Maybe I should not claim this as ‘my first script’ because it is just an implementation of code, but I did make something that is useful to me using PHP. I have been interested in learning a bit more about PHP as it is an important scripting language used in web development. I have a project in mind that will require more knowledge and this is a first baby step in gaining that knowledge.

I set up a form to input necessary data and produced an action page to present the data in a format that is useful to me. I need code for my book of the day rotator on the Mixing Live Sound site. The old system with the bookstore partner generated the code easily, but they changed the system making more work for me. The script takes the necessary information and generates the code that I need for the rotator. This is much easier than writing each line of code myself and making sure that it is all formatted correctly.

The action page produces a preview of the ‘book of the day’ ad and has a code box with the need code. The preview was an unintended consequence but I like the way the data is presented now and the preview is a useful addition of which I had not planned. I have a couple of tweaks in mind and I need to collect a bit more data and I will be ready to produce my rotator file. I will probably use the same basic input form with a different action page with some minor modifications to generate the entries for my new bookstore page. The old bookstore page used the old code that no longer works with the new system.

I need to get this done so that I can get on with the bigger project. If it turns out well and is well received I may even offer it as my first product. When (if) I have something to show I will tell you about it here.

I have just run across a script that I think will add value to several of my sites. It is a Digg Clone social bookmarking script from Pligg.com. There is a SuperCrarged Bookmarks service being offered by the SEO Forum at IMTalk.Org that uses a network of social bookmarking sites based on this script. I was involved in beta testing of the network and became familiar with the script in that way.

I have several article directory and niche sites to which I think the script could add value. I will encourage my authors to bookmark their articles and I will probably add the script on some of the niche sites to attempt to get people involved by pointing out other quality information available on the niche topic.

I have made an initial installation on a domain that I have owned for a couple of years. The installation was smooth and the script looks good. The domain was originally purchased as a host for sub-domain sites, and I have a few of these set up, but the primary domain has been underutilized. If you want to take a look it is at Here’s The Site. The domain name does lend itself to a social bookmarking site. Check it now and follow my progress. It is fairly barren at the moment.

I am beginning to work on a custom template for my installations. This will involve some modifications to the default template files and css. This is a good exercise for the old Hobby WebMaster. I have modded themes for other CMSs, but if this works out additional installations of the script will be much faster. I like to maintain the family look for sites that have several sections, even though the sections are based on different scripts. I may even offer this to the community, including a link to one of my sites.

I have fussed with the ArticleMS script a good bit. I am beginning to find my way around without too much difficulty. With some hints from the forum I am making some progress.

I am to the point that I feel I can continue with a few more installations. I would state my position as having reached a plateau but with considerably more to learn before reach a full understanding of what is going on with the script.

On the test installation I have implemented a hack to improve the SEO friendliness of the script. I would have hoped that the code would have been included in the current update cycle as it does improve the SEO of the pages. Applying something that I learned through this exercise I was able to control the display of an ad in the side bar that I only want to appear on the front page of the directory.

I will go apply what I have learned to the two real installations and then will probably install a few more instances on other domains this week. Once these get rolling I can see some potential.

I added real tracking and fake ads to the test install. There is no reason to inflate my ad display numbers while I work on the site.

I considered rebuilding the site without tables, but I probably need to know more about the script and the operation of the directory before I do that. The header section has four cells but I think the main section only uses one primary cell, so that is not too bad. They are using css for most styling, and that is a good thing. If I do rebuild the site without the tables it is just a mater of replacing a few files to update/upgrade the site. The pages are all dynamic so it is just the templates and css that needs to change.

Feel free to check out the test install at my Local Articles site. There is actually a bit more content there than on either of the real sites right now. Tell me what you think either there or here.

I am still working with the ArticleMS script. This is pulling me a bit deeper into php.  I have been using php includes on most of my sites for quite some time. I have now been introduced to a couple of php functions.

There are two function calls (I think that is the term) that are used in the php programming of this script. I have successfully used one of those options, the $Block call, to replace the functionallity that I have had with include files. I had tried to use an include for my tracking code and that had not worked. I am not sure exactly why that is the case, but the block call does work in this situation. I can do much of what I was doing with my includes with the block function.

The other call that is mentioned is a $This call. From the minimal information available in the interface it appears that the call can be used in more places than the block call. The information listed in the user interface assumes more knowledge than I have, and probably more than most people that would install this script have. This is not too much of a problem for many because they will not customize the script or will use a premium skin to change the appearance.

I will need to get a bit more familiar with some of the php coding conventions to make best use of this script. I have no objection to that, I have been thinking that it is time to get further into php anyway. Shortly I will know more about php. I am beginning to see the power available, but will probably just learn enough to tweak existing scripts rather than writing the next WordPress.

I found an open source article directory script while checking search results for a paid script.

I have been using a script on a site and a test site that is offered free, but contains many affiliate links for the developer. In addition the script is all encrypted so little can be done with it. I was able to tweak the css so that it displayed as I wanted it to display and I was able to use a feature to add a limited nav section, but I don’t like the concept of promoting a site so that the developer’s affiliate links will litter the web.

I was looking at a paid script. I saw something about support problems with the one at which I was looking. I went to their support forum to check and found it to be at least inactive if functional at all. If the script works as advertised I may not need support, but the complaints make me wonder. I continued my search and found a link in a forum post to this open source script.

I did a search for complaints about this script and did not find problems. I checked the support forum and there seems to be an active community. The script is also being updated, so is still under active development. There are skins available for the script but I will probably do my own thing as far as that is concerned. I downloaded the latest edition available through a link in the forum and installed it in a test location. I have played with it a bit and it all looks fairly good so far.

