Devil Works

(I’m about to have a big whine here, click you back button now if you don’t want to read it)

I think I’ve mention somewhere before that I bought a new laptop with Windows Vista Home Premium Installed. It had a few annoying things that I managed to reconfigure and the problem with slow unzipping that I’ve written about here and here.

Last night I installed a couple of automated updates, Vista said it needed a reboot, so instead I turned it off and went to bed.

When I got back from work tonight I switched it on and got a corrupt file message, Vista refused to boot and told me to insert my Windows disc. Now the problem with that is that this computer didn’t come with a disc. All the files are on the hard drive, but I wasn’t given an option to search the hard drive.

The computer didn’t come with much of a manual either, everything is on the disk.

So after punching a bunch of different buttons, 15 restart attempts later I have accessed the recovery utility that’s on the disc. I’ve got three restore options. I go for the one that restores the windows files (considering it wouldn’t boot I thought that was my best option) The only catch is that it’s a back up I did when I first turned the computer on out of the box. I know, bad habit, my own fault etc, but it shouldn’t have freaking corrupted it’s own file when it updated. Continue Reading »

I posted a while back on my frustrations with the slow file unzip with my new version of Vista Home Premium.

I reckon I spent an hour last night looking at over 200 pages that mention the problem but none of them seem to have a cure.

What I’ve done for now is downloaded the trial version of WinRar. It works a treat and my unzipping occurs as quick as a flash. For example, I downloaded the latest version of Wordpress, using the unzip feature built into Windows Vista it took a slow couple of hours to unzip. Using WinRar it was done in seconds
The only catch is that it’s going to cost me $29 to register after my 40 day free trial is up.

I wonder if I can get Microsoft to reimburse me cause I had to buy something to replace a very defective feature in their OS. I don’t like my chances, but it’s plain rude to charge for something that doesn’t work properly.

What would you do if you bought a new sports car and it would travel more than 10 miles an hour?

I’m about to expand one of my projects. Without giving the plan away I want a PHP/MySQL script that does the following:

• allows the upload of music files through an admin interface
• has the facility for users to comment and leave a rating of the music
• allows music to be placed in categories
• opens a new page when the user selects a download from the list

I’ve tried the usual Google searches and spent some time going through the listings at Hotscripts.com but haven’t been able to come up with quite what I want.

I’d prefer a free or open source script but I’m happy to pay a moderate price for a script that does the job as long as it doesn’t prevent me from modifying it. Unfortunately  my budget doesnt extend to having a custom script written.

If you know of anything suitable then please post a comment below with the details.

I’ve decided to join the billion other bloggers that are taking money for posting on their blogs. I’d originally avoided it for many reasons, the main one being some of my favorite blogs were turning into a series of paid reviews about topics that I have little or no interest in.

I’m going to do my best to keep the reviews on topic and will be spreading them over my three most active blogs. I’ll also marking all paid reviews as that and putting them in their own catagory.

I’ll give it a month and see how it goes.

If anyone has ever going looking for free web templates for their sites then they will have waded through a bunch of spammy template sites that are indexed in Google which aren’t actually free.

Today I found a site called Open Source Web Design that has approximately 2000 templates that you can download for free.

These are truly free, not free downloads after you’ve paid for a license to use it like the spammy sites try and flog you.

Mind you I have no objection paying someone for quality work, but if you’re a little cash strapped and trying to get your online business off the ground then this is a great resource.

Most of the interweb gets excited when they notice a Google page rank update going on.

The only real reason this should cause excitement is if your waiting to have all your hard SEO work validated. (oh and it’s not a bad thing if your selling advertising or putting the entire website on the market)

Google is constantly updating your page ranking based on many things. It’s only what’s called the visible page rank that gets updated around four times a year.

So if your slaving away doing heaps of hard work trying to lift your page rank, don’t think you have to wait three or four months to see the result, Google could be elevating your site right now.

A while back Google announced that in an effort to reduce comment spam on blogs that links with the attribute rel=nofollow wouldn’t get any Google juice*. Other search sites seem to pretty much ignore the nofollow tags, I’m not complaining about that at all.
Wordpress implemented a system where links from commenters would automatically have the no follow attribute added to their links.

Moving on a little bit, Wordpress now has a pretty good anti spam system called Askimet. It works pretty well and has reduced my comment spam down to next to zero.

So the question has been raised “Why do Wordpress publishers still need the nofollow tag?”

I decided that I didn’t and have installed the  Do Follow plugin on this blog.

So now I’m happily sharing my Google juice with any one that takes the time to post a comment.

Please note that comments that appear to be deliberate attempts at getting Google juice will be deleted, all I ask is that you say something interesting and relevant to the post.

*Google juice is a slang term for backlinks. The more backlinks you have, the higher Google ranks your page in the search results.

As per my previous post I’ve decided to set up a Short URL service.

I went to my usual script hunting haunt, Hotscripts. After looking at a few different options I decided on Phurl.

As per usual I picked a script that runs on PHP and MySQL. I’m not a programmer by any means but I’ve developed a reasonable understanding of the language so I find it easier to fix and change things. It’s probably one of the most basic scripts on offer, but it’s exactly what I wanted. I find it easier to add features in later, than remove ones that I don’t want.

