Setting Up USPS Shipping Quotes in Oscommerce

Here is how to setup USPS shipping in Oscommerce.

1. Go here: http://www.usps.com/webtools/welcome.htm and click "Sign Up" under USPS Web Tools
2. After you sign up you will get a confirmation email in the next 24 hours or so. When you get this email, send an email to icustomercare@usps.com with your username they assign you. Copy and paste this into your email also: "Hi, I am using a third party shopping cart Oscommerce that has already been tested with the USPS shipping quotes API. Please switch my account to the production server"
3. They should email you back saying you have been switched to the production server.
4. Now in your Oscommerce admin go to modules > shipping > USPS and install it. Then put in your USPS username. The password field can be left blank. Make sure your server is set to the production server.
5. You will need to make sure in your Oscommmerce admin > configuration > shipping/packaging ship from country and zip code is set up. Also you can set your Package tare weight. Say if you want .5lbs added to the shipping quote to account for your boxing, then you would set .5lbs. here.

Making A Web Site Use A Different IP Address in Windows XP and Vista

here is a quick tech tip for making your web browser use a different server to pull up a web site. Say you updated the DNS for your web site and you want to make sure the new server is setup correctly. Do the following:

Go to: c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Edit the hosts file with a text editor, add the following to the end of the file:

IP Addresss You Want Web Site To Use somesite.com

for example it might look like this:

69.16.198.200 itwebexperts.com

you will need one for www.itwebexperts.com too, or the www version of the url, so also put:

69.16.198.200 www.itwebexperts.com

Yep, it's that easy. Save the host file, reload your web browser and that's it.

Google Checkout for Oscommerce

Google Checkout was released earlier this month and already there is the first Oscommerce Google Checkout payment module. Should you install it? Well the verdict is not yet. We would hate to see you waste your time installing it and then see that it doesn't have the features you need. The current payment module available here as of 7/27/06 does not have the following features:

• It doesn't record the order to the Oscommerce admin
• It doesn't handle taxes or shipping charges

We will update this blog soon to announce when the next Google Checkout is releases that handles these version 2.0 features.