Mission

As they say, "Sho' u right!" I just figured there was something between poor and perfection.

Thanks, rksprst. Unfortunately, I don't own Photoshop or have access to it, and it costs about 10X more than what I wanted to pay for a gif animator. Also, I downloaded the trial for Photoshop Elements awhile back and its GUI was somewhat confusing to me. I'm only imagining that the flagship Photoshop itself would have a similar GUI. Thanks, Don. I guess my target is more for people who are on broadband. The major part of my site is my radio station and dial-ups cannot stream the bitrate I'm streaming. So I don't expect too many dial-up adherents to be visitng my site... So perhaps I should stick with what I have after all.

Thanks, Thomas. I'll check into it. I haven't really taken the time to see what all is available with Fantastico.

I've been using CSB since it came on my HP computer as Trellix in the late 90's. Without it, I wouldn't have been able to create my own web sites. I am using CSB's built-in form for newsletter subscription requests. So I guess I'll have to find a script or something for those signing up for my newsletter. If only there were 57 hours in a day and I could still get enough sleep... I already do everything for my site as it is, plus I'm writing a book, do a weekly podcast, all the tech troubleshooting for the site as well as the network, legal follow-up, radio station programming, all audio & image editing, plus work a day job 26 miles from where I live. Learning html is not on my urgent list -- especially since there was a tool that made everything easy for me (CSB). Although I have learned to do some "under the hood" things concerning the web site through the years, outside of the Trellix/CSB basics, I generally don't have time to do anything but master what I've already learned.

Hi. I have Zoner GIF Animator. It's an OK program, but the animated .GIF's that it creates (that are as dynamic as the ones I see online) are kind of large (200+ KB in size). I see some good customized animated GIFs (not like the free ones at sites like BannerForge) online that are 30KB and less in file size. But when I "optimize" mine to be that small using Zoner's optimize feature, the colors are horrible and it speeds up the animation tremendously. I optimize the images before importing them into Zoner, so I start out with small image sizes before the animated GIF is created. Does anyone know what a good program is that makes such small file sizes for animated GIFs? I'm currently looking at Ulead's GIF Animator 5. Maybe it's a moot point, though. Since so many people are on broadband connections now, perhaps GIFs don't need to be so small any longer as when most people were on dial-up connections...???

:'-( I guess I'll have to learn to use something else, too...

Wonderful! Can't wait to see others put the scripts to use so we can get some tutorials!

NY Times Headline: WILDLIFE LOBBYIST TO WED SEAL - "Animals Are People, Too!" She Claims Edit TCH-Bruce (image removed): DO NOT REPOST IMAGES IN THIS CONTEST!!! Wildlife Lobbyist Alise Moore-Daft has been quoted as saying she will wed a 500-lb. seal in an effort to gain more sympathizers for the human(sic) treatment of arctic animals. She is seen in this photograph practicing, she claims, wedding vows with the seal of her dreams. Daft's real husband, Duper Daft, could not be reached for comment.

"Man! This is the last time I accept a blind date arranged by my zoology professor! We both love swimming and seafood, but this is ridiculous!"

"(GASP!) You're KIDDING!!! You samba, TOO????!!!!"

"Well, he DOES have nice biceps, but I think I'm the one who needs the 6-pack..."

The National Enquirer Headline: WOMAN CLAIMS CLONE OF HUSBAND NEEDS REFINING! ("But he DOES have Barry's Eyes," She Contends)

"Ok... this is what I get for making a date in a chat room without a photo of the poster..."

"Honey... I don't think those sardines you ate last night set well with you."

I think it'll be in the upper 40's tonight where I am. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

I haven't watched the last several Super Bowls... I don't watch much TV anyway. BUT, when I do, I usually enjoy the commercials more than the programming... Seriously...

player

Welcome back, Jim!

Wow... interesting & sensible theory -- not encouraging, but interesting... Thanks for your input. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em -- I embedded a video from my site over there, too!

Thanks, Jimuni. This is what the .htaccess says from using the cPanel's Hotlink Protection app: RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$ RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://altaredlives.org/.*$ [NC] RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://altaredlives.org$ [NC] RewriteRule .*\.(bmp|ram|rm|asx|wmv|pls|swf)$ http://www.altaredlives.org/videos.htm [R,NC] And in the middle of it, there are "RewriteCond" lines for all the sites I allow to link directly to the media files. (That .bmp must be an oversight when I was removing image files. I don't even have any .bmp images on my site. ) I switched out the two lines above and replaced them with the line you wrote, and there was no difference in the results. Hmmm, now THAT'S an interesting comment. I don't understand the hotlinking code, but what is sending the HTTP referrer when a link to the actual file is on a web site? What are the specifics that make embedding the .asx to the files different from linking directly to the .asx? This is an interesting learning experience. :)

I don't have image files hotlink-protected because I need to link to them from lots of other sites. It was simpler to not protect them rather than adding 1,020,909,788 sites to the "allowed" list. And sometimes when I put in certain sites, those sites still couldn't pull the images in. (I put images in signatures at many forum boards.) I mainly was trying to stop hotlinking of the videos, which it does, but it doesn't stop embedding of videos apparently. Thanks for your help, though!

Well, the altlab.com code worked when I used their Rewrite line, but it still didn't work for the embedded videos and also didn't redirect the browser to my web site when links were clicked elsewhere, but gave a 404 page not found error. So I think I'll stick with cPanel's hotlink protection for now. The code that cPanel's app produces in the .htaccess file allows me to specify sites that I want to be able to access the metafiles, or sites which I allow image file access, which the altlab.com code doesn't address at all. But thanks for everyone's help! Everyone can experiment with the cPanel's hotlink protection and if you come up with an answer, let us all know?

I added all 3 lines from the altlab.com page and deleted the Rewrite Rule generated by the CPanel hotlink app. It didn't stop the hotlinking from the myspace page. It also didn't send my browser to my web site when links to my media files on other domains were clicked. (The browser opened my custom 404 Page Not Found page.) I guess embedded video/audio isn't the same as embedded images. Oh well... I'll just have to start adding something at the beginning or ending of the videos to show from where they're being streamed from now on when I process the files for the web. And when I find them being used without permission, I'll notify the web master like I used to do before I had hotlink protection.

Nope, so I guess that was part of the problem for sure... Ok. I guess I need to replace the one that's there with the new Rewrite rule. Thanks. I'll try it!

I just checked the code that our Cpanel "Hotlink Protection" writes when you choose your options using that application. Most of the code above is already in my .htaccess file, except for the very last portion of the last line where it has >RewriteRule \.(jpe?g|gif|bmp|png|asx)$ images/nohotlink.jpg [L] So I added the last line, and it worked for the embedded videos on the other site. Great! But..... it also blanked out all the image files on my own site. So I removed the image extensions, which allowed the images to show up on my site again. Great! But.... when I clicked on the video links located on my site, it would give a 404 Page Not Found error. So that last line of code apparently bars images & videos from being seen or launched from my own site. What's the difference between the [L] and the [NC]? The code already in my .htaccess has: >RewriteRule .*\.(bmp|ram|rm|asx|wmv|pls|swf)$ http://www.altaredlives.org [R,NC]