
        Dim viewstateStart As Integer
        viewstateStart = content.IndexOf("<input type=""hidden"" name=""__VIEWSTATE""")
        If viewstateStart >= 0 Then
          Dim viewstateEnd As Integer
          viewstateEnd = content.IndexOf("/>", viewstateStart) + 2
          Dim viewstate As String
          viewstate = content.Substring(viewstateStart, viewstateEnd - viewstateStart)
          content = content.Remove(viewstateStart, viewstateEnd - viewstateStart)
          Dim formEndStart As Integer = content.IndexOf("</form>")
          If formEndStart >= 0 Then
            content = content.Insert(formEndStart, viewstate)
          End If
          bytes = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(content)
        Else
          bytes = Me.ToArray
        End If
        _filter.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length)
      End If
      _filter.Close()
    End If
    MyBase.Close()
  End Sub

  Public Overrides Sub Write(ByVal buffer() As Byte, _
      ByVal offset As Integer, ByVal count As Integer)
    If Not System.Web.HttpContext.Current Is Nothing _
        AndAlso System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentType = "text/html" Then
      MyBase.Write(buffer, offset, count)
      _filtered = True
    Else
      _filter.Write(buffer, offset, count)
      _filtered = False
    End If
  End Sub

End Class

MoveViewStateFilter.cs

using System;

namespace StructuredSolutions.MoveViewState
{
  /// <summary>Moves the hidden __VIEWSTATE form field to the end of the form.</summary>
  public class MoveViewStateFilter : System.IO.MemoryStream
  {
    System.IO.Stream _filter;
    bool _filtered = false;

    /// <param name="filter">A reference to the downstream HttpResponse.Filter.</param>
    public MoveViewStateFilter(System.IO.Stream filter)
    {
      _filter = filter;
    }

    /// <summary>Closes this filter stream.</summary>
    /// <remarks>
    /// The contents of this filter are written to the downstream filter after the hidden
    /// __VIEWSTATE form field is moved.
    /// </remarks>
    public override void Close()
    {
      if (_filtered)
      {
        if (this.Length > 0)
        {
          byte[] bytes;
          string content = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(this.ToArray());
          int viewstateStart = content.IndexOf("<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"__VIEWSTATE\"");
          if (viewstateStart >= 0)
          {
            int viewstateEnd = content.IndexOf("/>", viewstateStart) + 2;
            string viewstate = content.Substring(viewstateStart, viewstateEnd - viewstateStart);
            content = content.Remove(viewstateStart, viewstateEnd - viewstateStart);
            int formEndStart = content.IndexOf("</form>");
            if (formEndStart >= 0)
              content = content.Insert(formEndStart, viewstate);
            bytes = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(content);
          }
          else
          {
            bytes = this.ToArray();
          }
          _filter.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
        }
        _filter.Close();
      }
      base.Close();
    }

    public override void Write(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count)
    {
      if ((System.Web.HttpContext.Current != null)
        && ("text/html" == System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentType))
      {
        base.Write(buffer, offset, count);
        _filtered = true;
      }
      else
      {
        _filter.Write(buffer, offset, count);
        _filtered = false;
      }
    }
  }

Once you have the module in hand, all you have to do is convince ASP.NET to load it. This is done by putting the assembly in the bin folder of the site and adding the module to the list of <httpModules> in web.config.

web.config

<system.web>
  <httpModules>
    <!-- To use the C# version, use this add instead of the other one
    <add type="StructuredSolutions.MoveViewState.MoveViewStateModule, StructuredSolutions.MoveViewStateCS"
         name="MoveViewStateModule" />
    -->
    <add type="StructuredSolutions.MoveViewState.MoveViewStateModule, StructuredSolutions.MoveViewStateVB"
         name="MoveViewStateModule" />
  </httpModules>
</system.web>

Assemblies

Copy either one of the assemblies from the zip file to the bin directory of your site. Make sure the <httpModules> section is loading the one you choose.

File Attachment: MoveViewState.zip (4 KB)

Project Files

File Attachment: MoveViewStateVB.zip (2 KB)
File Attachment: MoveViewStateCS.zip (2 KB)

Update October 22, 2005: Disable filter if content type is not text/html.

Update July 17, 2006: Fix insertion point and add search for meta tag to disable moving viewstate on a specific page:

Is Test Driven Development Effective

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 09:16:13 GMT

Yesterday Phil Haack and Jacob Proffitt reviewed "On the Effectivenes of Test-first Approach to Programming" by National Research Canada and published in the Proceedings of the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 31(1), January 2005.

The test-first approach is often called Test Driven Development, in that the tests are written first and then "drive" the development. This approach is often encouraged in agile programming environments.

Phil posted first. After explaining his own intuition that TDD is a beneficial approach, Pill cited various sections of the report, including the abstract, that support the benefits of the test-first or TDD method.

Jacob posted after reading Phil's analysis. After explaining his own scepticism with reports like this (including his suspicion of confirmation bias), Jacob cited several sections of the report that seemed to show the opposite of what Phil and even the report abtract claimed.

Jacob made some interesting observations:

The control group (non-TDD or "Test Last") had higher quality in every dimension—they had higher floor, ceiling, mean, and median quality.
The control group produced higher quality with consistently fewer tests.
Quality was better correlated to number of tests for the TDD group (an interesting point of differentiation that I'm not sure the authors caught).
The control group's productivity was highly predictable as a function of number of tests and had a stronger correlation than the TDD group.

I have experimented with "test first", but found it frustrating. I always ended up just "faking" some tests so I could get on with the programming (Git 'Er Done). Then writing tests after to confirm that I met the requirements. This seems to correlate with Jacob's experience.

Both Jacob and Phil end their analyses with a call for more research. Me too.

Froogle Feed 1.6 Released

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 07:40:25 GMT

Froogle Feed 1.6 is now available. This version includes support for the required attributes for all products announced by Google Base in February 2007.

Current owners can download a copy of Froogle Feed 1.6 from your account. Select View Past Orders, then display the order details and click on the downloads link. If the downloads link does not appear, please send an email to support@structured-solutions.net with the order number.

If you were testing this release, you do not need to install this build...it is the same one you were testing. Thank you!

Shipper 1.4.8 RTW

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:46:24 GMT

Shipper and Shipper Service 1.4.8 have been released for download. Please see the Release Candidate announcement and the Release Notes for details.

Support for UPS WorldShip 9 for Vista.
Better communication between Shipper and Shipper Service (this release requires that you update both Shipper and Shipper Service).
Lots of bugs fixed.

If you are running an older version of Shipper and run into one of the bugs that are fixed in this release, you will see a message about downloading the latest release.

This is a free update (this marks 4 years of free updates!).

Downloads

Shipper 3.0 Release Candidate 3

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:21:47 GMT

Shipper 3.0 is a high velocity shipment processor for ecommerce websites.

Today I am happy to announce the third release candidate (version 3.0.3174.30081) with support for StoreFront 7.2, BV Commerce 5.3, and AbleCommerce 7 on the back end; and UPS, USPS, FedEx, Endicia, and DHL on the front end.

Shipper 3.0 delivers...

Print labels directly from Shipper. Shipper 3.0 uses ShipRush by Z-Firm to print the labels. ShipRush is the same shipping component built into QuickBooks.
Support multiple carriers. All you need is ShipRush (which you may already have) to support UPS, USPS, FedEx, Endicia and DHL.
Support multiple websites. Each copy of Shipper can process shipments from multiple websites at the same time. You can easily setup filters to avoid processing the same shipment twice.
Print reports, packing slips, and emails. Shipper 3.0 includes a powerful drag-and-drop report writer so you can easily build custom reports and emails.
Automatically print reports or send emails. Shipper 3.0 performs the actions you define each time you download an order.
Support for more back-ends. Shipping Agents are available for AbleCommerce 7, BV Commerce 5, and StoreFront 7. Even better, the Shipping Agent source code is open source. That means you are free to modify the existing agents or create your own.

Changes in RC3

Bug fix: Destination country was not sent to ShipRush, so international shipments defaulted to United States.
Bug fix: Shipper 3.0 would not run on 64-bit Vista.
Bug fix: Multiple orders and multiple shipments would not print in the displayed order.
New feature: Automatic downloads. You can turn on a timer to download new orders automatically.
Change: Processing Rules renamed to Tasks.

Known Issues

Batch label printing does not work. They must be printed one at a time. This may not be fixed in 3.0.
The sample reports have an embedded sort that overrides the display sort order. These will be fixed in the next release.

Installation

The Shipper 3.0 system has 2 parts:

Shipper, a Windows desktop application to manage orders.
Shipping Agent, an open source web service for your website that connects Shipper 3.0 with your ecommerce system.

Installing Shipper 3.0

Download Shipper 3.0 RC3
Unzip the download.
You will also need any flavor of ShipRush 6 installed on the same computer. If you do not already have ShipRush installed, I suggest ShipRush for USPS or ShipRush for DHL since both are free. See www.shiprush.com for more information.
Run Setup.exe to to install Shipper 3.0 on your desktop computer.

Installing Shipping Agent 3.0

Download Shipping Agent 3.0 RC3 for your ecommerce platform. If you don't have a compatible ecommerce website, ShippingAgentMock.exe contains the files for a Mock Shipping Agent. The mock agent works with any .NET 2.0 web site.
Run the installer to extract the Shipping Agent files.
Copy the extracted Shipping Agent files to your website as described in the readme.txt file.

Getting Started

Launch Shipper 3.0. If this is a new install, the New Website Wizard will start.
When you are prompted for the Agent URL, enter the URL to ShippingAgent.asmx on your website. For example, http://company.com/agents/shippingagent.asmx.
When you are prompted for the Agent Serial Number, leave the field blank.
After the wizard is finished, Shipper 3.0 will appear.
To print a shipping label, select a shipment and then click on Print Shipping Label button.
After the label is printed, click on Upload Shipment button to send the tracking information back to your store.

Q&A

Q: When will Shipper 3.0 be released?
A: When no significant bugs are reported for at least 2 weeks.

Q: When will that be?
A: I don't know.

Q: How much will Shipper 3.0 cost?
A: Shipper 3.0 will have a cost similar to the cost of Shipper 1.4. The cost for ShipRush depends on which carriers you want to support. At the top end, ShipRush for UPS Pro is about $400. At the other end, ShipRush for USPS is free.

Q: Will upgrade pricing be available?
A: Reduced pricing for Shipper 3.0 will be offered to anyone that purchased Shipper 1.4 since May 11, 2008 (90 days before the first release candidate).

Q: Will there be any recurring costs?
A: Yes. Both Shipper and ShipRush are licensed for one year. At the end of the year, there will be a renewal cost if you wish to continue using the software. In addition, ShipRush for USPS Powered by Endicia requires a special Endicia account with a monthly fee.

Q: Is the source code available?
A: The source code to Shipper is not available. The source code to the Shipping Agent is available for free on CodePlex.

Q: Is documentation available?
A: Not yet. I will produce both written documentation and short videos.

Stuff Might Change...If you want it to...

Although the feature set for 3.0 is fixed (new features will go in Shipper 3.1), there is still time to affect how the existing features are implemented. I am counting on you to tell me how to make Shipper 3.0 the best possible shipping tool for your business. Here are some suggestions for things to think about while you kick the tires:

The quick start above does not even touch on processing rules (which allow you to automatically assign services, print documents, and even upload completed orders). Can you find the rules? If not, what would help you discover them?
Right now ShipRush is a separate install because some (most?) people have some flavor of ShipRush already. Do you already have ShipRush? Would you like to download ShipRush and Shipper at the same time? Would you like the option of buying ShipRush at the same time with Shipper?
The integrated report writer has a lot of features. Is it overwhelming? I have included 2 sample reports. Do they help give you ideas of what is possible and how to do it? Will you use the report writer?
In this release candidate, the Shipping Agent is implemented as a SOAP service. If you are considering your own Shipping Agent, would a REST interface be easier to implement?

Feedback

Please send your feedback to support@structured-solutions.net. I will try to respond to each comment or question within a day. Thank you for taking a look.

Shipper 3.9 Sneek Peek

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Mon, 31 May 2010 01:47:55 GMT

Shipper 3.9 online help and release notes.

