5 Effective Ways to Keep Your Files Under Control

Your computer is a digital jungle. It’s so easy to take a clean and tidy design workplace and turn it into a huge mess. There are too many files, and they’re all over the place. Design files you need become near impossible to find. So how do you keep your files from getting out of control? Well, you’re in luck, because there’s 5 effective ways to keep your files under control.

(Image by Paul Goyette)
But first: why do our computer and design files get out of control so easily? The same reason so many people have messy rooms and disorganized closets and physical work spaces. Except multiply by 100, since it’s so easy to create computer design files that don’t take up physical space.
Luckily, it’s not that hard to keep your computer and design files under control. Add a pinch of common sense, mix with a dash of self discipline, and repeat, repeat, repeat. Don’t worry – it sounds more work than it is. Just equate it to brushing your teeth: once you get into the habit of doing these things, you won’t even notice it. You’ll just naturally keep your computer and design files under control.
Alright, without further ado, here are the 5 effective ways to keep your files under control.

1. Ruthlessly Delete Old and Unnecessary Files

(Image by Mixy Lorenzo)
This one might seem forehead-slapping obvious, but sometimes the most common sense steps are overlooked. Forget any productivity software, and file streamlining workflows, and any other pat-on-the-back productivity nonsense: simply delete old and unnecessary files.
It’s the same as cleaning your room or organizing your physical files. You go through your stuff, and when looking at an item, you decide: is this relevant to something important? If not, you ruthlessly throw it away. That’s how you stay organized: by minimizing the number of stuff you have. No tricks or secrets.
This method is no different when it comes to your computer design files. When going through your files, decide if each one is still relevant to something important. If it isn’t, ruthlessly delete it – you won’t need it again, and it’s just cluttering up your digital work place. Usually these files are old project files such as earlier drafts of graphics and designs and outdated website files.
That’s nice and all, but when should you ruthlessly delete old and unnecessary files? After all, practically everyone hates cleaning their room.
Well, just like the way you can minimize having to schedule cleaning your room is by taking care of an object as soon as you encounter it, so too should you decide if you need to delete a file when you encounter it. Which leads us to #2…

2. Take Immediate Action on Files You Encounter

(Image by John Britton)
The best way to avoid having to schedule sorting and cleaning of your computer design files is to not have it be necessary. Each time you encounter a file, take immediate action on it.
But you’re no doubt a busy dude or gal. You’ve got things to do, places to be. You can’t drop everything you’re doing and take care of each file you encounter. So how do you decide when to take action? Use the 5-minute rule: if taking immediate action on the file will take 5 minutes or less, take care of it as soon as you encounter it.
Sound familiar? It’s because this is “influenced” by David Allen’s popular book GTD: Getting Things Done. In it, he says you can avoid accumulating a long to-do list by immediately taking care of a task you encounter as long as it’ll take no more than minutes.
This applies to your computer design files as well:

• Found a half-finished logo? Wrap it up and send it off.
• Almost done with a piece of code? Finish it.
• Have a group of files you’re not sure you need anymore? Go through them, decide, and delete if necessary.

So #1 and #2 helps to keep your files under control. But there’s another essential element, which is…

3. Have as Few Folders as Possible

(Image by Steve Ryan)
Create only a few folders for your type of work, and be as general with the category as possible. Instead of getting niche with countless folders being broken down (such as ‘vectors‘ or ‘photoshop’ or whatever), just have things like ‘logos’ and ‘websites’. Or you can have folders for each project, and any type of file that’s related to it goes in there.
Why do this? Two reasons:

1. No indecision paralysis: is the file a logo, website stuff, or part of a project? Just throw it in the respective folder and be done with it.
2. Anti-too-many-files filter: when you see the folder filling up with too many files, you’ll be more inclined to delete old and unnecessary ones. Similar to seeing too much stuff in your room, rather than hiding it in drawers and other rooms.

Avoid getting too specific with folder names and categories. The more specific you name a folder, the more categories you’ll have. And with more categories, you’ll have to decide where the new file goes. Chances are it won’t neatly fit into just one of them, so you’ll arbitrarily pick one. Then when it’s time to organize more files, you’ll think back to which category you choose with a similar file last time. Not to mention not clearly knowing which category each file belongs too.
Why not just use some tagging system? Then you can do away with folders altogether, right? While in theory this should work, in reality it’ll encourage you to create and keep way too many files.
Here’s what will happen:

1. You tag your initial files, feeling good that you’ll be able to easily find them later by searching via tags.
2. You become liberal with tags by creating too many tags that are too specific – this is due to indecision paralysis, since you couldn’t choose between two tags and decided to create a new one specifically for that one file.
3. You end up having too many tags which become overwhelming to find stuff with.
4. What’s worse is since you didn’t feel the need to keep your file count low, you now have more files than if they were constantly visible in a general folder you looked in.

4. Ditch Auto-Organizing Features

(Image by Mark Sebastian)
Auto-organizing features (think iTunes’ auto-rename-and-sort feature but applied to all files) are the nemesis to keeping files under control. They encourage liberal file creation and saving. While it seems fine at first, the more files you have, the less you’ll know where everything is.
Why not just delete files when they’re old or unnecessary? The auto-organizing feature will encourage you to not delete. Sort of like Gmail’s never-delete-just-search feature. But unlike email, where you only have one type of content (text) and thus easy to search, your files are hard to search this way. There’s no simple way to search inside the content, especially for visual and audio files. So the only thing you’ll have to work with is filenames and maybe some meta description tagged onto it. That’s a recipe for file overload.
By not using any auto-organizing features, you’ll be accountable for every file you create. You’ll see it and pay attention to it at least once, so you’ll be more conscious of each file on your computer. This way, you’ll get a better feel for when your files are getting out control – and when you need to ruthlessly delete.

