schmuck

Thanks dsdemmin and surefire for the explanations! Now I'm pretty clear about the differences between PHP include and HTML frames. I guess what I should do right now is to finish my textbook on HTML/XHTML before asking further questions Definitely I want to avoid frames. Actually PHP Include is a perfect option if I create all the pages and write their codes myself. The problem is what I want to "wrap" between the header and the footer includes phpBB forum and Gallery. I don't think I have the capability to amend the files of that two software to have the header and footer stay static. This is also the very reason why I've been trying to find a way, or a software like MT or Postnuke which I can have the forum and the picture gallery incorporated with less pain and effort (and thanks to surefire again for answering me on the other thread ). I know this is a rather big project. I'm just streching my potential to try to accomplish what seems to be quite impossible on the face. Why I want to have the things integrated so much? Well I don't really know. It's kind of a personal feeling and I do want to have the various components of the website to look like integrated and not separate. Definitely, my task would be a hell lot easier if I just let the forum and gallery open in a new popup window. My friends indeed do not expect me to create a really good-looking website. All of us belong to another profession not computer programming. But I take this as a learning process and a challenge.

dsdemmin, thanks for the clarification! I understand that technically speaking, frames in HTML means the browser displaying more than one webpage at the same time, while the PHP include function means repeating the same code in different webpages. I have a query here though. While technically the two things are different, their resulting visual effect can be similar: a website with a static header/footer/menu bar depending on how you configure it. This is actually what I thought when I asked the question, and that's why I said the two might be functional equivalents. What I'm planning to do in my future website is to have a static header and footer. The header will be a banner with clickable links. The body/content section will display simple HTML pages, a phpBB forum or a Gallery. The footer will be standard copyright notice. If I do it with plain HTML, I have to do through frames, which can be a bit troublesome. I am also not sure whether phpBB forum and Gallery can be properly displayed in the content section of a 800 pixels width size frame. What if I do this through PHP? Is there any functional equivalent of frames in PHP where I can get this kind of "sectioning" done? Thanks for answering! These questions are really simple I know, but to a newbie nothing is simple in programming

Thanks for the tutorial, Surefire! Let me ask a question which is perhaps very elementary. I'm self-learning HTML and XHTML right now, and I want to know if this PHP include function is aimed at replacing the frame function in HTML. You know, frames in HTML can cause a lot of troubles and is not recommended by W3C. Is PHP include a better option? Does it work exactly the same way as frames? If it is, then what I should do is to add the script incorporating the header.php and footer.php in every page that I want to have the header and footer shown. Is that right? Thanks for answering.

Thanks very much for your sharing, Stoneage! I figured out that there is a phpBB2 plugin specifically for Postnuke. The name is somewhat like pnphpBB. The forum software is modified to be able to integrate and work with Postnuke. The drawback is that, I guess, some of the phpBB MODs may not work with this plugin. I really don't know whether multiple login systems will actually impress or disturb users. I guess it might be the latter. But you're perfectly right in saying that the advantage of having multiple logins is to lessen the burden on the site creator. Wrapping the applications into MT is already a daunting task for newbies - sharing a member database is virtually an impossibility.

So far I have been very happy about TCH's service, so I'm going to open another account to construct a website which will be used by a group of international lawyers TCH Rocks

I'm back! (after a lengthy exam and a relaxing vacation ) There are three questions that I would like to have some advice. The common background for the questions is this: I need to construct a new website combining a weblog, an existing phpBB forum and a new picture gallary. There will be around 60 users using the website, all of whom want it to be absolutely private. In other words, the pictures and the forum messages should all be password protected, although it may not be strictly necessary for the weblog. Preferably there should also be a download section in the website. Another important fact is that the creator of the website, I, a schmuck if you like me to be so called ( ), is a total newbie to web construction and have no knowledge on any computer programming. I am however capable to follow instructions of basic to medium level difficulty. I've already installed phpBB (with MODs), MT and Gallery on my own without much difficulty. My questions are as follows: (1) Given the need of password protection, is it possible for Gallery and PhpBB forum to share the same member database so that the website can be configured in a way where users just need to login once, either in Gallery or phpBB? (2) Given the background information, would it be better to use MT or Postnuke in terms of ease of integration? I reckon that there are existing modules to integrate other applications into Postnuke, although Postnuke itself is more difficult to manouver than MT, especially in view of my kindergarten level on programming. (3) Does it make better sense to use a general password to log into the website instead of having login requirement in Gallery and phpBB forum? What I mean is, it is possible to ask the user to key in a password when he/she types www.myurl.com. Thanks in advance!

