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Hey guys, I need help developing a captcha for my new project. This is where I got so far: http://www.cservers.eu/captcha/ Now I want to distort the image a bit, how would I go around to do that? Thanks in advance, Carlos Lage

Nevermind, MultiViews was turned on -_-

Hello everyone, I'm running a webserver under Apache/2.0.54 (Debian GNU/Linux) mod_python/3.1.3 Python/2.3.5 PHP/4.3.10-16 I had an .htaccess with some redirection rules and I deleted it, but those redirection rules are still in effect! Test it your self: http://www.swissdomainregistration.com/web-development/ http://www.swissdomainregistration.com/web-development.php Can someone help me fix this? I don't want to actually delete those rules, but before I deleted the file I tried to add new rules and they weren't working, so now I'm trying to find out why even if I deleted the .htaccess file it's still under effect so I can find out how to add the new rules. I hope I'm not being too confusing hehe. Thanks in advance, Carlos Lage

I'm currently using apache 2.0 in my server and I want to make a mod_rewrite rule so that anything that goes to /articles/stuff is redirected to articles.php?codename=stuff but I'm having a hard time. This is my htaccess file: [code]RewriteEngine on RewriteRule ^/articles/([^/.]+)/?$ /articles.php?codename=$1  [L] RewriteRule ^/([^/\.]+)/?$ $1.php [L][/code] Can someone point me to the right way? :D

Hello everyone, I've been programming in PHP for around 3 years now, but so far I never needed to make an installation script (everything I made was for internal use, so I just made the dbs manually and edited the files by hand). Now the time has come for my first commercial project (to be sold in bulk that is) and I need to develop an installation script. So I was wondering how would you guys advise me to make one. I want it to be as simple as possible, so I was thinking about something in these lines: -Ask user for ftp data for auto chmoding, if no data is given, tell the user which files to chmod. - not a lot of questions here -Ask user for db data - should I make it so it creates the DB and tables automaticly? Or force the user to create the db him self (seeing many hosting companies force people to create the dbs manually, not giving permissions to the user created usernames to do that) -Ask user for super admin user data. - not many questions here. Also, how would I go into creating the tables? My only table creation experience is with phpMyAdmin. Should I just export the structure of my current tables and use that? Looking forward to comments and suggestions. Thanks in advance, Carlos Lage

Ok, I changed the gradient and I think it's much better now :)

What color should I use then? And I fixed the wording to "99% Uptime Guaranteed". That's what should've been there in the first place.

[!--quoteo(post=374723:date=May 17 2006, 06:05 PM:name=ober)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(ober @ May 17 2006, 06:05 PM) [snapback]374723[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] I actually think the gradiant isn't bad. It's better than plain black, you have to give him that. And Jeff, I'm not sure who you're hosted through (I think you host yourself, so whatever), but I don't know of a single host that claims 100% uptime. That's NEVER going to be true. If I ever saw a host that claimed 100% uptime, I wouldn't go with them because they're bunch of goddamn liars. [/quote] Exactly. 100% uptime? Impossible. But 99% means I can have the servers down 4 days a year. Which gives me time to make backups, update software, fix network / hardware problems. I dont plan to use those 4 days per year but 99% is as close as any uptime will get to 100% And ober, what should I do with the gradient, what should I change in it? And the front page? Should I just start making one again from scratch?

I fixed some the stuff, added a gradient. What do you think?