5. Consolidate Files When Possible

(Image by Aldo Gonzalez)
This is a simple one. If you can somehow consolidate two or more files into one, then you’ll naturally have less files. And less files equals less clutter.
The other benefit of consolidating files is it becomes easier to find what you’re looking for. Your files become more organized. How? You’ll naturally have relevant content all in one file, so no need to hunt multiple files that pertain to the same project.
How do you go about consolidating your files?

• For text, simply copy/paste related content from multiple files into one main text file.
• For visual designs, you can copy/paste different elements and variations into one main graphic file.

Every major and minor graphics app supports layers and the labeling and grouping of them, so take advantage of that. It can be variations of a logo, or multiple aspects of a bigger design – all in one graphics file.
Granted, not every type of file or content can be consolidated. Code, for example. So that’s why the above is titled “when possible” – do the best you can, and any amount that helps to reduce the number of files is a net gain.

Effectively Keep Your Files Under Control

Hopefully these 5 ways weren’t just some productivity porn: things to read to avoid doing actual work that gets you desired results in your life. No, these were written with the intention to be actionable things you can start applying now to keep your computer and design files from getting out of control.
No one actively wants to organize and manage their computer and design files. So these 5 ways will help you to form habits that’ll avoid needing to do that. And as with any habits, the most important thing is to just start doing them.
To recap, here are the 5 effective ways to keep your files under control:

1. Ruthlessly delete old and unnecessary files
2. Take immediate action on files you encounter
3. Have as few folders as possible
4. Ditch auto-organizing features
5. Consolidate files when possible

Your turn: what other ways have helped you to effectively keep your computer and design files under control?

Gmail Advanced Search – Ultimate Guide

One of the main reason why most of us love Gmail is because of its generous offering in terms of storage space. With more than 7Gb (and counting) free mail storage space, there’s really no need to delete your emails and still maintaining a far distance from blowing it up.
Not deleting emails leads us to next potential problem – messy and unsorted inbox. Good news is, Gmail has a easy workaround. In short, not only you get to keep all emails, they can also be organized, sorted and retrieved easily – all with the use of Labels.

Today we are going to talk about searching and retrieving your mails. The simple "Search Mail" function right beside Gmail logo actually does more than we imagined. In this post, we’ll introduce you the useful Gmail search operators as well as examples on how you can search for almost any type of mails easily via the search text field.
Full list after jump.

Operators

Here’s a list of Gmail operators you can take advantage of when you search via the search box in your Gmail. Examples of usage is also provided.

"" (quotes):

Format: "keyword"
Example: "meeting agenda"
(Return only emails with the exact quoted keyword(s).)

subject:

Format: subject:keyword
Example: subject:Google Alert
(Return emails with keyword(s) in titles.)

from:

Format: from:<name>
Example: from:hongkiat
(Return emails received from a specific user, but not the email address.)
Format: from:<email@address.com>
Example: from:hongkiat@email.com
(Return emails received from a specific email address.)

to:

Format: to:<name>
Example: to:hongkiat
(Return emails sent to a specific user, but not the email address.)
Format: to:<email@address.com>
Example: to:hongkiat@email.com
(Return emails sent to a specific email address.)

in:

Format: in:<label name/inbox/trash/spam/anywhere>
Example: in:trash
(Return emails stored in a specific location. If you are looking for emails that you have no clue where it is, use in:anywhere.)

is:

Format: is:<starred/unread/read/chat>
Example: is:unread
(Return emails with a specific status. E.g, Starred, unread, read emails or even Gtalk chat logs.)

cc: & bcc:

Format: cc:<name> or cc:<email@address.com>
Example: cc:hongkiat or cc:hongkiat@email.com
(Return emails carbon copied to a user or specific email address.)
Format: bcc:<name> or cc:<email@address.com>
Example: bcc:hongkiat or cc:hongkiat@email.com
(Return emails blind carbon copied to a user or specific email address.)

Before: & after:

Format: before:<yyyy/mm/dd>
Example: before:2010/07/01
(Return emails before a specific date.)
Format: after:<yyyy/mm/dd> before:<yyyy/mm/dd>
Example: after:2010/06/01 before:2010/07/01
(Return emails after in range of or after specific date.)

label:

Format: label:<label name>
Example: label:Comments
(Return emails with a specific label.)

filename:

Format: filename:<filename.format>
Example: filename:presentation.pdf
(Return emails with the exact filename attached.)
Format: filename:<format>
Example: filename:pdf
(Return emails that have the same file type attached.)

has:attachment

Format: has:attachment
Example: from:hongkiat has:attachment
(A more general search for emails with attachments. Return emails with attachments, regardless of file type and format.)

Combining Operators

Here are some operators that allows you to yeild more specific and accurate results.

"-"

Format: operator:value -operator:value
Example: has:attachment -filename:zip
(Return emails with attachements, filtering away those with .zip attachments.)

"OR"

Format: operator:value OR operator:value
Example: from:a@email.com OR from:b@email.com
(Return emails received from either user(s).)

"AND"

Format: operator:value AND operator:value
Example: from:hongkiat@email.com AND has:attachment
(Return only emails received from a specific email that has an attachment.)

10 (more) Advanced Search Examples:

The possibility of manipulating these operators are quite limitless. Here are some of the combination of search queries use frequently or find useful.