I know that the founders of MT offer paid installation, though I don't know that Postnuke offers similar services as well. For ease of installation, I agree that Postnuke is very simple, as simple as installing Winzip onto your PC. MT installation can be a bit tricky, but it shouldn't take more than two hours for newbies. I've done both successfully. Is phpNuke installation much more complicated, so that Head Guru is now proposing to have it as an option of autoinstall?

Yes, please add Postnuke and MT as well

I just tried whois.net, and the whois function in the Verisign homepage. Yes indeed two servers were displayed in the search result, though I just wondered why my contact particulars were not listed despite my registration is public. I don't mean that I want everybody know my address or whatever, but was just curious and concerned about whether my registration was indeed completed.

Oh yea, I voluntarily wanted to be called a schmuck , hahahaha.

I registered schmucks.net through TCH domain name registration service. The domain name has already been propogated, but when I check the registrant information through whois.net or through Verisign, only the name of the registrant (myself) and the DNS servers are listed. Other particulars such as address and contact details are all not listed. What's strange is that I didn't subscribe for private registration service. Even if I subscribed to such service, the search result should display the name of a service agent. Why would this happen? Has my registration completed at all? Thanks!

Yeah, the nuke applications are real complicated. I've got Postnuke installed on the server and tried to play around with it. The installation process is very easy (which in comparison MT installation can be painful), but the subsequent management is a headache. Just as when you want to have a 2 column instead of the 3 column layout, some modules are required to mod the default settings. The process is no way easy. The problem for MT is that it can't smoothly integrate Gallery nor phpBB2. What I mean is that it is very difficult to configure to a way which you can have a static top and left menu that wrap the Gallery or phpBB2. It's rather easy to do this in either phpNuke or Postnuke, since there are modules already available. There is always a tradeoff for everything....

Kind of amazing that a teenager like you would subscribe to hosting service by a U.S. company, particularly that you're not living in the U.S. at the time of subscription. Anyway, as I said in my previous posts, hosting companies in Hong Kong either tend to suck or expensive, or both. Hosting with TCH should be the right choice. Good luck to your coming public examination. Don't screw it up!

Nice to meet you Karlfranz! Have you experienced any significant connection problem during server backup time? I mean, it should be daytime in Hong Kong when the server does the backup job.

Thanks Lianna, you are indeed one of the most dedicated support staffs here! Yes my native language is Chinese (spoken language is Cantonese). I think there are still much room for improvements for both my spoken and written English, although my current level is fluent and comprehensible enough so that native English speakers don't need to scratch their heads and guess what I'm talking about! Once again thanks for the service. I guess it's pretty unique for a hosting company to have a support forum like this, particularly with such a large amount of members participating? What happens in Hong Kong is that the hosting company will usually become invisible after your credit card is charged. Most of their websites and computer setups are really crappy - you'd really doubt whether they'll just take your money and abscond!!

