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The Credit Card Gateway for organisations who don’t use Credit Card so much.

Problem:

  • Small organisation takes credit card transactions using a manual process.
  • Many of these transactions are Diners and Amex.
  • Paypal Website Payments Standard only takes Visa and Mastercard.

Options:

  • Get a Internet Merchant Account with bank, a gateway provider and process as required.  Cons: Expensive, Two suppliers, two sets of fees before getting your cut.  Pros: Fast, Instant, Dont have to hold onto cc details.  Can take Amex and Diners.
  • Find a much cheaper MOTO (Mail order Telephone order) or CNP (card not present) merchant account solution with a bank and either:
    • get an SSL cert, allow people to provide details online, but process them manually.
    • Use a slightly more expensive man in the middle to do the same thing (securely get your cc details via a nice nice api).  Still cheaper than a Internet Merchant account, no per transaction fee or cut.
    • Pros: Validate transactions before you process.  Cheaper, esp to take Amex and Diners.  Cons: Still have to automate.
  • Find an alternate gateway/merchant/secure page supplier that takes Amex and Diners.  This page provides a comparison on some services but it is a little dated.
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Comparison of Some Online Services

Service Accepts AMEX & Diners Setup Fee Annual Fee Transaction Fee Chargebacks Must be registered user of their site in order to pay Needs seperate gateway Redirect to their SSL page Other Features
Moneybookers y $0 $0 8% Absorbed by them! yes no y  
WorldDirect (Special Offer) y $0
Save $200		 $430 3.95%, normally 4.5% 

Settlement: Settlement in AUD for a AU bank account is AUD 7.00.  Min Settlement is $230

 $30 fee incurred by you per chargeback! no no y Free Internet Terminal to make one off transactions taken via fax, post worth $140.
Free Fraud protection worth 16c per transaction.
eWAY yes but merchant accounts need to be set up individually.  Diners $99, AMEX special offer $50 $0 $199 first year
$349 subsequent years		 .50c ??? no yes optional
offer xml interface if you have ssl cert ($19 per yr)		 Many others
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Download Vista 32 and 64 bit

So did your OEM vista didn’t come with Vista install media?  Never fear, you can obtain media for free from these sources.

Some claim that if you use your OEM license (say sticker off the bottom of your laptop with Vista Ult 32bit) to do an install, it might not accept, but its worth trying.  The main benefit will be to do a repair install, something you can’t do when you only have OEM image CD’s.

There are whispers that if you have Vista Ultimate 32bit license, you can install 64bit version with the same key but on retail media, not if you have OEM license.

References:

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/05/08/windows-vista-free-direct-download-link/

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/12/22/64-bit-x64-windows-vista-official-direct-download-links/

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/05/10/how-to-make-vista-bootable-dvd-with-wim-downloaded-files/

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Get Your Command Line Groove On

Commonly forgotten Windows DOS prompt shortcuts

Key What it Does
F1 Fills in the letter from last command you entered, one letter at a time.  Useful for fixing a typo on a command you just entered. 

For example, if I enter cd "My Docements" which wont work, I can then press F1 10 times (or hold it down) to get cd "My Doc then press the u to correct the typo.  Then hold F1 to get the remaining characters of the last command.  cd "My Documents"
F2 Prompts the user for a letter and fills in the last command up to the letter you entered.  This saves  you holding down the F1 key to get to the dodgy letter.

Using the last example again, if I press F2 then press e, the line buffer is filled to cd "My Doc.  You can then enter u and then press F2 followed by " to get to the rest of the entry.  cd "My Documents"
F3 Fill last command from current cursor position to the end of the line.

So taking from the previous example, after you enter u, you can press the F3 key to fill in the remainder of the line.
F4 Delete forwards up to a specified character. 
With the cursor positioned at the beginning of the line cd "My Documents", pressing F4 then u, will delete up the first few characters, leaving you with a line uments"
F5 Go back through history. Equivalent to the up arrow
F6 ????  CTRL+Z
F7 Display the command history, use the cursor keys to navigate and hit enter to reuse the relevant command.
F8 Go back in history
F9 Re-issue a previous command.  Prompts for the command number (from the list that appears when you press F7)

 

References (and some other tips)

http://www.labnol.org/software/tutorials/useful-keyboard-shortcuts-for-the-dos-command-prompt-in-windows/2629/

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Hard Links, Soft Links (Junctions) and Symbolic Links in Vista

Ok, so mklink is now my favourite Vista command line tool.  Well not really, but I’m glad Vista comes with a tool out of the box that allows you to create symlinks.  This includes hard links (links to other things on the same partition), soft links or junctions to anywhere and symbolic links (reparse points) that do the same job but in a different fassion.

References:

http://wesnerm.blogs.com/net_undocumented/2006/10/symbolic_links_.html

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/05/22/create-symbolic-links-hard-links-and-directory-junctions-in-vista-with-mklink/

http://windowsconnected.com/blogs/joshs_blog/archive/2006/09/28/Windows-Vista-Junction-Points.aspx

http://www.svrops.com/svrops/articles/jpoints.htm

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Hibernate Synchroniser

This article on OnJava.com demonstrates the use of the HibernateSynchroniser plugin for Eclipse that apparently keeps hbm mappings in line with Java code. 

 The page is a bit old but references Eclipse 3.2, so hopefully the plugin is still useful.

 I’ve been using the JBoss Hibernate Tools which just entered 3.2 GA and it seems to be making leaps and bounds.  The only crux is that you need to do a lot of preconfig work, it may be harder to introduce into an already established project that does its hibernate config programmatically.

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One to One Mappings in Hibernate

Simple One to One using assigned identifiers (meaning you hae to set the id yourself) http://www.xylax.net/hibernate/onetoone.html

Using Formula’s in hibernate mappings and some other neat tricks round computed fields http://www.onjava.com/lpt/a/6092

Hibernates Own Reference Documentation
http://www.hibernate.org/hib_docs/v3/reference/en/html_single/#mapping-declaration-onetoone

… Chapter 7 on associations gives some examples.  http://www.hibernate.org/hib_docs/reference/en/html/associations.html

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Quick guide to router config

>enable (en)  go from user to privelaged mode

#configure terminal (conf t)  Enter configuration mode

(config)# hostname YourCustomName Put a hostname on the router

(config)# enable secret pass Enable a password on the router when entering privelage mode.  Stored in MD5

(config)# enable password pass Seldom used password enablement as above but stored in plain text.

(config)# line vty 0 4   Configure 5 virtual telephony ports (telnet) ports
(config-line)# password cisco
(config-line)# login  Set password for telnet.  Forgetting the login command following the password will not make the command go through

(config)#line con 0   Enter the console config
(config-line)# password cisco   Set the password for the console
(config-line)# login 

#show run Show running config  (Show running-config)
#copy run start  Copy ram config to NVram
#show start  Show start
>show flash  Show config in flash

(config)# inteface fastethernet 0/0 or int fa0/0  Enter interface config mode
(config-if)# ip address 192.168.10.1 255.255.255.0  Set the ip and subnet for that address
(config-if)# no shutdown  Bring the interface up (shutdown would take it down)
(config-if)# description Your friendly description of the router

#show protocols  Show the state of the router interfaces
#show ip interface brief  Checks the state of the router interfaces

When using the show commands, use space to page down, enter to line down and any other key to exit the more prompt

#erase start  Erase nvram; Refresh the router to the default state
#reload    Restart the router, using config from new state

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Trace Route

Send pings to successive routers, along the path to the destination.

 Sends 3 packets to each destination