Testing Google Checkout in BVC5

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Tue, 01 May 2007 21:26:48 GMT

I do all of my development and testing on computers here in the shop. Recently I wanted to make sure that the BVC5 implementation of Google Checkout and my Shipping Rate Provider Suite played well together. The tricky part was that Google Checkout makes several callbacks to BVC5 web site during the checkout process (and after), so I had to make my workstation available over the internet to Google. These are the steps I used to enable Google Checkout test mode on my local workstation.

The first step is to find the internet address and hostname of your internet connection. This will used to form the callback URL. As you can see in the diagram above I connect to the internet through a router which is connected to a broadband modem (comcast). To find the internet IP address I used the router's configuration web page. To find the hostname I used nslookup:

C:\>nslookup 24.22.112.211
Name: c-24-22-112-211.hsd1.or.comcast.net

Now we need the IP address of the computer running BVC5. I used the ipconfig command:

C:\>ipconfig
Windows IP Configuration

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 172.16.0.4
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 172.16.0.1

Next we need to tell the router to forward HTTP traffic to this computer. In my router, this is called port forwarding:

Now a request from Google to http://c-24-22-112-211.hsd1.or.comcast.net/store/googlenotify.aspx will be forwarded to my computer. Unfortunately a request from my own computer to this same URL will fail because my router does not support internal routing. To fix that I added a host record to the c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file so local requests to the same URL are sent to the loopback adapter:

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 c-24-22-112-211.hsd1.or.comcast.net

OK...the networking changes are done. It's time to configure Google Checkout. First create two test accounts; one for your test customer and one for the test merchant. This will be a little easier if you use two different browsers such as Internet Explorer for the customer and FireFox for the merchant.

On the merchant Integration page enter the callback URL (ie. http://c-24-22-112-211.hsd1.or.comcast.net/store/googlenotify.aspx), select XML as the callback method, and uncheck the option to digitally sign the XML. Click on the Save button but leave the Integration page open so you can copy the vendor ID and merchant key.

Now open the admin pages of your local BVC5 site. On the Options > Site Settings > Security page enter the external URL as the Secure Site Root, check Use SSL and click on the Save Changes button. For example,

Secure Site Root: http://c-24-22-112-211.hsd1.or.comcast.net/store/

On the Options > Site Settings > Payment page check Google Checkout and then click on the Save Changes button. Now click on the Edit button next to Google Checkout, enter the Merchant ID (Google calls this the Vendor ID on the Merchant Integration Page), the Merchant Key and select the Test Google Checkout Environment. After filling out the remaining items on this page, click on the Save Changes button.

That's it. To use Google Checkout click on the Google Checkout button when you reach the shopping cart page, sign in as the test customer and place the order. To manage the orders, sign in as the test merchant and visit the order Inbox. I find it easier to use two different browsers: Internet Explorer when I place an order as the test customer, and FireFox when I manage the orders as the test merchant.

ANN: SignIn Control Maintenance Release 1.3.7

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:33:54 GMT

SignIn Control version 1.3.7 is now available. This is a free maintenance release that includes the following changes:

FIX: Cart cookie is not cleared when switching to new domain for secured checkout.
FIX: [CustIsSubscribed] value is not updated when editing user profile (CustEdit.aspx).
NEW: Items are not restored if the attributes have been changed in Merchant Tools.
NEW: Querystring "nc=1" will clear the cart cookie.
NEW: Updated Infragistics web controls.

download | purchase | help | release notes

Amazon's "One-Click" Patent Rejected

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:31:17 GMT

igdmlgd's request to re-examine Amazon's "One-Click" patent resulted in USPTO rejecting most of the claims.

CSO List of Top 5 Data Breaches of 2005

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 20:21:50 GMT

In Data Drains, CSO lists the top 5 data breaches in 2006. Together they could affect over 35 million people.

A lot of online merchants that talk to me want to store credit card numbers and sometimes even the security code. My advice is always the same...don't do it!

No matter what technology you put in place, the weakest link will always be people. The largest breach, at the Veterans Affairs Department, occurred when a laptop was stolen from an employee's home. No software can stop that.

For up to date information, keep an eye on the Attrition.org Data Loss Archive and Database.

SpamBayes failed me but Cloudmark is working great

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 19:07:53 GMT

About 2 months ago I started using Cloudmark to control the amount of email spam I see. Before that I used SpamBayes (because it was free), but even after 2 years of training, I was still seeing about 200 spam messages every...single...day. I felt like I was loosing a battle.

Since I started using Cloudmark, I only see about 2-10 spam messages each day...yippee! I'm sure it is partly due to better algorithms, but the coolest feature is that when I flag those 2-10 messages as spam, the whole Cloudmark community benefits. We all help each other make Cloudmark better and better each day. I like that.

Here are my statistics for the last 2 months. I've only had to identify 323 emails as spam/phishing (a lot of the spam was actually phishing...but I was lazy and just clicked the Block button which defaults to spam).

All of the Cloudmark links include my referral code. I hope you don't mind...I really do like Cloudmark, and I would also like the free month of service if you like Cloudmark too. Thanks!

SignIn Control Captures Slow Tail

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 20:22:41 GMT

From Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, September 6, 2006

“Users often convert to buyers long after their initial visit to a website. A full 5% of orders occur more than four weeks after users click on search engine ads.” (read the full story)

A very large study showed that 50% of conversions occur within the first 28 minutes, 75% within 24 hours, and the last quarter took much longer. If you have low volume, large ticket items (which may have an even more pronounced slow tail), this has significant implications.

One of the ways you can capitalize on the slow tail is to remember the shopping cart contents.

“When users return, anything they had previously added to their carts should still be there…If a customer indicates an interest in your products, don’t throw away their work just because they haven’t bought anything for a few weeks.”

StoreFront does not remember shopping carts between session, and the wish list feature requires registration…a hurdle that many customers will not jump during their product evaluation. The SignIn Control will store the shopping cart contents for up to a year or more, helping you capture that slow tail.

Download a free demo of the SignIn Control.

FedEx Shipping Beta

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 20:16:41 GMT

This first public release of FedEx Shipping for BVC5 is now available. You can download it from here. If you don't want to install beta software (and who could blame you), here are some videos:

Walkthrough

Box Editor

Features Included

Completely integrated with the BVC5 order system.
History view with easy search.
Box editor so you can create and use a list of custom dimensions.

To be done

Add better security so History can be used by customer service reps without exposing shipping or account details
Add end-of-day
Incorporate feedback

Release Notes

This build only connects to the FedEx test servers (using my test account), so you can not use the resulting labels on actual packages.
This software will replace the ShipOrder page supplied by BV Software. Please make a backup copy before you install this software as described in the installation instructions.
This is beta software.
Do not install it on a production site.

FogBugz SnagIt Video

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 22:59:38 GMT

Here’s a short video showing how the FogBugz SnagIt mashup looks.

YUI AutoComplete + Anthem = AutoSearch

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 08:40:30 GMT

Anthem.NET is an Ajax library for ASP.NET applications. AutoComplete is part of the Yahoo User Interface library for creating sophisticated DHTML and Ajax applications. What happens if you mash them together? How about YuiAutoComplete?

YuiAutoComplete is an ASP.NET server control that generates the HTML and javascript necessary to create a YUI AutoComplete control. This short article describes how I used YuiAutoComplete to create an auto search widget for an ecommerce site. As the customer starts typing in the box YuiAutoComplete will display matching products. If the customer selects one of the products from the list, YuiAutoComplete will redirect the browser to the product detail page.

Your browser does not support inline frames or is currently configured not to display inline frames.

First I added the Anthem and AnthemExtensions assemblies to my web site. Anthem and AnthemExtensions are the two assemblies that you get when you build Anthem.NET solution.

Then I created a user control to encapsulate the widget.

<div class="container">
    <asp:TextBox ID="AutoSearchField" runat="server" CssClass="textbox" />
    <AnthemExtensions:YuiAutoComplete id="AutoSearchWidget" runat="server" 
        AutoCallBack="true"
        CssClass="results" 
        FormatResult="formatResult" 
        OnSearch="AutoSearch_Search" 
        OnSelectedItemChanged="AutoSearch_SelectedItemChanged"
        TextBox="AutoSearchField">
    </AnthemExtensions:YuiAutoComplete>
</div>

Next I wrote 3 functions: formatResult, AutoSearch_Search, and AutoSearch_SelectedItemChanged.

YUI AutoComplete will use the OnSearch event handler on the server to retrieve search results. The actual call is made using an Anthem callback. In this example AutoSearch_Search performs a catalog search for the search term and returns the SKU, Product Name, and product detail page URL.

    [Anthem.Method]
    public string[][] AutoSearch_Search(string query)
    {
        ProductSearchCriteria criteria = new ProductSearchCriteria();
        criteria.Keyword = query;

        Collection<ProductSearchResultGroup> groups = InternalProduct.SearchByComplexPhrase(criteria,
            SessionManager.GetCurrentUserId(), false, this.AutoSearchWidget.MaxResultsDisplayed);

        ArrayList result = new ArrayList();
        if (groups.Count > 0)
        {
            foreach (ProductSearchResultGroup group in groups)
            {
                foreach (Product product in group.Products)
                {
                    string url = BVSoftware.Bvc5.Core.Utilities.UrlRewriter.BuildUrlForProduct(product, 
                        Request);
                    result.Add(new string[] { product.Sku, product.ProductName, url });
                }
            }
        }

        return (string[][])result.ToArray(typeof(string[]));
    }

YUI AutoComplete will use the client side FormatResult function to format the search results. In this example formatResult displays the SKU and Product Name in the search results list. Note that even though I don't show the product URL, YUI AutoComplete keep track of it.

    function formatResult(item, query) {
        return item[0] + ' (' + item[1] + ')';
    }

AutoSearch_SelectedItemChanged is another server side method that is called (via Anthem callback) when the customer selects one of the results. In this example the method redirects the browser to the product detail page URL.

    protected void AutoSearch_SelectedItemChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        string url = this.AutoSearchWidget.SelectedItem.Split(',')[2];
        Response.Redirect(url);
    }

Source: AutoSearch.zip

Checking that cookies are enabled in ASP.NET

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 18:16:49 GMT

Create a file called CheckCookie.ascx on your site. Copy and paste this text into the file:

<%@ Control Language="vb" AutoEventWireup="false" %>
<script runat="server">
    Private Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs)
        If (Me.IsPostBack) Then
            If Me.Request.Cookies.Item(Me.UniqueID) Is Nothing Then
                If Not Me.FindControl("message") Is Nothing Then
                    Me.FindControl("message").Visible = True
                End If
            End If
        Else
            Response.Cookies.Add(New HttpCookie(Me.UniqueID))
        End If
    End Sub
</script>
<div id="message" runat="server" visible="false">
  You do not have cookies enabled.
</div>

This is called an ASP.NET user control. It is sort of like an HTML include file + script. Each time there is a postback (clicking Add to Cart for example) it will check for a cookie. If this cookie does not exist it will display the message.

Now add this user control to the pages where you want the message to appear when they do not have cookies enabled. To add the control, add this line to the top of the file:

<%@ Register TagPrefix="ss" TagName="CheckCookie" Src="CheckCookie.ascx" %>

And add this line where you want the message to appear:

<ss:CheckCookie id="cc" runat="server" />

To test this I used FireFox and disabled all cookies. You can disable all cookies in IE, but this only disables new cookies. To test this in IE you would have to disable all cookies and delete all cookies.

ANN: Shipper Service for StoreFront Maintenance Release 1.1.5

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 20:20:47 GMT

Shipper Service for StoreFront version 1.1.5 is now available. This free maintenance release includes the following changes::

FIXED: Using Quick Ship! without selecting or entering a service erases the existing shipping method from the underlying store. Fix changes this behaviour so that if no service is selected, the existing shipping method is kept.

This is a complete install package, not a patch. Please see the documentation for installation instructions. Careful readers will note that this fix was also included in version 1.1.4. Unfortunately, the fix only made it into the Shipper Service for BVC2004 release.

download | purchase | online help | release notes

Shipper 3.8 Beta Supports UPS WorldShip

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:03:39 GMT

The Shipper 3.8 beta is now available. The big new feature in this release is support for UPS WorldShip. Now you can use UPS WorldShip instead of ShipRush for UPS if you prefer. There are some differences--and for most people ShipRush for UPS will probably remain the better choice--but now you have a choice!

There are a few other changes described in the release notes.