It says it features:

• May handle billion of records (seperated SQL table structure, it depends on your server configuration)
• CAPTCHA (image) verification (configurable)
• Can run with or without mod_rewrite module (configurable)
• Can handle urls with or without http:// prefix
• Duplicate URL record handling
• URL prunning/cleaning via cron-job (configurable)
• Very easy installation
• Simple administration for record deletion
• Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict and valid CSS coded
• Free - Licensed under GPL

At the moment I’ve turned the CATCHPA off, and I’m using the mod_rewrite feature for the shortest possible URL.

The one point I would argue is that it’s a very easy installation. It might be if it had any instructions. I’ve probably been spoiled having mostly done Wordpress installs lately where everything is very easy and much of it is automated. But Phurl had zero info on how to install the script.

So I will present my own Phurl installation instructions. These still probably aren’t as detailed as they need to be for a complete novice, but it’s what I had to do.
Installation

1. Upload the contents of the zip file to where you plan to use it on your server.

2. Create a MySQL database

3. Download the MySQL tables from here.

4 Import the tables into your database (I used PHPmyadmin, you might be clever enough to do it from the command line)

5. Go to install.php in whichever directory you chose to upload the files

6. Fill out the details on this page, select “don’t install database” and deselect “create database” then click the install button.

7. You should be taken to a page that has a couple of configuration files for you. I’d assumed that these would be saved to the server for me but they weren’t. Copy and paste the config.php and .htaccess files into two seperate files with those names and upload them to your server.

8. Now if all’s gone well you should be able to go to your index page and see the form to shorten url’s. Give it a test and off you go.

Overall
Now that it’s working, It’s working just as I expected, but the install was nothing but minor headaches. I’ve still got lots to do to get it how I want it, but it’s functioning and I can build on it when time permits.

I’m fortunate enough to own a five letter dot com name, unfortunately it’s not a real word otherwise I’d already be kicking back on the fat of the lamb. However it is an easy one to remember and hence should be brandable. I bought it at an expired names auction for next to nothing a little over 12 months and hadn’t been able to decide what to do with it.

I had set up Wordpress MU on it, with a vague idea of running a bunch of different blogs, but running something that needs regular updating goes against my concept of retiring.

However some spammers had found it and had furiously been submitting posts laden with unsavory links to their (my) free blogs. Google has even indexed some of them, I had evil thoughts of redirecting the traffic, but decided I didn’t want to profiting from some of the search terms being used.

So I had to come up with a new idea. I’d seen services like Tiny URL and thought that it’s something I might make with my five letter dot com. I’m not expecting to have the millions of users that Tiny URL has but it’s not a bad way to get some backlinks and once it’s up and running it should pretty much run itself.

I’ve just installed the Barracuda Link Directory Script for a new project I’m working on. Barracuda is PHP/MySQL script that is free if you wish to maintain a link to the script developers. If you don’t want to maintain the link then there is a $39 fee.

They Say:

• Links Directory Script. Create a powerful links directory like Yahoo or DMOZ with tons of modern AJAX-based features.
• Links Exchange Script. Increase links exchange productivity and make your search engine rankings soar.
• Web Marketing Analyzer. Track your site’s positions in Google, Yahoo and MSN. Watch traffic trends. Control backward links.

I’m only planning on using the Links Directory part of the script. So I won’t be offering a comment on the rest of it. I’m not planning on creating a link directory but I found it suitable (with a few template modifications) for my intentions.

My main needs from the script are categories and SEO friendly URLS

Installation

This is where things went a little pear shaped. When I went to the install directory as per the readme.txt file I filled everything out and clicked save. I ended up with the same page except it was unsable page and full of PHP warnings.

I headed to the Expertzzz Forums which is used for support and started looking for answers. While I didn’t find my exact situation I read somewhere that you needed to go to the /install/admin.php file to set the admin password.

So I did that, renamed the install directory (instead of deleting it as the readme suggested) and things appear to be working okay.

Operation

So far it appears to be able to do everything I want of it, actually for what I’m doing it has an excess of features. But a lot of software is like that (MS Office anyone?).

I’ve entered some sample links and I need to get an understanding of the template system and make some major modifications before I launch it. Otherwise things are pretty smooth.

In the built in search box there is an option to search the web, This is already prelinked with someone elses Google search code. I’ll be wanting to fix that before it starts getting hit with traffic. I also need to work out how to integrate my own adsense and any other advertising I decide to put on the site, but I think that will become apparent when I get into the templates.

There are 10 other templates available on the website, they can be purchased for between $3 and $20 dollars. I’m going to work on my own, it might not be the pretties, but it hopefully I’ll get the results I want.

One of the downsides is the very limited documentation that comes with it, it’s practically non existant. I think that’s where the forums will be coming in handy.

The other major downside is that the script was last updated on 1 November 2006, so I’m not expecting any active development on it. The guys at Boonex seem much more interested in supporting their community software.

Overall

I think it’s a pretty decent script and a lot of effort has gone into producing something that they are giving away. If a bit more effort had gone into the installation side of it and the documentation then I’d say it was great.

The real test will come when it’s fully populated and getting some traffic and to see how well it holds up. We’ll have to wait and see.