Has anyone set up oscommerce with authorize.net for real time credit card processing? If so can you post some basic info or instructions here about that?
The two integrate very well together. The OsCommerce forum is also the best place to get support for it. Basically once you have your site designed and built, you download the authorize.net module for OsCommerce, activate it, enter your authnet authentication information, and you are good to go. Its very easy and very well supported. Also make sure oyu have SSL setup on your website as you will need it to process with authorize.net. Authorize.net AIM module: http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,4091 Forum Support thread for the module: http://forums.oscommerce.com/index.php?showtopic=199381 Oscommerce Forums: http://forums.oscommerce.com/
I'm not sure. I don't know exactly what comes standard with it right now. I would try using the one that is currently installed. If that doesn't work, try the other module.
I think the mods are something that others have developed if I remember reading that correctly over at osCommerce's forum once. The ones that come with the cart already have possibly been built by someone but "approved" by osCommerce. There was a thread over at ocCommerce's support forum that actually explained it all but I cannot remember unfortunately.
From what I can tell the AIM contribution allows you to have the whole credit card process done right on your own website instead of redirecting to an outside website for the checkout process. Does that sound right?
Yes - AIM has the API. You just need to also make sure that your website has an SSL so the consumer can enter his / her CC number in a secure fashion
You need a dedicated Ip address with your host. I don't think you necessarily need a dedicated server until you start getting some decent traffic, or you need to host a lot of websites.