This post continues the excellent write-up by Andy Fielder about installing Magento on a 1&1 Shared Server. Following his guide results in a workable install of Magento.

However, on the frontend every URL will contain that pesky “index.php.” So instead of “yoursite.com/account/manage” you’ll have “yoursite.com/index.php/account/manage”. Not good. After much trawling through the forums, I eventually found enough info to make an educated guess at the solution. And here it is:

Firstly, enable URL rewrites. You can do this on the install page or, if you’ve installed Magento already, by navigating through System > Configuration > Web > Search Engines Optimization and setting “Use Web Server Rewrites” to “Yes.”

Now comes the fiddly part. In your .htaccess, locate the line that says RewriteRule .* index.php [L]. You need to change this to RewriteRule . /index.php [L]. If you’ve installed Magento in a subdirectory (such as “yoursite.com/shop”), you’ll need to change it to RewriteRule . /shop/index.php [L]. Hey presto, you’ve got search engine-friendly URLs on a 1&1 shared server. Boom!

Apollo 11 on the way to the moon.

Well hello world! This website has been a while in the making, and today we launch in beta. If you do notice any bugs or glitches, please leave a comment with the details. If you’re still using Internet Explorer 6, you’ll get no love as I’ve formally ditched all IE6 support. Sorry guys, but IE6 is from a different century, exposes you to phishing and scamming attacks, and is holding back the evolution of the web.