redbullmarky

unless i'm missing your point, i dont actually want the user to physically have their own directory/subdirectory. rather: [b]http://www.mysite.com/redbullmarky[/b] would resolve to: [b]http://www.mysite.com/users/profile.php?user=redbullmarky[/b] and [b]http://www.mysite.com/redbullmarky/thisone[/b] would resolve to [b]http://www.mysite.com/users/profile.php?user=redbullmarky&section=thisone[/b] whilst i kinda know how to do the above, what i'm unsure on is if i DID want to allow a user called 'images', etc, etc. i've thought it through and am almost certain that mod_rewrite in a htaccess would be my solution, but as i'm working from the root directory, with so many files/folders, etc to clash with, was just wondering if i can get away with this - have my cake and eat it - let a user call themselves 'images' if they want, but without affecting things when i'm referring to the 'images' directory for real. any thoughts? cheers Mark

Hi Ronald i'm actually hoping to get a view pointers before i start working out the regex bits, etc, and putting it together. Like i say, i've done it in subdirectories (www.mysite.com/users/redbullmarky) but never the root - and as their are so many other files and directories, i dont want any clashes. can you give me any idea of how you would go about doing this? ie, giving a user their own 'virtual directory' with virtual subdirectories within them? Cheers Mark

[!--quoteo(post=384410:date=Jun 16 2006, 01:12 AM:name=AndyB)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(AndyB @ Jun 16 2006, 01:12 AM) [snapback]384410[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] I can't help you with mod rewrite stuff so I'll suggest an old-fashioned method. Presumably before a prospective user can have their own username, their choice needs to be checked to ensure it does not already exist. So, if I had a list of users and included imaginary users named images, includes, etc. wouldn't that achieve your objective? [/quote] yeah - that bit i understand. the thing that is kinda getting me confused right now is that on a site i'm rewriting, i can literally type in: www.mysite.com/images and it will provide a page that says 'the user "images" does not exist'. even thought the images directory actually does exist, it seems to ignore it and deal with usernames, etc, as priority. biggest prob is that talking to the old programmer is not possible and (going by the rest of his code) would not be practical. i have access to the site that currently does it via FTP, only i cannot find a htaccess file or anything else to give away the trick. so in that respect - i'd love it (if they really wanted to) for a user to be able to call themselves 'images', 'includes', 'scripts' or any other stuff, but it's kinda proving a little tricky. Cheers Mark

Hi all Just wondering about mod rewrite. i've actually used it on sites before to provide users with their own homepage - eg so they can type [a href=\"http://www.mysite.com/users/redbullmarky\" target=\"_blank\"]http://www.mysite.com/users/redbullmarky[/a], which would get resolved to something like [a href=\"http://www.mysite.com/users/index.php?user=redbullmarky\" target=\"_blank\"]http://www.mysite.com/users/index.php?user=redbullmarky[/a]. now - i have a situation i want to find out more about. on a site i'm doing at the moment, i need to refer to the username from the ROOT - ie, www.mysite.com/redbullmarky. also, each user will have sub-pages, so i can type in www.mysite.com/redbullmarky/mypage. now - how can i keep these usernames safe from actual directories that exist? ie, what if someone sets their username as 'images', etc? the only way i can think of is to check for URL's that do not have a 'php' or 'htm' extension, and then treat these like users. or worse still, using a custom 404 page to take a user to a page which deals with sending them to the correct place, in the event of anything typed in the URL. can anyone advise the best way to do this? basically so my usernames do not clash with my directories and files? cheers Mark

[!--quoteo(post=383391:date=Jun 13 2006, 07:04 PM:name=wildteen88)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(wildteen88 @ Jun 13 2006, 07:04 PM) [snapback]383391[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] Oh crap I'm such a dumb-butt! I was supposed to type [b]scrollTo[/b] not srollTo So yeah the function is: [code]scrollTo(x position, y position);[/code] Also you are using it on textarea (< textarea></textarea>) and not a text input field? [/quote] i noticed the spelling bit :) at the moment, i'm hoping to use it on a textfield, not a text area, although the text area option will come up later.

[!--quoteo(post=383208:date=Jun 13 2006, 12:38 PM:name=wildteen88)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(wildteen88 @ Jun 13 2006, 12:38 PM) [snapback]383208[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] I dont know how to do it but I do know that you'll need to use a function called scrollTo which you can use to make the texbox scroll to the end when a word is inserted. The syntax is like this: [code]srollTo(x position, y position)[/code] [/quote] Hi I gave it a go, but unfortunately didnt work. The error returned in the Javascript Console was: el.scrollTo is not a function. It had no effect on the actual textfield at all. 'el' is define using document.getElementById('mytextfield') Any other ideas? Cheers Mark

* bump * anyone?

