While we are all eagerly awaiting the revival of freeCSScart, we thought it would benefit the users of this site and others to learn about another project. Fresh Apps.

Have you ever been on iTunes looking for new apps and just been left with a feeling of emptiness? Wishing that there was something more out there? Some kind of program or site that could help you find new iPhone Apps and fresh apps that a community gives approval for? Well… it is sure that iTunes does NOT provide that. And after searching the web, I was convinced that there is nothing out there that could compel me to believe that there is a site that could provide everything that iTunes was missing. Until one day…

I came across a site called FreshApps. They claimed to be the different one… The site that could help you find cool new iPhone Apps. Well… at first I was a little bit skeptical. The site’s first impression was good, with clean design and the content was so easy to find. But the site seemed to be nothing more than a good looking iPhone ranking site. That is, until I noticed that they have taken it much farther than that.

You see, the idea behind FreshApps is that users, like you and I make apps fresh! That means if you like an app, or if you have downloaded that app, you make it fresh! And the more people make it fresh, the better the chances of it showing on the homepage, where Apps are ranked by their freshness. But, according to the site, they do not rank just by most freshness. Because if they did,  then all the classic apps would always be on the homepage, like Wikipanion, Google Earth, Remote, etc. But, FreshApps instead takes into account the activity that surrounds the App. For example, if an app has been recently made fresh a whole bunch of times, and there is some conversation about the app on the site, then that app is made more fresh overall! Which means that new, unpopular apps that are good, will be able to compete with the app giants! That is why I think FreshApps is so different, and so much more applicable than iTunes when trying to find some good apps.

They also have a lot more to add then just that… You can also rank apps by the most discussed, or the highest freshness, or the newest. Not only that, they also have a powerful RSS feed, the best I have found. Finally I can have a comprehensive Apple iPhone Feed.

Criticisms:
Fresh Apps is by far the best thing I have seen yet, but, there still is room for improvement.

• I would like to see a more robust search. Not just tag’s or keywords.
• A more powerful commenting system, maybe similar to that of Digg.
• An iPhone web friendly version of the site.
• A more powerful user area.
• The ability to suggest Apps based on current apps that other users have that you also have.
• Faster loading times… I know the site is in beta, but I would like to see faster load times for the images.

Overall, I am a FreshApps fan. I have found better iPhone Apps on Fresh Apps then I ever have on iTunes. I can already think of 4 or 5  good apps that I found, just through Fresh Apps, that I would have never found through iTunes.

I know it has been quite sometime since we have updated. There are some questions out there like – Is freeCSScart dead? What happened to freeCSScart?

Well, let me be the first to ensure you that freeCSScart is not dead. It is alive and well! We have a small development team that works on this project, so the daunting task of a freeCSScart able to compete with the other great ecommerce carts out there is a daunting task. Because of that, we are behind schedule. With that said, we believe that freeCSScart has some great features and has a very pleasant user experience.

FreeCSScart will continue in our ALPHA stage until we belive we have the feature set is solid. Then we will release freeCSScart to the world as a BETA. There is no timeframe for release.

We would like to thank everyone who has been a constant fan of freeCSScart, and belives in the idea!

Once again we have arrived at a crossroads and we need your input.

Here is the scenario:
FreeCSScart allows for the ability to sell digital goods, like photos, software, subscriptions, etc. But the problem lies in how we allow the purchaser of the product to activate it. Herein lies our problem; universal yet unique encryption algorithms. Every store needs the ability to customize the order and the uniqueness of their product encryption.

Example:
A store sells an amazing “flash menu”. It is a digital good. They require that each purchaser of the product get a unique product key that allows it only to be used on a specific domain and that only that product can be used there. Thus, they need an encryption that includes:

• Date and Time
• Product ID
• User ID
• Custom Field (Url or any other unique specific information)

Now all this information needs to be sorted scrambled and encrypted and then decrypted by flash so that it can read the product key.

The Question:
What encryption method would you prefer?
This question goes out to all the people that will be using the “sell digital goods” side of freeCSScart. You are going to have to create the decryption for your product keys inside of your products. Here are our options:

• SHA-2
• RC4
• AES
• Simple ASCII Encryption (Made by freeCSScart)
• (Your Suggestions Here)

Once this product key is encrypted, it would also need to be decrypted, which leaves us with only injective encryption processes (So not MD5).

We would like you to add your input. Please just use the comments field below (If no comment field exists, please click on the title of this post).

A while ago, we asked the freeCSScart community a question… the question was, which language would you prefer freeCSScart to be programmed in?

You can see all the answers here.

• Fact: freeCSScart is community oriented.
• Fact: We are creating this product for a niche market.
• Fact: We desire to create this product around the communities desires.

Because of those simple facts, we have decided the following. The freeCSScart client-side, will be created in Php!

Right now, the admin panel is in solely Ruby on Rails, that will stay the same. But for the client-side, we have decided to create it in Php. The client side is the area that the users of the actual shopping-cart process will see.

Thanks for the community input! We will be asking more questions soon.

It seems the polls have spoken – but the decision is up to us, and belive us, it was a tough decision. First of all let us say what a wonderful competition this has been! We have seen some amazing skills and submissions represented and we want to thank everyone who submitted a design.

We could not make up our mind 100%, so we decided to give a first and second place. First place will still receive the full prize money and if the second place accepts, we offer them half of the prize money. If you are the developer of one of the winning submissions, please contact us info(at)freeCSScart(dot)com. So the winners are…

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