About myself: I registered my first internet domain through TCH domain name registration service 3 days ago, and had the domain name propogated a day thereafter. I don't have any programming knowledge, as my computer knowledge is restricted to various windows based applications and simple networking. I am a foreign student here in the U.S. (from Hong Kong), having written a 15,000 words seminar article on cybersquatting and the related legal issues. That's also why I want to try out registering a domain name myself! My Comments: TCH is the first hosting company I deal with in my life. The honest evaluation is, stable and reliable service at an unbeatable price. Since I have just started using the service for less than a week, it's not in my position to say too much if my comment is truly honest. Hosting companies in Hong Kong charge at least three times more for plans with similar specifications, not to mention that they limit the amount of e-mail accounts, subdomains and databases to one or two. They are also far less generous in giving out storage spaces and bandwiths. My comment on support service is two-fold. I love the community here. There are such a lot of experienced yet friendly users here giving advice to newbies. Support by hosting company is satisfactory. It seems that if anybody has any questions, they should post the question to this board rather than getting a help ticket. I sent a help ticket before and I needed to wait for a day for response. I'm not blaming that service is slow or whatever. One day is indeed reasonable. But when compared to the very quick response one can get from the board (say 20 mins or so), the board really rocks! The only concern I have is that when I go back to HK later this year, the server backup time will then be in daytime because of the time difference. What I think right now is that so far as TCH can keep this good service, I'll just stick with it. My website is not for commercial use anyway. Thanks to TCH and keep up the good work That's it for now.

Understandable, although sometimes it is a bit annoying to connect again and again... Thanks for replying, by the way

After browsing through phpNuke and Postnuke websites, it seems that MT is kind of lack of design and template support......there are tonnes of user-designed themes and modules for Postnuke, which can be downloaded and modified for specific user need. Actually what I want to have is a website starting with a daily journal page, with links to a photo gallary, discussion board, guestbook and misc. things. Postnuke seems to be the perfect solution, since it can integrate with Gallary, phpBB and some other applications. The pre-designed themes currently available can save me from much trouble (I only have around 2.5 months to construct this - a gift to my gf!) Will start learning HTML code and PHP script after spring term exam, god bless!

I'm using SmartFTP. It seems that the TCH server has configured to the effect that a connection would be closed after 300 seconds of no transfer. I have already configured SmartFTP to send a signal to the server every 50 seconds to keep the connection alive, but apparently this is of no use. Any way to get around with this? Or is it a server setting intended to cut off FTP connections? Thanks!

Thanks in advance, Twisted, you're always so kind to help!

Thanks for your compliment, Lianna! The very reason why I'm trying all these applications is the same as yours: I like playing with new toys. It's a learning process. I mentioned about the difficulties in creating new templates in MT for those who don't know about programming. I visited the MT support forum and somebody suggested a very nice website which has virtually all the column designs that you want to find: http://www.thenoodleincident.com/tutorials...sson/boxes.html So what a dummy has to do is to get the design code there and make amendments on colors and minor things like column width and padding perimeters etc.....which should be most basic. Anybody who has good sites regarding MT template designs please post out too!

Thanks borfast! I gave a try on it and succeeded on the installation after just a slight struggle with the mt-load.cgi. This thing is quite easy to install on TCH server. MT is very easy to use if the user does not care much about web design and just wants to write some journals for daily update. But if the user wants to configure the layout of the website, knowledge on HTML would then be required......coz it seems that there is not much ready-made templates for use. My problem is that I don't even know HTML. I can largely understand the language by reading the code, but cannot write out the codes from scratch. Perhaps I need to read something like "HTML for Dummies". Sounds pretty ridiculous that a person who doesn't know even the simplest code is trying to play around with phpBB, MT and Gallary......but that's what I'm trying to do

Thanks for the link, Larry!

Me again! Just wanna ask if any of you can suggest an application that can handle a picture gallary? What I'm searching for is an application that can allow me upload pictures from the web browser directly, and the application can then thumbnail the pictures and automatically create new pages. This would be similar to the way which many online photo albums like pbase.com are functioning. Again, as I'm a programming idiot, ease of application would be a priority.....though I'm willing to learn if it's a suitable and great application. Thanks!

Read some posts here and it seems to me that MT is a great application for publishing personal journals or diary But I want to know if MT is suitable or manageable for people (like me) who know nothing about programming, CGI scripts or PERL. To be specific, does the installation process require a lot of manual process and editing? Is administration of the program web-based and user-friendly? You know, phpBB is still a rather easy program to install and manage for computer "idiots"......so can anybody compare these two programs on ease of installation and management? Thanks