This Shipper 3.8 Beta uses Shipping Agent 3.7. That means you can install Shipper 3.8 and check it out without touching your online store. If you don't like it (let me know), just uninstall 3.8 and re-install 3.7.

Download Shipper 3.8

Shipper 3.5 Beta

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:16:11 GMT

Beta versions of Shipper and Shipping Agent 3.5 are now available for testing. These are pre-release builds that you can use to experiment with the new features. I do not recommend upgrading from version 3.4 in a production unless you also have an alternative means of processing shipments.

download Shipper 3.5 beta
download Shipping Agent 3.5 beta

There are a lot of new features in version 3.5, which is why I am pre-releasing this beta build. If you get a chance to try it and find something that should change before the final release, please send an email to support@structured-solutions.net with "Shipper 3.5 Beta" in the subject line.

Some of the new features:

Support for ShipRush 7
Support for Address Doctor for international address verification
Ability to download new orders from a single site
New Assign Destination Address task so you can change the shipping address before printing the label. For example, you can copy the state to line 2 if the destination address is in Japan (because ShipRush does not print the state on the label if the address is in Japan).
Added "Record Tracking" button so you can quickly record tracking information and ship date for packages that are processed outside of Shipper.
Added support for printing a shipping label using a ShipRush template. This makes it very easy to print labels with complex choices such as COD, Delivery Options, or special material handling.

I'll describe these features and others in more detail when the final release is available. In the mean time, here are the release notes and a link to the updated help.

Release Notes
Online Help

Shipper 3.6 Release

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:17:44 GMT

Shipper 3.6 is now available. This is primarily a maintenance release (see the release notes for details). But there is one breaking change. "Breaking change" is a phrase used in the software industry to describe a change that requires manual intervention.

Shipping Agent for Magento authentication

Starting with 3.6, Shipping Agent for Magento includes authentication. You must configure Shipper to send a Magento username and password that are authorized to access the Admin area.

Please see the article "How do I protect Shipping Agent from unauthorized access?" in Help > Frequently Asked Questions, for more information.

Please head over to the Shipper Update page to read the release notes and download Shipper 3.6.

Excellent law article regarding online pricing errors

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 03:43:18 GMT

http://www.lctjournal.washington.edu/vol1/a002Groebner.html

Sending persistent cookies in a WebRequest

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 19:45:09 GMT

As I wrote here, I use a WebRequest to post the initial image data to FogBugz rather than control IE using COM automation. The main advantage of using a WebRequest instead of automating IE is that I am not tied to IE. The main disadvantage is that a WebRequest will not naturally send any cookies. FogBugz uses a persistent cookie to automatically log you in.

There is a field in the WebRequest called CookieContainer. But it will not load your persistent cookies for you. You have to do this with your own code. Unfortunately there is no managed API for doing this. There is a Windows API in wininet.dll for doing this called InternetGetCookie. First I looked at pinvoke.net to see if there was a good example. I did not find one, but Google turned up this one on torsten’s blog.

I tried using the CookieContainer.SetCookies method just like torsten did, but it choked on one of the cookies (InternetGetCookie found 3 for my FogBugz url…some are probably for other apps on the same site). So I added code to parse the cookies my self and add them to CookieContainer as a collection.

    private static System.Net.CookieCollection RetrieveIECookiesForUrl(Uri url) 
    { 
      System.Net.CookieCollection cookies = new System.Net.CookieCollection(); 
      System.Text.StringBuilder cookieHeader = new System.Text.StringBuilder(new string(' ', 256), 256); 
      int datasize = cookieHeader.Length; 
      try 
      { 
        if (!(wininet.InternetGetCookie(url.ToString(), null, cookieHeader, ref datasize))) 
        { 
          if (0 >= datasize) 
          { 
            return cookies; 
          } 
          else 
          { 
            cookieHeader = new System.Text.StringBuilder(datasize); 
            wininet.InternetGetCookie(url.ToString(), null, cookieHeader, ref datasize); 
          } 
        } 
        foreach (string cookiestring in cookieHeader.ToString().Split(' ')) 
        { 
          string cookieName = cookiestring.Split('=')[0]; 
          string cookieValue = cookiestring.Split('=')[1]; 
          if (cookieValue.EndsWith(";")) 
          { 
            cookieValue = cookieValue.Substring(0, cookieValue.Length - 1); 
          } 
          System.Net.Cookie cookie = new System.Net.Cookie(cookieName, cookieValue); 
          cookies.Add(cookie); 
        } 
      } 
      catch (Exception ex) 
      { 
        MessageBox.Show("RetrieveIECookiesForUrl failed: " + ex.ToString()); 
      } 
      return cookies; 
    }

Web Development Tools

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 17:59:49 GMT

John Hrvatin (MS Program Manager for Internet Explorer) posted a list of lightweight web development tools for Internet Explorer. He missed Firebug Lite, but otherwise caught the ones I use plus many more.

Shipper 1.4 Now Available

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 20:04:41 GMT

Shipper and Shipper Service 1.4 are now available to automate DHL, FedEx, UPS, and USPS shipment processing for StoreFront, BVC2004, and BVC5 stores.

New Carrier Support

Shipper now supports UPS WorldShip 9.0 beta 1 in addition to UPS WorldShip 8.0.

Shipper now supports Galaxy Ship 4.5. Shipper 1.4 will not integrate completely with previous versions of Galaxy Ship. You can download the latest version of Galaxy Ship from http://www.endicia.com/endicia-usa/hot/galaxyusersguide.cfm.

Shipper now imports the shipment Order Number to the DHL Reference field in DHL EasyShip Connect.

Please see the System Requirements page for a complete list of supported carrier software.

New Online Store Support

Shipper now supports BV Commerce 5 in addition to BV Commerce 2004 and StoreFront 6.0.

Two new fields are now included in the shipment data: OrderID and UserData. Using the OrderID, you can build a link to the order edit page of your site. Using the UserData field and an advanced filter, you can add your own custom field(s) to the shipment information which you can then export to your carrier software. See the new userdata.xslt sample in the Shipper Service xslts folder.

User Interface Enhancements

Two new print formats will help you prepare shipments: Pull Sheet and Pull Sheet Details. Pull Sheet lists the total number of each unique item in the selected shipments. Pull Sheet Details adds the individual quantities for each order including the quantity for each variation.

A new Display Count feature lets you decide how many shipments to include in the Print Preview. Previous versions of Shipper fixed this limit at 100 to ensure fast response time. You can now choose a value between 25 and all shipments. A new tool bar is displayed above the Print Preview Pane to make adjustments to Print Format and Display Count even easier.

Two new features now let you easily move shipments between folders:

Drag and drop shipments from the Shipments Pane to a folder in the Views Pane. For example you can drag a shipment from the UPS WorldShip folder to the Endicia Galaxy folder.
Select one or more shipments and then select Edit > Move to Folder from the Shipper menu or the shipments context menu.

Directly access Store Settings from the store's context menu or by selecting a store and then choosing Edit > Store Settings from the Shipper menu.

Send/Receive shipments from a single store by choosing Send/Receive Only from the store's context menu.

Previous versions of Shipper did not reflect changes made to a shipment in the store if the shipment was already prepared for carrier processing. Now a conflict will be generated with the changes identified so that you can decide if the changes affect how you want to process the shipment.

Release Notes

If you install Shipper 1.4 on your computer, you must also install Shipper Service 1.4 on your web site(s). Similarly, if you install Shipper Service 1.4 on your web site, then you must install Shipper 1.4 on your computer.
Shipper 1.4 will attempt to copy any custom print formats from previous versions of Shipper. However, this only works if Shipper can find them. If your custom print formats are not displayed in the File > Print Formats menu you will need to manually copy them to the new installation directory.
The new shipment fields (e.g. OrderID and UserData) will not appear in shipments that you have already prepared for processing. To force the new fields to appear select Tools > Options from the Shipper menu, then select the Application Data tab and click on the Delete Offline Data button. The new fields will be included the next time you run Send/Receive.
In Shipper 1.3.6, the IEmailHelper.SendMail method took an integer value as the first parameter. In Shipper 1.4, the first parameter is now a string.

USPS Shipping Screencasts

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 06:59:23 GMT

I plan on making a few or more screencasts demonstrating various USPS Shipping features. They will be collected here.

SignIn Control for StoreFront 7 is now available

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 16:06:36 GMT

I just posted the new SignIn Control for StoreFront 7,

Product page

In addition to adding support for merchant bundles in the offline cart, I rewrote the 3 samples to integrate better with the new StoreFront 7 templates.

You can download the software from here (it will run in trial mode for 45 days or until you copy a license file to the web site),

Download

A copy of the documentation is online here,

Documentation

Shipper 3 Trial Installation Instructions

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 16:40:16 GMT

The Shipper 3 system has 3 parts:

Shipper 3, a Windows desktop application to manage orders.
Shipping Agent, a free, open source web service for your website that connects Shipper 3 Gold Edition with your ecommerce store.
ShipRush and/or UPS WorldShip, Windows desktop applications to print shipping labels and postage.

Shipper includes a 30 day free trial license. The Shipper 3 trial license lets you try both Gold and Platinum Edition features. ShipRush includes a 14 day free trial. The rest of this article describes how to install and try the Shipper 3 system.

Install ShipRush or UPS WorldShip

Shipper can use ShipRush and/or UPS WorldShip to print carrier labels. If you plan on using UPS WorldShip, follow the installation instructions on the UPS WorldShip site. If you plan on using ShipRush, follow these instructions:

Download the ShipRush installers for the types of labels you want to print.
Run the installers to install ShipRush on your computer.
When you are prompted to enter a ShipRush Serial Number, click on the Try ShipRush button.
Watch a video

Install Shipping Agent

A Shipping Agent is not required for eBay stores. To work with other online stores such as AbleCommerce and Magento, follow these instructions:

Download the Shipping Agent package for your e-commerce platform.
Run the installer (exe) or unzip the file (zip) to extract the Shipping Agent files.
Copy the extracted Shipping Agent files to your website as described in the readme.txt file (one of the extracted files).
Watch a video

Install Shipper 3

Download Shipper 3.
Unzip the download.
Run Setup.exe to to install Shipper 3 on your desktop computer.
Watch a video

Please see the Getting Started document next.

Configuring StoreFront to use PayPal Express Checkout on a development box

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 17:58:06 GMT

A customer recently reported that if his customer used PayPal Express Checkout then Shipper did not include the ShipToEmail address. As I mentioned here, this turned out to be a small bug or oversight in StoreFront 6.7.0. To reach that point I needed to enable PayPal Express Checkout on my development/debugging site. This post explains what I did. I frequently refer to an article called "API Certificate" on the PayPal Integration Center. The article covers many of the same steps.

1. Get a PayPal API Certificate

I did not want to use a "real" PayPal account for testing, so I decided to get a "sandbox" account. First I signed up for an account at PayPal Developer Central. Then I created two Test Accounts. One to be the customer and one to be the merchant (which must be a Business or Premier Account). I also funded both with some funny money.

Next I requested an API Certificate from the test merchant account. Then I downloaded the Test Certificate that was generated (it shows up in Developer Central).

Please see Step 1 of the API Certificate article for details.

2. Encrypt the Certificate

After downloading the API certificate, I visited http://paypaltech.com/tools/pem2p12.php to encrypt the certificate into PKCS12 format. I did not follow Step 3 of the API Certificate article. They accomplish the same thing, but the web page is much easier to use. Note: if you use the web page, do not include spaces in your security phrase. I saved the encrypted certificate on my computer as sandbox_cert.p12.

3. Install the Certificate on my Server

In my testing, StoreFront will be running on my development box as an IIS5 application. Therefore, when a test "customer" uses PayPal Express Checkout, my copy of IIS will be the "client" to PayPal. That means I need to install the certificate where IIS can find it. To do this, I used WinHttpCertCfg.exe to install the encrypted certificate for the ASPNET user:

WinHttpCertCfg -i sandbox_cert.p12 -p securityphrase -c LOCAL_MACHINE\My -a ASPNET

I used the same security phrase that I used in step 2 to encrypt the certificate.

Please see Step 4 of the API Certificate article for details and a link to download WinHttpCertCfg.exe.

4. Configure StoreFront to Use the Sandbox Server

Open the StoreFront database and the PaymentProcessors table. Find the PayPal record and change TestMode from 0 to 1.

