JesseD

I bank online with Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Citi (not a govt. card, so it might be a different web site) using Firefox, with no issues. But some other web sites, particularly U.S. government sites, are problematic. Dept. of Education sites like to let me get to the very end of long, multi-page online forms only to present me with a non-functioning Submit button in Firefox.

If you really want your site to look the same whether accessed through your domain or your IP address, you can accomplish it with some PHP code. You'll have to either change the file extension of your .html files to .php, or change .htaccess so that PHP inside .html files will be parsed. (Off the top of my head I'm not sure what needs to go in .htaccess for this, but someone more familiar with .htaccess than me must be reading. ) One easy thing you can do is to use PHP's include statement instead of server-side includes. PHP include takes a system path instead of a URL so your problem is sidestepped. So ><!-- include virtual="/header.html" --> becomes ><? include "/home/username/public_html/header.html"; ?> (It may be possible to do the same thing in a server-side include, and I just don't know how.) Making all of your HTML tags work, not just includes, is a little trickier. On my site, I use a hack like this to detect whether the site is being accessed via the domain name or the IP address / server name: ><? $base_dir = dirname($_SERVER['PHP_SELF']); if (strstr($base_dir, "~username") == FALSE) $base_dir = ""; else $base_dir = "/~username"; ?> For convenience, you can put the above code in a separate file (say, global.php) and then include it at the beginning of all your HTML files like this: ><? include "/home/username/public_html/global.php"; ?> Then, anywhere in your HTML files that you want to refer to the root of your site, use the string <?=$base_dir?>. So ><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/mycss.css"> becomes ><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="<?=$base_dir?>/mycss.css"> It's a little rough around the edges, but it works, and it's something you can use even if you don't necessarily understand what all the PHP does yet. Good luck with your site!

Two additional issues, now that I'm fully awake. First, the code to write to the log file is always executed, whether the page is requested by Googlebot or not. You want to move the rest of the code into the if (eregi("googlebot",$HTTP_USER_AGENT)) block. Also, when you open the log file to write to it, you're wiping out the existing contents, which means you'll only ever have one entry in the log file at a time. This is probably not what you want, so open the file in append mode ("a") instead. With that and the other suggested changes, the script should do what you want. Are you still having problems with all these changes implemented? Try the following code: ><?php if(eregi("googlebot",$HTTP_USER_AGENT)) { if ($QUERY_STRING != "") {$url = "http://".$SERVER_NAME.$PHP_SELF.'?'.$QUERY_STRING;} else {$url = "http://".$SERVER_NAME.$PHP_SELF;} $today = date("F j, Y, g:i a"); mail("someone@somewhere.puga", "$HTTP_USER_AGENT has indexed your http://$SERVER_NAME", "$today - $HTTP_USER_AGENT indexed $url"); $filename = "/home/yourcpanelname/public_html/botlog.txt"; $log = fopen($filename, "a"); fwrite($log, "$HTTP_USER_AGENT crawled this site on $today\n"); fclose($log); } ?>

Hi mr_lucas, Yes, the filename string you have there looks correct. The line: >print "$HTTP_USER_AGENT crawed this site on $today"; doesn't write to the log file, which I'm assuming is what you want. Try this instead: >fwrite($log, "$HTTP_USER_AGENT crawled this site on $today"); Also, this line can be removed: >$log = "$HTTP_USER_AGENT,$today\n"; It's not causing any problems for you, it's just not doing anything. The syntax error Bruce mentioned is the only one I could find, so the code should at least run. But then I am only half awake. The error message you gave mentions line 338 in index.php, but we don't know what that line is. Could you copy/paste that line and a handful of lines before & after it? That would help. Good luck!

I think that some issues could be avoided if the TCH support page were reorganized and reworded. It seems to me that it's misleading to people who are new to the forums. It lists the forums ahead of the Help Desk and says that you can find the support team here, which implies that it's a place you can get tech support from TCH. If I were having a problem and came upon the forums for the first time via the support page I would probably think that it was the preferred avenue for technical support, and not think twice about posting here instead of submitting a ticket.

On Linux, I use gFTP. On Windows, I used WS_FTP LE for years. The last time I reformatted and went to download it again, I found that it had finally been discontinued, so I got FileZilla instead, which I already like better.