Hi all Maybe a simple one: I have a text field. Underneath the next field is a list of words. When you click on a word, it's added to the text field. The problem is that once the text field is full, you cant see what's being added as the textfield doesnt automatically shift across. Is there a way to automatically put the newly added text in view, just as if i was typing in the field itself? Cheers Mark

[!--quoteo(post=382654:date=Jun 11 2006, 10:13 PM:name=newb)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(newb @ Jun 11 2006, 10:13 PM) [snapback]382654[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] what? [/quote] if your server is set up to parse .php files, and not .inc, then not only will you be able to view inc in its raw form, but no PHP within it will actually be parsed when included by an actual php file. the only reason i can think of to do this would be to make it easier for you to determine between include files and actual php files, right? in which case - either throw all your includes into an 'includes' directory on your server, or change the extension to .inc.php - so at first glance you can see it as an include file, but it will a) not be visible if someone types its path in, and b) any php within it will be parsed. if you insist on using .inc, then unless you are keeping your .inc files in a directory outside your web tree, then really, its not worth it for all the security problems you will have. Cheers Mark

[!--quoteo(post=382319:date=Jun 10 2006, 09:17 PM:name=fenway)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(fenway @ Jun 10 2006, 09:17 PM) [snapback]382319[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] Well, you must be using indexes -- a multi-column index on, say, city/country, I suppose? Plus, you must be using a LIMIT clause, too.... [/quote] Hi yeah LIMIT was already in there and now i've extended the index across columns and combined it with the other way i had, the whole thing is pretty instantaneous now! Cheers Mark

Hi Thanks for your suggestions. I think, poirot, that your way would probably be more suitable in this case. The ONLY gripe is that i'm not really a fan of allowing access to a database via anything other than 'localhost', but as it would seem to work, its prob gonna be the best solution here so far. Cheers Mark

[!--quoteo(post=382260:date=Jun 10 2006, 05:40 PM:name=fenway)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(fenway @ Jun 10 2006, 05:40 PM) [snapback]382260[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] That's a very interesting question. Ultimately, the speed of query comes down to the effectiveness of the index, how long this index is in memory, and whether or not a scan of portions of the table need to be performed. This is all very dependent on the server configuration, and there are ways to tweak this, ever for just a small number of indexes. Needless to say, if you have a smaller table with a few orders of magnitude fewer data, you'll notice quite a difference (which you have observed). In addition, depending on how much you want to compromise the "accuracy", there are all sorts of shortcuts you can take. Google had an implementation of a "search as you go" as well. [/quote] Sure. Only problem is, the actual city data comes in two types - lame and unusable or huge and concise. There doesnt seem to be a middle ground, and the lame+unusable is not an option, so really it has to be some form of workaround for the huge database. There is no 'index' in the normal sense in the DB (ie, auto inc/primary key) - it literally has 4 fields - country (2 char code), city (varchar 20), longitude and latitude (both DOUBLE). queries to the database are always based on city and country, eg SELECT * FROM lookup_cities WHERE city LIKE '$city%' AND country = '$country' where city and country are two php vars inserted into the query when the script is called by ajax. If you have any other ideas on how you personally would do it if you were stuck with 3million records, please share :) Cheers Mark

[!--quoteo(post=382255:date=Jun 10 2006, 05:17 PM:name=joquius)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(joquius @ Jun 10 2006, 05:17 PM) [snapback]382255[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] well if you ran a DB based session and both sites are working with the same database that would be no problem [/quote] hi i've actually looked at this one - although the coding on the old site is so poorly coded that getting it hooked up with custom sessions (which the new site actually uses) would be far too much effort. i've thought also about using a script on the old site to $_POST the values to the new site, only once again it's a ballache doing anything with the old code, and as its unfamiliar territory (POSTing values to a site without forms), i wouldnt be comfortable doing it as i'd want to keep things secure and solid. Cheers though - any more thoughts from either of you or anyone else would be appreciated Mark

Hi All Just fishing for a few ideas on this one, to try and work out the best way. I have a database that contains over 3 million worldwide cities, complete with the city name, country code, longitude and latitude. What I'm hoping to do is to offer a text field on a site that, as you type, it will offer a suggestion box of matching cities (I'm using AJAX for this). The way I've thought is to have a 'quick reference' table where the exact matches over a period of time will be added to it, which will be searched first - ie, a table of the most popular entered cities. In practice, this seems to be working very well and has cut the time it takes down significantly. But just wondering - can anyone suggest a better/alternative way of accessing such a huge database via AJAX? Should I use a different database other than mysql? is their a table type better than MyISAM for this sort of thing? any advice would be appreciated Cheers Mark

