KevinM1

Is select() a custom function?

Monospaced fonts are awesome for coding, but not so much for basic aesthetics. That's the first thing I noticed. Try playing around with other serif fonts. Look into web fonts. You need some padding at the bottom of your content box. Take a look at your 'About' page - the text spills over the drop shadow. You should also not lock in the content box's height. Looking at 'About' again, it's awkward to see the overflow create a short, second column ("...international waters..."). One wider column, that can expand vertically as needed is the way to go. If you're concerned about the content box being too short due to a lack of content on other pages, there's always the min-height style. You should do something to make the 'Read More...' links look like links. Maybe make them bold? A different color? Color... I think the whole site could use more. Aside from the flag, it's black, white, and gray. And, unfortunately, the flag's secondary gold color doesn't really stand out on the white (it's essentially pale neutral on less pale neutral), so the link mouseover effect is a bit lacking. Try changing the mouseover color to the dark blue, or add some gold-on-blue somewhere else (a border or something). Anything to liven it up a little, and to reinforce the micro republic's branding. The flag and it's associated livery should be presented as being important, but not in a gaudy way. Right now, it's way too conservative. That should get you started....

Is this in a loop? If so, show the entire loop.

For every loop, you're running the same query and obtaining the same row. You either need to create a new result by modifying $date_result, or change the row number you're accessing in the mysql_result() function.

++PhpStorm. The new version even auto-detects if you have a popular MVC framework.

Like Jessica said, change the root password and give them user accounts with limited privileges. Also, if you're solely responsible for your company's IT, then you're the one with power/leverage. Have a cordial, but firm, talk with your boss, and explain that the monkeys are making it harder for you to do your job. Their unfettered access forces you to waste time (which is money) cleaning up after them, and presents a danger to the data itself.

You should try re-reading what we have told you. You always immediately jump into hyper-defensive mode in regards to any criticism. Take a breath, and try to understand what we're telling you. To recap: Your first post in this thread was useless, plain and simple. Your second post was much better, but could still be improved upon, IMO. Some of the critiques were vague (what do you mean by the form 'lacking style'? or the blue was 'too much'?) and there was a lack of specific suggestions for improvement. Your second post is the bare minimum of what people should write in this forum as at least it's an attempt to be constructive.

General Tech/Nerd Stuff: http://arstechnica.com/ http://www.engadget.com/ http://lifehacker.com/ Design: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/ http://designmodo.com/ Not sure what you want for programming links, specifically. It's easy to find tutorials on just about every language. Staying up-to-date is generally done either by being engaged in forums (like this one), or following blogs or Twitter accounts of particular people. For PHP, the most obvious answer would be to follow Ramsus, or maybe the guys in charge of Zend. If you're into the Symfony2 framework, or other SensioLabs products, then follow Fabpot. For Javascript, look up Elijah Manor and Addy Osmani.

Yes. That is the entire point of the critique subforum. A drive-bye, "This looks like it came from 1996. Get with the program, man" is not helpful. It's fine to give blunt, even scathing criticism, but it needs to be done with two things: 1. You need to point out what you find to be troublesome specifically, which you finally did in your second reply. 2. You need to offer suggestions for improvement. Saying "Learn PS or pay someone" doesn't count, IMO. For one, learning a program != learning design. And, in most cases, the people posting here don't want to hire someone else. In short, be helpful, or don't post.

I'm a fan of getting a solid book with good, clear, concise examples. The best intro book I've found has been the Visual Quickstart Guide by Larry Ullman (http://www.amazon.com/PHP-MySQL-Dynamic-Web-Sites/dp/0321784073/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348939212&sr=1-2&keywords=ullman).

Post your code.

As a non-drinker, the entire drinking culture is a bit alien to me. I've tried it before, but I've never had fun when drinking. I just get tired and (more ) irritable. It's hard for me to believe it makes people happy/relaxed/looser when it doesn't do it for me.

It's hard to critique WordPress sites because there's no way to know what is done by a theme and what was done by a developer. It looks solid/standardized, but there's not much else to say.

*Kevin looks down at his wheelchair Well, I guess I'm fucked then....

EDIT: Two things: 1. You're using a single-quoted string to output the value. That won't work as only double-quoted strings extrapolate values. 2. You can't output an array value in a string unless you either concatenate or surround it in braces. In short you want either: echo $row_userfriends['user']; or: echo "{$row_userfriends['user']}"; If that doesn't solve it, show your query and table structure.