My old host was (and still is) expensive. I paid about $20 a month for a plan that's more restrictive than any of TCH's. I put up with it because I was skeptical of cheaper hosts, but eventually the service from my old host became sufficiently bad that I had nothing to lose. They had rolled out new site management tools for new customers only, and stuck existing clients with resources that were outdated and, in some cases, outright broken. They repeatedly made promises to transition old accounts to the new system "soon" but never delivered. I started looking at other hosts and decided to try TCH after visiting these forums. I really liked the atmosphere. That was about 9 months ago. I don't make many posts here but I'm a very happy TCH customer. Rock Sign

I agree that making site navigation easier and more consistent would be a big help. The only original thought I can add is that, if you decide to go with a new design, steer clear of anything too "super-hip" where everything's in a 7-point font and you need a magnifying glass to read it. My previous host rolled out a new web site with a lot of fanfare, but it was really difficult to use because they were more concerned with being trendy than functional.

It looks like $uploadDir is set incorrectly. Try this: >$uploadDir = '/home/your_username_here/public_html/uploadedfiles/'; // Other code unchanged Where your_username_here is your TCH username. With PHP filesystem functions, pathnames are relative to the server root and not your own public_html directory. Your original code is trying to write to a directory just under the server root directory, which presumably doesn't exist (and of course, you wouldn't have permission to access it even if it did exist). Edited to add: Alternately, you could use a relative path such as >$uploadDir = 'uploadedfiles/'; Note that there is no slash at the beginning of the path. Maybe this is what you meant to do? Since the script is located in your public_html directory, 'uploadedfiles/' points to '/home/your_username_here/public_html/uploadedfiles/' That will work too, but I prefer to use complete path names whenever possible. That way a script doesn't break if you decide to move it to a different directory.

I use phpBB for my site's forums. At the time I set it up I didn't really know about Invision at all, or I would have considered using it instead. Having used both now I still prefer the "feel" of phpBB, but that's probably because I frequent at least two other communities that use it, so I'm very accustomed to it. From an administration standpoint, it's more difficult than it probably should be to customize some basic settings with phpBB (it looks like TheWraith has just found that out ). Just changing the logo or making a background image show up is not a trivial task at first, although once you know how it's done it isn't a problem. I don't know whether or not Inivision is better in this respect. (I'll assume for this that you're using the standard subSilver theme that is installed with phpBB.) The easiest way to change the board logo is to replace the default logo image with your own, but keep the same file name as before. The logo image is located in the /templates/subSilver/images/ subdirectory of the main phpBB directory, and is named logo_phpBB.gif. But if you want to use a JPG image instead of a GIF, or if you just don't want your logo to have that file name, then it's not quite so easy. You have to edit one of phpBB's template files to supply your own image name. Templates files are located in the /templates/subSilver/ subdirectory. The file called overall_header.tpl contains the HTML that is included at the beginning of every page. You need to find the <IMG> tag in the file that displays the logo, and change the filename to point to your own image. For the subSilver theme, the tag is located around Line 230 and looks like this: ><td><a href="{U_INDEX}"><img src="templates/subSilver/images/logo_phpBB.gif" border="0" alt="{L_INDEX}" vspace="1" /></a></td> As for the background image problem: the subSilver theme, by default, will not show a background image on the page even if you specify one in the Styles Admin section of the control panel. This is really annoying considering that it is in no way obvious. In overall_header.tpl (the same file as above), find the BODY tag around Line 220. It looks like this: ><body bgcolor="{T_BODY_BGCOLOR}" text="{T_BODY_TEXT}" link="{T_BODY_LINK}" vlink="{T_BODY_VLINK}"> (The text surrounded in { curly brackets } are special phpBB tokens. When phpBB reads the template file, it replaces the tokens with the appropriate values for the theme.) Note the absence of the "background" property, which specifies the background image for the page. Add the background property to the BODY tag so that it looks like this: ><body background="{T_BODY_BACKGROUND}" bgcolor="{T_BODY_BGCOLOR}" text="{T_BODY_TEXT}" link="{T_BODY_LINK}" vlink="{T_BODY_VLINK}"> The {T_BODY_BACKGROUND} token is automatically replaced by phpBB with the background image you specify in the Styles Admin section of the control panel. I don't have any ideas offhand as to why your color changes are not taking effect. From what I can tell the subSilver theme should automatically use the settings you specify in the control panel. (It's been a long time since I've used a "fresh" phpBB installation, so I took a quick glance at the template files to refresh my memory, but I'm in no way an expert when it comes to the default subSilver theme. Still, I hope this helps.)

Unfortunately, my system and Firebird did not get along well and I had crash problems the entire time I was using it. But I used it for several months that way, which is a testament to how much I like it. I try each new version when it comes out but so far have had no luck resolving the problems. In the meantime I'm using Opera. Either of the above is preferable to IE in my opinion.