I want to replace the one article directory and am also considering using an article directory script for my live sound wiki. A true wiki script may be a better choice, but the one that I tried got spammed to death. This script does have a captcha available to reduce automated spam. There are several of my other sites  where I may consider an install if the script works out.

Making this script work as I wish may require that I learn a bit more about php. That is something that I have wanted to do anyway. I don’t know how much time I want to invest in furthering my education at the present time because I need to do so many things to get the existing sites to preform better. I will play with my test install and see if I can get it into a satisfactory state. If so I may install in a couple of real locations and then dive into the further development as time permits.

I will keep you posted.

As I was going through the blogs last evening, having found why my background image was not displaying in my footers, I had one site that stubbornly refused to co-operate. The footer image did show up as expected but I was also adding a white background behind some text in the body below the footer. I had written the rule for the background to be just wide enough to contain the text, but it was stretching across the page. I checked and rechecked the punctuation and syntax and it all seemed right. I had finally left it to proceed with the other blogs.

Today I revisited the site. I finally located the problem. I had added a rule long ago when I was having a problem with this and had forgotten what I had done. I finally opened my include file and found that I had something there that was causing a conflict. (Checking here I found the same code in the include file, but I had never added the css code, so there was no conflict here.) I removed the offending code and deleted the spare rule from the css and the problem went away. Now everything is beautiful, mostly.

On to the plus. I have just added a blog, Live Sound Mixing Tips, to the Mixing Live Sound site. I made a second post in the blog today. The post was long enough and seems to me to be useful information, so I just finished submitting a slightly adapted version to EZine Articles. It will take a few days for the article to be accepted as EZine does manually check all submissions. Two editors look over each article, checking for different things. Article approval has been quite fast but they have warned that approval time may increase. They have added a number of editors as the article volume has increased to try to keep the approval times reasonable. I have a number of other articles that I need to submit in support of some of my other sites.

I have had reasonable response (click through to the site) to a couple of articles and no response to the other two. One of the articles that has not produced clicks directly was picked up for reprint on another site. I have not been able to track any response to it with my analytics though. Maybe people on that site are checking the article but not clicking on the links in the resource box.

The resource box seems to be the key to these things. The word ‘free’ in the resource box will improve the click through rate. I keep forgetting this when I put together a resource box. I did have it in one box and that box has brought the most click throughs. The other key to getting people to visit the site is to offer some quality information. That is the case with the other article that has brought visitors and with the latest article, I think. I do need to remember about the word ‘free’ though.

Css code is very picky. Leave out a curly bracket and the browser will not read the rest of the code. Place a colon where a semi-colon should go and things get crazy.

I have had some display issues with the footer in my blogs. I had built a skin.css file and added it to the folder. I got the file path right and the skin was working except for the footer. I never could figure out why it didn’t work, but it was only the footer image that I could not get to display, so I passed it off as unimportant. I just shrugged as thought that was the way it was going to work. There are several levels of folders to a WordPress blog. I thought maybe it was something in one of the other folders that was causing the problem.

I just set up the new Live Sound Mixing Tips blog. While setting it up I was making some tweaks and adjustments. I was looking in my skin.css file that I had copied to the folder and noticed that there was a closing curly brace missing on my nav rule. I put in the missing brace and updated the file. When I checked the site I had my footer background image as I had often wished.

Somewhere along the line (a few times, I am sure) I typed a colon where the code calls for a semi-colon. That does not work, I promise.

I have been going through my other blogs making the correction and a few other tweaks this evening. I am beginning to be quite comfortable with the untheme theme. I will copy the fresh css files to my blog master copy, the one that I copy to a new location when I set up a new blog. That will save a lot of time the next time that I set up a blog.

I went a little further than I have with my other blogs on the Mixing Tips blog. Check it out and tell me what you think.

I located some information about multiple onLoad events for javascripts with a web search. The music player that I have used on several sites came set up with an onClick event to start the player. The comment system uses an onLoad event in the body tag to initialize the comment script.

When I set up the AudioArt MusicPlayer site I had wanted the music player to start through a link but had to have a second play button on the landing page from the link that still had to be clicked. I became aware of the possibility of using the onLoad event in the place of the onClick event to start the player. I adapted the code and tried it out, and it worked. I also wanted the comment system on this landing page to take specific comments on the music.

I did the web search and found the information about the formatting for multiple onLoad events, so I tried that out. It does work. The player loads and begins to play when the page is opened. The comment system will accept input and function properly as well. The only problem with the solution is that the page reloads if there is a comment posted and that restarts the player. I will just add a note that explains the situation. There may be a better solution but this is workable. Only a small percentage of people will leave a comment anyway, so it should not be too much of a problem.

I do need to make a few more pages for this site and I have a bit of other housekeeping to take care of with this update. The major technical hurdle is behind me, so the rest of the update is downhill. The new features are now active so you can check them out at The AudioArt MusicPlayer Site.

The clean-up from the hacker break-in to my hosting site is complete. The blogs at The MotorCycle Rally site and the Number One Pictures site were a bit messed up from my first repair attempts. I had uploaded more than I needed to and so my later mods were not in place.

While I was there I tweaked the designs a bit and even found out something new, so I need to make some changes to some of the other blogs as well. I had placed an include in a less than optimum spot and I had forgotten how I did some other things. I chose a blog that was not disrupted and used it for a pattern.

Things are now back to normal, and that is a relief.

I found the main page problem that was causing IE-6 to have a headache. I had set a width and IE could not make it all add up. I have another site using the same format that worked in IE so I checked how I had gotten it to work there and found the problem. Now on to the support pages for the site. They also use the same format as the support pages on the other site and those pages work so I will look there for a hint. Maybe we can get by without some stronger pain reliever for IE.