1. Example: in:inbox label:facebook is:unread
   (Search for all unread emails labeled facebook inside inbox.)
2. Example: in:anywhere from:peter
   (Search for all emails regardless where it’s stored (spam, inbox, trash) received from anyone with the name Peter.)
3. Example: is:unread after:2010/06/01 before:2010/07/01
   (Search for all unread mails for the month of June. )
4. Example: from: peter@emailadress.com has:attachment
   (Return all emails with attachments sent by peter@emailadress.com)
5. Example: in:inbox "meeting"
   (Search inbox for any emails with the keyword "meeting" in it.)
6. Example: from:peter@emailaddress.com has:attachment filename:zip
   (Return only emails received from peter@emailaddress.com with .zip attachments.)
7. Example: "facebook" -from:@facebookmail.com
   (Return all emails with the keyword "facebook", excluding those sent by facebook.com)
8. Example: to:peter OR cc:peter
   (Return all emails sent to or carbon copied Peter.)
9. Example: label:google OR from:@google.com
   (Return all emails received from google.com or labeled "google".)
10. Example: "meeting" is:chat
    (Return all chat log files with keyword "meeting" in it.)

5 Ways to Keep Yourself Focused at Work

Keeping yourself focused at work can be hard sometimes. Here is an occurence you see too many times before – you start of your day by telling yourself that you will get (insert amount) of task done today. As determined as you are, you might end up having blunt conversation with your friends, replying and sending out e-mails and of course, get really busy on social outlets – just like most of us here.

(Image source: ihtatho)
So how do we avoid all these evil attention seeking, unnecessary task and make sure we accomplish what we should be accomplishing on the day itself? Our minds are easily wavered and affected and it becomes extremely hard to realign your focus with goals at job task. Today we are showing you 5 ways to improve your focus at work and how you can possibly discard activity that can divert your attention. Now these tips can be subjective but it may be effective for you!

1. Work in chunks

It’s a scientific fact that our brains can only be attentive on a limited amount of information for a limited amount of time. Making sure the appropriate information in mind is the one that lines up with our duties at work is where the difficulty is. To lighten the load on your brain, it is better to segment your work into small manageable pieces. The idea is you do not want to spend an entire day working on one task non-stop. Breaking it up allows your brain to ‘breathe’ and it will reward you later with effective work. So work in small portions then leave your desk and if your lucky go outside breathe in mother nature.

(Image source: Shutterstock)

2. Reward yourself for your determination

It’s not really a bad thing to visit sites like Facebook, Meebo, or Twitter to get your social updates, but it’s important to not spend huge amounts of time on them, especially when your work is not complete. What I tend to do is create a set of tasks that I need to complete before I can visit any of those sites or leave my desk. I will work awhile, complete a task, then reward myself with some time catching up with a friend. This strategy relies on sheer perseverance and strong will. If you cant stick to goals that you set try another one of these methods.

(Image source: Shutterstock)

3. Find the right Music

As for me there is no way that I can push through an entire work day of coding or designing without the appropriate music to keep me motivated. For me its either intense techno or alternative music that sustains me throughout the day. I can be wrong about this but I believe its important that whatever genre you decide to listen to, to make sure its music that can be easily filtered out while keeping the work ethic at full throttle. For myself I can not listen to music that makes me think about the words or sucks me into wanting to fall asleep, both of which becomes a distraction. Finding the happy medium will increase your drive immensely and will make the day fly right by.

(Image source: Shutterstock)

4. Go Incognito

If all else fails and you just cant seem to get away from the Facebook and pesky co-worker emails, you have to hide yourself. Go invisible on the instant message clients, set the away message to “BUSY, DON’T BOTHER ME”. And for those workers who love to stop by your desk, throw on those head phones so they dont feel inclined to spark up a conversation. I often have to hide from being annoyed from others. It seems the moment one person starts talking to me that the floods of people come. I’ve learned to never put myself in conversational positions while trying to be focused or make sure that i’m in control if I am in those situations.

(Image source: Shutterstock)

5. Be interested/passionate about your work.

Finally the best way to be productive is to truly enjoy and be passionate about what your working on. We go to great lengths and hours of work for things that interest us. Yet we lose focus instantaneously if what we are doing is not important. It might take sometime finding interest in the work you do, you might have to just think about the big picture or maybe focus on impressing those around you (possibly a boss) to stay on track.

Howto: Integrate Facebook Open Graph With WordPress

Facebook Open Graph protocol allows you to share your blog content not only with your readers, but their Facebook friends as well. The best part is – whenever someone liked your content(s), it will be published on their Facebook profile. But that’s not all, Open Graph allows you to explore more interesting ways to interact and engage with your readers. Ultimately – if this is done right – it builds up your brand and increases your site’s traffic.

In today’s post, we are going to look into how to integrate Facebook Open Graph with a self-hosted WordPress in a detailed step-by-step guide. It will require editing your existing WordPress theme and creating a Facebook application (if you don’t have one).
Ready? Let’s fire up the browser and your favourite code editor. Full guide after jump.

Step 1. Create a facebook App

We’ll need an Application ID and to get that, you’ll need to create a Facebook App. If you already have a one, move on to step 2.
Creating an application is easy, here’s what you do:

1. Logon to Facebook, go to the Developer’s page.
2. Click "Set up a new app" button on the top right corner.
3. Give a name to your new app, agree to Facebook terms, hit Create app.
   
4. Go to Web Site tab, fill up Site URL and Site Domain.
5. Note down the value of Application ID somewhere and hit the "Save Changes" button.
   

That’s all! You can always come back later to fill up the rest of the information.

Step 2. Replace <HTML> Tag

Open up your theme’s header file (header.php) in your favorite editor. Always keep a backup copy just in case anything goes wrong.
Look for this following line of code, or one that starts with <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/…

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1. <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" <?php language_attributes(); ?>>  

Replace it with:

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1. <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#" xmlns:fb="https://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml">  

Keep header.php open, we are going to need it for the 3rd step.

Step 3. Insert OG <Meta> tags

Paste the following code right after <head> tag, or before </head> tag.