StoreFront will now correctly contact the sandbox server to start the Express Checkout transaction, but it will send the test customer to the live checkout pages. This will not work since the live and sandbox servers do not work together. So I made one small change to CPayPalExpress.vb. Note: this is only required if you are using the sandbox to test PayPal Express Checkout.

        Public Sub New()
            MyBase.New()
            MyBase.fillProcessorInfo("PayPal")
            'AFM - Fill in test server URI if in testmode
            If Me.Proc_live = 0 Then
                Me.URI = "https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr"
            End If
            'AFM - End
        End Sub

5. Finally, Configure StoreFront to Use PayPal Express Checkout

This is the easiest part now that everything is in place,

Selected Merchant Tools > Payments
Selected PayPal and entered,
- Accept PayPal as a Payment Method: Checked
  this is optional
- Accept PayPal Express Checkout: Checked
- Certificate Type: First Party
- PayPal Merchant ID: merchant_api1.structured-solutions.net
  this is the API Username not the merchant sandbox account name
- PayPal Merchant Password: *******
  this is the merchant sandbox account password
- Private-Key Password: ******
  this is the security phrase used in steps 2 and 3 above
- Payment Type: Authorize
  you can choose Authorize or Sale for testing
Clicked on Save

That's it. PayPal Express Checkout worked and I was able to duplicate the error my customer reported.

ANN: SignIn Control Maintenance Release for StoreFront SP8

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 15:05:01 GMT

SignIn Control version 1.4.0.4 is now available. This free maintenance release is compatible with StoreFront SP8.

download | purchase | help | release notes

Compare Shipper Features

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sat, 22 May 2010 20:39:32 GMT

	Shipper 3 Gold Edition	Shipper 3 Platinum Edition
	Purchase	Purchase
Cost	$395/PC	$1595/Location
ShipRush License	Purchase Separately	Included
UI	Windows Desktop	Windows Desktop
Multiple Skins	Yes	Yes
Customizable Views	Yes	Yes
Customizable Edit Windows	Yes	Yes
Configuration Wizards	Yes	Yes
Shared or Standalone Data [1]	Yes	Yes
Custom Highlighting	Yes	Yes
Custom Filtering	Yes	Yes
Print Labels via UPS WorldShip	Yes	Yes
Print Labels via ShipRush	Yes	Yes
FedEx	Yes	Yes
UPS	Yes	Yes
USPS	Yes	Yes
Support for Laser Printers	Yes	Yes
Support for Thermal Printers [2]	Yes	Yes
Bulk Label Printing	No	Yes
Quick Print for Package	Yes	Yes
Quick Print for Order	Yes	Yes
Print Postage [3]	Yes	Yes
Bulk Label Postage	No	Yes
Quick Print for Package	Yes	Yes
Quick Print for Order	Yes	Yes
Track Packages	Yes	Yes
Verify U.S. Addresses via ShipRush [4]	No	Yes
Verify Worldwide Addresses via AddressDoctor [5]	Yes	Yes
Support for Multiple Websites	Yes	Yes
AbleCommerce 7	Yes	Yes
BV Commerce 5	Yes	Yes
Magento	Yes	Yes
Microsoft Commerce Server 2007	Yes	Yes
StoreFront 6	Yes	Yes
StoreFront 7	Yes	Yes
Zen Cart	Yes	Yes
Open Source Shipping Agent	Yes	Yes
Record Shipment Information in Store	Yes	Yes
Tracking Number	Yes	Yes
Tracking Provider	Yes	Yes
Ship Date	Yes	Yes
Destination Address	Yes	Yes
Shipping Cost	Yes	Yes
Reporting	Yes	Yes
Built-in Reports	Yes	Yes
Built-in Custom Report Writer	Yes	Yes
Customizable Order Reports	Yes	Yes
Customizable Package Reports	Yes	Yes
Export to PDF	Yes	Yes
Export to HTML	Yes	Yes
Export to RTF	Yes	Yes
Send via Email	Yes	Yes
Perform Tasks Automatically	Yes	Yes
Assign Packaging Task	Yes	Yes
Assign Reference Fields Tasks	Yes	Yes
Assign Service Task	Yes	Yes
Assign Tracking Provider Task	Yes	Yes
Print Report Task	Yes	Yes
Send Report via Email Task	Yes	Yes
Send Text Message via Email Task	Yes	Yes
Print Shipping Label Task	No	Yes
Print Postage Task [3]	No	Yes
Upload Shipping Details Task	Yes	Yes
Verify Address Tasks	Yes	Yes
Data Analysis	Yes	Yes

Shipper 3 includes support for the following databases: MS Access (default), MS SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSql, Firebird, PervasiveSQL, VistaDB, SQL Anywhere, Advantage, DB2, and Sybase.
Shipper 3 includes support for the following thermal printers: Zebra/Eltron 2844, Zebra 450, Zebra 500, Zebra 550, Eltron/Zebra Orion, Eltron/Zebra LP2443, Eltron/Zebra LP2348, Eltron/Zebra 2543, Eltron/Zebra 2442, Eltron/Zebra 2742, Eltron/Zebra 2743, Eltron/Zebra 2844-Z, Zebra 105SL, and Zebra Z4M.
Printing USPS postage requires a special ShipRush-ready Endicia account which costs $39.95/month/location. Multiple PCs at each location can use the same ShipRush-ready Endicia account.
ShipRush can verify the destination address before you print the label. Shipper Platinum Edition can verify any address at any time.
Requires an AddressDoctor account.

Custom Control to Wrap Forms on an ASP.NET Page

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 19:48:32 GMT

Problem: Can not paste a simple HTML form into an ASP.NET page.

Cause: The ASP.NET Page class gets confused and starts loosing track of server controls (which leads to the oh-so-helpful "Object reference not set to an instance of an object." message).

My solution is a custom user control that you a use to wrap the form. The control will parse the form, removing all the stuff that confuses the ASP.NET Page class. It also converts each submit button into a server control and attaches event handlers that convert clicks into the appropriate action.

The entire control is in a single file. All of the documentation is in the control source as comments. To use this control follow these steps:

Copy FormWrapper.ascx to your site.
Place this line at the top of the page:

<%@ Register TagPrefix="solutions" TagName="FormWrapper" Src="FormWrapper.ascx" %>
Add these tags where you want the new sub-form to appear on the page:

<solutions:FormWrapper id="FW" runat="server"> </solutions:FormWrapper>
Copy and paste the form you want to add between the FormWrapper tags like this:

<solutions:FormWrapper id="FW" runat="server">  </solutions:FormWrapper>

Here's an example,

<solutions:FormWrapper id="FW" runat="server">
    <form name="test" action="http://company.com/submit.asp">
        <input type="text" name="name">
    </form>
</solutions:FormWrapper>

Notes

If your form comes with a <script> block, you can paste that inside the wrapper as well. There are a couple of options you can add to the FormWrapper tag. Normally the form will be submitted from the server hosting the page. If you would prefer to have the form submitted from the client, add SubmitFrom="Client". The source comments describe some caveats to both techniques.

If your form includes some validation (in the guise of an onsubmit event handler), this is normally stripped off so that the rest of the page can be submitted even if your sub-form is not filled in. However, if your sub-form is the only important thing on the page and must be validated, add EnableOnsubmit="True". This will attach the onsubmit handler to the ASP.NET Page.

Please put quotes around tag attributes in your form (i.e. method="post" rather than method=post). Otherwise ASP.NET may have a hard time parsing the form. If you see an that FormWrapper does not have a property XXX, or if the submit button does not seem to do anything (or do the wrong thing) then it's a pretty good bet that you are missing some quotes somewhere in the form.

FormWrapper.zip (4.92 KB)

ANN: Shipping Cost Calculator Maintenance Release 1.3.2

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 17:17:51 GMT

Shipping Cost Calculator version 1.3.2 is now available. This maintenance release includes the following changes. Please see the release notes for a complete history of changes.

CHANGE: Discounted shipping rates are now displayed in a format that is similar to the way they are displayed on Checkout_Shipping.aspx.
CHANGE: References to GeoMonster ZipServe have been removed from the documentation.

download | purchase | online help | release notes

SignIn Control for StoreFront Version 1.3.5

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 16:56:47 GMT

Version 1.3.5 of the SignIn Control is now available. This is a free update for all current owners.

NEW: Added UnknownUserUrl setting. If an unknown customer tries to sign in, they will be redirected to this url (unless the url is empty). If you set this value to ~/CustSignIn.aspx, the unknown customer will be redirected to the full StoreFront sign in page from which they can create a new account.
FIXED: No row at position 0 when customer follows account links after signin from order detail link.
FIXED: Item_Is_Stocked error if inventory tracking is enabled and item attributes are modified while customer is offline.
FIXED: Item is restored to cart even if inventory tracking is enabled, the item is out of stock, and backorders are not allowed.
FIXED: [CustIsSubscribed] does not return a value when used in a message.

download | purchase | help | release notes

Advanced Sorting with the Navigator Control

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 00:31:02 GMT

The Navigator Control has always supported any sort order you can dream up and implement in a .NET language. In these examples I use Visual Basic, but you could also use C#, J#, or any other language installed on your web site.

First, you will need to write a class that implements the IComparer interface to sort NavigatorItem’s. For example, this class sorts by category id:

    Public Class CategoryIDSorter
        Implements IComparer

        Public Function Compare(ByVal x As Object, ByVal y As Object) As Integer
            Implements System.Collections.IComparer.Compare
            Dim item1 As StructuredSolutions.WebControls.NavigatorItem
            Dim item2 As StructuredSolutions.WebControls.NavigatorItem

            item1 = CType(x, StructuredSolutions.WebControls.NavigatorItem)
            item2 = CType(y, StructuredSolutions.WebControls.NavigatorItem)

            ' No matter what comparison you make, always return these values
            '  1 if item1 "is greater than" item2
            '  0 if item1 "is equal to" item2
            ' -1 if item1 "is less than" item2

            ' This code compares the category id

            If item1.CategoryID > item2.CategoryID Then
                Return 1
            ElseIf item1.CategoryID = item2.CategoryID Then
                Return 0
            Else
                Return -1
            End If
        End Function
    End Class

Next you need to supply one or two event handles. One for the TopLevelCreated event if you want to sort the top level categories, and one for the SubcategoriesCreated event if you want to sort subcategories. Each handler should sort the items using the sorting class you create. For example, these two handlers will both sort the items using the category id sorter shown above:

    ' Sorts the top level categories
    Private Sub TopLevelCreated(ByVal sender As Object, _
        ByVal e As StructuredSolutions.WebControls.NavigatorItemListEventArgs)

        e.Items.Sort(New CategoryIDSorter)

    End Sub

    ' Sorts sub-categories
    Private Sub SubcategoriesCreated(ByVal sender As Object, _
        ByVal e As StructuredSolutions.WebControls.NavigatorItemListEventArgs)

        e.Items.Sort(New CategoryIDSorter)

    End Sub

Finally, you need to tell the Navigator Control to use your event handlers by adding OnTopLevelCreated and/or OnSubcategoriesCreated attributes to the Navigator Control tag. For example, this opening tag will tell the Navigator Control to use the two handlers above:

    <sfaddons:Navigator id="Navigator" runat="server" CssClass="navigator"
        OnTopLevelCreated="TopLevelCreated" 
        OnSubcategoriesCreated="SubcategoriesCreated" >

You can sort by name, category id, phase of the moon, or any other criteria by creating a new class similar to CategoryIDSorter that implements your preferred order. I have attached a Navigator user control that includes the code shown above.

SortingNavigator.zip

To use SortingNavigator.ascx, follow these steps (assuming your have already installed the Navigator Control):

Copy SortingNavigator.ascx to the Controls and ssl/Controls directories of your web site.
Change the sorting code to meet your requirements.
Edit LeftColumnNav.ascx and ssl/CommonControls/LeftColumnNav.ascx to change "TextNavigator1.ascx" to "SortingNavigator.ascx".

ANN: Shipper Service 1.2.0 Final Release

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 15:29:19 GMT

Shipper Service version 1.2.0 is now available for both BVC2004 and StoreFront 6. This is a free update for all Shipper Service license owners. Please see the release notes for a complete list of changes.

This is a complete install package, not a patch. Please see the documentation for installation instructions.