[!--quoteo(post=374617:date=May 17 2006, 12:15 PM:name=steviewdr)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(steviewdr @ May 17 2006, 12:15 PM) [snapback]374617[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] A big improvement. However - your index page doesnt look great. That blue + dividing up the areas looks cat IMO. I also think you should NUMBER your packages. I.E. Need a Domain = 3 Premium Hosting = 1 etc. etc. I think it would help to differentiate your packages and offers etc. - again just looking a little more professional and official. On that + dividing area - it seems that the padding is messed up or something. Your other pages are fine - its just your index page is a poor show/ attraction. Also - the colour of your headings is the same as your a href's - Id like it different. Your order page - "Swiss Domain Registration Order Wizard" (http://www.swissdomainregistration.com/modernbill/order/checkout.php) looking for all the information - its a tad messy and unorganised IMO. Your error detection form (if fields are empty) is poor - no red and a ton of text. I also note your For Fraud Prevention purposes: you dont get my real IP - only my proxy server which is little good IMO. Please note also - We dont have Zip Codes in Ireland. You have them compulsory!! You dont use SSL? It would be nice to see and cost nothing IMO. Actually - do you offer SSL in your packages? - I cant see it jumping out. I only see PayPal - can I not pay with credit card? If not - I would NOT go with ye. I know paypal is easy and ok - but its hassle. Anyhoo -- keep working. -steve [/quote] As I said before, I don't control the checkout order. I'm using Mordernbill and it's somewhat rigid in relation to edits. Or at least for me, I'm not very familiar with it's code. I'd have to study it. And the paypal thingy. You can pay by credit card through paypal. And I don't use anything else because paypal is useable by everyone wtih a credit card and they handle fraud problems and other stuff for me. When I rented modernbill, I thought it was the best software around for billing. It's quite good but it's not perfect. And I don't use SSL nor offer SSL as of yet. I didn't install the SSL stuff in my dedicated server yet. I got it working so far with no problems, and if it ain't broke don't fix it :P Maybe in a near future. But then I'd have to use a shared certificate for all the sites. I'll fix the index page tho.

I think I'll leave the logo as it is for now.

I did all that except the changes to the logo as I don't understand what you mean. What do you think I should do with the logo? Your previous messages was somewhat confusing in that part.

I have some control on what appears before (the header) and on what appears after (the footer) the order form. All I can do is fix the bread in the sandwich (template+form+template). The bread is fine, it's the filling that needs fixing. And I'm not familiar on where or what I should edit in modernbill for that. Edit: Ok, I made a lot of changes. Please tell me what you think now (not changes to the order form [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/laugh.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":laugh:\" border=\"0\" alt=\"laugh.gif\" /] )

[!--quoteo(post=374404:date=May 16 2006, 08:47 PM:name=redbullmarky)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(redbullmarky @ May 16 2006, 08:47 PM) [snapback]374404[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] why? no point in stopping half way. make it all validate, otherwise the claims count for toffee. also gives the impression (considering you're proud enough to point it out with your use of XHTML/CSS logos in your footer) that you've thrown the rest of the site together. especially as the first page that dont validate is the page that is the actual order page. my opinion on the XHMTML/CSS logos to show off validation is - sitewide, either use them or dont. if one single page dont validate, dont use them logos anywhere. 1, blue. the shades of blue you have are ok (ie, not to glary) but they're used in the wrong ways. i can't even put my finger on why, otherwise i'd tell you. try this tho. see your tables on your pricing page? just for the sake of trying, make the table/cell borders white instead of blue (leaving the cell background colours the same for now), or at least try and add some sort of 3d 'raised' border. 2, pill buttons, or anything that slightly resemble pill buttons, have one place - and that's in the same category as comic sans and animated gif's. obviously IMHO of course, but i dont like your learn more buttons at all. even a simple: Learn More >>> link would be better than the buttons you have. 3, the pictures (photos) you have do a big favour to the pages that have them. only problem is their size. for the WxH they are, the filesize is a little bit excessive. 4, just try - for the sake of trying - drop your font size down a touch. whilst i hate tiny fonts, i hate big fonts too as both look cheap. 10/11px is good for most content (excluding headings, etc) 5, your ticks/crosses on your hosting page could do with being a bit sharper. they seem half blurry and half jagged. a 3D image in amongst a jungle of non-3d stuff can appear visually unnatural. 6, contact pages with a simple form, etc is a 5 minute job to implement and a 5 minute job to make sure it validates the entry and works. in the 10 minutes i've been typing, and the several hours of replying to criticism, it's still a bunch of mailto's. if you're a good coder and a weak designer (like me) then stick to what you know. going all glitzy with gradients and pill buttons etc looks bad unless you really know what you're doing. none of my sites i've posted here have come off favourably every time, but the fact that i've not crossed the line into 'design' (because i dont do a good job with it) has held me steady and allowed me to put out sites that are quite presentable. good luck, and hope that helps! Cheers Mark [/quote] As I SAID, I'm going to change the learn more buttons, leave them alone :P And about the XHTML validation. I didn't do the Modernbill orderform and I don't like poking around scripts I'm not familiar with so I decided to leave Modernbill intact (as it controls many aspects of the order form. I can only change the "headers" and "footers" of the template. Not the actual order form. For that I'd have to change more coding than I'm willing to. Specially just to validate in W3C. I made my website according to the standards, but the Modernbill programmers didn't build their software according to the standards. I'm not going to fix it for them. My part in complying to the rules is done. All that I did for the website validates. The order form, a part of Modernbill doesn't. Tough luck. And I removed the syntax validation logo from the order page (most of the css is mine, so it's valid, the part the modernbill devs made throws warnings tho).

