Five More New User Questions

This month we’re going to go over five more commonly-asked questions from new users. Many of these have been discussed in detail in previous posts, but for those who may have missed them the first time, it may be of some benefit to touch on them once more.

1. What is the ‘aomtrial.license’ file? How do I get it? How do I install it?

The 30-day Trial version of Associate-O-Matic requires having the aomtrial.license file in the same directory as the shop.php file. When you download the Trial version from the AOM website, you click on a large blue button that initiates the download. Immediately below that is another large blue button for the aomtrial.license file, along with instructions. When you click on the button, you are presented with about a paragraph of encoded text. You must copy this entire text and then create the actual aomtrial.license file, pasting the text into the file. It is very important that there be nothing else in the file – no default HTML, etc. And the filename must be aomtrial.license, not triallicense.txt, etc. The aomtrial.license file is also not the same as the LICENSE.TXT file that comes with AOM.

If the file is not set up exactly, the Trial version will not work.

2. How do I load a logo image into my store?

Once you have a logo image that you have created yourself or had made for you, it must be uploaded to your website. You can put it in the same directory as the shop.php and admin.php files if you want, or create a separate subfolder for your own images (like ‘www.mysite.com/myimages’). Then in your AOM control panel, under the Images tab, look for Logo. Into this box, put the name of the logo image (if the image filename is logo.jpg, then use that). Normally that would be all you need to do. If the logo is in a subfolder (such as ‘www.mysite.com/myimages’, as mentioned previously), then you would need to enter the subfolder and the filename: myimages/logo.jpg. On some servers you may have to use the whole URL: http://www.mysite.com/myimages/logo.jpg. If one method does not work, try another.

Once you have the file name entered correctly and saved, you may have to refresh your browser to see the image over your shop. Or go to the ‘View Cart’ page, since it’s never cached.

3. Why am I  getting a ’500 Server Error’ when I try to view my site? The Admin page loads okay.

This is a recent error that may be related to the ionCube loader being out of date. You can find out what version you have by downloading the AOM Extras zip file. Unzip the file and upload the aom_phpinfo.php file to your directory. Then view the file by going to ‘www.mysite.com/aom_phpinfo.php‘ (substituting your actual domain name in place of ‘mysite.com’). If you scroll down past the first section, you should see something that looks like this:

Note the ionCube PHP Loader is v3.3.10. You can obtain the latest loaders here. On some servers you may need the assistance of your webhost. It’s important to note that a 500 error just means some problem the server cannot identify. So sometimes you may see this message and it’s got nothing to do with ionCube at all. Your host should be able to help you with most errors of this sort.

4. How can I change the ‘Home’ tab to something else?

You can’t change the Home tab. It’s designed to always go to your site’s home page. But, you can use another tab instead. Simply create an URL-based category, name it something like ‘main site’ and put the URL of your site home page, blog, landing page, whatever. You can also use it in a category box on the left or right side of your site if you don’t use tabs. This way visitors to your store will always have a way to return to your main site.

5. Can I have a store that covers different countries, like USA and UK, etc.?

Amazon operates each locale like a separate company. So your associate ID only works in the country it was issued in; an ID for Amazon.com will not work in Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.ca (and vice-versa). Each locale will also have different categories, different node numbers, and different ASINs. It’s not possible to have one site that can mesh all these incompatible parameters, which means you would need a separate site for each locale, and a corresponding associate ID for each site. They also prefer to pay commission in local currency via direct deposit to a local bank. If you opt for a check to be mailed to you, expect to pay currency conversion fees when you cash or deposit it.

Hopefully this information will be beneficial to those who are new to the software, and even some more experienced users.