1 reply to this topic

[andy55]

Hi everyone,
We are looking forward to create a 'Credit Buying' system that is currently being used by istockphoto.com, fotolia.com & many other stock footage sites where credits act as their own currency.

eg: 1credit = $1 or $1.5

Before we use this model, we want to know :

How it (system) works.?
Where are credits actually stored.? Is it on our server or paypal etc.?
Most importantly how do we manage credits ?
How safe it is to use this system.? what if it gets hacked or crashed ?
How much will it cost to implement...etc?

I request all experienced programmers to pls put some light on this query before we go ahead. Also let us know if you can implement this for us.

Thnx
Andy

[cdg10620]

Depending on how large the site is and how much traffic you have I would assume that the credits are bought and then stored in a database. The user has an account that they sign into which keeps track of the number of credits they have. When they purchase something from the site it goes into the database and subtracts the cost of the item from the available number of credits. That of course would have validation checking to see if the user had enough credits. I think this information would be located on your server. I think that security all depends on how you implement it. You can store information in a SQL database but you have to be careful with things like SQL injection and other database hacking methods. Cost all comes down to how much information are you storing, how are you backing it up, and what is your backup if things crash?

Two very important concepts to remember when working with technology and programming are these:

- Be a pessimistic programmer. Assume one of two scenarios is true. Either A. The user knows nothing and needs you to hold their hand through the process (Validation, clear instructions, etc ) or B. The user is malicious and they are trying to hack your system (double check security, validation methods, etc)

Hope this information helps.