I finally did the most needed update to the Mixing Live Sound site. I am an affiliate of a specialty book shop. They had changed their site and their affiliate tracking. My old links were broken. I updated my book of the day rotator and book store page.

This was the purpose of building the toy php script of which I spoke. It outputs the entries (html) that I needed to rebuild the rotator and bookstore page. The html is actually the same, just the CSS for the two formats is different.

There were a couple of challenges for the book store page. I had some problems formatting the page, but with the help of the trusty CR (carriage return) I got it to display. It may not be the best way or the right way, but it is a way and the page looks ok. I thought that if I used position: relative; I could use clearing divs, but either I didn’t get them in the right place or that is not the path to success.

With that done I went on to update the events pages on the MC Rally site. I have started linking my site name back to the home page, so I had to edit the css. This required a bit of fussing so that I could get readable text in the nav areas. I considered changing the background colors, but decided to change link colors. The main site now more closely matches the blog, so it is all good.

I am far behind in my site updating/rebuilding. There is much to do as far as the mechanics of the various sites and I have a lot of new knowledge about content that I need to apply to the sites. Now that I have begun I hope that I can keep rolling and effect some of the needed changes. I will try to keep you updated here.

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 looked at the PHP manual on the php.net site, but it is written with the expectation that the reader has some programming knowledge in other common computer languages. I had an intro to computer programming course in college about 40 years ago, but haven’t looked at it since. That was in Fortran. The basic knowledge of programming flow will probably help, but I remember basically nothing from the course work and little of it would apply anyway. I am going to need to find some material that is more basic.

The W3C schools has some PHP tutorial content. I think that will be my next stop on this journey. I have seen another tutorial site to which I may return, as well. What I probably really need for the current project is a cookbook approach. I will probably be able to find specific tutorials for the parts that I need various places on the web, or I may find something close and modify it.

I may have to walk before I run. I might not be able to get all the features I would like until I learn more, but I think that I am close to a place where I could make something usable. I can build a basic version that will get things started and then update it later with additional features.

In writing this I have come up with some new ideas. I will try to remember to tell you how it all turned out.

I  moved Information Please Articles into its own space under its own domain name. It was a sub-domain space site, but the name was available so I snagged it. The new site is: http://informationpleasearticles.com/ I am thinking of adding a blog on article writing/marketing on the space as well. (Just what I need, another blog that I should write something in on a regular basis!!) Earlier today in response to a forum question I ran the old and new sites through a diagnostic site. The new site loaded 25% faster than the old site, and faster loading is a good thing.

I also moved the Home Remedies, The Closet Online, and The Live Sound Wiki to the new space. The only one that presents a problem is the Home Remedies site. I had updated the site since the database move, so I am missing a bit of content right now. That is part of the tidying up that needs to be done. It took a while for the DNS change to propagate, but I am seeing traffic to all of the sites now.

I will probably post more details later.

The real battle here has turned out to be the moving of the database. There is a synchronize function built into phpMyAdmin that should do the job if I can figure out the right data to fill in the blanks. I have done web searches and looked at the phpMyAdmin documentation, but everything that I have found is above my level. If I don’t find something that I can understand maybe I will write something up (before I learn enough so that what I write will be above a beginners head).

I looked things over and saw export and import options and thought that things would be easy. These seem like they would work fine with lighter weight databases but there seems to be about a 50 MB limit and my database that I need is over 250 MB. I had thought of a possible work-around, but it was going to be a lot of work, and this is just the beginning as I will need to move a couple of other sites to the new space as well.

While poking around in phpMyAdmin I noticed a synchronize tab. I investigated and it sounds like it will do what I need to do. There are some settings that are a bit unclear so I will need to gather a bit more information. I may even need to make a couple of calls to support as the new space is with a different hosting company.

Stay tuned for another episode in the saga of the great website transfer, soon! As soon as I get this working I will even give you the new address (link) so that you can check out my labors and see if you can find any problems.

When one first embarks on a journey as a Hobby Webmaster one of the first things to do, if the hobby gets serious, is to open a hosting account. I started out on free space offered by my ISP, but soon outgrew that generous allowance. Many would be fine with the amount of space offered by that account, but I like pictures and music, so the file sizes can take  up too much space. The word ‘unlimited’ begins to sound good when you know that there will be a lot of big files that you may wish to host.

I opened a hosting account on one of the *unlimited* hosts. I did read the TOS, but the fine print there didn’t ring any bells. I have recently run into the limits of my unlimited hosting account, so I will be buying additional hosting and moving some sites – a new adventure.