(DISCLAIMER: I suck when it comes to db scalability, so someone else will likely know more) Those numbers sound reasonable for a persistent connection. Keep in mind - having a persistent connection and using MySQLi or PDO addresses two different concerns. MySQLi/PDO is just how we can interact with the underlying database, just like the classic mysql_* functions. They just represent a more modern access layer. It's entierly possible to create/use a persistent connection through them. A persistent connection makes sense because you can pool connections. Instead of creating/destroying a new connection every time a script is executed (which, given the nature of PHP, means with every HTTP request), connections can be swapped around. Instead of a create/destroy cycle, it largely becomes a use/free cycle, which saves on overhead. Now, regarding the actual queries themselves, it's hard to determine if 30+ are too many because we don't know the data you're working with. That said, even a forum like this one tends to use multiple queries per action. If you look at the bottom of the screen, you can see it. Actually, looks like only staff can see it. Suffice it to say, actions on this forum take ~15-20 queries each. And that includes reading a topic, posting, etc. So, it's not a matter of "after X number of queries you're screwed," but whether or not the queries themselves are necessary and written/executed efficiently.

That sounds pretty bad. AFAIK, query results aren't cached with a persistent connection. I also wouldn't think that the overhead for opening/closing connections would be bad enough to necessitate a persistent connection, either. I mean, 700-800 hits a week is ~100 hits a day, or just over 4 hits an hour (4.1blahblahblah). On the surface, it sounds like a bad approach, but without being able to see the actual code, it's hard to say with 100% certainty. That said, the code should at least be modernized to use either MySQLi or PDO. The classic mysql_* functions aren't recommended any longer. There are better/safer way to handle the db.

You'll have to figure out: 1. How ASP encoded the values so you can decode them 2. Whether those values are used for ASP-specific things, or if PHP can use them Since this is primarily an ASP question, I'm not sure if any of us will be of any help.

You admitted ealier in the thread that you did spray pure 404 on it at least once: So forgive me if I'm not sympathetic. And, no, I wasn't implying that I'm a better pet owner because I spend more money on my pet. I'm a better pet owner because I care for my pet, and don't bitch about it when their care costs me money. My pet is a member of my family, and I treat it as such - with respect, kindness, care, and maturity. I cannot fathom pulling out 404 and spraying her with it. Finally, you are in no position to tell a moderator to be quiet. Again, you can go to jail for doing what you did. Just this week in Massachusetts a guy was arrested for leaving hotdogs tainted with antifreeze on his lawn. He intentionally did it because he was tired of dogs pooping on the lawn. Intentionally spraying an animal with bleach is animal cruelty, and is likely illegal in most civilized countries.

Man, some of you are fancy... I have one 3-4 year old Gateway (* pukes) desktop, with one monitor, and a Dell laptop. That's it. My office is a complete mess right now, so no pictures until it's clean.

Just so everyone knows, there is a theme being worked on. This is basically a two-step process: 1. Install new forum and work out the base kinks 2. Create and install new theme to make everything awesome This board is for you all, so suggestions are welcome.

If it's been living with you for 6 years, it really wasn't a stray when it died, was it? At that point, it's your outdoor cat. I also fail to see how "Guys, it was a stray" somehow makes it okay to spray with bleach. And $84 is nothing for a vet bill in America. Not sure about where you live in the world, but that would be extremely cheap for a regular vet visit, to say nothing of an emergency visit here. When my dog died of cancer a couple years ago, the emergency vet care was well north of $1000.

The change wasn't just due to a personal conflict between PHPF and SMF. It was a combination of SMF being difficult to work with in a technical sense (it's really not a great code base) and not getting any attention from the SMF devs themselves whenever we brought up legitimate issues. Why continue to use forum software that's a pain to maintain and tweak, and whose devs have no interest in suggestions to make it better? Our number 1 loyalty is to our members. We felt that, ultimately, SMF made it hard for us to give you the forums you deserve.

You are a horrible person. There's no reason/excuse to spray any animal with bleach. Do you realize you can get arrested for that? I have half a mind to look up where you live and inform the police myself. You need to grow up and smarten up.

Well, we all know about .josh.