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1. <?php if (have_posts()):while(have_posts()):the_post(); endwhile; endif;?>  
2. <!-- the default values -->  
3. <meta property="fb:app_id" content="your_fb_app_id" />  
4. <meta property="fb:admins" content="your_fb_admin_id" />  
5.   
6. <!-- if page is content page -->  
7. <?php if (is_single()) { ?>  
8. <meta property="og:url" content="<?php the_permalink() ?>"/>  
9. <meta property="og:title" content="<?php single_post_title(''); ?>" />  
10. <meta property="og:description" content="<?php echo strip_tags(get_the_excerpt($post->ID)); ?>" />  
11. <meta property="og:type" content="article" />  
12. <meta property="og:image" content="<?php if (function_exists('wp_get_attachment_thumb_url')) {echo wp_get_attachment_thumb_url(get_post_thumbnail_id($post->ID)); }?>" />  
13.   
14. <!-- if page is others -->  
15. <?php } else { ?>  
16. <meta property="og:site_name" content="<?php bloginfo('name'); ?>" />  
17. <meta property="og:description" content="<?php bloginfo('description'); ?>" />  
18. <meta property="og:type" content="website" />  
19. <meta property="og:image" content="logo.jpg" /> <?php } ?>  

Here are some of the the values you’ll need to alter:

• Line 3: Replace your_fb_app_id with the Application ID from Step 1.
• Line 4: You can get your_fb_admin_id under your Facebook Insights page, (More info). Click on the "Insight for your website" green button, grab the entire string of code and replace Line 4.
• Line 12: This line determines the image that represents your post. If your theme supports WordPress Post Thumbnails, it should work fine. But if it doesn’t, it will fail gracefully without an image. Check out Step 3a for an alternative workaround.
• Line 19: Replace logo.jpg with an url to your blog’s logo. It will be displayed when a non-post page on your blog is shared on Facebook.

Step 3a – When "wp_get_attachment_thumb_url" Fail

When wp_get_attachment_thumb_url() failed to work, you are likely going to a content attribute with no value, like what’s shown below:

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1. <meta property="og:image" content="" />  

A simple workaround will be to replace Line 12 with the following code:

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1. <meta property="og:image" content="<?php if (function_exists('catch_that_image')) {echo catch_that_image(); }?>" />  

Next, open up functions.php and insert the following code:

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1. function catch_that_image() {  
2.     global $post, $posts;  
3.     $first_img = '';  
4.     ob_start();  
5.     ob_end_clean();  
6.     $output = preg_match_all('/<img.+src=[\'"]([^\'"]+)[\'"].*>/i', $post->post_content, $matches);  
7.     $first_img = $matches [1] [0];  
8.     if(emptyempty($first_img)){  
9.             //Defines a default image  
10.             $first_img = "/images/default.jpg";  
11.         }  
12.     return $first_img;  
13. }  

This replacement code attempts to use a function call catch_that_image() to grab and output the URL of the first image it comes to encounter. Replace line 10 with URL to a default image if the function fails to find its first image.

Step 4. Insert Facebook Javascript SDK

The following Javascript gives you to access all of the features of the Graph API and Dialogs. It also allows you to integrate Facebook social plugins like the Like button, Facepile, Recommendations, etc with ease.
Place it in header.php, right after <body>

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1. <div id="fb-root"></div>  
2. <script>  
3.   window.fbAsyncInit = function() {  
4.     FB.init({appId: 'your_fb_app_id', status: true, cookie: true,  
5.              xfbml: true});  
6.   };  
7.   (function() {  
8.     var e = document.createElement('script'); e.async = true;  
9.     e.src = document.location.protocol +  
10.       '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js';  
11.     document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e);  
12.   }());  
13. </script>  

Replace your_fb_app_id in Line 4 with Application ID from Step 1 earlier.

Step 5. Let’s test it!

We are done integrating Facebook Open Graph to the WordPress blog. Let’s give it a couple of test to make sure we’ve done things correctly.

Test #1 – View source code

Take a look at the source codes of one of the blog post, you should have something like this:

Check the properties and its values, make sure they are correct.

Test #2 – Install a Like Box

If you haven’t install a Facebook Like Button, then it’s probably time to get one. Place the following code anywhere (preferably before content or after content) inside single.php:

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1. <fb:like href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" layout="button_count" show_faces="false" width="450" action="like" colorscheme="light"></fb:like>  

Next, get a friend to Like it. You should see something similar appearing in his Facebook profile:

Extra: WordPress Plugin

If somehow you failed to install the codes or need this to be done quick and easy – there’s a WordPress plugin for that.
Facebook Open Graph Meta in WordPress is a WordPress plugin that adds Facebook meta data to avoid no thumbnail issue, wrong title issue, wrong description issue, etc.

10 Most Asked Questions About PayPal

If you make funds transfer or payment via Internet, you should be familiar with the name PayPal. PayPal is one of the safest and most convenient ways to perform monetary transaction online. But that being said, there are still a lot of users who have problems and questions using PayPal on a daily basis.

It is important to understand how PayPal works; a person who knows how the service works will get their transactions done quickly and safely, but if you don’t, you may end up losing unnecessary transaction fees or facing unforeseen difficulties that requires the attention of PayPal Support.
If you have trouble understanding some issues about PayPal, we hope this will help you clear some clouds. Here’s 10 most asked questions about PayPal together with solutions and some useful links.


Shortcut to:

• PayPal Account Types
• Online Purchases vs. Personal Payments
• Using credit card with PayPal
• Withdraw to credit card and/or bank account
• Top-up PayPal account
• Receive credit card payments; Is it free?
• Creating PayPal Payment button
• PayPal currency exchange rate
• Turning PayPal into online credit card swipe machine
• Adding new currencies

1. What PayPal account type should I get?

In a nutshell, there are three main types of PayPal accounts: Personal, Premier, Business. But there’s also a Student account, which can be created under either one of the above mentioned 3 account types.
Wondering which you should be getting? Here are some characteristics of each:

Personal Account	Premier Account	Business Account
No transaction fees for payments through eChecks, Instant Transfer, PayPal balance.	E-commerce sellers with higher transaction volume/ need to accept credit card payments.	Suitable for business owner(s).
Higher transaction fees when receiving money from credit/debit cards.	Transaction fees when receiving payments.	Transaction fees when receiving payments.
Limited support to PayPal merchant services.	Unlimited credit card payments.	Unlimited credit card payments.
	Lower fees involved if receive money from credit/debit cards.	Lower fees involved if receive money from credit/debit cards.
	Full support to PayPal merchant services.	Full support to PayPal merchant services.
	PayPal debit card available.	PayPal debit card available.
		Supports multi-user access.