Hi All Just hoping to get a bit of advice about how to approach this one. I'm currently redeveloping a clients' site. This site is hosted on a server with the www.mysite.[b]com[/b] domain name. the new site exists on my own server, and has the same domain name with the co.uk equivalent: www.mysite.[b]co.uk[/b] Now - the new site is not ready, but one particular feature is, which the old site will link to via its navigation. The new site and the new feature needs to know if the user is logged in on the old site. The old site keeps a user logged in using Session variables. Can anyone think of the best way that I can pass the session details from the old site to the new without sending them in the clear or exposing any security problems? Cheers Mark

i'm gonna say this for the last time - stop thinking about it, and just do it!! i'm really not being funny OR nasty, but i've probably been doing sites for less years (and less time, going by your working hours) yet you could literally knock up a totally fresh design within a few hours, but you're missing out the obvious. the obvious - your mistakes have NOTHING to do with HTML, NOTHING to do with CSS, NOTHING to do with PHP, and NOTHING to do with graphic design - your mistakes are [b]common sense[/b]: 1, a big 200K banner is unacceptable 2, too much text is not acceptable 3, dark text on dark background is not acceptable 4, abbreviation when you harp on about doing things meticulously is not acceptable. so forget the php, html, css, javascript, dhtml, xhtml, xml, rss, c++ etc etc etc for 2 minutes and just think about it from a common sense, end-user point of view. would you buy your services from you if that site was the introduction? and not being funny, but this sort of attitude: [!--quoteo--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] I understand the negatives to my site, but I am not willing to rebuild the whole thing again [/quote] will not get you anywhere with your venture, and if youre not prepared to rebuild/redo, etc, then what's the point of posting it for critique? c'mon lad - like lead2gold said, your personality, writing skills and desire to learn is good - but learn to walk before you can run. ober has posted possibly one of the best stickies on this site (other than 'header problems' which helped me in my earlier days lol). it's called 'Resources' and you can find it at the top of the website critique forum. problems with colours? no problem. problems with CSS? no problem. problems with problems? no problem. seriously - take a look. properly. cheers Mark

[!--quoteo(post=378801:date=May 31 2006, 07:53 PM:name=businessman332211)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(businessman332211 @ May 31 2006, 07:53 PM) [snapback]378801[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] To me graphic design is the spawn of the illigitimate son of satan. How do I kill the image size. [/quote] with absolutely any image processing package, even the free ones. default JPG quality is about 75% - and the difference between that and 100% size wise is HUGE, but the difference in quality is minimal. i'm on a pretty fast broadband connection, and was still waiting whilst that banner slowly trawled onto my site. i wouldnt mind, but - no offence - things just really arent working for you. the other thread you did, about your client's site - maybe (considering you mention it was them that had the say) you should get them to design your site for you and you just code it. 1, your banner is huge and inexcusable, graphic designer or not. nice, but too big. 2, your colour scheme is horrible 3, your font varies - it should be consistent, and is too big. 4, your bottom nav jumps all over the place when i hover 5, if i knew that my web designers were rigid and uncommited, as your 'Work Hours' would suggest, i'd go somewhere else. you're a web designer, not a Supermarket. 6, ethics this, ethics that, ethics ethics ethics - whatever - why dont you just cut the content down a bit, throw it all onto an 'ethics' page and be done with it? would also remove several pointless links from your nav 7, oh, i just love black and dark blue on dark grey. (your nav) 8, the most exciting, colourful, well designed parts on your page are the 'XHTML' and 'CSS' buttons. 9, designing websites pixel by pixel. ok explain this: "XHTML -4 years exp" - pixel by pixel, but what about the rest of the letters? dont abbreviate. looks like you couldnt be arsed. 10, never use a hotmail or yahoo web address for your contact!!! jeez, if you have the domain and a bit of hosting, surely they chuck in some email addresses too? sorry to sound so harsh, but you really need to a) listen to stuff that has already been suggested to you, b) look at your own site and ask yourself if youre proud of it c) posting lots of text and a 200K banner doesnt justify a '*bump*', never mind a new thread. cheers

198.15KB for your header image. end of story.

For someone that says they suck at design, I don't think you've done a bad job. the template looks very nice, the colour scheme works. i only have a few suggestions (which maybe a bit vague as i also suck at design) 1, your navigation. looks very nice until you hover the mouse over it, mainly because of the gap between the dark blue block and the horizontal line of the same colour. i think that the dark blue hover should fill the light blue background vertically. also, the 'home' link - with the light blue 'slope' on the left of it, it just doesnt seem right when i hover over the home link. 2, there is a lot of whitespace on some of your pages. i reckon that possibly a 800px wide container to put the site in would do the trick - as when i view at 1024x768, there's loads of whitespace and it just doesnt feel right, but when i shrink my browser a bit, things look really nice. 3, for the lazy people out here, can you make the 'webgeekz' logo in the top left clickable? when i'm whizzing around a site looking for specifics, i always know that to get 'home' i just click the logo, instead of looking for the 'home' button. 4, the paypal button. ok, so it's under something that mentions $5 domain names, but there's no form to fill in with my name, what i'm ordering, etc BEFORE i go to paypal. also - as you're the admin of this network, i reckon you could use a different email address when you do get through to paypal, just to keep things professional. overall, with a few little tweaks here and there, i wouldnt have any problems ordering (in theory) if i came across the site. its clean, simple and easy to get to the info i need. Hope that helps! Cheers Mark