ANN: Shipper 1.2.0 Final Release

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Tue, 16 May 2006 08:12:52 GMT

Shipper version 1.2 is now available. This is a free update for all Shipper license owners. Please see the release notes for a complete list of updates. The most significant change in this release is support for FedEx Ship Manager. FedEx Ship Manager is a free desktop application that gives you access to a full range of shipping functions. Scheduling, tracking and more all all available from a single point. Shipper transparently integrates FedEx Ship Manager with your store for a complete shipping solution.

Shipper 1.2 requires Shipper Service 1.2. You can install either update first.

This is a complete install package, not a patch. If you are installing this as an update to a previous version of Shipper, make sure there are no shipments in the UPS Outbox folder before installing. The installer will replace the carrier integration database with a fresh copy.

Video: What's New in Shipper 1.2 (5:25)
Video: Shipper 1.2 Walkthrough (27:49)

VIDEO: What's New in Shipper 1.2 (5:25)

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 08:00:21 GMT

This short video shows the new features in Shipper 1.2. The two videos are identical except that the menu requires a larger window to see both the menu and the video.

Video with menu: watch (5:25)
Video without menu: watch (5:25)

1. Introduction
2. Export to Excel
3. New Shipments Pane header
4. New Print Formats
5. Turn on integration with FedEx Ship Manager
6. Shipment Prep Wizard
7. New Quick Ship Options
8. Edit Shipment Weight
9. Processing in Fedex Ship Manager

VIDEO: Shipper 1.2 Walkthrough (27:49)

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 17:12:39 GMT

This video demonstrates nearly all of the features in Shipper 1.2. Although it is fairly long, there is a menu that you can use to skip sections or jump around.

Video: watch (27:49)

1. Introduction
2. When you first start Shipper
3. Define the connection to your store intro
4. Collect Shipper Service information
5. Define the connection to your store
6. Download pending shipments
7. Shipments Pane overview
8. Turn on carrier integration
9. Preparing shipments for processing
10. Using Quick Ship to process shipments
11. Processing with UPS WorldShip
12. Processing with FedEx Ship Manager
13. More Options
14. More Store Settings
15. Store Settings - Prepare Shipments
16. Store Settings - Service Assignments
17. Store Settings - Process Shipments
18. Store Settings - Update Store
19. Turn on ink support
20. Export to Excel
21. Print Preview Pane
22. Working online or offline
23. Editing shipment weightp>

Disaster Relief

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 05:37:00 GMT

Following the humane example set by Nick Bradbury, everything I earn from my BVC 2004 and StoreFront add-ons through the end of this month will be donated to the International Red Cross and Mercy Corps to help those affected by this disaster.

Shipper 3 Features

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 23:23:38 GMT

Overview

Shipper is a complete shipment processing system designed to help e-commerce merchants ship orders quickly:

Process shipments for multiple websites from one workstation with no additional charge per website.
Automate or remove all repetitive, non-value-add tasks from your people.
Print shipping labels and postage for FedEx, and UPS, and USPS.
Print or email invoices, packing slips, and custom forms.
Record tracking information, shipping costs, and more in your store.
Works with AbleCommerce, BV Commerce, eBay, Magento, Microsoft Commerce Server, StoreFront and Zen Cart.

Download Free Trial

Supported Carts

Shipper integrates with the shopping carts shown below. Each copy of Shipper can connect to an unlimited number of carts for no additional cost. With one click you can download all of your new or new and updated orders into Shipper.

AbleCommerce 7
BV Commerce 5
eBay
Magento
Microsoft Commerce Server 2007 and 2009
StoreFront 6 and 7
Zen Cart

Carriers

Shipper works with ShipRush by Z-Firm to provide complete support for the following carriers. Support includes address verification, cost estimates, customs documents for international shipments, label printing and reprinting, tracking, voiding, and manifests.

Endicia (USPS postage)
FedEx
UPS
USPS

Hardware Support

Shipper and ShipRush are fully integrated with Windows to provide support for a wide range of printers and scales.

All standard Windows inkjet and laser printers
Zebra / Eltron EPL Printers
- Zebra ZP-450, ZP-500, ZP-550
- Eltron / Zebra Orion
- LP2844 (via parallel port and USB)
- LP2443
- LP2348
- 2844
- 2543
- Compatible 200 dpi EPL printers
Zebra ZPL Printers
- Zebra 2844-Z
- Zebra 105SL
- Zebra Z4M
- Compatible 200 dpi ZPL printers
Fairbanks USB Scales
- 70-2453
- Ultegra
- SCB-9000
- R9000
- Compatible USB scales - including the type distributed by many shipping carrier sales reps
Mettler Toledo USB Scales
- PS15
- PS30
- PS-3L
- PS-6L
- PS60
- PS90
- Compatible USB scales

Intuitive Interface

Shipper follows the well-known user interface conventions created by Microsoft Office. New users can get started immediately because it just works. Advanced users can customize virtually every aspect of the interface to optimize their workflow.

Automation

Shipper is designed to automate or remove every non-value-added task from shipment processing. Even complex tasks can be automated so that shipments can be processed with one click.

Order and Customer Management

Shipper downloads complete order and customer information from your store. Using the built-in reporting tools, you can print invoices and custom order reports. Using the built-in data mining tools, you can quickly find your most popular products, customers that have placed the most orders, and more.

Email

Shipper can automatically send emails when the order is downloaded, the label is printed, or the tracking information is uploaded. For example, you can send a short text message to the warehouse when the order is downloaded, a confirmation email to the customer when the label is printed, and a notification email to accounts receivable when the tracking information is uploaded. Emails can have mail-merge style subject and body text, and/or have attached reports in a variety of formats.

Reports

Shipper includes several reports such as invoice and packing slip. Using the built-in drag and drop report writer, you can customize the included reports or create your own. Any report can be printed or exported to a variety of formats including PDF and HTML.

Analysis

Use the built-in data mining tools or export data from Shipper to third party systems to analyze the shipping process. For example, you can compare the amount of money you collected to the actual cost of shipping. Are your shipping methods accurate?

Editions

Shipper comes in two editions: Gold and Platinum. Gold is licensed by workstation and requires a separate ShipRush license. Platinum is licensed by workgroup (up to 5 workstations) and includes a ShipRush license. There are also some feature differences as shown here.

Free Trial

Download Shipper 3 now and use the built-in free 30 day trial license to prove Shipper 3 makes your store better. The trial license allows you to switch between Gold and Platinum editions so you can try both.

Goofing around with Camtasia Studio PIP

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 22:29:57 GMT

Patrick and I were experimenting with Camtasia Studio’s new PIP feature…and having a little fun.

Video: FeedDemon Demo

ANN: SignIn Control Maintenance Release 1.4.0

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 03:41:59 GMT

SignIn Control version 1.4.0 is now available. This is a free maintenance release that includes the following changes:

NEW: New SignInRequired and SignInUrl properties. If SignInRequired is On and the customer is not signed in they are redirected to the SignInUrl page. This can be used to force the customer to sign in before they can access your site. See the Admin page for a detailed description of the properties.
FIX: NullReferenceException if SignIn Control is visible on the Confirm.aspx page and customer uses the SignIn Control to sign out.
CHANGE: Infragistics web controls updated to same level in Shipping Cost Estimator 1.4.3, SignIn Control 1.4.0, and Shipper Service for StoreFront 1.3.0. After installing the updates, you can safely remove older Infragistics.* DLL’s from your sites bin folder unless you have a 3rd party control that uses the same libraries.

download | purchase | help | release notes

My constraints were violated

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 15:12:56 GMT

Yesterday I wrote about a bug that I finally found. After I found the problem, I googled “Merge(DataRow[]) events” and found Introduction to Dataset Updates. A little light reading later I found,

“Constraints are automatically disabled when the Merge method is invoked on a dataset. When the merge is complete if there are any constraints on the dataset that cannot be enabled a ConstraintException is thrown. In this situation, the EnforceConstraints property is set to false and all constraint violations must be resolved before resetting the EnforceConstraints property to true.”

Furthermore, it pointed out that when EnforceConstraints is False,

“It suspends certain update events from being raised.“

So the merge must have caused a constraint exception, although no exception was thrown (the code was wrapped in a Try...Catch that would have published the exception).

Even clever arguments can be wrong

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sun, 20 Jun 2004 01:39:28 GMT

Joel Spolsky recently wrote an article titled “How Microsoft Lost the API War”. While I generally enjoy reading Joel On Software, this article was just plain frustrating. There were so many things wrong with the article, I suspect an editor would never let it reach print. I guess that is a risk of self-publishing.

Others have noted that the article makes unsubstantiated assumptions to form the basis of radical conclusions. But there is more. Mr. Spolsky has the conceit to imply that he is representing 10's of millions of developers, customers and “normal people”. Then he goes on to tell readers who know fewer, their opinion doesn't count.

I'm not being nit-picky here...I am rejecting the entire argument wholesale. You can not make claims based on a false premise.

ANN: Navigator Control Maintenance Release 1.3.3

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sat, 13 May 2006 23:01:18 GMT

Navigator Control version 1.3.3 is now available. This free update includes the following changes:

FIXED: Navigator Control does not recognize custom catalog pages that have the "%20" character in the URL.

download | purchase | free trial | help | release notes

Shipper for UPS RC2

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Wed, 16 Jun 2004 05:28:15 GMT

Online error reporting integrated with the FogBugz error tracking package (recommended).
Support for both SQL Server and MS Access StoreFront stores.
Background send/receive so the interface stays super fast.

I expect to post a public release within a week.

SignIn Control for StoreFront Version 1.3.6 Maintenance Release

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 22:05:00 GMT

Version 1.3.6 of the SignIn Control is now available. This is a free update.

FIXED: Items are not restored to the cart from the cookie after SP7 is installed.

download | purchase | help | release notes

Video Tutorial - Setting Up UPS WorldShip for Shipper 1.1

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Wed, 23 Mar 2005 18:57:09 GMT

Video - Setting Up UPS WorldShip for Shipper 1.1

What is a Cookie?

amiller@talloaksoftware.com (Andy Miller) — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 01:58:06 GMT

This is not a technical description of cookies, but rather seeks to explain in simple terms what they are and why we use them on this site.

What are cookies?

Even simpler version: Cookies are nothing to worry about on our site.

Cookies are small files stored on your computer by your browser - the program that you are using now to read this page. We don't have any access to your computer, nor can we read or write files anywhere we like. Your browser is in complete control of the process - we just ask.

In fact, you can disable cookies if you wish. All browsers have a setting to control this. We do not recommend disabling cookies for the reasons below.

Why do we use Cookies?

We store various information in cookies to make it easier for you to use our site. Without cookies we simply cannot remember information about who you are or what you like.

As an example, if you are a member we store your membership information in an encrypted cookie so that you don't have to sign in every time you visit us (encrypted means that, practically speaking, no-one can read it but us).

There are other minor items we store too, such as the size and position on the screen of your Image Gallery. We do this so that you don't have to position it every time you edit a page.

In other words, cookies are used to help you better use our site. Although cookies have sometimes had a bad press due to advertisers with dubious Privacy Policies, please don't worry. We do not use any third party advertising servers.

Shipper Service for BVC2004 Maintenance Release 1.1.3

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 16:49:56 GMT

Shipper Service for BVC2004 version 1.1.3 is now available. This maintenance release includes the following changes:

Version change only.

This is complete install package. Please see the documentation for installation instructions.
download | purchase | online help | release notes

Shipper Service for StoreFront Maintenance Release 1.1.3

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 16:52:07 GMT

Shipper Service for StoreFront version 1.1.3 is now available. This maintenance release includes the following changes:

FIXED: Shipping methods that include embedded dashes (such as SF-Static / Best-Way Ground) are not returned.

This is a complete install package, not a patch. Please see the documentation for installation instructions.
download | purchase | online help | release notes

Shipper Service for StoreFront 1.1 RC4

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 21:01:34 GMT

Version 1.1.0.3 (RC4) of Shipper Service for StoreFront is now available. This pre-release candidate expires on April 30, 2005.

NEW: Send/Receive data is compressed up to 90%. Requires Shipper 1.1 RC5 or higher.
CHANGE: Updated help.
FIXED: UPS Next Day Air is recorded as UPS Next Day Air Early A.M.
FIXED: UPS send date is not parsed correctly.

download | purchase | help | release notes

Shipper Service for BVC2004 1.1 RC4

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 21:00:57 GMT

Version 1.1.0.3 (RC4) of Shipper Service for BVC2004 is now available. This pre-release candidate expires on April 30, 2005.

