I need information on setting up a subscription access commercial site with secured credit card and other electronic payment access

Dear Friends on HWG-Business:

First of all, I'm pretty new at the "commercial page" thing.  I've been
doing fairly simple pages for years, but nothing involving e-commerce,
shopping carts, SSL, password access, as well.

I've been doing some graphic design work for a local photographer here in
Seattle and he wants to make his photos and stories available online through
a subscription/password-access site.  He would like people to be
authenticated with secured credit card transactions resulting in a password
that would expire if payment is not continued into the future, etc.
Ideally, a system that requires little manual intervention is preferred.  If
possible, through the use of cookies or what-have-you, if access can be
restricted to one computer (so a password cannot be published and shared),
this would be very cool as well.

He already had a host, Epoch Internet, when I started this project, and
their techs have informed me that they use Apache for their server software
(which I believe rules out the NT/MS BackOffice ASP approach to things --
however there is every chance that I'm in error on this point).

If at all possible, he would like me to remain at the helm for this project
and I am willing to learn what is involved to bring these things about.
However, the avenues I've pursued thus far have proven themselves to be less
than adequate, and we are not ruling out contracting additional help in this
area if needed.  My preference, however, would be some direction from you
folks about recommended software, literature, whatever for building this
type of site/business.

Also, my client already runs a jewelry business with a merchant account for
credit card services which I think can be transferred or applied to online
transactions (according to his Wells Fargo rep down in California), if this
little piece of info makes any difference to those of you who know.

I apologize for being so confusing here--this is my first post on this forum
and I'm probably betraying the depths of my utter lack of knowledge about
this stuff...so you know I must be desperate!   :-)

Thanks for your consideration, and if you would prefer to reply to me
privately at vprem(at)wolfenet.com, that would be fine.

Good day one and all!

Sincere regards,

sw. vipal prem

http://www.wolfenet.com/~vprem
ICQ: 869244

Does sunset sometimes look like the sun's coming up?
Do you know what a faithful love is like?
You're crying. You say you've burned yourself.
But can you think of anyone who's not
hazy with smoke?

__ jelaluddin rumi __

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