redbullmarky

where are $newlang, $lang, etc being first set? if these are (intended) to be set via the URL or a posted form, then change them to $_GET['newlang'] (if the URL) or $_POST['newlang'] (if from a posted form). PHP has a setting, register_globals which, if turned on, would allow you to get away without doing this. however, it's highly advisable to turn this off (the default setting now with PHP) as it opens your site up to all sorts of attack. [move]hope that helps[/move] :)

are you entering the passwords manually, or doing what many do and copy/pasting from the email? if its the latter, its not unusual for a bit of whitespace to be copied/pasted too which only results in invalid attempt to login. try typing it instead (if you're not doing that)

i hereby declare the next version of the web to be Web 6.0.23b There. you heard it here first. I coined that term.

PITA = pain in the ass

[quote author=Renlok link=topic=117099.msg477510#msg477510 date=1165063079] i have also spell checked it so all the speelings sould know be correct. [/quote] Sorry Renlok, had a little chuckle at this line ;) IMO, beginner tutorial or not, all tutorials dealing with $_POST/$_GET should clearly point out that relying on ANY sort of user input in its pure state is bad. noob tutorial or not, any mention of $_GET, $_POST, $_COOKIE, etc, should automatically come with an explaination of what happens to the values as they're POSTed, etc, as a newbie may find it a little strange that these odd slashes can turn up (depending on their php settings of course). [b]edit:[/b] renlok, i'm seriously not trying to be one of these spelling/grammar police here, but impressions when giving a tutorial are important. Now your spelling is sorted, you need to throw in a full stop/comma or two in there to give the tutorials some sentences.

if you're writing a tutorial, its worth checking your spelling. people will think "if he cant spell, does he really know enough to teach me PHP?". also - even for a TOTAL beginner, it's a bit simple. I remember being disappointed when i wrote my first ever "hello world" script in C++. "is that it?" was pretty much my thought. PHP is not really a language for someone to get stuck into if they havent got the aptitude to do something more challenging than a basic echo script. cheers Mark

if you're on PHP5, take a look at [url=http://uk.php.net/autoload]autoload[/url]. generally though, if you've got a tidy directory structure, the paths shouldnt really be too problematic. i've always got something like include(dirname(__file__) . '/myclass.php') or include($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/scripts/myclass.php').

sure...google/msn, etc are bots. bots can read text, but not so well images. sure, there's always the good ol' image "alt" tags, but text is better for general all round bot-friendliness.

[quote author=businessman332211 link=topic=106884.msg477009#msg477009 date=1164986319] uhh, I didn't ask for a re-critique, this post set here for almost 2 week's, without me saying anything, and all of a sudden people started critiquing again, I didn't just pop in and ask. I was actually doing a lot on my server, while keeping an eye on this post, but my last post on this specific thread was over 3-4-5 weeks ago, [b]it died[/b], then people resurrected it. I wasn't asking for help agian, but it's appreciated. [/quote] if it has been 2-3 weeks, and yet things look the same and still a bit rubbish, with none of (peoples carefully thought out) suggestions implemented, then we can only assume that you're struggling with the initial advice that was given - therefore, we want to re-iterate it so that it's crystal clear. on revisiting the site a few times, and realising that there was either tonnes of errors or no changes, the only thing "that died" (as you suggest) was your server and possibly  your career in the event that any potential or current clients were visiting your webs(h)ite at the time. [quote author=businessman332211 link=topic=106884.msg477009#msg477009 date=1164986319]Currently I am doing a lot, right now I have changed over to another server, I am "considering", a brand new domain name and website, if I keep the current one, I am going over the entire list I saw from steelman, and going to bite the bullet and follow all or most of his advice, then see how it looks and go over what redbullmarky said. [/quote] how about "considering" staying where you are and just taking some advice? You say you've done alot. But every question you've asked elsewhere in this forum, trying to get help, TOTALLY contradicts your claims of 2 (or was it 4?) years experience. i get a little miffed with this, as you post in the freelance forum looking for work re-establishing these claims. any sucker that picks up work from you and realises that you charge ridiculous amounts (or swapsies for games/new teeth) for below-average results doesnt just make YOU look bad, it makes the whole community look bad. [quote author=businessman332211 link=topic=106884.msg477009#msg477009 date=1164986319] If I don't rebuild the entire thing from scratch, I am atleast going to be rewritting all the code, to these people's advice, and redoing all the content. [/quote] yawn, you said that last time you decided to rewrite the thing. you also said you'd take our advice then. oh look - a new site, same old stuff = none of the old advice taken. [quote author=businessman332211 link=topic=106884.msg477009#msg477009 date=1164986319] A few things steelman mentioned I might not do, but most of the things he said on the design, and a lot of the things he mentioned on the content made since, so I am going to be redoing all of that, based on his ideas, as soon as I decide whether I am scraping and rebuilding under a different domain name, or keeping the current site. [/quote] what does the domain name have to do with doing a site that smells like ass or not? surely only the logo gets affected by a new domain. and you have someone else to deal with that anyway. seriously, you're very welcome around these parts and you show a desire to learn. but you're like a schizophrenic - one place you ask stuff that you're sposed to learn after a few weeks, and in another you're telling everyone how much you know and how much you charge. sort it out otherwise you're gonna be left with no help and definitely no career. now i predict you'll do one of three things. 1) come out with a massive rant like last time, including comments about mothers 2) write a 14 page document about how wrong i am 3) post a topic in 'Miscellaneous' asking why you're not getting ahead in your career. hopefully you pick the 4th or 5th option which would be 4) do something useful and back up your claims or 5) pick a new career i hate to sound like a tosser, cause i kinda like you around here, but you need to know (and appreciate and listen to) the truth.