NEW: Send/Receive data is compressed up to 90%. Requires Shipper 1.1 RC5 or higher.
CHANGE: Updated help.
FIXED: UPS send date is not parsed correctly.

download | purchase | help | release notes

Shipper 1.1 RC5

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 21:01:16 GMT

Shipper 1.1 RC5 (1.1.0.5) is now available. This pre-release candidate expires on April 30, 2005.

NEW: PDF version of Shipper Tutorial for printing.
NEW: Send/Receive data compressed up to 90%. Requires Shipper Service 1.1 RC4 or higher.
CHANGE: Store name is validated as it is entered to prevent invalid characters.
CHANGE: Extended characters, and { and ~ are not allowed in store name.
CHANGE: List of shippers is disabled while retrieving ship-from address to prevent multiple requests from being queued.
CHANGE: Default online/offline mode changed to offline.
CHANGE: Shipper.mdb schema updated to record ShipmentCarrier and OrderNumber in outbox.
FIXED: Leading or trailing blanks in service username or password cause service access to fail.
FIXED: Leading or trailing blanks in service serial number cause service access to fail.
FIXED: Tutorial not found when Shipper is launched.
FIXED: Voided shipment carrier and order number are blank.
FIXED: Constraint exception on next refresh after a send/receive that includes only shipment voids.
FIXED: Format exception if store name includes a curly brace "{".

download | help | release notes

New release of SignIn Control for StoreFront

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Tue, 28 Sep 2004 17:01:08 GMT

Version 1.3.0 of the SignIn Control for StoreFront is now available. This release includes a new product administration page to configure product features.

Download | Release Notes | Demo

Video Tutorial - Setting Up Your Store in Shipper 1.1

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Wed, 23 Mar 2005 18:57:27 GMT

Video - Setting Up Your Store in Shipper 1.1

Shipping Rate Provider Suite Flat Rate Box Sample

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:05:48 GMT

This sample shows how to use the Shipping Rate Provider Suite for BVC5 to split an order into USPS Flat Rate Boxes and then display the flat rate shipping cost.

Prerequisites

Shipping Rate Provider Suite 2.5
USPS Account

Steps

Watch the video

Create a new shipping method called USPS Priority Mail using the US Postal Service provider.
1. Select the Priority Mail service.
Create a new shipping method called Priority Mail using the Package Rules provider.
1. Select the US Postal Service/Priority Mail as the suggested service. This will be assigned to all suggested packages that use the fixed flat rate.
2. Create a new Package Rule called FRB1 to place items into Priority Mail Flat Rate boxes.
  Criteria^†: Weight > 0
  Dimensions: 11 × 8.5 × 5.5
3. Create a new Shipping Cost rule to use normal Priority Mail rates if they are less than the flat rate.
  When Packaging Name = "FRB1" and Use Rate From "USPS Priority Mail" < 8.10, use rate from "USPS Priority Mail" × 1.
4. Create a new Shipping Cost Rule to use the Priority Mail Flat Rate. Make sure this rule comes after the rule above so that it is only used when the USPS Priority Mail rate is more than the flat rate.
  When Packaging Name = "FRB1", Cost = 8.10.
5. Edit the default Shipping Cost rule to use rate from "USPS Priority Mail" × 1. The default rule is used for all items that do not fit into an FRB1 box.

^† The criteria Weight > 0 is always true. The purpose of this packaging rule is to capture the flat rate box dimensions.

Shipping Rate Provider Suite Amazon Shipping Sample

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 17:38:29 GMT

This example shows how to use the Shipping Rate Provider Suite to provide shipping options like Amazon.com:

Before

These are the shipping options that appear on Amazon.com during checkout...

After

Here is our version...

Each option has specific rules to follow as shown here:

FREE Super Saver Shipping	Show $0 shipping cost to customer, but behind the scenes calculate the packaging for the shipping department to use according to the following rules. Items that weigh 13 oz. or less should be sent by USPS First Class in packaging that weighs 1 oz. Items that weigh more than 13 oz. should be sent by USPS Parcel Post in packaging that weighs 1/4 pound.
Standard Shipping	Use UPS Ground for everything. Divide the order into 70# packages with packaging that weighs 1/4 pound.
Two-Day Shipping	Use DHL Second Day for everything. Divide the order into 70# packages with packaging that weighs 1/4 pound. Show the expected delivery date to the customer.
One-Day Shipping	Use DHL Express for everything. Divide the order into 70# packages with packaging that weighs 1/4 pound. Show the expected delivery date to the customer.

To implement this logic we are going to need 5 separate carrier quotes:

USPS First Class
USPS Parcel Post
UPS Ground
DHL Second Day
DHL Express

This will require 4 separate shipping methods (both DHL quotes can come from one shipping method). The first two will be combined into one quote using the Package Rules provider. Let's get started...

Requirements

Shipping Rate Provider Suite 2.5
USPS Account
UPS Account
DHL Account

Steps

First we will create the 5 carrier quotes.

Create a shipping method called USPS First Class using the US Postal Service shipping provider.
1. Select the First Class service.
Create a shipping method called USPS Parcel Post using the US Postal Service shipping provider.
1. Select the Parcel Post service.
Create a shipping method called UPS Ground using the UPS provider.
1. Select the Ground service.
Create a shipping method called Express Shipping using the DHL US shipping provider.
1. Create a new Packaging Rule called Default Packaging with the following settings:
  Packaging: 0.25 pounds
  Criteria: Weight ≤ 70
2. Uncheck the Express 10:30 A.M., Express Saturday, Next Afternoon, and Ground services.
3. Change the Express display name to^†:
  One-Day Shipping --<span style="font-weight:bold;color:green">[[description]]</span>
4. Change the Second Day display name to:
  Two-Day Shipping --<span style="font-weight:bold;color:green">[[description]]</span>

^† HTML is allowed in the description as long as you encode it. [[description]] will be replaced by DHL's service level description.

Now we need to create the shipping method that will combine USPS First Class and USPS Parcel Post into one Super Saver quote.

Create a shipping method called FREE Super Saver Shipping (5-9 business days) using the Package Rules provider.
1. Adjust the final cost by -100% (so that it appears as free shipping to the customer).
2. Create a new Packaging Rule called First Class with the following settings:
  Packaging: 0.0625 pounds
  Criteria: Weight ≤ 0.8125.
  This will move items light weight items into packages with a maximum weight of 13 oz. including the packaging (which weighs 1 oz).
3. Create a new Packaging Rule called Default Packaging with the following settings:
  Packaging: 0.25 pounds
  Criteria: Packaging Name = (blank)^‡
4. Add a new Shipping Cost Rule with the following settings:
  When Packaging Name = First Class, Use Rate From "USPS First Class" × 1.
5. Edit the default Shipping Cost Rule to use the rate from USPS Parcel Post.

^‡ Where (blank) is literally blank, not the word.

Finally we need to create one more shipping method that will override the UPS Ground display name and add packaging that weighs 0.25 pounds.

Create a shipping method called Standard Shipping (3-5 business days) based on the Package Rules provider.
1. Add a new Packaging Rule called Default Packaging with the following settings:
  Packaging: 0.25 pounds
  Criteria: Weight ≤ 70
  This will create packages with a maximum weight of 70 pounds including the packaging (which weighs 1/4 pound).
2. Edit the default Shipping Cost Rule to use the rate from UPS Ground.

That's it. Now place a test order and you will see 4 rate quotes:

No matter which rate your customer selects, the Shipping Rate Provider Suite will create a set of suggested packages for your shipping department showing exactly which items go in each package...even if they choose FREE Standard Shipping.

Shipment tracking widget for Outlook

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Tue, 23 Aug 2005 14:09:51 GMT

From The Daily Grind 693…Parcel Tracker 1.1 integrates FedEx and UPS parcel tracking with your Outlook calendar. Free.

Shipping Rate Provider Suite Freight Sample

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:43:30 GMT

This sample shows how to use the Shipping Rate Provider Suite for BVC5 to split an order between UPS and freight using the following rules:

If the product has a custom property named "Pallets" (the number of pallets required to ship the product) and the value of the property is greater than 0, then the cost of shipping the item is the number of pallets × the number of that item in the order × 250.
If the product weighs more than 150, then the shipping cost is the number of that item in the order × 200.
If the product weighs more than 70, then the shipping cost is the number of that item in the order × 100.
Otherwise, use UPS Ground and UPS Second Day Air to calculate the shipping cost for the item.

The list of shipping costs shown to the customer should look like this:

$x.xx - Standard
$x.xx - Express

Where Standard is UPS Ground combined with the freight costs and Express is UPS Second Dar Air combined with the freight costs.

Prerequisites

Shipping Rate Provider Suite 2.5
UPS Account

Steps

Watch the video

Create a new shipping method called UPS Ground using the UPS provider.
1. Select the Ground shipping type.
Create a new shipping method called UPS Second Day Air using the UPS provider.
1. Select the Second Day Air shipping type.
Create a new shipping method called Standard using the Package Rules provider.
1. Create a new packaging rule called Pallets with the following criteria^†:
  Item Custom Property "Pallets" > 0
  and Item Quantity = 1
2. Create a new packaging rule called Weight > 150 with the following criteria^‡:
  Packaging Name = (blank)
  and Item Weight > 150
3. Create a new packaging rule called Weight > 70 with the following criteria:
  Packaging Name = (blank)
  and Item Weight > 50
4. Create a new shipping cost rule:
  When Packaging Name = "Pallets", Cost = Item Custom Property "Number of pallets to ship" x 250.
5. Create a new shipping cost rule:
  When Packaging Name = "Weight > 150", Cost = Item Quantity x 200.
6. Create a new shipping cost rule:
  When Packaging Name = "Weight > 70", Cost = Item Quantity x 100.
7. Edit the default shipping cost rule:
  For all remaining packages, use rate from "UPS Ground" x 1.
Create a new shipping method called Express using the Package Rules provider with all the same packaging and shipping cost rules (you can export the Standard packaging and shipping cost rules and then import them into Express).
1. Edit the default shipping cost rule:
  For all remaining packages, use rate from "UPS Second Day Air" x 1.

^† Adding the criteria Item Quantity = 1 will force each item into a separate "package". This is exactly the same as selecting Ships Separately in the catalog.

^‡ Adding the criteria Packaging Number = (blank) where (blank) is literally nothing (not the word "blank"), will ensure that items are not repackaged.

US Postal Code Validator for BVC5

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 16:39:36 GMT

Shipping Rate Provider Plug-in is a free add-on that adds postal code support to BVC5. The plug-in includes almost 43,000 US postal codes. This article demonstrates one way of using that data by creating a US postal code validator.

Before you add the validator to your site, install the plug-in and load the US postal codes. Then save PostalCodeValidator.vb to the App_Code directory of your web site.

Imports BVSoftware.Bvc5.Core.Content

Imports StructuredSolutions.Bvc5.Shipping.PostalCodes

Namespace StructuredSolutions

    Public Class PostalCodeValidator

        Inherits Anthem.CustomValidator

        Private _countryFieldID As String = String.Empty

        Public Property CountryFieldID() As String

Get

                Return _countryFieldID

            End Get

            Set(ByVal value As String)

                _countryFieldID = value

            End Set

        End Property

        Private Shared USCountryBvin As String = Country.FindByISOCode("US").Bvin

        Protected Overrides Function OnServerValidate(ByVal value As String) As Boolean

            If String.IsNullOrEmpty(CountryFieldID) Then

                Throw New ArgumentNullException("CountryField")

            End If

            If String.IsNullOrEmpty(ControlToValidate) Then

                Throw New ArgumentNullException("ControlToValidate")

            End If

            UpdateAfterCallBack = True

            Dim countries As DropDownList = CType(Me.NamingContainer.FindControl(CountryFieldID), _

                DropDownList)

            If String.Compare(countries.SelectedValue, USCountryBvin, True) = 0 Then

                Dim test As PostalCode = PostalCode.FindByCode(countries.SelectedValue, value)

                If String.Compare(test.Code, value, True) <> 0 Then

                    Return False

                End If

            End If

            Return True

        End Function

    End Class

End Namespace

This will create a new custom web control called PostalCodeValidator that we can use on any web page within the site. PostalCodeValidator inherits most of its functionality from Anthem.CustomValidator, which is an updatable version of Microsoft's CustomValidator.