So your domain is currently with a different registrar, not TCH? If you're already using TCH as your registrar then I think it should renew automatically. Otherwise, transferring a domain to TCH is really easy. From the TCH homepage click the Domain Registration link, and then "Transfer Domains." It costs about $11 and that includes a one-year extension. One important thing to do before you start the transfer is to make sure you are the administrative contact for your domain and that the admin e-mail address is correct. That's accomplished by logging into the account you have with your old registrar. They have to send a message to that e-mail address to get authorization for the transfer, so it needs to be current. And if you didn't register the domain yourself but had it done indirectly by a web host, then they may have listed themselves as the admin contact instead of you. You can transfer at any point -- the one-year extension goes from the expiration date, not the transfer date, so you don't have to worry about losing time. (For example, I had about 9 months left on my domain when I transferred it to TCH, so with the extension I now have almost 2 years before it expires.)

Unfortunately, I wasn't the administrative contact for my domain -- the old host was. Rather, my name was listed but the contact e-mail was theirs. The last time I had accessed the domain I noticed that, but it didn't occur to me to change it, since at the time I had no intention of switching hosts. I finally did get access to the domain restored, though, and I've since changed both the DNS info and the contact information. The next step will be transferring the domain to TCH.

If I can do that too, then that's what I'll do. Thanks again.

indeed! I'll get with some of my site's users and see if we can't agree on a good name for a new domain. Thank you for the quick response!

Hi everyone, This is not a pre-sales question in the sense that I've already purchased a hosting plan from you. But I am considering registering a second domain through TCH (and didn't want to start a support ticket for a non-urgent issue) so I hope this qualifies. I've read the frequently asked questions board and on the subject of domain parking, and it says that as long as a new doman is going to point to exactly the same page as your primary domain, it's free to park it. Correct? What if the domain name that I signed up with is not configured with TCH's nameservers yet? Is it still allowed to park a different domain, or would I need to wait until the original domain's nameserver info is actually updated before I could park a second one? Here's a little more detail on the situation (hopefully not too much detail ): I'm having a very difficult time updating the nameserver information for the domain name that I listed when opening my account with TCH. The domain management tool at my old web host is broken -- or purposely disabled, I haven't figured out which yet. And despite my best efforts I have so far failed to pry any information out of them as to how I am supposed to access my domain name now, in order to update the namserver information. My next step is going to be to simply initiate the process of transferring the domain from their registrar to TCH, and give up on trying to update the nameserver info until the transfer is complete. But given the level of support I'm receiving from the old host on this issue so far, I honestly don't know if they'll cooperate with the transfer in a timely manner. I don't want to have to point my site's users to an obscure IP address (or a long server40.totalchoicehosting.com address) any longer than I have to. So I was considering registering a second domain name with TCH, to point to my new TCH site. At least that way my visitors would have a domain name to use while I wait for things to get straightened out with the original domain. Is this allowed under the domain parking policy, or can I only park a second domain after the first has been set up with the proper nameserver information? Thanks in advance for any information.

*nods sheepishly* For over a year I've paid $18.95 a month for web hosting, which is not a competitive price at all these days for what I was getting. (Take TCH's $4/month plan, halve the web space, trim a few other features, and that's basically what I had.) But I had a great deal of skepticism about the support and quality of service that I would get with a cheaper host. I figured if I ever really needed to use tech support, I'd be happy I was paying more because I'd have better support to show for it. Erm... didn't really work out that way. Right now I'm in the middle of a runaround with my old host, trying to get access to the domain name that I registered through them, so that I can update the nameserver information. So far it's gone something like this: Me: "Hi there. I'm trying to access the domain that I've registered with you. The domain management tool I used before no longer works, and the new tool I found on your site does not accept my login information." Support: "Only customers who have signed up in the last three months can log in through that URL. Existing customers can only log in through the billing system or the control panel." Me: "But... the billing system doesn't give me access to my domain, and the control panel doesn't either, possibly because [this link], [this link] and [this link] in the control panel are all broken. How am I supposed to access my domain if only new customers are allowed to use the management tool?" Support: "I think you need to call the accounting department for that information." *conveniently forgets to include any contact information for the accounting department* I guess they've found enough success with their new customers that they don't really have to care about anyone who's actually been supporting them for more than few months. Early this year they rolled out an entirely new suite of web site tools for clients -- NEW clients. They promised to switch over any existing clients to the new system upon request, but never did. They put me on some waiting list months ago and that was the last I heard of it. Meanwhile, old customers are stuck with old tools that are outdated, hard to use, and as I've found out recently, riddled with dead links and other glitches that no one bothers to fix. Oops... Sorry to rant up your thread with a horror story. But maybe the happy TCH folks will be interested to know what it's like on the other side of the hosting fence sometimes.