redbullmarky

if the idea catches on, maybe you'd be happy to volunteer your site to this: http://www.phpfreaks.com/forums/index.php/topic,110264.0.html ? just a thought.

if enough people like the idea, and the plus points are good enough in terms of boosting [i]this[/i] site, then maybe eric would be prepared to offer a little space? otherwise, most people who use this site have their own server space - be it hosted or their own, so its not really out of reach for anyone to have a crack at.

i'd prob say the first one - every (wo)man for theirself. all it really needs is (perhaps on a weekly/fortnightly/monthly basis) for someone to pick a site and give a closing date for critique. it'd be good if the sites were actually maybe phpfreaks member sites too, as i think it'd be a nice addition to helping people out that either suck at design or may have hit a brick wall in terms of ideas+inspiration. ober, as for prizes - yeah it'd be for fun (easier that way). but of course, what bigger prize is there than a boost to the pride/ego? :)

BM, I think you missed the point of what b_kitty was asking. its not about being portable in respect of putting on different servers, but being portable in terms of being able to run directly off the CD. the link Daniel0 provided to another thread has all the info necessary for b_kitty to do what he was asking Cheers Mark

Hi all, Had a bit of an idea. Apologies if its ever been discussed here before in the past... When I was doing music full time, I was a member of a music forum that offered all sorts of tips/tricks for recording/mixing/mastering/songwriting, etc. Every now and again, the mods of the forum launched a 'Mixing' contests, which involved everyone being given the same set of tracks (drum/bass/guitar/vocals, etc) and with minimal extra music, had to create a unique mix that were judged. Its probably fair to say that PHP Freaks is split into a similar two areas - 1) give me some help and 2) please tell me what you think. In the latter area, some people have struggled and gotten frustrated, no names mentioned (although I'm sure we've all struggled at some point and got frustrated that noone seems to ALWAYS commend our work) So what i'm putting forward is an idea for a competition, although I don't know how it would be organised/work, and it would be for fun and not prizes. How about a 'Website Reworked' competition where every now and again, a site is selected, and the idea is to totally transform the homepage using the original content? We have a magazine over here that do exactly that - 'Practical Web Design' - they pick a site every month thats a little on the dodgy side, and give it a whole new lick of paint. Obviously there needs to be some rules+guidelines, so thats where an admin or a mod would come in to hold it together, but i think it'd be fun. Just a thought... Cheers Mark

yeah I have had the same issue. the only other differences I've noticed up to now is certain images being prepended with a 'p' on IE for example image/pjpeg instead of image/jpeg

@448191: totally agree with you there about the name thing. it does sound a little smug. @frozen: as examples of logos, you did a good job and point well made @ataria: if you want to dismiss someones effort to help, fine - but would be good to see what you can bring to the table @businessssman: I cannot believe you are still not listening to people, after all the advice given. in answer to your other thread - "should I quit?" - my answer is now a definite yes, unless you can show some acknowledgment and appreciation for the help you are getting. you didn't even acknowledge the logos that frozen put up, as he obviously took out the time to help. your waffle and lack of acknowledgment is getting very tiresome now.

some good points made well. however, another of my big issues with 3rd party stuff is there is always still a learning curve involved when trying to "get to know it" properly, not to mention finding a template in the first place that matches requirements exactly. in which time you could have your own all done and dusted, and have the benefit of knowing exactly whats going on. i'm not actually a full time developer myself so i understand where youre coming from in that respect, but i also think that the whole "find as many 3rd party scripts and templates" mentality is pretty detremental for everyone involved. If I was to pay a client £5k or something for a fully dynamic site, i'd be pretty miffed if i found out that it was nothing more than a collection of 3rd party stuff lumped together.

on a more useful note, here's something that might inspire you if you care to look. For anyone who knows, we have a programme in the UK called "Dragons Den" where entrepreneurs try to convince a handful of "dragons" to invest cash in their business. One of the dragons, Peter Jones, is a bit smug and loves himself lots but nonetheless very successful. Businessman, take a look at his site (but please ignore the 'flash' aspect (i hate flash) - just concentrate on the layout/style). i think it'd be something that if you keep the whole 'businessman' thing going, will give you a few ideas on getting an identity: http://www.peterjones.tv/index.cfm