Student Account

On top of Personal, Premier and Business account. PayPal also allows one to open a student-type account. It can be opened by the parents for their teen, or can be apply by the teen themselves as long as they are 13 years old and above.
Learn more about PayPal Student Account.
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2. Online Purchases vs. Personal Payments – What are the differences?

From PayPal’s perspective, payments (money) can be send in two ways. You can either send them as Online purchases, or Personal Payments and transaction fee may be applied.

Personal Payments	Online Purchases
It’s free to send/receive money as long as they are from your PayPal balance/bank account.	It’s free to make payment from PayPal account for the purchase of goods/service.
Transaction fee of 2.9% + $0.30 when money comes from credit card.	Transaction fee of 1.9% to 2.9% + $0.30 will be charged on the receiver’s end.
Sender gets to decide who bears the transaction fee.	Receiver can apply for lower merchant rate fee.

On top of these, if the transaction requires currency exchange, additional fees will also be applied.
Learn more about PayPal domestic payments vs. International payments.
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3. How to use a credit card with PayPal?

PayPal supports all major credit cards – MasterCard, Discover, American Express (less favorable), and Visa. Linking your credit card to your PayPal account allows you to pay and send PayPal balane to your credit card.
To add your credit card, follow these following steps:

1. Login to PayPal account.
2. Go to My Account -> Profile
3. Select Add/Edit Credit card

Credit card verification process

As part of the verification process, PayPal will make a minimum refundable charge to your card to generate a 4-digit PayPal code which will be used to complete credit card verification.
In your credit card statement, you will get the 4-digit PayPal code where the description field will start with the word ‘PayPal’ or ‘PP’.
Once you got the code, login your PayPal account and go to "Overview" and click on "Confirm my debit or credit card" by entering the 4-digit PayPal code to complete credit card verification.
Within 24 hours, the minimum amount which being charged to generate 4-digit PayPal code will be refunded to your PayPal account.
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4. How to withdraw to credit card and/Or bank account?

PayPal has various ways for you to pay and get paid depending on your country. For some countries you may add a local bank and have money withdraw to your bank account; for some you can only withdraw to a U.S bank account or request for check payments.
Be sure to check with this list first before attempting any withdrawal.

Withdraw to Bank Account

1. Go to "My Account" > "Withdraw".
2. Click "Withdraw funds to your bank account".
3. Enter your bank information and click "Continue".
4. Click "Submit".

It will take 5 – 7 days to transfer the fund to your bank account. PayPal personal account members are restricted to withdraw more than $500.00 per month.

Withdraw to Card

1. Go to "My Account" – "Withdraw".
2. Click "Withdraw funds to your bank card".
3. Enter the amount and select a credit card to receive payment.

This transaction will normally take 5-7 days. However the length of time might be affected by card issuer’s policies. Withdrawals to your card must meet a minimum withdrawal amount.
PayPal charges a fee for withdrawals to your card. Currency conversion charges may also apply.
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5. How to top-up PayPal account?

It is easy to top-up your PayPal account – adding more funds to increase your spending limit. Topping up your PayPal account is free but charges may apply by your local bank.

Here’s how you top-up your PayPal account, in 3 simple steps:

1. Go to "My Account" > "Top Up".
2. Select your bank and click "Continue".
3. You’ll be redirected to a page to fill in your top-up amount. If you want to top-up US dollar, fill in the exact amount and click on "Recalculate" to update/refresh the total in your country currency.

It may take up to 1-3 days, depending on your bank, to receive the top-up payment in your PayPal account. You are not allowed to top-up for others; bank account and PayPal account must share the same person’s name in order to perform a top-up.
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6. How to receive credit/debit card payments via PayPal? Is it free? 

You have a PayPal account, you nailed a deal but how is your customer or client going to pay you? PayPal provides three options you can bill or request payments, respectively the following:

I – Website Payments Standard

Website Payments Standard is a quick and easy way to begin accepting credit card payment on Internet. It allows you to add various types of buttons on your website, providing client/customers to send payment in the following mode:

• Buy now, allowing client/customer to pay you instantly.
• Select multiple items, add to cart, and check out later.
• Subscribe and send payments in recurring (every day, week or month) mode.

II – Email Payments

PayPal Email Payments allows you to request payment from your customers via email. It’s a secure and quick way to accept PayPal payments online, bank payment or credit card payment. Your customers can easily make the payment with one click.
A low transaction fees will be charged to receive payment through PayPal Email Payments. Make sure you check out the complete features of PayPal Email Payments too.

III – Adding PayPal as Additional Payment Option

By adding PayPal as an Additional Payment Option on your website, you provide client/customer an option to pay via PayPal right from your website. This is an easy and convenient method to ask for payments.

Bear in mind that higher fees will be charged for Personal PayPal account to receive payment from a debit card or credit card.
If you have business/premier account, you can receive credit card payments from buyers even they’re not PayPal users. No PayPal account registration is required for payees.
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7. How to create a PayPal payment button?