The real meat of the validator is in the OnServerValidate override. Here we determine if the postal code is from the US and if it is, then we verify that it exists in the postal code database. If it does not exist, then validation fails. This could easily be extended to include other countries and different validation methods. For example, you can check the format of the postal code using a regular expression.

Now that we have defined PostalCodeValidator, its time to use it on a web page. Open your checkout page with the postal code field (i.e. One Page Checkout\Checkout.aspx) and add this line to the top of the file:

<%@ Register TagPrefix="ss" Namespace="StructuredSolutions" %>

Now find your shipping postal code field, and insert this HTML:

<ss:PostalCodeValidator id="PostalCodeValidator" runat="server"

    ControlToValidate="ShippingpostalCodeField"

    CountryFieldID="ShippinglstCountry"

    Display="Dynamic"

    Text="&lt;br /&gt;Invalid Zip Code">

</ss:PostalCodeValidator>

Where ControlToValidate is the ID of the postal code field and CountryFieldID is the ID of the shipping country dropdown list.

Now when your page is validated, the PostalCodeValidator will verify that postal code is valid. However, when I was writing this article, I noticed that One Page Checkout does not validate the page before updating the shipping rates, so I made one more change to Checkout.aspx.vb. Find the ShippingpostalCodeField_TextChanged method and replace it with this one:

Protected Sub ShippingpostalCodeField_TextChanged(ByVal sender As Object, _

    ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles ShippingpostalCodeField.TextChanged

    Page.Validate()

    If Page.IsValid Then

        UpdateShipping()

    End If

End Sub

That's it.

Shipping Rate Provider Suite Free Ground Shipping Sample

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 19:02:05 GMT

This sample shows how to use the Shipping Rate Provider Suite for BVC5 to provide free ground shipping for a single product.

Prerequisites

Shipping Rate Provider Suite 2.5
UPS Account

Steps

Watch video

Create a new shipping method called Ground using the UPS provider:
1. Select the Ground shipping type.
Create a new shipping method called Everything Else using the UPS provider:
1. Select every other UPS shipping method you want to offer.
Create a new shipping method called UPS Ground using the Package Rules provider. This shipping method will calculate free shipping for one product (SKU = "DEV1") and use UPS Ground for all other products. Either way, the suggested packages will be configured to ship via UPS Ground.
1. Select UPS / Ground as the Suggested Service.
2. Create a new packaging rule called Free^†:
  Criteria: Total Item SKU Contains DEV1
3. Create a new shipping cost rule:
  When Packaging Name = "Free", Cost = 0.
4. Change the default shipping cost rule to use the rate from "Ground".

^† Change DEV1 to the SKU of your product or use any other criteria you want to select the free products.

Shipper 3 Gold Edition Installation Instructions

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:25:09 GMT

The Shipper 3 solution has 3 parts:

Shipper 3 Gold Edition, a Windows desktop application to manage orders.
Shipping Agent, a free, open source web service for your website that connects Shipper 3 Gold Edition with your ecommerce store.
ShipRush, a Windows desktop application to print shipping labels and postage.

Install ShipRush

After placing your order for a ShipRush Standalone license, you will receive a ShipRush Serial Number within 2 days. During the ShipRush installation, you will be prompted for the serial number.

Download the ShipRush installer for the type of label you want to print.
Run the installer to install ShipRush on your computer.
After installing ShipRush, the installer should run a configuration process to finish the setup. If the configuration process does not start automatically, start ShipRush to make sure it is configured correctly.
Repeat for each type of label you want to print.

Install Shipping Agent

Download the Shipping Agent installer for your ecommerce platform. If you don't have a compatible ecommerce website, ShippingAgentMock.exe contains the files for a Mock Shipping Agent you can use for testing. The mock agent works with any .NET 2.0 web site.
Run the installer to extract the Shipping Agent files.
Copy the extracted Shipping Agent files to your website as described in the readme.txt file (one of the extracted files).

Install Shipper 3 Gold Edition

When you run Shipper 3 the first time, you will be prompted to register the program. To register the program, you will need your Shipper 3 Gold Edition serial number and the corresponding order number. The serial number is shown in the order confirmation email and in the online order details.

Download Shipper 3.
Unzip the download.
Run Setup.exe to to install Shipper 3 on your desktop computer.
Start Shipper 3.
When the Register or Try window appears , click on the Register button.
When the Registration window appears , fill out the registration information and then click on the Register button.
When the Activation window appears , click on the Activate Online Now button.

Please see the Getting Started document next.

How to make ASP.NET HTML identical in Internet Explorer and FireFox

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sun, 12 Jun 2005 19:05:33 GMT

ASP.NET server tags such as <asp:Panel> are rendered differently by the server depending on the capabilities of the browser. ASP.NET categorizes browsers as uplevel or downlevel. ASP.NET will render the <asp:Panel> tag as an HTML <div> tag on uplevel browsers and as a <table> tag on downlevel browsers.

As you can imagine, this can make CSS jockies very frustrated.

ASP.NET uses the <browserCaps> section of the machine.config or web.config file to determine if a browser is uplevel or downlevel. Every browser identifies itself with a request header that looks like this:

User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; MS Web Services Client Protocol 1.1.4322.2032)

ASP.NET matches the header using a regular expression to an entry in <browserCaps> to determine the browser capabilities. Unfortunately, the <browserCaps> that ships with ASP.NET 1.1 does not include entries for many modern and very capable browsers including FireFox and Safari. Luckily, clever people have created new <browserCaps> entries that you can add to your web.config file. These new <browserCaps> entires will cause ASP.NET to render the server controls in exactly the same way for Internet Explorer, FireFox and Safari.

Use the links below to switch between a version of a test page rendered with the new <browserCaps> and without the new <browserCaps>. Use the View Source option of your browser to examine the HTML that is generated. Notice that with the new <browserCaps>, the <asp:Panel> is rendered as a <div> in Internet Explorer, FireFox, and Safari. Without the new <browserCaps>, the <asp:Panel> is rendered as a <table> in FireFox and Safari.

with <BrowserCaps> without <BrowserCaps>.

Shipping Rate Provider Suite Customer Pickup Sample

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 17:50:29 GMT

This sample shows how to use the Shipping Rate Provider Suite for BVC5 to offer a customer pickup shipping method if the delivery distance is less than 10 miles.

Prerequisites

Shipping Rate Provider Suite 2.5
Postal Code Support (optional part of the Shipping Rate Provider Suite)
Postal code coordinates for the store and target area (the Shipping Rate Provider Suite includes coordinates for US Zip Codes)

Steps

Watch the video

Create a new shipping method called Customer Pickup using the Package Rules shipping provider:
- Create a new Shipping Cost Rule^†:
  When Distance in Miles > -1 and Distance in Miles < 10, Cost = 0.
- Edit the default rule so that Cost = Hide This Method.

^† If either postal code coordinates are missing, Distance in Miles will return -1. That is why the rule includes a check that the distance is > -1.

Shipping Rate Provider Suite Wine Cellar Sample

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:26:54 GMT

This example shows how to use the Shipping Rate Provider Suite to package items into cases using the followng rules:

The merchant offers two UPS shipping services: Ground and Second Day Air.
Wine is packaged into cases of 6 bottles. The packaging weighs 1 pound.
Accessories are shipped separately from the wine.

The final implementation looks like this:

Divide items into wine and accessories (non-wine).
Package the wine into cases.
Retreive the rates for the wine cases and accessories.

Prerequisites

Shipping Rate Provider Suite 2.5
UPS Account

Steps

Watch the video

First we will create the two carrier quotes:

UPS Ground
UPS Second Day Air

Create a shipping method called UPS Ground using the UPS provider.
1. Select Ground shipping.
Create a shipping method called UPS Second Day Air using the UPS provider.
1. Select Second Day Air.

Next we create the two shipping methods that will package wine into cases: one for UPS Ground and one for UPS Second Day Air.

Create a shipping method called Ground using the Package Rules provider.
1. Select UPS Ground as the Suggested Service.
2. Add a new packaging rule called Wine:
  Packaging: 1 pound
  Criteria: Total Item Product Type Contains Wine and Total Item Quantity ≤ 6.
3. Change the default shipping cost rule to use UPS Ground.
Create a shipping method called Second Day Air using the Package Rules provider.
1. Select UPS Second Day Air as the Suggested Service.
2. Add a new packaging rule called Wine:
  Packaging: 1 pound
  Criteria: Total Item Product Type Contains Wine and Total Item Quantity ≤ 6.
3. Change the default shipping cost rule to use UPS Second Day Air.

Shipper and Shipper Service 1.1 Released

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 05:34:20 GMT

Shipper and Shipper Service 1.1 are now available. These are free upgrades for all Shipper and Shipper Service 1.0 for StoreFront license owners. Existing 1.0 license files will continue to work with these new releases.

Shipper 1.1: Automate batch shipment processing with UPS WorldShip®.

Version 1.1.0 | download | purchase | online help | release notes
Shipper Service 1.1 for BVC2004: Connect Shipper with your BVC2004 online store. Requires BVC2004.5 or higher.

Version 1.1.0 | download | purchase | online help | release notes
Shipper Service 1.1 for StoreFront: Connect Shipper with your StoreFront 6 online store. Requires StoreFront 6.5 or higher.

Version 1.1.0 | download | purchase | online help | release notes

Shipper 3 Platinum Edition Installation Instructions

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:25:19 GMT

The Shipper 3 solution has 3 parts:

Shipper 3 Platinum Edition, a Windows desktop application to manage orders.
Shipping Agent, a free, open source web service for your website that connects Shipper 3 Platinum Edition with your ecommerce store.
ShipRush, a Windows desktop application that connects Shipper 3 Platinum Edition with DHL, Endicia, FedEx, UPS, and USPS.

Install ShipRush

After placing your order for Shipper 3 Platinum Edition, you will receive one ShipRush Serial Number and one ShipRush License Key via email within 2 days. During the ShipRush installation, you will be prompted for a ShipRush Serial Number. After installing Shipper 3, you will enter the ShipRush License Key as shown in the Getting Started document.

Download the ShipRush installer for type of label you want to print.
Run the installer to install both the ShipRush engine (used by Shipper 3 Platinum Edition) and the ShipRush UI (used to set defaults, create one-off labels, etc) on your computer.
After installing ShipRush, the installer should run a configuration process to finish the setup. If the configuration process does not start automatically, start ShipRush to make sure it is configured correctly.
Repeat for each type of label you want to print.

Install the Shipping Agents

Download the Shipping Agent installer for your ecommerce platform. If you don't have a compatible ecommerce website, ShippingAgentMock.exe contains the files for a Mock Shipping Agent that you can use for testing. The mock agent works with any .NET 2.0 web site.
Run the installer to extract the Shipping Agent files.
Copy the extracted Shipping Agent files to your website as described in the readme.txt file (one of the extracted files).

Install Shipper 3 Platinum Edition

When you run Shipper 3 the first time, you will be prompted to register the program. To register the program, you will need your Shipper 3 Platinum Edition serial number and the corresponding order number. The serial number is shown in the order confirmation email and in the online order details.

Download Shipper 3.
Unzip the download.
Run Setup.exe to to install Shipper 3 on your desktop computer.
Start Shipper 3.
When the Register or Try window appears , click on the Register button.
When the Registration window appears , fill out the registration information and then click on the Register button.

Please see the Getting Started document next.

Navigator Control 1.3.2

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sat, 13 May 2006 23:01:54 GMT

Version 1.3.2 of the Navigator Control is now available. This is a free update for all current owners.

FIXED: Custom catalogs are not selected in menu.
CHANGE: Improved samples (TextNavigator1.ascx, etc.)
NEW: Two new samples to demonstrate plain HTML and horizontal display.
CHANGE: Caching is now off by default so new categories appear automatically.
FIXED: Refined category are not selected in menu.
FIXED: Null reference exceptions if session data is dropped.
FIXED: Comments in control file (TextNavigator1.ascx, etc.) cause an error.

download | purchase | help | release notes

SignIn Control for StoreFront Version 1.3.1

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Wed, 02 Mar 2005 22:39:58 GMT

Version 1.3.1 of the SignIn Control is now available. This is a free update for all current owners.

