You may recall, I won a copy of the phpOStock plugin a few days back. Well, I had the chance to use it today. I have to say, it is refreshingly simple to implement and use. It's even simpler than my favourite pro plugin phpBay.
Simple Templates
It seems they took their cues from phpBay when creating the plugin. There are several similarities. I really like the template features of phpOStock to let you change the layout/look of the listings. phpBay allows you to change the layout of the listings as well but offers some global settings to affect the layout in the plugin settings page, which I found confused things a bit.
If you know a bit of HTML you can quickly and easily edit (or create) a new layout for the listings (on both phpBay and phpOStock). I think there should be a dropdown list of available layouts to pick from for both plugins. phpOStock should have that functionality already but doesn't appear to. phpOstock cleverly lets you specify different templates to use on a per-post or per-page level if you wish.
You know...it would be nice if the default templates for both plugins would make the images hyperlinked as well, but for some reason they don't.
I also like how phpOStock lets you specify ahead of time which parameters you plan to use in your templates, that way, only the data you want is pulled in and there is no wasted bandwidth. Like phpBay, phpOStock also implements SEO URL's which is nice, but they didn't do the same for images.
The Oddball (But Great) Server, GoDaddy
Another great feature that may go under-appreciated... they let you specify whether you are on a GoDaddy server or not. Because, as a lot of people that host with GoDaddy probably became aware of quickly, GoDaddy behaves differently than other servers and there is often tweaks that need to be done to get apps and even some WP themes to work. Albeit minor tweaks, but for those that don't know what they are doing, there may be some frustration and some people have actually switched hosting companies for that reason. Well, phpOStock takes care of the tweaks that need to be made. I would think that they should be able to detect whether you are on a GoDaddy server and make the changes silently but I'm not a programmer so I may be wrong.
It'd be nice if other software/theme developers followed suit as far as GoDaddy settings. It would save a lot of support frustrations for the developers and headaches for the users. For example, the self-hosted version of Tracking202 needs over 100 changes made when installing on GoDaddy and also for every upgrade!
Fatal error: Cannot instantiate non-existent class: simplexmlelement
If I had paid closer attention to the READ-ME file and manual I would have noticed that I needed to have php5 on my server. Well, I tried to run phpOStock on php4 and I got some grief with the fatal error mentioned above. If you host with GoDaddy, add the following line: AddHandler x-httpd-php5 .php to the top of your .htaccess file and you will be upgraded to php5 and that fatal error regarding simplexmlelement should vanish.
Get phpOStock
So, although I have never actually heard of Overstock.com nor phpOStock until sometime last month, I can see how some decent money can be made with them, being that it is sort of the same concept as phpBay. Overstock.com runs their affiliate program through CJ.com (no longer with LinkShare) and pays their affiliates 7% of all sales.
I rate phpOStock a 4.9 out of 5 and although I haven't made any money from it yet, I suspect I will very soon, and I do recommend it. I will keep you updated with my experiences with it.
Let me know if you have ever heard of/used phpOStock and your experiences with it in the comments below...
Click Here To Learn More About phpOStock
Tags: quick-money, make-extra-money, make-money-fast, business-blog, how-to-earn-money
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Wed, Sep 9, 2009
Blogging, Make Money Online, Online Business