This is one of the method discussed in the above "How to receive credit/debit card payments via PayPal?" but I’ve decided to go break it down and go into more details as this is one of the most asked question about PayPal.
Creating a PayPal button is easy, and its step is as follows:

1. Login to your PayPal account.
2. Go to "Merchant Services", select "Website Payments Standards" on your left.
3. Select one of the 3 button (mode) how you like payments to be made. Eg. Buy Now, Add to Cart or Subscribe.
4. Choose a button type and enter your payment details.
   
5. Fill in optional information for item name, item ID, price, currency and customize advanced features. Complete the process by clicking "Create Button" at the bottom of page.

Note: You can either click "Select Code" to select all the button code then copy the code and paste in your website or send the payment link via email.
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8. Is PayPal currency exchange rate same with local banks?

PayPal’s currency exchange rate is always higher than market and bank rates. It is out of the way how PayPal profit from services they provide.

You can find PayPal’s currency exchange rates with steps below:

1. Go to "My Account" > "Profile".
2. On left of the page, click "My Money".
3. Click "Currencies" next to PayPal balance.

Select a currency if you have more than one currency in your PayPal account. Enter the exact amount, the exchange currencies and click "Calculate". The exchange rate will be display with the total amount and PayPal exchange rate.
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9. How to turn PayPal into an online credit card swipe machines?

PayPal Virtual Terminal is an online credit card swipe machines; in short it allows you to turn your computer into a credit card terminal, enter orders and start charging your customers. You’ll be provided with a card swiper (USB) to plug directly into your computer upon successful application of the service.
This feature is only available for Premier and Business type accounts.

With PayPal Virtual Terminal, you can take an order by mail, fax or phone. Just log in to your PayPal account and enter the given credit card info. It works anywhere as long as you have Internet access. Majority of credit cards are accepted, and the payment reaches your account on the fly.
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10. How to add new currencies in my PayPal account?

Click on "Profile", then "My Money" on the left of the page. After that, click "Currencies" next to your PayPal balance.

At "Manage Currencies" section, you can add a new currency, and any future payment you receive in that currency will be credited to that balance. Your primary currency is the default currency for sending and requesting payment.

Ultimate Guide To Setting Up Your First Online Shop

E-commerce is the most popular business trend in our futuristic society, as most modern cities have Internet equipped and it’s such a simple process to send payments anywhere in the world via Internet connection. Along with these technologies have risen hundreds of thousands of new digital web stores which sell both physical and digital products to one global marketplace.

(Image Source: Fotolia)

Business means trade, and trade means transaction. For Internet buyer, what they really care about is probably the security, as there are overwhelming fraud issues happening all around the world nowadays. So setting up web store is not like your regular Blogger blog, it requires careful planning and guided installation with hardened security in mind.
But hard doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to do it yourself. For any aspiring webmasters hoping to get into the e-commerce game, this post will serve as the guide mentioned above, to ease the transition a bit with full of helpful tips and recommended service, so don’t wonder anymore, let’s get down to business!

The Process of Building

Before even considering to launch your website it is crucial to spend some time away from the computer and build your idea. What kind of products will you be selling? Are there any competitors in this niche? Ideally how should your website’s user interface look?

(Image Source: Fotolia)

These are all very important topics of discussion which you should consider deeply. It will also help a lot to build a brand name in these early stages of development. You can purchase the matching domain name ahead of time to secure your company name and logo.
If you’re a businessman and interested in working online you may also wish to set up some profiles. A new Google account can help on multiple levels for a new corporation. With Google you’ll gain a brand new email account under Gmail and access to each of Google’s apps. This includes Google Docs and Google Analytics for tracking your web page traffic. YouTube accounts also tie into Google via OAuth, so it’s possible to market your store with video media too.

Registering a Domain

Once you have a rough idea of how your shop will work it’s time to make some bold steps. Registering a domain name and finding a web host aren’t very difficult tasks. Yet they are monumentally important steps in the overall launch process.

Spend a lot of time considering your domain before purchase. Once you buy one it’s usually set for 1 year (or more if you choose), so you’re stuck with it! Personally I am a fan of NameSilo for registering new domains. Their user accounts let you set up portfolios and organize your domain names into different structures. Their domain search is also quick and produces to-the-point results.

Choosing the Web Hosting Service

When it comes to hosting things get a bit more difficult. You’ll want to consider the backend language which your online shop will run, and to choose the proper server settings. If you don’t have any preference or just don’t care I recommend sticking with PHP. It’s open source and supported in mostly 99% of server environments. But just ensure that any hosting account you purchase will support PHP and MySQL databases.

Some companies Hostgator and Bluehost offer some incredible solutions for first-time webmasters. The average cost is $100-$150/year for unlimited storage and bandwidth. Now some web hosts do cap their storage and bandwidth limit. But for even the cheapest solutions you’ll generally be using well under their rules.
For more precise guidance, follow our post to help you choose the best web hosting service based on 10 essential factors, and consumer guide on understanding the very truth about web hosting and tips to avoid some annoying hosting troubles.

Choosing your E-Commerce Package

There are two main categories to choose from for building an online shop. Hosted solutions are companies which provide you with everything you need on the backend and host the e-commerce script on their servers. This means you won’t need to perform any programming or file uploads of any kind. You will however still need a domain name to redirect and give your shop a distinct URL.

Now you can also work with licensed scripts, both paid and open source. These kinds of e-commerce systems are easily customized and make up the majority of online web stores. Even if you aren’t a programmer at heart it’s a very simple process to download and re-upload script files onto your hosting server and follow some installation instructions.
But when you are working with money and payments online there are many security risks to consider. If you feel uncomfortable taking on that much responsibility it may be wise to choose a hosted solution. Many times you can talk with company representatives to figure out site security without any stress. The customer’s overall experience and safety should be held in regard to your bottom-line decision.