[!--quoteo(post=374347:date=May 16 2006, 05:18 PM:name=steviewdr)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(steviewdr @ May 16 2006, 05:18 PM) [snapback]374347[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] Yes - your main selling & attracting website needs a little work. 1. (this is my rule and ramblings) Large Heading text should be anti-aliased as an image. You have Very large and Text standing out at me in blue. There are other ways to attract the eye rather than large text. I would put the text in a nice image and perhaps an underline or subtle background using css - to show nicely that it is a heading. 2. Them learn more Buttons - Why is the fillet/ round so "oblong" or out of shape. A nice ordinary rounded corner on the "Learn More" would be WAY nicer (IMO of course). The SIZE of these buttons are wrong also. You have NICE nav buttons - but then you come along with these HUGE "Learn More" buttons which are coloured differrent to other buttons or text on your site. There is also too much of a gap between the Content and these Buttons. 3. Your Background IMAGES are too dark. Background images (such as the objects you are using) should only provide a "hint" or with a little focusing of the eye - be descriptive. Currently the bg.s are too dark (IMO of course) 4. Whats the Control Panel Login for???? It should be hidden and the URL emailed to clients upon sign in. I do like the photo on the HOSTING page. It looks WAY more professional that some button or background you have tried to make. I would also perhaps put a white fade around the sides of this image. Anyways Im going to leave it at that. </rant> -steve [/quote] 1- I was plannning to do that, I just wanted to make sure I had the final version of the titles before :D 2- It will be fixed soon. 3- I'll make the more white. 4- I thought it could come in handy for some client who lost their email, but I guess I could use the space that button occupies to put a more visible link to the Contacts page. Thanks for the constructive criticism :)

Well done! The only thing I'd change would be the footer. It seems a bit misplaced there. And the bottom border is missing.

[!--quoteo(post=374311:date=May 16 2006, 03:56 PM:name=jcombs_31)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(jcombs_31 @ May 16 2006, 03:56 PM) [snapback]374311[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] I'll give you an idea, I pulled it from my brain. I looked at your site and gave my opinion of it. I don't think the changes helped, they actually made it worse. Now I can't read your text over those wonderful images. The learn more buttons are huge. I could lie and say it looks great, but what would be the point. [/quote] Well, for a start you could've read the post where I said I'd fix the Learn Now buttons. And I agree that there might be some problems reading the text, I need to make the background images more transparent. But you were complaining about all that blue, and I removed a lot of it so it's softer for the eyes. So how is that worse? And I don't want you to lie about the site, saying it looks great. I just don't like your arrogant and "the world owes me something" atitude. If you don't have a polite way of saying something, then don't. Manners and class above all. [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/wink.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":wink:\" border=\"0\" alt=\"wink.gif\" /]