What are the limits to unlimited hosting? There are a few things listed in the terms of service documents that can get you into trouble. These limits are entirely within reason and should cause average users no problem, but they do exist. There are specific limits placed on resources usage. The shared hosting environment must allow all sites hosted on the server to have a reasonable level of service. If one account is a resource hog it can affect other users on the server. The specific resources are CPU usage and Memory usage, although the CPU usage is the most critical today because of relative low memory prices.

There will also be a (large) limit on the number of files hosted within the account. My current account has an absolute limit of 200,000 files and I am pushing that limit. The limit that has caused me problems is the number of tables in the databases. There is also a maximum size for databases, but that is not yet a problem.

I first ran into problems a few months ago. At the time I deleted all unused databases and disabled one unused forum. All was well with the world. Then a couple of my installed softwares came up with updates. I ran the updates without questioning the outcome. Soon my sites were locked again because I had exceeded my number of tables limits. The updates had added tables as part of their update process. I disabled my other two forums because they now have over 60 tables each. Deleting those tables (after taking a backup) got me back under the table limit and the sites were live again in just over one hour (the time to investigate the problem and decide what to do – the sites were live immediately when the hosting company had done that table audit and lifted the lock).

When the problem first arose I investigated options. The real solution to the problem is to go for VPS hosting. I am not quite ready for the expense of that option at this time. The short-term solution will be another shared hosting account and moving some of the sites to the new account. That will be a new adventure and I will try to document it here.

I use a fixed width layout for most of my sites. This allows me to design them and have confidence that they will display as I intend. On the problem pages the Pligg developers are using their wide box. Their wide box is the same width as my layout. There was a float left rule applied to the box. Because the box is floated it is out of the normal flow, so is not contained by the wrapper that I installed. My background image is applied to the wrapper div. Because the floated div was floating below the header content there was a gap between the bottom of the header and the content area through which my page background image showed. This problem was only seen on the three pages of the submit new story section of the site.

Had I designed the page I would have had an easier time of it. There was a strong clue that did not ring a bell even though I had noted that the border on the left and right sides did not extend to the bottom of the page. I think that the display problem is there with their design, but they are using white on white on white, so it is not evident. I could confirm that by giving the page a background color or their content div left and right borders. I would imagine that other developers working on themes have run into the same problem, but they may have been more familiar with the css before it gave them a headache.

So NOW I can say, with a straight face, that I Found It! is open for business. Please register, bookmark pages, and get out and vote!! Thanks!

I do know of one problem yet to solve on the submit page, and there may be other pages that have display issues. I am sure that I have not seen all of the pages that are available. I may do a reference install on a test sub-domain that I have set up. (While typing this it occurs to me that I may just be able to switch templates, since I am doing my mods to an alternate template. The default template is there untouched.)

The domain that I used to install the script is heresthesite.com. I am calling the bookmarking site ‘I Found It – Here’s The Site‘. If you have a minute stop by and tell me what you think. If you have suggestions that may make the site better let me know!

There must be a file path problem, although it is not obvious. I compared the file path to the path to the css file and it seems the same. I suspect that the script is building the page in the root directory and that the css is looking in the root directory instead of in the images directory in the template folder. When I finish writing this installment I intend to check out that possibility. I have run into such confusion in the past with other scripts.

The distraction that I mention in the title had to do with my article directory based sites. I have wanted to add a social bookmarking widget to the pages. When I hit the brick wall with the SB script I decided to take care of that situation. I picked up a script from AddThis.com and proceeded to add it to the various sites and sections. This involves pasting the script into the template and making the necessary adjustments to the css file.

On most of the directory sites I put the buttons into the top nav bar. Some of the other sites had too much in the bar already, so I decided on an alternate location. On those sites I put the script at the top of the left nav column. The changes to the css file depend on the location of the buttons, so I had to formulate the appropriate rules for the two locations that I used.

In some ways I like the nav column location better than the nav bar location. In the nav column pages I put the buttons inside a box with a thin red border. This should serve to call attention to the location and to the buttons. Either location should be within the first scan on opening the page, so both should work ok.

I asked my authors opinion in a blog post, so I will see if any of them are paying attention. When I make a new post to the blog I update the subject line on my article approved emails. Most of them probably end up in spam folders or are filtered from the regular emails, but I do see some author traffic to the various sites.

And now, back to the salt mine!

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.