Hosted E-Commerce Solutions

Many of the hosted solutions can provide an amazing experience to your visitors with very little work on your end. The administration panel is also uniform to all other scripts, which should provide you an easy interface to upload photos and add catalogue entries.
There are so many choices out there it’s hard to pick just one. But I’ve included 3 below which stand out among the rest. They’re viable options for the average webmaster who isn’t interested in messing around with FTP and programming IDE’s. You do lose a lot of opportunity for customizations, but you are gaining added security and personal staff support.

Shopify

You can check out Shopify for yourself to see this amazing service in action. Their website is designed beautifully and contains some wonderful demos. If you are on the edge with choosing any company, Shopify may possibly be the best option. Their features include a personal app store, SSL security, unlimited server bandwidth, a custom mobile template and a whole lot more!

This is one script which offers a lot more user customizations than others. In the admin backend panel you may choose between dozens of themes to implement onto your live website. If you understand HTML/CSS it’s possible to edit the raw website design online. The editor is similar to WordPress theme’s editor and offers a very simple UI for beginners.
Shopify also includes live chat and contacts 24/7 for any support. Check out their huge examples page if you’d like to see a few Shopify-powered stores. By looking at some templates it’s difficult to even tell what script they’re running.
Pricing can range from very cheap to very expensive over the course of their 5 plans. Compare details and see if any would stack up to your credentials. Ideally I would recommend Shopify if you have some standard knowledge of HTML and are looking for a fully-accountable staff to back up your new launch.

Yahoo! Merchant Solution

For small businesses Yahoo! Merchant Solution may also catch your attention. The layout for your standard Y!MS account is fairly straightforward and easy to customize. They provide custom traffic analytics and split testing right from your admin panel. The most popular payment gateways are supported, including PayPal, money orders, checks, and credit cards.

Yahoo! is a great company to partner with if you’re choosing to go the hosted route. They spur large bouts of traffic through organic search and ad clicks, quite honestly only rivalled by Google. You can set up a small marketing account and help spread the word of your new store. Additionally if you’re looking to work with a skilled web designer or developer the small business network includes these features. Yahoo! can practically manage your entire store deployment and launch.

BigCommerce

The BigCommerce shop software could be compared to Shopify with trimmed features. They offer a clean user interface which clears up a lot of confusion in the signup process. It’s a breeze to add in new features, products, users, and take payments online in just a few minutes.

Granted if you are a developer the team has spent time building an online API. Check out the integration and API settings on their website for details about page plugins. You may include details from many accounts around the web such as Facebook, eBay, 2Checkout, MasterCard, and PayPal. The staffs offer plenty of template customizations to choose from so you’ll never be worried about branding.
To see a few stores in action check out their live stores showcase, updated regularly and spurring some of the finest e-commerce designs in modern Internet layouts. There are a lot of features to go through when you’re first working with BigCommerce. Consider e-mailing the developers or get in touch with somebody at the company to answer questions you may have. I have only heard very positive reviews about their customer service and support for clients.

Custom-Owned Scripts

On the flip side to pre-hosted solutions it may be easier for developers to work within their own boundaries. Of the many scripts online to choose from there are only a handful worthy of testing. Although I’ve included 4 of my personal favorites here, check Google and do a bit of research if nothing suits you, alternatively check out our featured open source e-commerce shopping carts.

Each website launch is unique and will require unique conditions which another e-commerce solution may provide. In popularity these 4 scripts rank very high, so I’m sure you’ll find most things you need.

Zen Cart

Possibly one of the best known brands for e-commerce scripts on the web, Zen Cart is written in PHP and supports mostly all hosting environments. It’s free to download and install on as many websites as you’d like. The only retributions which they require is leaving the “Powered by Zen Cart” link open in the footer area.

Working with Zen Cart provides connections into other services. Some of these are included as modules and it’s possible to download them from their website. Others are simply companies which have tied into the Zen Cart software. Check out their personal recommended services list to see if anything jumps out.
If you know API development yourself there’s a simple XHTML templating system applied onto each website. It is incredibly easy for your standard web developer to create a custom theme.
Additionally the support community is alive and constantly buzzing. Zen Cart has personally sponsored an entire wiki devoted to the script and common topics. Their support forums are also often active with helpful members. You can ask questions ranging from setup and installation all the way to custom module controls.

Magento

Magento has developed a very fine script for e-commerce websites. Their whole script is written on PHP and includes plenty of details for getting started. If you’re familiar with active development and FTP deployments check out the current SVN. It’s updated frequently and gives you a great way to access raw PHP files.

Certainly it’s possible for non-programmers to work with the Magento suite. But I would recommend checking out another option if you aren’t at least well-versed in HTML/CSS. Truly those looking to customize an amazing store with brilliant functionality should check out their product features and weigh the options. It won’t be a simple task to learn the Magento backend, however if you are familiar with PHP or a similar programming language you should be very comfortable within 2-3 weeks.
This is one company which provides a lot of support for users. Aside from the free edition there are many alternative options which you can pay per licence. Enterprise and Professional edition stand out as the two best-featured scripts. If you’re torn check their charts on the comparison page and choose what you think is best suited for your business need.
To get started with your learning spend a bit of time learning about their system, which includes screencast videos and some technical documentation. One area the Magento system isn’t lacking is in documentation.

WordPress eShop

Classic WordPress CMS has stood among many challengers in its day. Yet today there are millions of websites powered by WordPress, both static content and live blogs. So it only makes sense that over time a team of developers would create one spectacular e-commerce solution tied into WordPress. I believe WordPress eShop provides everything an e-commerce site would need, from orders to shipping to discount codes, all running within the WordPress admin.

If you’re a bit confused browse through a few of their tabs. The developer has provided amazing documentation and examples. Their installation process is also very simple, yet an elegant way of handling such a complex task. They have included a brief FAQ tab demonstrating some of their finer features.
With this method you will have to concern yourself with security and updates. It is of the utmost importance that your website stays secure and hack-free. SQL injections are all too common, and in this day personal user information and credit card numbers are much too important to lose. If you’re looking for a place to start on this, WordPress hosts support forums with many related topics. Try out their search feature to see if anybody has asked similar questions before.

