Is it possible to install the OsCommerce cart into my site, before i publish my site on the net, just so i can see that it all works good?

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On the OpenSourceCMS site, i found this under osCommerce:

There is no username/password to get into the admin area. On a production server you must use a .htaccess file or some other means of keeping people out of this area.

What does this mean?

You can either install on a protected directory on your site (create user access through your host provider or site control panel), or you can install and test locally provided you install Apache, PHP and MySQL (which are all provided freely on the web).

What that means, is that everyone can access the admin login page, though they still require login, it's not protected in that you can surf there freely to the page and there's no password asked to make sure you're allowed to actually visit that page or not.

Using .htaccess and .htpasswd you can create it so that when someone does try going there, you're presented with a prompt to ask for password to access that protected area before you are presented with the login page.

Cheers,

MC

Thanks guys, I also wanted to ask about this:
The template that i'm using for my website is located at: http://osc.template-help.com/9005/index.php

It seems that it already has a shopping cart "attached" to the site, is this correct?

IMO: There is another open source shopping cart system that my company uses. Its derived from OSC, but it has lots more supported modules, and a strong supported user community for any type of help required:

www.zen-cart.com