moondance is probably your best effort. elostandfound is actually ok too. with a little work, both could be pretty good on your portfolio. as for funnyemailforwards, dont even go there. however... your own site pisses me off more than anything else youve offered, but its not because of its quality. its more for the fact that on NUMEROUS occasions, youve posted it for critique. here we are though, several months down the line and several thousand posts later, and you have implemented NONE of the advise given regarding your own site. not only is this disrespectful to those that have taken time out to help, but it's actually showing that you also have no interest in progressing. here's a cliche for you: "humans were made with 2 ears and 1 mouth. use them in that order". in a nutshell - listen more, take it on board, and cut out the rubbish. all that stuff on your site about ethics, and swapping design work for dentist treatment - not in a month of Sundays can you be serious. if i was to do your site for you, the end result would be 10 times more basic, and be a fraction of the size without being full of text waffle. If you're gonna do research, then quit with the several million programming languages and design packages, and research other sites in 'website critique' that are similar to yours, and ask yourself this: 1) do they cram their site with as much text as possible? 2) do they offer web work in swaps for xbox games and a new set of teeth? 3, do they have overdressed logos with irrelevent background pictures that take 10 minutes to load on a high speed broadband connection? 4) do they have several sections on "ethics", and then not follow any of them? the list goes on. and on. also you often put as much thought into many of your questions and posts as you do into your site. many times i'll answer a question, and others will too. shortly after, you'll come back and ask the same question, or just say "yeah but, i'm gonna do it this way anyway cos i wanna learn everything in the world". heres a task. look at moondance/elostandfound. now look at yours. whats the difference? colours/layout/less text/etc. what i'm trying to hint at is the difference between sites youve done for others and your own is you seem to have applied peoples advice to other sites but not your own. you know enough not to give up, so definitely dont give up. just quit the crap, find your niche (and i mean a SINGLE thing). "web design" is not a niche, its an entire industry. pick PHP+MySQL for example and stick to it. stop trying to do everything, because in all honesty, its not working and its making you come across like a robot. for your plus points, you seem sincere enough and eager to learn. just put some limits on and start putting some of your knowledge into practice. i probably only know a fraction of what you do. the difference is that I stick to what i'm good at. i admit i'm rubbish with PhotoShop/Fireworks so dont even try, and I work to my limitations. Most of all, I dont take it [i]too[/i] seriously and I have fun doing it. over and out cheers Mark

put an 'exit' after a header("Location: blah") call. someone will need to put this into better words ,but these header redirects dont occur until the script ends. [code] header("Location: /somewhere.php"); exit; [/code] output buffering works, but in many cases its used too often to patch up sloppy code. otherwise, i'm sure youve been around long enough to have read: http://www.phpfreaks.com/forums/index.php/topic,37442.0.html cheers Mark [b]edit[/b]: sorry bholbrook, missed this: [quote] Also, when you change the page location, the first page will finish processing. Make sure to put an exit(); after your header if you dont want that to happen. [/quote]

[quote author=dbrimlow link=topic=109997.msg443970#msg443970 date=1159563473] >>Templates are for people that really just can't create their own site from scratch.<< Oh come on, guys, don't be snobs. How many of you ALWAYS start every single page, tag, code from scratch and don't recycle even one snippet? [/quote] i'm with jcombs on this one, 100%. and theres nothing snobby about that comment. pages in many ways are like code - a collection of reusable elements. in terms of a web page, reusing parts of a page (panels, nav, etc) keeps consistency. so taking this into account, once youve designed part of a page, much of the rest kinda falls into shape. even on some of my busiest sites, there are only essentially a handful of elements other than the header/footer - things like the nav, maybe a container, a form, etc. these are then duplicated to keep a flow of consistency going. having said all that, i definitely will spend no less than a full day, more often two or 3, designing and putting together these elements. then i let the PHP deal with the rest. the thing that scares me about templates is the idea of having my site looking pretty much identical to someone elses. also the fact that i never get any sense of achievement from using other peoples work, although this is my own preference rather than the norm. there's nothing [i]wrong[/i] with templates as such - they help many get started quickly - but i just think its relatively impossible to have full control over your site when youre pretty much bound to a certain look/layout. designing a proper site to me means having full control over everything that goes on the page. its also part of the fun. on a final note, you'll also notice similarities between sites written by the same developer/company/person. i like to think of this as a person's "tag" or "individuality", and that to me is key. Cheers Mark

the biggest problem i find with your last post is that, in terms of knowledge, have gone full circle and forgotten all the advice people have given you in the past. it leaves me to say that maybe a new profession that allows this kind of learning would be the best thing for you. in striving to be a jack-of-all-trades, youre actually getting knowledgable - i dont dispute that - however you've actually demonstrated nothing that suggests you actually excel at any of your disciplines that you claim to know about. no doubt you can code a site, so stick at that. give up graphic design because you're terrible at it. yes, in some ways you can learn it, but some people just have the knack - its an art. stick to the coding, get good at it, and leave the design to a designer. leave the ideas to the clients, because your ideas are about as confusing as your "ethics". sorry for being so frank, but this is the umpteenth time we've walked down this road, so thats it for me. good luck Mark

you're slightly missing the point. when a user goes on the hunt for web design services, and come across your site, its not THEIR job to change the logo to make it look good. its YOUR job. YOU look at the 20 or so logos, and YOU pick out the best one

actually, i'll put my neck on the block a little here, because I suck at graphics too. but when i was designing a logo for my news site, i wanted it to be relevent to the type of site, hence my choice of typography and background. here: http://www.thedinnertimes.com (ps, this is not a shameless plug :) ) so i'm not saying its good - in fact in many ways its awful - but it fits, is simple, and is relevent. the point being - youre proving that you know how to use photoshop. thats great. but you need to at least put more thought into it and what relevence it has to anything. [quote author=businessman332211 link=topic=109986.msg443844#msg443844 date=1159552802] I didn't do these, my graphic designer did [/quote] sack him.