Interspire Shopping Cart

Interspire is an Australia-based web development company. They create custom scripts with administrator backend support and CSS3 templates. These products include a general CMS, email marketing software, and a powerful shopping cart featured here. They do charge a hefty fee for their software out of the box ($295 per license), but you’re given amazing possibilities for customization.

Interesting enough the software which powers Interspire Shopping Cart is the same which powers BigCommerce discussed earlier. The only difference with them is a paid hosting account and you don’t have any access to editing the server files. But Interspire is such a complex system it may be a lot easier this way. For developers, Interspire is a goldmine of creativity.
They have released some brand new features in version 6 which will blow you away. They have hundreds of modules and templates to choose from. And their list of accepted payment gateways is enormous in comparison to many other scripts.
If possible try out their demo install, both frontend and administrator panel. You’ll fall in love with the features immediately and recognize if this is truly the best option for you. Your ideas will change depending on the needs of your shop, but for the average web developer the Interspire Cart is easily the best solution.

Taking Merchant Payments Online

Credit card payments are possibly the largest out of any other style. Many digital sources like Google and PayPal have started to corner the market, but credit card companies are still raking in the profits. And it’s obvious as credit cards provide a simple solution for your customers and you to pay online.

You’ll probably want to sign up for two different accounts and include your new business name on file. An Internet merchant account is used to receive funds over the web for goods or services. Similarly a payment gateway or payment provider is a service which connects your store with your merchant account. This means you’ll be able to accept instant payments via credit card whenever your customers buy something.
To sign up for a merchant account you may try checking your local bank. Banks offer a signup process to credit your website and create an Internet-based merchant account. But if this isn’t an option try a merchant account provider. These 3rd parties work as the middle man transferring payments from your site to the bank of your choice. There are a few merchants to choose from. I’ve listed the most popular companies below:

• Network Solutions
• North American Bancard
• MerchantPlus
• WorldPay

After you have successfully created a merchant account you’ll have to choose a gateway. These are companies which securely transfer the data your customers input into your merchant account.
Sometimes banks will provide you with the gateway, although there are plenty of options to choose from otherwise. The most credible company for those based in the United States is Authorize. Their website includes some standard information and forms which should help clear up any questions you have regarding their services. Additionally eWAY is a new launch targeting the international audience.

Alternative Payment Methods

If you won’t be taking such direct payments from clients, it may be easier to work in the short term. Digital payment methods have become a lot easier to work within the past decade. PayPal is the obvious leader among the pack and can be featured on almost all of the most popular e-commerce empires, with strong assisting guides laying everywhere, even from Hongkiat. Amazon and eBay are another two best known for this feature.

Many of the runner-up services work just as well as PayPal but haven’t gained enough attention. Specifically Google Checkout offers a very secure and speedy transaction process. If you’re already using Gmail or have a Google Account it’s simple to tie into a new Google Checkout account. Their backend supports widgets which you can add onto your page for a nicer design.
Both PayPal and Google Checkout support solutions for invoicing. This can be useful if you’re planning on purchasing modules or further domains. Try staying with a single account and use this for all your business transactions online. It’s a lot quicker than waiting for payments or working through shady non-secured payment pages.

Add Content and Products

After you’ve got a domain, hosting, and you can view your script live online then you’ve really made it far! Moving past this process you’re merely required to perform some maintenance and building of website structures. Not too bad for a first e-commerce setup.

Familiarize yourself with the administrator panel and how to work with product pages. It’s important for your viewers to receive the best user experience on your website and hopefully land the sale. If you notice any image size limits or set proportions consider spending some time pre-cropping your product images. Or at the very least standardize the image size so your products will display evenly in rows/columns.
Along with product listings you’ll want to begin working on your page copy. Written content on your website is vitally important to get your message across and land sales. Visitors will be interested to hear about your company and many will hope to get in contact with you. These are just a few base pages to consider building, but you may focus on a few more as time goes on. For example a privacy policy page is very important concerning how you’ll handle user information.

Marketing and Beyond

After this point your first shop should be online and full of new content. Congratulations! It’s a difficult process to build and launch a full-scale e-commerce solution. But now the fun really picks up as you start taking orders and marketing.

Nobody is going to find your website without some form of marketing. If you haven’t signed up for a Google account yet I highly recommend creating one for Google Analytics. They provide completely free tracking software which boasts some incredible features you can’t find anywhere else! With their tools you can find your most trafficked pages and biggest referring websites. Alternatively you can also try out some worthy analytic tools to find the one which best suits you.
If you feel that a professional marketing strategy would provide some prosperous results I recommend joining with a few publishing agencies. Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! are the top 3 contextual ad publishers in the whole Internet. Google AdWords is obviously very well known and trusted amongst hundreds of marketers – and for good reason! Google AdWords provides large traffic numbers and laser-targeted click results for whatever products you’re selling.
Additionally Microsoft’s AdCenter and Yahoo! Advertising Solutions have really taken off the ground in recent months. These are viable options for smaller online stores with a much smaller marketing budget. You’ll be able to afford a lot more ad clicks and garner attention from a wide audience. Once you’ve run a few successful marketing campaigns your traffic numbers will slowly raise and you are sure to grow success in your online e-commerce shop.

Conclusion

This guide provides a conclusive walkthrough of the major steps to creating your first e-commerce store. It’s not an easy process to complete start-to-finish. Even professional web designers struggle when sitting down to create new e-commerce stores. But once you’ve gone through this a few times things seem a lot more efficient and will flow easier.
The solutions offered here are just some of the many opportunities for e-commerce developers. In addition if you have tips or strategies for launching an online store please share them in the discussion section below, we do