NEW: RememberMeTimeout and RememberCartTimeout properties let you control how long the cart contents and login information are stored on the computer.
FIXED: Page will not load if a licensing error occurs.
FIXED: Cart contents are not store by FireFox.
FIXED: Property title reverts to generic title when property is saved.
FIXED: Cart contents are lost if an error occurs during checkout.
FIXED: Cart contents are restored after checkout if checkout on different domain.
FIXED: Properties are not shown in alphabetical order.
CHANGE: Removed unused Template attributes from sample controls. Template attributes were replaced by configuration values in version 1.3.0.

download | purchase | help | release notes

SignIn Control for StoreFront Version 1.3.2

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 13:58:21 GMT

Version 1.3.2 of the SignIn Control is now available. This is a free update for all current owners.

FIXED: Cart items with attributes are not restored correctly.

download | purchase | help | release notes

Update: Shipper Service Version 1.1.1

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 05:33:06 GMT

Shipper Service for BVC2004 and Shipper Service for StoreFront Version 1.1.1 are now available. These maintenance releases include the following changes:

FIXED: Shipping method names appear unformatted. [BVC2004]
FIXED: Can not update store's main ship-from address in a brand new store. [BVC2004]
FIXED: "Invalid request token" error during send/receive if site is hosted on web farm.
FIXED: FormatException when retrieving shipments that include items with missing length, width or height. [StoreFront]

Shipper Service for BVC2004 | download | purchase | online help | release notes
Shipper Service for StoreFront | download | purchase | online help | release notes

Preliminary Documentation for next Shipper Service

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 05:36:39 GMT

The next release of Shipper Service will have some great new features:

Support for drop shipments
Built-in user authentication and authorization
Post-process shipment data using XSLT
Support for BVC 2004 and StoreFront
Web page to edit Shipper Service configuration

The preliminary documentation is here.

Shipping Cost Calculator Version 1.3.1 Released

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 05:33:41 GMT

Shipping Cost Calculator for BVC2004 version 1.3.1 is now available. This is a free update for all current license owners.

FIXED: Rates are not updated when quantities are changed if all items are weightless.

download | purchase | help | release notes

SignIn Control for StoreFront Version 1.3.3

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Sun, 06 Mar 2005 06:10:41 GMT

Version 1.3.3 of the SignIn Control is now available. This is a free update for all current owners.

NEW: Gift wrap selections are now restored.
CHANGE: Anonymous users are not allowed to load admin.aspx (the configuration page).

download | purchase | help | release notes

Shipper Service for BVC2004 1.1 RC3

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 17:51:14 GMT

Version 1.1.0.2 (RC3) of Shipper Service for BVC2004 is now available. This release candidate expires on March 31, 2005.

NEW: New XSLT stylesheets to filter APO, FPO, and PO Box addresses.
FIXED: Login page has xhtml validation errors.
FIXED: Send/Receive fails (maximum request length exceeded) with 1500+ shipments.
FIXED: Some elements on configuration page overlap when displayed in FireFox.
FIXED: Problem orders and orders on hold are treating and pending shipments.
FIXED: BVC2004 Unshipped orders shows a different list than Shipper.

download | purchase | help | release notes

Shipping Cost Calculator for BVC2004 1.2.1

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 05:35:37 GMT

Shipping Cost Calculator version 1.2.1 is now available:

FIXED: Calculated rates are occasionally incorrect when cart.aspx is first displayed.
FIXED: ZIP+4 invalid when GeoMonster service is used.
FIXED: Licensing error prevents cart.aspx from being displayed.
FIXED: Proposed address (postal code and region) is not carried through to checkout.

download | help | release notes

Shipper Service for StoreFront 1.1 RC3

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 17:45:34 GMT

Version 1.1.0.2 (RC3) of Shipper Service for StoreFront is now available. This release candidate expires on March 31, 2005.

NEW: New XSLT stylesheets to filter APO, FPO, and PO Box addresses.
FIXED: Send/Receive fails with timeout if 1500+ shipments on MS Access.
FIXED: Login page has xhtml validation errors.
FIXED: Send/Receive fails (maximum request length exceeded) with 1500+ shipments.
FIXED: Some elements on configuration page overlap when displayed in FireFox.

download | purchase | help | release notes

Shipper 1.1 RC4

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 02:51:31 GMT

Shipper 1.1 RC4 (1.1.0.3) is now available.

CHANGE: Updated integrated help to reflect Shipper 1.1 changes.
NEW: Check UPS WorldShip import and export configuration during startup.
FIXED: Online status out-of-sync with configuration at startup.
FIXED: First send/receive is delayed when started in online mode.
FIXED: Error report hidden behind Shipper window.
FIXED: Auto processing options confusing.
FIXED: Underlying connection closed if proxy server changed.
FIXED: Missing word on Shipper Store Options form.
FIXED: Toggling Show Unpaid changes select store.

download | help | release notes

Shipper Service for BVC2004 1.1.2 Maintenance Release

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 05:32:24 GMT

Shipper Service for BVC2004 Version 1.1.2 is now available. This maintenance release includes the following changes:

FIXED: Incomplete list of shipping methods displayed in Quick Ship!.
FIXED: Tracking number is not converted to a link for known shipping methods.

download | purchase | online help | release notes

Shipper Service for StoreFront 1.1.2 Maintenance Release

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 19:15:51 GMT

Shipper Service for StoreFront Version 1.1.2 is now available. This maintenance release includes the following changes:

FIXED: Incomplete list of shipping methods displayed in Quick Ship!
FIXED: Shipments not updated completely when using MS Access as underlying StoreFront database.

download | purchase | online help | release notes

Shipping Cost Calculator 1.3.0 Released

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 05:34:38 GMT

Shipping Cost Calculator version 1.3.0 is now available:

CHANGE: Updated for BVC 2004.6 release.
CHANGE: Shipping Cost Calculator section of cart.aspx is hidden if there are no shippable items. Previously displayed a message.
FIXED: Proposed address passed to checkout is used by customers. BVC2004.6 allows passing a reduced address (postal code, region and country) which must be completed for checkout.
FIXED: Region list shows regions for web site country even if web site country is not in the list of supported countries.

download | help | release notes

Shipper 1.1 RC3

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 21:19:30 GMT

Shipper 1.1 RC3 (1.1.0.2) is now available.

CHANGED: Removed check for update.
CHANGED: Shipment groups expanded by default.
FIXED: Stores appear in random order.
FIXED: Shipment list loses focus.
FIXED: Shipments reset after each send/receive.
FIXED: Select store changed when print format changed.
FIXED: Print format change is sometimes lost.

download | help | release notes

Update: Shipper 1.1.0.6

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 05:33:23 GMT

Shipper 1.1.0.6 is now available. This maintenance release includes the following changes:

CHANGE: Quick Ship! added to Edit menu.
FIXED: Multiple packages in one UPS WorldShip® shipment are incorrectly treated as duplicates.

Checkout has too many...I mean...too few steps!

amiller@structured-solutions.net (Andy Miller) — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 05:35:56 GMT

Every few weeks someone at BV Forums or StoreFront Forums complains that the checkout process has too many steps...or the steps are in the wrong order...or the wrong questions are combined...or the text is the wrong color...

Well you get the idea. They are passionate. They are worried. I just don't get it.

I can't decide if I don't get it because it is an aesthetic issue or a control issue. Joel Spolsky spoke at Amazon DevCon today. According to the blogger that took notes, he made a case that it is a control issue...

"Learned Helplessness, when bad things happen to you that are out of your control, form of depression. Give people ways to exert control over their environment. Napkins to fold, windows to wash. Control over environment. This is what is attractive about being a programmer. Compiler does exactly what you say.

Abercrombie checkout page, 4 steps, in the order they designed. You are not in control. Vs. Amazon's page, more info, user is in control of the process. Change address, billing, or just place order."

I think he appreciates the Amazon way. But let's be clear here...he is talking about giving the customer control of the checkout...not the site designer. The best solution from the vendor is one that would let the customer move through the checkout in big or little steps, giving your customer something to control.

My personal experience is that I just don't care. As evidence of my indifference, I can not describe from memory the checkout process of any web site I have ever purchased from. It just does not stick, because I just don't care what the pages look like or what order they appear in. By the time I am checking out, I have already decided to make the purchase. I just move through the page(s) as they are presented...my mind is already focused on what I'm going to do when the thing arrives.

Introduction to Master Pages

talloakDocs@talloaksoftware.com (Documentation Author) — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 01:58:07 GMT

Introduction
Step 1: Changing Content
Step 2: Site Layout
Step 3: Default Content
Step 4: Creating Content
Frequent Questions
Print this Guide
A quick look around this web site template

Every page on this web site has certain common elements; the top and bottom and sides of each web page are the same. This is done with web templates, or technology we call Master Pages.

Think of a Master Page as a wrapper around your web site content. There is a technical description of Master Pages on our website, but here are the basics.

Master Pages..

..are simply special text files in the UserControls folder
..control the layout of your entire website
..contain (for the most part) plain HTML
..require someone familiar with HTML and web design to set them up
..are edited using any text editor (e.g. Notepad), not by the CMS

There are three main Master Page files that are nested one inside the other as follows:

MasterBoxed.ascx is the outside box around your web site. By default it draws a box with a shadow around the web site. It also defines the width of your web site.
MasterTB.ascx is drawn inside MasterBoxed.ascx and defines the top and bottom (hence TB) sections of the site layout.
MasterLRTB.ascx is drawn inside MasterTB.ascx and defines the left and right sides (if any) of the web site and leaves a space for the general content.

You can see a picture that may explain this better on our web site. A lot can be written about Master Pages, but hopefully this overview will get you (or your web designer) started.

Note: You don't have to modify the Master Pages.

You could just modify the default content on this web site. That's Step 3..

Search results for html

Shipper 3 Documentation

Shipper 3.8 Release

Zuckerberg is no Ballmer

I wish I could think of bon mots like this

FogBugz and SnagIt Mashup

Downloads

License File Software

Shipper Products

BV Commerce Components

StoreFront Components

Trial Software

Obsolete Software

Free Downloads

Shipper 1.4 Compatible with UPS WorldShip 10

Shipper 3.8 Help Updated

Links

Jakob Nielsen: Amazon No Longer the Role Model for E-Commerce Design

Shipper 3.5 Release

Breaking Changes

1. Shipping Agent for AbleCommerce and Shipping Agent for BV Commerce authentication

2. Automatic Download Removed

3. ShipRush 7 Required

Froogle Feed Support for New Product Upload Requirements

So what are USPS Shipping and FedEx Shipping?

Moving VIEWSTATE to the bottom of the page redux

MoveViewStateModule.vb

MoveViewStateModule.cs

MoveViewStateFilter.vb

MoveViewStateFilter.cs

web.config

Assemblies

Project Files

Is Test Driven Development Effective

Froogle Feed 1.6 Released

Shipper 1.4.8 RTW

Shipper 3.0 Release Candidate 3

Changes in RC3

Known Issues

Installation

Getting Started

Q&A

Stuff Might Change...If you want it to...

Feedback

Shipper 3.9 Sneek Peek

Testing Google Checkout in BVC5

ANN: SignIn Control Maintenance Release 1.3.7

Amazon's "One-Click" Patent Rejected

CSO List of Top 5 Data Breaches of 2005

SpamBayes failed me but Cloudmark is working great

SignIn Control Captures Slow Tail

FedEx Shipping Beta

FogBugz SnagIt Video

YUI AutoComplete + Anthem = AutoSearch

Checking that cookies are enabled in ASP.NET

ANN: Shipper Service for StoreFront Maintenance Release 1.1.5

Shipper 3.8 Beta Supports UPS WorldShip

Shipper 3.5 Beta

Shipper 3.6 Release

Shipping Agent for Magento authentication

Excellent law article regarding online pricing errors

Sending persistent cookies in a WebRequest

Web Development Tools

Shipper 1.4 Now Available

New Carrier Support

New Online Store Support

User Interface Enhancements

Release Notes

USPS Shipping Screencasts

SignIn Control for StoreFront 7 is now available

Shipper 3 Trial Installation Instructions

Configuring StoreFront to use PayPal Express Checkout on a development box

ANN: SignIn Control Maintenance Release for StoreFront SP8

Compare Shipper Features

Custom Control to Wrap Forms on an ASP.NET Page

Notes

ANN: Shipping Cost Calculator Maintenance Release 1.3.2

SignIn Control for StoreFront Version 1.3.5

Advanced Sorting with the Navigator Control

ANN: Shipper Service 1.2.0 Final Release