as logos, they wont work. 2 and 7 are particularly terrible, closely followed by 4/5 and 6. CURVE3 looks like you gone to work with clip art or bannerMania (anyone remember that? lol) and slapped it over a nice picture. MA4 is your best bet (if you have to use any of these for logos), but a logo shouldnt really be anything complicated. take a look at Yahoo, Microsoft, eBay and Google, for just a few examples. No flash photography in the background, but just a simple, straightforward logo - and possibly 4 of the most recognisable logos in the world. The ones you've produced look like youre trying far too hard to make things look pretty, without really putting much thought into it beforehand.

[quote author=ober link=topic=109687.msg443647#msg443647 date=1159534117] With all the security issues and such involved with a project on the scale of a multi-user, multi-input piece of software like a set of forums, you're better off going with a supported, feature-rich option like SMF. [/quote] definitely agree. i wrote my own forums several months back whilst feeling in one of those "i can do anything" modes, and it took far too long - and is not even a patch on things like SMF, etc. not to mention how many bugs there are. best thing would be to download one and learn how to customise and build on it, rather than writing yours from the ground up - and that coming from someone who generally insists on only ever using my own code :)

lol i meant JPG's or something that us poor, non-photoshop owners can look at :)

can you put some image files there instead of something we have to unpack first?

[quote author=Daniel0 link=topic=109962.msg443808#msg443808 date=1159550014] The point is that they would [i]not[/i] be accessed directly. [/quote] ok cool. makes no difference to my answer though - definitely better to store a link rather than the file itself.

most definitely the first one. i used to actually use the second approach quite a bit, but its only a matter of time before things start grinding and problems crop up. it also makes it easier to access your files directly should you need to, without extracting them from your database with a script first.

[quote author=businessman332211 link=topic=109964.msg443695#msg443695 date=1159539289] Something changed inside of me last night.  I am not the same person, I am someone different.  I wanted to offer a bit of general advice, if you find yourself stuck even on something small, pray about it, you will noticed a difference in the amount of time it takes you to fix that problem. [/quote] i find it hard to believe that you're a different person, as that one fits in nicely with your other collection of philosphies, ethics and random thoughts ;) on a serious note though, i'm sure there's a relevent point to be discussed here. many times i get stuck on the little, easy things which only frustrate me and hold things up. i normally try the tried and tested "move onto something else and come back" approach, but often this doesnt always work. aside from praying, what do people generally do when they get stuck?

[quote author=businessman332211 link=topic=109711.msg443319#msg443319 date=1159480350] My ideas on the process in general would be something like this The user pay's via paypal(I am assuming that's how they are paying to download), when paypal's ipn comes back you process the request(temporarily database that they have paid, and set them up a temp access id.  Have a login area, an area that is hidden to the public, in that login area, there is a master username/password it's universal for everyone, or even individual, however you want to do it.  Then you have all the files downloading there, and for them to get any of the links to work, they have to have a temporary passcode, that passcode can be stored in a database, and you can set up a script that every 24 hours(as ober said), it removes whatever passcodes are over 24 hours old, this removes access to everyone who doesn't have passcode.  As long as you htaccess (to prevent people from getting to the files folder), I don't think you would have anything to worry about. [/quote] ???

Hi I'm kinda hoping i've fully understood the question and therefore don't sound patronising, so apologies if i've missed the point :) .... If you don't want someone to have direct access to a file, then pop them outside the directory tree, below the httpdocs (or public_html or whatever yours is). A single script is then all that's required to retrieve and force the file to download (using [s]headers[/s] [b]edit:[/b] the info in the thread by ober that Daniel0 pointed out earlier in this thread), and how you grant access to the files via this script is up to you. I do a similar thing with other types of files for my company, as I dont want people getting direct access (via URL) to them. If I was going to do an MP3 site, then I'd do it in the same way. It keeps the files away from the unwanted, avoids 'hotlinking', and removes the need to shift files around, so hopefully thats the ticket. Hope that helps Cheers Mark

agreed with obsidian, although the support in IE for PNGs is a bit rubbish. JPG would be the safest bet