1) text, although in some cases, images WOULD look better in cases where a) the fonts are not "web safe" or b) the font needs a special kinda look which could only be achieved by using an image. otherwise - text with a websafe (or relatively websafe family of) font would mean that anyone could easily change the content without loading up a graphics package. also, as far as accessiblity/search engines go, text is always gonna come up trumps here. 2) yes and no. you can get the image to be virtutally negligable in terms of bandwidth, etc - BUT (and someone may need to correct me here) - an image will be AT LEAST a several hundred bytes for any form of image. for text on the other hand, providing the user has the font installed on their computer, its gonna be the standard 1 byte per letter scenario. i had a play with Fireworks, and the best i could get a 2 colour (black+white) image to, containing 10 chars, was about 455 bytes. in text form, that costs you 10 bytes. considering the amount of people using PDA's and mobiles these days, assuming that end users have enough speed is too much of an assumption. hope that helps Mark

The best thing to do would be to take that list of things you have and actually do something proper with them that utilises them all, rather than just a demonstration of each individual one seperately. The knowledge you'll have gained from sussing out those ones should help you on your way to making a site that everyone would enjoy, not just those new to PHP, and not necessarily even people interested in PHP at all.

itrebal hit the nail on the head totally 100% here. what works for one is not the same as another. personally i knew a little HTML, and when i decided i wanted a forum, i downloaded phpbb and got interested in the code. everything i learn these days has been either from other peoples code, the php manual (which coupled with the users notes, is excellent) and here. studying has some advantages to some people, but others will learn better from jumping in the deep end and just getting stuck in. some people will study and study for years (no names mentioned) and still be stuck in a hole.

Welcome aboard!!!

taith, i know what youre getting at. but its well documented that PHP itself is a perfectly good templating engine itself. the short tags + alternative syntax are more than adequate. i'm sure a few people have noticed me point them towards this article before: http://www.massassi.com/php/articles/template_engines/ which not only explains why template engines are not all that great, but also explains how to STILL use this whole templating concept but without the bloat/overhead. tis a good read, even if you're adament not to go down that road.

something to think about though - is typing: [code] <td><?=$body ?></td> [/code] really much worse than typing [code] <td><!-- body --></td> [/code] considering the former is just as clean and doesnt come with the performance hit of the latter?

i'm not an authority to advise of the hows and whys as i don't understand the technical aspects of mysql fully, but like i say, i'm using a db with more than 3m records and the time is negligable, even when doing a JOIN with another table with about 10000 records (regions/counties). maybe someone can explain indexes a little better (and how to use them properly). but that sort of lag isn't what you'll need to settle with.

setting up a proper index will help. i set up a database of 3,000,000 records (city, country, longitude, latitide) and it took AGES to search until i set up an index across city+country fields (not just normal primary key). now it takes only marginally shorter than a normal SELECT query.

yeah i remember. welcome back :)

apart from the point you've already made, about being incomplete, i dont really have too many complaints. both are clean and well laid out and breath very well. for a dark site, i think you've managed to get eyesoute looking quite good, although i'd like to see something more than black and white. the proof in the pudding though is always what happens when the site gets its live content, as the random nature of real articles and images can either make or break the best and worst templates.

unfortunately, in its current state it has not much going for it: 1) seems to take ages to load 2) clogged with google ads (or at least it seems that way) 3) blue and green should never be seen, as the saying goes. sure, there are exceptions. 4) no logo, just some text rammed in the corner. 5) default font 6) uses default text for submit buttons (ie, Submit) 7) it doesnt validate - and with 51 errors on your homepage alone, considering that it's quite simple, this is not good. 8) it's not immediately obvious what it is 9) nothing on the WeLink categories page is clickable, which you'd expect it to be 10) it has a hit counter. these take me back into the realm of bad 90's sites where everything was all about how many hit counters and animated GIF's you could show, with comic sans thrown in for good measure. only YOU really need to know how good (or bad) your site is doing in terms of traffic, so no need to advertise it. TBH, it seems like you've not made much effort. everythings slow, untidy, invalid and pretty sparse. some people set up sites and fill them with gooooooogle ads to make money. some make forums so they can experience being an admin of something. some do both. sorry i couldnt be more positive.

if the need for just the text content is all, then that gives you a few solutions. as steve said, there's catdoc. also: 1, antiword (free) - http://www.winfield.demon.nl/ 2, phpWordLib (costs) - http://www.phpwordlib.motion-bg.com/ 3, i wrote a class that will strip out the text from a word file. it's a bit messy, but it works perfectly. PM me and i'll send it you

not to mention www.milliondollarhomepage.com a ridiculously simple idea, looks a bit rubbish, made him over a million dollars. and as neal said, you're asking the question to a community of people who have all the tools necessary to implement their idea themselves if they thought it would be their next fortune :)

i apologise for being unconstructive, but i personally thing it'd be much easier to get your friend to find a host that uses at least PHP4, rather than trying to code for an ancient version. sessions (in this case) are just the start of your problem. i could only take a stab-in-the-dark guess that you're gonna have many more problems other than this if PHP3 is the only way to go.

as with all steve said, but a couple of things bug me: 1, the 'current' navigation item (ie, just an upside down version of your non-current items). it just looks a little unnatural 2, for some reason (i'm on safari here), many of the bits on the page dont register as links or anything, so my mouse pointer does not change to indicate a link. this makes the whole thing seem a bit of a 'hit and miss' for when i'm actually finding proper places to click. if you're not gonna use proper <a> tags, at least do the CSS to change the mouse pointer

check your connections/db.php for spaces, too. there should be NO whitespace before or after the <?php ?> tags in the db file. otherwise, take a look at [url=http://www.php.net/ob_start]ob_start[/url]