Category Archives: Blog

The Benefits of Applying Psychology to Your Website

It might not seem intuitive, but applying psychological concepts to your website design can be beneficial. The main goal of a website is to interact with customers. Psychology studies how people (your customers) process information. This article provides 5 principles that can be helpful to make your website more intuitive to users.

Read more here: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/235923

Three X-cart Upgrades this week!

We are cranking out X-cart upgrades! One programmer alone is doing three x-cart upgrade go-lives in a span of only 4 days this week! I think that’s a record for one programmer!

Summer is the perfect time to get your X-cart stores upgraded and ready for the Holiday Shopping Season! Contact Us Now for a quote!

We have a very tried and tested method for upgrading X-cart. Check out our steps to ensure minimal downtime and minimal issues!

  • Install the target version of X-cart
  • Do a database upgrade of your current site and put it in the new X-cart
  • Skin the target version of X-cart
  • Install any modules you need/want
  • Convert any customizations you want to keep
  • Test the upgrade
  • Once you’ve also tested and reviewed, we schedule the upgrade go-live
  • Do a ‘dry run’ upgrade a day or two before the real go-live. This is where we pretend we’re going live. This helps find any potential issues that might arise when going live for real.
  • On upgrade day we close your store for about 1 hour, sometimes 2 while we do the final database upgrade to catch all new orders, customers, etc. and go live!

Contact Us Now for a quote!

Want to Meet BCSE?

Want to meet the Owners of BCSE?

Come Join us at IRCE 2014!

We will be attending IRCE again this year! It’s the world’s largest eCommerce event! You can get great tips and tricks to moving your eCommerce site to the next level!

We will be also hanging out with the X-cart gang and other 3rd Party Developers at their Annual X-cart Beer meeting. There are only a few tickets left! Join us June 12, 2014 as we socialize, answer questions about eCommerce and our business.

Register Here!

We hope to see you there!


Here we are in April 2014 right after I completed the Triathlon and after Brandon completed a Mudrun at the OU Race for a Reason charity event.


Left to Right: Jeremy (mommymakeup.com), Alex (X-cart.com), Carrie & Brandon (bcsengineering.com) at IRCE 2013

PayPal Integrations at BCS Engineering

The Faster, Safer Way to get Paid!

We’ve been using PayPal since 2000 and want to let our customers know that it’s one of the best payment methods available! Great customer service for the merchant and the customer, as well as safe transactions, are key to your business success!

How can we help with PayPal?

Why is PayPal great?

  • Customers do not have to post financial information to you to get paid
  • Merchants can easily see if a person is a Verified PayPal account holder
  • Protects you against fraud

Contact us now for help setting up the faster and safer way to get paid!

Triathlon Success!!!

Saturday was a great day for a Triathlon and our Triathletes Carrie & Lynn both had a super day! Carrie posted her fastest swim time ever and finished in 02:09:18.970! Lynn’s goal was to finish in under 2 hours and she blew that out of the water with a finish time of 01:54:54.527! We couldn’t be more proud of their accomplishments!!


Carrie waving on her way back from the bike and heading to the run area!

Brandon of BCSE also participated in the Race for a reason and decided at the last minute to do the Mud Run! He finished with a time of 00:55:09! The Mud Run is a 4.5. mile run that goes through the ROTC challenge course and finishes at a slip-in-slide.

Over 1,000 people participated in the Race for a Reason Tri/Du, 5K, Mud Run, and 3K Walk and over $100,000 was raised for 87 different causes; 244 of those participants braved the Tri/Du. What a fantastic day full of personal achievements topped off with the great feeling of knowing that many worthy charities benefited from all of these efforts!

Carrie & Lynn post race, those smiles tell it all!


Left to Right: Lynn Hanna (of BCSE), Deb Murray (friend), Carrie Saunders (of BCSE), Brandon Saunders (of BCSE – Did the Mud Run!)

Triathlon Time!!

On April 26, 2014 BCSE’s very own Carrie & Lynn are participating in the Race for a Reason Triathlon in Athens, OH! They have been working so hard and training for months and we are all so proud of them! Carrie is supporting Cystic Fibrosis Lilly’s Sunshine & Lynn is supporting Good Works, Inc. You can find more information on the charities by visiting:

Carrie’s Race for a Reason
Lynn’s Race for a Reason

Good luck ladies! Post Race pics to follow!

Heartbleed Bug – Critical OpenSSL Security Flaw

A very serious OpenSSL security flaw, known as the Heartbleed bug, has recently been discovered simultaneously by two different teams of security experts. The bug is a serious vulnerability in the encryption technology used throughout most of the Internet and the bug has been around since 2012!

Does this affect me?
The answer is, it depends. If you are hosted with us, then no, you were never affected by this bug. We have never used an OpenSSL version that includes this vulnerability on any of our hosted servers. If you are hosted somewhere else, you need to check with your host and insist that they fix this if needed. It is extremely important that you check with your host and make sure they fix the bug!

Do you have more technical details?
This website gives a great overview of the technical details surrounding this bug: http://heartbleed.com/