[!--quoteo(post=374308:date=May 16 2006, 03:49 PM:name=ober)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(ober @ May 16 2006, 03:49 PM) [snapback]374308[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] What you've done with the front page helps a lot. You need to move the "learn more" buttons (and possibly make them look better) and I'd put a thin box around each one of those elements just to seperate them nicely. I'd say your hosting costs are pretty spot-on, but you're selling yourself pretty cheap as far as labor, IMO. (although going by your design level, it might be pretty accurate) [/quote] Where should I move the "learn more" buttons to? And I know they look kinda bad, I just needed to get this website out in a hurry because I'm already paying for the dedicated server and whatnot. I need to grab some hosting clients :) I'll work on the new buttons tonight and I'll also add the borders around the elements around that time. I gotta go away from my computer for a while. Thanks for the constructive criticism :) And I know I'm not a great designer, that's why I'm going to start hiring good designers to make the templates for my clients. I think I'm a nice PHP programmer tho. Starting to do stuff with AJAX [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":smile:\" border=\"0\" alt=\"smile.gif\" /]

[!--quoteo(post=374262:date=May 16 2006, 01:26 PM:name=jcombs_31)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(jcombs_31 @ May 16 2006, 01:26 PM) [snapback]374262[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] Nothing really looks clean or professional. [/quote] I'd like to know where you pulled that one from, but I have a wild hunch. And to steelmanronald06, I didn't really know that. I think I made it better now tho :) Thanks for the info. Ober, what do you think about it now?

[!--quoteo(post=374257:date=May 16 2006, 01:00 PM:name=ober)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(ober @ May 16 2006, 01:00 PM) [snapback]374257[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] A few things: 1) It's very blue. When I think Swiss, and especially Swiss Army I think red. All the swiss army stuff is red. While the blue is ok, I think it probably wouldn't hurt to get a contrasting color in there. Variations of the same color can get a little tiresome. 2) the images on the front page are a little large and cheesy, IMO. Same with the x's and checkmarks in the hosting page. It just looks a little cheap. You could make the ones on the front page more transparent and put them in the background instead of using up so much space for them. I'd also reduce the size of them. You're wasting a lot of space there. 3) No contact page. For a hosting company, I'd expect to see a contact page instead of a few "mailto" links at the bottom of the front page. And while we're on the subject, the suggestion box link doesn't work. 4) Your index page is nothing but an extravagent nav section. You could probably tone it down a little and describe the business a little more and let the users find the nav above. 5) I would personally feel better with a little more padding around the content box. It's not bad, but it's not great either. A little tweak here and there would do wonders. [/quote] 1) Yea, I get that sometimes. I guess it's a personal taste. Some people like it, some don't. Can't please everyone :P 2) Good idea with the background and the transparency. I'll do that :) But what about the X's and Checkmarks? What should I change in them? 3) I was going to add that today. The website was just launched :P I still have to add the sitemap and the contact information but I needed to get the website out ASAP because every day without a new customer I lose a bit of money. And I fixed the suggestion box link, thats what I get for finishing a website at 3am [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/unsure.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":unsure:\" border=\"0\" alt=\"unsure.gif\" /] 4) That's what the "About" page is for :P 5) I'll experiment with that.

I've been developing web apps and websites for 6 years now and I've gone commercial for some months but I'm launching my buiness' website now. It all validates as XHTML 1.1 and CSS 2.0 (except for the Modernbill order page....). I also used mod-rewrite to make the pages extensionless :D What do you guys think off the website? Please, only constructiive criticism and be thorough :) The URL is: [a href=\"http://www.swissdomainregistration.com\" target=\"_blank\"]http://www.swissdomainregistration.com[/a] Thanks in advance, Carlos Edit: Ooops, forgot to paste the website URL.... Edit2: Feel free to comment on my Hourly rates, hosting prices and hosting features I'm interested in suggestions.