Friday, February 28, 2003
Error Logs and PHP
Freefind spidered my site. I have 912 pages. Wow! I had no idea. Many of the pages are duplicate versions of the same content, the HTML page, the SHTML page, and now the PHP page.
Now I've discovered the error log. Each day I can download all the errors that were generated the day before. I'm using that list as a starting point for updating pages to PHP. The conversion process will take care of most of the errors... unless there's a typo in a link on the page. I don't know how to find those. I have this phantom error for guest.html" which is obviously a typo with that extra quotation at the end.
Thursday, February 27, 2003
Quirks Revisited
- Since I've registered the virus scan program after the re-install, I haven't received the message that my brand new program is in its eleventh month.
- The computer appears to be running smoothly, and it hasn't shut down since I complained about it.
- The monitor hasn't had a fissy hit lately.
- Defrag and Scandisk are running as they should.
I spoke too soon. After I typed this entry into the blog, the program crashed.
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Scandisk Defrag Doe See Doe
After three or four rounds of scandisk/defrag/scandisk/defrag, I finally have completed the process. I had to un-install McAfee Virus Scan 7.0 and re-install it. Then I couldn't update the DAT files because I couldn't log into the site to register the program.
Saturday, February 15, 2003
Arghhhh!
I ran scandisk. No errors. I ran defrag. This time 88% was completed before I got the error message to run scandisk again.
Friday, February 14, 2003
Scandisk and Defrag Quirk
When I run scandisk, I get no errors. Then I run defrag, and it quits in the middle and tells me there's a problem: Click on "Help". When I click on "Help", the instructions say to run scandisk. There were a bunch of errors that the computer saved in folders.
Today I ran scandisk again, and I got no errors. Then I ran defrag again; it quits in the middle and tells me there's a problem and that I should click on "Help.". Yep! Begin again Finnegan.
Thursday, February 13, 2003
Computer Quirks
My computer has had several quirks since I got the new harddrive.
- First the virus checker tells me that my twelve-month subscription that began in January 2003, is in it's twelfth month each time I download DAT updates.
- Second, my 800 MHz computer is running painfully slow.
- Third, the computer has shut down for no conceivable reason.
- Fourth, The monitor quit working unless I plugged it into a different outlet. Then a couple of days later, I plugged it back in the original outlet, and it works.
- I'm sure there's another, but I can't remember what it is at the moment.
Wednesday, February 12, 2003
Easy CD Creator 5
The main reason that I got the new harddrive is because I needed more room for the digital photos. I don't like to erase the digital photos from the Smart Media cards until I save them to CD. I can't save the photos on a CD because I don't have the CD writer program installed. I can't find the CD Creator CD to re-install it. I searched the Net to download the program again, but there's not a free version. I refused to pay for another copy of this program.
Monday, February 10, 2003
Forms Using PHP
It's working! And it's a PHP4 script; so, it's a good thing that is what we have. *grin*
There were two things wrong:
First, there was a character that I couldn't figure out what it was. So I left it out. The parse error said I needed a comma or a semi-colon. When I put one of those in, then it ignored the whole variable, but the results worked, just without the post content.
So I copy and pasted the example into an HTML file and uploaded it. Well! the copy and pasted one, didn't work at all! Nothing!
The second error was in the tutorial. He didn't use the php at the beginning after the <?. When I added the php, it worked fine.
Then I compared my version with his --line by line. The only thing wrong with my version were those mysterious characters that looked like dashes. I put semi-colons there, then commas, and then dashes. I still kept getting the form results without the content.
I pasted the code into a word processor so I could figure out what the character was that I couldn't decipher. Turns out it was a period. I thought it was odd to have periods in the middle of the sentence, but this isn't English class for sure!
The tutorial didn't explain why the periods were there or what the purpose of having them there was.
echo "<br>You typed <b>" . $_POST['mytextbox'] . "</b> in the textbox.n";
When I added the <?php and changed my (incorrect) semi-colons to periods, voila! It worked.
Brendon was helping me by typing in the text boxes. Boy! is he ever a fast typist!
Foiled again!
It didn't work.
PHP and Forms Tutorial
The mailing list tutorial is too hard for me at this point, so I'm going to try this tutorial recommended by Invader.
It lookes easy enough:
echo is the first command that I learned.
I know that $ precedes variable names.
I know n is used to produce a line break.
I already have all my form elements named. So... this seems like it should be simple. heh heh heh
Saturday, February 08, 2003
PHP and Contact Forms
I didn't know there was a php3 and a php4.
If the example would have worked as presented, that would have been great. I would have studied it to see what I could have learned. For now, I'm going to set that project aside. The mailing list example had 12 php pages, and there's no way I could troubleshoot that much at this point. When I learn a little more about the logic in that example, I will return and try it again.
Learning to make a single-page contact form would be a better next step for me. Invader suggested a few tutorials to get me started. PHP Form Mailer Tutorial, Form Processing, and Working with forms in PHP.
Thursday, February 06, 2003
PHP and Mailing Lists
Wow! This looks promising: Creating a Mailing List Manager with PHP. I've always wanted to have my mailing list on my own server. This would be an announcement list, but it's a good place to start.
All the files can be copied and pasted. It looks like everything I need for online mailing list management. The data is posted to a plain text file and does not use MySql.
I copy and pasted all the files exactly as written. Then I uploaded them to my site.
When I try to create a list I get an error 405 Method Not Allowed. Even though these are practice files, the script should work. I have no idea why it doesn't.
When the files wouldn't post, I copied the whole shebang into the main public_html folder. That didn't work either.
1) Can anyone tell me what the problem is? I remember using the post command in other tutorials, and I don't remember having an error.
2) Is this something new or am I not allowed to use the POST command with PHP on Rival Pro?
3) Am I missing a file?
4) Will log.txt files generate on their own or do I have to make an empty one?
5) Should I use absolute URLs?
Matt and Invader tried to help me figure this out, but I'm afraid this is way over my head. Matt said that one reason it may not be working is the php3 extensions. There are 12 files in this group and all the references to the files use php3. I'm sure I'd mess up the whole works if I tried editing the files without knowing what I'm doing. I need to study the commands with a simpler tutorial.
Update: I never did figure out how to do this. So I put it on my list of things to do when I get a round 2-it. If you know how to make a PHP mailing list, and you would like to guide me step-by-step, then let me know.