[!--quoteo(post=374479:date=May 17 2006, 12:21 AM:name=Demio)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Demio @ May 17 2006, 12:21 AM) [snapback]374479[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] I think I'll leave the logo as it is for now. [/quote] your choice. otherwise, you've done a good job. with a few minor tweaks here and there, i think you'll have achieved what you set out to. one more thing. if you can make the seperators you added on the homepage a bit lighter (maybe lighter grey instead of blue) then i reckon that'll sort things out a bit better. putting an image like on your 'about us' page would also jazz things up alot. cheers Mark

[!--quoteo(post=374472:date=May 17 2006, 12:08 AM:name=Demio)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Demio @ May 17 2006, 12:08 AM) [snapback]374472[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] 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. [/quote] well at the moment, it's very strongly blue. if you made the background of it lighter (ie, more white) but using blue overlay/text, and the same photo, it wouldnt look so blue. like i say, i cant put my finger on it - it just doesnt seem to look right. as it's so blue, and your nav is blue too, the whole thing seems to bleed into eachother. having the colours the other way round (blue on white) would let the nav stand more clearly.

[!--quoteo(post=374440:date=May 16 2006, 10:50 PM:name=Demio)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Demio @ May 16 2006, 10:50 PM) [snapback]374440[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] 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\" /] ) [/quote] righty then...i personally thing that just a drop in size of the font has made things look TONNES better. what do you thing though personally? what do YOU think now you've used a white border on the table? i personally reckon it looks a hell of a lot better. subtle changes... drop the size of the header text (including the text you replaced the pill buttons with) by 1 or 2 px just to even the balance, and you should be ok. apart from that, the balance of blue would be your only main thing to deal with. you've dropped the blueness of the backdrop images which makes the text easier to read. try a bit more with your top logo, as that's the thing which shouts 'blue blue i'm blue, dont you know' more than anything else. i reckon once you've sorted that out, you're almost done. maybe invert the colours and put blue on light? would make your nav buttons stand out too. IMO though, good stuff and good improvements! Cheers Mark [b]edit[/b]: one more thing - try seperating the 4 sections on your homepage with a styled <hr /> or some other similar horizontal rule. will just help seperate things a little more. i would personally pull the picture from the 'About Us' page onto the homepage (or get a similar 'professional' image), too, just to add a bit more 'life' to it. [b]edit2[/b]: right align the 'order now' link. dont know why, it just doesnt seem to fit right in the middle of the page. [b]edit3[/b]: attach a 'target="_blank"' to your XHTML/CSS buttons (and any other external links you may have). you dont wanna lose traffic and/or customers just cos someone gets navigated away from your page.

[!--quoteo(post=374408:date=May 16 2006, 08:56 PM:name=Demio)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Demio @ May 16 2006, 08:56 PM) [snapback]374408[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] 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. [/quote] that's fair enough, and maybe i'm being a bit harsh here by sticking to my guns. but lets pretend i'm a humble client here who wants a website, who's been told that a valid site is a sign of professionalism: anything you incorporate into your site, 3rd party or not, reflects back on you. so don't see it as you're doing the fixing for them - consider the fact that, as long as modernbill is part of your site, it looks like yours - so it's your duty to make sure it fits the rest so it fits in with what you're trying to achieve. and the fact that you've managed to integrate the order part with your nav/logo, etc, etc, means that you have SOME control over the pages - so a little bit of effort on your part (instead of 'tough luck') would really count for alot. Cheers Mark

[!--quoteo(post=374256:date=May 16 2006, 01:50 PM:name=Demio)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Demio @ May 16 2006, 01:50 PM) [snapback]374256[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] It all validates as XHTML 1.1 and CSS 2.0 (except for the Modernbill order page....). [/quote] 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

[!--quoteo(post=374279:date=May 16 2006, 03:11 PM:name=thorpe)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(thorpe @ May 16 2006, 03:11 PM) [snapback]374279[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] Think about it. Directories (folders as you call them) are located on the client, php is located on the server. How is php to know what is contained within a directory? Im afraid the only solutions have already been mentioned. Either zip or ftp. Of course both rely on your clients not being complete idiots which unfortunately is not the best thing to rely on. :) [/quote] there is one other solution, but not strictly php. i wish i had the link, but there's a few java applets that sit very nicely in your website that allow multiple file uploads/folder uploads/previews, etc which can be easily integrated into php. if i come across the links, i'll post back...